The ravings of Hong Kong's most obnoxious expat
23-29 March 2003
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Conduct a quick SARS-related survey on the Mid-Levels Escalator en route to the office. The island-dwelling professionals coming down to Central � well-bred and well-informed � all eschew unsightly and unnecessary face masks. Of the clerical and retail workers plodding uphill, however, perhaps one in 30 wrap their acne-ridden faces and poor teeth in white surgical masks. These hypochondriacs� chances of catching anything strolling along a footbridge over Hollywood Rd must be zero � though, living as they do among the teeming, pneumonia-ravaged hordes of upper Kowloon and the New Territories, they might unwittingly be doing the rest of us a favour.
Chickens �show affection and feel happiness, loneliness, fear and pain,� according to Heather Moore of the ridiculous People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in a letter in HK Magazine. She laments people�s response to PETA�s campaign to improve conditions for these incredibly dim-witted but flavoursome beasts (�Why bother, they�re just chickens?�) and quotes an academic claiming that the fowl possess cognitive abilities �beyond the capacity of small children�. The idiocy of PETA is well-documented. Like the anti-GM food freaks of Greenpeace, they prefer human suffering to the scientific progress they are too simple-minded to comprehend. �The best way to help chickens is to go vegetarian,� says Ms Moore, as if the flightless mutants have a role in the natural order beyond being a source of food for homo sapiens and the occasional fox or python.
One other use for chickens comes to mind � sex, if the bizarre Peter Singer is to be believed. A dull morning. The stock market plunges on opening, following news that Tung Chee-hwa has tested negative for killer pneumonia � or �extreme version of a cold.� Ms Fang the hunter-killer secretary shows me a letter from one Ophelia Au Yeung, inviting the Big Boss to a HK Association of Shoe-Shiners function:
Bump into our nervous but well-meaning Home Affairs Secretary, Patrick Ho, who is looking run-down. Unlike most other Government officials, whose main mission in life is to pour billions of dollars of taxpayers� hard-earned wealth down the toilet, Patrick�s priority is to take small, simple policy decisions and turn them into complex and controversial issues that become almost impossible to resolve. If his Iraqi counterpart, Interior Minister Mahmoud Diyab al-Ahmed, wanted to legalize soccer gambling or ban racial discrimination, he would just do it with a wave of his chrome plated AK-47. Patrick, on the other hand, wrings his hands, endlessly worrying about what people might think. Soccer gambling is subject to interminable discussion and consultation, for fear of upsetting a clutch of self-righteous, guitar-playing pastors who think God wants them to run the lives of our lower orders. And the prospect of telling Hongkongers to be nice to brown people and Mainlanders leaves him awake for nights on end.
The result of this morning�s Mid-Levels Escalator surgical mask survey: one in 10, if not slightly more. These masks are more contagious than SARS. Wild American ex-Mormon friend Odell is out and about, and sneering at the mask-wearers. �Seriously uncool-looking,� is his verdict. I point out that his Thai wife Mee is wearing one. �Marketing strategy,� he says. �She�s selling them to Southeast Asian domestic helpers. Huge mark-up.� How long before those of us too cool to wear these things are in a minority? My suspicion is that the majority of Hongkongers will remain unmasked, unable to overcome their pathological need to talk into mobile phones at all times.
Shock and awe, or at least plain fury, in the morning meeting, with the Big Boss thumping the table, cursing auditors and berating the spotty accountant and his bean counters for their lack of imagination in compiling the 2002 financial results, which he evidently feels do not adequately reflect his highly talented and visionary chairmanship. Therefore, everyone must be punished. He announces his decision to appoint Ms Pang � Doris 3 � as the new Deputy Assistant Senior HR Manager. Her orders, he tells us, will be to inflict pain in the form of staff cost cuts, and to devise and implement laborious and intrusive personnel policies, such as compulsory attendance � the tycoon tyrant pauses briefly to stare at the company gwailo � at the S-Meg Holdings Spring Dinner in a few weeks� time. I would rather be on a ventilator in the intensive care section at the Prince of Wales Hospital.
Open my front door first thing in the morning and find, to my delight, yellow plastic tape announcing �Quarantine Area � keep clear� draped across the hallway while, behind it, four men in protective overalls and masks nail planks across the entrance to my neighbour�s apartment. An official notice declares the unbearable, mahjong-addicted occupants to be suspected carriers of atypical pneumonia, and authorizes the police to shoot them if they try to escape. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party�s James Tien, who normally is to policy proposals what the Powerpuff Girls are to literature, comes up with the brilliant suggestion that the names of all killer pneumonia victims be made public, and the victims themselves be branded on the forehead with red-hot irons in the shape of the Chinese character for �disease�. Can there be any doubt that Hong Kong is starting to win the fight against its latest plague?