It’s rare to have something so momentous to write about that I’m almost at a loss for words. I mean, where do I start? I guess I need to focus on my experience here in Hong Kong, since that’s what this blog is supposed to be about. So here goes…
Yesterday morning I woke with a start a little after 5 am. I needed to be at Election Central at the Hong Kong Club on Chater Road by 6:30 AM, but I couldn’t sleep any longer anyway. All signs pointed to an Obama victory, but still I was nervous. I kept trying to imagine it – a president named Barak Obama. An African American family in the White House. A man of eloquence, intelligence and vision leading our country. Little kids playing on the white house lawn! I shook my head, jumped in the shower, and got dressed.
I’d been so nervous about today for so long. For months my kids had been saying “relax mom, he’s going to win!” but they didn’t know, couldn’t remember. They didn’t experience Kennedy, or his death. They weren’t alive for Dr. King’s March on Washington, didn’t stand there amazed as his I Have a Dream speech played over the radio. They didn’t see Dr. King get shot, and then Bobby Kennedy as well. They didn’t watch the 1968 Democratic Convention on TV when Walter Cronkite railed about “Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago” and the tear gas wafted over the convention floor. They didn’t vote in their first election for McGovern…I guess I could go on!
Election Central in Hong Kong is run by the American Women’s Association, The Hong Kong Chapter of the League of Women Voters, The American Chamber of Commerce, the US Consulate, Democrats Abroad, and Republicans Abroad. It’s a place for Americans and their friends to gather and watch the election returns. It runs from 7 AM to 2 PM Wednesday morning because that’s Tuesday night in the US. My friends that had been here a long time said it was great fun, even if your candidate lost. I had trouble imagining that I would be having much fun if things didn’t go our way.
The venue was very, very crowded, right from the start. There must have been hundreds of people there most of the morning. The crowd was frankly pretty partisan. As Obama took state after state, loud cheers and applause would ring out. When he took Pennsylvania with room to spare my spirits soared. When Ohio went for Obama an analyst for CNN was asked if there was any way McCain could still win and basically at that point he said “no”.
But nobody left. We stayed to hear Obama declared the winner. We stayed to listen and applaud John McCain’s very gracious concession speech. I’ve always like John McCain. In earlier years I’ve said he was one Republican I would consider voting for. I think he was ill-used by his party, and sacrificed in a year that was almost impossible for a Republican to win.. But that’s over now…
And then Obama spoke. There was one line in his speech, about the chance to grab the “arc of history and bend it in a new direction” that really resonated with me. What a joy it will be to listen to a president make speeches that one day our children’s children will memorize. How lucky we are to be alive at this moment in history!
Finally it was time to go. I was exhausted, emotionally drained. Driving home in a taxi, listening to the usual Cantonese babble on the radio, all I could here was “….Obama…..Obama….Obama…”.
This morning headlines 2 inches high graced the front page of the South China Morning Post, and Obama’s picture filled the center. While walking down the hill to Bowen Road, I passed some helpers walking their employer’s dogs. They were speaking Tagalog, but the topic was clear: “….Obama….”!
I think this election belongs to my children’s generation. They volunteered; they worked phone banks, knocked on doors. My daughter got up early Election Day and made sure the people in her neighborhood knew where to vote and that they could vote in Minnesota even if they hadn’t registered yet. He really was their candidate.
There is another way Obama belongs to their generation. They are truly colorblind, in a way that my generation would LIKE to be, but isn’t. We are friends with African Americans, but we’re aware of their color as they are aware of ours. Our kids don’t know what the big deal is. They have friends of different races and difference ethnicities and “so what?” they ask us. So what.
When Sarah was very small we went to lunch at McDonalds one day. As we sat there eating our hamburgers an elderly black man was working, clearing off the tables and cleaning up the trash. Sarah observed him. “Mama, dats a man” she piped up clearly. “Yes Sarah, that’s a man”. “Mama, dats a BROWN man” she continued. “Hush Sarah, eat your hamburger” we replied, embarrassed. What would the man think? “Mama, dat man Cosby?” At that the man laughed and so did we, and all was well. No he wasn’t Cosby, but Bill Cosby came into our living room every week. A brown man cleaned the tables at McDonalds. It was no big deal. But now a brown man will be in the white house and it IS a big deal. And yet in a way, by the virtue of this event, it paves the way for it someday to be no big deal at all. Barak Obama will be the first black president, but he won’t be the last. Someday a woman will hold the office, and a Jew, and yes, even a Muslim. And what of it? That’s the promise of America and the thing that makes it a joy and a privilege, and yes, a burden, to be an American. We all are grabbing the arc of history at this point and bending it in a new direction. It’s a historic day indeed.
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