When it comes to proper table manners and social cues, there are endless questions that one could get lost in — Which fork should I use? How long should I maintain eye contact? When should I end a conversation? What should I do if I forget someone’s name?

For Sara Jane Ho, internationally-renowned etiquette expert and host of the Daytime Emmy-nominated Netflix series Mind Your Manners (2022), answering these questions has become her life’s mission.

Speaking with President Lee Williamson at an FCC dinnertime talk to promote her new book Mind Your Manners: An Insider’s Guide to Social Fluency (2024), Sara Jane first clarified what is and is not etiquette. In her eyes, it most certainly has nothing to do with whichever fork someone uses.

“For me, etiquette is really about making other people around you feel at ease, which is what makes you feel comfortable with them. That goes back to what makes us human beings: a sense of belonging and inclusion,” she explained.

Sara Jane’s awareness of social norms and our human desire to connect with one another started in childhood. Her mother, a typical Hong Kong “Tiger Mom,” often held lively gatherings for family and friends and set the example for what a good host should be — and made sure young Sara Jane refilled everyone’s teacup.

From her father, she received more straightforward advice: “The world is your playground. Go explore.”

“My parents really encouraged me to follow my passions and that as long as you have a passion and you work very hard, you can pretty much achieve whatever you want,” she said.

Sara Jane went on to study English Literature at Georgetown University despite her family’s perception that her English-speaking skills were already good enough. But during the final year of her studies, her mother passed away from cancer and the spirit of regularly hosting guests at their home had gone with her.

“Holidays were particularly painful because it was a stark reminder of what I had lost,” she recalled.

After graduating from Harvard Business School in 2012, she decided to combine her goal of passing on her mother’s legacy with a unique market need in mainland China: social skills for a society that has modernized rapidly since the economic reforms of 1978 without the knowledge to navigate through their new, prosperous world.

Sara Jane moved to Beijing in 2013 and shortly thereafter opened up China’s first-ever finishing school, Institute Sarita. The school focused on teaching not younger, but older women the basics of everyday etiquette.

So how should people carry themselves at work, with family and friends, in romantic relationships, or the various other “microcultures” that Sara Jane dives into throughout her new book? The first step is observation — looking around at what people in these different environments say and do, what they wear, and then slowly adapting oneself to cultivate the “feeling of belonging” she described early on in the talk.

When it comes to making and breaking conversation, Sara Jane also offered some practical tips. Introducing another person to a rather dull speaker serves as a handy way of excusing oneself from the conversation, while asking open-ended questions about a person’s life easily shows someone that you’re interested in them — even if you actually might not be.  

“I like to see each person as a flower bulb and through conversation, you let them blossom,” she said, and added later that, “When you show interest in somebody, they will think that you like them and when they think you like them, they will like you back.”

Smiling and a sense of humor are also two of Sara Jane’s secret weapons to defusing potentially awkward situations.

“I don’t like to take things too seriously. I always feel like you learn the most when you’re having fun,” she said when describing a dirty joke that astonishingly made its way onto the very first episode of her Netflix series.

The joke, while risky, was instantly defused by a smile she flashed seconds later, a subtle acknowledgment to her audience that she wants them to have fun with her as well.

Sara Jane then admitted that she uses her signature smile — often coupled with her self-described “superpower” of raising either one of her eyebrows individually — in any situation where she doesn’t know how to immediately respond. Some of these situations include not understanding what someone has said or, quite conversely, being utterly shocked by what someone has said.

“I call [smiling] the Swiss Army Knife of responses — people can interpret it in any way they want,” she summarized.

Sara Jane also elaborated on the article by The New York Times that highlighted her text message breakup. To the surprise of Lee Williamson and the rest of the attendees, she revealed that the aforementioned ex-boyfriend is an FCC member!

“It’s a shame he didn’t sign up [for] tonight!” she exclaimed.

