Like many small nations, Hong Kong was gained by warfare. The British enslaved her, sliced her up and kept her as a tax haven, a virtual slave state and a part of its dead empire for all too long. It hesitated, until a few years ago, to give its people even a semblance of democracy. It's a long story, and too sad to lay out here. But, in a sense, even the most ardent Anglophiles in Hong Kong are inwardly celebrating the departure of Queen Elizabeth's minions, happy to be once again part of the motherland, but fearful of what's to come. Britain should have set her independently free long ago.

A great and silly outcry from hypocrite nations meets the Chinese soldiers -- all 4,000 of them -- due to march into Hong Kong this day. Even our Secretary of State decries this "show of strength" as if we had never occupied our conquests, never marched into cities once held by the enemy. The British themselves kept this tiny territory under rigid watch. And so do the godfathers in Beijing -- anxious to quell any disturbance that could embarrass them.

But my farewell is not about politics today. It's about a magical place that fueled my imagination, teased my adventurousness and propelled me in a hundred new directions and imprinted itself on my soul.

I first traveled to Hong Kong in 1981. I had never even seen a picture of the city. I was stunned as the great Pan Am 747 swept over Repulse Bay approaching Kowloon from behind and revealing a skyline as awesome and surprising as Manhattan. The plane seemed to touch the office towers that, even then, reached the clouds. Here, in the middle of nowhere, stood a monument to capitalism so extreme as to take one's breath away.

I was swept into that world within hours. Swept up by Daimler limos through the tunnel to the Hong Kong Island. Swept down into the cool interiors of the Mandarin Hotel. Swept around into the offices of my solicitors who, over the years, formed my companies and counseled my staff over tea and thousand dollar luncheons. Bowled over by quality and genteelism, it was only later -- as I searched for a home in Hong Kong -- that I realized the average Chinese was no better off than the mainland peasant, who night after night tried to steal into Hong Kong for the opportunity to work in sweat shops owned by foreigners and corrupted Chinese who made the place "work" for the British, German and American interlopers like me.

What gave me my first clue was this: I was taken to a house, at the beach on Repulse Bay. It was an extraordinary place. Fifty foot high glass walls, protected by electric monsoon shutters guarding its Brancussi interiors and giving way to 5,000 square feet of opulence. The attorney representing the sellers -- two doctors moving to London -- led me through the kitchens, marble baths and four car garage. Off the garage I noticed a room -- perhaps 10 by 15 feet in dimension.

Along its walls, the room had what could be best described as shelves about 5 feet long and 3 feet wide. There were five or six of them. They were empty. I asked what this room was for. The attorney turned, looked through me, and replied "Why, this is the servants quarters sir. You know, where the amahs sleep."

And so it was, all over Hong Kong. A place where the rich were more privileged than Sultans and the poor more beset than sharecroppers. It was a place of extremes. My thought to use some bedrooms for the household staff were met with guarded sneers.

Later that afternoon I had an appointment with a photographer from the region's largest daily newspaper. They were doing a feature on me because, over the years, I had gained a reputation as being bullish on Hong Kong investment at a time when others were planning to flee. The reporter asked me to what I attributed my success.

"Luck," I replied, " and the intelligence to identify a deal."

I canceled my interest in the Repulse Bay house that day. And for years after I would sit quietly in the Lobby Lounge of the Regent Hotel, talking with average Chinese. I could see their anger toward the British. I could sense their hope that the coming takeover by China might deliver the a new kind of justice.

Torn between the oppressed and the oppressors I visited the city less frequently. I corresponded with my "room boy" at the Regent -- trying to help his parents obtain permission to come to New York. I had become a quiet liberator.

The moral of this story is simple confusion. I do know that the British leave-taking is no cause for weeping. But I don't know what will happen under Bejingesque influence.

So, good luck, my friends on Kowloon Bay. Good luck to you all, the users and the used. Perhaps, as my heart and mind tell me, you won't notice much of a difference. After all, the only change might be the color of the brass ring. You know, the one you're always just millimeters from grasping.

© 1998, 1997, American Politics Journal Publications Inc.