Spotted today in Nathan Road – a rather large Chinese gentleman driving furiously round a corner in a Rolls Royce. Hardly the under-stated elegance that Mr Rolls and Mr Royce were striving to achieve when they started manufacturing motor cars…

Today’s newspapers report a very strange story that is a direct result of what passes for housing policy in Hong Kong. The government appears ready to forgo nearly HK$800 million in lost revenue to get out of a controversial subsidised housing project in Hung Hom that the developers could either tear down and replace with a more…

There’s an interesting piece in this week’s Spike magazine about McDonalds, and it mentions childrens birthday parties as one key part of their business model. Having attended no less than two birthday parties in McDonalds this weekend (both in the same branch, as it happens) I feel well qualified to comment on this subject. According…

Blockbuster is giving up on Hong Kong because (they say) shop rentals are too high. As the leases on their existing shops run out over the next 18 months, they will close down. Blockbuster came to Hong Kong after the KPS chain went bust, and took over many of the locations and most of the…

This should be positively the last mention of Chinese New Year here (until next year). Promise. This week I have managed to attend two company post-CNY lunches and witnessed the giving and receiving of Lai See packets on a fairly large scale. The amount of enjoyment that people get out of this ritual is quite…

When I first came here, one of the things I found quite strange was the way that people would start shouting in meetings. Not understanding any Cantonese, I assumed that they were getting upset, but I was assured that this wasn’t the case. So why do it? Subsequently I discovered that it was a normal…

In the fairly short time I have been here, one of the traditions of Chinese New Year seems to have been eroded quite significantly. There was a time when almost everything shut down for several days, but in recent years more and more restaurants have stayed open – even though they aren’t as busy as…

Well, yesterday we got our orange trees and cleaned the house, and today we are giving out Lai See and seeing relatives. Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous Year of the Monkey, and Kung Hei Fat Choi

I’ve just remembered something I don’t like about Chinese New Year. The KCR is jam-packed full of people, shopping centres have twice as many people as usual walking around aimlessly, and the traffic is so horrible that I have to wait 40 minutes for a shuttle bus to get home. As far as I could…

The day after Christmas is known in some parts of the world (chiefly those with a strong British influence) as Boxing Day. A long time ago, servants and tradespeople used to be given a gift (or “Christmas box”) on Boxing Day by their employers or customers. When I was a child (in the UK) it…