If you can't see it and can't touch it, it may not be there

Ulaca has already commented on the speech by 1967-rioter-turned-Home Affairs Secretary Tsang Tak Sing announcing Hong Kong's exciting plans to bid for the 2023 Asian Games. However, it simply cries out for another of our Orwellian deconstructions of politicians' utterances. Let us quote it first:

"It will put Hong Kong on the map and reinforce Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s World City, which will bring in long-term, though perhaps intangible, benefits."

What does this mean in plain English?

It will remind people [unnecessarily] that Hong Kong exists and has pretensions to being a world city. We can't think of any other real benefits at the moment, but we want to go ahead anyway.

Whenever a politician talks about intangible benefits, you can be sure that the tangible benefits are rather thin on the ground.

This case raises a number of interesting points about Hong Kong's peculiar system of governance. For a start, it will no doubt give the government an excuse to construct another quasi-national stadium, when we already have a very good one which is criminally underused. This is largely because the government caved in to pressure from a handful of nearby residents and refuses to allow it to be used for concerts, thereby both wasting a valuable community resource and denying Hong Kong people the opportunity to enjoy performances by major stars for whom no other venue in the city is capacious enough. The fact that there was already a stadium on the site long before most of the residences around it were built, and that the inhabitants should therefore have expected occasional noise when they moved in, seems to carry no weight.

This plan also illustrates the tendency for such schemes in Hong Kong to be cooked up behind closed doors. Witness the presence of Timothy Fok, the man the media like to describe as Hong Kong's Olympic supremo, at the announcement. Despite having the worst attendance record of any Legislative Council member, Fok seems to be able to persuade the government to go along with anything he wants to do.

Fok also exemplifies one of the failings of the Functional Constituency system - despite supposedly representing the Sport, the Arts and Culture constituency Fok, ubiquitous at any major sporting event, doesn't seem to know his arts from his elbow. When was the last time he was seen at a Hong Kong Philharmonic concert or a performance by the Hong Kong Ballet? Effectively, this means the Arts are unrepresented in LegCo, with no one to fight for funding for them

Another point illustrated by this case is Hong Kong's warped financial priorities. The government is happy to spend money it admits will be unrecoverable on a sporting event, while insisting there is no cash in the kitty to invest in the city's future by taking advantage of falling birth rates to reduce class sizes in secondary schools. The schools already exist, the teachers are already trained - at public expense, and it is almost universally agreed by educationists that smaller classes obtain better results, but the government claims that using these already existing resources would be too costly. What can you do with people who think like this?

That'll Learn 'em!

In the latest spat over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, Chinese demonstrators have been calling for a boycott of Japanese goods. This is an excellent way to punish Japan - if no one buys their products, it will force Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sanyo, Canon, Konica Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, NEC, Toyota, etc., etc. to shut down their factories in China, throwing millions of Chinese employees out of work. That'll certainly learn 'em...er...hang on a minute...

Well thought out, indeed. Equally thoughtless are China's calls for the immediate release of the fishing boat captain at the heart of the row. This seems to be a case of double standards - if a Japanese boat ran into a Chinese coastguard vessel in disputed waters, does anyone seriously think China would just give him a token slap on the wrist and put him on the next plane home? So why should they expect Japan to do so?

Note: I take no position on the rightful ownership of the disputed islands - frankly I have no idea which nation has the better claim to them. I comment only on how the dispute is handled.

More money than sense

So George Michael has (again) joined the long list of celebrities found driving under the influence of various substances, legal or otherwise - a list that in the last few years has included Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and Mel Gibson.

What puzzles me is why? These people have truckloads of money - Michael's estimated fortune is US$90 million; Hilton inherited less of her father's fortune than she expected, but makes millions herself each year; Lohan reportedly makes US$7.5 million per film, though relatively poor Richie has to make do with a net worth of a mere US$5 million (still more than many people earn in several lifetimes), far less than Gibson's estimated US%850 million pile (about to be severely depleted by his impending divorce, but still leaving him enormously wealthy). Any of them could easily afford to hire a chauffeur. So why is it that someone who thinks nothing of ordering a thousand dollar bottle of champagne is seemingly too mean to fork out a hundred bucks for a taxi ride home after a night on the town?

Is it simple stupidity? Or could it be that their egos are so swollen they truly believe their desire to drive themselves is more important than the safety of everyone else on the road? Or both?

Incidentally, the word stupid is etymologically related to "stupour" (stupor for Anericans), which is what George Michael seems determined to spend the rest of his life in. A great pity for someone so talented.

Doctor of what, Father of where?

For some reason, the Hong Kong media have recently started to refer to Ocean Park CEO Allen Zeman as "Dr Zeman". However, I have been unable to discover what he is supposedly a doctor of.

The other nystery about Zeman is why the media constantly refer to him to as "the Father of Lan Kwai Fong". Those old enough to remember how the area got started on its development into an entertainment district know that this title should rightfully belong to the late, and now almost forgotten, Gordon Huthart. The South China Morning Post (surprisingly) tells his story sympathetically. [You may have to Google it, as somehow Google gets round the Post's subscription-on;y front door.]

RSS Feeds - any recommendations?

Bloglines, the RSS aggregator I've been using for the past couple of years, is closing down. Any recommendations on what to use instead? It must be a) free and b) simple.

All suggestions gratefully received.

You know you're getting old when...

... you walk along Lockhart Road in Wanchai and the bargirls hanging around in front of the nightclubs, who used to be half your age, are now one third of it.

But I had another reminder the other day that I'm not getting any younger. Receiving HK Magazine's latest email, I saw that they were offering valuable prizes for those completing their annual "Readers' Choice Awards" survey. OK, I thought, the prizes seem quite attractive - let's have a go.

• Best brunch - Cafe Deco on Sundays. Easy so far.
• Best dim sum - hmmm, I don't often go for dim sum, and then only where the wife's family decides to go.

