The Singapore Syndrome

The system that enables you to listen to your car radio when driving through tunnels in Hong Kong also allows the tunnel companies to override the radio signal with their own transmissions. This is fine when they use it to make helpful traffic announcements, such as telling you that a particular exit road is closed or when a blockage will be cleared. And indeed they sometimes do this (though as my wife noted, only in Cantonese - perhaps English or Putonghua speakers don't drive?).

Unfortunately they don't limit themselves to this. It is intensely irritating to be listening to the RTHK news in the Lion Rock Tunnel, only to have the airwaves hijacked by some inane do-gooder relaying unnecessary government propaganda, like telling you not to drink and drive. Almost as irritating, in fact, as watching television and having the government exhort you to "love your family" (seriously) during the commercial breaks. Where do these people think we are - Singapore?

Plain Political Language Part 1

In the spirit of Gowers' Plain Words and Orwell's Politics and the English Language (two works that should be read and digested by anyone who aspires to write good English), this is the first of what I hope will be a series turning recent political statements into plain English.

China says that other nations should leave Myanmar to resolve its own problems.
Translation: China will keep its mouth shut about the abuses committed by the murderous regime in Burma in exchange for being allowed to loot the country's abundant natural resources.

Donald Tsang says that this year is a time to focus on the economy.
Translation: Donald Tsang does not want to have to answer tricky political questions like when we will get the democracy promised in the Basic Law.

Men Are From Earth, Judges Are From...

Two cases reported on last night's news make me wonder if Hong Kong's judges live on the same planet as the rest of us.

In the first case, a part-time music teacher was convicted of indecent assault against two of his pupils. In passing sentence, the judge stated that the assailant was neither a paedophile nor a homosexual, noting that he had been with his girlfriend for ten years. In the real world, men who are neither paedophile nor homosexual do not usually go around groping little boys, but perhaps they have different rules where this judge comes from.

In other news: Oscar Wilde was married.

In the second case, a young man who blew off most of his fingers when a home-made bomb he was holding exploded was sent to a training centre. The judge noted that he only made the bomb "to relieve his anxiety". Well, don't we all? Though if I was forced to live in Tin Shui Wai, I might be anxious to blow the place up myself.

What's in a name?

Sitting in the airport departure area yesterday (don't get your hopes up, I wasn't the one leaving), I found myself in front of a massive information board advertising Morgan Stanley with (curiously) a picture of an Indian temple, presumably to emphasise the worldwide nature of their services. Along the top and bottom of this board were scrolling bars of financial information - currency exchange rates, stock indexes and the like - provided, so the board said, by Thomson Reuters.

I happened to notice that among the Hong Kong share prices listed was one for "Amoy Properties". Amoy Properties changed its name to Hang Lung Properties in 2002. If it takes one of the world's leading banks and possibly the world's largest financial information provider more than seven years to notice that one of Hong Kong's biggest companies (a constituent of the Hang Seng Index) has changed its name, it's no wonder we have a financial crisis.

Nosey Parker Wants to Know

Why is it that most car parks in Hong Kong appear to have been designed by people whi have never driven a car in their lives?

Culture Shock

After more than three decades in Hong Kong, I thought I was pretty well immune to culture shock, but after a couple of weeks' holiday in England recently, I found myself unexpectedly stunned by the sheer density of people in the streets of Mongkok a few days ago - as if I was experiencing it for the first time. A strange feeling.

The best of the worst

There is plenty of competition for the title of "World's Worst Regime". Twenty years ago the Tiananmen Massacre would have seen China in with a strong chance.

Today the Kim Family Empire of North Korea is clearly a leading contender, spending the country's limited resources on developing nuclear weapons while the people go hungry. Robert Mugabe's achievement in turning one of the most prosperous countries in Africa into one of the poorest and most repressive through his greed, arrogance and incompetence also makes him a strong competitor. Saudi Arabia's treatment of women puts it on the list, as does Israel's six decades of trampling on the Palestinians, while Iran is mounting a spirited challenge following the (probably rigged) re-election of Ahmadinejad.

But for sheer out-and-out hypocrisy it would be very hard to beat the unpleasant bunch of aging generals who rule Burma. The BBC reports that they have just jailed two people for 18 months for "insulting religion" after they publicly prayed at a temple for the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. This from the regime that showed its deep respect for religion in 2007 by murdering hundreds of Buddhist monks for protesting peacefully!

Be sure to insert your earplugs before listening to the people

A few days ago the government held a "consultation session" with the people of Mui Wo on Lantau Island, supposedly to hear their views on the proposal to allocate a vacant school building in Mui Wo for use by a special school for the rehabilitation of teenagers with drug problems. As it turned out, local sentiment was overwhelmingly against the proposal.

In the few days since then, a series of senior government oficials have made speeches pleading with the islanders to be more understanding of the need for the school, and to accept the proposal. This proces culminated in the Chief Executive himself reiterating this appeal.

Seceral interesting points emerge from this series of events. Firstly, it is obvious that the government has already made up its mind to push the proposal through, and is unwilling to listen seroiously to any opposing viewpoint. In that case, why hold a sham "public consultation" if they had no intention of listening to counter-arguments by the Mui Wo residents in the first place?

Secondly, as I understand it from media reports, the main objection by most islanders is not to the proposal as such, but that they feel (quite reasonably) that any vacant school on the island should be allocated to their own children, who now have to make the long ferry journey to Hong Kong every day to attend classes. The government has apparently given them no answer on this point.

While no reasonable person would deny that teenagers with drug problems need help, the government's rush to move them to this school does not appear to be part of any coherent long term educational planning process. Rather, I suspect it is a panic reaction to several well-piblicised recent cases of young people being found under the influence of drugs in public places, together with pres stories of drug use in leading local chools. The governmen wants to be seen doing something positive quickly about this situation, however ill thought out their response may be.

When are we going to get a government that actually listens to the public, and places long term planning above short term PR exercises?

Why Iranians are exactly the same as Americans

Despite all the political tensions between the USA and Iran, at heart Americans and Iranians are exactly the same.

Proof: the Iranians have just done in 2009 exactly what the Americans did in 2004 - re-elected a failed incompetent ill-informed loudmouth of a president just because he said the right things to appeal to religious conservatives.

P.S. (17 June) That is, if he actually did win the election - clearly a large proportion of the Iranian people don't think so. But then, objections to Bush's election were swept under the carpet as well.

Ten Things Vancouver Does Better than "Asia's World City"

If you're wondering why I haven't posted much recently, it's because I was in Vancouver for two weeks in late April/early May (probably about my 10th visit in 20 years), where I was too relaxed to blog, and I've mostly been too busy to blog since getting back.

Visiting other places does put one's own home into clearer perspective, and much as I love Hong Kong, it has to be admitted that there are many things it could do better to earn its self-proclaimed "world city" status. For example:

1. Welcoming visitors: Canada's customs inspections are notoriously intrusive, but at least BC has successfully handled a few cases of swine flu without feeling the need to imprison several hundred tourists for a week because they just might have been in contact with someone who just might have contracted a disease that just might be dangerous.
2. Brewing: the Vancouver area has a clutch of excellent microbreweries and brewpubs (Steamworks in Gastown being one of my favourites - good food, too) producing beers of great character and flavour. Beers from the longest established of these, Granville Island Brewing, have even surfaced on the shelves of City Super in Hong Kong. By comparison, Hong Kong has one microbrewery, which long ago ceased to brew its sole world class beer, Crooked Island, and today keeps a dangerously low profile.
   
