Big Lychee, Various Sectors

On the top floor of S-Meg Tower, in the heart of Asia’s leading international business centre, the Big Boss dismisses the dynamic management team after the morning meeting, but he asks the Company Gwailo to stay. He is unnerved by a missive he has received from an obscure but uppity little professional body that appears to be lobbying Hong Kong’s great and good for attention, respect or recognition.

They are not, I suspect, entirely representative of their trade, whose practitioners are acclaimed throughout the world for their no-nonsense, pragmatic, can-do unpretentiousness and, in some cases, tattoos. But in the hierarchy-clinging Big Lychee, where people crave letters after their name and a board member of a famous charity styles himself ‘Duke’, even plain and practical men can succumb to the ever-amusing vice of wanton status-fabrication.

These gentlemen’s names are: Ir Dennis Wong, Ir WS Kong, Ir Charles Mok, Ir Stanley Ng, Ir CK Leung, and so on.

At first, I assume this ‘Ir’ is a misprint or a spelling mistake. The M of Mr has somehow come out as an I. But the letter M appears intact everywhere else in the letter – otherwise the third man on the list would be called Ir Charles Iok. It can’t be the D from Dr, either, or there would be a Ir Iennis Wong. It says ‘Ir’ because they want ‘Ir’. But these are Hongkongers, not people from overseas who would use exotic honorifics like Sri or Kuhn or Moulay or Tunku.

I am not even sure how you pronounce it. ‘Ire’? ‘Ur’? ‘Ear’? (If the latter, what if the person’s name is, say, Waxman?)

More to the point: what on earth does it mean?

The Big Boss is nervous. Like most members of the Hong Kong establishment, he is comfortable with his and everyone else’s place in the order of things as denoted by titles, post-nominals and even positions at dinner tables. He needs to be able to identify others as inferiors, peers or superiors, and he can rank various permutations of ‘The Hon’, GBM, GBS, MH and JP, plus MBE and OBE, at a glance. But this ‘Ir’ thing is disturbing. Does he shoeshine them, or vice-versa? Probably the latter – no-one has ever heard of these people – but he must be totally sure. One of the Big Boss’s greatest nightmares is failing to pay full symbolic deference to someone important. To refer to a fellow tycoon as ‘Mr’ and then find the guy has an honorary doctorate would be his idea of social death.

I tell him it must be something to do with the fact that these gentlemen are all engineers. A quick search on Google confirms it. It’s an abbreviation of the French word ‘Ingenieur’. It seems Malaysians, as if they don’t have enough bewildering titles already, are particularly fond of it.

He can relax. “They’re nothing,” I assure him.

Not true, of course. Where would we be without our bridge-builders and tunnel-diggers, with their shiny hard hats and rolled-up blueprints? But ‘Ir’? I can’t believe this is going to catch on.

Five, four, three, two, one, and… Clash! The spoon smashes onto the tiled floor, bounces off a table leg and clatters against the hard, echo-creating ceramic again before noisily spinning around a few times and coming to rest. Tony the motor-skills-deficient waiter squats down and fumbles with the silverware, dropping it once more to produce an ear-skewering, hangover-crushing, metallic crescendo. Relative silence returns, and agonized winces slowly fade from the faces of a dozen or so fragile Foreign Correspondent Club members.

It was 8.31 and 17 seconds when the cutlery fell and the peace of breakfast was shattered. It is almost always exactly 8.31 and 17 seconds, with variations of up to three seconds either way. On rare occasions Tony goes a day without dropping a knife, spoon or fork – but he is guaranteed to let two fall together, right on time, the following morning. Those in the know go elsewhere for their congee to avoid the unbearable extra clatter.

Or they arrange their schedule to turn up at 8.32, which is when perfectly formed Administrative Officer Winky Ip makes her graceful entrance and slides into the seat opposite me with a gentle but unmistakable waft – bergamot and ground iris root – of Eau d’Hadrien. She reaches down and, with a slightly unladylike jerk, pulls off a black Bally Basail pump and examines the sole. She tuts loudly at the viscous, dark brown smear.

“I’ve got that stuff on my shoes, too,” I tell her. “Everyone’s having to wade through it all over Central this morning – it’s like a sort of sickly-sweet smelling glue spread over the sidewalks and streets.”

“Oh, this is nothing,” the delectable civil servant replies. “There are huge piles of it in parts of Causeway Bay and Wanchai.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“The Environmental Hygiene Branch, you mean? What are the Environmental Hygiene Branch going to do about it?”

