Hong Kong celebrates Commonwealth Day 2022

Since the Royal Commonwealth Society Hong Kong Branch (RCSHK) was established in 1983, RCSHK has customarily celebrated Commonwealth Day with a cocktail reception at The Hong Kong Club attended by branch members, the Commonwealth consular corps, and a diverse range of citizens and friends of the Commonwealth community in Hong Kong.

For the first time since the onset of the pandemic, due to current government regulations RCSHK took to Zoom to host a Virtual Commonwealth Day 2022 celebration in collaboration with our friends at the Commonwealth Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong (CCCHK). This was RCSHK’s inaugural virtual event, with the branch having succeeded in organising regular physical events throughout the ongoing pandemic period notwithstanding the limitations imposed by social distancing requirements.

Approximately 50 attendees representing the Commonwealth community in Hong Kong and the Asia region joined the virtual event, which was addressed by RCSHK Chairman, Mr. Peter Mann MBE, CCCHK Chairman, Ms. Julia Charlton, and RCSHK Co-Patron, Mr. Andrew Wells. The Commonwealth Affirmation was led by Peter Mann, with HM British Consul-General to Hong Kong, Mr. Brian Davidson CMG reading HM The Queen’s Commonwealth Day Message 2022. The honour of reading HM The Queen’s Commonwealth Day message rotates annually amongst the Commonwealth consuls-general in Hong Kong. Other members of the Commonwealth diplomatic corps in attendance included the consuls-general from Bangladesh, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Singapore.

The honour of proposing the Loyal Toast to HM The Queen as Head of the Commonwealth in this special year of the Platinum Jubilee fell to Mr Nicholas Tam, RCSHK Council Member and Chairman of the RCSHK Young Fellows. Attendees drank enthusiastically to the good health of HM The Queen, with many looking forward to the Platinum Jubilee Dinner scheduled for Thursday 2 June 2022 at The Hong Kong Club.

The event concluded with a Commonwealth Quiz hosted by Nicholas Tam, which tested participants on their knowledge of the Commonwealth. Split into two rounds of twelve questions, participants demonstrated their knowledge of (or otherwise learned) a series of fun facts about the Commonwealth, including the following:

• Singapore is the Commonwealth country with the highest GDP per capita;

• Tuvalu has the smallest population of any Commonwealth country;

• ‘Nollywood’, as Nigeria’s movie industry is known, is larger than Hollywood and second only to India’s Bollywood for number of movies produced;

• The Commonwealth is home to 33% of the global population;

• Lawn Bowls is played at the Commonwealth Games, but not the Olympics;

• Botswana is the Commonwealth’s largest diamond producer (by carats), and second globally (behind Russia)

• French, Mandarin, and Portuguese are all official languages of at least one Commonwealth country

• Each $1 spent by the host city of the Commonwealth Games generates $2 for the local economy

Congratulations to Keith Jones, David Keating, Shanling Wells, Tony Lau, Victor Hui and Hari Om Dahiya for ranking among the top scorers. Each will receive one bottle of Commonwealth wine as a prize, kindly sponsored by The Honourable Jeffrey Lam GBS JP, Honorary Advisor to CCCHK.

Author

Nicholas Tam is Council Member and Young Fellows Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society Hong Kong Branch. He is qualified to practise law in Australia, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, and relocated from Australia to Hong Kong in 2013.

Find out more about the RCS Hong Kong Branch: http://rcshk.com/