3. Selling booze: for whatever historical reason, liquor is not sold for home consumption in supermarkets and groceries in BC. Instead, there are some private beer and wine stores, but the major outlet for booze is the provincial government's liquor stores. If you know Sweden's drab government liquor outlets, deliberately designed to be depressing in a vain attempt to make drinking unattractive, you may groan at the thought. But BC's liquor stores are very different (though they do promote responsible drinking) - spacious, brightly illuminated, well laid-out, cheerful emporia filled with every type of booze you can imagine from all over the world, from Laphroaig single malt to my favourite Belgian Trappist ale, Orval. Generous shelf space is given to local wines and microbrews, and you may find tastings being offered. Nowhere in Hong Kong comes anywhere near the variety of choice offered in BC - and so far as I know, Orval is only available here with meals at the Grand Place Belgian restaurant in IFC.
   
4. Shopping malls: how many Hong Kong shopping malls have comfortable seats where you can just sit and relax? Free parking? Fun carts to push the kids around in? Even a little train taking them for rides around the mall? (Answer: one, none, none and none, to my knowledge.) The shopping mall is of course part of North American culture, and Vancouver has some excellent ones - the biggest, Metrotown, is so large it even houses two branches of some stores. But it's not just the physical facilities - why are there so many things it's easy to buy in Canada and impossible to find in Hong Kong?
5. Nudity - despite some lovely sunny days which saw hardy Canadians shed their winter fleece in favour of T-shirts and hotpants, it was a little too cool during this trip to visit Wreck Beach (picture). But on fine summer weekends, Vancouver's scenic official clothing-optional beach, 6.5 km long, is enjoyed by thousands of people from all of Vancouver's numerous communities in varying states of undress. Number of clothing-optional beaches in Hong Kong: nil (though there are a few isolated spots where you can strip off if you're so inclined).
6. Cultural diversity: for all its world city pretensions, Hong Kong sometimes seems at heart a conservative provincial Chinese city with a thin overlay of internationalism. Vancouver, by comparison, wears its multiculturalism comfortably. More than half the population is now from a non-English-speaking background (not just Asians), but they rub along peacefully together. Compare the road in Richmond that has a Baptist church, Chinese temple, Tibetan temple and mosque all sitting companionably side by side with the long frustrating attempt by Hong Kong's Muslims to find a site for a new mosque in the New Territories.
   
7. Cycling: even in the heart of the city, Vancouver has many cycle lanes and actively encourages cycling as a pollution-free form of transport. While Hong Kong has some good cycle paths in the New Territories, cyclists are far from welcome in the urban areas. This could be because Vancouver's cyclsists generally wear safety helmets and follow the rules of the road, whereas most cyclists here do not appear to be aware that there are any rules, even less that they should follow them.
8. Recycling: Every home in Vancouver separates its household waste into several categories for recycling, with the result that only a very small proportion ends up in landfills. Cans and bottles go back to the liquor store. If Hong Kong was as serious about recycling, the government wouldn't need to steal sections of our country parks for new landfills.
   
9. Conservation: heritage buildings in Vancouver are routinely cherished and restored, while Hong Kong's government has to be pushed really hard to save anything worthwhile from the past - look at the King Yin Lei fiasco.
   
10. Greek restaurants: there are probably several dozen of these in Vancouver. For some reason, no Greek restaurant in Hong Kong seems to survive longer than a year, and to my knowledge, there is not even one at present.
    
11. Major sporting events: One more for luck - I'll see your 2009 East Asian Games and raise you my 2010 Winter Olympics.
    

A recent Economist survey declared Vancouver the world's most livable city. Hong Kong ranked 39th out of 127 cities included, the second highest in Asia after Osaka. Harare (Zimbabwe) came last.

I Should Be There

Every year I promise myself that I will attend the June 4th candlelight vigil in Victoria Park, and there's always some reason why I don't make it. But I do want to mark the occasion here - if only to tell Donald Tsang firmly and clearly that no, you do not speak for all Hong Kong people in trying to sweep the massacre under the carpet. You certainly don't speak for me.

Song for PCCW Directors

Listening to Bob Dylan's new album, Together Through Life, I was interested to see that he's apparently written one song for the Board of PCCW. "You took all my money and you gave it to Richard Li," he sings in one line of Shake Shake Mama. What could be clearer than that?  

Disclaimer - I get a small commission from Amazon if you buy the CD through the picture link here.

Bankers with a W revisited

Walking through Central earlier this afternoon, I observed that three banks - Citibank, Dah Sing and DBS - had protesters outside them, apparently aggrieved victims of the Lehman's minibonds saga.

We have already seen plenty of evidence that, on the scale of human decency, bankers rate only slightly above lawyers and politicians. Here's another piece: while waiting for a bus in Des Voeux Road, I noticed that Wing Lung Bank has cordoned off part of its broad front steps and has posted no fewer than four security staff there. So far as I can see their primary function - perhaps their sole function - is to keep non-customers from defiling the bank;s sacred steps with their presence.

Even at minimum wage, by the time you take into account MPF, annual bonus and uniforms, this means the bank must be spending close to half a million dollars a year just to prevent those waiting for a bus from enjoying the only spot of shelter from sun or rain in the vicinity. How mean can you get? (If any Wing Lung shareholder is reading this, they might like to question whether this is an appropriate use of the bank's money.)

The Rip-off Files 3B - Getting it right

As a follow-up to my previous post, Wellcome actually got it right for once. As well as matching PARKnSHOP's price cut on the individual cans of Red Bull, they lowered the price of the 4-pack to $48.

On my way to where

In another shining example of the Hong Kong government's dazzling intelligence, the Highways Departmnt (I assume) has covered all the direction signs on the Tsing Ma Bridge with bamboo scaffolding. So if you're coming from the airport and don't know which lane you should be in, don't expect much help in finding out.

And to the driver of the taxi running along the airport highway without lights at close to 10pm last night: the only reason I don't give your number here to tell eceryone what a prat you are is that it was too dark to see it clearly.

Redundant Redundancy

No, not the type that so many employees are facing in the current recession - what I'm talking about today is redundant words in company names.

We live in an impatient age, and companies pander to this by shrinking their names. The model for this is of course International Business Machines, who shortened their long name to IBM and for a while became one of the most successful companies in the world (before making the deadly mistake of letting young William Gates keep the rights to the operating system he created for them).

Every business with a long name now routinely contracts it to something shorter, or just initial letters. So the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation becomes HSBC, and even the venerable Liu Chong Hing Bank ditches the Liu from its name as one syllable too many.

The problem is that this often throws out the meaning of the name at the same time. This is fine if you're a household name like HSBC or IBM, and everyone knows what you stand for anyway. But some companies then start re-exoanding the name to restore meaning to it. So today I saw a van with FedEx Express on the side, and our electricity comes from a company called CLP Power.

What this means is that we now have Federal Express Express and China Light and Power Power. Am I the only one who finds this rather silly silly?