I nod.

“Well,” she goes on, “that’s a good question. They could just start cleaning it up with detergent, though it would take a while. There is talk of getting some special sort of bacteria that breaks it down so it just washes away over time. But several senior members of the administration are arguing that we should just leave it where it is for the time being.”

This sticky goo smothering the city is, of course, grief. A bit of anger is mixed in, but it’s mostly grief. At least, that’s the official explanation. But there is something slightly rancid about it, and I can’t help getting a whiff of officially nurtured, community-wide victimhood of the sort that conveniently diverts attention away from other woes. For once, our leaders are presiding over a people in full agreement on something. And, even better, that something is governance in another place that is so appallingly wretched everyone is suddenly glad to be in the Big Lychee.

“In fact,” Winky adds, “one or two officials have suggested that we manufacture and spread more of it around.”

With that in mind, Chief Executive and professional mourner Donald Tsang himself, having been talked out of being photographed lifting the bodies into coffins, is suggesting that the Hostage Crisis Tragedy victims be interred in Tribute Garden, the non-civil servant version of Gallant Garden, resting place of those who died while performing exceptional acts of bravery. If Donald further awards them posthumous bravery medals, they will qualify for permanent burials and not be dug up for cremation after the usual six-year stay under precious ground.

Who will dare suggest that getting taken hostage by a demented Filipino ex-cop with an M-16 does not take exceptional courage so much as terribly bad luck? Still, I have no hesitation in nominating them for Gold Bauhinia Stars, for outstanding, if involuntary, contributions to improving the government’s public approval ratings.

I didn’t pay much attention when Emily the plain, single, late-30s senior accountant at S-Meg Holdings announced a few weeks ago that she would be resigning. I managed to avoid the farewell meals and photo-taking she insisted upon – until she dragged me out for a one-on-one lunch and made a waiter take a snap of us. I didn’t have much interest in asking what she would be doing next; nor did I listen to the gossip about the skullduggery or misdemeanours that supposedly caused her departure. And I didn’t take it very seriously when, towards her last day in the office, she said something about how I should come out one day to see Tung Chung, the spacious garden city where she lives next to the airport. Nor did I pay much attention when she also mentioned that an array of relatives from the UK would soon be in town for their annual remind-the-kids-they’re-Chinese visit.

And then, yesterday morning, I get a phone call asking what time I will be arriving. A sister has gone to church, a brother-in-law and his sons are going to the cinema, another sister is at the shops, her father is hovering somewhere in the picture, and, Emily adds, she will meet me at the MTR station. We will have lunch, look around, and then have tea. What I should have said, a couple of weeks ago when the idea came up, is: “No, I can’t possibly ever set foot in Tung Chung,” and give a highly plausible reason – something to do with debt-collectors, perhaps. But it seems I had committed myself. I had nothing else to do.

On the train at noon, I puzzled over why she would invite me, a far-from-close former colleague, to what sounded like a family event. If she had designs on me, we wouldn’t be spending the day with relatives – so no need to leap from the Tsing Ma bridge. Then it occurred to me that maybe I was intended to act the role of boyfriend in order to deflect the annual barrage of nagging she must get from family about still not being married. This is the scenario of a hundred comedies because it happens. There might even be a few hundred bucks laisee in it for me.

At a quasi-Vietnamese restaurant in a shopping mall, Emily reveals all while her older sister slurps soup. She is already married. It happened secretly in Bali a few days ago, in the company of her whole family. The twist is that her new husband is a widower with two young children, and there is resistance among his former in-laws, as well as some embarrassment among her own clan. Under pressure, she thought it best to leave gossipy S-Meg. My job, after a decent interval, is to let the truth be known in the company so the slanderous theories being circulated by Ms Fang the hunter-killer secretary can be laid to rest.

We inspect the happy couple’s new, still-unfurnished apartment, half way up and along the huge curve of high rises overlooking the airport. Although it looks like one development, there are two projects here: one by Cheung Kong (dogs allowed) and one by HK Resorts (no mutts permitted). The latter, I am told, is favoured by former Discovery Bay residents because they are familiar with, and like, the HK Resorts management style. After everything else I have heard today, this sounds unremarkable.

