Ordinary Gweilo

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

recent posts

Archives

Categories

  • Orange and Lemons…

    This piece in The Guardian caught my attention (you have to scroll down for the fruity part).

    Explaining the British love of the satsuma is another matter. Martin Dunnett, Capespan’s procurement director (the man, incidentally, responsible for the seedless lemon), suggests that it is a combination of our national love of a slightly bland, sweet flavour and the easy-peel factor.

    When I was a child (in the UK) satsumas used to be a Christmas treat, and although they are now imported from different places around the world they are still only available for part of the year. The “story” here is that there may be less satsumas available in the UK in October and November. Oh no!

    Britain is the largest importer of satsumas in the world and, so the story goes, Spanish orange growers are changing en masse to producing the sharper clementines, which other European consumers prefer. If this trend continues, one Christmas soon there won’t be enough satsumas to go round.

    I have often wondered about the difference between mandarins, clementines and satsumas. All are basically small oranges, but I suppose it is true that satsumas tend to have a looser skin and to be sweeter.

    In Hong Kong we don’t get the same choice – only mandarins seem to be widely available here, always with seeds and usually dried up and horrible, the only exception to this being at Chinese New Year when smaller, juicier (and often seedless) fruit are available. Fortunately, Japanese supermarkets sometimes have a version of the satsuma on sale, and at a reasonable price. I first found them in City Super, but they now seem to have spread to the likes of Seiyu (where prices are more reasonable). However, they are very perishable so there is no point in bulk buying (unlike oranges).

    I have to admit that my fondness for satsumas is somewhat irrational, but I must have convinced myself at an early age that oranges were bad and satsumas were good. In truth, there’s nothing at all wrong with oranges, especially the many seedless varieties, and they are always available in Park’n’Shop.

  • Still a threat after 18 years?

    I don’t normally comment on things happening overseas, but this seems ridiculous. I was reading about this today in The Sunday Times (subscription required) and now it has been confirmed by the BBC.

    Mordechai Vanunu is released tomorrow after serving nearly 18 years in jail. His crime was to speak to The Sunday Times in London about Israel’s nuclear program, and as a result Mossad (the Israeli secret service) drugged him, chained him up and smuggled him back to Israel where he was put on trial.

    Now he has served his sentence, but the authorities are trying to prevent him leaving Israel for at least a year, going anywhere near ports or even having any contact with foreigners. As The Sunday Times explains:

    Bizarrely it has done so by dredging up an emergency military law, signed by King George VI in 1945 when Palestine was under the British mandate, to coerce Vanunu into remaining silent even when he is technically a free man.

    Under an order — signed last week by a general but not yet published — a surveillance team from Shin Beth, the internal intelligence agency, will spy on Vanunu wherever he goes to make sure he obeys a series of restrictions that have surprised even the Israeli press with their severity.

    He is banned from leaving the country or going near any port of entry in case he tries to flee. He must remain at least 100yd from any foreign embassy building in case he seeks asylum [this restriction has reportedly been lifted]. If he wants to leave the city where he is living, he must give the local police 24 hours’ notice.

    It is hard to believe that Vanunu’s knowledge of Israel’s nuclear programme, which must be more than 18 years out of date, can really be a threat to national security. However, this will certainly make Israelis think very hard before revealing any state secrets.

    To put this into perspective, in Britain the government has great difficulty securing convictions under the Official Secrets Act, as juries have a tendency to acquit defendants even when they are plainly guilty. Or at the opposite extreme we have China, where a brief trial will likely be followed by a long prison sentence or public execution. I make no further comment.

  • Follow up

    A few odds and ends.

    Firstly, I am a little surprised to report that Henry was correct, and the junk faxes have stopped arriving since I registered my fax number with the “Do Not Call” people at PCCW. My main fear was that logging my number might actually increase the number of faxes, but fortunately that is not the case.

    After my piece on April Fools, I came across of a copy of The Guardian for April 1st, and was almost fooled by their story about Peter Mandleson being in line to become the Chairman of the BBC. By the time I read the paper it had already been announced that Michael Grade had been given the job, so my first thought was that The Guardian had been fed incorrect information. However, closer reading of the story revealed that it was a joke, and the accompanying picture of him looking like a man possessed was also a bit of a clue, as were references to some of his ideas (more shows about dogs and the Today programme starting earlier). If the article was ever on their website it was taken down after April 1.

    As for tailor-made furniture, things haven’t got much better. They came back to finish the job, but didn’t, and then several weeks later they returned and fixed some of the problems, but there are still two tasks outstanding. Quite disappointing.

  • Caveat Emptor

    The South China Morning Post has two stories today that should serve as a warning to anyone thinking of buying shares in Hong Kong companies.

    The first story is about Akai Holdings – a highly confusing conglomerate that was run as if it was a private company.  As Business Week explains: 

    Akai Holdings alone consisted of more than 160 subsidiaries that ceaselessly shuffled assets and cash. As the Hong Kong liquidation investigation drily concludes, Akai’s structure seemed “deliberately and unnecessarily complex.”

    The minority shareholders knew little and probably didn’t care as long the dividends were paid and the share price went up.  Then suddenly most of the key operating units were transferred to Grande Holdings Inc. (founded by Stanley Ho) and the company became insolvent.  When Akai was wound up it had “no business, staff or premises” and its liabilities were more $lbn.  

    The only asset Akai had was its listing on the Stock Exchange, which the liquidators agreed to sell to retailer Hang Ten in return for cash and equity in the new group. However, according to the SCMP, the controlling shareholder of Akai Holdings, James Ting, threatened to block this sale but was persuaded to withdraw his opposition in return for a promise that the liquidators wouldn’t sue him. On its front page the SCMP describes the deal thus:

    Tycoon James Ting is let off a debt of more than US$1bn owed to creditors of Akai Holdings under a deal with the liquidators.

    I may be mistaken, but surely the whole point of a joint stock company is that the shareholders’ liability is limited to the value of their shareholding. If the company goes into bankruptcy you can’t sue the shareholders for your money! So I really don’t see how anyone could say that Mr Ting “owed” the creditors $1bn.

    Of course, if the liquidators think that Mr Ting (or anyone else) did something untoward, they could sue him. Given that the Official Receiver expressed concern about alleged asset-stripping and the transfer of its consumer electronics business to Grande, that must have been a possibility. The problem is that these things are difficult to prove, and it would probably have cost a small fortune in legal costs, so the liquidators probably made the right decision. 

    The moral of this story is that being a small shareholder in a Hong Kong company is a risky business.  As David Webb never tires of pointing out, corporate governance is a rather novel idea here, and most companies are run with little concern for their minority shareholders.    

    Which leads me on to another story in today’s SCMP.  The chairman of Wharf has bought a 39% stake in City Super from, er, Wharf, which had earlier acquired the business from Wheelock (part of the same group). At least bigger companies are more transparent, but juggling assets between companies (and especially with individuals connected with the company) is obviously open to abuse.  Wharf is also City Super’s landlord in Harbour City and Times Square.

    UPDATE: More details on this transaction from Spike magazine

    The 39.1 per cent stake in City Super held by Wharf was sold to Joyce Boutique Holdings, which in turn is 52 per cent-owned by Peter Woo, the Wharf chairman. As recently as February of last year this City Super stake was sold to Wharf by its parent company Wheelock. Wheelock had bought the stake from Wharf in 2000.

    This seems to be a bad case of asset-shuffling compulsive behaviour. Wharf’s explanation for the sale of the company to its chairman hardly helps investors to understand what’s going on. The company claims that it only ever bought the original stake in City Super to make sure that it would become an anchor
    tenant for the Wharf-owned shopping malls at Harbour City and Times Square. It says that this objective has now been achieved and it is reluctant to take on the responsibility for the further expansion of the company.

    That kind of makes sense, except that if Wharf really did not want any further involvement with City Super why on earth did it buy the company just one year ago? By then City Super was an established tenant in its property and presumably was looking to expand its business.

