Author Archive for cecilie

Hatches, Batten Down The

Published
by
cecilie
on September 8, 2010
in Government, Hong Kong, Injustice, Piles and property
. 0 Comments

When is something “funny”, when is it “ironic” and when is it just “fcuk off and die, damned parasites who don’t want to work but spend their days living off honest people’s earnings”?

Last night I was talking to some people in sleepy backwater Pui O and for some reason the conversation turned to burglary. They were laughing about one guy who had film-noire’ly walked into his bathroom only to see in the bathroom mirror, a guy hiding behind the door with a knife. We had all been burgled at one stage, none of us liking it very much. They commented on how long it’s been since we’ve heard about a burglary, but thought it was because they had moved to Mui Wo, another sleepy backwater here on Lantau.

I said I didn’t think so, and that if there’s one kind of news that gets shared fast on this island it’s burglary news. We hadn’t heard about any burglaries because there haven’t been any.

I think you know what I’m going to say next. Oh, yes. I just shared my taxi with some people I’ve never met before and who, that’s right, had been burgled good and proper this morning about 4, after their son had gone to bed at 3am.

Is that “funny” or “ironic”?

So, Lantau people: I’m immensely sorry and pissed off to have to tell you: The burglaries have started up again. Same MO as always: Early in the morning, everybody asleep, small window flicked open with a screwdriver; two laptops, wallets, phones, cash, all gone.

And what with Lantau being the place where the most inept police in Hong Kong wash up, the CID’s MO was also as always: 12 guys turned up, touched everything in the house, then told the people who had been burgled not to touch anything. The police laughing and discussing where they’ll go to yam cha in front of the distraught people who had lost quite a lot of important things - exactly the same as when I was burgled.

That happening was in fact the very topic of my first blog entry. Ironic? Funny? Or just fuck off and die? The policemen who came to my house that day (only six! Hmph!) had been laughing their heads off over the fact that my dog Piles hadn’t been barking to alert me. They laughed at me when I started crying over having lost my month’s income and my camera with a lot of important photos still in it.

I wrote a letter to the police chief of Lantau complaining about this, and eventually received an answer saying he would brief his staff to be more sensitive to burgled people’s feelings in future. But of course that’s three years ago so you can’t expect everything. According to my freshly burgled neighbours, now it’s evidently back to laughing in people’s faces and blaming them for being burgled, again.

And, presumably, letting some uniformed officers sit around in a fully lit police van for a couple of hours before taking off, safe in the knowledge that all burglars have been well and truly scared off that particular spot forever.

I’m not trying to suggest it’s the fault of the Lantau police that some bastards are too lazy to work for a living but prefer to go into people’s houses to take what they can find. Far from it. But when it does happen, can they, the police, at least try to do their job with a modicum of professionalism?

Update

Published
by
cecilie
on September 7, 2010
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Just a little update from the religion of peace, taken from the website of the same name. As of today, there have been 15,999 deadly terrorist attacks in the name of islam since September 11th 2001. I’m sure we’ll see the 16,000th before the ninth anniversary of that fateful day, this Saturday. 16,000 divided by nine: Only 1,777 per year. Why so few, you ask? Because islam is the religion of peace, innit!

And because only a tiny minority carry out these attacks. Probably the same 1,777 people travelling around.

I Want To Work in That Bank

Published
by
cecilie
on September 6, 2010
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Friday night turned out to be rather interesting: After turning down many invitations from my friend who plays in the band due to the “special” nature of my work/life conflict (they are one) I finally trudged along to Wyndham street to see Bank Job, a real Hong Kong band!

Wah. Hoi hoi! And not a little Bloody Hell! I clicked my fingers, I clapped my hands. If there had been space in tiny Skylark Bar, I probably would have danced too. My friends kept saying: “They’re surprisingly good!” But why the “surprising”? Are we that starved of cultural capability here in Hong Kong?

Bank Job are great and I’m not surprised at all! I think I know what it was: Most of the bands we ever see around here only do cover songs, but Bank Job had their own sound. Of course there were elements of other bands, Frank Zappa sprang to mind, and the guitarist sounded like Lou Reed and was it Television and Tom Verlaine hiding in there somewhere? But: Their own sound. Tight, sharp, boppy and rousing.

Bank Job! Bank Job! Go and see them.

Inspired by this I went to the bank today. HSBC. My landlord’s changed their bank account to Bank of East Asia. And no, you still can’t transfer money from HSBC to another bank in this town; you have to physically take the bank notes out of HSBC, walk to the other one, stand in a line there and enter it into the new bank account. But then again it’s only 2010 - give it time I say.

