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

  • More mad letters

    I don’t know whether to laugh or scream when reading the nonsense some people write in letter to the SCMP.  Cynthia Sze is one of the small group who are occupied on a full-time campaign to remind us of the horrors of Hong Kong’s colonial past.  This is ever so slightly undermined by the hysterical language they use.  Here is one of her recent efforts (the last letter, at the bottom, from today’s SCMP)

    Hire nurses from the Philippines

    Since the Philippines has not had the good fortune of being a former colony of Britain, or of Australia, should Hong Kong not consider hiring Filipino nurses because of their second-rate US-style medical training?

    Roger Philips implies this and is entitled to his opinion (‘British degree is superior’, February 14) in reply to my letter (‘Hire Filipino nurses to cure shortage’, February 11).

    My point is that there is a simple solution to the city’s perennial nursing shortage by hiring Filipino nurses, as has been done with domestic workers over the past few decades.

    Isabel Escoda, Lantau

    Nurses need professional dignity

    I refer to the letters of Melody Wong Wing-fong (‘Shortage problem can be solved’, February 23) and Isabel Escoda (‘Hire nurses from the Philippines’, February 23).

    Ms Wong rightly notes the importance of moral education in our nurses’ training.

    To discharge their duties well, health care personnel need professional dignity and a socially relevant self-image.

    Since Hong Kong’s reunion with China, we have been proudly committed to full decolonisation within the Basic Law’s 50-year term.

    We don’t want Filipino nurses if they, like Ms Escoda, are besieged by a colonial malaise of self-doubt.

    Instead of showing us why the professional quality of Filipino nurses is reliable, she diverts attention to her doubt about whether the Filipinos could have been better educated if their nation had been colonised by Britain and not the US. We mustn’t suffer such servitude in our health care professionals.

    Cynthia Sze, Quarry Bay

    Grateful to Filipinos who nursed dad

    Isabel Escoda suggests that Hong Kong should recruit nurses from the Philippines (‘Hire nurses from the Philippines’, February 23).

    In 2006, when my late father underwent serious surgery in Leeds General Infirmary in England, he was looked after by several nurses, some of whom were from the Philippines.

    I remember with gratitude the deep care and affection shown to him by the Filipino intensive care nurse as he lay unconscious after his surgery.

    His own observations were that the Filipino nurses were ‘lovely people’ who did a ‘great job’ and ‘they can’t half sing’.

    If Britain’s National Health Service thinks nurses from the Philippines have what it takes, then surely they have what it takes to work in Hong Kong.

    Mark Ranson, Sai Kung

    No substitute for nurses’ compassion

    I refer to the letter by Cynthia Sze (‘Nurses need professional dignity,’ March 3).

    Irony is apparently lost on your correspondent since she misconstrued my suggestion that Hong Kong could do with Filipino nurses (‘Hire nurses from the Philippines’, February 23), despite their having what Roger Phillips declares is just second-rate US-style medical training (‘More depth to British first degrees,’ March 2).

    More irony is reflected in a report about National Health Service staff in Essex being given courses in compassion. Compassion can’t be taught, but the TLC in Filipino nurses’ genes is reflected in Mark Ranson’s description of the tender loving care his late father received from his nurse (‘Grateful to Filipinos who nursed dad,’ March 3).

    Isabel Escoda, Lantau

    Genes claim has no basis in science

    I read with interest Isabel Escoda’s allegation about TLC in "Filipino nurses’ genes" ("No substitute for nurses’ compassion", March 14).

    What we, peoples of various races, all have in our genes is DNA. Genetic stereotyping based on anecdotes is anathema. Lieutenant William Calley’s premeditated murder of innocent Vietnamese villagers at My Lai is no more a proof of murderous genes in Americans than any allegation of a good Filipino nurse at a British hospital is proof of compassion in Filipino genes.

    It makes no sense to generalise anecdotes. For every positive example, there is at least a counter-example.

    Cynthia Sze, Quarry Bay

  • All business to London

    Oasis tried to convince us that it was the world’s first long-haul budget airline.  It wasn’t, and it went bust.

    The one area where Oasis had a competitive product was Business Class.  Substantially cheaper than its competitors, for a perfectly reasonable old-style seat and good service.

    Enter Hong Kong Airlines with a new service from Hong Kong to London Gatwick.  They are operating Airbus A330s with 116 seats in two classes: “Club Classic” is old-style business class with fares roughly equivalent to Premium Economy; and “Club Premier” which provides flat-bed seats at a lower price than Business Class on BA, Cathay or Virgin.

