Monthly Archive for February, 2009

Road Rage

Published
by
cecilie
on February 28, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

About a week ago I made a deal with myself to wait at least a week before I wrote anything negative about the Hong Kong government. And certainly before I used any such word as moron, plonker etc. in connection with those fine, upstanding people. Has it been a week yet?

Well, I’ll risk it. They are sub moronic! Now I can’t see any other explanation. At least the government departments who deal with Lantau Island. At least the plonkers who are in charge of the new Tung Chung road.

When the new airport and with it, the new Tung Chung (pronounced Dong Dsjong) town, were built, people started complaining about the road going from the south Lantau road across the hills to the airport. Yes, it was a particularly narrow, winding and challenging to navigate road, but people managed. Then the hoped-for accident occurred - I think someone’s rear indicator light was lightly scraped in the gentle confrontation with an old lady who’d only walked to her solicitor’s twice a week for the last twenty years - and the idea of a NEW ROAD was born.

Several years later, here it is: Spanking new, four lane, thought out by engineers and leaving the requisite gaping hole in the country park. Now we can save several minutes on the dreary journey from Tung Chung to Mui Wo.

But not so fast! Our bureaucrats squeak. It says here in the bureaucrat rule-book that the journey from Tung Chung to Mui Wo must take 35 minutes and 42 seconds. Now it only takes 29 minutes. What are we going to do?

Freakwad government officials; I’m as much against cars as the next Luddite. But really. Brand new, four lane motorway, beautifully engineered - and the speed limit is 30 kilometers an hour?
The HK government. If it didn’t exist you’d have to invent it.

The Insects Are Taking Over The Asylum

Published
by
cecilie
on February 26, 2009
in Environment
. 9 Comments

The last couple of days, or rather, 24 hours, have seen some insect related incidents; too many to be coincidence, too serious to be ignored.

It all started yesterday morning when I went to the roof to hang up some washing. On the way through the door, I noticed a wasp milling aimlessly around on the doorstep. It was the benign, brown type, not a nasty, hard-stinging yellow one. I left it there and went downstairs to shower. When I came out of the shower and bent to pick up my clothes the wasp was sitting on the bathroom mat, looking at me with incredibly small eyes.

I bent down to take a closer look. It was the same one; I recognised the accessories. Now I could hear it saying something. A tiny little voice going: “You ruined my habitat… you ruined my habitat ..”
Aiaaaa! I let it crawl up on a name card from excellent web providers Turtle Media which I always keep in the bathroom, and chucked it out the window where it flew off in a huff.

Not two minutes later I was standing in the bedroom, being berated by a beetle. One of those light brown ones which can’t get up when they fall on their backs and which smell like almonds when you accidentally step on them. It was lying on its back all right - helpless after having covered my pillow in little green eggs!

“You have ruined the seasons… I’m supposed to lay eggs in April ..” it muttered. I don’t need to tell you I threw it out on its ear with the eggs following closely behind. Cheeky intruder.

Then last night, the biggest affront of all! I’d just come home and was going to feed Piles, when I felt something on my leg. I was wearing wide trousers that day. I shook my leg and brushed at the thing but it was still there - at least it wasn’t the wasp which would have stung me by now. Indeed - it was a cockroach, and was it pissed off. “You never leave scraps of food lying around” complained the sulky, whiny little parody of a voice. I didn’t have time to kill the bugger either. But it will starve to death as my house is scrupulously clean.

Something huge is happening in nature, people. This is only the beginning.

I Love Lantau I love Pui O

Published
by
cecilie
on February 25, 2009
in Beauty, China, Home and Hong Kong
. 3 Comments

It’s February in Pui O … and also July? Scary. But on a day like this, sun burning burning, sky sparkling sparkling, even birds squeaking squeaking it’s easy to forget all worries. And on a day like this, to live in Pui O and not having to get on that ferry and go into Central until the late afternoon - talk about privileged lifestyle!

On a day like this it’s easy to forget that we probably have less than ten years left of life as we know it only with hotter and hotter, longer and longer summers. Yep, global warming (followed by scorching and drenching) is really, really happening and there’s nothing we can do now. Irritating to know that all my efforts to save the future generations have been in vain, but at least I got to feel self-righteous and smug. Yee ha.

For Your Own Safety

Published
by
cecilie
on February 24, 2009
in Cantonese, Eyesore, Government and corruption
. 12 Comments

Here’s the staircase from my living room up to the mezzanine kitchen. (Tiles laid by me, a keen mason.)
Last Saturday I had a party on the roof, and as usual some people expressed concern over the lack of banister on the staircase combined with the non-lack of alcohol inside all of us. But the thing is: No one has fallen down those stairs. People are just more careful walking up and down them because there isn’t a banister.