At tea in a noisy yum cha place, I meet the rest of the relatives, including Lancashire-accented children, and the new Mr Emily, complete with two young daughters – themselves Canadian by upbringing and now preparing for life with a new language to learn at school and a new step-mother. Mr Emily is a thoroughly nice guy, and I have to struggle to avoid asking him what on earth he sees in our pleasant but rather self-centred and slightly boring ex-senior accountant.

“You may be wondering what I – a complete stranger – am doing at your family gathering,” I tell everyone when asked to say a few words. “I know I am.”

“Please be considerate,” says the label on Macau Tatler, “and put the magazine back on the stand after reading.”

Now which is it to be? They want me to be considerate to other people? Or they want me to return this directory of asses so other innocent wretches risk seeing the most sickening hagiography of Florinda Ho (“City’s most stylish scion”) and the most nightmare-inducing photos of “Vegas-style showman” Steve Wynn airbrushed and photoshopped into a grinning, over-tanned, perpetually young cartoon character?  When there are already another four copies of the thing on the shelves? I resolve to do my civic duty to the full and smuggle the publication out of Mix and, as plastic wrappers say, ‘dispose of thoughtfully’.

Yes, Mix. The smoothies, juice and wraps place just a few doors down from the IFC Mall branch of Pacific Coffee, where wild American friend Odell drags me to start the day. He is boycotting our longstanding morning hangout on the grounds that recent rearrangements of the Pacific Coffee furnishings make it much harder for him to commandeer substantial quantities of paper napkins. The tissues are now stored right under the nose of the cashier, who stands ready to rap the knuckles of cheap, thieving scumbags with a heavy spoon.

We will soon be back, I suspect. The ex-Mormon looks up at the unfamiliar and trendy range of products on the board behind the counter and finds himself drawn to an indigo-pink-greenish concoction of blueberry, banana, raspberry sherbet, apple juice and (allegedly) ‘immunity-energy boost’. “I want one,” he tells me, “but I’m damned if I’m going to ask for it.” I know how he feels. It has an embarrassing name, which no self-respecting person could possibly bring himself to utter out loud to a stranger. And, as with all such drinks here, you must choose from Wee, Wow and Woah sizes. Odell overcomes the problem by pointing: “That one – no the one next to it – third one down on the left with the purple lumps.”

“Oh!” says the Nepalese serving girl, “the Dr Feel Good Zen Smoothie!” To which my friend replies with the world’s shortest ever ‘Mm’.

Torn between the Cold Zapper and Liquid Sunshine Power Smoothies, I plump for an espresso.

I find myself mulling over why Macau, with a population of half a million – less than Shatin – has its own edition of this grubby publication. Who puts the tat in Tatler? Lines of smiling, champagne-clutching, Teutonic-looking men in suits with slightly disturbing ribbons and medals round their necks. They probably aren’t storing phials of Heinrich Himmler’s DNA in a cellar somewhere, but they look like they are. Bar landlord Allen Zeman and property developer Cecil Chao attend the birthday party of “youthful looking” Michael Wong (no idea). Burly mainlanders with newly-made money rub shoulders with pouting Canto-bims, Latin Euro-trash and various people presumably sired by casino mogul Stanley Ho. Articles about boutiques, galleries and chefs mingle seamlessly with ads for the same. Has anything more futile ever appeared in print? I would ask who buys it, but the fact that IFC Mall Mix had five copies before one went missing suggests that distributing the magazine is like getting rid of construction waste.

At least it is authentic, professional pretentiousness. My heart sinks when I see an advertorial in today’s Standard puffing up various steak houses around town, illustrated with the usual slabs of shiny meat and bovine-featured chefs. We are told that one place, the imaginatively named Steak House at the InterContinental, offers a choice of 10 ‘gourmet knives’, including Laguiole of France and Kershaw Shun of Japan. And customers may choose from ‘eight exotic sea salts from around the world’, including Hawaiian Alaea, Himalayan pink salt (from which sea?) and French fleur de sel smoked with chardonnay oak chips. And then there’s the grape, balsamic, smoked garlic and other Dr Feel Good Zen mustards. This is fake pretentiousness. They’re pretending to be pretentious to make a fast buck. Does their chardonnay oak smoked salt come in a pepper-type mill, as if freshly ground sodium chloride has more flavour? I bet it does. You won’t find that at Michael Wong’s birthday party.

Gliding down the Mid-Levels Escalator this morning, who should I bump into but Grant, the bearded Australian corporate communication guru? “You must have come up in the world,” I gently tease him, “to be commuting in the company of such a distinguished neighbourhood. I always thought you sailed to work with the ragged-trousers brigade on the Lamma ferry.”

