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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  • 38 honeymoons?

    I felt a strange sense of deja vu when I finally got round to reading an article about the Maldives in the Christmas & New Year edition of The Economist:

    IN THE Seagull Café a young man is talking quietly to two others who are taking notes. He is describing how he was tortured in prison and by whom. Sipping his espresso at the next table, Ahmed Abbas, a leading opposition figure and cartoonist, is eavesdropping. He is puzzled: not by the torture victim’s routine tale, but by the identities of the three men. How can it be he does not know them?

    This is a vignette not from the dying days of some despotic East European country, but from a day this September in Male, capital of the Maldives, a tropical paradise. The country is a clutch of atolls, with some 1,200 coral islands, about 200 of which are inhabited, strung like so many pearls in a necklace across hundreds of miles of the Indian Ocean.

    The Maldives is best known as an upmarket tourist destination, with miraculous marine life and luxurious beachside bungalows offering the ultimate in romantic holiday hideaways. It is also known as the country likely to be the first to drown when global warming raises sea levels. The devastating tsunami of December 2004 seemed in the Maldives, more than anywhere else, a herald of the apocalypse. But the country is also gaining attention for a third reason: political and social ferment among its 300,000 people.

    Why?  Because a few days earlier, The Guardian had a similar article:

    There’s a cafe just outside arrivals at Hulhulé airport. Sit at one of the little aluminium tables, under the sign reminding passengers of the harsh penalties for drug traffickers, and you’ll see the holiday-makers arrive.

    The ones on the cheaper packages – families and budget divers – wait for their holiday reps. The richer types, perma-tanned middle-aged couples and upscale honeymooners, are greeted by neatly-uniformed men who whisk them off in speedboats to islands with $3,000-a-night water villas, personal butlers, infinity pools and brochure copy peppered with phrases such as “redefining luxury”.

    These are the places you read about in travel pages, usually under headlines containing the word “paradise”. You may have noticed that you read about paradise rather a lot. There always seems to be a free trip for a writer to suffer a week of pampering in return for a few bland paragraphs. You may have also noticed what’s missing from all those articles: people.

    Ah, yes, The Economist did indeed call it a “tourist paradise” but they also cover most of the issues highlighted by The Guardian, whilst noting that most visitors to the Madives are not interested in the country they are visiting:

    But, as Mr Shougee points out, many of the Maldives’ visitors are less interested in experiencing a new country than in exploring each other. Many are on honeymoon. Mohamed Ibrahim Didi, of the Full Moon resort, near Male, says that 12% of its customers are newly-weds and a further 38% are “repeaters”. (One man has come back 38 times. It is not clear how many weddings that involved.)

    Both also mention the role of a British PR firm in promoting the Maldives:

    In 2004 [..] The Economist received an e-mail from Hill & Knowlton, a British public-relations firm, which announced, in effect, that on June 9th the Maldives was to become a democracy. Mr Gayoom’s supporters had always portrayed him as a revered, popular leader, endorsed six times by a huge popular mandate. But even he seemed to have accepted that not all was well, and promised a raft of radical-looking democratic reforms. The process is supposed to culminate in a new constitution and competitive multi-party elections in 2008. Some reformist members of his government—the “new Maldives caucus”—take advice on policy and its presentation from Hill & Knowlton. The government has even held talks with the opposition.

    Both newspapers (yes, The Economist likes to think of itself as a newspaper rather than a magazine), are unsure whether the government has any real intention of introducing democracy, though (unsurprisingly) The Guardian seems more cynical.  However, tourism will continue regardless, and is so important to the Maldives that even those who are pushing for changes don’t want to stop visitors from coming and spending money.

    Finally, The Guardian reports that there is a contingency plan for global warming:

    The government is building a 2m-high artificial island next to Malé, the national equivalent of standing on stilts.

    It’s worth a try, I suppose.

  • Disconnected

    Well, I’m back, but Internet access is still painfully slow. The BBC website has a “low graphics” option that helps considerably, but many other sites are very slow (or not available at all).  I know the BBC has a big advantage because it doesn’t carry advertising, but many web pages could be designed better to load faster even with the ads – but they can’t be bothered because most people have fast Internet access, or so they suppose. 

