Obama? Hong Kong Cares!

Astonishing news! Hong Kong actually cares!

Our gorgeous elderly widow neighbour, who doesn't speak English, gave me the thumbs up in the lift and said "Obama!"

Then the sweet old lady who runs the corner store, who also doesn't speak English, pointed to the photos on the cover of the newspaper I was buying and said something I assumed to mean "Do you know the results yet?" and when I pointed to Obama, and indicated with a whoosh towards the Obama photo that it had been a landslide, she clapped loudly, and then spoke to everyone else in the shop and they all clapped and cheered.

And then moments later when I was reading the newspaper in the streets, a Mainland couple pointed to the photos and said what I assumed to be "Do you know?" and I said "Obama!" and they cheered and told everyone around them and they also cheered.

And then, at the coffee shop, a random Mainlander paid for my tea. I asked the waiter if he knew why, and was told "Obama!" and when I said "But I'm not American!" he replied "He doesn't care. He just wants to thanks somebody."

Then I asked Ken, my Mainlander friend, why China cared and he said he thought it was because there was a lot of grassroots resentment and everyone thought bridges needed to be rebuilt but that Bush and co. were too arrogant and aggressive to even think of it. He said China saw Obama as humble and a deep thinker and so was "the man for the business"! And then he added that he personally wanted to see America rebuild some Moral Authority - those words again - everyone appears to be bandying them about these days - because then China would maybe begin to do the same.

Oh, yes, and another very interesting thing Chris Patten said yesterday was that India, in his opinion, was becoming the world's Moral Authority and hoped others would take note of that and maybe think about doing the same! Yeah, you go, Obama!