Wind And Water

By R.Z. Sheppard

HONG KONG

by Jan Morris

Random House; 359 pages; $19.95

Not wanting to miss a historic bash, Jan Morris has already booked a room in Hong Kong for July 1, 1997. That is the day when Britain's 99-year lease on the crown colony runs out and the People's Republic of China moves in. Except for replacing the Union Jack with its red banner, Beijing does not now plan any major redecorating. The island and its adjacent territories are to be designated a Special Administrative Region with authority to continue practicing their unfettered style of economic individualism.

So much for the domino theory. Despite China's power to stalemate the Korean War, and the U.S. defeat in Viet Nam, capitalism has flourished in Asia -- a painful irony when one considers the price paid by successive American governments to contain the Commies.

Morris' guide to Hong Kong's past, present and future provides useful perspectives on the shifting balances of economic power. If her tone ranges from the cheerfully neutral to the unabashedly admiring, it is because this author of travel books and studies of British imperialism is fundamentally an optimist. New forms and new methods superimposed on ancient beliefs give ! Hong Kong its basic texture. One can see a computer-store manager keeping accounts with an abacus. Hong Kong's skyline bespeaks the sterile utility of modern commercial architecture, yet few of the colony's real estate developers would pick up a shovel before consulting a geomancer to site the building according to the rules of feng shui, meaning "wind and water" and envisioning a felicitous balance of place and design.

"Nothing is more flexibly resilient than Chineseness," says Morris. Similar adaptability can be attributed to the first European and American merchants who were allowed to open factories and warehouses on the Guangzhou coast 150 years ago. The British eventually achieved dominance by dealing drugs, importing opium from India and selling it to mainland China. A pragmatic lot, the rulers of the Celestial Empire seem to have understood that the opiate of the people was opium.

It took some gunboat diplomacy to bring the area under British sovereignty. The Treaty of Nanking in 1842 ended the First Anglo-Chinese War and transferred Hong Kong to the crown. In 1898 the mainland region later known as the New Territories was added under the 99-year lease agreement. The only disruption of the tenancy was the Japanese occupation during World War II.

An extensive knowledge and understanding of historical forces gives Morris a leg up on most travel journalists. What distinguishes her work is an ability, if not need, to write with her senses as well as her intellect. The sights and sounds of what she calls Hong Kong's "fructifying untidiness" are abundant and enthusiastically conveyed. So are the odors, especially what the author calls a blend of "duck-mess" and gasoline.

After more than a dozen books and scores of travel articles, Morris remains unjaded by the noise and disruption of urban life. She is certainly a believer in possibilities (see Conundrum, her 1974 account of the medical and psychological sex-change procedures that turned James Morris into Jan Morris). It is worth noting that when she writes about the "architectural hodgepodge" and "irresistible activity" of Hong Kong, she does so as a visitor, not as a permanent resident. Home base is a quiet village in Wales where, one can reasonably assume, the feng shui has been good for centuries.