The well-financed and highly effective work of Protestant churches, particularly among refugees from Red China, has won them many converts, and the number of Protestant parishes has greatly increased in the last few years. Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and other denominations have made substantial gains.
The number of Roman Catholics, who are equally active in educational and welfare fields, has grown from 43,000 in 1951 to 180,000 in 1962. They are currently making about 15,000 converts a year, and 12,000 of these are adults. Some of their mission priests, who have found conversions much more difficult to achieve in Japan, believe that the terror and hopelessness of life under the Chinese Communists have turned many Chinese refugees to Christianity. Enrollment in Catholic schools of the colony is well over 100,000, and two-thirds of their enrollment is non-Catholic. Like every other Christian group in the colony, the Catholics have given help without drawing denominational lines.
The Portuguese, of whom there are about 2,000 in Hong Kong, are the descendants of former Macao settlers who arrived with the first wave of British traders, acting as their interpreters. They were adaptable, quick with figures and gifted linguists, establishing themselves as clerk-interpreters in business and financial houses. A few invested wisely in land and became millionaires. In more recent years, they have turned to professional work, becoming lawyers, doctors and engineers. Starting with J. P. Braga in 1929, the Portuguese community has had several representatives on the Executive and Legislative Councils. Its present outstanding leaders, in addition to professional people, include exchange brokers, importers and exporters and manufacturers’ agents.
A second wave of Portuguese came to the colony from Macao after World War II, hoping to discover the business opportunities denied by the sleepy, static little overseas province of Portugal. But they faced stiff competition from young Chinese women who had entered office work and had received superior English education in the colony schools. Few had been to college and they lacked the drive demanded by the rough-and-tumble economy of Hong Kong; before long, most of the new arrivals moved on to Canada, Brazil or the United States.
Indians, including Parsees, Bhohras, Khwojas, Sindhis and Sikhs, came to Hong Kong in the early days as traders, soldiers and policemen. Today they are primarily merchants and traders, although there are still a few Indian and Pakistani residents who preserve their uniformed role as policemen, soldiers, or private guards for banks and financial houses. The Indian community is about the same size as the Portuguese—between 2,000 and 3,000—and like it, has produced a few top-level government officials, doctors and lawyers, and millionaire merchants.
Americans are still a very small minority, but they have money and a keen appetite to make more. If they also have ability, they fit smoothly into the competitive economy of the colony. The importance of American aid, both private and public, in caring for the colony’s refugees is deeply appreciated by both the government and the Chinese population, and the effect is only slightly marred when some Yankee tourist tries to give the impression that it all came out of his personal funds. Such tourists, it may be noted, are exceptional.
Despite their historical background of anticolonial insurrection, Americans have been well received in Hong Kong during most of its existence. It was once said that a young Hong Kong Englishman could not marry outside the charmed circle of the British Isles, Canada or Australia unless he chose an American girl; otherwise, he would lose his social position and probably his job. This has not been true for some years now, but it leaves a lingering question in the minds of some Americans: Why did they include us rebels?
Another question that occurs to almost every American who has seen the colony is: How do 15,000 British run this place? (Actually, there are about 33,000 people from all parts of the British Commonwealth living in Hong Kong, but the ruling group comes from the British Isles and barely exceeds 15,000.) It is evident from the most perfunctory glance around the streets that the British do run Hong Kong; autocratically, efficiently, firmly, sometimes unimaginatively, never with any pretense of popular rule, but almost always with strict justice. There is contained corruption, but less of it than anywhere else in the Far East. At times an unwonted conviction of Britannic righteousness roils the overseas visitor. This reaction is often encountered in one type of American who insists he does not want to run the world, and means he wants it run his way—by somebody else.
Americans are quite surprised when they strike the unexpected vein of iron that lies under the polished surface of British manners. These British are tough people; disciplined, well-educated, capable of decision and resolute action. Because they possess these qualities to a degree unexcelled and perhaps unmatched by any other country in the world, the British in Hong Kong are a corporal’s guard commanding an army.