While beginning filming for her Netflix series, Sara Jane found herself at odds with a career that brought her joy and a relationship that did not. She decided that a text would be the quickest and easiest way to move on with her life, but uses this experience to also highlight the fact that despite being an etiquette expert, she’s still not perfect.

Hosting her talk at the FCC didn’t faze her either. Sara Jane actually welcomed the idea of potentially running into her ex and explained that she would still be quite cordial and interested to see what he had been up to since their breakup.

“Honestly, I would treat him as though he were a long-lost cousin because that’s how I feel about him — he’s like some distant relative. I’d actually be very happy to see him, and I’d say, ‘I’m so happy to see you. How are you? I hope you’re well.’”

Learn more about Sara Jane’s life and her social fluency tips by watching the full discussion on the FCC’s YouTube channel:

Hong Kong, despite its well-established reputation as a global finance center, fell on the Hang Seng Index for the fourth year in a row in 2023, and also fell just behind its regional competitor Singapore in the 2023 Global Financial Centres Index.

In parallel, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange dropped to tenth place in global IPO rankings in the first quarter of 2024. Some financial experts remain optimistic, while others doubt that new capital markets and investments will be enough to improve the city’s financial future.

To discuss potential solutions to the city’s market issues, the FCC held a panel discussion in early June with Dr. Renu Bhatia, Arnold Ip, Stacey Wong, and Professional Committee Member Richard Winter.

Winter, Senior Advisor of Quam Plus International Finance Limited, opened the discussion by sharing a few positive facts about Hong Kong’s economy.

“We’re very fortunate to be part of China,” he began. “China’s got a growth rate of 5%, which is one of the tops amongst major economies. Hong Kong itself last year grew by 3.3% and this year it’ll be between 2.5-3.5%.”

These statistics have also been widely shared by the Hong Kong government as a testament to the perseverance of the local and mainland economies.

Winter continued, adding that Hong Kong is in a prime location within China’s Greater Bay Area (GBA) with a GDP of 14 trillion RMB — making the region economically equivalent to Italy and Canada.

The GBA also includes Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, and Macau — Hong Kong’s neighboring SAR.

Stacey Wong, COO of Quam Plus, also shared an overview of Hong Kong’s financial status, albeit from a critical standpoint. He pointed out the decline in daily turnover from HK$166 billion in 2021 to HK$105 billion in 2023, as well as Hong Kong’s 18% drop in the 2023 Hang Seng Index. Other competitive markets, he mentioned, all increased over the same time period.

Despite these disturbing facts, Wong said that the government’s new measures that were announced in the first quarter of 2024 gave “some hope” to the industry, primarily the April 18th announcement that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange will increase their ties with mainland China’s economy.

Just the next day after this announcement, Hong Kong rebounded by 16,400 points on the Hang Seng Index.

“We are seeing more hope, we are seeing the brighter side of things, but we are still way off our heyday. It’s not enough,” Wong summarized.

On the note of Hong Kong’s “heyday,” Arnold Ip countered the idea of looking backwards, noting that what the city used to do might not be the best solution anymore.

“The market keeps changing,” Ip reminded the panel. “First of all, we have got to recognize that things will keep changing. What we were doing in Hong Kong’s heyday won’t be what we will be doing in 5 years time or 10 years time. It will be very different.”

The fact that more attention has been brought to Hong Kong’s capital market is what Ip finds to be another positive aspect to this situation.

“Everyone is getting together to talk about this subject. This is encouraging,” he added.

The panel also discussed the initial requirements for companies, particularly “pre-revenue” biotech companies that need government and private funding and wish to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

As research and development companies, the panelists — especially Dr. Bhatia — believe that given their unique situation, a separate set of listing requirements should be made for them to make it onto the Main Board.

“This, I think, is a true recognition of the fact that economies are evolving,” she said.

“With the new companies coming through, we need to have a listing regime that allows them to potentially list here without necessarily meeting the same kind of requirements that were initially for the Main Board.”