That made me think about a delightful blog I happened upon the other day about bicycle chic in Copenhagen and bicycles in general. A debate raged, no, I can’t say raged - a debate mildly swirled around on it about whether one should wear a bike helmet. The blog owner made his point clear: Bicycle brain is more important than bicycle helmet.

Our dear so-called town planners (or the transport department or the create more traffic department or whatever department it is who think up these things) should take a leaf out of this sensible Dane’s book. Can you think of a street which isn’t now completely closed off by railings? A park or “sitting out area” not so covered in signs about what you can’t do “for your own safety” that you can’t see the trees? A second of being on an escalator or people carrier that isn’t filled with bints screeching about holding the handrail, “standing firm” and not jumping off at 90 km/h? In short, any area of town where you’re left to your own devices and allowed to use your instincts, brain and sense to decide what’s safe or not?

All this nanny-ing and misplaced helpfulness, instead of creating a safer society I think is turning people into helpless children who can’t make any decisions for themselves. There are so many announcements, so many signs, rules and things to remember that I think people just switch off. Or throw themselves down the escalator out of spite.

In Germany and The Netherlands they are now taking away traffic signs and guess what - people are not mowing down groups of schoolchildren and using old ladies for bumper target practice. They are (apparently) driving as well as before if not better, because they have to rely on their own senses to identify a potentially dangerous situation.

Meanwhile we in Hong Kong are starting to resemble tigers in a Shenzhen zoo, bloated, legs buckling under the double weight and weakened by years of disuse. And all instincts and ability to think for ourselves dwindled to nothing.

The Law Must Go On

Published
by
cecilie
on February 23, 2009
in Cantonese and China
. 0 Comments

This was a difficult episode to film, as huge trucks kept parking and offloading stuff in the exact spot we were filming, ruining the blood. To say nothing of Shenzhen where we were of course kicked out by security. I had expected nothing less from them, but then it was easy for me, wearing a uniform as I was. When I’m dressed as Uncle Public Security, (and many other times) no armband wearing lower official can stare me down.

Top Gear, Bottom Expanding

Published
by
cecilie
on February 22, 2009
in Beauty, Hong Kong and Media
. 9 Comments

Wrooom! Went to see the Top Gear geezers yesterday, mainly to hear if Jeremy Clarkson’s voice is the way I imagined it after reading his books and articles. It is! Deep, nasal, probably public school but trying to hide it. Booming.

Anyway it was a great show and by far the best way to waste fuel I’ve ever seen. And yes, that includes flying five people to Canada to appear at master criminal Guy Who Posted Sex Videos of Edison Chen and Bints’s trial.

There was car football, a car which could fit into a suitcase - in fact the suitcase was the car or vice versa, and a drum set made out of old car parts. Groovy. It was loud, it was wroom and bangggg and woroaaar and four French guys chasing each other on motorbikes inside a spherical hamster cage smaller than a public housing estate flat.

When I stumbled out, dazed, semi blind and with ears ringing, I was actually breathing out fumes - making me feel even more sorry than usual for people who work in toll booths.
And that guy Hammond who almost died in a horrific crash last year - not bad for whitey! The Chinese guy they’d brought in instead of James May who, according to Jezza Clarkson (who’s really bad even for whitey) is attending a gay parade in Sydney, was of course very handsome and I was disappointed to see his suitcase car thrashed by Clarkson’s car, a thing shaped and dressed like: Clarkson.

You had to be there, but a car shaped like Clarkson is funny. Clarkson dressed like Clarkson is funny! So why does he have to resort to: “You’re short”

to make people laugh? Laugh uneasily, I have to add?
Also, in this day and age, is “our friend James May is gay” really funny? Even when, you know, everybody knows he’s not gay? Another thing I don’t understand about Clarkson and many other English people is this obsession with the French - like just saying the word “French” is hilarious, or saying about motorbike guys chasing each other in a hamster cage “It’s okay if they kill each other, they’re only French” is supposed to get howls of laughter from the audience.

Yes, yes, the battle of Agincourt, I know. Stuff. I’ve asked a lot of Brits about this only to be told: “You wouldn’t understand. You’re Norwegian.” Indeed. In fact, where people are born seems to be the staple of many British stand-up comedians. I can’t see it. Born in France! LOL? Roll in the aisles? No. Just that: Born in France.

But a car shaped like Clarkson, now that is really funny. As is Clarkson, when he stays on his own intelligence level. Wroooaaaaar!

