Hospitable Young Hong Kong Ambassadors
First impressions make all the difference to a tired tourist and the Federation's Young Ambassadors offer a very worthwhile contribution to tourism in Hong Kong. Visitor arrivals hit a record high of 21.8 million in 2004 with over two million tourists arriving here in August and October and 23.4 million forecast for 2005.* The Young Ambassador (YA) Scheme, a joint effort of the Federation and the Tourism Commission, is representative of our mission, encouraging young people to contribute to the economy with pride while developing their sense of civic responsibility.

The Tourism Commission and the Federation select suitable YAs and train them in the skills and confidence they need for hosting visitors, helping them find their way around the city's highlights while also gaining an understanding of Hong Kong's recent developments and infrastructure. The YAs can then speak articulately of Hong Kong's heritage and commerce, its innovative, entrepreneurial spirit and proactive attitude.

Each year the YA programme is over-subscribed. We give intensive training to about 200 successful applicants studying locally or overseas. An important knock-on effect takes place while they show tourists our unique city - they also get the message across to the local community. The happy result is that people of all ages have a growing sense of belonging to our vibrant, vigorous and colourful city and feel proud to welcome visitors to share it.

"The airport is an ideal venue for the excellent service offered by the Young Ambassadors. With their smiling and helpful faces, these young people always take the initiative to attend to the needs of passengers. It could be just a simple act of pointing out a direction to a first-time visitor, reminding passengers on the safe use of escalators, or chat with those who wait anxiously for their arriving friends or relatives at the Meeters and Greeters Hall.

We have received numerous compliments and thank-you letters from passengers around the world on their service. We look forward to an on-going partnership with the Federation in the future."

Mr. Eric Wong
General Manager, Terminal, Airport Authority

* http://www.partnernet.hktb.com and http://www.info.gov/hkfacts/tourism.pdf

Hong Kong Student Science Project Competition 2005 Participants: 151 teams from 75 schools to set up booths for judges' inspection Initial judging: Saturday 14 May 2005 10 am - 4:30 pm Venues: Tech Centre, Hong Kong Science and Technology Park   Hong Kong Productivity Council building visit http://www.hksspc.gov.hk for more info

Summer Youth Programme Enrollment begins: 8 May 2005 At the 21 Youth S.P.O.Ts, visit http://www.u21.org.hk/syp05/index.html for more info

Global Youth Service Day: 4 programmes & 6,700 volunteers mobilized April's programmes included: Book Donation Campaign: about 2,500 books distributed to 600 CSSA families Gift bags for 1,000 children with learning disabilities and their families. visit http://www.hkfyg.org.hk/yvn/gysd05 for more info

Hong Kong is really great and it made me feel great to sell the place as a YA.

Hospitality Hong Kong style
Four current and past YA volunteers - Angel, Florence, Melody and Simon - recently shared their experience with us. Angel is doing a major in accountancy and law at City U while Florence is at secondary school in Tin Shui Wai. Simon and Melody are YA alumni but were student ambassadors in the UK when the programme was in its infancy. Melody is doing her PhD in Biology at Baptist U and Simon is an engineering consultant. They are both mentors for active YAs like Florence and Angel. We asked what their service as Young Ambassadors (YAs) meant to them.

They were unanimous - their experience as YAs had heightened their sense of identity with the city and really convinced them how justified they were to feel proud of their home town.

Melody said it all:

The experience makes you really feel you belong here in a way I never realized before.

Both Florence and Simon were delighted that the scheme had introduced them to parts of Hong Kong they didn't know, teaching them about history and culture but also about recent socio-political developments. Simon particularly emphasized the contrasts in Hong Kong's culture:

Hong Kong culture is very special - a mix of east and west quite unlike any other. The place has developed so fast and yet retains its own identity. That is what I have come to identify with and want to communicate to visitors if I can.

What about the promotional activities they'd taken part in? Simon and Melody were in a group of 20 who put on exhibitions at four major UK university campuses - Imperial College London, Oxford, Birmingham and Warwick. They invited classmates, gave away souvenirs and answered a host of questions. Simon remembered his own specialty:

I told my friends about Chinese cuisine, cooking for them and demonstrating the delicate art of using chopsticks. They all knew about Chinese take-aways but real Hong Kong style eating came as a pleasant surprise to them.

All of them agreed that it was a good chance to practice presentation and communication skills and for the local YAs it was a prime opportunity to use their foreign languages. We asked whether they ever had problems communicating their message. Florence and Angel said they sometimes used written messages, maps or body language if spoken language failed them but Angel admitted it was not always easy:

Some tourists think you are trying to sell them something. Even if you offer a free souvenir, some will ignore you. So I call after them - '…look it's a gift from Hong Kong! It's free!' - Most of them come back then!

