Hong Kong society is changing fast. Everyone is clamouring to participate in running the city and that includes, for the first time ever, the tycoons.
The Hong Kong Development Forum, co-founded by Ronnie Chan Chi-chung of Hang Lung Group a few years ago, marks the entry of top business people into politics, first tentatively, then with a rush. Until now, the forum's members had shunned anything remotely to do with public politicking. Big business knows that whatever the pace, Hong Kong will become increasingly democratic, giving the hoi polloi more say. And as society changes, business better be there, too.
One possible cost to Hong Kong of tycoons going public is that a distinctive part of traditional lifestyle may fade more quickly in no-holds-barred politics fought on the grey flatlands of the sales tax. It has to be an enthralling prospect: the business and social elite getting down and dirty with the likes of Martin Lee Chu-ming and Emily Lau Wai-hing.
As businessmen may see it, democratic politics is all empty ideology and bribery, so their inclination is to whack it. But expect the practices and foibles of tycoon-run Hong Kong to become ever more open to political potshots. Criticism more than a year ago of idling cars double-parked and fume-pumping in Central while waiting for the boss and the tai-tai shopper may have been just the start.
Ah, the much-maligned tai-tais. I hope this colourful species is not disappearing. These wealthy and idle ladies of high society could exist as a class only in Hong Kong. Tai-tais are not a visible societal group in the mainland, Taiwan or Singapore. The difference is that those places have ideologies and politics that frown upon the idle rich and their excesses. Only here are the wives of wealthy men celebrated as celebrities. Their image is based on society pages, Rolls-Royces, and amahs carrying bags from a shopping expedition that may have cost $1 million.
But tai-tais are not just ornamental - they are the public face of Hong Kong's charity machinery. They organise and patronise balls and auctions where big bucks are dispensed for myriad worthy causes. Of course, they also have fun.