Do we really want cleanliness at any cost?

(From South China Morning Post)

Byline: Anthony Lawrance

Is it just my perception, or are we taking seriously the notion that Singapore is the model for our cleaner, brighter post-Sars future? Let's see: we have had a bad scare with Sars, and now we are ready to exchange our labradors for chihuahuas to fit the proportions of our apartments, we will accept plainclothes officials spying on us to enforce tough new hygiene standards and we are no longer going to urinate in public places.

This doesn't sound quite right. I always thought that one of the major reasons Hong Kong had a problem with hygiene standards in the past was that residents accepted that it was a price to pay for living in a freewheeling city. No one here that I know has ever slagged off Singapore for its cleanliness. But if pushed to make a choice between clean streets and free spirits, the latter has always come out streets ahead among people I talk to.

That could well be changing. Over the past decade in Hong Kong and Taiwan I have never seen such yearning as there is now to follow the Lee Kuan Yew path to enlightenment. Previously, a year could not go by without an official, fresh off the plane from a trip to the Lion City, sighing to reporters, "If only we could be more like Singapore". But then they always had to go back to the office and face reality: developed-nation cleanliness is incredibly hard to achieve in societies undergoing such rapid change.

Now, however, they have the chance to do something about it. This points system cooked up by Team Clean could be very effective in raising hygiene standards across Hong Kong. It could also end up turning Hong Kong over to control freaks.

Just listen to what legislator Michael Mak Kwok-fung suggested to hygiene authorities on Friday. One way the government could stop people from drying clothes in public areas, he said, "would be to simply confiscate the clothes" without confronting their owners. Come again? If my socks were to disappear mysteriously from the balcony when my back was turned, the first thing I would do is march next door and smack my neighbour (who I know has been coveting those socks ever since the last Big Sale at Marks & Spencer.) Think what that would do for community spirit-building.