Circling back to Winter’s initial point that Hong Kong benefits from its close linkage to the mainland economy, Wong admitted that while it is helpful we shouldn’t ignore the geopolitics that also impact the local economy’s performance. To him, Hong Kong should also explore other market links to better its chances of improving.

“We all know that the Chinese economy is not going to come back very soon. The Sino-US geopolitical tension will still continue for a couple of years. So, I believe we need to look at new products,” Wong concluded.

Watch the full talk on our YouTube channel below:

Early this year, Yale economist and former longtime Hong Kong resident Stephen Roach wrote an opinion piece in the Financial Times that became the talk of the town, thanks in no small part to its headline: “It pains me to say Hong Kong is over.” This month, he stirred up discussion again when he appeared at the FCC to expand on his dire prediction for Hong Kong’s economic future.

Roach, the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, says his argument is based on three factors: Hong Kong’s tight links to mainland China’s sputtering economy, worsening U.S.-China relations that have caught Hong Kong in the crossfire, and the erosion of Hong Kong’s political autonomy under the Beijing-imposed national security law as well as the recently enacted local version.

“What’s really over?” he said at a fully-booked FCC Club Lunch hosted by Correspondent Governor Jennifer Jett. “What’s over, in my opinion, is the imagery that many still cling to in looking to the future of a prideful city — Asia’s world city, Milton Friedman’s favorite free market.”

“The Hong Kong of old is not the Hong Kong of today, and especially not the Hong Kong of tomorrow. The title of my article was intended as a wake-up call, an appeal for you in Hong Kong to come to grips with this seemingly harsh realization.”

Though Hong Kong’s defenders point to the city’s remarkable resilience in the face of challenging times such as the Asian financial crisis, the 1997 handover and the SARS epidemic, in Roach’s view “this time is different.”

“Without a rebound in the mainland Chinese economy, Hong Kong is unlikely to spring back to life on its own,” he said. “That’s because the linkages between the PRC and Hong Kong economies have become tighter than ever.”

Roach emphasized that he was not trying to be political but analytical, invoking Mao Zedong’s hallmark slogan to “seek truth from facts.” He urged the audience to take similarly “analytically-grounded, empirically-supported views.”

Roach said Hong Kong’s problems will get worse if left unaddressed, and that past solutions no longer suffice.

“The very real struggles of Hong Kong are not about to vanish into thin air. Like it or not, Hong Kong’s dynamism, its energy, and its independence are now in flux,” he said.

“You cannot afford to take your city’s seemingly innate resilience for granted. That’s what is over.”

Just as with his Financial Times article and a follow-up piece in The South China Morning Post, government officials and others strongly pushed back against Roach’s comments at the FCC.

In a 1,500-word statement that did not mention Roach by name, the HKSAR government said that “some individuals” had made comments on Hong Kong’s economy that overlooked the city’s advantages and “positive development momentum.”

Despite a complicated external environment, the statement said, the Hong Kong and mainland Chinese economies are growing at a faster pace than some developed economies. Hong Kong’s GDP grew 3.3% in 2023 and 2.7% in the first quarter of this year, it noted, and is projected to grow between 2.5% and 3.5% for 2024 overall.

Roach, who told The South China Morning Post that the government’s statement suggested a “worrisome sense of denial,” also cited economic growth figures in his remarks at the FCC. But he put them in broader context, noting that Hong Kong’s economic growth has decelerated in tandem with that of mainland China.

“Over the past 12 years, 2012 to 2023, the Chinese economy grew by an average of 6.3% annually; that was a 3.7-percentage-point deceleration from the spectacular 10% pace of the preceding 32 years from 1980 to 2011,” Roach explained.

“Spoiler alert: Growth in the Hong Kong economy has also decelerated by 3.7 percentage points, slowing from a 5.1% pace over 1980 to 2011 to just 1.4% from 2012 to 2023.”

That makes sense, Roach said, given increased cross-border integration.

“The Hong Kong economy has effectively been swallowed up by the mainland economy — hook, line, and sinker,” he said.

