Hong Kong is an international trade and finance centre situated on the southern coast of China, offering a unique blend of Western culture and Chinese tradition. With a largely private primary health care system, psychiatric services here have been predominately hospital centred. Following the 1992 Government Review of Rehabilitation Program Plan (Secretary of Health and Welfare, Hong Kong, 1992) development of community-based services has become the major local issue. Psychogeriatrics is the first sub-speciality to have achieved major progress in this area. Such a development illustrates how local psychiatrists faced the challenge of applying Western models to suit an Oriental population with a different socio-cultural value system.