Living on the edge

As well as the UK, my recent trip took me to Prague for several days. Prague is amazing - simply one of the world's most beautiful cities anywhere. Many cities have attractive old centres, from Stockholm to Nara (and not forgetting our near neighbour Macau), but nowhere else have I seen such a massive concentration of beautifully preserved historic buildings over so large an area. Every corner you turn brings you to another architectural gem, some Gothic but most baroque in style.


The city has a lot more to offer visitors than just great architecture: numerous classical concerts every day; an array of museums varying from the xublime (Mozart Museum) to the ridiculous (Museum of Sex Machines), from the educational (Museum of Communism) to the disgusting (Museum of Mediaeval Torture Devices); some good restaurants; and of course, some of the world's finest beer, from the people who invented pilsner.

One thing I found interesting was that, being British, I had grown up during the Cold War thinking of everything east of the former Iron Curtain as "Eastern Europe", and therefore out of the mainstream of European life. The Czechs, however, do not view themselves as East Europeans at all, but as living in Middle Europe, at the very heart of European civilisation - which, both geographically and historically, they are:



Now, apart from being an interesting study in varying perceptions, what significance does this have to us here in Hong Kong? Only that, while we see ourselves as being in a pivotal position within the dynamic Asia Pacific Region, from the perspective of Beijing, far to the north, we probably appear to be way out on the southern fringes, and therefore relatively unimportant in the greater scheme of things.