It's just a statue of a bear. Yet there is something poignant about the bird images and gilded paintwork adorning the "creature". The bear stands for Iraq. I found it the most beautiful of 120 "buddy bears" propped in a circle in Victoria Park. Each represents a nation. Each symbolizes solidarity, tolerance and understanding.

In an intolerant world, never has the importance of world friendship been greater. The astronomer Carl Sagan once wrote that huge resources are devoted in attempts to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, but a better beginning would be to "improve communications with terrestrial intelligence, with other human beings of different cultures and languages".

"Buddy Bears will help promote public arts in Hong Kong," noted a government press release, urging people to warm to "the tremendous potential of public space in promoting creative culture and arts".

What are the most visible "public spaces"? The infotainment screens on buses deserve a place on any list. Last week, my bus screen trembled with high-octane gunfight sequences followed by earsplitting hard rock clips. The screens could serve a more constructive role by airing local art themes on tolerance.

Public spaces in Hong Kong have the potential to be an invaluable way to express the essence of Chinese life. I don't mean endless soft-focus nature shots of mountains, canyons, rivers, lakes, beaches and sunsets. The only real China flows from real people. Hong Kong, as a gateway to China, can play a major role in developing the theme of Chinese life.

For a start, I would suggest an exhibition dedicated to Chinese families. Some might find this theme ironic when you consider the low Hong Kong birth rate and China's one-child per family policy. But the fact that Chinese families are getting smaller does not mean one cannot revel in the qualities that make them distinctive.

While families in Hong Kong share much in common with their counterparts on the mainland, there are differences. On the mainland, every morning the streets and parks overflow with practitioners of traditional Chinese exercises, while many married couples join in a waltz. You can see only a fragment of this colour in the territory, the proportion of exponents being far greater across the border.

What of a foreigner's perspective? For my part, I would characterize Chinese families as humane and kindly. I found this true of the Chinese I knew in Britain and the US in earlier years and equally true in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.

Let's not forget Chinese children who impress me with their respectful behaviour. They must rank too as among the world's most inquisitive. While travelling on the ferry from Aberdeen to Lamma Island, I sometimes use a laptop computer. Seldom has there been a time when my activities have not been a magnet drawing a few curious Chinese children. Every time, they sat close beside me, watching intently at my work.

I have noticed too a widespread love of reading. The last time I was in the Central Library, a girl of about six stood ahead of me in the queue. As she returned several books in Chinese, I marvelled at her ability to comprehend such materials, since Chinese characters present far greater challenges than the Western European script. For a Chinese child, basic reading of stories entails learning at least several hundred characters. Some children master English too, a small girl pulling out books from shelves to share her interests with my daughters.

If an exhibition on Chinese families would make for a fascinating use of public space - both on buses and in parks - so too would a showcase on the lives of the elderly who play such a prominent part in Hong Kong life.

Nearly every day a miracle takes place as Lamma Island folk in their eighties disembark from the ferry at Mo Tat pier, and with a bamboo pole across their shoulders, as a support to balance baskets of shopping, mount the steep stairway leading to the hill top, wending their way up steep paths back to the ancient village of Tung O.

Climbing China's mountains, especially the five holiest, is a popular activity - and the elderly don't want to be left out.I discovered how sprightly they are during a hike up Taishan Mountain in Shandong Province. While I was striving to reach the Taoist peak, dozens of hardy elderly folk overtook me during the exhausting ascent up thousands of steps.

The Chinese elderly seem determined to get out and live their lives to the fullest. The clatter of mahjong tiles in any village is a telltale sign of mentally alert old folk.

I referred to the themes of families and elderly in the singular, but there is nothing to stop an ongoing series - and there must be at least 1.3 billion ways to depict the lives of the Chinese in the public spaces of Hong Kong.

(HK Edition 06/07/2004 page10)