The government’s new tourism blueprint – looks a lot like all the existing banal initiatives bundled up into one document, plus something called ‘bleisure travel’. Eco-tourism, mega-events, East-meets-West culture, ‘coastal platforms’, pandas, Lantau, Lamma, hotels, spas, horse-racing, cruise tourism, and so on. Whole thing here. The objective is to create jobs, which might need to be filled by imported workers (don’t ask).
A social worker loses his licence for five years for national security reasons. Security Secretary Chris Tang talks of the struggles he endured while working on the Article 23 legislation…
“I remember the time when I suffered from inflamed eyes due to a lack of sleep. My frozen shoulder and gout also relapsed. However, witnessing all my colleagues tirelessly working day and night, I forgot about these minor inconveniences. At that time, none of us could even keep track of how many takeaway meals we had,” he said.
“We were driven by a determination to face challenges head-on, so we persevered. Eventually, the legislation was passed unanimously, allowing me to feel truly honoured to have completed this historic mission hand in hand with my comrades. Upholding national security is our mission. Promoting national security and patriotic education is also our duty.”
Another quote from HKFP…
“I faced slander, attacks and threats from the outside…”
Can’t resist mentioning the all-you-can-eat hotpot/buffet at the Aquatic Market in Tsuen Wan Plaza (I think they have a branch in Kowloon Bay as well). The deal is around HK$380 per person for two hours, during which time you get unlimited beef, lamb, chicken and grilled stuff (for the first 90 minutes), and shellfish, sliced fish, live prawns, fish maw, squid, greens, mushrooms, noodles, fishballs, soup refills, sauce components, etc that you collect yourself at the supermarket-type shelves for the hotpot, plus equally unlimited all-you-can-consume soda, juice, beer, shochu, ice cream etc, etc from 7-Eleven-size fridges. Think I saw salad.
Obvious question is: how does the company make money? Obviously, the ingredients are not top-quality (though not terrible, either). The place is massive, serving hundreds of families and groups, so presumably they rely on high volume. They could cut corners on staff, but there are lots of them constantly delivering the meat (ordered on an app) and carrying away empty plates. And they are – by Hong Kong standards – quite friendly, which suggests they are not too undermanned.
The customers are certainly having fun. Even if the food is not top-of-the-range, there is something almost hilarious about thousands of square feet of tables full of raucous happy Hongkongers determined to eat more than they pay. My party was a bit disorganized, but seasoned professionals seem to come with choices of ingredients already planned, and then assign people to urgently gather them all up. Deserves four stars for the people-watching.
There is nothing like a decadent all-you-can-eat hotpot/buffet when you are suffering from gout like National Security hero PK. Go for it PK, you deserve it!
How can the resto make money? Knowing Honkies as I do, they will over-order everything, then return half full plates of food because even they can’t keep up. Then the left over food gets recycled into new plates for the next table. Sometimes you have to be creative.
Tourism blueprint’s goal is to make the sector 5 percent of the economy. Presumably this will be achieved by further sucking the life out of everything else by crowding the streets with mainland pestilence?
Oh and in case anyone fails to get the message, they’re going to import more mainland ‘talents’ to further increase the rents and encourage every productive human being to leave.
Will be 100 percent of the economy soon, just like those fake Shanghai-La places up north. Great success!
“The deal is around HK$380 per person for two hours, during which time you get unlimited beef, lamb, chicken and grilled stuff (for the first 90 minutes), and shellfish, sliced fish, live prawns, fish maw, squid, greens, mushrooms, noodles, fishballs, soup refills, sauce components, etc that you collect yourself at the supermarket-type shelves for the hotpot, plus equally unlimited all-you-can-consume soda, juice, beer, shochu, ice cream etc, etc from 7-Eleven-size fridges. Think I saw salad.”
I’ll bet some all night Article 23 legislatin’ sessions were done at this restaurant, directly contributing to poor Chris Tang’s inflamed eyes and relapse of frozen shoulder and gout.
“the legislation was passed unanimously.” Seriously? He HAD to add that as if it hung precariously on a limb for fear of resistance and opposition???? The f**kwits really have zero sense of optics or irony, do they?
Don’t worry Chris. I bet you got yourself down the local public hospital and jumped the queue like all the other civil servants who have life threatening conditions like yours.
Hemmers!
You really have excelled yourself today.
Your last three paragraphs constitute by far the most harrowing description of hell since Dante.
What a read! My eyes became quite inflamed.
GOUT, “the disease of kings” and rotund dictators.
Reading of the travails of poor Chris Tang I find myself pondering whether Comedy Revue/Burlesque might usefully be added to the list of too-good-to-fail tourism activities.