Executive Council Convenor Regina Ip also publicly criticized Roach’s FCC speech, saying in an opinion piece published by Hong Kong Free Press that Roach is no “prophet of Hong Kong.”

“It is true that Hong Kong is facing some tough economic headwinds because of geopolitical uncertainty and structural problems,” she wrote. “But its future is bright, because Hong Kong is working hard to restructure its economy.”

Ip also emphasized Hong Kong’s integration with the Greater Bay Area as a key driver of the local economy, adding that, “With strong support from mainland China, Hong Kong will never lack the resources we need to enhance our talent pool and technological capabilities.”

That reliance on China is exactly what puts Hong Kong in such a precarious position, Roach said, adding that he hoped the questions he was raising would make “good trouble” for a city he will always love.

“With China unlikely to regain its once powerful economic momentum, Hong Kong seems quite likely to follow suit,” he said. “With the case for Hong Kong’s resilience now made in China, we need to peer into the future through a very different lens.”

Watch the full talk on our YouTube channel below:

This Club Lunch is also available as our latest episode of The Correspondent, the FCC’s own podcast. Catch up with the lunchtime talk that became the talk of the town — from government press releases to Chinese and English-language opinion pieces:

Multi-colored face masks. Only two people at a table before 6pm — no one afterwards. Scanning the “LeaveHomeSafe” app before entering restaurants and other public areas. Empty airports and fully booked quarantine hotels. Newborn babies torn from their mothers in the delivery room. Elderly patients dying on stretchers outside overflowing hospitals. Penny’s Bay.

These scenes from the COVID-19 pandemic that stalled daily life in Hong Kong for more than three years may seem as if they’re from a lifetime ago, but as FCC member and author Kate Whitehead reminds us, it was only last March when Hong Kong residents could go outside without wearing masks for the first time in 945 days. Though pandemic restrictions have been lifted, the mental health issues they caused have lingered, and in many cases gotten worse.

As a journalist and licensed psychotherapist, Whitehead said she thought it was important to document how the pandemic affected mental health in Hong Kong instead of simply forgetting about it now that life has moved on. Last year, she spent six months interviewing people from all walks of life for her new book Pandemic Minds: COVID-19 and Mental Health in Hong Kong (Hong Kong University Press). At an FCC Club Lunch shortly after the book’s publication in May, Whitehead told First Vice President Jennifer Jett about her writing process as well as coping techniques to promote mental well-being during challenging times.

“Half the book is made up of first-person accounts of the pandemic, and I wanted to get all those stories when people still remembered all the details of it,” Whitehead said.

In the process of interviewing and writing, she met all kinds of people — rich, poor, local, expat, young, old — who were willing to share their stories. While many of them chose to use pseudonyms, Whitehead found all of their anecdotes useful in giving a comprehensive view of mental health in pandemic-era Hong Kong.

“It’s good to share your story… If you identify with an element in a story, it just makes you feel like, ‘OK, I’m not alone,’ right? And then that might empower you to share your story with someone else. These kinds of sharing of stories and talking about it — that is what breaks down stigma,” she explained.

One of the key takeaways from her interviews and writing process was how people in Hong Kong dealt with the uncertainty that the pandemic brought, which Whitehead finds to be crucial in maintaining good mental health.

“There is always going to be uncertainty, so you’ve just got to accept [it]. First of all, look at the situation and go, ‘Well, there are certain things that I can’t change and I’m just going to have to accept them. Certain things are out of my control,’” she said.

Whitehead also included tips and “grounding exercises” in each chapter to help readers deal with stressful scenarios in their daily lives — pandemic or not.

Pandemic Minds also includes what Whitehead described as “happy chapters” that highlight some of the positive aspects of the pandemic, including how Hong Kong built new communities and individuals triumphed over difficult circumstances. One of these happy chapters explores the healing power of nature and the local hiking boom that was born from gym closures and residents’ desire to get out of the house.

