Hong Kong

I'm back in London now and slowly getting over my jet lag. Overall my Hong Kong trip went very well, both for my work activities and for my leisure time.

Though I was nervous about it, my on-stage interviews at that conference went fine. I was fortunate enough to have a fairly engaging and outspoken guy as my interviewee, so he was able to keep the conversation lively and engaging. The panel I moderated about frontier markets also went well, though it was hard to link the disparate geographic regions we were discussing into larger themes. But I got good feedback from the audience afterwards.

China

I'm in Hong Kong this week on a business trip, my first trip to East Asia. So far it's been very interesting.

I came in early for the weekend to see my friend from grad school Liz, who is living and working in Shenzen. The first thing I noticed about the area is the big difference between Hong Kong and the mainland. Of course for all of its history as a city until 1997 Hong Kong was under the control of the British, and it was just a little over ten years ago that it was handed over to the Chinese, but with special stipulations. Hong Kong became the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the "one country, two systems" policy, continuing to operate as a seperate country for most intents and purposes until 2047.