“Deserves four stars for the people-watching.”
I used to be thoroughly entertained and a bit shocked with mouth agape at the behavior of customers at a western style buffet restaurant in Shanghai in the late ’90s. Needless to say, the restaurant had a decent little run as a novelty but didn’t last long.
I hear things have gotten a bit more 文明/civilized at buffets, especially in 5-star hotels there BUT when one offers giant snow crab legs, all bets are off, keep your arms and legs safely tucked in and prepare for the onslaught of marauding grannies and aunties unleashed from the depths of Hell!
Do they really have to encourage tourists to visit the outlying islands? They are one of the few places we can go to get away from them.
Bounty
These troubled days
I pause and gaze
At our troubled planet,
My mind a ranger
Over the danger
Always lurking in it.
In the SAR
It seems we are
Greatly under threat.
Some troublemakers,
Demonstrators,
Are not in prison yet.
Armed with a phone
They plot alone
To hurt the motherland.
Acts forbidden,
Criminals hidden
In another land.
Our leaders say
Prepared to pay
One hundred thousand dollars.
This ‘bounty’ claim
Stains Hong Kong’s name
And shows its darkest colours.
Does anyone else recall the classic buffet scene (shot at the Hopewell Centre) in the classic canto film “Mr. Coconut”?
No, I don’t remember the scene in “Mr. Coconut”. But I do remember the scene that happened after the shareholders’ meeting of Cheung Kong Holdings in 1987. In those days the company would lay on a free-for-all buffet for the shareholders. After all they “owned” the company. When the doors opened to the ballroom, the Hong Kong hoi-polloi charged in en-masse, plastic bags at the ready, and they would literally empty plates of smoked salmon, cooked shrimps and sushi into their bags and take it home.
PK Tang’s reasoning for why the uric acid in him is giving him grief again is just like when he goes on about national insecurity: dropping his pants to pass wind.
The preferential treatment those employed in the public sector enjoy from the Hospital Authority wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t (literally) so painfully aware of how it seems the HA hopes I will PK myself before they get around to helping cure what ails me.
Lunch at the Aquatic Market is an even better deal.
Dunno if the Golden Whatever in Sheung Tsuen still does an all-you-can-eat… because of her childhood experience of the deprivations during 3-Years-8-Months, the boss charged customers more if they didn’t finish a dish.
The Mr Coconut scene mentioned I believe is what can be seen ~26:00 into https://youtu.be/qQjXBRboF-w
Oh, the 80s… when there weren’t bog rolls in the WCs the public were allowed to use in government offices as they’d always get nicked… when making the journey into “civilisation” to observe the skills some folks had loading a bowl at the salad bar at Pizza Hut by itself made the long journey worth it… and some pretty good music, too.
Cheers for another good one, Knownot.
May the calendar new year be better for us all. Everyone. Everywhere.
@MeKnowNothing – re “the skills some folks had loading a bowl at the salad bar”, the trick is to build a high wall of lettuce leaves around the edge of the bowl. This holds in place whatever else is added.
@Low Profile: Not true. I have witnessed “salad bowl building” at Pizza Hut as well as the American Cafe in the Eighties (frequently) and the trick is to build a dam of cucumber slices at the bottom (fortification) and “cement” the various layers of ingredients (tomato, corn etc.) with dressings. Eventually there was so much oily dressing that, if you ate it all, you would be guaranteed to get sick and throw up. So, in a sense, you would enjoy it twice. With other words: mission accomplished.
@Low Profile – Not sure if it was Hong Kong’s structural salad pilers in particular, or just a universal cost saving thing, but it was around that time that Pizza Hut stopped the whole lettuce leaves at the salad bar and used shredded lettuce instead.
When I said “..observe the skills some folks..”, I was being diplomatic. Some were better than others. Watching folks do what they do – and the outcome of their efforts – is part of the entertainment.
Lettuce leaves have a bit of “backbone” & could be stood vertically around the bowl – and more could be wedged in behind the lower level of leaves in order to shore up an even taller pile of goodies in the middle. Cucumber slices are indeed stiffer, but aren’t all that big & tend to be thicker across the entire width of the slice.
From an engineering standpoint, the lettuce-liners, IMHO, had a superior technique.
Struggling to recall all the finer details, as the trip back out to the “bush” usually was on a triad taxi. After first popping into a 7 to get two cans of Carlsberg Special Brew. The first was necked quickly in order to invoke the protection of alcohol, whilst the second was savoured during the ride along Castle Peak Road when it was still an interesting drive – sitting in the nearside front seat Coasters had back then, right next to the driver.
All this reminiscing really makes me miss the 80s.