Lemming Fever

Funier today, in his usual inimitable style, castigates the media for whipping up a panic over a few cases of flu in Mexico and the US. A handful of infections hardly justifies those who have started running around like Cassandra on a bad day wailing that "We're all going to die!" We heard the same during the SARS outbreak, and how many of you know anyone who actually died from SARS? The only person I know who contracted the disease is my doctor, and he recovered. It eventually killed just one in every 23,000 Hong Kong people.

This is not to say you shouldn't take the flu threat seriously; just keep a sense of proportion.

One of the funny things about this latest potential pandemic is that they're calling it swine flu, but one expert on TV the other day said it's a new mutation of the flu virus and there's no evidence that it came to humans from pigs. By that logic it could just as well be called wombat flu or polar bear flu , though I think perhaps lemming fever would be the most appropriate analogy - unless the swine they're thinking of are Gadarene.

Update: I've just seen Donald Tsang on the news telling us to be calm, so perhaps it really is time to panic after all! I'm off to Canada tomorrow night.

Britain's oldest teenager

The Daily Mail newspaper has an article on a young lady they claim is Britain's youngest female funeral director. Nothing wrong with that, but since they describe her as being 20 in the heading, then call her a teenager in the main text, she must also be Britain's oldest teenager (Sir Jimmy Savile excepted, of course).

All together now: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenteen, ...

Bingo!

My email inbox has 666 unread items in it. How beastly!

The Rip-off Files 3A - When will they ever learn?

Undeterred by the Consumer Council's recent criticism from pursuing bizarre and misleading pricing policies, PARKnSHOP was yesterday selling Red Bull at the reduced price of $12.90, down from the usual $13.90. No complaints about that - except that the 4-pack was still at its usual price of $54.80, i.e. $13.70 per can.

In most places, buying the bulk pack of anything gets you a better price, but I suppose that's too straightforward for Li Ka-shing's wonderkids.

If we don't know where you are, we'll write to you there

In yet another example of the Hong Kong government's intellectual brilliance, the Transport Department is sending out a circular to all registered drivers and vehicle owners reminding them that any change of address must be notified to the department.

Whichever civil servant dreamed up this scheme must have been having a Homer Simpson moment, because it doesn't take an Einstein to spot the fatal flaw in it.

The Rip-off Files 3: Nothing super about it

The discovery by the Consumer Council that Hong Kong's cozy supermarket duopoly is routinely misleading customers with false "special offers" will come as no surprise to those familiar with Hong Kong retail practices. In some cases, the Council found, the "promotion" price was actually higher than the regular price!

What this does is highlight the need for long overdue consumer protection legislation in Hong Kong. This could be modelled on the UK's law which requires a "sale price" item to have been sold at a lower price for a minimum period before it can be advertised as a special offer.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority''s head has reported that the controversial Lehman's minibonds, which have also raised concerns about inadequate consumer protection here, were classified as high risk by some of the banks selling them, medium risk by others, and low risk by yet others. If even the banks don't understand these products sufficiently to agree on how risky they are, they are certainly too complex to be palmed off on to unsophisticated investors.

The further so-called derivatives stray from any link to real goods and services, the harder it becomes to determine their real worth. For example, a valuer can tell you the price of a house in California. but if the mortgage on that property is packaged up into bits, bundled with hundreds of others, and sold to hundreds of banks worldwide, what is each of those bits worth? Lose sight of the fact that such products have a link to the real world, and the risk that their price becomes uncoupled from the value of the underlying assets increases dramatically. Which is exactly how the credit crunch arose.

Making It Better: The Consumer Council of Hong Kong

Ho Ho, Very Satirical

Spike today has a piece about the current row over an allegedly racist article by local commentator Chip Tsao in HK Magazine. For those who haven't kept up, the Philippines government took exception to a sentence in which Tsao described Filipinos as "a nation of servants", and banned him from entry to the Philippines. Local domestic helpers have become equally overwrought about it and plan a demonstration to condemn him, even though he has already apologised.

As Spike says, the article was clearly satirical, and the magazine's editor should have defended its columnist instead of caving in to pressure by publishing an apology. However, while this may be correct in principle, I think it over-simplifies the matter.

Both Mr Tsao and HK magazine have a considerably larger, and probably more diverse, readership than the small coterie of Hong Kong expat bloggers like ourselves, Fumier, and Ulaca who trade in-jokes online. While it is clear that Tsao intended his piece as satire, the subtleties of saying one thing and implying another are often lost on those for whom English is a second language. For this reason, writers and editors need to take particular care to ensure their intentions are not misunderstood in a multicultural community such as Hong Kong.

I remember some years ago submitting a satirical article on how not to get a job to a local recruitment magazine, based on my years of experience in recruiting IT staff for a major bank. The article - which contained such valuable advice as "leave unexplained gaps in your CV" and "remember not to sign your cover letter" - was accepted, but only after the editor turned it around into a straight article on how to get a job, on the basis that the humour would be lost on the intended audience.

Even if HK's editor believed the intent was clear, there is another problem - once someone influential misinterprets such an article, most of those who subsequently get heated up about it have never read the original piece, only someone else's distorted version of it. Once matters reach this stage, there is little anyone can do except wait for the fuss to blow over - and in Mr Tsao's case, plan to take his next beach holiday in Thailand!

As genuine as a Louis Vuitton bag in Shenzhen

For the second day in a row, the South China Morning Post has run a story about Beijing's so-called Pamchen Lama, this time with a photo labelling him by that title as well.

For heaven's sake, this guy is no more the Panchen Lama than I am the Archbishop of Canterbury! Like many things that come out of China, he is a well-crafted fake. Any article on him should precede his title with the word "Counterfeit".

However, don't expect the Post to risk its business interests in China by telling the truth, any more than the eunuchs running South Africa who recently barred the Dalai Lama from attending a peace conference there.

P.S. To see how real journalism looks, compare the Post's fawning adulation of the young fake with the BBC's balanced coverage of the same story.

Pro-China Morning Post

Headline on today's South China Morning Post website:

Panchen Lama back in spotlight, with praise for Beijing leadership

Well, there's a surprise! With its usual objectivity, the Post conveniently forgets to mention that the so-called "Panchen Lama" they refer to is not the genuine Panchen Lama recognised, according to Tibetan tradition, by the Dalai Lama - that one has been "disappeared" - but Beijing's fake substitute.

If the future of Tibet was not such a serious matter, it would be highly entertaining to see an avowedly atheist regime absurdly insisting it knows better than the universally recognised spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism who is the real Panchen Lama. I look forward to the death of Pope Benedict - it will be very interesting to see Beijing reject the Cardinals' choice of Pope in favour of their own "Patriotic" candidate pledged to breaking the Vatican's diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Spammers Wanted

Does this ad in Hong Kong Craigslist irritate you as much as it does me?

Posting on HK forums and blogs (HK)

We need a writer to post in HK Chinese and English to all the main HK forums and in multiple HK blogs as well.
You will be required to create new threads on forums and also reply to existing threads. The posting need to be from different accounts and should not sound like advertising to avoid the post being deleted.

We need 100 posts done in 7 days to start then it will be an ongoing job.

In other words, we want you to post a load of spam disguised as genuine contributions. I think you can guess my thoughts on this sneaky approach.