Caring and Sharing

Published
by
cecilie
on September 1, 2010
in Media
. 3 Comments

I want to share something with you today. You know how difficult it is to get the plastic wrapping off CDs? Well I think it’s difficult anyway. For years I’ve been plucking and scraping at these covers with my fingernails, taking ages to nudify each CD. But yesterday I went to HMV and saw how the professionals do it.

1. Hold the CD in a strong grip.

2. With one swift movement, drag it along the edge of a table or desk. (It must be a sharp edge; rounded ones won’t do. At all!)

3. The plastic will now have been half torn off and you can complete the process with your hand.

4. Put the disc in the CD player and listen with rapture to for example, as in my case, Amadou and Mariam.

5. Cover your nose with tissue paper and always see a doctor when you feel plague symptoms coming on.

Maybe you already knew this and have been using “one swift movement” for years. But for me it was a revelation. Now there will be a music-listening the like of which the world has never seen. Seldom.

No Pat Answers Here

Published
by
cecilie
on August 30, 2010
in Government, Injustice, corruption and religion
. 11 Comments

Ha, so mayor Bloomberg has business interests in Dubai, does he? I didn’t know that. Did you? But it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Now I understand better why the mayor of New York so vehemently defends a project that is a total slap in the face of his city, a(nother) proof to radical muslims around the world that America is weak and faltering, and another victory for the islamisation, both open and stealth, of the western world.

This mosque isn’t a “cultural centre” or a place where “people can come together and pray, or do, like, whatever” (if they’re muslims) - it is a symbol of victory, to be built on the very spot where the jihadists celebrated their hitherto greatest victory over America - The Great Satan: The place where the Twin Towers stood, also known as Ground Zero.

If it were to be just an ordinary mosque - you know, of the kind where they get together on Fridays and listen to the imam drone on about how all Jews should be killed and how men should beat their wives so it doesn’t leave marks, and how good muslims must resist all assimilation into the society which has so naively welcomed them but rather help in the fight to restore the great caliphate (this time, the whole world) - then it would have been built somewhere else, a long time ago, with  taxpayers’ money.

Oh, that’s right. It already has. Many, many times. Where else would young idiots go to get “radicalised” to become arse-bombers, crotch-bombers, shoe-bombers and normal, day-to-day bombers like those who blew up the London Underground?

They get the inspiration to kill, maim and destroy in the mosque. The mosque where a guy tells them it’s glorious to die; that to die for allah is the duty of muslims everywhere. And therefore I’m not only against the building of mosques at Ground Zero, but anywhere! That’s right. There are more than enough mosques already in the western world, and a disproportionate amount of trouble ensues wherever they are.

Let the “moderate” muslims, so far so very, very quiet about the excesses of their radical brethren, speak up and fight against the tyranny of radical islam before western countries contribute money and space to the building of more mosques. Let them say clearly that they’ve had enough, and that they have no interest in being dragged into the hell that is pure islam. And as for existing mosques, let the imams be supervised during sermons, and when they are found to spread racist ideology and incite to violence, the mosque should be shut down.

No? Then tell me this: If a communist centre were to open somewhere in Europe and the US, where its leaders said that they were for example going to teach the followers that all non-communists were pigs and apes and that if a non-communist was hiding behind a tree, the very tree would shout out: “A non-communist is hiding behind me! Come and kill him!” - wouldn’t you want to keep an eye on that communist centre? For that’s what is being taught in mosques around the world, about Jews for example.

Now that we have all these laws against hate speech, laws that only muslims seem to use, it’s time to use the same laws against the mosques. If a man like Geert Wilders must face trial for hate-speech because he is quoting passages from the koran, the very foundation all mosques are built on, surely we must be able to stop others from quoting the same passages when their intention is to incite violence?


I Am A Total Racist

Published
by
cecilie
on August 28, 2010
in Cantonese, China, Government, Injustice, Uncategorized, language and religion
. 5 Comments

I have a vice. Yes, people, a guilty, stinking VICE! After I stopped shooting up mary-hooana as well as crossing the street on red light after I got fined $300 for “jaywalking” (sounds like “joyful walking” doesn’t it) in Central in 2003 - there were so many policemen there telling me not to walk that I just had to do it for the sake of it because nobody can tell me what to do (yes I have father issues) - I have only one tiny little vice left: I spend HK$100 every week on the Sunday Times.

I know, I know. The SCMP is only 7 dollars so why pay an extra $93 for just another English language paper, right? It’s just that I need to read some well written articles that don’t praise Donald Tsang occasionally. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago there was a six page article in that paper’s magazine that really caught my eye.

The headline was: England’s Green and Prejudiced Land, and it was about racism.

