October 6, 2003 / Vol. 162 No. 13
Global Adviser | Time Traveler
Hong Kong's Back!
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501031006-490748,00.html
Shaking free of SARS, the territory puts on a show-and rolls out the
Stones-for visitors
BY ANTHONY SPAETH | HONG KONG
When the Rolling Stones crank up their guitars at the HMS Tamar
exhibition ground in November, they'll be blasting out a message that
Hong Kong wants the whole world to hear: the territory has shaken off
the SARS scare and is once again open for business-and pleasure. After
a nightmarish spring and summer when it was ground zero for severe
acute respiratory syndrome, Hong Kong is quickly reclaiming its
position as one of Asia's biggest tourist draws.
At the height of the panic, Hong Kong's airport was handling just 20%
of its normal passenger flow, and hotel occupancy rates were even
lower than that. Those numbers have been soaring recently, thanks to a
surge in visitors from mainland China, taking advantage of relaxed
visa rules. To lure more big-spending long-haul travelers, the tourist
association has launched a worldwide advertising blitz starring Jackie
Chan. (The punch line: "Hong Kong: Live it. Love it!") And now the
government is underwriting an ambitious fall concert schedule
featuring pop acts Craig David, Westlife and Santana, and tenor José
Carreras. The Stones gigs (Nov. 7 and 9) will have special resonance:
the old rockers cited SARS fears when they canceled two March dates in
Hong Kong. They then drew 450,000 fans to a July concert in Toronto,
helping that city bounce back from a SARS-induced tourist slump.
Hong Kong
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Hong+Kong%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Hong+Kong%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Hong+Kong%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Hong%20Kong&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Not Just Another Pretty Face
http://www.msnbc.com/news/976139.asp
In China, prostitution is so widespread that even the educated are
joining the oldest profession
By Sarah Schafer
NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL
Oct. 13 issue - When Xun, a petite, ponytailed, 23-year-old from
Sichuan province, became the first member of her family to get into
college, she knew attending the prestigious university in China's
southern city of Wuhan could lift her family out of generations of
poverty. Laid-off workers with no social security, Xun's parents
subsisted on income from the small convenience store her father owned.
In Wuhan she landed work as a waitress, but the pay barely covered her
tuition. When a manager from a local hotel offered her a job making
more than 10 times what she earned waiting tables, she felt too
exhausted, alone, and embarrassed at the possibility of going home to
refuse. She became a prostitute.
The Portals Into China
http://www.msnbc.com/news/976138.asp
Global investors find a safe way to make a Chinese Internet play, but
the result may be another bubble
By Sarah Schafer
NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL
Oct. 13 issue - Internet stocks are already retro chic, none more than
those with a made in china label. The big three Chinese Internet
portals, Sina, Sohu and Netease, went public on New York's NASDAQ
exchange at the worst possible time, right after the dot-com bust of
early 2000. They all but vanished on arrival, and a year ago all were
trading at less than two bucks. Since then, the prices of all three
have risen by as much as 3,000 percent and closed at the end of
September up by at least 3,400 percent, as investors begin to take
another look at the world's fastest-growing Internet market. "The
Internet is an emotional term, and China is an emotional place for a
lot of people," says Duncan Clark, a Beijing-based telecom consultant
and former adviser to Netease. "So put those together and it's a
double whammy."
Is the wakening giant a monster?
http://tinyurl.com/iws6
.
|
