Cheers! ... or maybe not

No sooner had Hong Kong's Consumer Council (bless them) reported that budget cuts in duty on beer had not been passed on to local drinkers, and Financial Secretary Henry Tang and LegCo members backed their complaints, than up pops a hitherto unknown trade association of seven major beer suppliers called the Hong Kong Beer Coalition (which according to Sunday's South China Morning Post accounts for about 80% of local suppliers) to announce that its members were "committed to passing duty savings to consumers," and would "issue new price lists to wholesalers and retailers on June 1, 2007, to fully reflect the direct transfer of all duty savings."

So, good news, right? Media pressure works. Cheers all round!! Except...

How come in "the world's freest economy", a self-confessed price-fixing cartel is unashamedly admitting to effectively manipulating the price of beer? This would land them in jail in many countries. Whatever happened to the virtues of competition?

Good News and Bad News in the Park

Good news in Hong Kong always seems to come with a sting in its tail.

It should have been good news for drinkers when the government cut duty on alcoholic drinks in the last budget. However, three months later the Consumer Council finds that prices have hardly fallen. Indeed the prices of two beers, Asahi and Heineken, have actually risen by 50% and 32% respectively. I suggest you boycott these brands.

In other apparently good news, a proposed golf course on Lantau Island will not go ahead because of environmental concerns. However, a far more destructive "logistics park" in the north of the island remains on the drawing board, together with various other questionable schemes. The government should not be allowed to build anything on Lantau until it first fulfils its long-delayed promise to extend the North Lantau Country Park; and any further development of the island should concentrate on conservation and recreation - we have lost too much of Hong Kong's green space already, with the western New Territories being blighted by a rash of container yards on land supposedly zoned as agricultural.

And why do planners think they can persuade the public to accept smothering the countryside with concrete by calling the result a "park"? Whether you call it a science park, logistics park, business park or industrial park, a collection of industrial buildings is not and can never be a park. This is just another example of Orwellian language at work.

Worst Taste Ad of the Year - already

Less than halfway through the year, it will be hard to beat this advertisement for bad taste. Whoever dreamed up this campaign has a sick mind. Someone should put the boot in on them.

Shoot the Piano Player

An Excite.com search for John Cage's music turns up the following entries:

42. File Name John Cage - 4'33'' for piano.mp3
Format mp3
Site URL oracolo.mine.nu/varie [Found on Yahoo! Search]
Size 1.0 MB
Playtime 04:27 sec

55. File Name John_Cage-433.mp3
Format mp3
Site URL en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage [Found on Yahoo! Search]
Size 4.7 MB
Playtime 05:06 sec

I'll leave you to work out for yourself why this is amusing.

 
Disclaimer - I get a small commission from Amazon UK if you buy the MP3 download through the picture link here.  This version includes remixes!  (really.)

Your friendly unwanted makeover specialists

An alarming headline on the South China Morning Post website today:
Mong Kok gets a makeover
The Planning Department will map out measures to reorganise the chaotic streetscape of Mong Kok in a bid to make the area more shopper-friendly, writes Anita Lam.

Not being willing to pay the Post's exorbitant subscription fees when I can read The Standard online for free, I haven't seen the rest of the article, but this is probably bad news for shoppers. It is exactly Mong Kok's "chaotic streetscape" that makes it so vibrant and interesting.

The government's idea of "shopper-friendly" is usually to smarten everything up and then double the rents. The result: bye-bye to all the cramped CD and DVD shops and tiny boutiques and labyrinthine computer malls and second hand bookshops and exotic petshops and untidy street markets and cosy little cafes that really attract shoppers, and hello to all the same big boring overpriced retail chains we can find everywhere else.

Already they have done away with all the colourful dai pai dongs that used to liven up Hong Kong's streets in favour of no doubt more hygienic but characterless cooked food stalls herded into concrete bunkers above markets. Then the markets in public housing estates were privatized in the face of fierce opposition. Stanley Market has been "tidied up", again drawing complaints. And in Kwun Tong, there is much discontent among the residents (most of them in the lower income group) over government plans to "improve" the area, which it is feared will drive out the cheap shops that residents depend on for their daily needs.

When will we have a government in Hong Kong that actually asks people what they want instead of deciding for them? (Yeah, I know, when we get democracy... I guess I'll just have to hold my breath a bit longer.)

One Law for the Rich and Another for the Poor

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, who entered his post promising to clean up corruption (following his time as Assistant US Secretary of Defense, in which he was one of the chief creators of the murderous mess in Iraq), but was then caught breaking the rules to get his girlfriend a massive pay rise, is now reported to be "working on a resignation deal" that will allow him to leave on his own terms (no doubt with a handsome pay-off).

The rich and powerful really have no shame. If an ordinary person is caught with their hand in the till, they will get the boot immediately. But at this level of power, it seems you don't have to accept responsibility for your actions. And as the OJ trial showed, if you have enough money in America you can even literally get away with murder.

In this situation, it's refreshing that at least one of the super-rich may actually face the same justice as ordinary people for a change. The judge who sentenced silly heiress Paris Hilton to 45 days in prison, after she was twice caught at the wheel while her licence was suspended for driving under the influence of alcohol, deserves congratulations.

Britain's Sun newspaper reported that, "Her family had believed their money could buy her freedom. Her mum Kathy was heard ranting: '“And after all the money we spent!'" (though in true Sun style, the story concentrated on Paris's reported fear of lesbian assault in jail, and appeared under a shot of the wind blowing up her skirt to show her knickers).

Meanwhile, a questionable court case in the US has seen a vegan couple sentenced to life in prison for the death of their malnourished baby. It's hard to tell without seeing all the evidence, but it sounds to me from the report here that they were more probably foolish and ignorant (and rather eccentric) than deliberate killers. And like most poor people, they were probably forced to rely on overworked court-appointed defence counsel who may not have had the time or resources to mount an effective defence for them.

Ministry of Truth

This morning's South China Morning Post website says this:
"Fury at DAB chief's Tiananmen tirade
Hong Kong will not be ready for universal suffrage until around 2022 because the people lack national identity and many still believe there was a massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the leader of the main pro-Beijing party said yesterday."

The Standard reports Ma Lik's speech, but does not include any mention of his remarks on Tienanmen.

Let's get this straight: Ma is absolutely correct in saying, as Beijing's leaders always like to point out, that there was no massacre in Tienanmen Square in 1989. In fact the massacre took place in the nearby streets as the protestors were already leaving the Square - but they usually forget to mention that bit.

Another Appropriate Analogy

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

--Frank Zappa

Still thinking about the subject of my previous post. Suppose I tell you that if you go to Page One Books you can find a copy of Oliver Twist; does that make me the publisher of Oliver Twist? Of course not.

So if Woo Tai-wai posts a link that says "Go to xxx website and you can find porno pictures", does that make him the publisher of those pictures? Go figure, as the Americans say.

Real Life Crime Here on Your Screen!!

If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot!

--Mr Bumble in Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist"

Watch this carefully: I am about to break the law in Hong Kong.
There are shops in Amsterdam where one can buy hard-core pornography.

There, I've done it! I've told you where to find obscene articles. That's what 48-year-old Woo Tai-wai did, and according to the Kwun Tong magistrate who fined him HK$5,000 last week, he acted illegally in doing so.

Except that Woo didn't write a sentence like the one above; he posted an Internet hyperlink in an online forum that led to a pornographic website. And the magistrate's decision proves that he understands neither the law nor the Internet, because what he convicted Woo of was "publishing an obscene article". But an Internet link is not and cannot constitute such an article in itself. Like my sentence above (which you could find in dozens of travel books about Holland), it is simply a signpost that tells you where to find something. It is not the thing itself. It neither compels you to follow the indicated direction, nor guarantees what you will find when you get there.

This site contains a good summary of the relevant law, the Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (Cap 390), according to which "it is an offence to publish an obscene article. Publication covers distribution, circulation, selling, hiring, giving, or lending the obscene article." The definition of article includes "anything consisting of or containing material to be read or looked at or both read and looked at, any sound recording, and any film, video-tape, disc or other record of a picture or pictures."

I don't see anything in there that would include an Internet link; and if this ridiculous verdict is upheld then everyone offering a search engine online is in big trouble, from Bill Gates downwards, because what search engines do is also just tell people where to find things. As one comment on Spike's excellent post on this says, "following the logic of this unfortunate precedent, if I tell someone where firecrackers can be bought, I am guilty of selling explosives."

Looking on the bright side, however, it would really be nice to see all the spammers who clutter my mailbox with unwanted porn links lined up to face justice in the Hong Kong courts!

Other Views:
EastSouthWestNorth - Hyperlinking in Hong Kong

What's in a Name?

Wikipedia's article on Hong Kong Island's Soho district says this:
'For several years the local district council has fought an ongoing battle against local businesses in the area against formal adoption of the name "Soho", preferring instead the descriptive "Hong Kong Theme Restaurant District". The apprehension is that use of the name "Soho" will cause association with the London area of the same name.'

"Hong Kong Theme Restaurant District" - well, there's a catchy name that slips easily off the tongue and is simple to remember. I can really see how that one would catch on.

This is exactly the sort of mindless stupidity that gives Hong Kong's mini-politicans a bad name. Take a district with an already familiar and popular informal name, used by both Chinese and expatriates, and try to lumber it with a long-winded and boring official alternative instead.

And what's wrong with associating it with London's Soho? The area has long lost most of its former sleazy red-light reputation and is today more familiar as a lively bar and restaurant area which also includes London's thriving Chinatown. Did anyone complain when the bar area on Macau's reclamation became known as "Macau's Lan Kwai Fong"? But then for all its faults, Macau has a much better grasp than Hong Kong on how to attract visitors.

Coming next: Lockhart Road in Wanchai to be renamed "Hong Kong Theme Girlie Bar District".

Meanwhile in Taipei, the DPP government is planning to rename the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall as part of its campaign to eradicate Taiwan's visible links with the mainland. Since the existing name is an exact description of the place, it's hard to see what they could come up with instead - "the building formerly known as the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall", a la Prince, perhaps? Like him or not, Chiang was one of the towering figures of modern history who shaped both China and Taiwan irrevocably. I won't bother to dig out the famous quote to the effect that those who try to eliminate history inevitably fail to learn its lessons.

Why Am I Not Surprised?

Indonesia's former military chief denies that there were gross human rights violations in East Timor ahead of its independence vote.

And Pakistan's nuclear authority denies there is any cause for concern after it publishes press advertisements urging members of the public to inform officials if they find any "lost or stolen" radioactive material.

It's amazing how often one can apply the famous words of Mandy Rice-Davies, isn't it?

Bankers with a "W"

I spent a frustrating 45 minutes in HSBC's head office this morning trying to get a credit card cash advance. The trouble was, I wanted to draw out the total credit limit on the card. First I was told there was a maximum daily withdrawal limit on my card, which it turned out there wasn't.

That was merely irritating. What was infuriating is that the outstanding balance on the card had already been paid off in cash earlier the same morning. So, you might think, the entire credit limit would now be available. Not so. It appears that even though you pay cash into HSBC, it doesn't get credited to the card account until 9am the following day. So I'm there with the card and the pay-in slip proving it's been paid off, but that makes no difference.

So, if the money is no longer with me and not yet in the card account, where is it? Acting as a nice interest-free loan to HSBC for a day while they presumably sock me for another day's interest on the credit card, I suppose. And they wonder why so many people spell "bankers" with a W.

Gonig, Goign, Gnoe

The Guardian newspaper is so famous for its frequent typos that it is affectionately known in Britain as the Grauniad. But even by the paper's usual standards, its website's story on the funeral of Boris Yeltsin takes some beating. For a start, the headline misspells his name: Russian church and state unite to farewell Yelstin.

Skipping over the inelegant use of "farewell" as a verb, we are then informed that, "The signs of years of ill health were harshly written on the face of Boris Yeltsin's face". His face has a face?!

Yeltsin was notorious for making a fool of himself when, as the Irish say, "having drink taken". Perhaps the Grauniad's sub-editor had just come back from the pub himself?

[On clicking on the links again, I find they have already fixed the spelling error, but not yet the othetr mistake. This may change, of course - unlike printed material, online text is easy to amend.]

No Go at Soko

Today's Standard reports that, "CLP Holdings, Hong Kong's largest power company, is urging the government to speed up the approval process for its proposed HK$8 billion liquefied natural gas terminal on Soko Island".

Apart from the fact there is no such place as Soko Island (the Soko Islands is the name of the group of islands; the proposed terminal would be on Tai A Chau, the largest of the group, also referred to as South Soko Island), one hopes that the process will be one of disapproval. Not because it's a bad idea to switch from coal to gas for power generation; in fact, this will make a significant contribution to cleaning up Hong Kong's filthy air. Not because CLP's majority partner in the project is Exxon Mobil, whose most famous contribution to the environment was the Exxon Valdez disaster. And not because the government's present misconceived "Scheme of Control" for power prices enables CLP and Hong Kong Electric to benefit from capital expenditure whether it's really needed or not.

No, the main objection to this plan is simply that it's in the wrong place. The Soko Islands sit right in the breeding and fishing grounds of the threatened Chinese White Dolphin, already diminished by the construction of Chek Lap Kok Airport. So important is this habitat that the government has already designated it in 2002 as the site of a proposed marine park, now awaiting final approval. Ashore, the islands are also rich in wildlife, including nesting Sea Eagles, and offer ideal potential for low-impact eco-tourism.

Why put the dolphins, and the other marine life in the area (including the finless porpoise), at risk in order to build a terminal that will require a lengthy 38km undersea pipeline to the power station it serves, when it would make much more sense to construct it closer to Black Point where the gas will be used?

Making It Better:
Joint statement by six local green groups opposing the scheme
- Detailed critique of the scheme by the Green Lantau Association
- World Wide Fund for Nature - online petition against the scheme
- Discussion of the scheme at the Wildest Hong Kong Forum
- What You Can Do - Hong Kong Dolphinwatch

Don't Play That Song For Me

Let's sing another song boys, this one has grown old and bitter.
--Leonard Cohen

What is it about the song Streets of London that makes it the favourite of every busker in the world? Even here in Hong Kong, it's the one English song that every street singer knows.

With over 200 covwr versions recorded, in addition to his own million-selling single, the song must have been a "nice little earner" for Ralph McTell over the years, though I guess he is probably heartily sick of being expected to sing it at every concert he gives. But if he had a dollar for every time a busker sings it on the streets somewhere, he'd be as rich as Bill Gates.

The ironic thing is that it's not even McTell's best song. I personally much prefer the narrative song The Hiring Fair, best known in the version by Fairport Convention - like a Thomas Hardy novel compressed into three minutes of music.

BC Attitudes

The current issue of BC Magazine features its annual Golden Durian Awards, honouring the worst efforts of the Hong Kong film industry over the past year. Most of it is as entertaining as usual, but whoever wrote this sneering smear story about Gillian Chung needs to undergo sensitivity training:

"This [Best Actress] award is in recognition of her performance after the infamous 'hidden' camera incident back in August - which just happened to coincide with her latest album release. But even more ironic is that on the album cover she wears less than she did in that blurry hidden camera picture. Without sounding too insensitive and cynical, let's just say the whole 'incident' proved at least one of the Twins could act!"

I'm no Twins fan (I hold the somewhat unfashionable belief that singers should be able to sing), but "insensitive and cynical" exactly sums up this nasty little bit of character assassination. What is most objectionable is not the (possibly libellous) insinuation that the whole episode was staged, but the implication that by posing in scanty clothing, a woman forfeits any right to protest if some peeping tom sells voyeur shots of her to the media. This is morally equivalent to saying that if a woman has ever had sexual intercourse, she has no right to object to being raped. The issue here is not about how much skin Gillian Chung has ever displayed, but about the violation of her right to control her own life.

The Race Is On

Writing in the influential Huffington Post, Jim Fallows reports the following:

"It was Tuesday night China time when the authorities in Blacksburg, Virginia, identified the gunman as a young Korean. For the previous 12 hours, the worst traits in the Chinese media had been brought out by an even-worse lapse by part of the U.S. media. One -- and as far as I can tell, only one -- journalist in the U.S. identified the killer publicly and quickly as a student from China who had recently been given his visa in Shanghai. During the long night after the shooting U.S. time, which was daytime Tuesday in China, that report was picked up -- surprise! -- by Fox news and a few smaller U.S. outlets, and, via web news sites, it quickly made its way to China.

What the Chinese media did next was bad in a predictable way. Many web links to outside news of the shooting were blocked to limit subsequent details from reaching China. As reported in this blog from Beijing, parts of CCTV and the other official news outlets downplayed all announcements about the shooting until they could be sure what the "correct" Chinese angle would turn out to be. Meanwhile some other Chinese press web sites reported the news -- and the suspicion, emanating from America, that the killer was Chinese. I have friends in the U.S. consulate here, and I could imagine them tearing through the visa records yesterday, trying to figure out who the student might posibly have been, and which consular officer had stamped Approved! on his papers." [story continues...]

My first thought on hearing the original story that the shooter was Chinese was concern that it would arouse American racist feeling against Chinese people in the US. But given China's usual over-sensitivity to perceived slights against the country, I should have foreseen that the case would also perturb many in China itself.

As it turned out, the killer was not a recently arrived Chinese student after all, but a South Korean born US citizen with a history of mental disturbance, which did not, of course, prevent him exercising his "right" to acquire what turned out to be weapons of mass destruction for many of his unfortunate schoolmates.

Bin there, done that

Many local councils in Britain are switching from a weekly rubbish collection service to once every two weeks. According to government research, if waste is properly wrapped there should be no hygiene concerns.

In my student days I used to work as a dustman (binman or rubbish collector) during the summer break, and I can assure you from personal experience that this is (literally) absolute crap. Especially in the hot summer months, the stink from many bins becomes unbearable after even a few days. And since when has everybody followed government advice on how to wrap their waste (except perhaps in North Korea or Singapore)? This is just another step in the gradual deterioration of public services in Britain under "New Labour".

Incidentally one of the greatest compliments I ever received was to be told by one of my fellow dustmen, "You don't work like a student"!

Traditional Hypocrisy

Conservative Hindus are up in arms over Richard Gere's playful kissing of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, with some claiming he had insulted Indian culture and outraged the country's "traditional modesty". Gere was appearing at an AIDS Awareness event - presumably the 5.7 million HIV-positive Indians (the highest total of any country in the world) all became infected by practising the virtues of traditional modesty. Can any country with this problem continue to pretend that men and women do not get close to each other?

Well-Regulated Hypocrisy

The shooting massacre at Virginia Tech university in the USA is of course tragic, but there's something sickening about George W. Bush's public commiseration with the victtims and their families while his illegal war in Iraq is killing more people than that every day (not to mention Bush's accomplice Tony Blair getting in on the act).

No doubt some will argue that there is no connection between these two events, but I think there is: America's obsession with guns and its foreign wars both reflect the same sad illusion: that violence is an effective way to solve problems.

America's gun culture also reflects, I feel, a lack of understanding of the country's constitution. The relevant clause (Amendment II, 1791) says (complete with redundant commas), "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed". In the context of the first part of the clause, it seems clear that what is intended here is a collective right of self-defence.

The right of the people as a whole to protect themselves should not be interpreted as the "right" of every individual nutcase - a Chapman, Hinkley, Whitman or Cho - to carry a gun. 30,000 Americans die of gunshot wounds every year - some just because someone doesn't like Mondays or whatever. But Americans have a problem with anything collective, because it smacks of communism to a nation of people who pride themselves on their "rugged individualism".