    The airline is well-established and has much stronger financial backing than Oasis, so there is no risk of them going bankrupt, but it remains to be seen whether it will be successful.  Gatwick is a smaller airport than Heathrow, which can be good (less time spent in the airport) or bad (if you want a big choice of connecting flights). 

    If you are travelling to Central London there’s no big difference – both airports have fast train services to a London terminus (and slower, cheaper, stopping services).  Heathrow is on the tube network, but Gatwick has direct train services to various locations to the south.  Both are next to motorways (M25 & M4 for Heathrow, M23 for Gatwick), so it really depends where you want to go.

    Meanwhile, Cathay has started adding Premium Economy cabins to its long-haul flights.  Virgin Atlantic has been offering Premium Economy between Hong Kong and London for 18 years, and British Airways has also been offering it for many years, so what took Cathay so long?    

  • Second term? Or third?

    From today’s Sunday Morning Post: “Has Putin got it in him to succeed in a second term as President?”

    I don’t follow Russian politics very closely, but I feel sure that he has already served two terms.

    scan0002

  • Servile submission..blatant chauvinism…rampant disparagements…fruitful diversity

    Why does the South China Morning keep printing these absurd letters?

    In defence of local school system

    I read your report ("Plea to improve public schools", February 14) with misgivings, appalled by the city’s self-styled democrats’ servile submission to expatriates’ blatant chauvinism in the education debate.

    Off to a a strong start there, with attacks on the democrats and expats in the first sentence, though purists might argue that readability has been sacrificed by cramming so much prejudice in to such a small space. 

    Indisputably, international schools are gaining popularity among local parents. But popularity often reflects superficiality and measures neither quality nor depth.

    Well that would be a telling point – if we were talking about X Factor.  Not sure that it’s quite so valid when local parents are spending their own hard-earned money on fees for international schools.  But wait, there’s more.

    International schools are less demanding than local schools, with simpler syllabuses and easier examination grading standards. They seldom participate in inter-school sports competitions and music festivals where local schools dominate. Local schools’ high average standard is evidenced by the very top positions which local students consistently achieve in various international scholastic surveys.

    Wouldn’t you expect local schools to dominate in music festivals, what with there being so many more of them?    And, yes, we know that Hong Kong examination results are outstanding in several subjects, but international schools also achieve very good results, and they provide a more well-rounded education.      

    Against rampant disparagements against local schools, which in effect are veiled criticisms of local teachers’ incompetence, Cheung Man-kwong, a local teacher who represents the teaching profession in the legislature, has neither defended the local system nor proposed ways to improve it.

    Another long and convoluted sentence, and I’m not sure that dissatisfaction with local schools implies criticism of teachers – surely it is more the system that is under attack.

    He [Cheung Man-kwong] has been a staunch proponent of segregation. His demand to restrict local enrolment in international schools serves to grab political capital by appeasing both foreigners who abhor local competition for international education and those local teachers who fear job security if local students opt for international schools.

    What if, contrary to objective measures, international schools were somehow "superior" to local schools? Shouldn’t local students have equal access to the "better" education of international schools which have benefited from land grants, the city’s most precious resource?

    I’m getting confused here.  Are local schools better than international schools or not?  Anyway, it’s irrelevant whether land is used for international schools or government schools, because it has the same impact on the supply of land.  And let’s not forget that if there were no international schools it would cost the government a lot more money to provide education for all those students.  The ESF subvention is currently less than half of the payment to DSS schools (which is supposed to match what it costs the government to provide a school place), and other international schools get nothing.  

    Kashimura Fujio of Hong Kong Japanese School observes that, unlike Hong Kong’s expatriates, many expatriates in Tokyo send their children to local schools. Why? Japanese schools can’t be more "international" than Hong Kong’s local schools in teaching medium and curricula. However, as the Japanese respect their local schools, expatriates in Japan properly learn to respect the education standard of the country which offers them employment opportunities.

    I think we are getting to the real point.  Foreigners shouldn’t be so difficult – if Hong Kong schools are good enough for locals they should be good enough for foreigners.  If only locals would be more patriotic and ‘respect’ local schools, all would be well.

    The local education system is not impeccable. But we may never improve our schools if our political leaders lack the moral courage to overcome the inferiority complex of their colonial mentality.

    Of course,  that must be the explanation: Hong Kong has a huge inferiority complex.

