"Do you know where I can find the tastiest cockroaches here?" a man dressed-to-kill was wondering. "I was very much recommended to go to the Khui restaurant," a lady in an evening gown said. One could have thought these people were insane but the smell of spices and the sea was in the air, high-rises were overhanging the streets from all sides and thousands of people were speaking simultaneously, speaking Chinese. It was inexplicable how all of them had managed to fit into such narrow streets. An ordinary Russian, who happened to be in Hong Kong for the first time, was in a whirl, indeed.

Meanwhile, miles and miles away from the Motherland, some 150 anything-but-ordinary fellow countrymen gathered for an international conference of RosBusinessConsulting (RBC). Russia's jet set - bankers, businessmen and government officials - congregated in Hong Kong. Having chosen this place, the organizers struck home. The former British colony (it has recently returned to the shelter of China) has managed to double its economy every ten years since the middle of the past century. The GDP of Hong Kong has grown 33 times since then (that of Russia has advanced by three times over the same period). It is hardly possible to explain this by the fact that people here eat crabs in corn soup, fried squid with black beans, snakes with noodles and…generally everything.

Give us freedom!

On the first day of the conference, Russian Presidential Adviser Andrei Illarionov set about "exposing" the economic miracle. "Hong Kong is the freest economic territory in the world," the Kremlin's official stated. "The government's burden on the economy is too big in Russia," he said. "That's it," said Viktor Gerashchenko, former head of the Russian Central Bank and the present Chairman of the Board of Directors of engulfed-with-tax-claims YUKOS oil company, putting in a word gently. A majority of the speakers concurred that Russian business needed more economic freedom. Fred Lam, Executive Director of the Trade Development Council of Hong Kong, imparted what this freedom might be - low taxes and the absence of corruption. A groan of envy went through the audience. Judges of local traditions gave an example: local road police officers do not distribute vanity plates for bribes on the sly but put them up for auction.

Where is the reason?

There are several explanations for this and other "phenomena" of Hong Kong's life. Firstly, salaries of local government officials are twice (if not thrice) as much as those at the same positions in private companies. This work is not only highly paid but also respectable. As such, there are more than enough candidates for the work and there are people to choose from. HR agencies hold special competitions for this purpose. There is real "socialist emulation" between the government's departments - who will bring more money to the public purse. That prevents officials from chilling out and makes them work constantly.

Of course, problems occur. But the public interest is defended by democracy. Chinese people from Hong Kong are very grateful to the British for it. Moreover, Hong Kong is a small city [actually more than 6 million people live here] and it is impossible to escape your neighbors. In other words, if you steal today, all newspapers write about this tomorrow and the day after tomorrow there will be a trial, imprisonment and seizure of property. This is where the independent press is powerful. But there is one more detail. Failure to report a crime you witnessed (for example, embezzlement or bribery) is considered to be a crime as well in Hong Kong.

These are some odd shoots that the seeds of British tradition have grown into on Chinese soil, although this soil used to seem absolutely unsuitable for such seeds. For example, there is such a concept as "guanxi" in China, meaning ties, gifts, etc. In Russia, this means cronyism and corruption. The Chinese have been living with this guanxi for thousands of years and everything has been fine. Hong Kong has broken this tradition. However, other traditions are held sacred here. "You just can't imagine this," an excited banker said, swinging his arms and spilling Hennessey from his glass. "A square meter costs tens of thousands of dollars there! And they make a five-storey hole in a house - a 'window' for a dragon that, according to legend, flies through this particular place to the coast to swim in the sea. I told them: that's fine, it's a legend. Why in the world did you make the hole? They say: to make it convenient for the dragon…Do you understand?" he asked. It was time for the "aborigines" to become surprised the night before the Russians' departure. Having burst into the most expensive seedy district of Hong Kong, the Russian businessmen suddenly started dancing in a ring in the nightclubs. All in all, they were getting prepared for a long flight to the Motherland.