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developed within Asian settings, the 
provision of geocomputing education is 
not without problems. The following is 
an attempt to elucidate the issue. 
The problem easiest to be identified is 
money. Hong Kong's economic success 
lies in its past manufacturing and 
recent financial roles in Pacific Asia. 
High technology is still a "foreign" 
term for Hong Kong. In fact, among the 
Four Little Dragons in Asia, Hong Kong 
is the least developed in high 
technology. Therefore, both the quality 
and quantity of this development do not 
commensurate with its economic status. 
For any innovation, its initial startup 
cost is high. This is- particularly 
burdensome in the education sector. 
The money for. hardware is not an one- 
time expenditure. Maintenance cost 
should also be counted, perhaps as a 
recurrent. expenditure. Likewise, added 
towards the purchase cost of software 
are the upgrade and license renewal 
fees. In most cases, a lab for such 
setups require at least the hiring of a 
technician to take over mundane daily 
maintenace of the system. A lab 
director should devote full attention to 
management decisions and planning 
instead. Therefore, justifications of 
such heavy spending must be given for 
asking approval. Within the geography 
department route, such requests have to 
compete against other equally appealling 
ones. When budgets are tight, the 
success of getting large funds really 
hinges upon the full understanding and 
support by heads of departments. 
Another problem is the shortage of 
knowledgeable staff in geocomputing. 
Given the paucity of .local training in 
the past, people who knows about the 
technology are usually trained overseas 
and are recent holders of higher 
degrees. Scarcity plus high demand will 
likely lead to higher pay requests, thus 
inducing the cost issue again. Given 
the fact that such expertise is still in 
rising demand in North America and 
elsewhere, together with the uncertainty 
of Hong Kong's political future beyond 
the year 1997, the outflow of such 
personnel is a likely prediction. In 
terms of seniority, most of these 
personnel are junior staff, thus weaken 
their arguments and say in more 
aggressive plans. In a nutshell, the 
"humanware" issue is a greater hurdle to 
overcome. 
The third problem to face concerns with 
technology diffusion. Hong Kong's 
geographic situation is excellent for 
147 
being a trade intermediary for China and 
other southeast Asian countries. 
However, in terms of high technology, 
Hong Kong's . location is, at best, 
mediocre. Without doubt, the mecca of 
computer technology is either the United 
States or Japan. Even for Japan, Hong 
Kong is three to four hours flying time 
away. For an industry such as computer 
technology, new products appears on the 
market with great speed. Technology may 
diffuse contagiously (i.e. innovations 
are spread out faster with shorter 
distances). However, in most cases, it 
is transferred elsewhere in a hierarchi- 
cal fashion. In other words, places of 
similar development levels will have 
greater contact probabilities for new 
inventions. Therefore, the likelihood 
of quicker adoption of new products is 
greater there. Luckily, as English is 
commonly used in Hong Kong, contacts 
with the: U.S.. is. not .a. problem. 
However, distance and cost factors may 
partially constrain Hong Kong's adoption 
of the latest innovation in the shortest 
possible time. If educationists in the 
field is not fully alert on the latest 
developments across the Pacific, the lag 
problem in technology sophistication 
will persist. 
A fourth problem to tackle is the 
ambivalence of the nature of geography. 
In the long run, the excellence in 
status for geocomputing may be hurt. 
Is geography an arts, a science, or a 
social science subject? The debate has 
lingered for long. From experiences 
worldwide, geography departments have 
occupied positions in all the three 
types of faculties. Locally, - the 
department at the University of Hong 
Kong is located at the Arts Faculty. On 
the other hand, Baptist College’s and 
Chinese University's departments are 
members of the Social Sciences Faculty. 
The department at National Taiwan 
University is housed within the Science 
Faculty instead. In securing large 
funding for high technology equipment, a 
geography department located in the Arts 
Or: Social Science faculties may 
encounter problems. This is especially 
the case when top administrators are 
unaware of the dual or trine nature of 
the discipline. Thus, the fight for 
money is sometimes a long and arduous 
one. More often than not, a defensive 
position is usually taken. 
Lastly, the fate of geocomputing lies 
very much on the background of students 
enrolled in the programs. Within geo- 
graphy enrollments, the usual student 
intake comes from those who selected an