Descent into the bowels of ridiculousness…

It’s bad enough that Hong Kong must be subsumed into a Leninist dictatorship. On top of that, the city is being dragged down to the depths of pathetic-ness.

Movie-makers are convicted for possessing prop banknotes. The guy who heads the mass-transit system explains his dimwitted comments on hot weather and failure to pray. And the laughs keep coming.

The government wants to build a HK$1.7 billion footbridge that would fail to achieve its purpose of relieving congestion. (Assuming, charitably, that this is indeed the object of the exercise. If the planners’ real intention is to waste vast amounts of money and damage residents’ quality of life, the project is just as dazzling a success as much of our psychopathic urban design and budget-blowing infrastructure work – as we shall see in a few paragraphs.) Even the pro-establishment Standard balks at this idiocy.

Note that several groups of professionals effortlessly propose a cheaper and better alternative pedestrian arrangement. Why aren’t these people running our public urban planning and design functions in the first place? Put simply: they are not part of the bureaucrat-tycoon crony-complex, and they are capable of independent original thinking – thus on both counts unacceptable to the paranoid Communist Party that vets our senior officials.

As if Hong Kong does not look sufficiently pitiful, the public libraries have now bowed to pressure from Christian fundamentalists and put ‘gay penguins’ books for children into a restricted adults-only section. LGBT stories for kids might be bordering on over-trendy liberal self-parodying absurdity – but hate-filled Evangelical freaks give them a real credibility boost, helped by our library officials. The Bible-bashers presumably spent ages prowling this catalogue, which has 1.9 million volumes for you to find objectionable.

Last, but by no means least, go here and click on the video link. This is our Transport Department’s guide to driving a car to Macau on the new HK-Zhuhai Mega-Bridge Concept-Vision.

By way of background: Macau is full and cannot actually admit cars from Hong Kong, so you would have to park and leave your vehicle on a massive reclamation outside the city, and then go through immigration into the northern district.

So already, the ferry makes more sense. But the video explains that the paperwork and other formalities, courtesy of three jurisdictions, make the idea much worse. The longer the video goes on, the more horrible and complicated it gets. Try not to burst into tears of mirth and/or despair when the cheerful government narrator mentions the phrase ‘simple and convenient’ to describe a nightmarishly bewildering Kafkaesque, Byzantine, labyrinthine Gordian-knot/hairball of a bureaucratic hell.

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19 Responses to Descent into the bowels of ridiculousness…

  1. Chinese Netizen says:

    Methinks Herr Hemlock did not have a soothing cup of fair farmed, organic, GMO free, non slavery picked coffee this morning.

  2. Colonial Dinosaur says:

    Three permits and two more sets of car insurance required before you have to ask for permission of the Mainland authorities to drive to Macau and park… heh, was it not the HK taxpayer that forked out $180 billion for the fluster cluck of a white elephant in the first place?

  3. HillnotPeak says:

    I love it that one also need some extra insurance to drive that bloody bridge.

  4. Stephen says:

    Did I read somewhere that the bus will cost approximately the same as the ferry and take longer ? I suppose it’s logical that the same Ho family firm, that runs most of the ferries, won the contract for the buses ! Nice to see the usual suspects doing well out of this tax payer funded white elephant. Next the footbridge with Freddy Ma is chairman …

  5. Joe Blow says:

    Boycott Lan Kwai Fong !

  6. Mark says:

    that video is too funny. What a clusterfuck.

  7. Big Al says:

    Say goodbye to current “ferry difficulties”, i.e public transport from “A” > immigration > ferry > immigration > public transport to “B” in five laborious steps.

    Say hello to “so convenient” drive your own car, i.e. Drive from “A” > Closed Road Permit (HK) > Identification Label (Macao) > Electronic Temporary Licence (PRC) > Vehicle Insurance (Macao) > Vehicle Insurance (PRC) > Upload Mainland Vehicle Insurance > Electronic Temporary Licence (PRC) > Reserve Car Parking Space 12hrs Ahead > Public Transport to “B” in just ten easy steps (assuming they haven’t forgotten anything).

    Only a bureaucrat could think this shit up. Obviously, I’m buying a car now …

  8. Cassowary says:

    So the HK-Zhuhai-Macau bridge only cost 95 Yuen Long footbridges? What a bargain!

  9. Donny Almond says:

    Shoot. Hooters has closed down. Now y’all have to find a new place to get your chicken wings.

  10. dimuendo says:

    Dear Mr Hemlock

    I often enjoy your blog and read it most days although that may be in part because I have nothing to do, sadly.

    Your links can be informative and or entertaining. However given you write in English why do you post links in Chinese eg the library, when there is an equivalent link in English? Several of your readers, including me, cannot read Chinese. Please post links in English where available.

    As to the Transport department video, clearly from the comments some have seen it. What comes up on my screen is a webb –site item with comments, but no actual Transport department video.

    From one of your dim readers.

    Dimuendo.

  11. reductio says:

    @Dimuendo

    Just click on the blue link in the description at the top. Or try this:

    http://www.td.gov.hk/filemanager/en/content_4907/hzmb_macao_port_parknride_mp4_eng.mp4.

  12. Knownot says:

    Dear Mr Dimuendo

    When you reach the HK Public Libraries catalogue page, you will see a little rectangle in the top right-hand corner which says “Chinese (Trad.)” with a cute little arrow pointing downward. Click that arrow, and you will soon work out how to change to English. Easy!

    On the Webb-site, click the phrase printed in blue, and you’ll get the video just like that. Easy-peasy!

    Computers are temperamental things and the Internet may be daunting. But don’t give up! Once you get used to them, you’ll find there’s a wealth of information and entertainment available! Almost too much!

    Your friend
    Knownot

  13. dimuendo says:

    Dear Messrs reductio and Knownot

    Thank you for your responses. My apologies if either of you be female.

    As to Knownot’s explanation as to the library it is only partially correct. I have tangled with the library website before now. If you click on traditional chinese and then select english, that is replaced by chinese characters, although rather confusingly one of those allows you to search in english. My point remains, given there is an equivalent english version it would help, and be appreciated by me, if Hemlock were to post the english version of a link, where there is such.

    May I look forward to your response in rhyme? I also (sometimes) enjoy those.

    Fraternally

    Dimuendo

  14. dimuendo says:

    Without wishing to be political, why has the bridge been made so complicated when the cross border railway has been made so simple, with mainland law starting in the HK station?

    Am I naive in expecting hugely overpriced and unnecessary cross border “infrastructure” to be treated and applied in the same way?

  15. Chinese Netizen says:

    Dear Knownot: Will it be Traditional or Simplified English?

  16. Din Gao says:

    I have disguised my Suzuki Swift Sport 1.6 as a PLA tank and do not expect any problems on the bridge.

  17. CXP says:

    Dear dimuendo, interesting question. One thinks perhaps that the bridge is not really for the benefit of Hong Kong residents going to Macau, but for mainlanders coming to Hong Kong. Hence the byzantine, endless procedures required for Hong Kong residents to take to drive over the bridge.

  18. dimuendo says:

    Dear CXP

    Thank you for the reply. Does any body know, or can Hemlock locate/track down, the requirements for car drivers from Zuhai and Macau, headed to HK?

  19. John says:

    Characterizing those who object to the homosexual mafia as hate filled freaks is way over the top and right out of the liberal degenerate playbook. I’m amazed you didn’t trot out the cry of “bigot” . That’s often a one stop word to get the job done. Your social engineering is showing.

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