“Youth’s Role in the Hong Kong Economy”

Speech address­ing the Inau­gu­ra­tion Cer­e­mo­ny of
The Hong Kong Mod­el Unit­ed Nations Club
Shih Wing Ching
29th March 2014

Good after­noon,

“Youth’s Role in the Hong Kong Economy”

First of all, I must apol­o­gize that I have cho­sen to approach today’s top­ic in exact­ly the oppo­si­tion direc­tion as the orga­niz­er may expect. I was asked to say some­thing about “Youth’s Role in the Hong Kong Econ­o­my”, but who am I to tell young peo­ple what their role should be in the future. One shall always live his own life and choose his own role. Lis­ten to no one, because only you know what is best for you.

It is indi­vid­u­al­ism that makes Hong Kong such a great city, not col­lec­tivism or social­ism. Think­ing too much about the Hong Kong econ­o­my will do you no good. There isn’t much you can help. You should think more about your own eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. Then your effort may make some changes. 

Dur­ing the 60s and 70s of the last cen­tu­ry, a lot of refugees came here from the Main­land. They came here not because Hong Kong pro­vid­ed them a lot of social ben­e­fits but we had rule of law that pro­vid­ed pro­tec­tion of prop­er­ty rights. When peo­ple know they can keep what they earned safe­ly, they all work very hard. Then the econ­o­my will go well with­out the lead­er­ship of great polit­i­cal lead­ers. We rely more on self endeav­or than social re-engi­neer­ing. In my expe­ri­ence, eco­nom­ic jus­tice can best be won by free men through free enter­prise. Polit­i­cal redis­tri­b­u­tions always have side effects which can bring more trou­ble to the society.

The prob­lem of Hong Kong now is that there are too many peo­ple think­ing about the soci­ety instead of their per­son­al inter­est. Solv­ing the prob­lem of a soci­ety is nev­er easy. Our soci­ety is so com­pli­cat­ed; there is no sim­ple answer for a com­pli­cat­ed ques­tion. Human beings have been argu­ing for such an answer for hun­dred of years, but we still could not reach a con­sen­sus. Putting too much effort into this issue will only cause more dis­putes in our soci­ety. So why not spend more effort on per­son­al improvement?

The rea­son is sim­ple. Find­ing a job for one­self is always much eas­i­er than low­er­ing the unem­ploy­ment rate of the whole soci­ety. When more and more peo­ple in the soci­ety found their jobs, the unem­ploy­ment rate will sure­ly be low­ered. The his­to­ry of Hong Kong shows that our eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty derived main­ly from indi­vid­ual endeav­or rather than polit­i­cal reform. That is why I rarely lis­ten to politi­cians or opin­ion lead­ers. They all have their own agen­da. Beware of them allur­ing you to the wrong direction.

Adam Smith said “It is not from the benev­o­lence of the butch­er, the brew­er, or the bak­er, that we expect our din­ner, but from their regard to their own inter­est. We address our­selves, not to their human­i­ty but to their self-love, and nev­er talk to them our own neces­si­ties but to their advan­tages.” There­fore, there is no use to talk to the young peo­ple about what role they have to play in the Hong Kong econ­o­my. They might think that it is only the wish­ful think­ing of the inter­est­ed par­ties of the adult world, and hence become reluc­tant to accept this kind of opin­ion. There­fore, the only thing that can help our young peo­ple is to enhance their self awareness. 

I don’t know if you have heard the sto­ry of the Fly­ing Dutch­man. It is a Euro­pean leg­end, about a ghost-ship which after leav­ing the har­bor could nev­er make port again. It is doomed to sail on and on in the ocean for­ev­er. Actu­al­ly it is only a fig­u­ra­tive speech of our lives. When we leave our moth­ers’ wombs, we can nev­er return. We must find our own way, and face the real­i­ty. Even for every indi­vid­ual inci­dent, we can only have one chance to choose. For life, there is always one script. You can write the script your­self, but you can nev­er rewrite it. As an old Greek proverb says “One can nev­er step in the same riv­er twice”, because by the time you step in the riv­er again, the water in the riv­er will not be the same, the fish in the riv­er may have grown big­ger, and part of the riv­er bank may have been washed away. We all live once. That makes life so pre­cious to us.

If a young man real­ly wants to lead a great life, there are four impor­tant ques­tions I think he should ask him­self from time to time dur­ing dif­fer­ent stages of his life, i.e. (i) Who am I? (ii) What is my sit­u­a­tion? (iii) Where do I want to go? (iv) How can I get there? 

For the first ques­tion, you can’t answer it by just repeat­ing your name. It has no con­tent. You shall take your­self as an indi­vid­ual un-iden­ti­cal to either one of your par­ent. You are their com­bi­na­tion, and there­fore unique. It is your thought, your choice and your deed that deter­mine who you are now and who you will be in the future. No one but you your­self can give a mean­ing to your life. So blame no one but hold your­self respon­si­ble for it.

As for the sec­ond ques­tion, you shall not just relate it to geo­graph­i­cal posi­tion. You must know your his­tor­i­cal, polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion before you can have a clear vision of your future. Only then you can eval­u­ate your strengths, weak­ness­es, oppor­tu­ni­ties and threats, and deter­mine where you want to go.

It is always impor­tant for a young man to have grand aspi­ra­tion. Aim­ing high can induce one’s poten­tial to a high­er lim­it. No one knows how you can get there, because it is your des­ti­na­tion, not oth­ers’. There­fore you must find the way your­self. With a des­ti­na­tion in mind is just like hav­ing a star in the sky. You may nev­er reach it, but it guides you the way. I wish you all can find the star in your heart, and God bless you. 

Thank you.
(中原集團創辦人施永青在2014年3月29日於香港模擬聯合國協會就職典禮致辭)