He proudly announces that, after years of scrabbling around for freelance work, he now has a real job with a real public relations agency. Not just any PR firm, either, but Ogilvy. “The best in the business,” he assures me. He is master of his own flashy cubicle on the 23rd floor of The Center and living in a walk-up apartment in the salubrious surroundings of Mosque Street.

I ask him what account he is working on, and a slightly evil grin spreads across his hairy face. “A special project,” he tells me. “A thoroughly unpopular group of people in Hong Kong have finally worked out that everyone hates their guts, and we’re going to tell them why and see if we can help them out.”

I am intrigued as to who these ostracized folk might be. “Not the Jehovah’s Witnesses?” I ask him as we pass the famous tree to which Mid-Levels residents nail the cult’s irritating missionaries by the ears.

“Nope,” he replies.

“Hmm… It wouldn’t be Civil Servants?  No, no – they’re too insensible to public opinion, and too busy filling in their Air-Conditioning Allowance claim forms.  So it must be… Not the Lan Kwai Fong bar owners whining away about 7-Eleven taking all their business by not ripping off consumers?”

“Nope,” comes the grinning response.

“How about Park N Shop? The supermarket everyone loves to loath?”

“Ah! Well, you’re getting a little bit close there,” declares the antipodean reputation management consultant.

As we approach the bottom of the hill, I look up at his office building. Built by Cheung Kong, part of tycoon Li Ka-shing’s empire. “Oh good grief,” I blurt out, “not the property cartel?”

“Bingo!” He slaps my shoulder. “Yeah, the Real Estate Developers Association has hired us to do what we call a ‘perception audit’.” He notices my slight bemusement. “Hey, the first step is recognizing that you have a problem! You know REDA doesn’t even have a website?”

Ogilvy, he explains, will be conducting a survey among prominent members of the community to find out what they think of the backbone-of-our-economy property industry.

It would be an understatement to say that the property cartel has an image problem. Just yesterday, the Consumer Council proposed ways to counteract the “asymmetry of information” homebuyers face. More and more lateral thinkers are raising their befuddled heads to ask why a minimum wage is such a big deal when it’s the high rents and short leases that cripple many businesses.

“Why are they bothering to pay Ogilvy?” I ask. “Apart from bankers who sell mortgages to finance the pyramid scheme, and bureaucrats who put convenient loopholes in the regulations, everyone in town detests the developers. Everybody thinks they’re total slime. Parasites on the economy. I could tell them that for nothing.”

“Sure!” Grant laughs as heads off down the steps to Queens Road. “But you wouldn’t would you? You’d charge them through the fuckin’ teeth, mate! They can afford it!”

…also great for fresh orange juice!

Many people are suckers for cute puppy dogs; others go to pieces over ice cream; some are nuts about lingerie; while more than a few just can’t resist Barry Manilow. But for me, it’s old medical equipment. All those curving, enameled, shiny devices that once inflicted agonizing but life-saving procedures on victims of frightening ailments in carbolic-scented hospitals of wooden floorboards and starched sheets. Safe in the knowledge that space-age ultrasonic, magnetic resonance, keyhole, bio-engineered, nano-tech appliances of micro-chips and colour monitors await me should I ever need them, I delight in this creepy, early-mid-20th Century hardware with all its clunky dials, shiny glass bottles and thick rubber tubing attached to evil-looking nozzles and needles.

Happily, the Appalachian branch of the Hemlock clan, like many right-thinking people, share this retro-that-dare-not-speak-its-name guilty pleasure, and so before they have to head back home we spend an enjoyable hour or two at the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Science. It is one of the Big Lychee’s little secret gems. The Hong Kong Tourism Board no doubt gives it a cursory nod in its literature, but this is the sort of place they would not expect or want tourists to visit. Not expect, because it assumes an interest in the real past, rather than the fictitious one the travel bureaucracy pushes. And not want, because no landlord makes money when people come here – and the tourism industry is ultimately just a euphemism for the property tycoons.