    Actually, I ‘m not sure that it does quite make sense. Times Square was built ten or more years ago, and City Super moved into the basement below Lane Crawford about five years ago, so it can hardly have been an ‘anchor tenant’. That honour would go to the likes of Lane Crawford and Marks & Spencer.

    Meanwhile, Hopewell have been denied planning permission for their mega-hotel project in Wan Chai.  They will appeal, but they have also threatened to go-ahead with a 93-storey hotel at the same site – for which they have previously been granted permission.

  • Lost again

    This week I have been mainly…discovering parts of the New Territories I never knew existed.

    I think I have mentioned before that in my time in Hong Kong I have never worked in Central, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay or any of the other typical gweilo haunts.  My current job is in the New Territories, but unfortunately not very close to where we live.  The most convenient way to get there is by KMB bus, but in this case ‘convenient’ is relative rather than absolute.

    There is actually a bus service that runs from close to my home to nearby my office.  The small drawback is that the service is rather limited (to put it mildly) and runs in one direction only.  Coming home by bus means changing once or twice, and is quite slow.  Buses are all very well, but they’d be much better if they didn’t keep stopping to let other people on and off – which reminds me of the story of the High Court judge who decided to try travelling by bus: he instructed the driver to take him to his club…

    So I was pleased to discover a minibus route that appeared to be a good alternative.  In truth, I am not a big fan of minibuses – they aren’t exactly ‘gweilo friendly’ and the drivers are often rude and unhelpful, but if you know where you are going they can be fast and convenient (as well as dangerous and uncomfortable).  

    On Tuesday I tried this route for the first time, and the first section was entirely as I had expected, but then it took a strange diversion that I hadn’t expected.  No problem, and before long we were close to the destination.  When everyone else got off a few hundred yards from the terminus I should have taken the hint, but I stayed in my seat.  Bad decision, because the minibus then set off in the wrong direction and embarked on a high speed tour of various places I didn’t know.  Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I stayed onboard and hoped that it would turn out OK.  Fortunately it did, and eventually the minibus reached its advertised destination.

    Today I tried the return journey.  Again, the first part was exactly what I expected, but then once again a fairly short distance from my intended destination, most people got off and the minibus set off into uncharted territory.  Based on my earlier experience, I was hoping that this was just a diversion and I would finally arrive at the office.  Well, it kinda did.  It turns out that the route  terminates somewhere in the middle of nowhere (at least as far as my view of the world is concerned).  At this point everyone gets off – well, actually only one person, because all the sensible passengers had disembarked earlier – and the minibus heads back.  When I remained onboard, the driver realized that I was lost.  

    I have to say that the driver and his colleagues were very helpful, and after that I told them where I wanted to go (in Cantonese) the driver said something or other that I didn’t understand, and allowed me to stay onboard (without paying again).  After a short wait, the minibus set off again and a few minutes later I recognized where we were (which was close to the office).  The driver then announced the name of my building and indicated which way I should go – now that’s what I call customer service!!  I take back all the rude things I have ever said about minibus drivers.  Well, most of them…

    Makes me wish that I knew Hong Kong a bit better, and that my Cantonese wasn’t quite so pathetically limited.

    When I lived in London, I made a conscious effort to try alternative routes, both driving and on public transport.  In part it relieved the boredom of commuting, and it also gave me options if there was a problem somewhere (or I had just missed a train).  It was also useful when London stations were closed because of bomb threats and it became essential to find an alternative route.

    Even so, there are large parts of London that remain a mystery to me.  I suppose that I know most of the major roads (including the nightmare that is the North Circular Road), and a fair part of the railway and underground system, but I can easily get lost if I stray away from the places I know.

    I suppose the same applies in Hong Kong.  I’ve lived and worked in enough parts of Hong Kong to feel reasonably confident of where I am going, but buses and minibuses often seem to have rather obscure places as destinations – and follow strange routes to get there.  I can cope with buses that have destinations such as ‘Tuen Mun Town Centre’, ‘Sha Tin Town Hall’ or ‘Tsuen Wan West Station’, but what does ‘Jordan Road’ mean, and where is Riviera Garden?

