Grey Fox has been on a trip. After a gap of some twenty five years the call of the Far East was to great to resist. A plane was boarded and many hours later we landed in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. An air of calm prevails there in spite of the war games of recent weeks. The country is surprisingly rural, the city an exciting mixture of high rise, high tech and traditional low tech. Taiwan booms. Its Stock Exchange is open a mere three hours a day and the population is only 21 million but the turnover is greater than that of Wall Street. The roads are packed with expensive vehicles and new highways are under construction. Like in Israel, the apparent tenuousness of Taiwan's position has created a society of doers. Nobody stops to worry about the situation, they drive forward as one to achieve their common goals.

The influence of the West, especially the USA, is very visible. The use of the English language and the range of goods available show that global branding is well established. In a shopping centre the sports shop is called Sports World and the signage is in English. The goods for sale are identical to those to be seen in High Street Kensington but much cheaper.

All the quasi Western gear, Levis, Marlborough Classics, Gap etc are available. So now the world truly dresses in the same way. People of all races wear the Western lounge suit for business and cowboy kit for leisure. This is a great pity and the trend should be reversed as all forms of dress reflect the morals and rules of the society that wears them. Thousands of years of culture and refining manners and customs have been thrown away in the desire of every man to look like Clint Eastwood and every woman to look like Cindy Crawford. Air conditioning has a lot to do with it and of course the movies and television. But why should the peoples of the Earth who naturally wear different clothing ideally suited to their way of life and climate be coerced into this apeing of the West? Do you remenber those sad photos of the Native American Chiefs dressed up in Frock coats and high stiff white collars for the visit to Washington to meet the President? All local customs make sense; they are natural evolution. Only when external influences appear and conquer, usually for monetary gain, do things become destabilised.

It's the same with food. All the worlds major cuisines have been discovered and are now available in any town let alone city. So used to 'Chinese' food are we Westeners that actual eating it in its place of origin could be an anti climax. In fact, in view of the apocryphal dog story 'If it barks it's meat to eat', I was relieved to see a No Dogs sign outside one of the restaurants we ate at. We were surprised to have an entire seven course meal without rice at any stage. We were also surprised to have delicious soups as courses six and seven.

In the Grand Hotel, which is very grand and stands on a hill overlooking the entire city of Taipei, the food is equal to its position. The restaurants are large and well furnished with a range of different local cuisines in each. It is a joy to eat this food correctly cooked and presented rather than our our westernised version.

We flew backwards to Hong Kong which is primarily peopled by ethnic chinese. The South China Post, which is the major newspaper in the area, is beginning to group mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan into an economic unit. This notion, at present, is fraught with political impossibilties but makes the most common sense as the most benign pooling of the resources available and the maximisation of them. We in the West are terrified by the huge population of mainland China. So are its leaders. Can you imagine a child's birthday party with 1.2 billion attendees, all wanting ice cream and jelly and to sit in the front row at the Punch and Judy show. The Chinese are emerging from hundreds of years of suppression and increasing awareness of what consumer goods are available to ordinary folk all over thw world is a time bomb of horrendous size unless the long march to the market economy is handled with sublime skill and subtlety. No one can alter the way of life of such numbers simultaneously. Thus the status of Hong Kong and Macau, which will join later, will continue as special areas.

The westener is still powerful in Hong Kong but it is the local Chinese who are the bilionaires whose riches are so great they are uncountable. It is hard for ordinary men to comprehend the the strength of these men whose interests cover every field of business activity. They are examples that mainland China woiuld like to learn from. So why did they wish to change the uncomplicated liaison that existed between the Hong Kong and China? They didn't.

Informed locals claim the sequence of events that has ended with the give up of Hong Kong island as well as the New Territories was started by an overkeen British Brigadier who in 1989 needed to know what was to happen in 1997 so he could plan his future manoeuvres. So constantly did he press the Chinese for information that in the end they had to respond. They would have preferred to maintain the status quo with its significant advantages.

Thus, having been pressed to negotiate they went the whole hog and took the lot. All is not disaster as they are pouring money into Hong Kong and it is in their interests to maintain the catalyst of wealth creation at its most productive.

So, financially, things may even improve after 1997. However, in other areas things will change. The new born democracy will die. Justice, presently under the British system may change. In contrast to a maximum sentence of 20yrs, reduced to 10yrs for good behaviour, the mainland Chinese will reward murder with death by shooting within two days of the verdict. Last week's Triad attack on a fearless publisher, slashing off his left arm, might not have happened under their system.

It was also interesting for a WASP to get a flavour of what it is like to be the out crowd. Certainly in Macau and no doubt in parts of Hong Kong we were not popular. In fact we were plain unwelcome. It was not quite a race bar but it was uncomfortable.

By the way they still fire the Noon Gun on Causeway Bay.

Back to the London Mall