The museum offers a limited display. It is a pleasant enough old building, where researchers first isolated the bubonic plague bacillus then raging down the hill around Hollywood Road – hence perhaps today’s cluster of coffin shops in the area. Fittingly, it has some SARS souvenirs, including a classic Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services museum quiz; I amaze my cousins by getting one correct answer (from a multiple-choice of Chicken, Dog, Civet Cat and Cow) without even seeing the question. The place overdoes the ever-tedious subject of Chinese medicine, which arguably should not even be in an establishment that has ‘science’ in its title. And then it has the horrifying collection of Dead Ringers-style forceps. And a room full of old operating theatre equipment, including a chloroform mask. And a dental surgery, complete with nightmarish leather chair, back from the days when you got gas for extractions and nothing to deaden the pain caused by the slow, loud drill. Heaven.

After heading out to distant Lantau and surviving the Ngong Ping 360 Death Plunge Cable Car Massacre Ride, two Hemlock cousins and I find ourselves following a herd of international travellers into the famous Ngong Ping Replica Fake Lifelike Mountaintop Village. All have come to see the world’s largest free-standing, outdoor, bronze, non-reclining, postmodern Buddha constructed in 1993 on a lotus throne and three-level altar with a sea view. The hamlet that has lain for decades just north of nearby Po Lin Monastery lacks the quaint shiny curled roofs and freshly cleaned paving stones that visitors expect of an authentic settlement in this part of the world, leaving the Hong Kong government with no choice but to construct this ‘real-looking’ substitute next door. (There would also have been the small matter of integrating irascible and rapacious New Territories residents with teeming millions of tourists.)

To our surprise, we discover nothing less than an amazing cultural themed village, architecturally designed and landscaped to reflect the cultural and spiritual integrity of the Ngong Ping area. No-one actually lives here. The ever-revolving population comprises 25% Mainland women in frilly mini-skirts and high heels, 25% Mainland women’s boyfriends, 25% older and younger Mainlanders in family groups, 20% other Asians and Westerners constantly asking strangers to take photographs of themselves with their companions, and 5% lowly Hongkongers who, having seen their home town prostituted out to foreigners, are forced into embarrassingly coloured T-shirts and reduced to toiling as shop assistants and cleaners.

Through the incense-haze between the rows of resin statues and PVC-framed wall hangings in the Walking With Buddha Themed Gifts Shop, I see an assistant shyly mumble something to a gruff, chain-smoking Beijing-accented man thinking of buying a small short-cut to Nirvana in the form of several fake jade Gautama bead bracelets. I am taken by the ‘third eye’ dot on her forehead. But then, as I draw near, I notice it is slightly off-centre on her shiny brow. Then I see a rash of similar red spots on one cheek, and it occurs to me that she is simply suffering a rather severe case of acne, if not tertiary-stage shingles.

Perhaps the most inauthentic thing about the whole place is the number of 7-Elevens and Starbucks: there is only one of each, whereas any real Hong Kong street would have a multitude. Canned quasi-Buddhist, nasty New Age-type music comes out of loudspeakers as we proceed past the stores along the route officially known as Walking With Buddha. Halfway along is a Bodhi Tree Experience, with trunk and branches of moulded concrete and leaves of shaped wood-like material carrying contemplative messages. Next comes the Monkey’s Tale Theatre Themed Attraction, supposedly drawn from ancient lore but no doubt carefully Disneyfied out of all recognition so as not to distress passers-by with any significance or meaning. A touch of genuine Hong Kong intrudes as we pick our way through metal barriers and the dusty din of stone saws to find that, as with so many roads in the Big Lychee, the Path to Wisdom is currently being widened and resurfaced.

Up close, the Big Buddha itself is what you would expect after years of catching glimpses of the metal giant through the haze from aircraft and Macau ferries. You have to climb hundreds of steps. It’s large. It’s crowded. A special Buddhist snack voucher deal comprehensible only to Mainlanders goes down well among the target audience. There are Canadians, Malaysians, Yugoslavians and whatever all pleading with you to take a photo of them with their friends. The occasional pilgrim drops to her knees – they are invariably women – and prostrates herself in awe of the Lord Sidartha. Devotees are outnumbered by (largely Southeast Asian) Muslims who could be blowing up this idolatry but instead eat its ice cream with the same serene smile as the statue itself.

Through the clamour of snapping cameras and chattering kids comes a scream, piercing for a few seconds, then suddenly muffled. Someone, tragically, has mysteriously fallen over the edge of the podium into the dense undergrowth of a ravine far below down the steep hillside. Someone wanting his picture taken alongside his bearded backpacking buddies, tragically, thought a member of the Appalachian branch of the Hemlock clan would be receptive, for the twentieth time in under two hours, to a request for such a favour. It was the same someone I overheard earlier pronouncing ‘Ngong’ as ‘nong’, so they had it coming. Maybe they will have better luck in their next life.

