Ordinary Gweilo

There was a letter in the SCMP a while back from someone complaining about the way people use mobile phones in Hong Kong.  I was expecting it to generate some response, but I haven’t seen anything (and the letter is no longer anywhere to be found on the new improved website):

I cannot help but wonder how much more pleasant a place Hong Kong must have been back in the days before mobile phones were invented.

If the use of mobiles can be deemed a hazard while driving, then the same can surely be said for their use while walking the streets of the city.

I have lost count of the number of times I have bumped into someone who is preoccupied on their mobile phone, rather than watching where they were going or paying attention to who was around them.

The city would be a much better place if people were banned from using their mobiles while walking the streets or in shopping centres.

It is not that difficult to stop and step to the side of the pavement while having a conversation, so as to let pedestrians pass, and only continue your journey when the phone conversation is finished.

Graeme Duncan, Island South

Quite right – the world has been going downhill since the invention of the spinning jenny (if not earlier), and we’d be better off without all these modern contraptions.  Life was much more civilised when the only way to make a phone call was to get the operator to connect you – and allowing the working classes to have telephones and to dial their own calls has made life almost intolerable. As for mobile phones, they are clearly the work of the devil.   

Er, maybe…

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people using mobile phones – the real problem is that so many people are incapable of using the wretched things, let alone walking at the same time.  What we need is a test that you have to pass before you are allowed to use a mobile phone in public (something like the cycling proficiency test, but for mobile phones). 

The reality is that plenty of people in Hong Kong would pass with flying colours even at the advanced level (which involves getting on and off the MTR, getting on and off a minibus and ordering a coffee in Starbucks, all without interrupting their phone conversation).

Meanwhile, the wretches who can’t walk in a straight line whilst operating a mobile phone would have them confiscated if they used them in a public.  Problem solved.