Today the ‘Very Hot Weather’ warning is in force.  This is provided as a nannyish service for anyone who was not expecting it to be hot during the summer in a sub-tropical climate.  The invaluable advice is to drink water, take a rest, wear a hat and use sunscreen lotion.  Er, thanks… OrdinaryGweilo.com has its…

One big difference between shopping in the UK and Hong Kong is the degree of consumer protection that exists. For example, in the UK shops cannot advertise a price reduction unless the goods were sold at the higher price for a certain period, and they must state the price per kilogramme or litre for food…

Regular readers may know that I am not a big fan of thunderstorm warnings.  What’s the point of them?  If the storm is actually in progress you can probably work that out for yourself, and they usually only issue a warning when the sky is already dark, minutes before the inevitable downpour (such as at…

A familiar story in Hong Kong:  You call the ‘customer service’ number, select English and then listen to all the many options that you don’t want.  Eventually you are allowed to speak to someone.  They decide that speaking to a gweilo is far too scary, and promise that an "English speaking" person will call you…

The Kissel case seems to be getting widespread coverage around the world: US banker murder case enthrals Hong Kong according to The Guardian.  Well, I don’t find it all that entralling, but then I don’t live in the posh parts of Hong Kong island (where the Kissels lived) or work in a merchant bank.  Regular…

Last Saturday it was hot and sunny for the Dragon Boat festival.  Then it started raining. This week’s thunderstorm warnings: Sunday 12 18:00 21:00 3 hours Monday 13 08:08 11:15 3 hours 13:25 15:30 2 hours Tuesday 14 12:55 midnight 11 hours Wednesday 15 07:50 23:55 16 hours Thursday16 06:15 16:30 10 hours Friday 17…

Rather to my surprise I found several interesting stories in today’s SCMP.  If this keeps happening I may have to start buying it again. The first one, already been noted by Simon, is that Hong Kong has the coldest offices in the world: A study by Polytechnic University showed that although 25 degrees was a…

The tunnel story refuses to go away.  Today’s SCMP reports that activists have a plan – to sue the government so that the private company that operates the Eastern Harbour Tunnel has to reduce the toll. Announcing their application for a judicial review yesterday, Wong Tai Sin District Councillor Andrew To Kwan-hang and taxi driver…

In Hong Kong the official standard is to use the UK style for dates (e.g. Christmas Day is 25/12/05), but American dates (e.g. 12/25/05) are widely used, and of course dates in Chinese are written in year/month/date format (Y 2005 M 12 D 25), so the short form of this (05/12/25) is also used sometimes. …

The big non-event of today was the lack of problems at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel.  There were widespread predictions of congestion as drivers responded to Sunday’s increase in tolls at the Eastern Harbour Crossing by changing their journeys.   In fact, they seem to have responded by leaving their cars at home, so there were no major…