Naturally, that touched a nerve with me as I had just been called a “racist cunt” in this forum for saying - oh, something about how I don’t want the world to become islamic. Anyway, the article was written by one David James Smith who is obviously a writer for said newspaper; if he wasn’t (weren’t, I always forget which) I doubt if he’d ever got such a badly written and deeply boring piece through the hallowed doors of the Sunday Times.

It was all about him (a white guy) being married to a black woman and moving to Lewes, a small town in England, after having fled London where they had felt “a vague unease at the potential for urban crime.”

Well, unfortunately Lewes was even worse, for guess what happened? Their neighbour turned out to be a member of the BNP!!!! After this lead-up, I naturally expected a harrowing story of how this fascist nazi had racially harassed them, but no, he “never gave us any trouble. He ignored us.” He also seemed “strange, withdrawn,” but that could have been down to his wife having “died sometime earlier.” After this non-event, the BNP neighbour eventually moved away.

Riveting stuff indeed, but the real drama had been how this BNP member had been sitting not two feet away from Smith, separated only by a “wafer thin wall,” spewing out racial hatred on his computer. Smith assumed.

But then things started to happen. Smith’s wife had gone for a drink with some local women and been assured that there was no racism in Lewes! What can be more racist, Smith asks.

Worse: People would sometimes mistake Petal (his wife) for the other black woman in the village.

Yes, yes, I impatiently thought, reading through page after page looking for the good racist tidbits. Mistaking black people for each other, deeply insulting to be sure, but where is the good stuff?

It was this: His daughter had been told by a teacher that she had “frizzy hair.” In another incident, when the students at his daughter’s school wanted to give each other nicknames and someone suggested “chocolate-brown bear” for his daughter, that girl had said NO, that’s racist. Way to go, girl, stand up for yourself. But not really a cause for daddy rushing to the school to complain?

In another incident “Mackenzie (Smith’s son) was under a desk while he and another boy cleared up some paper at the teacher’s instruction. Mackenzie has a male teacher, part time, that year and the teacher asked him to come out. Mackenzie didn’t hear him, the teacher became exasperated and grabbed Mackenzie’s leg and yanked him out.”

Smith feels this is also racism and immediately goes to the school to sort things out with the teacher, concluding that “it seemed certain that [the teacher's] perception of who or what Mackenzie was had got in the way of normal teacherly conduct. ” Yes. A teacher yanks your son’s leg - racist!

In fact, according to the article, Smith spends most of the time when he’s not writing badly, running around between his children’s schools and various local community centres, complaining about people saying words like “frizzy” and “coloured” and teachers’ “preconceived idea that [black or mixed race children] fare worse than their white counterparts in secondary school.”

The next week there was a storm of letters to the Sunday Times, mostly from black British people telling Smith to get a grip, so all is not lost.

Yes, I laughed many times when I read that article.

I thought about how many times Hong Kong people have told me Cantonese is “too difficult for me” (but not for Indonesian helpers) how people call me a devil every day, ( yeah, I know HK people prefer to translate 鬼 (gwai) as “ghost” but really, is it any better?) how I’m always served jasmine tea without anyone asking me what tea I would like because all whitey drink jasmine and jasmine only, how people don’t want to sit next to male whitey (of course not me - that would be too much) on the MTR, how people treat me like a dog that can ride a bicycle every time I say “hello” in the local language, how Hong Kong people rejoice in telling me that all westerners are sluts and how, if I for example ask them to pick up their dog poo I keep stepping in everywhere I go, that I should “fuck off back to England.”

I wonder what Smith would make of that? But then of course, anything directed at whitey isn’t racism. Everyone knows that. We just have to suck it up and laugh about it. And you know what? I think we should. Racism is something that only the people who are hysterically over-aware of the colour of other people’s skin keep blathering on about. I don’t think it’s in any way helping Smith’s daughters - whose hair definitely isn’t straight - that he keeps running to the school every other day to complain about people saying they have frizzy hair.

I know, I know, a parent wants to keep his children away from harm, and it is indeed awful to be called names at school. We all know that. But - according to the article it seems this guy is on the hyper-alert 24 hours a day. “You said black? You said frizzy? That’s not how we did it in London, multi-cultural capital of the world! I demand that this little village in Sussex becomes like London but without the vague unease about potential for urban crime!”

Racism is awful and we should all fight against it. But as “they” say: The best revenge is to live well. I’m sure we all, as this Smith geezer’s children, will be much better off if we just forget about the racism and start to genuinely live as if we’re “colour blind.”

That means that you can criticise somebody for what they do and how they do it without being called racist. It means that you can criticise Obama without being called racist. It means you can say Donald Tsang looks ridiculous “mourning” the victims of the hostage tragedy in the Philippines wearing what seems to be a dinner jacket, without being called racist.

