Hong Kong will emerge from crisis stronger, prepared for future

Two of my colleagues and I went out for dinner last Thursday after work. We went to a restaurant in Causeway Bay for spicy chicken pot. The restaurant is on the third floor of a very old building, and I was so relieved to see that it is still open and doing quite well after all the social distancing rules that were implemented for a year.

I’ve always considering the spicy chicken pot my “soul food” in Hong Kong, as it reminds me of the dish I used to have when I was growing up in the cold, northeast province of Jilin, where people would just put all the ingredients, vegetables, meat, into an iron pot that requires constant heating when serving it to people.

I was also glad to see that this restaurant is using some new tricks, like mobile phone ordering: The guests now can using their smartphone to scan a QR code to place orders instead of using a pencil to fill in little boxes on a piece of paper like pupils doing some tests in school.

Right after 8 pm, the restaurant was full of people, four people per table, as required by the SAR government, but no empty table in the room. I was just so glad that one of the favorite restaurants in the city made it through the tough situation during the year-long fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” — we always say that, although I don’t believe any of it; I had to think what I am getting out of the pandemic and where I’m heading after it’s over. By the way, I have already made my appointment to take the COVID-19 vaccine, so yes, the pandemic will be at least “over” for me very soon.

During the past year or so, like the spicy chicken pot restaurant, I have also picked up a few “new tricks”. I’ve started running. I could never run in my whole life up until now. Due to the on-and-off social distancing rules implemented, there has been not much entertainment I could have, so I ran after work for 5 kilometers every other day. I also got some flowers in my home, assembled a new desk by myself and read a lot more books.

I think just like me, Hong Kong has also been quietly changing, or preparing for the voyage beyond the pandemic.

I remember that my colleagues and I have interviewed numerous industry experts and scholars to talk about why e-commerce and e-payments were far less popular in Hong Kong than on the Chinese mainland, and we talked about what the SAR government should do to facilitate the development of e-commerce in the city. But look now. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, e-commerce and e-payments are “taking off ” here. Traditional retail giants like jewelry and cosmetic chain stores are now devoted to selling their products online.

Hong Kong people love to dine out and it was very convenient to do so; that’s why when food delivery platforms launched a few years ago in the city, it almost looked like a joke, but now, the food delivery business in the city is booming and has generated a lot of jobs, and one of the major platforms, Deliveroo, is seeking to be listed in London.

Hong Kong, as an exhibition center, used to host so many exhibitions, sourcing events, and it is still doing that, but in a hybrid way — the physical-virtual combination, and the experts are all saying that this hybrid form of events will be here for good, even after the pandemic is over.

So things have been changing during the past year, and change may not be a bad thing, as Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po has expected that the city’s econmy will see a strong rebound in the second half of this year.

Meanwhile, the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), which sets out the nation’s vision for social and economic development over the next half-decade, approved by the National People’s Congress, has made Hong Kong more relevant than ever to the world’s second-largest economy.

The SAR’s future has never been more secure, with the National Security Law for Hong Kong, its electoral revamp and a bigger role in the nation’s development, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, told China Daily during an interview.

So, if we look at things this way, with a more positive attitude, we don’t need to consider the past year as a “lost year”, but a year of changing, a year of restructuring and preparing, so that we can embrace any opportunities lying ahead of us.

When the world eventually returns to its normality, it will see a new and a better Hong Kong. I have no doubt about that.