Ordinary Gweilo

I didn’t see yesterday’s SCMP, but apparently it had a self-congratulatory story about the generosity of Hong Kong people under the headline:

HK leads the world in tsunami relief

The figures apparently show that whilst the Hong Kong government has not been very generous (giving less than US$4m), individuals have donated an average of US$7 each.  I have to say that my first reaction is that US$7 isn’t all that much considering salary levels here, but I’m not sure what to compare it with.

It’s also very hard to make sense of these numbers.  Do "private" donations include the money given by very rich businessmen?  Come to that, does anyone really know exactly how much money has been donated to the large number of charities?

I think it’s fair enough to report on the amounts that have been donated, but making comparisons with other countries is not very helpful.  For one thing it’s still early days and doubtless there will be more fund-raising in the coming weeks.  Also, I doubt that the figures are particularly accurate (for example, they say that private donations in the UK total US$140m, but today’s Sun claims that the figure is close to US$200m).  Also, there’s no figure for Singapore, a rich country that would have surely been even more affected by this tragedy than Hong Kong.

It all seems rather unedifying.  I feel a similar unease about the emphasis placed on the comparatively small number of Hong Kong residents missing or killed, and the headlines in the UK given to the latest estimate of around 200 Brits presumed dead. 

Boris Johnson, writing in today’s Daily Telegraph (free registration required) has another suggestion for how to help the people of Sri Lanka – abolish tarrifs on bras. 

If you are an Englishwoman, the chances are that you wear a bra, and if you wear a bra, there is a very high probability that you bought that garment at Marks & Spencer, and if you bought your bra at M & S it is a racing certainty that your bra was made in Sri Lanka.

Actually, I doubt it.  It could well have come from China or Indonesia or any number of other countries around the world.  However, it is a very good point – if the rich world wanted to help poorer countries, one easy step would be to abolish quotas and tarrifs (and stop dumping surplus agricultural produce), so I’m certainly with Boris on that one, though I’m somewhat at a loss to understand what relevance it has to the tsunami.