The Lion Rock Spirit Lives

 

The picture shows a group of people who rushed to lift the taxi that crashed in Taipo yesterday (at a spot where I've crossed the road hundreds of times) to free victims trapped underneath.

This is far from the first such case in Hong Kong.  Years ago I helped to lift a car that knocked down a young boy in North Point.  Meanwhile it has been widely reported that in mainland China, most people will steer well clear of helping accident (or worse) victims rather than get involved in potentially messy consequences.  

There would be scope for an interesting master's thesis on why mutual aid thrives in a supposedly competitive capitalist society while being conspicuously absent in a supposedly collectivist one.  Suffice it to say here that "one country, two systems" is not just about politica and economics.

A Centenary Worth Celebrating

 

There is a lot of bally hoo  at the moment about the 100th anniversary of a certain organisation, but we won't talk about that.  Meanshile there is a local centenary which many Hongkongers may perhaps consider more worthy of celebration.

Three times in my life I have found stray animals and handed them in to the SPCA - a rabbit roaming in, of all places, the Academy of Performing Arts garden; a puppy unable to escape from a concrete drainage channel in Jardine's Lookout; and a desperately sick kitten, its eyes two pools of pus, dumped in an alley in Kowloon Tong.  Without the SPCA, life for these, and many thousands more lost, sick and abandoned animals every year, would be immeasurably worse.  Their valuable work costs money - why not become a member and give them your support?

The Eyes Have It

The Lesser of Two Goods

Tomorrow's District Council elections are being framed in some quarters as a gargantuan battle between the resurgent forces of democracy and the mighty Beijing United Front electoral machine, a chance to strike a blow against the powerful empire that is crushing Hong Kong.  Well, guess what, most District Council work is pretty humdrum stuff, more concerned with where rubbish bins and bus stops should be located than with the higher scheme of things.  Nevertheless, after months of violent protest the election does present a rare opportunity to raise one's voice peacefully against the DAB juggernaut and to demonstrate the Hong Kong government's near-total lack of support (as an aside, there is no silent majority supporting this clueless government - in fact, any politician anywhere who claims the backing of a silent majority usually lacks much real support).

What may surprise my regular readers is that I have decided, after much reflection, not to vote for the candidate of the democracy movement in my district.  Our constituency is largely rural, with a mix of traditional villages and upmarket estates, and has been represented for two terms now by a local man who is popular in the area.  As an indigenous villager, he has some connections with the Heung Yee Kuk, but his political stance is genuinely independent.  More importantly, he has done a good job for the district - I base this not just on his glossy election brochure listing the many projects he has been involvesd in (as Mary Melville's  comments here point out, some candidates will claim credit for just about anything that happens in their district, or even in neighbouring districts), but on experience.  My wife worked with him on a successful campaign against an unsuitable proposed development in the district, and has observed at first hand the effort he puts in.

Nothing against the "official" democracy candidate, who comes with the backing of various well-known pro-democracy figures, but he has no track record here (and his election leaflet misspells the constituency name; not a great confidence-booster!)  And ultimately, why do we want a more democratic system?  Not to make great gestures with our votes, but to select candidates who are dedicated to their job, care about their constituency, and who listen to and are responsive to their voters' needs and wishes.  We have that already in our constituency, which is why the incumbent will be getting my vote again.  Tell me if I'm wrong.

And by the way, don't worry if your ballot paper has a corner snipped off - it's not damaged, just a new feature to help the blind.

It’s Good News Week! (and blame the ref for the bad news)

Watching the news these days is usually a depressing experience, as Donald Trump continues to insult America’s friends and embrace its enemies, the UK continues to lurch like a lame lemming towards the fecal morass of Brexit, and human rights are increasingly under threat everywhere from Venezuela to Vladivostok – via Hong Kong.  However, the last week or two has been unusual in that there have actually been a few items of good news for a change.  For one, Liu Xia was finally released from house arrest in China and allowed to leave the country.

Meanwhile in Thailand the 12 young lads and their football coach trapped in a flooded cave complex were all safely rescued.  What made this case particularly heartwarming was that experts came from all over the world to contribute to the complex but finally successful operation to save the boys.  In a world full of division and strife, it is refreshing to see people cooperating across national borders to help others – that’s the way the world should work.

And until the semi-final, the unexpectedly successful run of England’s football team in the World Cup was – if you’re English – another cause for celebration.  Then they had the misfortune to come up against not just the mighty Croatian team but the Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir, who provided some of the worst refereeing I’ve ever witnessed in a major tournament.  In the early stages of the game, Croatian players went on an orgy of pushing, shoving, tripping, obstruction, elbowing and shirt-grabbing, much of it directed at England captain Harry Kane, and all of it ignored by the ref.  If he had stamped his authority on the game at this stage, who knows how much more Kane could have achieved with more room to move, rather than being hemmed in by a string of fouls?

When Cakir did eventually get around to booking a Croatian player, the commentator was convinced that he’d picked the wrong one (though the correct one picked up a yellow card later).  And if the ref’s objective was to keep the game flowing by ignoring minor transgressions, then why did he stop play for one foul on an England player when England still had possession and were charging forward, instead of applying the advantage rule?

But perhaps Cakir’s worst error was to give Croatia a goal kick when video coverage clearly showed that England should have been awarded a corner.  A quick look at the VAR would have made this obvious, yet Cakir was oblivious – as he generally was throughout the game – to all pleas, entreaties and complaints.  A truly shoddy performance which has rightly attracted heavy criticism (and accusations of bias) online.

None of which is to say that England would necessarily have won under a better official – it’s too easy to blame the referee for a loss.  England certainly made mistakes, and when not testing the limits of the rulebook the Croatian team – especially Luka Modric – played some magnificent football.  Yet England’s young team, under the superb management of Gareth Southgate, went far further in this tournament than anyone expected, playing intelligent football with passion, commitment to the very last minute of the game, and strong team spirit without a trace of a superstar ego.  They are still maturing, and I look forward to seeing them do better in future tournaments – under a different referee.

NIL RETURN

I clicked on this link this morning:

and got this:

So presumably we can assume that nothing good happened this year.  Which fits in pretty well with my own experience, marked by deaths and disease among my immediatecircle, against the wider background of Britain slumping ever deeper into the slimy sinkhole of Brexit while Donald Trump does his best to ignite either World War 3 or environmental collapse, whichever comes first.  Not that I can do much to stop any of this stuff – indeed anyone who posts on any online forum probably feels like this at times:

Nevertheless, we can hope. Here's a toast to all my loyal readers (however few in number):

 By the way, the link was repaired later - and there are plenty of similar lists online.  So perhaps it's not all doom and gloom.


[Cartoon borrowed from Private Eye.]

I'm walking backwards for Christmas

Saw this on a friend's Facebook and thought it was perfect for a Private Beach Christmas.  Wishing my loyal readers the compliments of the season and a democratic new year!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world

Yesterday my father-in-law took a taxi home.  The taxi driver subsequently picked up another passenger, who found a bunch of keys - one of them apparently a car key - on the back seat.  After dropping off that passenger, the driver took the trouble to go out of his way to drive back to our home to ask if the keys belonged to my father-in-law.  As it happens, they didn't - presumably having been dropped by an earlier passenger - but in a time when Hong Kong is increasingly fractious and divided, it's good to be reminded that simple human acts of kindness can still be found here.  And if you left your keys in a taxi yesterday, the driver will have handed them in to the police by now.

The heading, by the way, is from Shakespeare's A Merchant of Venice.  Looking it up to be sure of getting the wording right, I learned that in Shakespeare's time "naughty" meant "worthless" (i.e. "worth naught").  So I should also thank the taxi driver for furthering my etymological education.