On Hong Kong Landmarks:
Grossly incompetent at most things, the Hong Kong civil service excels at producing unintended consequences. The Mid-Levels Escalator is a prime example. It totally failed in its intended purpose of reducing the amount of traffic on the roads, but inadvertently became a tourist attraction and the catalyst for the transformation of a sleepy, inoffensive neighbourhood into a gwailo-infested entertainment district with scores of overpriced restaurants and pretentious furniture stores.
On Festivals :
The mid-autumn festival approaches, and so far I have not been subjected to a single mooncake. While not exactly a fate on a par with marriage, they are nonetheless well worth avoiding, with their barely edible, heavy, lard-based pastry; their cloying, sugary red bean paste filling; and the slightly absurd, salty, preserved egg yolk. As with the revolting Victorian-era pudding and pies the British eat at Christmas, it is surely time to consign this culinary anachronism to history.
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What I hate most about festivals is that they disrupt the normal routines of life. Lan Kwai Fong last night was infested with rabble that would never normally set foot in the place. Today, there are no newspapers. All because some single girl 2,000 years ago managed to get away with the most breathtakingly outlandish explanation for her pregnancy.
On Sport:
Approached by no fewer than 17 people en route to the office offering bundles of tickets for the "Cricket Sixes" tournament. Apparently, there are 1,000 fakes in circulation. Why someone would want to counterfeit tickets to one of the most tedious activities the human mind has ever been able to devise is beyond me. Perhaps it is because cricket fans are mostly from starving, impoverished Third World nations. People who eat bats and insects are probably similarly unfussy, not to say desperate, when it comes to entertainment.
Switch off the overwrought jabbering of the man behind the microphone, and the dullness and irrelevance of a group of people running after a ball on a field become instantly apparent. Conversely, get a breathless, high-speed commentator to use his frenzied shrieking to describe footage of paint drying, and the sports fans would presumably sit and stare for hours, riveted by the action – especially if French, English, Australian and Scottish paint were competing to dry first.
On Tai Chi :
The tai chi enthusiasts outside Exchange Square look especially glum this morning as they part the manes of imaginary wild horses in approximate unison while standing on one leg. Cause or effect? Does the exercise make people depressed, or are miserable people attracted to it? It is tempting to ask them to desist for a couple of weeks to see if they cheer up.
On Food :
In a rush, we choose a place in Soho claiming to offer authentic Manchu cuisine, which no doubt it does extremely well – they just don’t warn you that Manchu food was never very good.
On Education :
Academic failures will rain from the sky today, when the HKCEE exam results are released and hordes of under-achieving high school students resort to suicide. I will stay indoors, though it should be safe enough for pedestrians in the neighbourhood around Perpetual Opulence Mansions, where residents send their brats to school overseas to indulge in finger painting and basket weaving. In contrast, the robust and unambiguous Hong Kong educational system sorts sheep from goats decisively. Either you can memorise that textbook on critical thinking and reproduce it word-for-word in the exam, in which case we eventually gain another accountant or doctor, or you can’t, in which case 7-Eleven gains a new store clerk – or one less customer should you opt for self-defenestration.
A lot of fun to read, if you take it with a grain of salt.