A small picture of a lotus adorns the cover of the updated Civil Servants' Guide to Good Practices, released on Thursday. Inside, a much bigger image of the flower takes up the whole page that precedes the sections on upholding the integrity of the civil service.
Secretary for Civil Service Joseph Wong Wing-ping has not explained his choice of illustrations. For most Chinese, however, it requires no explanation because it draws on their cultural appreciation of the lotus as a symbol of integrity, as expressed in a beautiful prose by Song dynasty scholar Zhou Dunyi. For generations of Chinese students, the passage has been prescribed text at school.
Zhou was particularly fond of the lotus because 'it grows out of the mud, but is not stained'. With a long, hollow and straight stalk, it 'communicates inside, but is straight outside'. It 'does not spread or branch' and 'its fragrance is distinct from a distance'.
The lotus thus symbolises the perfect gentleman, who is not influenced by a bad environment and does not play up to people of power and influence. Open-minded and straight, he is ready to communicate. He does not use double-talk or gang up for self-interest. His virtues and good deeds reach far away.
If only all our public servants could have the qualities of the lotus, there would be good government. That is the ideal, but one that has hardly ever been accomplished in China, as evidenced by rampant corruption that has permeated the corridors of power throughout much of the country's history.
The crux of the problem lies in the environment, or the mud, which Zhou accepted as the natural habitat of the lotus. In real life, the social and political environment could be so bad that few managed to emerge unstained.
In this respect, Hong Kong is the rare exception among Chinese communities. The government is relatively clean, because serious steps have been taken over the years to clean up the mud that once prevailed in our bureaucracy.