Great Wardrobe Advice

Published
by
cecilie
on February 20, 2009
in Beauty and Environment
. 2 Comments

Last week I read the Sunday Times again. In the Style section there was one of those silky smooth and shiny skin (or something) specialists. She said that the fastest way to perfect skin (or something) was to go into your (walk-in) wardrobe and throw away everything you hadn’t worn for a year. Ahhrghhh

That would be 90% of my clothes. Can I really throw them all away and wouldn’t I have to replace them - now, in the economic blastie-smash? No, I have a much better idea, one I don’t mind sharing with you, free. Instead of throwing away your clothes, change friends and colleagues once a year. So much cheaper! Did you know that it takes about three swimming pools of water to produce one T-shirt? That’s right! Cotton’s an incredibly thirsty plant.

People, on the other hand - well, aren’t they everywhere? And dispensable?
If you get new friends every spring, say, they will never have seen your clothes before and therefore compliment you on them non-stop. They will think you have many clothes, all new. And when they’ve been through the year and seen the whole range and it’s time to put away the long-sleeved jackets again: Get a new set of people! It’s excellent for the skin and for the environment.

Vexing, Stupid or Plain Idiotic?

Published
by
cecilie
on February 17, 2009
in Cantonese, China, Government, Hong Kong, Injustice, Media, Movies and language
. 12 Comments

Hoi, hoi, dear readers. I know I have posted the above segment before, but bear with me. I’m going to make a 15 minute short film based loosely on this theme - how things like flying kites on the beach, walking dogs in the park or, for anyone who can remember that far back, flicking your MTR card (That’s right! Before Octopus, we had something called MTR cards, the “flicking” of which was punishable by $5000 (or something) or six months in prison!!!) are illegal, or deeply frowned upon (by bureaucrats), in Hong Kong. Now I need your help.

Tell me about signs you’ve seen saying this and that is illegal and where they are. Tell me about things you’ve been told off for by security guards. Taking photos inside perfectly normal restaurants, looking at something for too long, sitting on a staircase, that kind of thing. Your help will be greatly and deeply appreciated. And if it’s particularly surreal I’ll mention your name in the credits! Unless, of course you prefer to be anonymous for fear of being sacked or outed…

Dog’s Best Friend

Published
by
cecilie
on February 16, 2009
in Home, Hong Kong and Piles
. 3 Comments

It struck me when I got back from Shenzhen yesterday: My best friend is now an animal. Who else looks at me like this? By the way, this is not Piles, who occasionally greets me with a curt nod, but Lasi, who used to be owned by violent Welsh bastard, slowly moved into my entrance hall to get away from him, now my staunchest supporter. Lasi: the most dog-like dog I know. Total devotion, comes when I call, looks at me with eyes, all that. If she and Piles could only play cards! Then my domestic bliss would be complete.

Shenzhen Revisited

Published
by
cecilie
on February 15, 2009
in Cantonese, Hong Kong, Media, language and politics
. 6 Comments

Shenzhen, and more particularly the mighty Bense Bar is still so bloody great! I keep forgetting about the closest holiday destination of Hong Kong in my relentless search for ever further away spots in China.

Yesterday was of course, puke splutter, valentine’s day, with all that it entails of the flowers bought by force and displayed by force to show forced love. Cynical? Ya ha hah haaaaaaa.
Fortunately the mainland is a little bit behind Hong Kong in this as in other occasions of excessively embracing silly American enforced emotion-fests, so there was little of the heart shaped balloon, hello kitty driven displays of once a year hyper emotion.

Shenzhen’s star-struck lovers were walking around with a single rose instead of staggering under the weight of the entire flower shop, and the city didn’t seem to be structured around the industrial suction- pumping of underpaid office guys’ meagre salary to pay for half an hour of corporate “face” for their girlfriends.

But then, it was a Saturday.

Still, my favourite bar, the Bense (Bon Sek) (本色）bar, had the nerve to charge RMB 50 to get in, just because it was february 14. For a while it worked. The people who could only afford to spend 50 bucks in any currency on a second of a night out, stayed out of Bense that night. But come ten o’clock and the place was heaving.

Bense Bar is a chain of bars which are always full. So the almost naked bints cavorting on the little stages

(you see, people who complain about the sexism of China Drool, I can do bints!)
- are they really necessary? When I first started going to Bense Bar there were no cavorting bints, now you can’t see the floor for writhing nymphets. Fortunately the heart of the place(s) remain(s) untouched: A place where everybody can go to drink, dance and play liar’s dice, talk over the music and listen to not too bad live bands. And as if that wasn’t enough: Shenzhen! Foot massage! DVDs! Having clothes made! Shenzhen is as it’s ever been: Marvellous.
And yes, contrary to common belief: Everybody speaks Cantonese there except taxi drivers.

You see, all the immigrants who flock to Shenzhen from the provinces, unlike all the people who flock to Hong Kong from all the … countries, realise they should learn the local language in the place in which they live.