Hong Kong, Progress, and Atheism

The day before Christmas, I received a Christmas package from Bill with a beautiful calendar from Hong Kong, and some British Humor magazines. Always a treat. I thanked him for the package, and he wrote back:

Dear Stan,

Glad to hear that you received the package OK. The Hong Kong calendar gives you some idea of the unbelievable vitality and economic success of this tiny enclave. Even though it was returned to Beijing rule in 1997, it is still a Special Administrative Region; the nominally "Communist" regime is smart enough to pay only lip service to Marxist and Maoist pieties and does not want to inhibit this goose from laying as many golden eggs as possible. I found the following web page while following up comments on Theodore Dalrymple's brilliant article on currently fashionable atheists. I was fascinated to see someone else supporting my speculation on the reasons for the phenomenal success of Hong Kong and Singapore. A major Chinese economist noted how civilized the Chinese in Hong Kong were and attributed it to Christian influence. Certainly I felt much safer on the streets of Kowloon and Singapore than on the post-Christian streets of Britain.

One amusing detail I found in Singapore which I had not mentioned before. On Orchard Road, the land of mega-malls, I found a huge and crowded branch of Borders. It was practically identical to the Borders on Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills. The layout, interior design and book stock looked as if they had been prescribed in detail from the corporate HQ in Ann Arbor. The only way you could tell you were in Asia was the inclusion of some Asian magazines among the US and UK titles in the magazine racks. Also I think the coffee shop was run by a different franchisee.

Bill