Recently many Hong Kong citizens have been mesmerized by the popular Korean TV serial drama Da Qiangjin, which depicts the professional development of a woman practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the background of the Korean imperial court. Given that all the elements in the screenplay are present in Chinese history, perhaps even richer and more colourful, and that Hong Kong is supposed to be the de facto leader of movie making in this region, many of us just wonder why it has to be a Korean production, and not a Hong Kong one, or a mainland one with Hong Kong support.

Hong Kong's movie industry, which has dominated East Asia and the overseas Chinese markets for over three decades, is now in the process of restructuring to adapt to the new environment created by the opening-up of the mainland market. One area of the Hong Kong economy which poses great potential for restructuring and transformation is what is now fashionably coined as "cultural and creative industries", and was brought up in former cheif executive Tung Chee-hwa's last Policy Address early this year. Now that Tung has resigned, I surely hope Donald Tsang would take up this meaningful task.

In the past, Hong Kong has always been the cultural centre for overseas Chinese. We exported movies and pop songs to entertain the 60 million odd Chinese living outside the mainland. Even our newspapers and magazines had worldwide circulation. Although more new overseas immigrants are now coming from the mainland, and Putonghua culture is gradually replacing Cantonese, Hong Kong is still the undisputed cultural centre of overseas Cantonese diaspora.

One indication of Hong Kong's strategic importance in the cultural arena is the unbelievably high hit rate of the RTHK web site. Many people around the world still tune to our radio station on the Web for news, commentary and entertainment. Another not so pleasant surprise is the deep and wide penetration of our Mark Six lottery, and the huge worldwide illegal gambling networks surrounding it.

Hong Kong is undisputedly the fashion centre in the region, thanks perhaps to the high visibility of our movie and pop stars. Many individual travellers from the mainland come here regularly to buy cosmetics, fashion garments and accessories, and to just feel what is in.

So much for the argument, and now what should we do? After Hong Kong was reunited with the motherland, Hong Kong people have acquired the habit of asking for assistance from the government whenever they have a problem. As for cultural and creative industries, many people point to the example of the spectacular success of the Korean film industry, which was reborn after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis with heavy government involvement. With a strong urge from our dying film industry, the SAR government has set up a small fund to finance movie ventures, but with little success. Living on government handouts is not mainstream Hong Kong culture, and dishing out money to movie makers is not the way to see the survival of our film industry. This is definitely not the way to foster and promote our cultural and creative industries.

The key issue of cultural and creative industries is not money, but talent: the stars on stage as well as all the backstage back-ups. Capital is the key factor that puts all these elements together, but Hong Kong has never been short of capital, and will not be in the foreseeable future. One thing we all turn a blind eye to is that we are running out of talent. Just one look at our movie icon Jackie Chan, and you will know that he will not be able to jump and fall for long, but who is next in line to succeed him? Look at Yuen Wo-ping who does all the stunning martial art choreography which nobody can even come close to, but how long will he be around?

Like every other thing in Hong Kong, we hit a jackpot, and we squeeze it dry. The fact is that Hong Kong has not invested in the movie-making industry since Run Run Shaw closed his assembly line, and recently even TVB has practically ceased its in-house training activities, which used to churn out actors like Chow Yun-fat and Chow Sing-chi, and directors like Wong Kar-wai.

Once we identify the problem, the solution will come easily. To further develop cultural and creative industries, we have to first and foremost create more talents. In the past, there was the trade apprenticeship, now we have to do it more systematically. In our educational system, we disdain culture and suppress creativity. This has to change. On the technical side, a lot of the stunts now performed by Jackie Chan will be replaced by computer graphics and miniature modelling. We will have to catch up on our IT and software programming proliferation. In short, we are in a hurry to mass-produce performers, writers, graphic artists, designers, programmers, events organizers and cultural marketers. But on the other hand, there are many educational institutes which are having a hard time finding a market niche for their survival, and are still cramming into the over-crowded traditional subjects. As the government is by far the largest educational services provider, our CE is the most suitable candidate to turn this around.

(HK Edition 06/27/2005 page5)