Some pointed HKFP items. An op-ed on the ill-fated waste-charging scheme, and another on the government’s plans to raise hospital outpatient fees to reduce demand…
If money is a problem, though, the government could reconsider the arrangement under which Accident and Emergency service is provided absolutely free to civil servants, former civil servants and former civil servants’ spouses.
This would have the added advantage that decisions about raising fees would be made by people who would themselves have to pay them, which always helps.
The basic problem: officials are insulated from the realities of life (housing, schools, public transport, waiting in hospitals) in an unrepresentative political process that enables them to ignore public opinion. Thus only officials of the Beijing-appointed government may organize night vibes, while ordinary folk who know how to do it can be arrested (with occasional leniency to avoid embarrassment)…
The department said officers would adopt specific, more relaxed enforcement strategies for elderly or disabled hawkers, employing a “warning first, then enforcement” mechanism, whereby prosecution would be carried out if verbal warnings were ineffective.
FEHD officers’ confiscation of a licensed 90-year-old street hawker last March drew criticism after videos of the incident circulated widely online. It was reported that she had left her cart with a relative while using the bathroom.
Chinese explorers caught, killed and ate the snake that tempted Adam into sharing the apple too. So what??
So-called “Chinese” (Han? Mongolian? Manchurian? Tibetan?) were EVERYWHERE first (according to themselves). They just never did a damned thing about it, is all.
We all know that Columbus discovered Murica. But who discovered China?
[Paul Chan] said an inter-departmental task force would coordinate the planning and execution of mega events. RTHK
The kiss of death?
Educate yourselves, barbarians!
“According to Professor Ling Hongling of Lanzhou University, the Chinese were playing golf 1,000 years ago. He says he has found a reference to a game called chuiwan – chui meaning to hit and wan meaning ball. Players used 10 clubs, including a cuanbang (equivalent to a driver today) and a shaobang (a three wood or spoon). Royalty inlaid their clubs with jade, edged them with gold and decorated the shafts elaborately.
“A description of the sport, written during the Song Dynasty (AD960-1279), has been found in a volume called the Dongxuan Records. Professor Ling says the book refers to a Chinese magistrate instructing his daughter “to dig goals in the ground so that he might drive a ball into them with a purposely crafted stick”. Golf “clearly originated in China”, he said, adding that Mongolian travellers took the game to Europe.”
‘The Independent’, January 2006
How pathetic can you get? No wonder they are blind to the fact that “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy is a natural outgrowth of their deep-seated inferiority complex. Their delusions of superiority in everything under the sun are going to lead them right back into conflict with the Japanese and others if they don’t grow up.
The cat and mouse games elderly, mostly female, ad hoc hawkers are forced to play on SSPo pavements is worthy of a series of Monty Pythonesque episodes. That they vitalize the district while promoting recycling, both policy objectives, should be supported not hounded.
If only FEHD would display the same fervour in pouncing on litterbugs and smokers tossing their poison around. It has been years since I last spotted a fine being doled out for these activities. What was the point in raising the fines?????
Didn’t the Chinese also invent “da feiji” (hit airplane) long before the invention of powered flight in the west?
@Alf Butler – Marco Polo, obviously. He also introduced spaghetti to China, thereby originating Chinese noodles. Or so the story would go according to the kind of logic we are seeing at work here.
Re Rubbish:
Fundamentally the problem is that the follow-my-leader plodder dweebs in the HKSARG still haven’t worked out that the bulk of the Hong Kong populace are at heart dodgy, quick-witted pirates. The general populace don’t so much think outside the box, as steal it then use it to hold the contents of your pockets before selling it for recycling.
Until the slow-witted dweebs work out that the folk they look down on as morons run intellectual rings around them, their policies will continue to be formulated at the current crayon-eating level of unbelievable naivety, stupidity and unworkableness.
Re Exploration: In their favour, Chinese explorers (no doubt buoyed by 5,000 years of continuous culture) were certainly the first to discover the untapped depths of bad PR lying nascent in an inconsequential St Pancras piano recital video shoot.
Jinpingmei clearly predates Lady Chatterly’s Lover by hundreds of years
@Lapsap Hui
100% agree.
Plus, the general populace despises the out-of-touch, unfeeling, interfering, condescending, iron-rice-bowl morons who haven’t got the courage or the wit to simply build a few more landfills on some of the 240 mostly uninhabited islands in Hong Kong waters.
I loved that scene in Lady Chatterly’s Lover where Lady gets taken from behind brutally by the gardener.
@Mike Hunt
The bush curator pentrates The Bush. Class selection.