Mon, 13 June

How much money will deranged anthropomorphs pay to see their noisy and unhygienic mutts alive again?  Eager to find the answer, I enlisted the help over the weekend of peculiar acquaintance A-Hing, the famous Mid-Levels Dog Poisoner, and took possession of a ridiculous-looking mutant canine.  It is incarcerated, as I write, in the storage room at the back of my apartment in Perpetual Opulence Mansions.  And, to my delight, the owners have already offered a reward for the repulsive-looking creature through an ad in the South China Morning Post.  (Do they have any idea of that organ’s pitiful circulation figures?  This is a matter of life and death.  How extremely fortunate for them that this particular dognapper happens to be one of the few people who read it.)

LOST: GREY MINI-SCHNAUZER (MALE)

REWARD: HK$5,000

LAST SEEN: THE PEAK, WEARING BLUE COLLAR

Five thousand dollars is a laughable opening bid.  I will contact these absurd people and pass them a photograph of the brute with a copy of today’s paper, so they can see it is still alive, and my trusty 9mm Browning to its ugly, misshapen head.  I will demand 50 thousand, plus expenses for Purina Pooch Chunks and a gratuity to the Filipino elves, who are guarding the hideous monstrosity and making sure it doesn’t remove its blindfold.  Call the police, and the loyal domestic servants have aso adobo for supper faster than you can say ‘woof woof’.  Try haggling, and the next message will include the beast’s left ear and a final demand for 100 thousand in used twenties.  That will buy A-Hing a lot of carbofuran, and Hong Kong’s residential neighbourhoods some long overdue peace and cleanliness.

Tue, 14 June

I wake to the sound of knives being sharpened.  In the kitchen, the Filipino elves have reported for duty early.  As one yanks the duct tape from our captive’s muzzle so it can eat what may be its last meal, the other lays out an evil meat cleaver, heads of garlic and bottles of soy sauce, vinegar and oil.  “Adobong aso,” she declares.  “You were wrong yesterday.”  I quash this impertinence and presumptuousness quickly and firmly, by informing her that the cur stays alive for the time being.  A-Hing is in contact with the Halsteads of the Peak, who are pleading for the life of their unsightly hound on the grounds that it is ‘a part of the family’.  A part of the family who’s worth a mere 5,000 bucks!  How much would their grandmother go for?

Wed, 15 Jun

Gliding down the Mid-Levels Escalator through the Soho pretentious-restaurant district, I mull over this morning’s message from A-Hing, the legendary Dog Strangler of Bowen Road.  The Peak anthropomorphs say they need more time to get the money together.  He has given them a deadline of midnight, tomorrow.  I see wild American friend Odell emerging from his hovel, and he joins me on the smooth descent into the central business district.  “I saw something really weird last night,” he tells me.  “A couple of Filipino women walking a dog with a black cloth bag over its head.”  I shrug, peer down at Fetish Fashion to see if any of their restraining devices would fit a mini schnauzer, and remind him that there are a lot of strange people around.  He agrees.  “They were very good, though,” he remarks.  “When the dog wanted to do its business, they unfolded a copy of the South China Morning Post on the sidewalk.”  I should hope so, too.  “Kevin Sinclair’s column,” he adds.  I nod coolly.

Thurs, 16 Jun

I start the day by giving the two Filipino elves their hostage management instructions.  “First, stop addressing it as ‘Manlapaz’ or any other cutie-pie designation.  It is essential not to form any emotional bond with the internee.  Refer to it simply as ‘the dog’.  Second,” I point to a gallon of lemon-scented bleach and a scrubbing brush, “it’s stinking this storage room to high heaven – let’s give it a good wash before we get rid of it tonight.”  Which is how, by the time I leave Perpetual Opulence Mansions this morning, I find myself in possession of a canine so startlingly blond that it appears not to be of this world.  But it smells nice.

