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The LoDown

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Alex Loin Toronto

KICK-START FOR OUR WORLD-CLASS AMBITIONS

Visions of Hong Kong as a world-class city have fuelled many a government project, great and small. Some remain active, some are facing a slow death, others died almost as soon as they were announced.

The latest idea? To turn Hong Kong into a kung-fu training hub. The Home Affairs Bureau confirmed on Wednesday that it is in active negotiations with Shaolin monks on the mainland to set up a kung-fu college, bringing their unique blend of martial arts and religious training to Hong Kong. A bureau spokeswoman said officials were scouting for a suitable location on an outlying island, most likely Lantau.

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The scheme follows comes in the wake of plans to give Hong Kong a world-class waste incinerator, a world-class sewage-treatment system, and two world-class universities (at the expense of other loser institutions).

Other plans aim to transform the city into a world-class hi-tech hub, an infrastructure hub, a cargo trans-shipment hub, a wine-importation hub, an arts and culture hub (I am not making this up), a tourism hub and a traditional Chinese medicine hub.

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But the government may have hit the jackpot this time. Chinese have monopolised kung-fu for thousands of years, so what better field in which to lead the world. It's that vision thing!

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