The great Hong Kong stamp run

Ten years ago, Hong Kong people queued up in great numbers to redeem certificates promising a free cake from a bakery which, it was rumored, was about to go out of business. In the ensuing cake run, it was discovered that many Hong Kongers had been collecting these certificates. They proceeded to redeem them all, even though they could not possibly have stored all the free cakes in their refrigerators. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin tries to piece together, and explain, the latest and almost certainly related example of mass frenzy.

HONG KONG (JP): Hong Kong is experiencing two scandals for the price of one.

The first scandal is essentially an elite affair but it still makes headlines nearly every day.

Last July, the Hong Kong Director of Immigration Lawrence Leung was allowed to retire on 24 hours notice "for personal reasons". Normally twelve months notice is required to depart from such an important post.

Few believed "personal reasons" were behind his decision, and only now is the government explaining why Leung was fired. In the intervening six months, the government's credibility gap has widened into a chasm.

It now says that Leung was involving himself too much in business, some of it in China, without declaring his interests as he was required to do.

Meanwhile, various leaks from Hong Kong and other sources have appeared in print suggesting more devious reasons for the effective dismissal. Was Leung a spy for China? Was he giving China critical information which Beijing could use to the detriment of Hong Kong residents? Did the government find out about his shortcomings through foreign governments or foreign intelligence agencies? Was there any involvement by the triads (Chinese secret societies)?

These are the questions which many Hong Kong people are asking. The elected Hong Kong Legislative Council is pursuing the answers. The government appears to be stonewalled. Beijing has called for a full explanation.

The second scandal, which rarely makes headlines, ought to be the subject of severe questioning. But it isn't. Yet the scandal suggests that confidence in the future is already very low.

Hong Kong, which has had numerous bank runs in its checkered history, and which once experienced a truly bizarre cake-shop run, has recently been experiencing a stamp run. Yes, a stamp run, believe it or not.

While China is conducting an old-fashioned anti-colonial campaign in anticipation of Hong Kong's reversion, and faraway in Britain, the monarchy's future is the subject of a popular vote on television, here in Hong Kong the masses have been queuing in huge and unwieldy numbers for stamps with Queen Elizabeth II's head upon them.

Bizarre, you think? It most definitely is, especially if you take into account that buyers in China, Taiwan and Japan are partly responsible for the huge stamp queues.

At first sight, it seemed that the queues were merely the result of too many people chasing too few stamps, prior to a deadline. In anticipation of the return to China's sovereignty over Hong Kong, Queen Elizabeth's head is about to disappear from Hong Kong stamps. From Jan. 26, "neutral" stamps minus the monarch's profile, will be the only ones on sale.

Perhaps the queues represented a modest degree of nostalgia for the old order of things, before it actually departs. Unfortunately for the House of Windsor, no such easy explanation can be readily entertained.

But on taking a closer look, it became obvious that the queues represented a far more complex reality. They were too long, too pervasive and the stamp purchases were often too large.

I recently sought stamps at my local post office in the basement of a nearby skyscraper. The queue was out the door, up the step and down the road.

I tried the alternative of the main general post office only to find that the queues there were far longer. I assumed that a first day cover, beloved by philatelists, was on sale only to discover that it was not. I tried the Wanchai Post Office -- only to find a seemingly unending line of patient people winding its way through the building.

The demand was so great the GPO initiated a program of additional monarch stamp-printing. Purchases of HK$20,000 (about US$2,600) worth of stamps were not uncommon and orders of HK$100,000 were not unknown.

Normally the GPO staff only worked a few counters -- now they were working beyond their means, selling sheets of stamps all day, every day.

Normally the main GPO records HK$30,000 dollars worth of business. On one day, the daily sales reached a whopping HK$2,000,000.

At that point the GPO, "due to the unprecedented demand", ended sales of stamps by the sheet. Massive purchases having become almost impossible, the queues gradually declined.

Today the queues have almost subsided. At one stage there were queues all over the territory. But the GPO officials remained wary, lest there be another mammoth rush when the last day of Queen stamps dawns on Jan. 25.

So why did the Great Stamp Run of 1997 take place? While the Lawrence Leung affair worried the elite, the Stamp Run involved the masses.

The word quickly got around that the Queen's stamps would become an item of stored wealth. Those with a fairly tenuous share of Hong Kong's great riches saw stamps as a means to get rich quick.

The word quickly spread that a HK$1.90 stamp was already worth HK$20. That helped set off what might be called the stamp stampede.

The Chinese press, instead of exposing this dubious proposition, tended to play it up. The real scandal of the Great Stamp Run has been that the "free" Hong Kong press and media paid far too little attention to it. The resignation of one high official took undue precedence over the refusal by many ordinary folks to be resigned to their fate.

Some sources have indicated that there was organization behind the queues, with money from China, Taiwan and Japan seeking profit through vast stamp purchases. It was even said that stamps were becoming a means for money-laundering of drug-money and other ill-gotten gains. But whether these stories were true -- or just another rumor stimulating the stampede -- is not clear.

The obvious conclusion to draw has been that the massive sales of QE2 stamps must have diminished the value of the stamps. The people in the queues did not draw it. "They are crazy, just crazy," one official, who has had to battle the Stamp Run, told me.

Very likely, the first scandal lead to the second. One allegation made against Leung is that he told Beijing the whereabouts of the Chinese dissidents currently resident in Hong Kong. Another allegation is that he gave the Chinese authorities the names of those who have been given special first-class British passports, because of the change of sovereignty. A third allegation is that Leung somehow helped mainland Chinese to enter Hong Kong, or to leave with Hong Kong-provided documents.

It must be stressed that none of these allegations have been admitted either by Leung or by the Hong Kong government. Of course the credibility of both is not high. But the lack of confirmation of the allegations is, in a very real sense, besides the point. The fact that these allegations have been made almost certainly reflects, and deepens, the profound Hong Kong Chinese feelings of unease and insecurity as the hand over approaches.

At heart, the best explanation of the Great Stamp Run lies in the perennial uncertainty Hong Kongers face. Uncertainty has fueled bank runs and cake-shop runs in the past. In five months time, millions of Hong Kongers who once fled from communist China will be returned to the country.

It's easy to see why people placed in this precarious position may be irrational. People seized the opportunity to spend hours queuing for stamps in the belief that, when they would be resold at a profit, there would be the financial resources to leave Hong Kong or at least attain greater security.

I asked the official who has tried to control these long queues every day whether the reversion to China on July 1 was related to the stampedes.

He nodded his head and said nothing. I could swear there was a tear in the corner of his eye.