I would have thought of somewhere, I suppose, but then it got harder:

• Best new restaurant; Best new coffee shop - I can't think of the last time I went to a new eating place (as opposed to visiting an old one for the first time). Anyway, restaurants, like jeans, are more comfortable when they've been worn for a while.
• Best new dining trend - I have absolutely no idea.
• Best place to take a date - nowhere if I don't want my wife to kill me.
• Best restaurant to blow your expense account on - since I don't have one, I can't afford to eat at that kind of restaurant anyway, so how would I know?
• Best new club - I think it's about 20 years since I last went clubbing.
• Bets new bar - does the King's Belly in Taipo count? Actually it's not new, just a new name for After 5 when it changed ownership. My favourite bars/pubs in Hong Kong don't even exist any more - the original Mad Dogs in Wyndham Street, and the Frog & Toad out on Lantau. These days if I do go out for a drink, it's usually to Delaney's.
• Best local DJ -I don't think I can even name a local DJ except Ray Cordeiro, and somehow I don't think he's the type they have in mind.
• Best clothing store - does the Ten Dollar T-Shirt outlet in Causeway Bay count? Being tall, I tend to stock up on clothes when I visit Europe or Canada - most of the stuff here doesn't fit me (shoes too).
• Favorite fashion brand (note the American spelling) - whatever fits me and doesn't cost too much.
• Best gym - haven't been to one for years - or to a yoga studio ever.
• Best spa - the one my wife takes me to, I guess -I can't remember the name.
• Best new mobile phone - if it existed, would be one with a large enough screen to actually let me read it; failing that, anything that makes and receives calls.

And so on - you get the picture. They do eventually get to some questions I could answer:

• Best beach - I'm not telling you because I like the fact that it's usually deserted. Ditto for Best Hong Kong hideaway, but by now I'd given up.

So, I conclude that I am either:

• An out-of-touch old fogey who's totally clueless about all the important trends around town; or
• A mature individual who's grown out of his juvenile fascination with trendiness and the pursuit of novelty for its own sake.

And you?

The Stamp Vultures

I;m sure I'm not the only shopper who's irritated by the stamp vultures - those people who hang around the exits from Wellcome supermarkets - particularly the one in Great George Street in Causeway Bay - pestering departing shoppers for their gift stamps.

What's with these people? When the giveaways were something with some intrinsic value, like cooking pots or luggage, I could understand it. But the current offerings are just unremarkable stuffed toys. How many Shreks can one person need?

Reach out and touch...

A fundamentalist Christian church in the US is planning to mark the anniversary of the September 11 World Trade Centre attacks by burning copies of the Koran - thereby ensuring that more Muslim fundamentalists will be enraged into carrying out further acts of terrorism.

This is pretty much the kind of intolerance and mutual lack of understanding one expects from religious fundamentalists on both sides of the Muslim/Christian divide. What makes it noteworthy is the name of the church concerned - the Dove World Outreach Centre. They certainly know how to reach out to the Muslim world, don't they? Perhaps some Muslims should reach out to them by burning copies of the Bible outside their church. All in the spirit of peace symbolised by the dove, of course.

Fact: Islam also recognises the Bible as a holy book - though fundamentalists on both sides seem unaware of this. Or indeed of anything much except their own bigotry.

Invasion of the Great White Dolphins

ATV News a minute ago brought the welcome news that a large pod of the rare Chinese White Dolphin has been spotted off Shantou - the largest group of the endangered creatures seen for some years. However, according to ATV, the dolphins can grow up to 350 metres in length - more than a third of a kilometre.

memo to ATV - try moving the decimal point two places to the left. Otherwise I shall start to wonder what the Daya Bay nuclear poweer station is pouring into the South China Sea.

Catherine's Cancer Karma

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones has recently declared in interviews that she is furious with her husband Michael Douglas's doctors for not detecting his throat cancer earlier. And well she may be, but perhaps she should be turning her fury in a different direction. Zeta-Jones has often been quoted as a vocal advocate of the so-called right to smoke - and has even been reported to travel by private plane so that she and her husband can smoke during their journeys.

It is well known that smoking is the most common cause of throat cancer. If you spend your time defending and indulging in dangerous behaviour, perhaps you should look in the mirror when it comes back to bite you - or your loved ones - in the throat.

P.S To be fair to the Douglases, after posting this I read that they have been trying to quit smoking in recent years - with what degree of success, I have no idea. Anyway, this is not meant to be a personal attack - I have enjoyed both their movies over the years, and wish Michael a speedy recovery.

Blair in the Brown Stuff

It's been a while since we had one of our stories where, in the tradition of George Orwell, we translate the language of politics into straightforward English. Appropriately, today's example comes from the just-published memoirs of Tony Blair, never a man to say what he means straight out if he can make it sound better with a little obfuscation. To quote the BBC, speaking of his successor:

Blair argued that, had he sacked or demoted the Chancellor, "the party and the government would have been severely and immediately destabilised and his [Gordon Brown's] ascent to the office of Prime Minister would probably have been even faster".

In plain English, what this means is: If I'd sacked Brown, he would have stirred up the party against me and grabbed my job earlier. So what sounds on first reading like a principled decision in the interests of the party and the country turns out to be a self-serving calculation on how best Blair could hang on to his job at the top.

In tennis, six means something

Is there anyone at ATV News who understands tennis? After telling us in tonight's broadcast how Rafael Nadal had an "easy" first round victory at the US Open, they then gave us the score: 7-6, 7-6, 6-3. Need I say more?

P.S. TVB's late news talked about Nadal's "smooth path" to the second round, but did at least mention that he was on court for 3 hours - not usually a sign of an easy victory.

Understanding the Australian election

As both main parties in Australia struggle to form a viable minority government, another in our series of single sentence explanations that make everything clear. This one came from a friend in Melbourne.

"Neither major political party deserved to win - and they didn't!"

Easy for you to say

Following yesterday's tragic events in Manila, Hong Kong politicians from Chief Executive Donald Tsang downwards have been quick to express their anger at the handling of the hostage situation by the Philippines police. It is of course easy to sit back in a comfortable room in front of your big screen TV and pass judgement in such cases. Perhaps they should give a thought to whether the right course of action is so obvious when you are out there with inadequate protection facing an armed kidnapper in torrential rain. Yes, the Philippines police appeared to lack training, equipment and leadership - all the fault of politicians, not the officers themselves. Despite this, they put their lives on the line, facing gunfire and eventually successfully rescuing at least some of the hostages alive. Don't they deserve some credit for this?

As for the Hong Kong government placing the Philippines on its tourism blacklist, advising against travel to the country, this is a silly knee-jerk reaction. The proper use of this mechanism is in cases where the security situation in a country presents a general threat to visitors, such as in Bangkok a few months ago during the clashes between the government and redshirt protesters. There is no such general danger in the Philippines - the biggest risk most Hong Kong tourists face there, unless they visit the remoter parts of Mindanao, is that of the occasional pickpocket and the country's appalling driving standards, both of which can be found much closer to home.

This was a one-off incident of a disgruntled armed nutcase running amok and killing innocent people who just happened to be there at the time. Such incidents happen from time to time in many countries, including in recent years Canada, the UK, the USA and China. It is hard to imagine the Hong Kong government advising against travel to any of those countries had a similar event occurred there.

I'm In, You're Too Late

Another of the little ironies that make life interesting: both Australia's two main party leaders, promising to get tough on immigration as part of their campaign for today's election, themselves arrived in Australia as Pommie immigrants.

When I hear people complain about asylum seekers, I think of my Huguenot ancestors - French Protestants who fled to England to escape persecution by the Catholic church - the same church, renowned for rampant child abuse, that would-be Aussie PN Tony Abbot belongs to.

Understanding Afghanistan

Sometimes one sentence is all you need to make sense of a complex situation. Last year in England I happened to ride in a taxi driven by an Afghan refugee. We got chatting, and he told me "All the politicians in my country are bandits, thieves and warlords". Just bear that in mind when watching the news.

Trouble and strife

Probably the silliest story of the week comes from Italy, where a mother complained to the police that a young woman on the beach was "troubling" her two sons, aged 12 and 14, by rubbing suntan oil into her "ample" breasts in a sensuous manner.

Having been a teenage boy myself, I can assure the mother that the only thing troubling her boys was probably their mother's presence at the scene.

"Used to wear iron shoes with ease"

Watching Aljazeera a couple of days ago, I saw a trailer for a coming programme on the experiences of a Liberian immigrant to the USA. What struck me about this is that the state of Liberia was founded as a refuge in their ancestral continent for freed slaves from the harsh treatment and oppression they faced in America. As a keen student of the ironies of history, I find it an interesting comment on changed racial attitudes in the USA that the flow of people is now in the other direction.

A tunnel too far

Almost the first thing you learn when studying economics is the basic law of supply and demand. Simply put, lower prices increase demand, higher prices reduce it where substitutes are available.

For some reason, the management of the Western Harbour Tinnel seems never to have grasped this elementary rule. Their response to years of losses has always been, not to lower tolls in the hope of attracting more business, but to raise them even further, thereby driving yet more potential users to divert to the congested but much more affordable Cross-Harbour Tunnel between Hung Hom and Causeway Bay instead.

From tomorrow Western Harbour Tunnel fees, already the highest among the three tunnels beneath the harbour, will go up yet again. This could be an indication of chronic stupidity, but I suspect there is another agenda behind it. The company may figure that the government, exasperated by the impact of CHT congestion on traffic management, will eventually solve its problems by taking the Western Tunnel off its hands, implying that the company would receive substantial compensation and rid itself of a loss-making asset. Watch this space.

Silly Vanilli

32 years on, it emerges in a legal case that Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand did not actually sing on his big hit "Ca Plane Pour Moi". Never mind, it's still a fun record.

These days, of course, it makes no difference who actually sings on a pop record. Today's over-processed production style makes every song sound computer-generated anyway.

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

You learn something new every day

Did you know that a zebra's stripes form concentric rings around the base of its tail? No? Neither did I until I came face to face - well, face to backside - with this specimen.


So much to learn, so little time...

A small start

Israel is reported to have destroyed the homes of 300 Bedouin villagers in the Negev Desert which it claims were illegally built.

It is good news that Israel has made a start on destroying homes constructed illegally. Now perhaps they will get to work on demolishing the thousands of Jewish settlements erected on stolen Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, in clear violation of international law. But I'm not holding my breath....

Way off course

Oddest headline of the day: from the BBC News website, Sailor found dead in Afghanistan. Considering Afghanistan is a landlocked country, you'd have great difficulty sailing there!

The actual story, when read, turns out to be about the death of a US Navy man serving with the American forces there. Which brings us to the Wikileaks release of numerous documents suggesting that America's war effort in that country is also well of course. However, is anyone really surprised that the war is apparently going less well than we are led to believe from public statements? War is a matter of psychology as well as brute force; success depends partly on demoralising the enemy, so why would you want to let them know how badly they're hurting you?

The last place to look

A few months ago I lost my sunglasses - a rather good pair. I looked everywhere - in every drawer and bag I could possibly have left them in - but to no avail. Reluctantly (and expensively, because I need prescription lenses) I finally gave up and bought a new pair.

This morning, in preparation for a coming trip, I took out my video camera to recharge the battery, opened up the camera case, and there were my old sunglasses! I must have popped them in there while filming on our last trip, but really, who woulda thunka looking there? Oh well...

My country 'tisn't of thee

As the World Cup kicks off in South Africa, it is hard to imagine any participating nation discouraging its citizens from flying the national flag in support of their team. Any nation, that is, except my native land, where my departure has clearly lowered the national average IQ even more than I previously thought.

English - as opposed to British - nationalism is rarely as fervent as the Scottish and Welsh varieties - there is no English Nationalist Party in Parliament, and unlike Scotland and Wales, England has no Parliament of its own. Only major sporting events generally bring out displays of English patriotism, when the cross of Saint George, England's patron saint, is seen more often than the United Kingdom's Union Flag ( as the Union Jack is properly called).

One of the reasons being given by killjoys for banning the flying of the flag is fears that it might appear racist. Where do these people live? Clearly they haven't noticed that England's football team has been racially integrated for two decades - indeed, several black players have captained it over the years, and mixed-race player Rio Ferdinand would be doing so in this tournament had he not been injured.

It is true that members of the odious British National Party like to cloak themselves in the flag, but singer Billy Bragg neatly put their bullshit into perspective when he pointed out that their anti-immigration policies would make St George, born in the Middle East, unwelcome in England. (Ironically, the YouTube clip was apparently posted by a BNP supporter). But then logic has never been racists' strong point - I am old enough to remember people arguing that no black player would ever be good enough to play for England - at the very time when Pele (certainly not white) was establishing his reputation as the greatest footballer of all time.

Chutzpah

Chutzpah: (Yiddish) unbelievable gall; insolence; audacity, effrontery

A multinational group of unarmed volunteers on an aid mission are sailing peacefully in international waters when a large gang of heavily armed men board their ships, shoot several of them dead, detain the rest, seize their vessels by force, confiscate their cargo of humanitarian supplies (which is found to contain no weapons), and steal their personal possessions. The legal name for this type of action is of course piracy. Some of those on board may have forcibly resisted the pirate incursion, as they are legally entitled to do, though accounts differ on this.

Just another day in the Middle East - but what males the episode even more bizarre is that the pirates then turn up at the UN Security Council claiming that their victims were in breach of international law and painting themselves as the victims of unwarranted violence. Chutzpah is not a word I use myself, but in this case I am irresistibly reminded of its Hebrew origins.

"Welcome to America, Captain Hook"

Though most countries express outrage, the USA, so quick to condemn piracy when it occurs off Somalia, is strangely hesitant to condemn the actions of the pirates on this occasion. Perhaps the next step should be for American peace activists to mount their own aid mission to Gaza in an American-registered ship. If it receives the same treatment, I wonder if public opinion in America will still let Israel get away with murder?

Swallow your poison now and you'll get ice cream later

The Hong Kong government's publicity walkabout yesterday and "Act now" promotional campaign for its constitutional reform package cannot disguise the essential hollowness of what the package contains.

The Functio0nal Constituencies lie at the heart of the lack of democracy in the present political system, unfairly giving certain selected groups a greater say in the makeup of the Legislative Council than ordinary voters, contrary to the democratic principle that everyone should have a free and equal say. Any proposal which seeks to increase the number of FCs is therefore poisoned from the start. However, the government's position asks the democratic parties to swallow this poison now in exchange for a vague promise of some more democratic system later.

The questions Audrey Eu should be asking Donald Tsang when they have their debate are:

• Why should democrats accept a change which runs contrary to basic democratic principles?
• Why is the government presenting this undemocratic move as a step - the only possible one, they claim - towards greater democracy?
• Why is the government unable to come up with any reform proposal that reduces, rather than enlarges, the role of the FCs, and would therefore be acceptable to democrats as a transitional measure?
• Given that it has twice presented poisoned proposals to LegCo, and on both occasions insisted that there is no alternative, is it really committed to democracy?
• If not, why can't it just say so honestly, then we will all know where we stand?

Behind all this, of course, is the bigger question of Beijing's role in what's going on - but I don't think we're going to get open answers on that one.

Two Steps Up and One Step Down

After many years of public education, most Hong Kong people have by now grasped the basic rule of escalator etiquette: stand on the right and overtake on the left. Obviously, therefore, this is the perfect time for the Hong Kong government to launch its new TV advertising campaign, advising parents to stand next to their child on the escalator, holding hands, with both parent and child holding the handrail - thereby ensuring that no one can get past them.

Coming next in the government's diseducation series: "how to push your way onto trains and buses instead of joining the queue". That will be followed by "how to spit on the street".

Suicide by Statistics

The media have made much in recent weeks of the apparent spate of suicides at the Shenzhen factory owned by Foxconn, the world's largest maker of computer parts for such leading brands as Apple and Dell. 13 of its employees have attempted suicide this year, 10 of them successfully.

Now if Foxconn were a typical Pearl River Delta factory with a few thousand workers, this would indeed be an alarming figure. But it is in fact a massive enterprise, with the Shenzhen plant employing 300,000 people according to Wikipedia. Today's South China Morning Post puts the figure even higher at 420,000. Either way, this makes it the size of a small city - larger than Taipo, for example.

Now let's look at the figures again. According to World Health Organisation statistics, China's suicide rate in 1999 [the last year listed) was 13.9 per 100,000 per year. Now extrapolate the 10 successful suicides at Foxconn this year (2 per month) to an annual figure of 24. Taking 300,000 as the number of employees, Foxconn's rate is therefore 8 per 1000,000 per annum. Far from being unusually high, this is little more than half the national average.

A more detailed statistical analysis would look at these figures in greater depth to compare them by age group - most Foxconn employees are in their twenties or thirties - and gender - China is unique in being the only country where more women than men kill themselves. And I do not intend to suggest that the 10 suicides are not tragic for those involved. But just the basic analysis I have given here suggests that, not unusually, the statistically illiterate media have blown up a problem out of all proportion.

An honourable exzception here is The Times. After I worked this out, I found their article drawing the same conclusion.

Words of Wisdom for Hong Kong People

Never trust a man who wears a bow tie

--fictional FBI agent Jack Malone in the final episode of the TV series Without a Trace, shoiwn recently on TVB

Cultural coincidences

Who knew that Korea was once a Welsh colony?

Something strange is going on here

Last night I wrote and posted a long critical piece on Sunday's Hong Kong by-elections, entitled "Giving Democracy a Bad Name". This morning it showed up in my Bloglines. Noticing a typo, I opened up Blogger to correct it, only to find that the post in question had disappeared from my blog. I didn't delete it, so what is going on here? I don't want to start succumbing to conspiracy theories - it could be a software bug in Bloglines - but it does seem odd. Unfortunately I didn't keep a copy. Does anyone have any idea how I can retrieve it?

(Ten minutes later)
Curiouser and curiouser - a Google search shows up the missing post: http://ourprivatebeach.blogspot.com/2010/04/giving-democracy-bad-name.html - but when I go to the blog's home page, it doesn't appear, although this later post does. I suspect a bug in Blogger. I'll come back later and see if it's sorted out.

(Several hours later)
OK, sorted - I found the missing post lurking under the date 10 April instead of 17 May. Since I never even open the options window to set the date of posts, I still suspect a Blogger bug, but at least I can rule out more sinister explanations. I've amended the date of the post and deleted my repost of earlier today.

Giving Democracy a Bad Name

Yesterday's Legislative Council by-elections in Hong Kong have - like the recent British general election - given no one what they wanted. With voter turnout around 17%, the pan-democrats did not get the overwhelming public show of demand for a faster pace to democracy that they hoped for. However the government, despite a bizarre campaign of dissuasion surely unprecedented in any territory that allows free voting - and which Martin Lee rightly said would make them look stupid in the eyes of the world - still saw more than half a million voters turn out to re-elect the five resigned legislators by massive margins. This is in spite of obstacles deliberately placed in the way of many voters, including forcing some to travel long distances to remote polling stations.

With the decision by the DAB and Liberal Party ("under orders" according to Allen Lee - he didn't need to say from whom) not to contest the elections misguidedly engineered by some pan-democrats as a supposed "referendum on democracy", the exercise began to look distinctly futile early on. Once nominations closed, a look at the list of declared candidates made the elections appear even more farcical. With the major parties stepping aside, the field was wide open for an array of attention grabbers, self-publicists and total nutters (one wanted to abolish the ICAC to save public money), and that is exactly what we got. For once the South China Morning Post was right about something in calling them "fringe candidates" (8 April).

A look at their declared occupations is interesting - though two of them don't appear to be occupied with anything, suggesting they may have joined the election simply for lack of anything better to do with their time. The five pan-democrats standing for re-election variously described themselves as Barrister, Resigned Legislative Council Member, Senior Counsel, District Councillor, and Advocate for De facto referendum. That last one is Leung Kwok-Hung, who also gives Long Hair as his alias. Another familiar alias is Bus Uncle, standing in Hong Kong Island. When not starring on YouTube, it appears that he is a Merchant.

Then we have a few students, including the ubiquitous Crystal Chow, without whom no student protest would be complete; an Engineer II (doesn't it seem rather odd to give his grading?); a Government Pensioner (presumably this means a retired civil servant); and a Web Commentator - is this an up-market term for blogger?

Then there is serial attention-seeker Pamela Pak, or as it turns out her name is officially spelled, Peck, who describes herself as a Media Personality. "I didn't know Personality was a job," said my wife, who is clearly not au fait with the Age of Celebrity. When I was young, "famous for being famous" was a derisive description, but these days it seems to be everyone's ambition. Peck's main election platform appeared to be a deep personal dislike of the abrasive Raymond "Mad Dog" Wong. Perhaps she also fancied spending more time with her equally attention-hungry partner Paul "Superman" Tse, who curiously represents the Tourism Constituency in LegCo despite being a lawyer by profession.

Apart from being uncertain how to spell her surname, Pak or Peck has a past criminal conviction for tax evasion, which would have put her in good company alongside LegCo member Chim Pui Chung, convicted of conspiracy to forge documents - apparently a minor peccadillo in the eyes of his Financial Services constituents. Could there be a better argument against Functional Constituencies than Chim's presence in LegCo? Remember these people oversee the spending of our money.

Fortunately foghorn-voiced singer and TV chef Maria Cordeiro did not make good on her threat to stand in NT East, but among the candidates there clamouring for my support were one who describes himself as an Idea Marketing Director (who buys ideas, I wonder?) He was running on behalf of something called the Non Violence Social Movement, which sounds promising until you find out that his idea of violence is the recent goings on in LegCo, so a more apt name would be the Politer Politics Party. If he really thinks that the odd bout of verbal rudeness and an occasional irritating outbreak of banana throwing amount to violence, I will be happy to educate him on what political violence really is by dressing him in my Aung San Suu Kyi T-shirt from Amnesty International and buying him a one-way ticket to Burma (I doubt he'll be coming back soon). Alternatively he could just try roaming the streets of Bangkok tomorrow in a red shirt. The occasional rude remark in LegCo doesn't even compare to the more rambunctious Australian Parliament, where verbal abuse is elevated to an art form, or the frequent fisticuffs in Taiwan's legislature.

Anyway, my problem was - I didn't want to vote for Long Hair, whom I feel has not done a good job as a legislator - indeed I suspect his party's antics only reinforce China's fear of giving full democracy to Hong Kong. So how could I send a message to the Government that I want a faster path to full democracy without voting for any of these clowns? Isn't it time that all ballot papers carried an additional option: "None of the Above"?

According to ATV News, there were about 19,000 spoiled ballot papers in this election, a remarkably high figure if correct, though I can't find confirmation of this figure on the government's websites, which have played down the election to the extent that it doesn't even rate a headline on the main government site despite being clearly the most significant political event of the moment. This suggests that many others found the same solution that I did.

Driving out of his mind

Last night's news reported that a taxi driver sent to prison after crashing his vehicle while driving under the influence of ketamine had 40 previous convictions for traffic offences - which makes me wonder just how bad a driver you have to be before you lose your licence to drive a taxi in Hong Kong. Feel safe now?

This reminds me of the first time my wife and I visited Taipei. Drivers there seem calmer now - or maybe the traffic is now so congested they have no opportunity for speeding - but in those days driving standards there were totally crazy. After a terrifying ride with a young taxi driver clearly intent on qualifying for Formula 1, my wife refused to take any taxi with a driver below the age of 40. She figured if they'd survived that long, they must be reasonably safe behind the wheel.

Groundless Regret

Is there anyone left in the Hong Kong Government who is fluent in English? The Chief Executive's statement denying that he approached Legislative Council Chairman Tsang Yok-Sing asking him to vote for the government's half-arsed electoral reform package ends with the sentence: "The hearsay is groundless, which we deeply regret." Surely he regrets the hearsay, not the fact that it is groundless? The correct grammar should therefore be: "The hearsay, which we deeply regret, is groundless."

Tsang, asked whether he'd been approached, responded that no senior executive of the government had put pressure on him to vote - which doesn't exactly answer the question.

Caption Competition

Doesn't this image from the BBC just cry out for a caption competition?

Bog Otter - That Means You, Ann, or Your Ancestors

Someone should tell ATV's newsreaders that the name of China's currency is not pronounced as "You Ann". They should also be told that, while there may be such a creature as the "bog otter", it is not the name of Colombia's capital.

Or perhaps they were trying to say "begotter", which brings us neatly to another media mistake. British scandal sheet (newspaper would be too polite a word for it), The Sun, in between plugging a Tory election victory that would no doubt benefit its owner Rupert Murdoch's already bulging coffers, found space on its website a couple of days ago for a headline saying "ANCESTOR of Alice Hawkins, jailed for role in suffragettes, meets women who won’t vote". When you click through to the actual story, it turns out to be about a young woman whose great great grandmother was jailed five times for her activities in the suffragette movement that eventually won British women the vote. Last time I looked, that would make her a descendant, not an ancestor, but a knowledge of the English language has always been less highly regarded at The Sun than the ability to come up with the most excruciating puns in headlines.

Of course, Hong Kong women - and men - are still waiting for full universal suffrage, but that's another story.

Brown Stuff on Ice

It will be little surprise that Iceland's voters overwhelmingly rejected a plan that would have made each of them liable to repay thousands of dollars to the British and Dutch governments for compensation they paid out to investors who lost money when Iceland's banks collapsed in 2008 following the global financial crisis.

Quite apart from not seeing why they should bear the consequences of the actions of a few greedy people, Icelanders are naturally pissed off that Britain invoked anti-terrorist legislation following the collapse to freeze Icelandic funds held in London. Since Iceland is Britain's NATO ally and one of the most peaceful countries on Earth, how could such a thing happen?

My own theory is that it was all a misunderstanding. A report from Britain's Environment Ministry landed on Gordon Brown's desk saying that Iceland was a threat to whales (which it is one of the few nations still hunting). Owing to an unfortunate typo, Brown glanced at it and took it to be an intelligence report saying that Iceland was a threat to Wales. Naturally he had to take action.

Of course, another possible explanation could be that Gordon Brown is an unprincipled opportunist willing to bend the law to get what he wants. But no one would believe that of a British Prime Minister, would they?

Lessons in Democracy

The Morning Post today highlights America's criticism of the lack of democracy in Hong Kong, saying "The US government has criticised the Hong Kong government for limiting the ability of its people to change their government". While agreeing with the criticism, I wonder if they should first turn their attention to their own system. The US is, after all, the country where a clear majority of electors voted for Al Gore in 2000 and got ... George W. Bush. What was that saying about pots and kettles?

On the Other Foot

Every so often one hears of the death of someone who has been so long out of the public eye that one has assumed them to be dead already. So it is with the passing at age 96 of Michael Foot, former leader of the British (Old) Labour Party, and best remembered for his unfortunate loss of the 1983 election to the execrable Margaret Thatcher.

"He was as far removed from the techniques of modern politics as you could possibly imagine."
--Tony Blair

Could there possibly be higher praise than that?

Are you keeping up?

A few weeks ago, needing a new battery for my little Samsung digital camera, I went to the service centre address in Russell Street listed on their website, only to find they had recently moved a few blocks away to Causeway Centre.

Needing to take another Samsung product for service, I rechecked their website this morning, only to find that the service centre address has still not been updated.

"In everything we do, we strive to help people live better lives"

says Samsung's website. Everything except keeping their website up to date, that is.

Misdirection

I don't know which government department is responsible for erecting these signs, but you would think the person putting this one up would have noticed that the sign to Blake Pier is pointing in exactly the opposite direction to where it should be - especially as the pier is clearly visible from this point! Perhaps he was confusing it with the old Blake Pier in Central, which was demolished a couple of decades ago.

Year of the Tigger

Question: if the Chinese have a Year of the Pig(let) and a Year of the Tigger, why don't they have a Year of the Pooh?

Wishing a happy and healthy Year of the Tigger to all my readers.

Trading Places

A branch of Tesco (Britain's leading downmarket supermarket chain) has imposed a ban on people shopping in their pyjamas. This reminds me that when I first came to Hong Kong, it was common to see people in their PJs slipping out to the local dai pai dong for a quick bowl of noodles at suppertime. Nowadays there are only a handful of true dai pai dongs left, and no self-respecting Hong Konger would dream of going out to eat without getting dolled up in their name brand clothes (real or fake depending on income). Somehow there was an unselfconscious innocence about those days which I miss .

Democracy or Diversion?

"I elected them to represent me, not to resign."

Words of wisdom from one who, I suspect, echoes the feelings of many Hong Kong people over the resignation today of five pro-democracy legislators to force what they claim will be a de facto referendum on democratic reform.

I an personally quite peeved by this action. I don't want to do anything that could be perceived by the government as indicating a lack of public support for immediate universal suffrage. But neither do I want to cast my vote for Leung Kwok-Hung, better known as Longhair, the democratic candidate in my constituency. I feel he's never made the mental leap from being a street agitator to becoming an effective legislator, and his party's attention-grabbing antics in LegCo all too often divert attention from the causes they aim to promote rather than furthering them.

This is only the latest in a whole series of mistakes made by the pan-democrats, however. The previous electoral reform proposals in 2005 were voted down, yet it would in retrospect have been wiser to abstain from voting (as one member did) rather than voting against them. A small step towards democracy may not seem much, but Beijing calls the shots, and they are clearly concerned that full democracy will bring about the kind of social chaos that they most fear. Each move towards democracy that is seen not to destabilise Hong Kong reassures them and makes them more ready to grant us a little more next time around. If the price for that is living with some role for the fundamentally undemocratic functional constituencies a little longer, then so be it.

Another mistake, particularly for the League of Social Denocrats, was to overplay the fuss over Donald Tsnag's alleged favouritism towards his family members in the last budget. The Chief Executive - in my view a competent administrator who has neither the vision nor the charisma to be a true leader - may have made an error in not realising that the proposal to subsidise energy-saving light bulbs woiuld indirectly benefit a relative, but nothing in his history or what we know of his character suggests that he is corrupt. Far better to oppose his real failures - on democracy, health care, and numerous other issues.

So - how to vote in the coming by-election? That's if there is one, with the pro-Beijing parties threatening to boycott the whole exercise. Wait and see.

South China Posting Morn

It appears that the Substandard's notorious inability to afford competent subeditors has now spread to the South China Morning Post. A headline on their website today proclaims "Dissident HK handed to mainland jailed 9 years". If "HK" is the subject here, as it appears, we're all in big trouble. (Not that we aren't anyway, if "our" government goes around handing people in Hong Kong over to mainland authorities for offences that are not illegal here.)

Tiger's Lost Balls

Consulting firm Accenture was one of the first sponsors to drop Tiger Woods after his extramarital shenanigans became public knowledge. Somehow the message doesn't seem to have filtered down to their Hong Kong office yet - a version of the image above advertising their services still greets arriving passengers at the airport (exit B).

What's the Difference?

A long-running series of TV commercials in Hong Kong has been telling us for months that "the difference is Macau". Now a new series of ads is telling us "the difference is Gaggenau". I'm confused - what exactly is the difference? Or is it just that some advertising agency is too lazy to think up a new slogan?

Anyway, 2009 was a difficult year for many people; let's hope the difference will be 2010. Happy New Year, everyone!

"'Tis the season to be jolly" - bah, humbug!

On Christmas Eve I looked in Oliver's for Stone's ginger wine, the traditional Christmas tipple (even my resolutely teetotal grandmother used to partake of a drop at Yuletide, apparently persuading herself that it wasn't really alcoholic). Alas, everyone else had apparently had the same thought, since they had sold out, and I had no time to look elsewhere, having already drawn a blank at City Super. Then I made the mistake of popping into Toys"R"Us to get a little something for the nephews - again everyone else had the same idea, since the queue for payment literally stretched the entire length of the shop.

I always envy those organised people who are fully prepared for Christmas by the end of November - I am still sending out late Christmas greetings several days later (I suppose I could pretend to be Russian, since their Christmas is twelve days later) - anyway we were still putting up our decorations on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning I eagerly opened my email, expecting more greetings from my loved ones, only to be flooded by the usual crop of spam. The organ extenders seemed to have taken a break (they came out later in the day, having presumably been testing the efficacy of their products late into the night), but the Nigerian business proposals, "replica" (= fake) watches, Canadian medications and the like were all out in force. Perhaps the oddest was a message from one "Holly [how seasonal!] Connelly" saying, "I know that you'll be alone these holidays [wrong], what are you going to do? My advice is gambling. It's lots of fun!" No thanks, especially at an online casino I've never heard of.

Least seasonal, having perhaps dropped through a timewarp, was the spammer who suggested I order 10 special cigars as a gift for Father's Day - which was some time in the summer last time I looked. Since my father died of cancer from smoking (15 years ago yesterday in fact), cigars are just about the last thing I would give anyone for Father's Day - or Christmas for that matter.

Things could only look up from there - until I bit on a staple in my fried rice at lunchtime. Then in the afternoon I went out into the garden, only to find that our little lotus pool (the ceramic type that sits on a stand) had completely dried up. I suspected a leak, but since I refilled it the water has stayed in. It could, I suppose, have been caused by a mini-tornado sucking out all the water, but since there were no reports of any strange weather phenomena over Christmas, my theory is that Santa's reindeer drank all the water the previous night.

After that, the rest of the day was actually quite enjoyable. The 3-year-old nephew was pleased with the toy plane we gave him, until another aunty and uncle gave him a talking toy bus from Japan, when he quickly lost interest in our less sophisticated offering. And the 1-year-old detested his wriggly toy snake and kept throwing it to the floor to get rid of it.

So what sort of Christmas did you have? Anyway, Merry Christmas to my dwindling stock of readers!

Debate or Denial?

As the great Climate Change Conference opens in Copenhagen, one of Hong Kong's TV stations (I can't remember which) used the term "climate change deniers" in a news broadcast.

This is a singularly unhelpful term in the context. It is clearly intended to resonate with the term "Holocaust denier", but we are dealing with a very different phenomenon here. The Holocaust is a historical fact, attested to by thousands of reliable witnesses who survived Hitler's death camps, the testimony of Allied forces who liberated them, the confessions of camp guards, and numerous Nazi historical documents. Those who deny that it occurred are either deluded loonies, or more commonly evil racists seeking to whitewash the reputation of the Nazi regime.

Climate change is not a solid fact in this sense. It is an interpretation of masses of statistical observations, which means that more than one interpretation is possible. The majority of climatologists concur on it, but those who do not are better described as sceptics than deniers. In fact there are several levels of interpretation at work:

1. Climate change is occurring, i.e. substantial long term change in prevailing patterns of temperature, precipitation and wind strength and direction, as opposed to periodic shorter term fluctuations in local weather patterns. Most scientists agree that we are now seeing long term global warming, though some diagree, and some even posit the opposite - global cooling.
2. Given that global warming is occurring, human activity is responsible for (or a major contributor to) it. Again the scientific consensus agrees with this interpretation, but again there are dissenters. The general view is that the rise in the emission of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, is a key factor in causing rising temperatures.
3. This warming is having, or will have, a disastrous effect on humans and the many other creatures with which they share the planet.
   
4. Given this, we should change our behaviour to mitigate the effects. Here we begin to move from scientific to moral and political questions. Some prominent voices have suggested that we should just "get used to the idea" - not a view, I suspect, that will be shared by people in countries such as Bangladesh and the Maldives, or cities like New Orleans, which could largely vanish with a rise of a few feet in sea level.

The fact is that propositions 1 through 3 above are generally agreed to be the best interpretation we have of the available data, but they are not "facts" in the sense that the Holocaust is. In the nature of scientific method (something sadly misunderstood by most laymen), they are open to challenge and alternative hypotheses. The debate will and should continue, and it is neither fair nor logical to stigmatise those who do not share the prevailing view as "deniers". ( I was intending to compare this scientific debate with those over the tobacco/cancer and HIV/AIDS findings, but will save that for another day.)

What does this mean for proposition 4? In my view, regardless of the fact that climate change may eventually be disproved, we should continue to act for now as if it is a proven fact. If it turns out to be a false alarm, we will have at least cleaned up much of our atmospheric pollution and developed new cleaner sources of energy, while doing no harm. If not, our actions now may make the difference betwen the survival and extinction of the human race.

Mass what?

For those of you who haven't yet encountered it, here is the mascot for the Shanghai 2010 Expo, as mentioned in hkorbust's comment on my previous post. It looks to me like one of those friendly nano-characters in commercials for cleaning fluids that chase away the nasty germs lurking in your kitchen and bathroom. Or does anyone have a better idea?

What Becomes a Leg End Most?

Well, the East Asian Games have started, and I hope they go well - and of course that Hong Kong performs well. But I am still waiting for someone to tell me what the Games' slogan is all about.

Be The Legend.

Be the what? First of all, who is it addressed to? If it's to the people of Hong Kong, how can we be the legend? A slogan is not enough - we need an instruction manual to go with it.

If it's to the athletes, well I wish them luck, but I very much doubt we're going to see any real sporting legends here. A true sporting legend is someone who dominates their sport internationally and sets the benchmark that others aspire to - and if they have a dash of charismatic flamboyance in their character, so much the better. Think W.G. Grace, Pele, Tiger Woods, Martina Navratilova, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Owens, Lance Armstrong, Michael Schumacher, Torvill and Dean.

No doubt we will see some keen competition here this month, but I don't expect much of it to be of that class. Which is not at all to disparage the efforts of those who do their best. Hong Kong may not have raised any global sporting legends (yet), but we have had our local sporting heroes, a couple of them world class: Lee Lai-shan, and probably our finest current sportsman, Wong Kam-po.

Anyway, good luck to all the competitors - but next time, give them a better slogan. And those mascots are pretty silly, too...

It'll all come out in the wash

The current TV commercial for the Hong Kong government's deposit protection scheme depicts a woman washing a number of large coins. Should the government really be so blatantly encouraging money laundering?

Censorship is the best form of publicity

Since opening up to the world, China has become much more adept at public relations than in the old communist days, when the ultimate in propaganda was pictures of smiling peasants happily gathering improbably bounteous harvests under the benevolent guidance of Chairman Mao. But one thing the country's leaders still don't appear to have grasped is that in a free country, the surest way to publicise anything is to try to ban it. For this reason, China's efforts to export its domestic suppression of dissent often have the opposite effect to that intended. The suppression becomes the story, highlighting the very cause China wishes to keep hidden.

Hardly anyone outside Xinjiang Province had heard of Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer until a few months ago. China's clumsy attempts to have a film about her withdrawn from the Melbourne Film Festival and her invitation to attend cancelled, far from keeping her campaign out of the public eye, transformed her into a world figure instead. And the Dalai Lama's prominence on the world stage owes much to China's high-profile ritual denunciations of any world leader who agrees to meet with him.

One day China's leaders will cotton on to the fact that keeping silent is often the best tactic. Until then we should thank them for helping to highlight their own country's darker areas so effectively.

Powerless or just useless?

According to the SCM Post, Hong Kong officials are powerless to stop New Territories landowners from blocking access roads to villages in order to build houses. Like much government propaganda, this is of course total nonsense. There are numerous regulations the government could apply if it wanted to - and if those are insufficient, it could always put new legislation forward to deal with the problem.

The fact is that what the government lacks is not legal power, but willpower to tackle the excessive influence of the New Territories Mafia - those memorably dubbed "indigenous property developers" by the late Kevin Sinclair. Well-intended measures to protect a vulnerable rural minorty decades ago have, through changing circumstances, created an elite class of Hong Kong citizens enjoying special privileges - particularly the widely abused "village house" policy - just because of where their ancestors were born.

But don't expect to see any measures to rectify this situation in Donald Tsang's policy speech tomorrow. There is an unspoken pact whereby the government will continue to enjoy the support of the Heung Yee Kuk and its LegCo representaive so long as it does nothing to curb the undeserved "rights" of NT villagers. Just one of the facts of life in Hong Kong.

Mixed Metaphors and Mark Twain

According to ATV's trailer for Gary Rhodes' Local Food Heroes, Rhodes "leaves no eating hoile unturned" in his quest for the best in British food. Now that I must see - I've mever witnessed a hole being turned before.

Meanwhile, what is this obsession ATV News has wih golf? Most days, about half the sports segment of the 7:30 news is given over to a near hole-by-hole account of some tournament or other. Now I know not everyone shares my agreement with Mark Twain's description of a round of golf as "a good walk spoiled", but it is very much a minority sport here. I have no idea what a bogey, birdie or eagle is, and I suspect that 90% of Hong Kong people are happy to share my ignorance. I'm not saying ATV shouldn't cover golf at all, but couldn't they give more time to sports that most local people actually care about?

What goes around, comes around

From a production standpoint yesterday's day-long extended commercial for 60 years of Communist Party rule in China was, as expected, an impressive spectacle. Every tiny detail was impeccably choreographed, down to the symbolism of President Hu wearing a Mao jacket to inspect the troops (in a Chinese-made limo) , while donning Western suit and tie for the evening's gala show.

Nevertheless, all the razzamatazz could not quite hide the mass of ironies and contradictions in the underlying message. The most obvious irony is that of proclaiming the nation's peaceful intent while showing off its largest ever assemblage of deadly weapons. Somehow the doves of peace in the evening show failed to harmonise with the tanks and ICBMs of the earlier parade.

Even more at odds with the peaceful image China seeks to project is that all this weaponry is primarily aimed, not at any external enemy, but at intimidating 23 million fellow-Chinese separated from the PRC by a narrow stretch of water and a century of history. And then there is the little matter of proudly displaying the armed might of the PLA on the very spot where its reputation was irreparably tarnished by its slaughter of the innocents in June 1989.

As in many cucltural events in China, there is also the irony of relying heavily on the traditional costumes and dances of the nation's many ethnic minorities to bring colour to the evening's festivities, at a time when relations between the Han majority and at least two of the largest of those minorities are so tense that they have erupted into violence in recent times.

But perhaps the biggest irony of all is that a writer on China (Martin Jacques, I think it was) could say on the ATV news a few nights ago that one of China's biggest problems was not only its tremendous gap between the rich and poor, but that many of the poor strongly resented the rich because they believed most of them to have become rich by foul means. Which is pretty much where we came in in 1949 - maybe what China needs now is a communist revolution?

Short Change

My 9-year-old niece in Britain was too upset to sleep the other night, crying inconsolably because the book she'd been reading at bedtime told her that the universe would come to an end in two billion years. Assurances that she wouldn't be around by then to worry about it only seemed to make matters worse!

My own contemplations today are somewhat closer to home in both time and space. What's up with these girls who sit opposite me on the MTR wearing tiny miniskirts, then spend the entire journey tugging at the hem in an attempt to avoid showing anything? If they're so worried about revealing the colour of their knickers, why don't they just wear a longer skirt? Or would they stop tugging if I looked like Brad Pitt instead of my mature weatherbeaten self?

Sound Judgement

Hong Kong is full of speculation about the "real" reasons for Chief Justice Andrew Li's early retirement - indeed, I seem to be the only person who accepts his stated reasons at face value.

Li sad that after working for 37 years, he wanted to take the time to pursue other interests in life. I have no problem believing this, because I have also been working for 37 years and would love to give up in order to pursue other interests. Unfortunately, I don't earn a Chief Justice's salary, so unlike Li I will have to soldier on for a few years longer.

If it looks like rubbish and smells like rubbish...

If anyone had any doubt that the Heung Yee Kuk is an agent of the Dark Side, today's news makes it absolutely certain. Their brilliant plan for solving the problem of illegal waste dumping, which is ruining much of Hong's once beautiful countryside, is... to make it legal. This is about as sensible as solving the problem of burglary by legalising theft. When is the government going to stop giving favoured treatment to this gang of vandals?

(Yeah, the picture's not from Hong Kong, I know, but it makes the point nicely. I couldn't find a good local one, so I borrowed it from here.)

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.