Page 4 - Hong Kong Destination Guide PRINT

HONG KONG UNDER BRITISH RULE Skills and capital brought by refugees of mainland China, especially from Shanghai, along with a vast pool of cheap labor helped revive the economy and at the same time many foreign firms relocated their offices from Shanghai to Hong Kong. Enjoying unprecedented growth, Hong Kong would transform into an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse. During the 1980's British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, PAGE 3 Population | Time | Visas hoped that the increasing openness of the PRC government and the Insurance | History economic reform in the mainland would allow the continuation of British rule. The resulting meeting led to the signing of a Sino-British Joint PAGE 4 History & Government Declaration and the proposal of the One country, two systems concept by Deng Xiaoping. PAGE 5-9 Island Areas On April 4, 1990, the Hong Kong Basic Law was officially accepted as the PAGE 9 mini-constitution of the Hong Kong SAR, and on July 1, 1997 Hong Kong Language was handed over to the People's Republic of China by the United Kingdom. PAGE 10 Climate & Weather HISTORY IN NAMES PAGE 11 Fragrant Harbor - Hong Kong's English name is derived from two The Land Chinese characters, Heung and Gong, usually translated as "Fragrant PAGE 12 Harbor". Originally it was only the name of a small settlement near Currency | Credit Cards Aberdeen, the main fishing and entre port on pre-colonial Hong Kong Changing Money | Tipping Island. Some historians suggest that Hong Kong's Chinese name was inspired by its export of fragrant incense. PAGE 13 Etiquette | Health & Vaccinations Nine Dragons - The explanations for Kowloon's name is even more romantic. In Chinese, the peninsula's name is "Kow Lung", meaning PAGE 14 "Nine Dragons". The name is thought to have been coined by Emperor Communications | What to Pack Ping, one of two boy-emperors of the doomed Sung Dynasty whose court PAGE 15 fled to Hong Kong eight centuries ago. He is said to have counted eight Shopping | Customs mountains in the area, and decided to name it "Eight Dragons" (in Bartering accordance with the ancient Chinese belief that every mountain is PAGE 16-17 inhabited by a dragon). Food & Drinks The Emperor's tally of the peaks was corrected by a quick-witted courtier PAGE 18 who pointed out that as emperors were also believed to be dragons, the Culture & The Arts | Religion place was really "Nine Dragons" - Ping being the ninth. The origin of Kowloon's name may be a legend, but is a historical fact that the boy- emperor's traveling palace stayed there. GOVERNMENT Under its constitutional document, the Basic Law, Hong Kong is an autonomous Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, except in defense and foreign affairs. The Basic Law guarantees that autonomy for 50 years, and designates a system of governance led by a Chief Executive and an Executive Council, with a two-tiered system of representative government and an independent judiciary.