My TakeWords better than bricks in hitting target
Hong Kong’s problems may be general when stated in broad terms, but their domestic components still need to be identified, and local solutions sought
Here are the forces of discontent that have plagued Hong Kong: “stagnant wages, widening inequality, anger about immigration and … deep distrust of elites and government”.
Most Hong Kong people, I think, would agree with this list of problems, though some may add others such as unaffordable housing and invasive mainland tourism.
The quote was from a review in The New York Times about a new book called Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, by economic historian Adam Tooze.
Neither the book nor the review has anything to say about Hong Kong. Both address those almost universal problems plaguing Western democratic countries today. They happen to be our problems, too.
Psychologist Carl Jung once said his patients often lacked perspectives about their personal problems and thought them unique because they suffered directly and intimately from them. As with neurotics, so it is with societies.
Still, you would be right to argue the city’s problems may be general when stated in broad terms; their domestic components still need to be identified, and local solutions sought. Think globally, act locally, as they say.