Ordinary Gweilo

When I was at school, I remember a classmate getting told off by the teacher for his picture of life a few hundred years ago because it included captions saying “Ye Olde Shoppes’ or some similar bit of Middle English whimsy.

So I was amused to see that there is a new shopping arcade in Macau called “The Shoppes at Four Seasons” – as advertised in today’s SCMP.

What really struck me was that their advertising makes great play of the fact that the White Tiger and Java Rhinoceros are endangered species.  Quite what this has to do with a new shopping arcade or a “limited edition Versace Couture snap bag” is hard to fathom.

Unless it’s something to do with one of the reasons why tigers and Java Rhinos are endangered species, perhaps? 

Both rhino horns and tiger bits are much prized ingredients in Chinese Medicine, so people will pay a lot for the horn of an endangered species and also for a Versace bag.  Is that it?

They also seem to have got their facts wrong – according to my research there are actually estimated to be only 50-60 Javan Rhinos alive today.  None of whom are to be found in Macau, as far as I know.