Fri, 17 Jun

The object of the exercise is to research the extent to which animal-lovers will make the sort of sacrifice that sane people would consider making only for humans – and maybe not all of them, even.  So it was with little hesitation that I tested our clients on the Peak and postponed last night’s mutt-for-money trade to a more congenial hour this morning.  The plan is simple.  At the appointed hour, A-Hing will tether the canine to a lamp post outside the Fancy Rich Property Agents on Caine Road and stand by.  An anthropomorph will then drop the cash – used, in small denominations, in children’s school bags – in a kids’ play area not far away and depart.  Two elves waiting nearby will confirm the contents to A-Hing by walkie-talkie and meld into the crowds on the Mid-Levels Escalator, struggling under the weight of the packs as far as a Filipino money changer-cum-launderer in Central.  A-Hing will call the Halsteads with the dog’s location and vanish.

No sooner do I meet the famed pooch poisoner outside Perpetual Opulence Mansions than potential disaster strikes.  A black mongrel – the sort that goes well with black bean sauce and garlic – trots up to our hound and leaps on it from behind, sodomizing it with gusto and causing its blindfold to slip off, thus revealing our whereabouts.  As A-Hing lifts the assailant by its hind legs and delivers a fatal karate blow to its kidney, I drag our captive down the street.  I hand the beast back to him on a walkway over Caine Road and stand back to survey the scene.  A-Hing approaches the lamp post, ignores the ‘Wet Painting’ sign, and starts to fiddle with the leash.  At a crucial moment, the schnauzer spots its reflection in the mirrored wall of the property agency and – evidently neither recognizing nor liking the bleached and raped creature it sees – tears free and attacks itself, spitting, snarling and barking.  A-Hing, late middle-aged and not as nimble as he could be, fumbles on all-fours.  The hideous hound jumps aside with a yelp.  A red Toyota pulls up, a passenger gets out and the driver flicks on the ‘For Hire’ sign.  Before the door swings shut, our hostage sprints over and leaps in.  As the vehicle pulls away, A-Hing staggers into the road, hails another cab and tumbles in, shouting “Follow that taxi!”   Meanwhile, a group of pasty-faced, traumatized Westerners – two adults, two children – come running along the sidewalk struggling to catch up with taxi number-one under the weight of heavy Hello Kitty backpacks and screeching “Benji!  Benji!”  I glance at my watch.  It is time for work…

Sun, 5 June 2005

A lazy afternoon in the pub with wild American friend Odell.  Kevin the Australian barman personally delivers two beers.  “On the house,” he announces.  This is a first in the history of the pub outside of Christmas and Chinese New Year.  Kevin looks a bit embarrassed.  “Prices are going up,” he admits.  “By quite a lot.”  It transpires that the evil bloodsucking scumbag bastard landlord is raising the rent in a few months, and the future of this venerable watering hole is in doubt.  Club 64, the haunt of bohemians and pro-democrats, was driven out of the area by a rent hike a couple of months back.  Tai Cheung Bakery, nearby egg tart purveyors to the gentry, suffered the same fate a few weeks ago.  “Dublin Jack’s closing.” Kevin informs us.  “The landlord wants 280,000 bucks a month – that’s 10,000 a day just for the rent.  Can’t be done.  It’ll be another skin-whitening products place.”  He glances out of the door at a group of Mainland tourists strolling past, and his eyes glare.  He steps forward towards the entrance.  “Will you people fuck off!” he shouts at them.  The cluster of middle-aged, nylon-clad matrons and their chain-smoking, ill-coiffeured husbands look up in alarm at the bulky, red-faced foreigner shaking his finger at them.  Kevin marches out onto the street.  “Fuck off and take your fucking cosmetics stores with you!” he screams, as they hurriedly move on to the next delightful sight Hong Kong has to offer.

Mon, 6 June 2005

Today it is 27 degrees Celsius, or around 80 Fahrenheit – pleasantly warm by Hong Kong’s torrid summer standards.  That’s outdoors.  In the gwailo’s lair on the top floor of S-Meg Tower, it is chilly.  So much so, that at mid-morning I switch on my little electric heater to counteract the air-conditioning.  The heater came from a branch of Fortress electronics, owned by Li Ka-shing.  The electricity to run both it and the building’s air conditioning comes from HK Electric, owned by Li Ka-shing.  The vitamin C pills Ms Fang the fur-clad hunter-killer secretary hopes will relieve her sniffle come from Watson’s Your Personal Store, owned by Li Ka-shing.  Today’s newspapers’ vacuous comments about cutting power consumption come from Environment and Transport Secretary Sarah Liao, a member of the Hong Kong Government, which is owned by…

Tue, 7 Jun 2005

Many parts of Hong Kong are at a standstill this morning as residents cower indoors in fear of the troops of deranged, mutant, B-virus-infected monkeys swarming through the streets, mutilating and devouring everything in their path.  Meanwhile, on the placid, simian-free Mid-Levels Escalator, Hong Kong’s curious-minded and intelligent middle class bombards me with questions about Dublin Jack’s, the gwailo haunt whose premises are apparently worth 280,000 dollars a month.  “It’s an Irish pub,” I explain as we pass over the place.  “That means the staff say ‘bless you madam, may all your sons be bishops’, as they serve customers potatoes, baked beans and boiled mutton.  Mostly, people go there to read books by Edna O’Brien and drink Guinness.”  This brings knowing nods.  For generations before the invention of Viagra, working-class Chinese men throughout Britain’s Asian empire swore by the magically restorative powers of the syrupy black beer.

But that’s all of little interest to my neighbours.  The rent – that’s the thing.  The owner of the building can eject this seedy establishment and its obese, alcoholic Western clientele and ask for over a quarter of a million per calendar month!  A quarter of a million for doing what?  Absolutely nothing whatsoever!  From the street below us, we hear Hibernian-accented howls of anguish – “May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children pursue you over the hills of damnation, so far that the sweet Lord Jesus himself can’t see you from heaven!”  Like a pack of rabid macaques in heat, Hong Kong’s landlords are back on the rampage.  By contrast, the absentee English gentry who evicted the sons of Erin from their smallholdings in the 19th Century were amateurs.  Systematically, by the square foot, they gouge every shred of wealth out of a profitable bar and and toss the hollow corporate husk aside before moving on to the next victim foolish enough to sign a tenancy agreement.  My fellow commuters and I marvel at their good fortune.  So much easy money, and nothing to do to earn it, unless you find it hard to struggle with your conscience about rousing the undying hatred of failed entrepreneurs.  Which, wiping the saliva from our chins, we don’t.

Tue, 26 Apr 2005
The Big Boss is in a cantankerous mood in the morning meeting, berating Human Resources Manager Leung Yuk-mei for staffing S-Meg Holdings with thieves.  “The bill for toilet paper has gone up by 20 percent in a year!” he exclaims in an exaggerated tone of disbelief.  “And staff numbers have gone down 3 percent!”  He looks round at his senior management team in a state of open-mouthed shock and amazement.  We raise our eyebrows, to indicate that we share his apoplectic reaction to this threat to our corporate finances.  “This is company property, and people are stealing it!”  Ms Leung repeatedly nods – in fact bows slightly – to confess her culpability.  She claims that workforce discipline suffers when the unemployment rate falls.  If she had any sense, she would point out that as part of a cost-cutting exercise early last year, this dynamic conglomerate switched from ‘Dear Soft’ brand bathroom tissue, made under licence from a Japanese firm in Shenzhen, to the cheaper ‘Nice Day’ brand, produced by a bankrupt state-owned company in Shandong.  It was false economy, as people used more of the new, lower-quality paper.  Indeed, instead of ripping it off – so to speak – many of us started to bring our own ‘Kleenex’ or ‘Andrex’ into the office, air-freighted into Asia at great expense.

After giving Ms Leung a furious tongue lashing for everyone’s amusement, our visionary Chairman and Chief Executive insists that I accompany him on a courtesy visit to an obscure Government department that wants to be noticed by influential members of the business community.  As Parker the chauffeur expertly steers the huge Mercedes through the streets of Central, I watch the reaction of passing pedestrians as they glance in to see who we are.  They shrug off the sight of yet another famous billionaire tycoon, but show mild interest in the gwailo sitting beside him in the ‘number-two’ seat behind the driver.

As we pull up to our destination, I notice that the car park outside the building is overflowing with white Toyota saloons with bored-looking minions polishing the ‘Asia’s World City’ decals and ‘AM’ licence plates.  After being checked in by the team of smiling receptionists, we stroll down a long corridor, avoiding three women painstakingly mopping the sparkling linoleum.  The elevator attendant greets us and takes up to the 13th floor.  Two friendly flunkies escort us down another long corridor with more mop-wielding cleaners, past a typing pool full of women knitting or looking at their mobile phones, and then past a conference room in which three people are napping or reading horse racing magazines.  At the end, we pass a secretary and her assistant and enter a thickly carpeted office.  A smart-looking, middle-aged Westerner rises from his desk and greets the Big Boss warmly by name.  “Welcome to the Government Efficiency Unit,” he declares.