Another “silver lining” of the pandemic is that it raised awareness about mental health in Hong Kong that is based on shared experience, and made these issues easier to talk about.

“So many of us — whether it was us personally or someone close to us — [were] going through something. I think it’s a silver lining that we talk about it now,” Whitehead said.

It’s important to have these discussions about mental health, she said, so that Hong Kong can be better prepared for similar situations in the future.

“If we’re planning for when there’s going to be another pandemic — it’s on the cards, it’s not a matter of if, it’s when — let’s learn from what happened,” Whitehead said.

“We really need to learn from this pandemic to make the next one less stressful.”

Watch the full talk on our YouTube channel below:

Mongolia, a landlocked country between authoritarian superpowers Russia and China, doesn’t make international headlines nearly as much as its Asian counterparts. Despite this, journalists like Johan Nylander have set out to learn more about how Mongolia’s democratic efforts impact the region and the rest of the world.

“There’s so many fascinating things about this country, it’s such a beautiful place,” Nylander began. “Very friendly people, amazing history, a lot of interesting things happening at the moment.”

Speaking at the FCC with First Vice President Jennifer Jett, Nylander outlined his process for writing The Wolf Economy Awakens: Mongolia’s Fight for Democracy, and a Green and Digital Future. The book began with Nylander’s genuine interest in the country combined with the realisation that not many people knew anything about Mongolia.

“A lot of people in the world, they don’t know almost anything about the country, like a lot of people don’t even know it exists,” he said.

Nylander spent a year traveling from Hong Kong to Mongolia after the COVID-19 pandemic, interacting with everyone from politicians to the average pedestrian who were all motivated to tell their stories. For his FCC talk, he focused primarily on Mongolia’s diplomatic relations and economy.

Neutral Mongolia has earned the nickname “the Switzerland of Asia” by gathering nations without official ties for formal discussions. This particularly comes into play with the yearly Ulaanbaatar Dialogue, which since the 1980s has become a unique forum where conflicting nations (primarily North and South Korea) can meet.

Mongolia was also the initial location for former US President Donald Trump to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for denuclearization talks in 2018, but the meeting was eventually moved to Singapore.

Mongolia’s economy is unique due to being primarily driven by the coal industry, giving the country another nickname: Mine-golia. In fact, around 5-6% of Mongolia’s GDP comes from coal, which Nylander explained is both a good and bad thing. Good in that Mongolia has become quite valuable to its Northeast Asian neighbors, but bad due to more resources leading to more issues in democracy and human rights.

Referencing the 2022 protests against Mongolia’s alleged “coal mafia” that has shaped the country’s economic development while excluding citizens’ social development, Nylander explained how serious Mongolia is about free speech. Mass protests are actually a common sight in the Mongolian capital and while non-violent, they are quite effective in changing the country for better.

Even when current politicians come into the public crosshairs, like current Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrain who was once a passionate protester himself, there is a mutual respect and understanding for the mission that protesters are trying to achieve for the country.

“Those are the best people,” Luvsannamsrain said when describing his critics.

Nylander then went on to highlight how the younger generations are using technology to innovate life in Mongolia, which the rest of the world could learn from. He first described e-Mongolia, an all-in-one app in which citizens can access all government services, including new passports, driver’s licenses, hospital appointments, and more.

“Wouldn’t that be great? Like, everything in one app?” Nylander said while noting that other nations that are regarded as “more developed” don’t have such an app.

When asked about other initiatives spearheaded by Mongolia’s youth, Nylander also mentioned green startups that aim to offset the environmental damage that such a large coal industry can produce. URECA is one of those startups that helps families, particularly in rural areas, transition from coal to solar power through a credit system that makes the infrastructure upgrade more affordable.

Just like the e-Mongolia app, Nylander also finds this type of technology impactful yet unparalleled in the rest of the world, and believes that more countries can adopt similar projects to combat transnational issues.

“Tech startups are the best when they can solve a local problem that also can solve a global problem,” Nylander concluded.

Watch the full talk on our YouTube channel below: