Ordinary Gweilo

It's not big and it's not clever, it's just a Brit in Hong Kong writiing (mainly) about Hong Kong

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Month: Nov 2003

  • One thing I love about the South China Morning Post is that they always seem to find room to publish letters from mad people. Not so many these days, but you still get a few: I refer to the letter “Right denied” (November 21). The correspondent must know that she is living in China. Surely…

  • Aussie Wine

    [Thanks to Martyn for sending it to me]

  • Oops

    I was wondering what had happened to IceRed. They shut down their servers on Friday and were supposed to be back on Monday morning, but whenever I checked at the address I have bookmarked, there was just an announcement saying they would be back on Monday 24 November. Then I had an *idea*. Why not…

  • Wikipedia

    I’ve been sick all week, but I’m gradually recovering. The trouble is that I am now sufficiently recovered that I can’t put off the work I’m supposed to be doing, but not enough to do justice to anything else at the same time. Does anyone else look at Wikipedia? The concept is that this is…

  • Human nature

    I was reading this in the SCMP, and I’m not sure what to make of it: Men who go to the mainland to find a wife have characteristics that make them more likely than most to become wife beaters … most of these men have strong egos and want an obedient wife. They apparently feel…

  • Insert pun about windows here

    Phil has found an article about domestic helpers attending computer courses at the YMCA in Tsim Tsa Tsui. A few things strike me as odd about this piece: The idea that maids could earn more money in Hong Kong by virtue of their computer skills. There is a so-called minimum wage for domestic helpers, and…

  • A good article about Asian blogs

    Everybody else has already linked to this article about Asian blogging, so why should I be different. It reinforces the point that Friday’s piece in the SCMP was fairly hopeless, and highlights a general point that stories in large-circulation newspapers (or the SCMP) tend to be less reliable than smaller-circulation magazines. My favourite publication is…

  • DAB chief “offers” to quit

    A strange story, already covered by Phil, is that the leader of the DAB has offered to resign. To paraphrase the unlinkable SCMP: Tsang Yok-sing offered his resignation after the party suffered its worst ever election result on Sunday, winning only 78 of the 206 seats it contested in Sunday’s district council polls or you…

  • One cheer for the Post Office, three cheers for Amazon

    Further to the recent theft of some DVDs from my mail box, the Post Office do seem genuinely concerned and even sent a bloke round to take a look and to apologize again. The management company keep calling my wife and apologizing but are too scared to speak to me directly. However, Amazon are the…

  • The Times they are a-changing

    The Times is to launch a tabloid (sorry, compact) version of the newspaper, initially in the London area. I can just about remember when The Times was resolutely elitist and prided itself on employing the likes of Bernard Levin to write high-minded opinion pieces. Now they have hired Julie Burchill and are going tabloid –…