POSTCARD FROM HONG KONG

Hong Kong is an exciting place to be. Between the ninth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the first anniversary of the handover, President Clinton's impending visit and the opening of the new airport, this little corner of the world is now bustling with activity.

This year, a memorial for those killed on June 4, 1989, was held for the first time on Chinese soil. Activists in Hong Kong, the most democratic locale in all of China, have taken it as their duty to make sure that those dissidents did not die in vain--that with each step President Clinton takes in Tiananmen Square, the cries of those who perished there will resonate forcefully around the world. Because of the rights people here have gained under British sovereignty and because of the international interest in Hong Kong in recent years, people feel that they are in an excellent position to speak out for their silenced mainland friends.

This confidence is exactly the message the organizers behind the vigil here this June 4 wanted their 40,000 candlelights to carry. But though the event was allowed to proceed with little governmental interference, people aren't so sure about the future. The local police broadcasted loud Beethoven symphonies at demonstrations on July 1 last year to drown out the shouts of protesters; many feel that the broadcast was only one of several recent signs that the government is slowly restricting their freedoms.

What the people of Hong Kong are sure about, though, is that they will not soon forget what happened that night in 1989. Images of what the Chinese government ordered upon its own people were still vivid in their minds as they made it through the change of sovereignty eight years later. The official tokens given out at the June 4 vigil offer a solution to worries that rallies of this sort might not be allowed in the future.

In the centers of these buttons are printed simple ribbons, in the style of Chinese calligraphy. Along the border of the buttons are two slogans in the form of a web site and an e-mail address. The designers behind these phrases--http://www.040698.hk.sar and freespeech@98 hk.sar.hk--explained that they want to remind the people of Hong Kong that, if their government were ever to lessen their tolerance of such gatherings, the Internet is still available as an open forum to carry on their fight.

At first glance, the Internet does in fact seem to be a suitable means to spread the message of democracy for China. Information conveyed over the Web is fast, easy to find and loosely regulated. Although the Chinese government now has restrictions on what its people can post and read from the net, the nature and speed of the web makes the government's efforts quite frustrated.

Sure enough, there are already many sites out there arguing for human rights and democracy in China. A quick search calls up the most varied types of Web sites. There are those representing established organizations, many based in Hong Kong. Others are more personal; many tell the stories of Chinese dissidents and urge visitors to support their cause. Also on the web are personal stories of life in China; there was one, for example, posted by an individual currently living in the U.S. telling of how the Chinese police brutally infringed upon his rights while he resided there.

Despite the many advantages of communicating through the Web, there is one slight problem: the web is in English; Chinese people speak, write, and read Chinese.

To put it plainly, using the Internet is a pain for anyone who is not fluent in English. American English, that is. For many in Hong Kong, where English is more often used than in the mainland, this barrier nevertheless poses a great inconvenience. The people at the newspaper office where I work here have told me that many aspects of computer and Web use require knowledge of English. For programming and coding, many commands make no sense unless they know the related words in English; otherwise, they have to rely solely upon hard-core memorization. Even if people study their textbooks well, they still encounter problems when they inadvertently forget the differences between British English, which Hong Kong people know, and American English, the language of the Web. Try using the tag in HTML, for example, and the result is nothing but frustration.

Sure, there are Chinese Web sites out there. There are now quite a range of ways in which to input Chinese characters into computers, but the Chinese written language prevents them from ever being as easy to use as keyboarding in the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Furthermore, there is extra software required to read most of the Chinese sites.

And all this technology costs quite a lot of yuan. Due mainly to the limited resources of many mainland families, computers and the Internet are not all that accessible, even for college students there. Unless computer and Internet use become more common, efforts to establish a two-way forum for exchanging democratic ideas will not be effective.

But there is hope. In contrast to the mainland, Internet use is much more common here in Hong Kong. The people of Hong Kong, already active users of the web, are in a great position to advocate for and improve the Internet as a way of spreading the message about human rights in China. This advocacy includes both learning about those who live on the mainland and helping the Chinese gain knowledge about democracy in other countries. As the demands of Internet users from different backgrounds grow, the appearance of new technology and the lowering of prices will also be quickened. Only then will the Web be global, allowing people of different countries to exchange such ideas as democracy and freedom.

Dawn Lee '01 is visiting family and interning at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong this summer. She hopes one of you budding economists can come solve the Asian financial crisis so she can see smiling faces on the streets again.

Sure, there are Chinese Web sites out there. There are now quite a range of ways in which to input Chinese characters into computers, but the Chinese written language prevents them from ever being as easy to use as keyboarding in the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Furthermore, there is extra software required to read most of the Chinese sites.

And all this technology costs quite a lot of yuan. Due mainly to the limited resources of many mainland families, computers and the Internet are not all that accessible, even for college students there. Unless computer and Internet use become more common, efforts to establish a two-way forum for exchanging democratic ideas will not be effective.

But there is hope. In contrast to the mainland, Internet use is much more common here in Hong Kong. The people of Hong Kong, already active users of the web, are in a great position to advocate for and improve the Internet as a way of spreading the message about human rights in China. This advocacy includes both learning about those who live on the mainland and helping the Chinese gain knowledge about democracy in other countries. As the demands of Internet users from different backgrounds grow, the appearance of new technology and the lowering of prices will also be quickened. Only then will the Web be global, allowing people of different countries to exchange such ideas as democracy and freedom.

Dawn Lee '01 is visiting family and interning at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong this summer. She hopes one of you budding economists can come solve the Asian financial crisis so she can see smiling faces on the streets again.