…a medley of extemporanea. And it continues today with news to cheer the heart of the most morose and depressed Hongkonger: a calamitous plunge in the number of tourist arrivals…
(The article refers to something called ‘National Day’ holiday – tucked away out of sight on this coming Saturday in Hong Kong, but apparently a big week-long excitement in the Mainland.)
This is a fairly frequent story. The pro-tourism landlord-bureaucrat complex likes to spread alarm at the slightest sign that the swarms of suitcase-draggers and selfie-stick zombies might undergo any, even microscopic, decline. We are still talking of dozens of millions of visitors in excess of the city’s capacity per year, and we are still waiting to see serious numbers of gold and watch shops’ owners starve to death on the streets. But the 9.4% drop reported here raises the delightful prospect of more ‘dashed hopes’ for this most disruptive of our cherished parasite-industries.
One problem is an entire bureaucracy dedicated to cramming more tourists in as fast as local resistance and market forces can get rid of them. It is because of them that we have such inanities as ‘Formula E’ – something to do with car-racing in the middle of Central. We must have ‘events’ at all costs. Is there anything that might cure the cautious, play-safe, conservative pro-tourism establishment of this obsession with attracting a constant stream of mindless circuses to our overcrowded town? Some sort of aversion therapy to induce them to recoil in horror at the whole idea of hosting ‘events’? It just so happens that maybe there is…
Many, many years ago, some cool and trendy lawyers started a hip new political party. One of its members, Ronny, later started a new grouping called Path to (of?/for?/from?) Democracy, which would attract millions of votes because the time had come for moderate, sensible, middle-of-the-road builders of bridges who would form a mild and acceptable centrist silent-majority bloc between the pro-Beijing slime-bag shoe-shiners and the pro-freedom/law/decency maniacs, although nothing happened because the voters mysteriously failed to materialize. Many of us often ask: whatever happened to Ronny? The Standard’s celebrity-property correspondent tells all…
Until you have a space-consuming granddaughter yourself, zipping around the house like a Formula E driver in Central, you have no right to judge.
And just when you thought life couldn’t get any better, the Singapore government and Global Times are trolling each other…
I would like to comment on the Ronnie and Daisy Tong acumulation of money, as aSenior Counsel and a partner in Deacons, as representative of the huge overpayment of many lawyers in HK but have no doubt I would be “moderated”. Bit poor however that de facto legal aid (party and party) not changed for 20 years, and yet those like the Tongs can get away with whatever “the market will bear” from their commerical , insurance and fat cat clients.
Hemlock likes to challenge certain aspects of Hong Kong. Here is a suggestion . Cap ALL lawyers fees, maybe at the annual rate of “benefits” of a senior bureaucrat.
Off topic. In reply to my latest moan to Private Eye, about late/none delivery, I am informed there are “nearly 300 subscribers” to PE in HK. Where are they all?
and that in a nutshell is why the likes of Tong did sweet f.a. for 20 years regarding the property cartels. I bet Emily Lau has retired with a nice portfolio of property as well.
Would LOVE to see Sing government go after Global Times with a slander/libel lawsuit much in the way they get opposition and dissent shut down.
Oh the irony is palpable!
while you were reading The Standard pile of offal, did you notice their report of the long stream of delayed benefits keeps rolling on for our crooked cops?
With a list this long, who hasn’t corrupted Tang?
You are right. I see empty shops everywhere.. A big crash is coming. The grandees have run out of ideas. yhey might have to cater for the poor sods known as locals with supermarkets, cafes, bookshops…or even turn the boutique hotels and shopping malls into cheap flats. Maybe the citizens will win in the end. By default of course, the worthless idle cowardly scum.