Something Is Happening Here But You Don't Know What It Is

Just went to Bob Dylan's official website to read the interview on his new album (coming soon). Then clicked on Media, Videos, and the first video offered, Like A Rolling Stone. Up pops a YouTube screen announcing "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation". Huh? Apart from the bad English (it should be "owing to"), are the copyright cops now so paranoid that even Bob Dylan isn't allowed to post Bob Dylan videos? This is getting ridiculous.

Fire Warning

Sign at the Yonghe Lamasery in Beijing, showing how English grammar can confuse the unwary. Fortunately I was using my digital camera, so had no film with me to burn - though I have been known to burn the occasional photo to CD.

The lamasery was a former imperial palace donated to Tibetan monks by one of the Ching emperors - showing that Tibetan culture was once held in much higher regard in China than it appears to be these days.

P.S. I should of course have said "syntax" rather than "grammar". The sentence is in fact grammatically correct, but ambiguous.

Insufficient Effort

Passing the Hong Kong Bank building on a bus this morning, I observed that someone was assiduously polishing one of the iconic lions in front of it.

Nice try, but after the events of the past few weeks, I fear it will take much more than a splash of Brasso to refurbish HSBC's tarnished reputation.

Some Contradiction?

The Chinese government has predictably denounced as "lies" the Dalai Lama's recent speech claiming that Tibetans in Tibet live in a state of constant fear - and just to make sure, it has dispatched thousands of troops and armed police to the region to imtimidate them into seeing things China's way.

Murphy Was Here

Ever noticed that whenever you put a jug or mug of liquid in a microwave oven to warm it up, it always comes to rest with the handle facing away from you? Why, I wonder?

Problem Solving

"Global problems are too big and too complex to be solved without female participation."
--Hillary Clinton

And a little more male participation wouldn't hurt, either....

No Connection - and No Sense

The South China Morning Post website today features a front page headline "Police find explosives in Tibet". So how do they illustrate this dramatic news? With a picture of the explosives? With a picture of the bridge under which they were allegedly found? Or of the police who claimed the find?

No, nothing so obvious for the Post. Instead they use this (rather good) image of a young Tibetan monk peacefully reading


- and when you click on the story, it turns out he's not even in Tibet, but in Sichuan province.

So what's the connection? Does the Post buy in to China's absurd propaganda which sees every Tibetan monk as a secret agent of the Dalai Lama, a potential "splittist" revolutionary? Or is it just that a lazy sub-editor reached for the first vaguely Tibetan-themed picture he could find? Either way, given the tensions in Tibet, the Post should know better.

You know you're getting old when...

• The BBC refer to someone who only appeared on the music scene 15 years after you started listening as "veteran British singer Paul Weller".
• You look at a photo, think "Who's that guy with grey hair wearing the same outfit as me?", then realise it is you.

Not the South China Morning Post - or the Jockey Club either

For the past 2 days, the South China Morning Post website has not (on my machine, at least - YMMV) come up correctly on Google's Chrome browser, although it works on both Internet Explorer and FireFox. Whether this is the fault of Google or the Post I don't know, but it's interesting that after Microsoft declared victory in the browser wars some years ago, rival browsers are now making a serious comeback (with Opera and Safari also in the running).

Not that the Hong Kong Jockey Club appears to have noticed - its online betting service only works on IE.

Many Hands Make Expensive Work

As both Hong Kong's free-to-air TV stations announce staff layoffs, a thought occurs to me: does it really take three people to read the news (two to exchange silly chitchat at the end and one to cover the sports)? On some occasions, the people in the studio must outnumber the viewers.

So, it's goodnight from me.
And it's goodnight from him.

Death Without Dignity

Attending a funeral this morning has left me thinking, partly about the depressing inevitability of growing old - but that's for another time.


My question today is this: why are such ugly hearses used in Hong Kong? I don't know about other countries, but in Britain or the US, most people are carried to their final resting place in a sleek black (or sometimes white) Rolls Royce, Bentley or Cadillac, something with a bit of class. Here the coffin is unceremoniously conveyed in what looks like a blue and silver cargo van which might otherwise be carrying sacks of rice.

What's the deal here? Even deceased celebrities and multi-millionaires get the same treatment, so it can't be inability to afford anything more dignified. Can someone explain?

Spot the difference

Cause for Confidence

I have a feeling that 2009 is going to be a good year. Every politician is predicting that it will be awful - and when did you ever hear a politician telling the truth?

Canine Conundrum

I can't help feeling the unfortunate dog stuck between two buildings in Yuen Long would be rescued much sooner if kind-hearted people would only stop feeding her. Hasn't anyone in Hong Kong read Winnie the Pooh?

P.S. (28 January) Sadly, the poor creature died shortly after being finally pulled out from between the walls.

Making It Better:
Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Bullish

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Wishing all my readers a happy, healthy and prosperous Year of the Ox.

Serfing PRC

I happened to turn on CCTV 9 at lunchtime (helpfully carried by both local English language channels - whatever happened to giving the public a choice?) It was featuring a discussion on the recently proclaimed Serfs Emancipation Day (shouldn't there be an apostrophe in there somewhere?) in Tibet. As usual when covering domestic political issues, CCTV had ensured a "fair and balanced" discussion by inviting two experts who both took the same side of the argument.

China's propaganda machine (of which CCTV is part) has claimed for years that the majority of Tibetans, until they were "liberated" by Chinese troops, were serfs who enjoyed no human rights and were cruelly treated by the Tibetan aristocracy, and that the "splittist" (surely the ugliest word ever coined to substitute for a perfectly good existing word, separatist) Dalai Lama and his evil clique seek to return to this unacceptable state of affairs, an event which can only be prevented by continued Chinese domination over Tibet.

Unfortunately for China, few people in the West buy this argument, and there are in fact several reasons why it is a hard case to sell. No one doubts that Tibet was, until quite recent times, a materially backward and primitive society in which life was harsh for most people. It was a feudal system with a caste structure in place. But the idea that the Dalai Lama - who is very obviously a compassionate and decent man - wants to bring back feudalism is clearly absurd. He has made it very clear that a future free Tibet would be ruled by a democratically elected government, and that any leadership role for himself would be solely in the spiritual sphere.

The second problem with China's argument is that there is little or no independent evidence that the barbarism it describes was commonplace. Accounts by Western observers in Tibet during the few decades before the Chinese invasion give no suggestion that cruelty was in any way institutionalised, even though those same observers - for example André Migot in Tibetan Marches (published 1955) - clearly recognised the savage treatment of the peasants in China at that time by their feudal masters, and in fact applauded the rise of the Chinese Communist Party as a means to overthrow it.

Time is on China's side - the Dalai Lama is now over 70, and the true Panchen Lama has been "disappeared" by Chinese authorities in favour of their fake substitute. But whatever the future holds for Tibet, let's at least tell the truth about the place.

Repainting the Sistine Chapel

Among the handful of TV programmes I watched without fail in my youth - Doctor Who, The Avengers, Top of the Pops, Match of the Day (this was in the days before Monty Python) - one stood out for its originality and inventiveness. The Prisoner was, and remains, one of the most intriguing television series ever produced. Now comes news that its star and creator, Patrick McGoohan, has passed away at the age of 80.

McGoohan gave good performances in later years, but nothing he did subsequently could ever match the impact of The Prisoner. A new generation of fans have discovered via DVD the story - more relevant than ever in these days of universal surveillance - of the captive who refuses to submit to his mysterious captors, defiantly proclaiming "I am not a number - I am a free man!"