    I’ve made relatively few bad mistakes – I once went almost as far as Ma On Shan before I realized that I had missed the bus stop where I needed to change, but that’s the only one I can remember.  Someone who shall remain nameless got on a bus that she thought was going up the hill on the short journey to our home (at the time) and discovered too late that it was an express bus going somewhere completely different and the next stop was a very long way away!! 

    Of course, one big advantage in Hong Kong is that you can always jump in a taxi, though it’s a bit embarassing when the driver tells you that your destination is just around the corner, as happened to me when I was I was totally lost in Kowloon Bay many years ago.

  • Good for the airline industry (as usual)

    A new deal has been struck to allow more flights on what is (I believe) one of the most lucrative set of routes in the world, between Hong Kong and Sydney/Melbourne.  It is profitable in part because the only airlines currently allowed to operate these routes are Qantas and Cathy Pacific, who are both members of the OneWorld alliance.  Now Dragonair is being allowed to join the party, and Australian airlines will be able to fly on to Europe through Hong Kong.  Predictably, the parties to the negotiation are claiming this is good for everyone:   

    “This will enhance competition on this popular route and the traveling public will certainly benefit from the deal,” said Wilson Fung, an economic official who led Hong Kong’s side in the negotiations. 

    “This is good for Hong Kong as an aviation hub and for the traveling public,” said Dragonair Chief Executive Stanley Hui.  

    Do we really care whether Hong Kong is an aviation hub?  The benefits to Hong Kong of a few extra passengers being in transit at Chek Lap Kok for an hour or two seem very marginal.  Dragonair are obviously happy to be allowed to compete with Cathay Pacific on another route, but it’s not clear what benefit this will bring to the travelling public. Instead of the Qantas and Cathay duopoly, we are back to three airlines again (as it was until Ansett went bust), but the report ominously mentions that

    [the agreement] provides for “code-sharing” arrangements between airlines from the two sides.  

    What do customers get out of code sharing?  The minority who travel in Business Class may get lounge access, but last time I flew on a codeshare flight (I think it was a Malaysia Airlines ticket for a flight operated by Cathay) the weasels wouldn’t give me any frequent flyer miles!

    One marvellous example of code-sharing is the recently announced arrangement beween Cathay Pacific and Aeroflot.  You will soon be able to buy tickets from Cathay (undoubtedly one of the top airlines in the world) for flights operated by Aeroflot (one of the worst airlines in the world) that will also be allocated a CX flight number.  Of course most travellers will realize what they are getting, but there will inevitably be a few people who will get an unpleasant surprise when they board the plane. 

    Why compete when you can carve up the market?  Alliances such as OneWorld and Star Alliance ostensibly exist so that airlines can cut costs by sharing airport lounges and getting better deals with suppliers.  Customers are supposed to benefit from common frequent flyer programs, more lounges, etc.  However, when two members of the same alliance dominate or control a popular route or airport, customers actually have less choice. 

    As well as allowing for doubling in capacity to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, the agreement sets up a “completely open regime” for air services between Hong Kong and all regional points in Australia, including Adelaide and Cairns.  In other words, for the cities that people most want to visit there are still restrictions, but airlines can operate as many flights as they like between Hong Kong and Cairns.  Gee, thanks.

    There is no mention of Virgin Atlantic’s request to be able to operate from London to Sydney via Hong Kong, which is presumably still waiting for approval.  I can’t help feeling that this would be much more likely to introduce some real competition (though probably still only to a limited extent).  If Hong Kong really wants to be a leading aviation hub, what is stopping the government from approving this route?  As always, although governments talk about wanting to be more liberal they still worry unduly about the commercial interests of the national carriers.  So in this case there has to be something in it for Cathay or Dragonair, even though they are both independent of the HKSAR government.  No-one really cares about what would benefit the consumer!

  • Sorry, what did you say your name was?

