Ordinary Gweilo

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

recent posts

about

Category: Life in Hong Kong

  • Public Holiday – for some

    Today is a public holiday in Hong Kong – we all know that. But it’s not a statutory holiday. What difference does it make? Well, not much to most of us, but a lot if you are a domestic helper from overseas. They only get the statutory holidays, which don’t include Good Friday (or Easter…

  • Better or Worse?

    The MTRC have been making a big fuss about the trains on the Airport Express running every 12 minutes rather than every 15 minutes.  Yes, but up until a year ago, trains were running every 10 minutes.  Then (at the height of the SARS “crisis”) they reduced the service to 4 trains an hour, and it has taken them until now…

  • Walk the Walk

    Good stuff from Fumier on the vexed problem of the way people walk in Hong Kong. We all know that we have some of the crowded places on the planet in this city, and at times it seems like everyone else is conspiring to make life even more uncomfortable by getting in the way wherever…

  • Too cynical by half

    Conrad reacts with disbelief to a survey in the Reader’s Digest that says 4 out of 5 Hong Kong people would return a wallet to its owner if they found it, and goes on to say that: No one in the entire recorded history of Hong Kong has ever returned any found item, as anyone…

  • Tunnel Vision

    I jumped in the cab, told the driver (in Cantonese) where I wanted to go, he repeated it and I responded with “Ho Ho” to confirm.  So far, so good.  Then he asked me a question!  Help!!  I grunted something to indicate I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, he repeated what he had just…

  • Not a drop to drink

    Many years ago, when I first went on holiday to France, I was told by friends that the tap water wasn’t safe to drink.  When a Frenchman of my acquaintance heard that this was a common view amongst Brits, he was most upset and insisted that French tap water was just as safe as English tap water.  Which it…

  • The cash economy

    Hong Kong has a number of tunnels (and one bridge) that you have to pay to use. If you want to drive from Kowloon to Hong Kong (or vice versa) or from the New Territories to the Airport (or Tung Chung) you have no choice but to pay for the privilege. The other tunnels offer…

  • Made to Measure

    I have had a very frustrating day.  We ordered some tailor-made furniture a long time ago, and it finally arrived yesterday, followed today by the people who install it.  We imagined that this would take a couple of hours, but in fact they spent all day here and it still isn’t finished.Prior to coming to Hong Kong I…

  • No complaints from me

    HSBC ran into some flak in the UK over its record profits, and apparently their online banking service was down earlier this week, but I have to give them some credit for improving the banking experience. At lunchtime today I went to a new branch of HSBC, and found that they have managed to eliminate…

  • Hong Kong’s excellent public transport

    It’s always interesting to get a different perspective on life in Hong Kong, and I found one this week in Simon World. Simon is recently arrived in Hong Kong from Australia, and his blog is mainly intended for family and friends back in Australia, to let them know about life in the modern city of Hong…