HONG KONG - A decade after Hong Kong returned to China's control, the steamy tropical air of this money-churning enclave has grown more polluted. Residents exercise outdoors at their peril, and during the latest spring marathon, thousands of runners were left gasping for medical treatment.
On city streets, the singsong-y Mandarin Chinese spoken by millions of visitors from the mainland is intruding now on the guttural local Cantonese dialect.
But in most other regards, it's business as usual, and in some ways it's better than ever. Hong Kong's economy is firing on all cylinders, churning out new millionaires and even billionaires.
Last month, with the stock market listing of a leading footwear company, Belle International, two people joined Hong Kong's list of 21 billionaires. Some 67,000 people - 1 in about every 100 - are millionaires.
Its stock market sells more shares of newly listed companies than the New York Stock Exchange. Workers keep erecting impossibly tall buildings along Hong Kong harbor.
Most experts agree that China has largely stuck to its "hands off" pledge for the former British colony, allowing the territory to retain its separate laws, currency and way of life.
Before the 1997 hand-over, uncertainty gripped the territory, sparking an exodus of hundreds of thousands of residents. Fortune magazine forecast "The Death of Hong Kong" on its cover. Yet questions about the city's vitality slowly dissipated.
More