    From Popbitch, a rather bizarre collection of names inflicted by the rich and famous on their offspring:

    A comprehensive guide to the most appallingly named celebrity babies of the 21st Century

    1. Pilot Inspektor Riesgraf Lee – (Jason Lee)
    2. Tu Morrow – Rob Morrow (Tu Morrow… geddit?)
    3. Audio Science Sossamon – Shannon Sossamon
    4. Salvador O’Brien – Ed O’ Brien (Radiohead)
    5. Raven Numan – Gary Numan
    6. Banjo Griffiths-Taylor – Rachel Griffiths
    7. Jermajesty Jackson – Jermaine Jackson
    8. Reignbeau Rhames – Ving Rhames (like Rainbow)
    9. Jaz Agassi – Andre and Steffi Agassi
    10. Speck Wildhorse Mellencamp – John Mellencamp

    (Lifetime achievement award goes to footballer Emlyn Hughes. He has two children – Emlyn and Emma Lynn)

    Paul Yates also deserve a lifetime achievement award, I think, for naming her children Fifi Trixabelle, Peaches Honeyblossom, Pixie, and Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (the first three with Bob Geldof, the final one with Michael Hutchence).

    [names corrected after Henry pointed out my errors]

  • Press the Button and Wait

    An interesting piece of information from Waaah!. Henry claims that many of the buttons on pedestrian crossing do nothing, and that the traffic lights simply carry on going through their pre-defined cyle regardless. At busy junctions this does makes some sense, I suppose, given that there will always be pedestrians waiting to cross – and having a button to press makes people believe that they are in control. It also reminds me of something that I found slightly puzzling at the time.

    A few years ago we lived in Kowloon, and very close to our apartment they built a large new shopping centre just across the road from the MTR station. A few months later someone in authority must have noticed the large number of people crossing the road, because they built a pedestrian crossing. This one was definitely controlled by the buttons, and I used to watch in amazement as people waited patiently for the lights to change but didn’t think of pressing the buttons. The Impatient Gweilo would come along and press the button (years of training in London, you see), and the lights would duly change, just like magic.

    I can only assume either that most people in Hong Kong know what Henry has pointed out and so don’t bother pressing the buttons, or that these type of crossing are relatively uncommon – in most places in Hong Kong the only way to cross the road is via a bridge or a subway. Or perhaps it just takes a few weeks for people to get used to a new crossing. Whatever, given that most people in Hong Kong jab the ‘door close’ buttons impatiently ever time they get in the lift, I found it quite strange that the same didn’t seem to apply to a pedestrian crossing.

  • Another number to remember

    Like most buildings in Hong Kong, our apartment block has a door entry system that requires you to enter a code number to gain entry. However, there are always people coming and going, so you can normally get in without having to bother entering the number. If not, the security guard will unlock the door for most residents by pushing the button under his desk (though, not, as far as I can see for children or domestic helpers).

    This in spite of the notice on the door advising residents that the security guards have been instructed not to unlock the door. Even though the notice is periodically reprinted on different colour paper and stuck afresh on the door to try and remind everyone of this rule, no-one takes any notice.

    Until last week that is, when the management company decided to take drastic action. Yes, they removed the button under the security guards desk! Now they are unable to assist – except by telling you the code if you have forgotten it!

    The advantage is that I do now remember the code, and don’t run the risk of being unable to get in when the security guard is away from his desk. Another number to remember on top of the entry code for the main entrance, the office, PIN numbers, passwords and goodness knows what else – most of which change periodically, of course.

    I suppose the security guards will be hoping that this clampdown ends well before Chinese New Year otherwise they could end up with fewer (or smaller) Lai See packets!

  • 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 Monday), and it is the employer’s choice whether to give them Christmas Day or the Chinese Winter Solstice Festival as a day off. Given that most are fairly devout Catholics, this seems very odd indeed, especially as they get other Chinese holidays such as Ching Ming, Tuen Ng and Mid-Autumn Festival.

    I have no idea whether the distinction between a Statutory Holiday and a General Holiday has any other implications, but perhaps someone can enlighten me.