Lighthouse of Hope: The story of Hong Kong

Chapter 1 - Strangers in a Strange Land
26 January, 1841

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As the Union Jack was raised on the top of a hill, several soldiers, sailors, and officers looked on in silent approval. Ever since war broke out between Britain and China over the addictive drug Opium, the men of the British fleet had been sailing for what felt like forever on their way to Canton. Their first piece of the Middle Kingdom they encountered was an island south of the Kowloon Peninsula, dotted by fishing villages and barely having any resources.

As the men landed on the beaches of the island, one of the ship's captain looked around the whole shoreline. To him, it looked and felt unimportant as there was nothing as far as the eye could see. Some of the other officers seemed to agree except the higher-ups back at Westminster. But there was no time for that, he and his men have got a war to fight their job is to finish it.

"Who the bloody hell wants this place?"
Lieutenant Charles Cameron
 
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Chapter 2 - The Analysis
1843

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The first governor, Sir Henry Pottinger, sits in his desk office inside his mansion that has a breathtaking view towards Victoria Harbour. A pile of papers stacks up on his desk as he dutifully responses to each of them like a quintessential Ulster gentleman. Ever since Britain's victory in the First Opium War, where it smuggled in the victorian version of weed into the middle kingdom in order to make up its losses by the highly restrictive but lucrative Canton trade, Hong Kong had grown into a British outpost right next to China ensuring a better source of trade for Europeans.

Whilst the noble Ulsterman sits in his office, someone knocks on the door. "Come in" he commands. A young, sharply-dressed Englishman comes into the room.

Pottinger: Hmm, you must be my new secretary, I suppose?
Barrett: Luke Barrett, sir. I've been assigned to help assist you in the administration of Hong Kong.
Pottinger: I see. It says here that you graduated from Cambridge, am I correct?
Barrett: Indeed, sir.
Pottinger: Let me ask you a question. What do you know about Hong Kong, Mr. Barrett?
Barrett: It is… an island we've acquired from China, I suppose.
Pottinger: Obviously. What future potential do you see in this island?
Barrett: Honestly, other than being a trading outpost, nothing. This place can't grow anything for a huge population which is required for a city. There are mostly fishing villages all around the island and I don't see any chance this place can grow on its own.
Pottinger: That, right there, is where you're wrong, young lad. In my eyes, this place does have a future. You see, when a trading post is established, ships and goods come in and out of the place. Later on, the trading post makes enough money that eventually it grows into a city which makes more and more people decide to come and live in that city. If London is heart of finance in the Occident, Hong Kong shall be the London of the Orient. I can only hope it becomes one in the future. It's nothing for now but soon it will grow, I promise you that.

With that explanation, the young Barrett takes it in and soon believes in it.
 
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