The news is full of things no right-minded person could possibly find interesting. Contrived, giant, high-decibel, up-close, in-your-face nothingness like the Oscars and Elon Musk. But wait – here come some noteworthy voids: cave-ins!
No, not Donald Trump’s laughable kowtowing to China for the chance to sell some pig feed. These are cave-ins at our very own Hong Kong-Zhuhai Mega-Bridge – specifically the Hong Kong Port passenger clearance building, built on a 130-hectare reclamation now officially known as Shortage of Land Island. Holes have appeared in the floor of the building, swallowing up many hundreds of suitcase-trundling Mainland tourist-shoppers whose remains (the history books will no doubt recount) were never found.
According to the Standard, a worker says the subsidence ‘could have been caused by subsidence’. But let’s not rush to conclusions. This is a recently completed infrastructure project of immense national importance, and everyone must have worked so very hard to make sure it was perfect – it’s hard to imagine how or why it could be crumbling away within months of opening. Perhaps termites?
Could this be the same artificial island that suffered from the famous Drifting Dolos outbreak last year? No, that was a different one. And it didn’t happen anyway – you imagined it.
You imagined this, too.
I took the bridge for the first time this week-end to Macau, and it’s a mixed back of wannabe-first-world hardware and third world software.
– Giant shiny outsized terminals (over 30 lines for immi, with 3 opened)
– But then 10 minutes wait outside under some crappy tent
– A double decker less confortable than an airport bus (speeding and flashing all radars along its way)
– In Macao, the terminal is even more ludicrously outsized than Hong Kong one, more browny points presumably
– Crappy connection to outer harbour by jampacked public bus (you don’t want more casino buses ? let’s pack your public transportation system instead)
Overall 3 hours to get to outer harbour terminal instead of 1:30 by ferry. Money-wise only worth it because my 2 y.o. rides the bus for free.
You forget to mention the toilets, which (however glitzy) have a sign telling you how to use it… i.e. not to squat on the seat…
Martha and the Muffins! My favorite Canadian new wave band….
Announced 27 February 2019 on Civil Service pensions in HK http://gia.info.gov.hk/general/201902/27/P2019022700238_304747_1_1551243887232.pdf
“The statutory pension obligations for the coming ten years are estimated to be about $480 billion in money of the day.”
This is about the same cost of ruining Lantau Island, its tidal flows and micro-climate, by creating Xi JinPing’s latest South China Sea outpost over the next 10 years.
While China masterminds ways to live fully and eruditely (and don’t forget RESOLUTELY) in the modern century, Hong Kong is the only first world city I know that actively tries to find ways to live like a third world country. We are improvisational at best, and lacking any imagination at our worst.