Ordinary Gweilo

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

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  • The luck of the draw

    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 normal (with so many people out of town). Now most supermarkets and some chain-stores are now open on the first day of the new year, and most shops are open on the second day.

    Meanwhile, most motorists apparently expect traffic wardens to be on holiday, so they think they can park anywhere they like. Mostly they do get away with it, but the TV news showed some tickets being issued yesterday – that must be the definition of a slow news day: when they find time to show traffic wardens issuing parking tickets! I reckon there are only three on duty in the whole of Hong Kong and they arranged with TVB to film them issuing a few tickets in the hope of persuading everyone else to park legally.

    Another good standby for the TV news is the crush of people visiting the temples in the hope of having good luck for the coming year. You have to be quite strong and very determined to fight your way through the crowds just after midnight at Wong Tai Sin temple, and old ladies practice for months beforehand by shoving their way on to MTR trains and rushing for the single empty seat in the carriage. After the initial rush, Wong Tai Sin remains very busy for the next few days, but the queue is more orderly.

    It is one of the more endearing aspects of Hong Kong that although this is now a rich and modern city, the traditions of Chinese New Year still survive and the idea of good and bad luck is taken (relatively) seriously. Roly poly buffoon Ho Chi-ping, the politically-ambitious eye surgeon (and Secretary for Home Affairs) suffered a setback last year when he drew the unluckiest possible stick at Che Kung Temple in Tai Wai, and refused to try his luck again this year. Instead, Lau Wong-fat, chairman of Heung Yee Kuk (and a Liberal Party District Councillor) drew a somewhat more auspicious stick on behalf of Hong Kong.

  • Kung Hei Fat Choi

    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

  • Lowering expectations

    Phil and others have commented on this news story, but I have ignored it so far. A reader has asked for my comments, so here goes. Being lazy, I will quote from his email.

    Xiao Weiyun, one of the Chinese legal experts who was involved in drafting the Basic Law for Hong Kong has said that full democracy in Hong Kong probably won’t happen until around 2037 to 2047.

    He states that universal suffrage is the ultimate objective for the 50 years after the establishment of the SAR in 1997.

    Although his statements are somewhat discouraging for the pro democracy people, to me this sounds like the SAR or at least an SAR-like government and legal system will continue to exist after 2047 if the establishment of full democracy is to be setup as late as 2037 to 2047.

    I agree that this seems a reasonable conclusion to draw. I had thought that the objective of the PRC government was that by 2047 there would be no need for “One Country, Two Systems”, but clearly that would only be possible if the rest of China had made significant progress and become more like Hong Kong. If not then it would presumably be necessary to carry on with the present arrangements. Obviously it would make no sense to have an elected CE for the first time in 2042 if the post was going to disappear in 2047.

    However, it may be more accurate to view these statements as being about lowering expectations. If the HK government task force eventually recommends a plan for electing the Chief Executive that is more gradual than full democracy in 2007, the response may now be more positive than would otherwise have been the case. If people in Hong Kong complain, the authorities can say that no decisions have been made and the government’s position hasn’t changed. There’s a long way to go before this is resolved!

  • CNY

    Two rather different views of Chinese New Year. Over at Voluntarily in China, which is new to me, an American who finds it a happy time of year, and enjoys the traditions. On the other hand, we have Fumier (now officially deemed a Brit unless he specifically denies it), who feels that CNY is part of the “family tax” imposed on most people in Hong Kong, and hopes that we won’t think him “culturally insensitive”.

    Overall I enjoy Chinese New Year, and I don’t have any problem with visiting my wife’s family, though I suppose we get off lightly given that my family is in the UK.

    I also have to take issue with Fumier’s curmudgeonly attitude towards family obligations. One of the first things I noticed when I came to Hong Kong was that family ties definitely seem to be stronger here than in the UK (and western society generally). One manifestation of this is greater respect towards older family members, which often includes supporting them financially and providing them with somewhere to live (or living in their home). In turn, this can make it easier for both parents to work full-time and bring up children, because grandparents (and domestic helpers) help to look after the kids. As Brian over at Voluntarily in China points out

    Chinese children are especially close to their paternal grandparents because more often than not they are the ones they spend the most time with growing up while the parents are working.

    The obligation to provide financial support to your parents can be a burden, and this will very much depend upon individual circumstances, but it can be set off against tax. The other aspect of this is parents living with their children, which has advantages and disadvantages, but the fundamental problem is the small size of the average apartment and a shortage of affordable accomodation. When I was a child, my grandparents lived with us for many years, but we had a huge house and they were able to have their own space and privacy in a way that is not possible in a Hong Kong apartment.

    Comparing this with the western way of doing things is difficult. The British system fundamentally assumes that the state has a responsibility to look after elderly people, and this is one reason why taxes are so much higher. This may get worse, because many European countries face a big problem in funding state pensions in coming years as the working population gets smaller and more people retire.

    I believe that the role of the family in Hong Kong society makes it more stable, and helps to explain the lower crime rate and almost total absence of hooliganism and vandalism. If the price to pay for that is supporting your parents financially, and spending a bit more time visiting them, I reckon it’s a good deal.

  • CNY blues

    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 tell, the traffic problems were caused mainly by people queuing up to get into car parks so they could go to the already over-crowded shopping centres.

  • Distasteful II

    Yesterday’s Apple Daily has a large photograph on its front page of an elderly woman who was killed by a falling window. The photograph shows her lying in the street in a pool of blood, either dying or already dead. Her face has been pixellated, but her identity can hardly be a secret. I don’t want to see that when I am eating my dim sum, and I can’t even begin to think how her family and friends must feel.