Sadly, along with the news of McGoohan's death comes the news that a remake of The Prisoner is in the works. What is this awful compulsion that film makers have to redo the classics? The Mona Lisa has been painted; the Venus de Milo has been carved; Beethoven's Ninth has been composed. No one tries to remake them, so why are films different?

I'm not saying all remakes are bad - some try to reinvent the original in interesting ways - but far too many creative people spend their time reinventing the wheel, and only succeed in diluting the iconic power of the original. There is only one King Kong; only one Solaris; and only one Prisoner. Leave them alone and find something new to create.

I live in fear that one day Hollywood will be stupid enough to remake Casablanca...

P.S. It's bad enough that some idiot colourized it. As Calvin and Hobbes fans will know, the world was not yet coloured back then.

Never Never Land

Public consultation on electoral reforms for 2012 will be put off until later this year to allow the government to focus on the economy, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen announced yesterday.
--South China Morning Post, 16 January 2009

So, the Hong Kong government finally admits what a lot of us suspected: it's so incompetent, it can't handle more than one thing at a time.

Work experience

I had to invigilate an exam last night. There's something curiously restful about watching other people work for three hours - and getting paid for doing so.

These mad bombers get everywhere

Seen on the menu of a Chiu Chau restaurant in Mongkok:

exploded the small intestines

Any comment would be entirely superfluous.

In tennis, love means something

What the hell does Andy Murray think he's doing, beating both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to win a tournament in Abu Dhabi? Doesn't he know the plucky British underdog is supposed to succumb bravely in the quarter-finals?

Next thing you know, Murray will be winning Wimbledon. Tim Henman would never have shown such alarming disrespect for British tradition.

The Alien Happy New Year

I have been having some very weird dreams lately. Last night (probably inspired by a combination of recently watching the last episode of the 3rd series of the revived Doctor Who, and reading Robert Silverberg's Heinlein tribute novel The Alien Years, I dreamed that the earth had been invaded and conquered by strange aliens. Humanity was helpless, with alien space vessels hovering in the sky overhead and sitting menacingly on launch pads, though I never saw one of the actual creatures themselves.

Then for some reason the entire planet jerked into motion and started to move off into space, at which I quipped "at least we're moving away from them" before waking up. Nice to know I still have a sense of humour when I'm asleep.

Anyway, here's hoping you can also look on the bright side during 2008. Happy New Year!

Giving credit where credit is due

"It is unfair and irresponsible of the [British] government to put pressure on the public to spend in order to revive the economy."
--Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, Bishop of Hulme

As the worldwide recession deepens, governments everywhere are pumping taxpayers' money into failing banks to encourage them to keep lending to faltering businesses, while at the same time offering incentives to consumers to spend more in order to revive economic activity - spending the way out of trouble. Here in Hong Kong, there have been suggestions that the government should hand out $1,000 to every citizen to keep the economy ticking over.

Then ATV News a couple of weeks ago highlighted HSBC's chief economist and its local boss both arguing that consumer credit should be curbed, and announcing that the bank will raise interest rates on its credit cards. It is unwise, they tell us, to spend money you don't have.

Sound advice, especially when you don't know how long your job may last, and some of Britain's bishops have taken the UK government to task for not agreeing with it. But HSBC is one of the recipients of British government support to keep credit lines open, so it seems a bit disingenuous of them to be arguing the opposite case in Hong Kong. Not to mention that if the banks had followed their own advice, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Oh all right then, Merry Christmas!

As possibly the last blogger in Hong Kong to do so, may I wish all my 27 readers the very best for the current Christmas season (or whatever festival you celebrate around now) and the coming New Year. I was in Japan for a few days before Christmas (more on that soon), and am now marking 50 assignments from my Marketing students, so not much time to write lately, but normal (dis)service will be resumed soon. Cheers!

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

In well balanced public transport systems all over the world, taxis are seen as feeders to bus and railway routes, which do not offer door-to-door convenience but are far more fuel and space efficient in carrying large numbers of people over long distances.

However, this is Hong Kong. Our new taxi fare structure makes longer journeys cheaper per kilometre than short ones. Whatever this may do for cabbies' incomes, it can only encourage more people to make long journeys by taxi, increasing Hong Kong's already horrendous road congestion and air pollution.

I have argued before that the Hong Kong government has no concept of an integrated transport policy. This latest move once again proves me right.

This is not, of course, their only silly decision. I am a great believer in restrictions on smoking, but these have to be balanced against the right of smokers to choose to ruin their health so long as they do not inconvenience others. So why is smoking banned in Hong Kong's public parks, where the smoke has plenty of room to disperse, but allowed in the crowded streets of areas like Mongkok, where it is literally in your face? I think we should be told.

Miraculous Transformation

I don't often eat in McDonald's, but sometimes when I'm in a hurry and it's near, I'll take the easy option. So today I tried their new Ebi Burger, an import from their Japanese operations.

This, their advertising tells me, is made of carefully selected superior shrimps, and this is illustrated with pictures of succulent fresh pink shrimp. Only one mystery remains: how do they convert this into the near-tasteless rubbery grey mass that appears in the actual burger?

At least in some countries you can get beer with your burger...

Time Has (Not) Told Me

Just to reinforce Fumier's belief that our technology is somewhat behind the times out here north of the Red Lips Bar, here is the sundial in the park behind Eightland Gardens in Taipo. A nice design feature perhaps, but its reliability as a timepiece leaves something to be desired - the picture below was taken at 2 pm yesterday.

Above It All

It's ironic to see the Hong Kong government trying to whip up a storm of patriotic excitement over the visit of China's astronauts to the SAR. If the view from space teaches us anything, it should be that all those lines between countries on the map don't really exist on the ground. We all share the same small beautiful blue ball of a planet, and it's about time we stopped playing "my bit is better than your bit" over it.

TVBegone

Enormously profitable TVB is nevertheless using the recession as an excuse to fire over 200 of its production staff. They could save just as much money, and do Hong Kong a big favour to boot, by sacking some of their overpaid "talent" instead. A good starting point would be to get rid of Eric Tsang's incredibly irritating voice, Nat Chan's inane grin, and a few of the legion of brainless bimbos who plague TVB's vapid variety shows like a swarm of locusts.

Market Rates

Reports by Hong Kong's Director of Audit usually offer an entertaining insight into governmental incompetence, and the latest is no exception. It appears that almost a quarter of stalls in public markets are unlet, and many markets are losing money. At the same time, many stall rents have not been raised for a number of years.

The report offers a number of accounts of mismanagement which clearly need to be rectified, but its two main conclusions appear to be rather contradictory: that more should be done to let vacant stalls, and that too many stalls are underpriced. Surely the fact that so many stalls are vacant suggests that the rental asked for them is too high? Basic economics tells us that lowering the rent will increase the take-up of stalls; raising it will drive away more business.

There is no doubt that shopping patterns are changing, with supermarkets taking away a big chunk of the fresh food business, but it would be a shame to see Hong Kong's wet markets disappear - they are part of the local culture, and generally offer a larger selection of fresh foods, particularly seafood, than the supermarkets. Perhaps the current recession will drive customers back to the markets, which are generally somewhat cheaper.

Bringing it all back home

In considering big moral questions, it sometimes help to reduce them to small scale analogies that are closer to home.

