Ordinary Gweilo

Julian Harniess was on ATV’s Newsline yesterday.  Amazingly, he wasn’t the most entertaining guest – that honour when to Damien Vance, an Australian who is chairman of the Native English-Speaking Teachers’ Association.  It wasn’t clear why Mr Vance had been invited on to the program, unless it was to make Julian Harniess look good, because he professed to know nothing about ESF salaries and conditions and didn’t even seem to be sure whether he sympathised with ESF teachers or not.

At least Julian Harniess knew why he was there – he wants the world to know why ESF teachers are (to paraphrase Howard Beale) mad as hell and are not going to take this anymore.

He argued that it was unreasonable to recruit teachers in May 2005 and then announce pay cuts a few months later, which sounds like a fair point until you realize that the pay cuts will not take effect (for those staff) until September 2007.  Yes, teachers who joined earlier will have their pay cut this September, but they are getting far more warning than most people in Hong Kong who have had their pay cut over the last few years.

He also defended their ludicrous advertisement from earlier this year, describing it as a "fact box".  Except that many of the so-called "facts" were contentious or just plain wrong.  He even defended the alarmist prediction he made last year of an "exodus" of ESF teachers even though the turnover is actually a little lower than last year.  Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument, eh, Julian?  To his credit, Frank Ching did give him a hard time about this, but mostly he was able to waffle away unchecked.

The only sensible person on the panel was Katherine Forestier, who is not only the Education Editor of the SCMP but also has three children at ESF schools (though this was not mentioned).  Why not let her go head-to-head with Julian Harniess rather than cluttering the place up with the others?

As for the ESF, somebody needs to bang some heads together.  TVB showed "Billy Elliot" last week – I wonder if Heather du Quesnay or Julian Harniess watched it and whether they learned anything from it.   

Maybe someone from AMC Cinemas took notice of my recent complaint.  They have not only implemented an Internet Booking system, but it is actually better than the one used by UA Cinemas – firstly because it’s all one site (UA send you off to Cityline where you have to switch to English, find the film and enter your password) and secondly because there’s no booking fee.

Unfortunately, AMC will shortly be closing 4 of the 11 screens they have at Festival Walk, and I figure that will mean fewer films in English.

However, to make up for this they will be taking over part of the space previously occupied by UA in Festival Walk Pacific Place (another mall owned by Swire).  Note that the new cinema will be smaller than the old one.

According to the SCMP, the rents charged for cinemas are significantly lower than they are for shops.  A cinema pays its way by attracting visitors to the mall, and similar logic applies to other "anchor tenants" such as department stores.  When opening a new mall, you need those guys, but once you get established maybe you can manage without them. 

Swire, the owners of Pacific Place, have already demonstrated their confidence by getting rid of Marks & Spencer, and now they are reducing the number of cinema screens as well.

Time to buy shares in Swire?

I see that our old friend Julian Harniess is in the news again.

The English Schools Foundation (ESF) held a Press Conference on Monday to announce the proposed new ordinance that will fundamentally change the way the organization is run.  From the SCMP, which mysteriously headlined its story Controversial ESF reforms on the table:

The proposals sweep away the existing foundation membership, which has been criticised by the Director of Audit, Legco’s Public Accounts Committee and education minister Arthur Li Kwok-cheung for being unwieldy and ineffective. Instead, the ESF would be overseen by a 25-member board of governors with a majority of independent members.

"The main direction of this is to have greater accountability to the wider community," chairwoman Felice Lieh Mak said.

Currently teachers, excluding principals, account for 30 per cent of the foundation. Teachers, principals and support staff would have one member each on the board.

Actually, there’s not much controversy here.  It has been obvious for some time that the ESF could not continue operating as it had done in the past, and the reforms have been under discussion for a year or so.  However…

Julian Harniess, chairman of the Association of Professional Teachers of ESF Schools, said the proposed bill disempowered teachers, who were likely to vote against it.  "The more they disempower teachers, the worse it will become for the ESF," he said.

Well, I’m not sure that I agree with you on that one, Julian.

So why do you buy your vegetables in Park’n’Shop or Wellcome rather than the local wet market?

Is it because:
(1) I figure that a reputable supermarket chain has good quality control
(2) "Everyday high prices"
(3) If I can just get five more stamps I can buy some high-quality cookware from Europe
(4) What harm can a little pesticide do to you?  Actually, maybe if it’s good for plants it’s also good for people.

If you answered 1, it may be time to think again.

Incidentally, the new(ish) wet market in Tai Po is quite impressive.   

In the UK, public holidays almost always fall on a Monday or are part of a longer holiday.

Not so in Hong Kong, where a public holiday can fall on any day of the week – yes, even Saturday (cue howls of protest from Gweilos working a five-day week who don’t realize how lucky they are).

The weird ones for me are the holidays in the middle of the week – two weeks ago we had Wednesday off so that people could go and set fire to the hillsides, and then on Wednesday 31 May it’s Tuen Ng (Dragon Boat festival).

There is a certain art in booking your annual leave to take advantage of the timing of these holidays, especially as most people in Hong Kong get far fewer days of annual leave than is common in the UK. The key here is finding public holidays close to each other.  Easter, Christmas and Chinese New Year are the obvious ones, but there are a few others.

In 2 weeks time we get Monday and Friday off in the same week (1st May is Labour Day, and 5th May is Buddha’s birthday).  Not exactly a long weekend, but certainly a short week!

This commonly happens with Ching Ming, which frequently crops up in the same week as Easter but sometimes actually merges with the Easter holiday itself – in 1999 it fell on Easter Monday (so the Tuesday was a public holiday), and next year it is on Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday). 

The only problem is that travel agents know all about the public holidays and increase their prices to match.