    It’s time we recognised local students’ achievements and publicised local education’s high standard.

    We must outgrow the colonial practice of double standards in education and cease subsidising international schools, which skirt the local curricula and fail to prepare students for local exams. Fruitful diversity with a fair standard for equal application to all stakeholders should be distinguished from discriminatory segregation based on privileges and prejudice.

    Pierce Lam, Central

    Ah, yes, fruitful diversity.  One of my favourites.

  • Scottish independence? Impossible.

    Two weeks ago, the SCMP published this ridiculous letter:

    Voting rights don’t include secession

    Virginia Yue (‘We should respect voters’ choice,’ January 30), in her reply to my letter (‘Small-circle election for us, please’, January 20), can be forgiven for being unaware that universal suffrage can be in the form of indirect election or direct election.

    In my letter, I never said anything against universal suffrage per se, only the direct-election mode of it, through which China has been subjected to threats of secession by Taiwan.

    The indirect-election mode of universal suffrage, as provided for in Article 45 of the Basic Law, would have provided some safeguard against threats.

    But what I would really like to see introduced is a positive instrument, a piece of legislation such as the US Patriot Act. The mainland has such an antisecession law and hopefully in Hong Kong it can be introduced under Article 23.

    Yes, respect the voters’ wishes, but not when it is secession.

    I am sure even the US federal government would come down like a ton of bricks if any state tried to secede, as it did in the secession [civil war] of 1861-65, when 11 states tried to secede.

    I suppose, in the case of your correspondent, my argument will fall on deaf ears.

    Peter Lok, Chai Wan

    Strangely the SCMP has not printed a single letter in response to this load of nonsense. 

    Would the US government “come down like a ton of bricks” if there was a political party in, say, California that advocated independence?  No, because things have changed in the USA in the last 160 years, and if one of the fifty states did really want to secede it would all be resolved peacefully . 

    Scotland does have a party that advocates independence, and they now control the Scottish Parliament.  They will hold a referendum, and if the Scottish people vote for independence then the UK will allow it to happen. 

    There have been several other peaceful and amicable break-ups, such as Czechoslovakia becoming the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

    So you have to wonder why the SCMP lets Peter Lok put forward such absurd arguments and then fails to print letters that challenge his ridiculous assertions.

  • Foreigners still bad

    It’s clear that Sam Wong is not going back down on his argument that the Romans have never done anything for us:

    Hong Kong government doing well

    South China Morning Post | Friday 3 February 2012

    I refer to the letter from Jeffry Kuperus ("Competitive thanks to mainland", January 17) in reply to my letter ("Some deny post-colonial reality of HK", January 12).

    He referred to the airport being built under the stewardship of then governor Chris Patten. He complained about social welfare deficiencies, exorbitant room charges in private hospitals, high-priced apartments and a lame-duck chief executive.

    The airport was built thanks to the city’s abundant reserves, without which Mr Patten would have achieved nothing of note except his controversial political reform package.

    So these abundant reserves just happened to be there?  He’s not going to give the colonial administrations any credit for them, is he?

    The chief executive is doing a fine job. Economies worldwide are still suffering from the aftermath of the financial tsunami, but the city’s economy has remained buoyant. Unemployment remains low and decent social welfare is available to people in need. Prices of apartments are high but this is compensated by a low tax regime. Private rooms in hospitals are expensive but charges are transparent.

    The chief executive runs the administration in accordance with the Basic Law, which should not be interpreted as to "kowtow to Beijing".

    Of course not.  Donald Tsang is totally his own man. 

    Unfair criticism against the chief executive may mislead the public, undermine the administration and slow down the development of democracy in this city.

    Right, because no-one criticizes political leaders in democracies.  If people said unfair or untrue things about Obama that would be terrible for democracy.

    People living in cage dwellings deserve our sympathy but their future can only be changed by themselves.

    I once lived in a small cubicle in a run-down area in Sham Shui Po. The apartment had neither a heater nor an elevator. The conditions were far worse than cage dwellings.  However, I have worked my way up from clerk to financial controller.

    Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t’ corridor!

    Oh, we used to dream of livin’ in a corridor! Would ha’ been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

    Well, when I say ‘house’ it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

    We were evicted from our ‘ole in the ground; we ‘ad to go and live in a lake [continues in similar vein for several minutes].

    Hong Kong will not deviate from a prudent monetary policy despite an abundance of reserves. We will not repeat the mistakes of countries in Europe.