    Those chumps over at OFTA are suggesting that we need to be patient for another few weeks:

    While telecommunications operators are now making arrangements to obtain as much capacity for data traffic as possible to the North America via Europe, Singapore, Australia and China, which will help to improve the data traffic including access to overseas web sites, the public are advised to minimise non-essential visits to overseas web sites, uploading or downloading large files to/from these web sites, and other non-essential activities which demand large bandwidth over international connections.

    Overseas callers calling Hong Kong are advised to use mobile phones or fixed-line phones instead of calling cards. But for callers from Taiwan and Japan, calling card services for calls to Hong Kong are normal.

    So we still have to pay the normal fee for Broadband access, but we are being asked to reduce “non-essential” usage. Well, since 99% of most home Internet access is “non-essential”, that should solve the problem, shouldn’t it?  I just look forward to a rebate from PCCW (I’d settle for 50%). Isn’t that what OFTA should be working on?  Don’t they review the contingency plan that ISPs have in place for when something like this happens?

    The problem, of course, is that we have all got used to the Internet “just being there”, and assume that geographical distance is no longer important (most Hong Kong blogs are hosted in the States or the UK, and normally no-one would even notice).  Until now, of course. 

    It’s a minor inconvenience not to be able to read a blog, but a big problem for companies that rely upon systems that are accessed over the Internet.  I suppose that most large companies do have some arrangements in place, but smaller companies probably don’t, and some will have learned an expensive lesson.  Mind you, problems getting on to the Internet are a perfect excuse for delaying payments to suppliers (and even paying salaries) – and at the Year End as well, so maybe it’s not all bad.     

  • Ron’s back

    That mysterious man Ron Goodden is at it again, getting his letter (Let Israel be Iraq’s guide) published in the SCMP.  Yet again there is no apparent connection with Hong Kong, and Mr Goodden lives in Atlanta, Georgia – which wasn’t anywhere near Hong Kong last time I checked.

    It’s not as if the SCMP had a prestigious letter column where world issues are debated – it’s either about Hong Kong issues or by Hong Kong people, so a letter like this is distinctly out of place.  I suppose what it comes to is that they’ll publish any old rubbish to fill up the space.

    Yes, I know, but before I ever thought of doing a blog, I considered a website devoted entirely the weird and wonderful letters published in the SCMP.  So it could have been much worse.

  • BBC free?

    The BBC has made an interesting announcement:

    Hundreds of episodes of BBC programmes will be made available for free on a file-sharing network for the first time, the corporation has announced.

    The move follows a deal between the commercial arm of the organisation, BBC Worldwide, and technology firm Azureus.

    The agreement means that users of Azureus’ Zudeo software in the US can download titles such as Little Britain.

    The headline says said "free", but the story seems to contradict this: 

    No pricing structure for the BBC content on Zudeo has been revealed.

    It seems rather unlikely that the BBC would make Little Britain available for free when they are also selling DVDs commercially.  There’s also a press release from Azureus that talks about ‘premium content’, which is usually code for charging money.  I think the confusion may have arisen because Azureus developed a BitTorrent client, which some naughty people may have used to download programmes illegally.  The latest idea is to use the same infrastructure to sell content, though it remains to be seen whether this will work. 

    UPDATE: They have changed it so that it no longer says ‘for free’.  Whilst they’re correcting errors, shouldn’t it be "Azureus’s Zudeo software"?  And I hope that’s the last time I have to type those horrible names…

    As usual, it seems that this will be limited to users in the USA, at least initially.  Viewers in the UK can already access many BBC programmes from the BBC website (for free).  And Hong Kong?  I’m not holding my breath.   

  • Beware of the leopard

    One of the better jokes in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is when Arthur Dent is informed that the plans for the (imminent) destruction of Earth were on display for nine months and no-one objected.  It seems that the something similar happened with the government’s plan to demolish the Star Ferry Pier. After they started knocking it down, the  protests started, so the government pointed out that this had been planned for a long time and they had even been through one of their famous "consultation" exercises.  No-one had objected, and now it was too late.

    Of course these plans weren’t actually on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’, but the effect seems to have been much the same. 

    Which is strange really, because you’d think that the opening of a new ferry pier (and all the talk about reclamation) would have been a pretty big clue that the old ferry pier would soon be gone. However, when the demolition work started the protestors arrived, and (as the SCMP explained last week) the government should have expected this:

    For five years it has been in possession of a study of the historic value of the Star Ferry and adjacent Queen’s piers, as part of an environmental impact assessment of the reclamation. The report describes the Star Ferry pier as a building of great significance in the city’s transport history, and predicts accurately that its destruction would "likely raise public objection and dismay".

    The few members of the public who had read the report could be excused for naively believing the piers would be preserved. But reading the report was easier said than done, until conservationists resurrected a copy this week in a last-ditch attempt at preservation.

    Unlike other reports on the reclamation, it was not posted on the government website and the hard copy was available for public inspection only within working hours at a government office. Officials deny hiding the report for years and blame technical problems. Nonetheless, it is a cautionary reminder that it is not uncommon for governments to tell people what they want them to hear.

    Communication is about listening to what people say, and making sure everyone understands what you say. If people haven’t understood, then your "consultation" has been a failure, and you will appear arrogant and out-of-touch if you try to argue otherwise.   

    I am not convinced that people in Hong Kong really care about the Star Ferry pier itself – it’s not exactly a distinguished piece of architecture. It’s more of a protest against the way that the government and big business simply don’t seem to care what ordinary people think. There was nothing wrong with the Star Ferry where it was, but it got in the way of another grand plan, so it had to go.  That’s why people are not happy. 

    Incidentally, I see that there is now a plan to extend the tram system to the new Star Ferry pier. Well, I suppose we need something to replace the rickshaws.  All part of the integrated transport policy, no doubt.

  • Stubborn?

    Hemlock has noticed this article from the Financial Times (also here):

    Yet a belief persists in Hong Kong
    that its future interest lies, not in accentuating its distinctive
    strengths, but in blurring them by throwing in its lot with the
    mainland. Sooner or later, the argument goes, it will be enveloped
    economically by its giant neighbour, so why not accept the inevitable
    now?

    The argument has been appropriated by Hong Kong tycoons, who
    calculate that telling Beijing what it wants to hear will win them
    commercial favours. Beijing treats their pleading as the voice of
    informed opinion in the territory.

    Though superbly administered, Hong
    Kong is inadequately governed. The executive, led by Donald Tsang,
    lacks a political compass. Its strategic vision is dominated by an
    infatuation with big projects. Many seem conceived out of a stubborn
    desire to display political authority. When, like a recently mooted
    goods and services tax, they sink for want of public support, Hong
    Kong’s leaders tend to conclude that the reason is not bad policies but
    failure to push them hard enough.

    That’s a favourite refrain of companies that don’t listen (whether to their employees or their customers) – "if only we could get people to understand what we are doing, they would agree with it".  Oh no, they wouldn’t, so please stop patronising us.

  • Not in Hong Kong

    Buy an iPod? No, not me, they’re over-priced and not really that much better than any other MP3 player. That was my view, so about a year ago I bought a small Creative MP3 player. Nothing much wrong with it, but it’s not exactly user-friendly.

    So now I have an iPod Nano. The GUI is user-friendly, and iTunes is easy-to-use. The problems so far are that if I am half way through listening to a podcast when I synchronize it disappears (because it thinks I have listened to it), and it ‘freezes up’ a bit too often for my liking (though it does make a full recovery after a reset). Apart from that it’s very good. I think I am convinced,

    However, the iTunes Music Store is STILL not available in Hong Kong, which means that I’m still looking for somewhere legal to download music. The latest possibility is eMusic – the plus point is that there’s no copy protection, the negatives are that they don’t have deals with the major labels (so their selection is quite limited – even more so for Hong Kong residents), the previews are far too brief and you have to subscribe for a set number of downloads each month. So far, I’m struggling to find enough songs to download to justify the monthly fee.

    I think they could help by making the site easier to navigate (such as allowing you to view all tracks by an artist rather than forcing you to select an album first), having a track rating system (enabling them to make better recommendations), and (ideally) offer full previews rather than limiting them to 30 seconds. Actually, I think what I really want is Musicmatch, but that isn’t available in Hong Kong.    

    On the subject of iTunes, it was reported recently that sales at the iTunes Music Store were down by 65%:

    Forrester said it got its figures by analysing 2,791 US iTunes debit and credit card purchases conducted by members of its consumer panel.

    While overall US sales at the iTunes Music Store were down 65%, the number of monthly transactions had declined 58%, while the average size per purchase had fallen 17%, Forrester said.

    Except that Forrestor now say that their report was misunderstood by Reuters, and reading the summary on their website this does seem to be the case. The report led to a fall in Apple’s share price, which is even weirder when you consider that their profits mainly come from selling iPods, not selling music.  Apple say the report is wrong, but have not elaborated any further, and probably have no need to do so because the point of the Music Store is to boost sales of iPods (which they do announce, and which are still going up).

    And still no news of the iTunes Music Store coming to Hong Kong.

  • Panic tank?

    The blog with no comments continues to puzzle me not inconsiderably.

    I was expecting large quantities of misguided rhetoric about rational self-interest (i.e. why companies should be free to do just whatever they like and hang the consequences), and I did really think that there might be some fun to be had from picking apart the dubious logic.  Instead it’s like shooting fish in a barrel – this rather sad piece has been at the top for the last few weeks:

    Panic Tank

    In my not so humble opinion, Civic Exchange is not so much a think tank, but rather a panic tank. This time their press release screams "Climate Change: Will the Factory of the World Sink or Swim?". For various reasons, I am not going to bother replying to this nonsense coming from Loh and Co.

    I mean, what’s the point? 

  • Small election, not many hurt

    When I was walking to the supermarket on Sunday I was slightly surprised to see a police wagon driving along and a couple of policeman standing by the side of the road looking bored. Then I remembered that we were having an election.  How could I have forgotten?  Well, maybe because (like most people in Hong Kong) I don’t have a vote in this election – and of the 200,000 who do, only just over a quarter actually bothered to vote, so I’m not surprised the policemen looked bored.

    Welcome to the surreal world of Hong Kong politics.

    The only point of interest in the election was whether the pan-democrats could win more than 100 seats on the Election Committee, enabling them to nominate a candidate (Alan Leong Kah-Kit) to stand against Donald Tsang in the election for a new Chief Executive next March. They did, and they will, but they also know that he will lose (because the Central Government appoints most of the members of the Election Committee).

    This brings us to the central problem of Hong Kong politics – the pan-democrats are by nature an opposition grouping, which will no longer be relevant when there is the possiblity of gaining real power. Like all single issue parties, the irony is that if you are successful you should cease to exist.

    Therefore it isn’t relevant whether Alan Leong would make a good CE or not, because he isn’t going to win the election. His policies really don’t matter. Equally, you may well think that Donald Tsang has proved himself to be a competent CE and deserves to be re-elected, but that isn’t the point either. In fact, in a totally free election, Tsang might well win, but then if we had a totally free election he would probably be up against a stronger candidate…

    I suppose the only positive thing that can be said about all this strangeness is that it’s better to have an election than not to have one – even if we do know the result in advance.

  • Lost in translation

    EastSouthWestNorth (EWSN) is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious English language blogs in Hong Kong – what Roland Soong mainly does is translate newspaper articles and blog postings from Chinese into English. This ought to be a useful public service for those us too lazy to learn Chinese, because the harsh reality is that Dr. Johnson’s famous remark about dogs walking on their hind legs is all too apt when it comes to the English language media here, so it’s quite important to know what is being said in the Chinese media (and Spike magazine had it right when they included articles translated from Next and Apple Daily).

    Unfortunately, the problem I have always had with EWSN is that Roland is so obviously biased against the pan-democrats.  That’s fine, of course, and if he chooses to spend his own time on translating articles and publishing a blog then he’s fully entitled to say whatever he likes. 

    However, what it means in practice is that I don’t take his blog very seriously because I am always conscious of the not-so-hidden agenda.  For example, when he wrote at great length about the varying estimates for the number of marchers on anti-Tung, pro-democracy rallies I found it impossible to take him seriously as an independent expert (as he portrayed himself).

    Now it seems that he has mis-represented a blog posting that referred to Alan Leong’s campaign for the CE election, and Tom Legg is on the case (The Perils Of Taking Roland Soong Seriously): 

    Some time ago, I learned a lesson to always check originals before trusting a translation from ESWN’s Roland Soong. It was an embarrassing episode. It’s one I’d rather not make again.

    Simon at SimonWorld hasn’t felt so burned… yet.

    Would it surprise you if I suggested that you go investigate the entry for yourself before relying on Roland’s translation/interpretation?

    Unfortunately the best I can do when translating from Chinese to English is to use AltaVista or Google’s translation tools, and they aren’t much help here.  So I’ll just have to assume that Tom knows what he’s talking about!!