Let's say that members of a gang invaded your home on 11 September and killed some of your family members, some of the gang members also dying in the process. Subsequently the gang threatens further violence against you.

Later you find that members of the gang, possibly including those who planned the first attack, are sheltering in another house up the street. The home owner does nothing to help bring the gang members to justice, and does not kick them out into the street where you might be able to do so yourself. So the question is, would you be justified in breaking into his home to get them yourself?

Maybe, you may say. But how about if you were likely to kill some of his children in the process?

Hmm, more difficult, huh? So the real question is, should the US attack al-Qaeda members in Pakistan against the wishes of the Pakistani government? And can they do this without "collateral damage", i.e. risking the killing of innocent Pakistanis in the process? Just one of the difficult questions President Obama will have to grapple with.

Bankers with a W

Democrats in the US Congress - and responsible banks - are angry that the US700,000,000,000 they supposedly voted to rescue the economy is being diverted to help the offending banks rather than aid their victims. Why am I not surprised? At least when the British government rescued banks in trouble they changed their management; under the mendacious Bush regime it seems to be business (and bonuses) as usual for the greedy swindlers who created the mess that's now putting hundreds of thousands of hard working people around the world out of a job.

It's no surprise that "bankers" rhymes with another word that, like the financial crisis, begins with a "Dubya". And even as the world suffers the consequences of the mad Republican rush to deregulate everything, Bush is using his last days in office to strip away further regulations protecting workers and the environment - more destruction for the incoming Obama administration to undo. Obviously he is either incapable of learning or totally uncaring (probably both).

Headline on an advertising wraparound in the South China Morning Post: "W is coming to West Kowloon". Well, I suppose he has to go somewhere after leaving office, but why inflict him on us?

The Real McCain

It is ironic that John McCain's finest performance of the whole presidential campaign was his concession speech, which showed him at his best - it was calm, dignified, and generous towards President-elect Obama as well as thanking his own supporters. I wonder how far in advance it was written?

McCain didn't seem too unhappy. During the campaign, it was obvious that some of his more ignorant far right supporters had cast him as the great white defender of Christian civilisation and white privilege against the rampaging Muslim communist hordes of dark-skinned aliens with funny names storming the gate, a role McCain never appeared quite comfortable with, sometimes rebuking his supporters for their more extreme attacks on his opponent. Now he was free to be himself again - a man who may be a jerk at times, but who also has many friends on both sides of the political divide.

While McCain paid the obligatory tribute to Sarah Palin, he didn't invite his running mate to speak. Nevertheless, it appears she is already being cast in the role that never quite fitted McCain, but which she seems eager to embrace. No doubt we will hear more of her in four years' time - though if Obama runs the country as smartly as he ran his campaign, there should be little chance of him not getting a second term.

By the next election, many white Americans who still feel uncomfortable with seeing a black face in the White House will have become familiar with the idea and start to think more about his performance than his race. If he survives, that is - I hear that staff of one human rights organisation in Hong Kong are already placing bets on how long Obama will serve before someone assassinates him. Two men are already awaiting trial for planning to shoot him.

Back to Palin, one question going around is, does she really need to wear glasses? Or does she do it to make herself appear more intellectual? I wonder.

Yes! Yes!! YES!!!

No, not Meg Ryan faking an orgasm - just me celebrating America's return to sanity.

America's Last Chance

As American voters go to the polls today, the rest of the world holds its breath. After 8 years of Bush (I was going to say "of lies, torture, illegal war, abuse of human rights, fat snouts in the trough" and a whole lot of other things, but you know all that already), this may be America's last chance to redeem itself in the eyes of the world.

When you get down to it, the real question is not policies and the economy and arguments about who will or will not raise taxes. It's very simple - with whose hand on the nuclear trigger will you feel most comfortable: Obama's calm reasonableness, or McCain's hot temper and willingness to compromise most of his principles to win election (not to mention the prospect of it passing into the hands of Sarah Parrot with her stupidity and unscientific beliefs, as well as her own "palling around with terrorists")?

The polls look good, as do the gambling odds and the first results, but I'll still be crossing my fingers until the result is sure.

Welcome to Taiwan - Now Go Home

Mainland Chinese diplomat Chen Yunlin can no doubt expect a heated response to his Taiwan visit, which starts today, from the island's independence advocates. Just a couple of weeks ago, pro-independence demonstrators pushed another Mainland representative to the ground, and later half a million marched through the streets of Taipei denouncing Chen's planned visit.

The problem with all this is that it lacks imagination, and further violence will only get them depicted as a bunch of hooligans. Instead, why don't they turn out half a million people to greet Chen warmly - with banners reading "Welcome to the free, independent and democratic nation of Taiwan"?

As for Taiwan's repeated attempts to secure United Nations representation, China is being a little hypocritical in blocking this on the grounds that China already represents the island and a separate seat would therefore be redundant. When Belarus and Ukraine held seats at the UN in addition to being represented as part of the Soviet Union, China never objected.

The lazy incompetent's guide to educational success

Looking for freelance writing opportunities today, I came across a couple of distinctly dodgy ads on Hong Kong Craigslist.

The first says:

"We are an educational company that specializes in university admissions services. We help students to apply and gain entry to their desired programs (College / MBA / Grad School).

Part of the application process involves the drafting of Admissions Essays, Letters of Recommendation etc. We are looking for talented writers who can produce interesting and effective work, in order to market our students in the best possible light.

Each project / university application comprises of the following:
- 4 to 7 essays (ranging from 100 to 600 words each) AND
- 2 to 3 recommendation letters (each addressing 5 to 8 questions)

We will provide the student's educational and academic profile (including CV and notes) and other related information.

We pay US$50-100 for the successful completion of each project. We have thousands of students each year so you can be guaranteed consistent work if you are good!"

Having worked my arse off to get my own MBA, it pisses me off to see this kind of scam. How does blatant plagiarism present a student "in the best possible light"? It shows them up for what they are - lazy incompetent frauds.

Should you wish to suggest to these conmen that their students might be better suited to working in McDonald's than the world of higher education if they are unable to write their own application essays, their email address is career@toprep.com.sg (the sg indicating Singapore, though they could be anywhere). I wonder if this kind of false application is a legal offence?

The second ad is headed Freelance Wtiring [sic] Talent Wanted (Global). It seeks candidates with good writing ability and research skills, and preferably academic writing experience - presumably competence in spelling is optional. They are looking for graduates in a range of subjects - for what they don't say, but academic plagiarism would probably be a good guess here as well. Far be it from me to suggest that their email address - job-896064625@craigslist.org - should be flooded with bogus responses. No indication of their whereabouts in the address, but they ask respondents to put "Thai-writer" in the subject line, which provides a clue.

The irony of all this is that I would probably be good at doing this stuff, but I want no part of it. It's unfair to those hard-working students who make the effort to do their own work, and it devalues everybody's qualifications.

Can't talk now, I'm at the phone

For most of my life, it was usual for people to write "call me on 12345678". Now it seems to be common for people to use "at 12345678" instead.

Is this a Hong Kong Chinglish thing, or in today's digital world, do people no longer recognise any distinction between a physical location and an electronic one?

Big Man in Bed Gets Wed

Amid the heavier news of plunging stock markets, the report of the wedding of Manuel Uribe, the world's fattest man, came as light relief. But stories of these morbidly obese gargantuan eaters confined to bed always make me wonder about the role of their family. When the fatty first decides to stay in bed and asks for three breakfasts and a bedpan, why don't they just say, "Get up and get it yourself, you lazy bugger"? Wouldn't it save an awful lot of trouble?

For Uribe, there may be a better life ahead. Maintained on a strict diet by his new wife, he has already shed 250 of his previous 560 kilograms, and may in time be able to look forward to other pleasures in life than food.

I always said spammers were stupid, but this one plumbs new depths of stupidity

Text of a spam email received this morning:

Anje1lna Jo1ie p0rn video, file attached, watch himHim?  I rest my case.

Shining city on a hill - just where it shouldn't be

From the promotional material for Sun Hung Kai's new Park One development in Shatin (above), it appears that the Hong Kong government continues to learn nothing about planning.

Over the years, the Parkview development on Hong Kong Island has received a ton of criticism. While probably a nice place to live (unless your name is Kissel), with stunning views over Tai Tam Country Park, for everyone but the handful of wealthy residents it is an ugly eyesore that blights the view from just about every corner of the park.

Two decades on, and the government is still permitting developers to stain the countryside and ruin green views with massive hilltop developments that stick out like a sore thumb. When will Hong Kong be run for the benefit of the people and not the big property developers? (I know, silly question - when we get real democracy. Which may be why we don't.)

Not content with raping the countryside, Sun Hung Kai is taking liberties with the English language as well, by describing this as a "low-rise" development. Huh? To me, you, and most people, low-rise means 3 or 4 floors at most - something you can walk up without needing a lift. Far from being low-rise, Park One is about 50% higher than the building in Rotterdam that claims to be Europe's first high-rise. But then, SHK is the company that succeeded in changing the laws of physics.

Still, all is not bad news for the environment in Hong Kong. It was announced a couple of weeks ago that the disastrous Soko Islands LPG terminal plan will not go ahead. Cheers!

No More Mr Nice Guy

Another insight into the personality of John McCain, currently bidding to become the first American President to have called his wife a cunt in public.

Do I Know You?

Ever noticed that the Rolex watch commercials on television don't bother to identify the famous Rolex wearers who appear in them (and are presumably paid a hefty sum for doing so)? Apparently it's assumed that the elite all recognise each other; if the rest of us hoi polloi don't know who they are, well, we can't afford a Rolex anyway, so that's our problem.

A Slip of the Scalpel

In his final campaign debate with Barack Obama, it sounded like John McCain started to say "we need to make health care avoidable", before correcting himself and saying "affordable".

But then, when it comes to health issues, surgical precision is not McCain's forte. Asked a few weeks ago whether the use of condoms was effective against HIV infection, he replied, "You’ve stumped me", before admitting he didn't know what his own position was on the issue!

This raises two possibilities. Either:

1. McCain is apallingly uninformed about one of the major health issues of our time, in which case he's probably too ignorant to be president; or
2. He sidestepped the question to avoid offending his supporters on the religious right, whose self-proclaimed "pro-life" stance does not extend to saving lives that might otherwise be lost to AIDS, in which case he's too dishonest to be president. (They also don't seem too concerned about Iraqi lives, but that's for another article.)
   

The second interpretation here might be inferred from McCain's use of the disparaging term "pro-abortion" in the debate, rather than "pro-choice". No one is "pro-abortion" - they simply believe, as Obama clearly and straightforwardly explained, that while abortion is undoubtedly a moral decision, it is not the government's moral decision to make, but that of the pregnant woman.

But then what else can you expect from a man who chooses as his running mate a woman who believes that the innocent victims of violent crime should be pubished for nine months - if the crime is rape resulting in pregnancy?

No Idea

I envy those bloggers who seem to have time to live a life, hold down a job, and still write 5,000 words before breakfast. I guess they don't need much sleep.

No doubt some of them have already written a lengthy analysis of Donald Tsang's policy speech on Wednesday. I haven't studied it in depth, but I do have two short comments.

"This is not a time for innovation," declared Donald after the speech. Dead wrong! The system of unbridled self-interest that has dominated the world economy since the Thatcher/Reagan era (when greed was elevated from one of the seven deadly sins to the supreme virtue) has reached an ugly dead end with the current financial crisis, hopefully giving way to a new age of fairness and responsibility. Meanwhile Hong Kong's traditional role as China's gateway to the world is becoming redundant, as a newly confident China ceases to need an intermediary and deals with the outside world directly.

Given this situation, innovation - i.e. new ideas about Hong Kong's future role - is exactly what we need at this moment. Either that, or slide into irrelevance.

Donald's other mistake was in declaring that the minimum wage to be set under the long overdue minimum wage law - to be introduced in the coming year, no doubt acompanied by bleats of protest from employers - may still be insufficient for a wage earner to support a family without receiving additional social welfare assistance. If this is so, then what is the point? What this means in effect is that the taxpayer is subsidizing irresponsible firms that underpay their workers, giving them an unfair cost advantage over more responsible companies that pay their employees a fair wage. Great system, huh?

Would you buy a used bank from this man?

I didn't catch the whole story because it was on the Chinese channel, but this morning on the TV news there was some senior official from the World Bank talking about providing financial advice to developing countries.

Looking at the current state of the developed world's financial system, this seems a bit like the Pope giving advice on sexual techniques.

What is Wealth?

According to the conventional wisdom, people are seeing their wealth eroded all over the world by the current financial crisis. Except they aren't; not really, because that wealth never existed.

Real wealth consists of goods and services that people actually need or want, and use. The total quantity of these should not be in the least affected by the banking crisis. We have just as much land to grow food on; just as many mines to dig out raw materials from; just as many oil wells to extract fuel from; just as many factories to produce goods in; just as many workers to work in those factories or in shops or restaurants or wherever else they are needed; just as many ships and trucks to deliver goods; just as many cars to drive, just as many houses to live in; just as many CDs to listen to, pubs to drink in, restaurants to eat in, clothes to wear, books to read, TVs to watch, planes to fly, parks to relax in, schools to study in, sports grounds to play on, churches to worship in if so inclined, and so on ad infinitum. In short, just as much wealth.

Those things are real wealth. All the rest - bits of paper, entries in ledgers, magnetic impulses in computer storage - money, in other words - is fictional wealth; a set of symbols that we have agreed on to represent real wealth.

How did the human race get in a position where these symbols so dominate our way of life that their absence, or a disturbance in their supply, can threaten our access to real wealth? Where large numbers of people spend their working lives manipulating these symbols without adding one iota to the underlying store of real goods and (useful) services? Foreign exchnge dealers, for example, convert one set of symbols into another set, without adding to the value of the goods represented by those symbols (i.e. creating wealth) in the slightest.

In their greed, America's bankers forgot that money is only a symbol, and created more and more symbols in the form of subprime mortgages until their nominal value far exceded the real value of the houses they were supposed to represent. (Real value is essentially measured by what goods could be exchanged for in a perfect barter system.) They then packaged up these inflated symbols and passed them on to other greedy bankers around the world, who also wanted a slice of this largely fictitious wealth. Some of these in turn resold them to the public in the form of yet more dubious financial instruments such as Lehman's minibonds.

Finally reality intruded and it became clear the emperor had no clothes - these symbols did not represent anywhere near the value of the real wealth they claimed to represent. The result: banks left with insufficient meaningful symbols to meet their obligations; angry people demanding to know why they had been sold worthless symbols; and governments around the world pouring meaningful symbols (representing the labour of taxpayers) into financial institutions to rescue them from the consequences of their own stupidity.

So what next - back to barter?

When You're Smiling...

To Sarah Palin's Image Consultant: telling your client to smile is not a bad idea, but not all the time! Intelligent Americans would like to see their potential president display a bit of gravitas, not an inane fixed grin. I'm sure she's got a good dentist, but it would be more impressive if she had a better grasp of the facts. For example, characterising Iran's president Ahmadinejad as a dictator is wrong on two counts: first of all, he came to power by winning a majority of votes from Iran's people, which is more than can be said of current US leader George W. Bush; secondly, the real power in Iran does not lie with him, but with the clerical leadership.

Still, nice teeth.

Poor Guys in Space

China's latest space mission fulfilled all its objectives, but at a cost - the new Chinese-made space suit alone cost over US$4 million. Still, China is clearly up there with the big guys now, which is exactly what its leaders want.

Want to bet that next time it's engaged in world trade negotiations, China will still claim to be a poor backward Third World country in need of trade concessions to help it catch up? Hmmm.

Getting Your Priorities in Proportion

• Amount requested by President George W. Bush to bail out greedy Wall Street bankers: US$700 billion.
• Amount pledged by world leaders and philanthropists to fight malaria (which kills more than a million people annually): US$3 billion.

Distant Drums

It's been a bad year for great musicians - Temptations songwriter/producer Norman Whitfield passed away a few days ago. Now the latest entrant to rock'n'roll heaven is drummer Earl Palmer.

You may never have heard of Palmer, but you've certainly heard his work - a jazzman at heart, he played on an astonishing array of all-time great recordings, from Fats Domino and Little Richard's pioneering early rock'n'roll in Palmer's native New Orleans, to "River Deep Mountain High" and other Phil Spector classics in Los Angeles, finding time in between to drum on everything from TV theme tunes to movie soundtracks, and even record a piece or two under his own name (The A Side blog has one). He is also said to be the man who first applied the word "funky" to music.

Palmer's autobiography, Backbeat, is a great rock read, taking the reader through a colourful life that went from tap dancing in vaudeville as a child to accompanying Frank Sinatra at the White House.

"I invented this shit"

was Palmer's legendary response to a young rock band worried that he might not be able to play in their style. He sure did.

Disclaimer - I get a small commission from Amazon UK if you buy the book through the picture link here.

Surely No Coincidence?

Average number of rolls of toilet paper used each day in The Pentagon: 666.

Blame It All on Mummy

As former Taiwan First Lady Wu Shu-chen again fails to attend court, claiming to be ill, it's interesting to observe the development of the corruption cases against her, former president Chen Shui-bian, and other family members. Chen claims his wife illegally transferred US$20 million of his campaign funds overseas without his knowledge. His son, accused of transferring US$31 million overseas, claims he merely signed documents prepared by his mother, without checking their contents.

The younger Chen's trust in his mother is touching indeed; I would trust my own mother with my life, but if she asked me to sign some bank forms, I think I would at least display a little curiosity as to what they were all about before sticking my name on the dotted line. Apparently the Chen family's strategy is to heap as much guilt on Wu as possible. As a wheelchair-bound invalid, she could presumably look forward to more lenient treatment than the able-bodied members of the family, if convicted.

Why does all this somehow remind me of the story of the girl who murdered her parents, then asked the court for clemency on the grounds that she was an orphan?

My Untainted Humps

As the Chinese contaminated baby milk scandal continues to worsen - 69 brands from 22 manufacturers recalled; 3 babies dead; 6,200 seriously ill; several export markets also involved - one wonders if Chinese women realise what those two "lovely lady bumps" on their chest are for. And no. I'm not being facetious (sadly).

(Not) Taking Care of Their Own

Mr President, the death toll in Iraq is approaching one million!

Who cares, they're all Muslims anyway. [Not true, by the way - the nearly 2000-year-old Christian community in Iraq has been almost entirely forced out of the country.]

Mr President, hundreds of thousands are still homeless in New Orleans!

Who cares, they're mostly black and poor anyway.

Mr President, hundreds of people have been tortured in Guantanamo Bay.

Who cares, they're all terrorists anyway. [Also not true.]

Mr President, thousands of middle class Americans are having their homes repossessed because they can't keep up with their mortgage payments.

Who cares, that's the system - when you invest, you take a risk. Sometimes it doesn't pay off.

Mr President, Wall Street is in trouble! The big investment banks are going bust!

Oh my God, this is terrible, these are our people! What can we do to help them?

Nothing, Mr President; we've spent all the money we had and more on your war in Iraq and handouts to the rich already.

So finally, the mountain of bad karma piled up by the Bush regime is beginning to topple down on its beneficiaries. And so incompetent is the government, it can't even bail out its own people, the heart of the Republican elite, the very ones whose interests this administration has been all about serving from the beginning, from the consequences of their own greed, folly and mendacity. Which would be enjoyable to watch, if it wasn't that many innocent victims are going to get hurt in the process as they see their hard-earned homes, insurance policies and pensions become worthless.

7-9 and the Marginalised Elector

7-9 is English for what the Americans prefer to call 9-7, i.e. today. The Hong Kong government, uncomfortable with the fact that the territory was a British colony for a century and a half, prefers to use the American format in its promotional advertising for today's Legislative Council election. Since "9-11", the New York skyline is not the only thing reshaped by Osama bin Laden.

"Shape your future"

say the posters; and even though we know that our future will continue to be largely shaped for us by the usual unholy alliance of Beijing politicians and local business bigwigs, it is important to send Beijing a clear message that we want to have a bigger say in our own destiny. So, get out there before 10:30 pm and vote! (unless you're planning to cast your ballot for the DAB, in which case, why not stay at home and read a good book instead? I recommend George Orwell's essays, particularly "Politics and the English Language").

Which brings me to an interesting question: why do Hong Kong politicians pay so little attention to the English-speaking voter? We all know - particularly since Florida in 2000 - that elections can be won and lost by only a few votes, and this is even more so in Hong Kong's rotten boroughs - the Functional Constituencies. Given this, you would think that an astute politician would not overlook any possible group of potential supporters, yet there are still candidates whose election publicity is entirely in Chinese, without even a pointer to an English version on their website. I heard from a friend that one famously hirsute local LegCo member even refused to answer questions put to him in English during a previous election campaign, although he speaks the language.

This time around, more candidates seem to have picked up the nessage - even the DAB - but there are still exceptions. Yet I suspect this group of voters, far from being of marginal significance, may be larger than anyone suspects. In fact, it consists of three distinct subgroups: expatriates settled here such as myself; the long-established local South Asian community, many of whom speak Cantonese but do not read or write Chinese; and possibly the largest of all, those Chinese people born in Hong Kong who grew up overseas following the great wave of emigration in the 1980s and 90s, but have since returned to their birthplace. Many of these speak Cantonese but were educated in English, and may be more comfortable reading it than Chinese.

OK, lesson over, go and vote.

Signs of the Times

That's nice, but will the food taste better?

Beauty isn't what it used to be!. Thanks to DC for this one.

Make up your mind!

Yes, but where do the other 90% of kids get educated?