Florence said the role play training really helped to deal with rather daunting problems like this. International tourists can be jaded bargain hunters who don't expect anything for nothing. Angel again said:

An American once complained about the price of a cup of coffee in Tsim Sha Tsui so I pointed out that he had been using an upmarket international chain and that local coffee shops are better value. I also said that a Hong Kong McDonald's is one of the cheapest in the world. I think he appreciated that!

Inspite of such occasional problems they were all sure their smiles and energy convinced tourists and potential visitors alike that Hong Kong people and their hospitality are special. Nowhere else in the world has such a fascinating blend of culture reflected in its ever-changing, inspiring skyline backed by beautiful verdant countryside. The YAs are ready and willing to get that message across and the Federation will do all it can to help them.

"The Tourism Commission runs a territory-wide public education campaign called A Hospitable Hong Kong. It enhances community awareness of the contribution of tourism makes to the economy and promotes our culture of hospitality. The Hong Kong Young Ambassador Scheme is one of the projects of this campaign. It inculcates a sense of belonging among Hong Kong young people and educates them about the importance of tourism. Participants have become courteous, knowledgeable and competent Ambassadors who are proud of Hong Kong and can promote it with passion to visitors and friends alike."

The beauty myth

The message is everywhere, on buses and hoardings, in magazines and on the TV. If you are female and fat you're out. Being thin for girls is in. That may be a sound message if 30% of the population is obese as in the US. On the Mainland obesity is also a growing problem, with 155 million adults classified as overweight, 18 million of whom are clinically obese according to a study in Lancet* earlier this month. But most young Hong Kong women are enviably slim. Their average body mass index (BMI) - which assesses weight relative to height and determines body mass composition - is 20 whereas in average young western women it is 20-25 and in Americans it is 30.

Women in their late teens and early twenties think they will get neither job nor husband if they are plump. Even those who live happily married, working lives and are not overweight think that being slimmer would be nice - if only so that they have a wider choice of fashion clothes. Health education and self esteem might help change their attitudes for the better. Eating disorders affect about 1%** of all Asian women according to recent reports, whereas the figures for Europe and the US are five times as high***. The prevalence of repugnant advertising of slimming products does nothing to help reduce these figures in any part of the world.

* http://www.newstarget.com/003909.html

** www.taipeitimes.com/news/feat/archives/2005/01/02/2003217756

*** http://www.annecollins.com/eating-disorders/statistics.htm

Giving a hand

Volunteering is good for your health, say US researchers*. Not only that, it also helps you live longer. As people get older, their perception of volunteering and charity work change. In the UK, for example, volunteering is still seen by some youngsters - albeit a minority - as uncool.** They are generally not the ones who have experienced volunteering and they tend to represent disaffected or marginalized youth who have little

information about what volunteering actually involves. On the other hand, the "brand image" of volunteering is more positive in Hong Kong than in most western communities, perhaps because it forms an integral part of school life for many students.

The Federation's Youth Volunteer network, VNET, has wide and long experience of the benefits that volunteering brings its members - now numbering over 80,000 with annual service hours of approximately 500,000. These benefits fall into two distinct categories. First there are the personal rewards such as the satisfaction and fulfillment from helping others and the increase in self esteem and self confidence these bring. Then there are the contextual benefits of improved communication skills, the experience of working on community welfare projects and the incentive of certificates and awards they may gain.

Whatever the motivation, young volunteers often find that the actual experience exceeds their expectations in terms of benefits. Youth volunteering went up by 12% in the US in the 1990s, during which period teenagers volunteered 2.4 billion hours annually***. In Hong Kong between 1998 and 2003 the number of registered volunteers nearly tripled according to the Social Welfare Department and the volunteered hours went up from 3.8 million to over 11 million. The Young Ambassadors' Scheme (see elsewhere in this issue) is just one example of the popularity of voluntary service and the upward trend. May it long continue.

* www.stnews.org/archives/2004_february/altr_studies_0204.html

** www.ivr.org.uk/generationbullentin.htm

*** www.ysa.org/nysd/statistics.html

Sino-Japanese relations survey

Sino-Japanese relations are tense and the Federation conducted a telephone survey recently to discover young people's views of the matter. A total of 507 young people aged from 15 to 34 were interviewed between 18 and 20 April 2005. 93.1% of them found the recent changes in several of Japan's history textbooks unacceptable. 83% and 73.6% respectively found it difficult to accept Japan's denial of China's claim to the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands and the East China Sea submarine oil and gas fields. The survey also showed that young people were generally concerned about Sino-Japanese relations and 54.3% admitted to changed attitudes to Japan in the wake of recent events in China.

The survey also revealed that most of the young people interviewed lacked knowledge of China's foreign policy (81.5%) and its history (61.9%). A balanced view of such emotive issues as school textbooks and territorial rights is difficult without the benefit of historical insight or accurate facts. On the other hand, it is to be hoped that an agreement over disputed territory can be achieved through strategic dialogue and that our young people will eventually come to understand the position of all parties involved.