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The following is the "Letter to Hong Kong" by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Dr Patrick Ho, broadcast on Radio Television Hong Kong today (June 18):
Dear Quincy (Jones),
During your visit to Hong Kong last month, I had the pleasure of accompanying you to a number of events, ranging from Xian and Cantonese opera to a performance of the Western opera "Carmen" and you said you had been impressed by the diversity of performing arts available to us in this multi-cultural community. It is to you, therefore, that I dedicate this particular letter.
Hong Kong has been described as China in microcosm. While this catchphrase aptly defines our role in preserving China's cultural heritage, it fails to acknowledge the wider scope of our diversity.
For though predominantly and unmistakably Chinese, Hong Kong is also one of the world's most open cities, long exposed to every taste, every fashion, every innovative trend circulating like oceanic currents through the cultural waters of our increasingly cosmopolitan planet.
We have become what we are through what we have seen, what we have experienced, what those currents have brought to our shores. And we have become richer in the process, more aware, more alert and receptive to the tidal movements of our ever-changing world.
Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that, like the spectrum of tone and coloration in a rainbow, ours is a polychrome culture that embraces old and new, unafraid to explore, borrow, improvise, assimilate or initiate.
It is this cultural diversity we must bear in mind when we consider what should be done to encourage and cultivate its further growth and development. We believe it is the role of government to provide the means, the venues, the infrastructure and the subsidies to stimulate that growth, but never to impose upon or dictate its content or direction.
Performing arts are important cultural assets of our community. We appointed a performing arts advisory committee to consider how we should restructure our support system for performing arts. They have just submitted their recommendations report, which cover such aspects as funding and the possibility of finding homes for our resident performing groups in particular performing venues.
The report is written on the basis of a thorough public consultation exercise, and the recommendations put forward mark only the first stage of the changes we seek to introduce.
One of the committee's key recommendations is that a new grant system should be set up to identify, develop and provide more performing opportunities to budding artists and small-scale arts groups.
The report also recommends that we should set up a funding committee to work out a new set of common assessment criteria for major performing arts companies.
It is also proposed that we establish a venue partnership scheme, so that venue operators and performing arts groups can work together as partners to build up the artistic characters of the venues, enlarge the audience base for performing arts, and enhance community involvement in the development of the arts.
Included in the advice contained in the report are suggestions that performing arts venues should predominantly be used for cultural performances to enhance the involvement of the arts sector and the community in the delivery of cultural services to the public.
We will carefully consider all of these recommendations, so that we can improve upon the implementation of our arts and cultural policy, fully conscious of the need to respect freedom of expression, and to uphold the principles of "partnership", "people-oriented" and "community-driven" approaches that underpin our policy.
These recommendations are just the first stage of our review. We would continue to work closely with the committee on other important areas of concern, including performing arts education, audience building, venue hiring, ticket pricing, cultural exchanges, arts festivals, marketing and promotion, community support, and corporate sponsorships.
Never in our history have cultural concerns occupied as much time and attention as they do today, and this is rightly so in the light of the widespread public debate generated by the proposed West Kowloon Cultural District.
What had previously been left as the preserve of the cognoscenti - namely those directly concerned with cultural matters - has now become the talking point of the majority. And, like the diversity of our culture itself, we are generating debate that embraces just about every divergent viewpoint, whether casually generalised or ardently specific.
Virtually every branch of the arts finds its champions in our community, but our task in the administration must be to ensure that none are so overshadowed as to be overlooked. We take pride in the fact that we enjoy the best of both worlds - East and West - here in Hong Kong, and our objective is to continue exercising that catholicism and eclecticism of taste that defines who we are.
To probe the cultural accretions we have acquired throughout our history would be akin to an archeological dig through the deposits laid down by our passage through time. The bedrock of our culture, of course, is made up of the age-old traditions of China itself, consolidated through many centuries and dynasties as the very foundation of our being.
To these underlying strata of Hong Kong's cultural origins was added, as the years went by, the distinctive input of others who came and settled here in happy and harmonious co-existence. Though their numbers may deem them to be in the minority, each of these groups has contributed to our cultural mix.
Quite aside from the various European components that have gone into the blend, we have Indian, Pakistani, Islamic, Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Japanese and, latterly, Filipino and Indonesian elements - to name just a few. For example, hardly is there a hotel in this city whose resident band is not made up of Filipino musicians.
Each of these has added its distinctive flavour to the richness of the "fusion cuisine" Hong Kong has to offer to those adventurous enough to explore our multicultural heterogeneity.
Throughout the years, we have come to learn with mutual respect that, despite our different ethnic, religious or cultural backgrounds and upbringings, there are fundamental values we all hold dear, basic principles we all respect as the reflection of core understandings embraced by us all.
We rejoice in this diversity, for it expands our boundaries, our sensibilities, our comprehension and our self-perception.
Quincy, I still remember very well the smash hit recording "We Are the World", that you produced when you assembled many of the major stars in the music business in aid of famine in Africa. Remembering those unforgettable lyrics, we should remind ourselves that we too, here in Hong Kong, "are the world", and that it is up to us to "make a change" for the better. We are not just Asia's World City any more than we are the World's Asian City. Nor are we merely China in microcosm. More accurately, we are the World in microcosm.
Sincerely yours,
Patrick
Ends/Sunday, June 18, 2006
Issued at HKT 08:30
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