China Droll

Following innumerable requests - from me - China Drool is back! Actually I don’t know if this guy would qualify as a drool if he hadn’t happened to be asleep at the time, but what beautiful colours, eh? I’m thinking: Vermeer!

Talking of cars, sleepy backwater Pui O is getting quite unbearable these days because of these metal menaces. I spend more time walking off the pavement to get around them than on the actual pavement. And I’ve been thinking this is strange, because the government has decreed (amazingly I have to say - this rule can’t have been set down during the time of the present administration) that on Lantau, only one car is allowed per household. Then the other day my friend told me the reason for this rural idyll looking more and more like Detroit.

When he and his wife bought their house a few years ago, they were advised by the property agent without any prompting from him, to split the house into two separate deeds just so they could have two cars. Being a lawyer he opted out of this, shall we say circumventing the law, and stuck to civic-mindedness instead.

Too bloody right! But he’s one of a tiny minority, the rest being people who don’t have cars at all. And when I say “cars,” I mean “vehicles that can accommodate a rugby team standing up, doing some light exercise.” Yep, two of these, or more, per household, is the norm. Nuke’em I say. A good Australian gave me a lift this morning though. Thanks geezer! But I’d still prefer to walk if it meant no more private cars in formerly beautiful Pui O.