And it means I can say that I disagree with the ludicrous notion that the whole world will be better off if we would only wear tents with only one to two eyes showing, stone people to death if they’ve committed adultery, hang homosexuals and rape nine-year olds, without being accused of being racist. If being against any totalitarianism is racist, then I’m definitely a total RACIST. And proud of it.

Shooting The Guy That Had Once Talked To The Messenger

Published
by
cecilie
on August 25, 2010
in Government and Hong Kong
. 36 Comments

Like most people in Hong Kong I’ve been following the terrible tragedy that was the hostage killing in the Philippines.

And, probably like many people in Hong Kong, I’ve been thinking: It should have been the Hong Kong police! (Or “The Royal Hong Kong Police Force” as I still like to think of them.) Or the mainland police. They would have gone in there, taken the guy out - the Hong Kong Police by means of a negotiator, the mainland police by a bullet to the head with no complaints - all in half an hour.

Unfortunately it was the Philippines so it didn’t play out quite like that. There was chatting with the perpetrator’s brother; chaos, some more chatting, police not knowing what to do (as if the Philippines doesn’t have its share of hostage taking and violence) - normal banana republic stuff. Or something.

It was a terrible tragedy which could have been handled so much more competently and which shouldn’t have happened in the first place if more of the famous checks and balances had been in place.

But sadly, it happened.

So now all Hong Kong people on holiday in the Philippines have been called home, and that country has been put on ultra alert as the most dangerous country to go to, ever. What? It was ONE GUY with a grievance. He’s dead now, so not likely to do anything like that again any time soon.

My friend told me that she’d just been to the Philippines and hated it because there were guys casually carrying guns everywhere. Fair enough. That’s the kind of country it is, and has been for all the years HK people have crowded its beaches and bars.
But to put the whole country on super red alert because of one guy, now dead?

What’s worse, according to the SCMP, many HK people are now “thinking of firing” or “have already fired” their Filipino helpers. What’s THAT all about? So a guy goes loco because of some injustice at work and decides that taking a tourist bus hostage is the way to put everything right again.
Therefore old Imelda, trusty caretaker of three children and a grandmother through many years must be fired.

I can’t see the connection here. It’s like my students firing me because Norway hunts whales. All right so they’re not Hong Kong whales, but it’s as unreasonable.

Hong Kong people are normally so level-headed and rational. I hope they won’t start acting like silly buggers, punishing people who have completely zero to do with some - ONE - geezer going insane.

Good News For Parents!!!

Published
by
cecilie
on August 23, 2010
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

Dear parent. Are you sometimes worried your child’s life isn’t dull enough, what with your only being able to fill 20 hours of her day with activities? Despite the starting kindergarten while in the womb and university at five, lessons and homework and extra-curricular courses and extra-extra curricular courses, the piano, tennis, ballet, cookery, computer and violin lessons and the enforced hanging out with you on Sundays, some children are at a loss of what to do for several seconds a week, according to reports.

I’m happy to inform you that Playmobile has come to your aid with this handy “How to prepare your child for life in the office” kit. The manufacturers have even been thoughtful enough to throw in a choice of three different Sunday night (9 to 11 pm) courses for people who buy at least two boxes: Basic Accountancy For Toddlers, Pleasing Your Boss and Being The Last To Leave.

From cradle to office in the same year! Childhood never looked so promising.

Big Brother Knows Best

Published
by
cecilie
on August 21, 2010
in Cantonese, China, Media, Movies, communism and language
. 0 Comments

See what really happens when government tries to interfere with people’s language.

Victory For Hong Kong Government

Published
by
cecilie
on August 18, 2010
in Beauty, Environment, Government, Hong Kong and Pollution
. 2 Comments

Is it Norway? Canada? New Zealand? Mars? No, it’s the grassland of sleepy backwater Pui O after a rainfall!!! The above fjord normally looks like this, completely grassy (covered in grassage):

By the way, for example Ulaca: You’re a language geezer, right? Can you tell me when a noun is just a noun, like use, sign and waste, and when it becomes a HK Government NOUN (usage, signage and wastage)? I need to know!

Anyway, it was in fact the Hong Kong government I wanted to talk about. Today’s front page of the South China Morning Post shows a blue-sky photo similar to mine but with skyscrapers, saying the air pollution (pollutage) is the best (least bad) it’s been in 11 years.

The division head of scientific research and conservation of Green Power says this is due to “sea wind from the south” but I think we know better! Five dollars says it’s in fact Hong Kong government’s relentless war on air pollution that is finally showing some results.

Try to prove me wrong! Of course, when the greyish-brown soupy blanket of 30 meter visibility føøg descends on the city again, it will be despite said government’s efforts, and due to “haze.” So congratulations, civil servants! You deserve a huge round of applausage.