Hong Kong Awakens to an Altered Reality

Imagine going to bed one night and waking up the next morning to find your world transformed.

Someone has changed the flags in front of all public buildings. Men in ill-fitting dark suits dominate newspaper pages and the television evening news. More people are speaking a different dialect. The grocery store is playing a new national anthem on its music system.

People had 13 years after the Sino-British agreement on Hong Kong was signed in 1984 to prepare for the historic repatriation of the territory to the Chinese mainland. Still, for many the reality of the metamorphosis is only now hitting home and is sometimes Kafkaesque. People who went to sleep in one country Monday woke up in another Tuesday.

“It didn’t really sink in when it happened,” said Dr. Vincent Lee, 39, chief of ophthalmology at Hong Kong’s Queen Mary Hospital. “Then I was out yesterday and walked by this tiny shop in my neighborhood where the Chinese national anthem was being played. Suddenly, I realized this really is a part of China. No more ‘God Save the Queen.’ ”

The hand-over made some people confront latent discomfort about living and working under a new regime. Police Inspector Poon Kwai-ling refused to swear allegiance Tuesday to the new Chinese-backed government and has taken a leave of absence to think about her future.

“The new government didn’t want to allow [Democratic Party leader] Martin Lee to speak” on the night of the hand-over, she said. “I suddenly realized: If it were up to me to stop him, I don’t know if I could do it. I believe in the freedom of speech.”

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Just observing the simple switch of official symbols--the modified police badges, the new official Chinese emblems and flags that now adorn Hong Kong government buildings--can be unsettling. “Before at Government House there was a crown on the gate. Now there’s a new red Chinese seal and a Chinese flag on the flagpole,” Poon said. “It really feels like you’re entering a place in China, and it feels very strange.”

Even some of the most gung-ho supporters of reunification were unnerved when they witnessed the events unfold. “I looked on the stage and saw [Chinese President] Jiang Zemin standing there,” said a prominent Hong Kong businessman with economic interests in China. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, what have we done?’ ”

Except for a heavy rain that continued long after the hand-over began at midnight Monday, the process has gone smoothly. But the past few days have been full of powerful political imagery.

Among the lasting images: Hong Kong’s new chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, sitting uncomfortably on the podium next to stern-faced Gen. Zhang Wannian, vice chairman of China’s powerful Central Military Commission; residents of the outlying New Territories waving Chinese flags as troops of the People’s Liberation Army moved across the frontier into Hong Kong; workers detaching the British royal emblem from Government House, which was the official residence of the British governors.

Physically, the changes in Hong Kong so far have been mostly cosmetic. The red, five-starred flag of the People’s Republic waves where the Union Jack once did. Leaping pink dolphins, a symbol of the newly created Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the five-petaled bauhinia flower that is the territory’s official new icon are pictured and displayed everywhere. (Never mind that the pink dolphin, once plentiful in Hong Kong Harbor, is nearly extinct and the bauhinia is a sterile hybrid.)

Psychologically, however, the effect of the hand-over has been much more pronounced.

“Sure, we prepared for 13 years,” said Albert Cheng, Hong Kong’s outspoken radio talk show host. “But sometimes even when you know things are going to happen, you are not prepared for the shock.”

Cheng, 51, known for his outspoken criticism of the Beijing government, said most callers to his popular “Teacup in a Tempest” morning talk show on Wednesday expressed dissatisfaction and sorrow over the turn of events. “They felt the British have left a great city to an uncertain future.”

Now that the tide of parties and ceremonies marking the hand-over has begun to ebb, nearly everyone here is struggling to come to terms with life under the new mainland masters.

Chi-Ying Tsui, 37, is a USC-educated computer engineer who now teaches at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. While in graduate school in Los Angeles, Tsui headed a pro-democracy group.

Summing up his reaction to the emotional events of the past two days, Tsui recalled how he felt when he saw the Chinese flag raised above Hong Kong.

“I felt a little on the bad side,” Tsui said. “On the one hand we wanted the British to leave, but on the other hand we didn’t want to see the Communists come in. Now life seems normal, but somehow the feeling is different. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m happy and depressed at the same time.”

Times staff writer Evelyn Iritani contributed to this report.