    Sam Wong, Tsim Sha Tsui

  • Pots and kettles

    Is it possible that the Hong Kong Standard might not exactly be impartial when it reports on changes at its great rival the South China Morning Post?

    A paper that’s well red

    Hong Kong Standard | Thursday, February 02, 2012

    What’s black and white and red all over?

    That old chestnut of a joke is doing the rounds again following the appointment of Wang Xiangwei as editor-in- chief of the South China Morning Post.

    His elevation to the top spot comes hot on the heels of a visit to Beijing recently by SCMP CEO Kuok Hui-kwong – daughter of chairman Robert Kuok and known affectionately in the newsroom as "Baby" Kuok.

    Baby, wearing black leather thigh- high boots, was allowed a rare one-on- one chat with Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Wang Guangya. (Though they share the same name, he is not related to the SCMP’s new editorial supremo.)Baby’s lips remained tight after the meeting, but the rumor mill has it Wang was happy to discuss Wang, if you get our drift. The SCMP’s Wang, coincidentally, is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference of Jilin province.

    Also moving up – to deputy editor – is Beijing darling Tammy Tam Wai-yee, formerly ATV’s senior vice president. Tam spent a few months on the Post’s China desk after quitting ATV over the Jiang Zemin debacle.

    Wang is the 10th editor over the past 11 years to sit in the SCMP’s fast- revolving hot seat. But, as the venerable organ becomes more firmly attached to Beijing, perhaps he’ll last longer than his here today, gone tomorrow predecessors.

    Incidentally, SCMP’s (0583) share price fell to just HK$1.36 on news of Wang’s appointment. That’s a fall of 5.56 percent from January when there was talk of a possible Singaporean buyout of the SCMP Group. Seems there could be a lot more red ink to come in more ways than one.

    Or here’s another point of view:

    Mainlander named as South China Morning Post Editor

    Asia Sentinel | Wednesday, 01 February 2012

    Image

    Who knows what’s going on in there?

    But not necessarily Beijing’s man

    The appointment of Wang Xiangwei as editor in chief of the South China Morning Post, announced Tuesday, has reignited concerns that the paper, arguably the most influential English-language daily in East Asia, is being drawn closer into the mainland Chinese embrace.

    Wang, who moved to the paper as a China business reporter in 1996, becoming deputy editor in 2007, is a member of the People’s Political Consultative Conference of Jilin Province. He spent three years at the state-owned China Daily before moving to the United Kingdom, where he worked at the BBC and other news organizations. He returned to Hong Kong to work for the now-defunct Eastern Express.

    The appointment caps a months-long search for outside talent through at least last November. One journalist who left the paper some time ago after arguments over coverage of China said the decision to name Wang and his deputy, Tammy Tam, “completes the Sinicization of the South China Morning Post.” However, those who have worked closely with Wang say he is likeable and is no stooge for Beijing despite the fact that he is the first editor-in-chief to have been born in Mainland China.

    “He is his own man,” one observer said. “His commentaries on China are objective, critical and come from authoritative knowledge. He is respected by his peers and the Beijing brass. He is more of a scholar and intellectual than a manager. His role as editor in chief is probably more focused on leadership on China affairs than in running the newsroom.”

  • ebooks more than paperbacks?

    More on the sometimes crazy pricing of ebooks:

    The great ebook price swindle

    Publishers are facing an uncertain time in the digital world – but increasing the prices of their ebooks is a retrograde step

    Dan Gillmor | guardian.co.uk | Friday 23 December 2011 15.07 GMT

    I want to offer a word of thanks to the American book publishing industry, or at least the traditional big companies that have dominated it in recent decades. They've helped me rediscover my local library and the used book stores in neighboring communities. They've achieved this by exhibiting the qualities that come so naturally to corporate media giants: greed and arrogance – in this case, as applied to the way they've dealt with the digital world.

    To understand what they've done, you need to understand a bit about how books are sold in America. Publishers have two major distribution methods. One is traditional wholesaling: sell the book to a middleman, who typically adds a mark-up to customers, but sometimes discounts a book below cost as a "loss leader" to attract more business for items that aren't discounted in this way.

    The other model is called the "agency" system. In this case, publishers set the price and the bookstore merely handles the sale to the ultimate customer, for a set fee or percentage of the transaction. The "big six" US publishers all sell their physical books via the wholesale model. After years of wholesaling digital editions as well, they moved to the agency model for ebooks, with Random House becoming the final publisher to switch early last year. The publishers had been increasingly angry about Amazon's selling of new bestsellers at the loss-leading price of $10 (actually, $9.99), worrying that the giant online company was setting customer expectations at a too-low price point and undermining the sales of physical books.

    Apple played a role in this switch, by essentially telling the publishers it wanted the agency model for its own online bookstore, which services the iPad and iPhone. And Apple co-operated in what was the inevitable result for e-books everywhere: higher prices to consumers.

    Not just higher prices, but vastly higher; many ebook bestsellers on Amazon (and in Barnes & Noble's Nook store) jumped 30% to 50%, from about $10 to $13 or $15 or even higher, as publishers imposed higher list prices for the digital versions. And in case after case, the ebook price for a new book was close to, and sometimes even higher than, the Amazon price for a hardcover. Remember, Amazon still has the right to discount from list price for physical books, as it has always done. Meanwhile, publishers have dictated that ebook prices will be the same as they charge for paperbacks (around $10 these days).

    It’s one of those strange cases where competition increases prices (there’s another one here).  Apple offered publishers the chance to charge higher prices, and they were happy to do so.

    It’s no surprise that Amazon’s original US$9.99 price for newly-published titles was not to the liking of all publishers, but a simple low price for a large range of titles was a great marketing message for the Kindle. No-one can really know how many sales of hardbacks were lost because the Kindle price was lower, but I’d suspect that they were more than made up for by higher overall sales.

    An ebook priced like a physical book is a terrible deal for the customer. Among other drawbacks, you can't resell – or even give away – an ebook in most cases. You don't really own an ebook; you're just renting it, even if the company you rent from says you can keep it, because that depends on the life span of the seller. Maybe Amazon will be around for a long time to come (I hope so, as a holder of a small amount of Amazon stock), but why would anyone count on that?

    I’m not so worried about Amazon going out of business. In the unlikely event of this happening I am sure that some alternative devices would appear, but it is completely baffling that an ebook should be the same price (or even more expensive than) a hardback book.  It simply makes no sense.

    And yet – although it just seems wrong for a Kindle e-book to cost more than the physical book, the prohibitive shipping charges to Asia ($10 for the first item, $5 for additional books in the same shipment) make a huge difference. Even with the totally arbitrary $2 charge for delivering an Amazon e-book to overseas customers (through Wi-Fi) the KIndle version is usually cheaper.

    And plenty of books are much cheaper on the Kindle.  For example, last week's SCMP had a review of a book about Walmart in China.   The publisher’s price is $25 for paperback or $65 for hardback, but I purchased it on the Kindle for $9.99 (plus $2 ripoff charge), and I could download it within seconds.  Hard to argue with that – though, strangely, it is now $16.97.

    Another recent purchase was the first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs for $3.99 (plus a very slightly less unreasonable $1.60 ripoff charge).  So it’s not a problem finding books for the Kindle at reasonable prices, and easy enough to avoid buying any that are over-priced.  Plus you can always download a sample to check out a book before purchasing.

    When new ebooks were $10, I was buying them all the time. In almost all cases, book purchases are impulse buys – something you want to have, right now. I was buying new best-sellers at a rapid rate, and happy to do so. (The books I bought this way tended to be mysteries and thrillers – the kind of book purchases I treated like movie tickets, to be read or seen once and then put aside.)  No more. I still buy some e-books, but only at lower prices.

    I think that’s right – at around $10, I would buy new titles that I want to read now, but at $15+ I am likely to wait till the price is reduced (or buy the paperback if it’s cheaper).  And at less than $5 it really is an impulse purchase.  

    Sure, I can afford the higher prices. But the greed of the publishers has inspired me to make different plans. Now I reserve bestsellers at my local library – run by people who love books: imagine that! – and read them whenever they are available. What were impulse purchases of books that sent revenue to publishers are now impulse reservations that do not. If I have to wait a few weeks, no big deal. I should have remembered that all along.

    I agree that publishers need to think more carefully about pricing.  In the long term it is going to hurt them – piracy is one way, and there are some interesting comments on the Guardian article, such as this one on a radically different approach:

    If an author publishes an ebook via a publishing house, of the $9.99 price, they get only $0.60 in royalties at 6%.  If they self-publish the same book and charge just $2.99, they get a royalty of $2.09 – but the customer gets a 70% discount!

    And it's not hard to upload – you will find that indie books that have been uploaded by authors are usually formatted correctly – they take the trouble because it's their baby, while the publishing houses do a poor job, but want to take money off the author and customer for the work anyway.

    There was a more recent story about how some writers are making a good living through Amazon:

    Amanda Hocking, the writer who made millions by self-publishing online

    Ed Pilkington | Thursday 12 January 2012 20.00 GMT

    When historians come to write about the digital transformation currently engulfing the book-publishing world, they will almost certainly refer to Amanda Hocking, writer of paranormal fiction who in the past 18 months has emerged from obscurity to bestselling status entirely under her own self-published steam. [..]

    Over the past 20 months Hocking has sold 1.5m books and made $2.5m. All by her lonesome self. Not a single book agent or publishing house or sales force or marketing manager or bookshop anywhere in sight.

    Which is something that ought to make publishers stop and think.

  • Denial

    There have been several letters in the SCMP from expats in response to Sam Wong’s letter last week.  His response is to deny what he wrote and blame it on the sub-editor:

    Some deny post-colonial reality of HK

    There have been many responses to my letter ("Expats have done little to benefit city", January 3).

    The theme of my letter relates to the competitiveness of Hong Kong but your correspondents focused on the contributions of individuals, which is a different matter. This misunderstanding caused an overreaction and harsh language from some letter writers.

    I did not suggest a lack of contribution on the part of foreigners and domestic helpers despite the headline (which I did not write). Every citizen contributes to our society one way or another. Even people living on social welfare can claim they contribute to our economy because they are also spenders.

    Hong Kong’s competitiveness is measured by its infrastructure, modern airport and container port facilities, communications technologies, good social systems, financial services, industries, tourism, medical services, an efficient police force, good governance and a hard- working population, supplemented by the support of the mainland under the "one country, two systems" concept.

    Foreigners in Hong Kong share the success of Hong Kong’s competitiveness.

    As Graham Price pointed out ("Foreigners make a big contribution", January 6) many chose to make Hong Kong their permanent home because of job opportunities and a friendly environment that makes it easy for foreigners to settle.

    However, some foreigners who lived through Hong Kong’s colonial era still fail to acknowledge that this city has returned to Chinese sovereignty. They suggest that local people’s views should be expressed only in the Chinese-language media.

    I extend a welcome to all foreigners if they share the view that the competitiveness of this city is not solely due to the presence of a small population of expatriates. And I hope your correspondents will no longer feel offended after my clarification.

    Sam Wong, Sha Tin

    So what does he really believe?  The headline seems like a fair summary of the following excerpt from his earlier letter:

    Expatriates who have come to this city to work do so because they can’t get a better job at home.  If these people’s talent had anything to do with the competitiveness of Hong Kong, they would have enhanced the competitiveness of their respective home country. The sad state of the economies in the US and Europe is a reflection of the talent of these people.

    Does he really believe that he didn’t “suggest a lack of contribution on the part of foreigners and domestic helpers”?

    Of course what this is really about (as with many similar letters published by the SCMP) is the section I have highlighted above:  “this city has returned to Chinese sovereignty” and “some foreigners who lived through Hong Kong’s colonial era still fail to acknowledge that”.  So, we foreigners should keep quiet and learn Chinese.

  • Foreigners go home

    More enlightened views brought to us by the letters page of the SCMP:

    Expats have done little to benefit city

    Recently the concept of Hong Kong’s competitiveness or the competitive edge of Hong Kong has again been quoted in your editorials, for example ("ESF  debate merits a conclusion soon", December 28).

    In all these cases, the South China Morning Post related the concept to the presence of expatriates in this city. Is our competitiveness due to the presence of expatriate businesspeople or individuals?

    I am sure most local people know the answer. Expatriates who have come to this city to work do so because they can’t get a better job at home.

    If these people’s talent had anything to do with the competitiveness of Hong Kong, they would have enhanced the competitiveness of their respective home country.

    The sad state of the economies in the US and Europe is a reflection of the talent of these people.

    Expatriates who are making a living in Hong Kong are no different from domestic helpers earning their livelihood here, except that no domestic helper is claiming that he or she has enhanced the competitiveness of this city.

    Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997. Misleading statements which were never challenged during the colonial era will no longer enjoy the same privilege.

    Sam Wong, Sha Tin

    What a load of old nonsense.  I won’t even dignify this with a response.

    Gotta love that last sentence, though:  “Misleading statements which were never challenged during the colonial era will no longer enjoy the same privilege.”  Eh?