Tag Archive for 'Sleepy Backwater Pui O'

The Use of a Storm

Published
by
cecilie
on April 11, 2010
in Beauty, Environment, Hong Kong and Pollution
. 2 Comments


Fog fog fog foggie foggie fog, and then, last week, a huge bloody rain. As soon as the last raindrop had fallen, sleepy backwater Pui O snapped back into action:

One thing I love about Hong Kong is that there is never any shortage of weather. And coming down to Pui O beach after a big storm never ceases to bring a sense of gratitude about the islands of the South China Sea still being around after all:

Forget about Donald Tsang and his murderous, Le Corbusier*-style vision of a Hong Kong consisting solely of motorways and high-rises, as long as it never snows here I’ll keep loving at least my little corner of this marvellous metropolis.

*HK’s as indeed China’s governments, of course, have mostly only taken aboard the worst aspects of Corbusier’s vision. Ring roads interspersed with mega high-rises and and endless stream of cars .. with the occasional human thrown in as a afterthought.

Foggy Day In Pui O

Published
by
cecilie
on February 27, 2010
in Beauty, Environment and Hong Kong
. 5 Comments


Is this a tornado I see before me?


Chomp chomp swallow swallow, gotta finish the whole field, crunch crunch, gotta eat everything, chomp chomp


Poor Lasi running into the void, never to be seen again

Tracking Tax Money … Creating Jobs … Part … ? Don’t Know. I’m Losing Track

Published
by
cecilie
on January 28, 2010
in Beauty, Environment, Government, Hong Kong, corruption and politics
. 4 Comments

Not long ago I was poking a little gentle fun at a certain fence.

I said - in jest, right? In jest, that a fence almost as tall as me was a weird thing to put around bushes, flowers and stuff that’s meant to beautify the place, because what it did was hiding everything in the beautifying spot. And it was made of plastic, that goes without saying.

Therefore imagine my joy yesterday when I walked past said beauty, or beautifying, spot, in a parking lot as it happens, to find it completely fenceless!

Apart from the inevitable sign complete with its own little roof saying this beautification spot was selflessly planted by the urban … yeah. some kind of department, I thought it looked not bad, now that we could actually see it again.
Alas, I spake too soon. This morning I saw the reason for the un-fencing, and it was that they (presumably the same people) are removing all the plants.

I naturally asked why, to be told: They are ugly! We will put new plants instead.

Hm. I’m not a plant expert but the old ones looked perfectly all right to me - green, standard HK government issue sitting out area kind of plants.

I’m only saying this in case you’re ever wondering what your tax money is spent on.

Them Boys Them Boys Them Cowboys

Published
by
cecilie
on January 22, 2010
in Beauty and language
. 3 Comments

In Chinese, calf, cow and ox are the same. Cow! Therefore what’s in English “Year of the Ox” is in Chinese just “cow year.” Year of the Rooster: Chicken year. Year of the Ram: Sheep year.

It’s funny how the English language must choose the male of the species to represent every year in Chinese astrology, when it’s nothing of the sort in Chinese, a sexist language if there ever was one.

Anyway, came across these delightful water cows this afternoon; they were training for future rights to have all the female cows to themselves. In mid-fight one of them started pissing and that was the sign: Straight back to nibbling leaves on trees as if nothing had happened. Yeah, we can learn something from them.

I’m Crap At Maths

Published
by
cecilie
on January 11, 2010
in Eyesore, Government, Hong Kong, Pollution, Travel and corruption
. 1 Comment

When I nipped out from my country club in sleepy backwater Pui O Saturday morning to go to work, I noticed that two bus stops had disappeared (or rather, been moved to what the little notice described as “in back side”) to accommodate another road works. Actually, it was a 60 meter extension of a road works that’s already been there, holding up traffic, for about five months.

Walking to the ferry pier I reflected on the road between Mui Wo and Pui O. In the eight years I’ve been living here, I reflected, there can’t have been more than about two months that this 4.5 kilometre stretch of road hasn’t had anything done to it, with or without resulting in one side of the road being closed for traffic.

Well, yesterday soon put me out of any delusions I may have harboured about my mathematical skills. For on that day I took a taxi home from Mui Wo, and completely unprompted, as we were waiting in front of yet another red light guarding a 200 metre road works area, the taxi driver said: “In the 13 years I’ve been driving here, there hasn’t been one day without road works. The government is so corrupt!”

Ah, so not eight years, but 13. (Possibly longer.) And not “around two months without road works” but not one day!

Me and maths, eh?

I feel almost privileged to live near such an important road, a road which, come rain, shine, Christmas, Chinese new year, pestilence and economic tsunami; always needs, and gets, attention from some company! I’ll say that again: From the same two companies.
Either local construction company Yick Hing, or CLP. 

A lesser person would perhaps question how such a tiny little road could need so much stuff done to it every day of the year; maybe to the point of starting to grumble about jobs for the boys, shady government involvement etc, but not I. I like looking at the workers dig holes, then fill them in again. Then dig more holes in exactly the same spot, then fill them in again. 

And if the bus takes three minutes longer to reach its destination? More value for money, innit! Yes, we get a much longer lasting journey for the same price! Privileged.

 

NEWSFLASH! JUST IN! STOP BLOODY PRESS!

Wednesday, January 13th, only two days later:

Is this what they call “awesome”? At least “uncanny.” YICK HING Unlimited Handouts From Government Company READS MY BLOG!!!

I just came home to sleepy backwater Pui O by taxi, and one of the aforementioned two “dig holes in the road, then fill them up again” sites; an extremely necessary 100 meter roadworks to concrete a slope below the road, a wilderness of rocky hill covered in trees and shrubbery and therefore at imminent risk of disappearing any minute, has as of today been EXTENDED TO HALF A KILOMETRE! That means - wait for it: What was before a 50 second wait for green light will now become an almost FIVE MINUTE WAIT!!!

A five minute longer bus journey in other words - FOR THE SAME MONEY!!!!

This is how much the government cares for us, AND the workers at Yick Hing. Take that, all you people who complain about the government not caring for “the people.” It turns out, it does nothing but! Hats off, everybody.

Dogs I Know

Published
by
cecilie
on November 26, 2009
in Beauty, Environment, Hong Kong and Piles
. 4 Comments


PILES Top dog


LASI
Elegant buffalo-hunter

 

 

                    COFFEE Loves Piles

              

MERV     Hates Piles

KILLER The world’s most inappropriately named dog

CHIP Barking mad

FEN FEN Dignified boss

DOUGAL Canine hunk

DAISY Wistful dreamer
PEBBLES Drool city
HAK-TSAI
Neglected and misunderstood

There’s been a lot of angry talk about dog poo recently, notably from Fumier. Although I have two dogs, I have to agree. I think dog poo is not attractive, and that people should train their servants to pick it up, if they are too busy to walk their own dogs.

My neighbours’ servant routinely lets their two dogs crap on the pavement right in front of me, sashaying off with the dog-poo newspaper, unused, under her arm. When I confront her about it she says: But everybody else does it too.

I also read a terrible article about the size of a dog’s carbon footprint - you might as well own a couple of jumbo jets and fly them every day. And here I was so smug because I don’t have a car, don’t use air conditioning, always travel by train etc. I’m finished.

But … a world without dogs?