Tsang-froid

NEXT Wednesday afternoon at precisely 2.30 pm, a short, dapper man in a bow tie will rise to his feet and present his third Hong Kong Budget. Financial Secretary Sir Donald Tsang Yum-kuen will do so, of course, amidst a deep economic crisis in Asia and much speculation (the mental kind, just for the moment) about the United States dollar peg. How he slices up a more crumbly cake than usual will be the focus of much global attention. Will he be nervous? 'I will be tense. I don't think I will be nervous.

I like to be tense so that I know that I'm doing something very serious. I won't be totally relaxed - that's not in my nature. Everything I do, even when I joke, I find I'm a little bit tense. I cannot be totally relaxed in myself.' That reply - measured, objective, self-assessing - is classic Tsang. He utters it over breakfast in the conservatory of the large house on the south side of Hong Kong island which comes with his job; he is nibbling his watermelon and toast with equal exactitude. It is 8.30 on a cold Saturday morning and the sea-view garden where he loves to do his bird-watching is shrouded in fog. Lady Tsang, the former Miss Selina Pou, has already appeared briefly to say hello.

In a bedroom upstairs, the Financial Secretary's brother, a professor in Canada, is recovering from jet lag. The brothers spent the previous evening drinking a bottle of wine - 'The only time in the week I didn't have a function,' remarks Tsang. At 4.30 am, however, he was at his computer emailing his staff.

In honour of the weekend and the chill, he is wearing a polo-neck jumper instead of his trademark bow tie (he is referred to in the Chinese press as Bow Tie Tsang) although he will go straight to the office the moment this interview ends. 'I do take care of how I look on official duties, to me that's important, part and parcel of work. But on Saturdays I just do a rebellious thing.' Rebellious? He smiles, looking like a precisely grinning Puck. 'Occasionally I am. I went without shaving once for two weeks when I was in London. Don't ever come near me on holiday, I look terrible, very scruffy, my sons curse and don't wish to walk with me.' These fastidious offspring are both in England. Tsang does not wish their names to appear here but the elder, at 21, is a fourth-year medical student at Bristol, and the younger, 18, is reading engineering science at Pembroke College, Oxford. 'They are big boys, they have their own minds, they argue back. That's the painful part. When they were young, I argued with them and they cried. Then, at 12 or 13, they started to talk back. Now sometimes they start the argument, pointing out where I've gone wrong. For instance, when they saw that once I bullied their mum - ohhhh.' The Financial Secretary exhales with feeling.

Are they like him? 'I think they try very hard not to be like me. They like me very much on the whole - the affection is quite mutual, I must say - and they care very much about me and read about the problems I face on the Internet. But in terms of image, lifestyle ... they try to do exactly the opposite. My eldest son looks like me and is like me in temperament - in an unfriendly environment, he's usually very coy, and he's sentimental. That is like me.' Is coy really the word he means? Tsang nods. 'It's not being exactly shy, it is more - cautious. And sentimentality is not a weakness, it's a moment of truth when something hits you. I cry quite a lot. I almost always cry at funerals.

I cried when San-san won her gold medal, I was really touched by that. And I nearly cried when I witnessed the opening of the Tsing Ma bridge.' He believes that he has reached a stage of his career where such touching moments cause him no embarrassment. 'At my station in life, I don't care. I'm not going anywhere, I'm not getting promoted, that's the end of my journey. To be the financial secretary of Hong Kong - one can safely assume that's pretty good going for any person. I've been exceedingly lucky to advance from very humble beginnings to my position, and then I got my knighthood as a civil servant. That to me is the epitome of everything.

I was lucky enough to be able to serve across July 1, I'm still working, I will soon deliver my Budget. I cannot ask for anything more. I have no more ambition.' IF YOU were to cut off the head of Donald Tsang (and, let's be frank, there are some homeowners and businessmen around who might perk up at the idea), you would surely find the words 'On Government Service' stamped all the way through him like a stick of rock. He is 53 and he has been a civil servant for just over 30 years. Prior to that, he had a brief dalliance with an American pharmaceutical company, but it is public bureaucracy which has been the love of his life.