Grenada (Aug 4)
Honorary Consulate of Grenada 🇬🇩
Location: Suite 707, 7/F, New World Tower I, 16-18 Queen’s Road Central, Central, Hong Kong
Hey everyone, this consulate review might be a little different from our usual posts. Entering New World Tower, we didn’t expect the small country of Grenada’s consulate to be terribly unique, however, after spending a few minutes with Dr. Johnny Hon, Baron of Houston, MH, SHOSJ, B.Sc. (Hons), M.A., Ph.D. (Cantab), ACSI, MIoD, MBPsS, FHKIoD, SF.SERA, the Honorary Consul, we realized that we were mistaken.
As we sat and waited for Dr. Hon to finish a zoom meeting, two very kind consular staff members offered to give us a little background on Grenada before he finished. Grenada is a small Caribbean nation of 112,000, with many beautiful beaches and resorts. While a small population, there are still some people with Grenadian citizenship in Hong Kong, most of which are ethnic Chinese who gained their citizenship by investment, a common policy in smaller Caribbean nations.
After this brief introduction, we met Dr. Hon, the well-traveled Honorary Consul of Grenada. He holds government positions from 4 different governments, has received numerous awards, runs a successful venture capital business, and is a movie producer. Dr. Hon told us that he had been the Grenadian Honorary Consul since 2006, after he had helped Grenada develop relations with China when Grenada decided to recognize the PRC instead of Taiwan. We also learned that while Grenada doesn’t have much trade in Hong Kong, the consulate has been working to attract further investment to the country, as well as tourists to visit the country's beautiful beaches.
Asking more about his background, we were interested to see how Dr. Hon had received so many awards from around the world, including the International Kim Il Sung prize. Dr. Hon heavily emphasized the importance of networking in this day and age, especially through face-to-face meetings. After university, he personally had traveled around the world to many countries, finding opportunities, making connections, and helping out in different communities when he can.
One of the more important things that Dr. Hon stressed was how he believed social media was making the world more extreme politically, and making people less open to talk. He told us that you should understand what different sides are saying, go explore the topic for yourself, so you can form your own opinions instead of listening to others. While politically, people may be enemies, on a personal level you can still be friends. An example of this is when Dr. Hon visited the DPRK with Hyundai, as part of the Sunshine policy, and got to further understand each Korea’s side of the story. He even took it further as to receive a degree in Korean studies as he was very interested in the subject. In this day and age we should encourage dialogues between people and bridge our differences, something which very much resonated for us given this project. He also told us that political conflict often leads to fear and defensive measures in people, and this is something we need to overcome through speaking and dialogue.
Another interesting point that Dr. Hon made was that while Hong Kong is an international city, he believes many people don’t have an international mindset. He told us that Hongkongers don’t know much about the rest of the world, and often shut themselves off from other countries. Dr. Hon told us that in places like Comoros, South Sudan, there are still many opportunities and connections you can make, and it pays dividends if you try and visit. One reason for this was because he believes young people don't have a lot confidence, as they don’t want to make mistakes. A crucial life characteristic is self-confidence, and he told us all the successful people he met are so confident in their abilities that they aren’t afraid to spill information about their businesses/business opportunities. He said with confidence and the internet, people can do anything, there aren’t any excuses, you just have to be able to ask the right questions.
Regarding Hong Kong’s future, Dr. Hon told us that he believes the future is bright, albeit not guaranteed. He believes that while many Hongkongers want change, he asks them to think about the amount of change they want to achieve in such a short time, and how fighting simply divides and creates a reactive force.
Following these profound words, we both the consulate genuinely moved by the advice Dr. Hon gave. While we can’t do his words and stories justice, we definitely feel like we learned a lot about ourselves, and hopefully we can share it with you guys. The way he spoke with his background in psychiatry, it was honestly inspiring speaking to him about how he lives, how curiosity runs his life, and how connections allow him to be successful. Talking to him, it reaffirmed a lot of the goals about why we do Consulate Review HK. We thank him and his staff for their time, and we encourage you all to visit Grenada sometime in the future!