    This is not unusual for Apple Daily (and its rivals), and pictures of accident victims regularly appear in Hong Kong newspapers. The photographers rush to the scene and try to get pictures before the ambulance service has arrived and placed a blanket over the body, or if the victim is taken to hospital they will be taking photographs as the patient is carried into the ambulance, and again when they arrive at the hospital. I am amazed that the emergency services tolerate this, because it must make their job more difficult, quite apart from being distressing for all concerned.

    Truthfully, I am a bit baffled by Apple Daily. Do front pages such as today’s help to sell newspapers? Or are people interested in the story and regard it as nothing unusual to see the full gory details?

    Whilst there seems to be no legal obstacle to printing these pictures, Apple Daily cannot emulate British popular newspapers such as The Sun or the Daily Star by printing photographs of topless women (or at least not without pixellating them). However, this didn’t stop the popular HK papers writing about pornography and prostitution in a way that would certainly not be acceptable in so-called family newspapers in Britain (I don’t count The Sunday Sport and Daily Sport in this category).

    The Hong Kong government did announce plans to legislate against the practice – not by making it illegal, but slightly bizarrely by requiring such newspapers to print a diagonal red line on every page. This threat prompted the newspapers to tone-down their coverage, but the legislation has now been dropped due to lack of public support, so presumably they are now free to carry on as before.

    No sign of any legislation against pictures of accident victims being printed in newspapers, though.

  • Atkins Lite

    Having mentioned the Atkins diet on Saturday, I was watching a BBC documentary on TVB Pearl on Sunday night (“Fit for Life” I think it was called) where an overweight cab driver was trying the very same diet. I assume the reason he was featured was because his wife was a fitness instructor (and, yes, he was shown taking part in one of her classes). I think he lost 8lbs in the first week, though he did admit to missing potatoes.

    Then today I found this in today’s Times about new recommendations from Atkins Nutritionals, who are now advocating that only 20 per cent of a dieter’s calories should come from saturated fat. Which seems to take away the main benefit of the diet, namely that you don’t have to worry about what you eat as long as you avoid carbohydrates.

    UPDATE: Atkins Nutritionals deny that they gave this advice

  • The wrong kind of chips

    This story from The Guardian made me laugh.

    An angry customer tried to return a computer complaining that the computer he had bought only hours before did not work, according to police reports. The store’s staff opened the machine and discovered it was not functioning because its working parts had been replaced with small potatoes. The bemused shop assistants gave the man a new computer free of charge.

    He would have got away with it if he hadn’t tried the same thing, at the same store, a few hours later.

  • Red Envelopes

    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 was normal to give money to people who had provided a service during the year, such as the people who delivered milk, bread, groceries and newspapers, and also the refuse collectors. Nowadays people tend to buy most things in the supermarket, and I believe that the refuse collectors were banned from asking for money because of the suggestion that anyone who failed to give money mysteriously found their rubbish all over their front garden.

    I used to deliver newspapers in the morning before going to school, and what kept me going during the cold, wet, miserable, dark winter mornings was the thought that in the week or two before Christmas I would probably get a tidy sum from my happy customers. These days, if children are still allowed to deliver newspapers, I doubt whether they would be permitted to out on a winter evening knocking on doors and asking for money!

    Interestingly, although the tradition of the Christmas box has largely died out in the UK, it is still alive and well in Hong Kong. At Lunar New Year everyone carries around red “Lai See” envelopes containing “Lucky Money”, and as well as giving them to children they are also used as a small token of appreciation for security guards, restaurant staff and similar. Bosses also give them to their staff, again as a small ‘thank you’.

    However, this being Hong Kong, you often see signs around warning you that staff are forbidden to solicit gratuities, and in some cases not even allowed to accept them. This mean-spirited attitude (presumably based on concern about corruption) doesn’t seem to make much difference. Security guards in particular are usually very enthusiastic in wishing you “Kung Hei Fat Choi” and on the first few days of the New Year instead of sulking behind the counter they will likely be right there as you walk through the door. I am always happy to give them a red envelope, and they certainly deserve it given the unsocial hours and low pay that is their normal reward.

    In restaurants the staff are normally much more discrete, and there is something almost conspiratorial about the way the money is handed over. Again, I think they deserve the money for the long hours and low pay. Plus it can’t harm your chances of getting a table for dim sum on Sunday morning.

    One thing that used to amuse me about Lucky Money was that you very rarely saw an old $10 note for most of the year, and then they would all turn up in Lai See envelopes, and after that they would briefly be seen in circulation as people spent the money they had received. Then presumably people would start saving them for the next New Year. Putting coins in a Lai See envelope was thought to be a bit naff, though one ingenious alternative was to use US Dollar bills instead. Or Thai Baht if you were even meaner.

    Now of course we have the hideous multi-coloured new ten dollar bill (designed by a 6 year-old in a government primary school who won a competition) and you can just go to the bank and request clean banknotes. Where’s the challenge in that?

  • What country are you?

    With thanks to Shaky for finding this:

    4734_csDoc_fiji.gif

    You’re Fiji!

    As calm, relaxed, and removed from life as they come, you’re just so chilled out, it hurts people to see you. Everyone aspires to be where you are, but most of them just can’t put their stress away. Little do they know that even you sometimes have inner turmoil and struggles! For the most part, though, it’s sun and fun for you, and that’s the way you like it. It’s just sort of hard to get things done with all that partying.

    Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid