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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  • A green Bush?

    I was recently listening to John Micklethwait the new(ish) editor of The Economist on the New Year’s Day edition of Start the Week.  He made the rather startling prediction that 2007 would be the year the George Bush would ‘go green’.  His argument was that some of his natural supporters, including neocons, evangelical Christians, big business and farmers, are coming round to the view that something has to be done, and that Bush himself also believes this but also does not want to upset the oil industry.

    Micklethwait expanded upon his thoughts in an editorial in The Economist (subscription required):

    Business is changing its mind too. Five years ago corporate America was solidly against carbon controls. But the threat of a patchwork of state regulations, combined with the opportunity to profit from new technologies, began to shift business attitudes. And that movement has gained momentum, because companies that saw their competitors espouse carbon controls began to fear that, once the government got down to designing regulations, they would be left out of the discussion if they did not jump on the bandwagon. So now the loudest voices are not resisting change but arguing for it.

    Support for carbon controls has also grown among some unlikely groups: security hawks (who want to reduce America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil); farmers (who like subsidies for growing the raw material for ethanol); and evangelicals (who worry that man should be looking after the Earth God gave him a little better). This alliance has helped persuade politicians to move. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s Republican governor, has led the advance, with muscular measures legislating Kyoto-style curbs in his state. His popularity has rebounded as a result. And now there is movement too at the federal level, which is where it really matters. Since the Democrats took control of Congress after the November mid-term elections, bills to tackle climate change have proliferated. And three of the serious candidates for the presidency in 2008—John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—are all pushing for federal measures.

    One of the more tedious aspects of the debate on global warming
    (and most things environmental) is the assumption that it’s a left vs.
    right issue.  Those on the left instinctively support the environmental
    lobby, and those on the right assume that it’s all a left-wing plot to
    bring down capitalism, so they are against it.  It’s certainly easier
    than taking the trouble to study the real evidence and thinking about
    it, I suppose.

    However, the evidence is starting to become overwhelming, and in the last few days a new report was published that offers an even more pessimistic view of what will happen if we don’t take action:

    The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says there is 90% certainty that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities are driving climate change. Read the global reaction to the report here.

    “The word unequivocal is the key message of this report,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, adding that those who have doubts about the role of humans in driving the climate “can no longer ignore the evidence”.

    The IPCC report says the rise in global temperatures could be as high as 6.4°C by 2100. The report also predicts sea level rises and increases in hurricanes. It is the work of 1200 climate experts from 40 countries, who have spent six years reviewing all the available climate research. It was released in Paris, France, on Friday (read the 21-page summary here, pdf format). Listen to audio from today’s press conference.

    The last IPCC report, issued in 2001, predicted that temperatures would rise by 1.4°C to 5.8°C by 2100, relative to 1990 temperatures.

    But the new report says temperature rises by 2100 could, in the most extreme scenarios, range from 1.1°C and 6.4°C. The most likely range is 1.8°C to 4.0°C (see figure 1, right), with the report predicting that 4°C is most likely if the world continues to burn fossil-fuels at the same rate (read the The impacts of rising global temperatures).

    I’m sure that there will still be those who stubbornly refuse to accept that this can be true.  All those scientists are only saying this so they can keep their highly-paid jobs and get their hands on more of our tax dollars.  Of course they are.

  • Small change

    According to Saturday’s SCMP (subscription required), shops are now reluctant to accept small change because the banks charge them so much for depositing coins.  If you try to pay with 10 cent or 20 cent coins they will not be happy. 

    A South China Morning Post reporter who tried to pay for a HK$2.50 steamed cake at a Quarry Bay bakery with a HK$2 coin and three 20-cent coins was told the shop had not accepted small coins since last year.

    "You can give me HK$3, and I can give you 50 cents’ change instead," the saleswoman said.

    I have to say that this sounds quite bizarre.  If an item costs HK$2.50, then surely the shop has to accept HK$2.60 and give change.  If they refused to accept my HK$2.60, I’d walk out of the shop.

    In October last year, HSBC imposed a service charge of 2 per cent of the value of deposits of 500 or more coins, with the minimum fee for 500 coins being HK$50.  Bank of China (Hong Kong) charges HK$1 for every HK$20 in 10-cent or 20-cent coins deposited, and the same for every HK$50 in other coins.

    Funnily enough, I remember a time (maybe 9 years ago?) when there was a big fuss about the shortage of small change. According to the SCMP, this problem goes back a few years:

    Back in the 1970s there was a shortage of the tiny coins because people hoarded them to have the exact change for newly installed cash boxes on buses. Before that they had been able to buy a ticket from the conductor and get change.

    "People needed a lot of 10-cent coins but the government had not made enough," coin collector Cheng Po-hung said. "The bus fare was about 70 to 80 cents and people had to prepare the exact amount to put in the box. People fought for 10-cent coins. Some restaurants even gave 10-cent stamps for change because there just weren’t enough coins."

    Mind you, 10 cents was worth rather more in the 1970s.

    These days, most people use an Octopus card to pay fares on public transport, and increasingly in 7-11 and other retail outlets.  I suppose that it’s actually cheaper for the retailer to accept payment by Octopus than to take cash, and it’s easier than messing about with coins, so what’s not to like about it?

    I remember that Visa tried to launch a card for micro-payments, but I don’t think it ever caught on. Octopus came at it from a different direction – once everyone had got used to using it for public transport they extended it to 7-11 and beyond, and now you can automatically add value from your credit card account when the stored value goes negative.  I think it’s very clear who has won that battle (in Hong Kong, at least).

    Meanwhile, the hot story on the TV news at the weekend was that some people had tried to add value to their Octopus cards using EPS, and although the transaction had failed their bank accounts had still been debited.  Cable TV even despatched a reporter to Kowloon Tong station to talk about this big story.  Except that there were only two reported cases, and both had received refunds. 

  • No more Googlebombs

    I periodically get emails from people who are amused to find that if you type "miserable failure" into Google, the first result is a link to the White House.  And they say satire is dead…

    Well, now Google have put a stop to this little game, as they explain here.

    Can’t argue with the logic of this.  After all, Google’s job is to provide the most accurate search results, not provide amusement for people with too much time on their hands.

  • Expensive fakes

    From the BBC:

    Counterfeiting is costing the global economy more than $100bn (£51bn) every year and putting human health and safety at risk, a UN agency has said.

    The World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) told a conference that China was the worst offender in the trade of counterfeit goods.

    I’d love to know how they calculated that figure of $100bn.  Or did they just make it up?  I think they made it up.

    The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the conference – attended by officials and business leaders – is about more than protecting lucrative brand names or music and film copyright.

    Pirated medicines are putting the health of patients at risk, especially in developing countries, said the World Health Organization.  Up to 25% of drugs taken in developing countries are fakes, the WHO estimates.

    Fake medicines are certainly a cause for concern, as this report from New Scientist points out:

    Experts fear the trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals kills more people and causes more harm than the trade in illegal narcotics. And it isn’t a great deal less lucrative. In 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration estimated that worldwide sales of fake drugs exceeded $3.5 billion, but other estimates suggest the figure is 10 times as high. The Center for Medicines in the Public Interest, a charity backed by the US pharmaceutical industry, predicts that global sales of fake drugs will reach $75 billion by 2010 unless the trade is curtailed.

    Howevever, even if we accept that the FDA’s estimate of $3.5 billion is too low, fake drugs are still a small proportion of the worldwide sales of counterfeit items, but of course it suits big business to focus on them because they are dangerous. 

    I’m not buying that.  Most of the trade is in counterfeit DVDs, CDs, handbags, watches. clothing, shoes and other consumer items.  The BBC even illustrated the story with a picture of fake Nike shoes being destroyed, so I think it’s safe to say that’s what we are really talking about.

    In most cases, the buyers of these products know exactly what they are getting, and happily buy "fakes" because the price is so much lower.  It’s misleading to say that this is a sale that has been lost to the manufacturer of the original item, because it isn’t that simple. For luxury brands, fakes can even be a good thing because they prove that the brand is desirable, and the people who buy fakes would almost certainly not buy the real thing.   

    The other thing that makes me unsympathetic to big business on this issue is that they only too ready to over-charge consumers and limit their choice (if they can get away with it).  These are the people who want to stop you buying a DVD or CD that was intended for the US market (even if they don’t sell it in Hong Kong), add crazy DRM to limit what you can do with DVDs and CDs they will let you buy, who try to prevent you using anything apart from their absurdly over-priced ink cartridges in your printer, and charge UK consumers almost twice as much as US consumers for a Playstation 3.   

    Sorry, guys, but you won’t get much sympathy from me.   Especially not with exaggerated claims about how much harm counterfeits are doing to the "global economy".  Isn’t more trade a good thing? 

  • Sling your hook

    A few weeks ago, I was browsing in a computer shop and was intrigued to see a Slingbox on sale.  As I understand it, the idea is that you hook it up to your TV antenna and cable box, and can then you can use a PC anywhere in the world (or your mobile phone) to watch TV – and it allows you to change the channel on your cable box. 

    Then a couple of weeks ago I saw one in the window of a ‘3’ mobile phone shop.  The logic is obvious enough – maybe this is the ‘killer application’ that was provides a compelling reason to have a 3G mobile phone.  Even better for the phone companies is that if they charge by the kilobyte you can run up a huge bill – and the Sunday Times recently found someone who owed £950 for just four days usage:

    Michael Schaefer, 46, an IT specialist from Ealing, west London, was charged £950 in just four days by O2 after using his 3G (third generation) phone to view TV for just two hours.  3G phones offer high-speed access to the internet, allowing users to download TV, films and music to their phones while on the move. Firms have spent billions rolling out the technology across their networks and drumming up interest in the devices.

    Schaefer connected his O2 mobile to his home TV with a device called a Slingbox, which uses a broadband link to allow programmes to be “streamed” directly to a high-speed mobile without having to wait for it to download. Slingboxes are available from Currys for £140.

    Fortunately, ‘3’ (in the UK and here in Hong Kong) are offering a flat rate tariff, so there shouldn’t be any such nasty surprises (apart from the chance of ‘Fei Fei’ or any number of other gruesome local TV ‘celebrities’ appearing unwanted on your mobile phone).   

    I have no idea whether it works with Now Broadband TV (it may not, because their control box is something they had specially made using bits from an old DVD player), but Doug Crets was speculating that this would be a cheap way to watch EPL matches "on the go"  (more here and here).  As it happens, there was something in the SCMP today on the general subject of the Sling Box, pointing out that it’s not a particularly convenient way to watch TV (no rewind, fast forward or pause), so I don’t think that PCCW will be worrying too much about that – but it may have an impact on how much they can charge for EPL coverage on their own 3G network.

    The more interesting thing is that ‘3’ are moving away from the "walled garden" approach of limiting what you watch, and the charging structure is quite reasonable.  Anyone with long memories will recall that Hutchison (owners of ‘3’) were very aggressive with their mobile phone tariffs a few years ago, and forced everyone else to reduce prices to compete with them.  Here we are again.

  • Caveat Emptor

    Some good advice from Spike – Research before you shop for high tech items:

    Basically, if you go shopping for this kind of stuff in HK and you haven’t done your research first, most shops will fuck you up, down and sideways – sometimes on purpose and sometimes because the people working in this shop are either stupid or just can’t be bothered to learn about what they’re selling.

    Had I done more checking in advance, I would have skipped the Wanchai Computer Center and just gone to the Oriental 188 Shopping Center on Wanchai Road. AV Bi-Weekly magazine reports the 60 gig PS3 is selling for $3,780 there.

    See, the thing is, there are a lot of locally published magazines – in Chinese – that cover this stuff in extreme detail – reviews, features, list prices and price comparisons at different shops. Local English-language coverage of this kind of stuff is minimal at best. Sure you can get American or Brit magazines for news and reviews or check the various web sites, but what you won’t get is local price guidance.

    Another problem is that a lot of what is available in the malls is "unofficial" in one way or other (e.g. imported from Japan or the States, or adapted to overcome stupid region codes) so price comparisonswith other countries are not as simple as converting from one currency to another.   

    So unless you have the time to check the prices in multiple Hong Kong malls it’s hard to know how much you should pay.  I suspect that staff in most of the outlets know that "foreigners" are probably less well-informed than locals.  Spike has a plan:

    What I do is I buy the local Chinese magazines. My ability to read Chinese is limited and I’m more familiar with simplified characters rather than traditional and of course I can recognize the Chinese characters for different districts. And surprise! The stuff you absolutely need to see – model numbers, specs, prices, phone numbers – is almost all in English. When I’m really stuck, I can just show a page to someone in my office and ask them to translate for me. E-Zone costs $15 per issue. AV Bi-Weekly is $18. Other mags are similarly cheap.

    I think that’s probably good advice.  Looking at what’s in the magazine and then scouring the Internet for additional product information in English will probably tell you what you need to know.

    It’s depressing, but I suppose we just have to accept that English language media in Hong Kong is largely a waste of time.  Time to learn Chinese. 

  • Catching up?

    I have a theory that supermarkets in Hong Kong are about 10-15 years behind the UK. 

    About 10 years ago, Tesco in the UK introduced their Clubcard scheme, and it has been a huge success.  It’s basically a marketing thing – Tesco collects information about what you buy, and in return offers you coupons to spend in their store, either for specific products (based on your buying patterns) or to spend as you choose.  There’s an interesting article from the FT here that explains more about it. 

    Dunnhumby [the company that runs the Clubcard scheme] takes the information registered on Clubcards each time those 13 million families come into Tesco for their weekly shop, and turns it into five billion pieces of data. Each separate product bought has its own set of attributes. A ready meal can have up to 45 "values" ascribed to it: is it expensive, or cheap? Tesco-branded, or made by Birds Eye? An "ethnic" recipe, or a traditional British dish? Clubcard is the Big Brother of the shopping world.

    This information is also stored in a vast search engine that can be used by suppliers trying to launch products. Dunnhumby makes about £30m a year selling Tesco data to more than 200 consumer-goods companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Coca-Cola. Within hours of launching a product or introducing a promotion into a local Tesco store, brand managers can track who is buying their products or responding to their promotions. Are they empty-nesters or young mums, lawyers or factory workers? "If you understand who is buying and how they are buying, you can make better decisions," [says director of consumer strategy and futures Martin Hayward]. "The joy of our sample is that it is so large, and because Tesco is so representative of the country it is the best source of insight a supplier can get."

    Now ParknShop have finally got round to copying this idea, though their rewards seem rather rather mean.  If you spent £1,000 at Tesco, you would get coupons worth £10, whereas if you spend HK1,000 in PnS you only get a $4 coupon.  On top of that Tesco gives out extra coupons for specific categories, products, or brands, to encourage you to buy something you wouldn’t normally buy – and I’m not sure whether PnS will be doing this.

    What’s clever about Clubcard is that it helps both Tesco and their suppliers to know a lot more about their customers, and to make decisions accordingly.  It has enabled Tesco to achieve a dominant market share (of over 30%) and become hugely profitable.  Hong Kong is different, because the two main supermarket chains (PnS and Wellcome) already dominate the market, but I suppose extra profit is always welcome. 

    From a customer’s point of view, there is obviously a concern about privacy and that you are simply making it easier for people to sell more stuff to you, but I have to say that I would choose Tesco over any Hong Kong supermarket every single time.  If PnS could emulate even some of the improvements that Tesco have been able to make over the last ten years, I’d be very happy, and if PnS make higher profits as a result then that’s just fine by me.   

  • Storms, teacups

    I don’t know all the background to this strange story:

    ASIAN AUTHOR Nury Vittachi, co-founder of the Hong Kong Literary Festival, is to be sacked by the organization’s board in a row about racial insensitivity and improper business links.

    The novelist, probably Hong Kong’s biggest literary export, alleges that the board fired him after he complained about racism and urged that “questionable business practices” be reformed.

    Vittachi claims:

    • That he campaigned for years to set up a literary prize, but once sponsorship was obtained, he was cut from the project because of a Westerners-only rule.
    • That the festival board, ostensibly non-profit, limits membership to directors and authors of Paddyfield.com and Chameleon Press, companies run by board member Peter Gordon.
    • That prime slots in the festival programme were given to Chameleon Press novelists even if they paid for their own publication.

    However, the long and the short of it seems to be that Peter Gordon has fallen out with Nury Vittachi.

    Those with long memories may recall that one of the more celebrated claims made by that mad bloke with the big yellow blog was that Peter Gordon owned IceRed and was supressing any criticism of Nury (mostly from dear mad old George himself) on the discussion forums.  At that time Peter Gordon’s Chameleon Press was indeed publishing Nury’s books, but he certainly didn’t own IceRed.  Now Nury has moved on to bigger and better things.

    I probably shouldn’t jump in and make any judgements on this, but I think I’d agree with the conclusion of the anonymous journalist who wrote the article:

    People close to the board of the Hong Kong literary festival claim that personalities are a likely element in the present dispute. “Both Peter Gordon and Nury Vittachi have massive egos,” said a regular festival attendee. “But to sack the founder of the festival over a single, vague blog entry seems way out of proportion. There’s got to be more to this than meets the eye.” 

    [..]  Both principal players in this drama are deeply ambitious people. Gordon is a spiky character, admired for his acumen by some but not well-liked by other booksellers and publishers in Hong Kong. Vittachi is infamous as a self-absorbed, aloof, workaholic author, but is well-connected and widely liked.

    Well, I have to confess that I took an instant dislike to Peter Gordon (it saves time, you see), and Nury is a lovely bloke but he does seem to over-fond of conspiracy theories – such as the one about why he was sacked by the SCMP (published by Peter Gordon), which is only slightly spoilt by the fact that he wasn’t actually sacked at all. 

    Now he has been sacked, so that should be worth another book.  I’m sure Chameleon Press will publish it…

    [UPDATE: In case it’s not clear, this appears on Nury’s own blog – he appears to have arranged with a journalist to write this account, which he has then published.  I don’t think it has appeared elsewhere.]

  • iPhone

    The reaction to the iPhone anouncement has been predictable, I suppose.  It must have been the most widely-reported "technology" story of the last several months, and generally the coverage has been very positive, though some have been more sceptical – The Guardian suggested that it’s not as clever as Steve thinks: 

    Imagine you are on the television programme University Challenge. Your starter for 10: identify which mobile has these specifications. Don’t press the button until you are sure. Ready? Weight: 135 grams. Camera size: 2 megapixels. Data storage: 4GB to 8GB. Talktime: up to five hours. Connectivity: Wi-Fi and quad-band. Screen size: 3.5 inches; multi-touchscreen. At this point some bright spark presses the button ahead of you to say it is the KE850 variant of LG’s Chocolate phone.

    That’s a new phone, of course, but I have had a number of Treos with touchscreens – and although they come with the stylus that Steve Jobs derided, I can do most things without using it.  Of course the screen is smaller, and it has a tiny keyboard rather than the "virtual keyboard" on the iPhone, but my (5 year old?) Samsung Nexio Wireless Hand PC has one of those (and Wi-Fi), as do countless other devices.  So nothing very new then.

    Well, OK, I have to concede that none of these smartphones allow you to grab an icon with your fingers, squeeze it and make it smaller.  I really don’t know how I’ve managed without particular feature… 

    The other problem with so-called smartphones is that they aren’t all that smart, and end up being frustrating to use.  Can Apple solve that problem?  Most of the hype is based on the hope that they can, and that the iPhone will be as user-friendly as the iPod, but that’s a lot to ask considering that this is going to be a much more complex device. 

    Time had a fairly extensive article (The Apple Of Your Ear) with photos showing how the iPhone will look (pretty good, I have to admit).  They also had a (rather uncritical) piece about how it was developed, but then I suppose Apple weren’t going to give them the first look at the product if they were going to rip it apart: 

    20070109t215728z_01_nootr_rtridsp_2_tech_1 The iPhone started out the way a lot of cool things do: as something completely different. A few years ago, Steve Jobs noticed how many development dollars were being spent–particularly in the greater Seattle metropolitan area–on what are called tablet PCs: flat portable computers that work with a touch screen instead of a mouse and keyboard. Jobs, being Jobs, was curious. He had some Apple engineers noodle around with a touch screen. When they showed him what they came up with, he got excited.

    So excited he forgot all about tablet computers. He had bigger game to hunt.

    […] Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of design–the Englishman who shaped the iMac and the iPod–squashed the case to less than half an inch thick and widened it to what looks like a bar of expensive chocolate wrapped in aluminum and stainless steel. The iPhone is a typical piece of Ive design: an austere, abstract, Platonic-looking form that somehow also manages to feel warm and organic and ergonomic.

    Even The Economist seemed to get a bit carried away, but at least they didn’t describe the iPhone as "cool". 

    Along with more than 200 other patents, this technology should put the iPhone “five years ahead” of its rivals, reckons Mr Jobs. This claim is hard to judge. The iPhone is not the only phone that can switch automatically between a short-range Wi-Fi connection and a mobile-phone network, depending on which one it sniffs. But it is the only phone with a web browser (Apple’s Safari) that displays web pages in their full splendour. It is also the only phone that has “visual voicemail” to save users from the hassle of listening to all their messages before getting to the important ones—a joint innovation with Apple’s partner, Cingular, America’s largest mobile operator. And it is by far the best handset for photographs, music and videos.

    I’m not convinced that this "iPod with a phone" approach makes sense.  It will never be as simple as an iPod, and the problem is that it could end up as just another variant on the smartphone, with all the frustration that can bring.  There’s also an inescapable conflict between what is possible if the device runs OS X and the wish to provide a simple, easy-to-use phone.  Will Apple allow third-party developers access to the phone and increase the risk of problems?  Or try to keep it simple but frustrate some of those who have drooled over the phone?  Maybe Palm and Blackberry are safe, at least for now.

    A more revolutionary approach for Apple would be to offer a really simple phone add-on for the iPod.  Put them together and you would have an iPhone, but you could separate the two devices and use your phone without all the complications of a smartphone (but with limited functionality).  Maybe not so elegant, but possibly more practical. 

    Will it be a success?  Apple are up against some formidable competitors who have a lot of experience in handset design and deep relationships with the service providers (from whom most people buy their phones). However, Steve Jobs would probably be satisfied with a fairly small share of the market, and there are surely enough Apple enthusiasts to achieve that, which means that it should force other handset manufacturers (and particularly Palm and Blackberry) to find ways to make their products easier to use.  Which has to be a good thing. 

  • The long way round

    I was reading this report about Air New Zealand, which says that they are struggling to fill their new Hong Kong – London service, in part because of the impact of Oasis.  Maybe, but Air NZ are new to what has become a very competitive route, and they have a daytime flight to London, which won’t suit everyone. 

    Anyway, it also mentions that Air NZ now has the only round-the-world service on a single carrier.  Indeed it does, but it’s a rather eccentric one, certainly if you start from here (Hong Kong – London – Los Angeles – Auckland – Hong Kong).  I can think of worse places to go, but I can’t quite imagine how I would want to visit of all of them in one trip. 

    According to the SCMP Sunday travel section, the RTW fare from Hong Kong on Air NZ is about HK$10k for economy and about HK$30k for business. The latter is actually cheaper than the standard business class return fare for Hong Kong – London, which looks odd at first sight, but the explanation is presumably that this is really a leisure fare.  Anyone flying on business from Hong Kong would be highly unlikely to want to go to London, Auckland and Los Angeles in one trip. 

    Yes, I know that some companies insist that staff flying from Hong Kong to the States should buy a round-the-world ticket and come back via London because it is cheaper.  However, making you go via Auckland one way and London on the way back would be cruel and unusual punishment, I feel, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if some bean counter somewhere decided that it would be a good idea.