Save The World Single-Handedly (warning: contains product placement and NO IRONY)

Norwegians are supposed to be both eco-friendly and environmentally conscious. There are only 4 million of them and the few there are, live among rocks and crags dressed in birch-bark and fish skins, bashing two sticks together for entertainment when they’re not chasing elk.

Or so they would have you believe.
But alas, the Norwegians, dizzy with oil money and so middle class they’re bursting obesely at the seams, are just as eager to leave a gigantic carbon footprint as the rest of the world.

A few months ago the local paper of my former hometown Trondhjem (home of the moustache) did a feature on carbon footprinteurs in Norway – who tip-toes around like a bird and who leaves an enormous, earth-shattering, future generations-killing whopper of a footprint so big you can see it from the moon.

A prominent lawyer fell into the latter category. Owning three houses, all gigantic and all with two garages each to accommodate his many cars, keeping the aircon on all the time whether for cooling or heating and flying at least twice a week, this man could keep several HK families alive for a year just by using 2% less electricity.

When asked if he didn’t think he ought to cut down a little bit, he scoffed: What’s the use! When you see how many resources the Chinese use up, his little contribution to the downfall of the planet was nothing.

True … but also not true. It’s because most people think like this intolerable geezer that the world is in such a sorry state.

Therefore I was ecstatically happy the other day to find a method whereby I (and you) can single-handedly save the world.

CitySuper sells these snazzy little shopping bags in durable nylon for only $10 a pop. They are far superior to the eco-friendly bags you buy at Wellcome and Parkie and Shoppie because they come with a little space-saving pouch:

You can keep it discreetly in your handbag if you’re a woman (the other eco-bags just take over the whole bag as soon as you turn your back) and if you’re a man you can stuff it in your wallet for extra oopmh or down your y-fronts.

And it comes in many many colours!!!!
There went the last excuse to use plastic bags, people.

The Tiniest Rant Of The Year (possibly in the universe)

As they say, those people who ask for $2 million in compensation when they fall over drunk in a bar (the barman shouldn’t have poured all those drinks) or hurt their elbow walking into a lamp-post (wrongly placed lighting apparatus, how dare they put it on the side of the pavement) or for being married to a rich guy for ten minutes (he enticed me into it against my will) – it’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing.

So when I think it’s ludicrous, appalling and teeth-shatteringly unfair that we Lantau dwellers, when getting off the ferry to that fair island just on the other side of midnight and therefore technically the next day, and that day, as now, is a holiday, “Jesus suffers hardship festival” (Good Friday) though it might be, must pay 70% more than usual to get the bus home, it’s not about the money.

It’s the principle of the thing.

At Last, A Chance To See Some Breasts

You can say what you want about South East Asia’s biggest outdoor sitting bronze English-language newspaper the South China Morning Post, and many people do.

But one thing it doesn’t do is rely on breasts to sell copy.

The local newspapers, on the other hand, are not a monopoly and therefore in strong competition with each other. They need at least one breast per front page, every day of the week, to move their merchandise.

It is by now pretty much impossible for the press to get more mileage out of the Edison Chen and the Bonkstresses saga without looking like money-grubbing exploiters of the female shape. The local media must therefore be thanking on their knees the “serial killer of South Asian appearance” who single-handedly brought the breast back to the front page by strangling women for pocket-money.

Now every front page is bursting with undulating flesh and plunging cleavages again, and the fact that their owners are
1. Prostitutes and
2. Murdered,

makes it even more tantalizing. Apparently a man has been arrested, so unless he’s innocent or a new killer strikes, the local papers will have to resort to boring old photos of jumping suicides and meat-cleaver hacked corpses again.

All we can hope for is that other celebrities have been filming each other while engaging in “sex acts” or murder, and that there are still computer technicians with social conscience who will step forward with the evidence.

Free Tibet? Yeah, Right!

Poor Chinese. For years they’ve been helping the Tibetans get rid of their backwardness and smelly culture, showering them with socialism with Chinese characteristics, sending their children, sorry, one child (after they helped them abort in the ninth month to get rid of the other ones,) to Chinese school, and generally tidied up the sorry mess of religion, nomadic lifestyle, reverence for nature and all the other crap in what the poor dears were misguidedly thinking was their country.

They give them a trainline, shops selling photos of chairman Mao and even a spanking new miniature Tiananmen Square complete with a four-lane highway in front of Potala Palace where before there was only a boring old lake.

They relieve them of their troublesome livestock and force them to, sorry, let them live in concrete tenement blocks with nothing to do but drink and live the life of Reilly all day long. They give them prostitution and karaoke bars for god’s sake.

And what do they get in return? Riots! Ingratitude!

It’s not fair. Here the Chinese have been bending over backwards year in and year out, helping and helping, giving and giving, but do the Tibetans thank them on their knees? Do they cast off the silly yoke of tradition and embrace the new and exciting world of The Mainland, served to them on a silver platter?

No they do not.
It’s buddhism this and the Dalai Lama that, prayers and pilgrimages from morning till night, as well as the irritating insistence on Tibet being a sovereign country with its own language and culture and not part of China at all. And that when the whole world knows that Tibet has always been and will always remain part of the motherland.

Just look at the way they dress for Christ’s sakes. Small wonder they can never really cut it in the Chinese world, no matter how many advantages they get. Well, it’s no more mister Nice Guy.

Now it’s out with the big guns, sorry, water cannons, to teach the ingrates a lesson. The Chinese have been patient, over-patient, with these people, for too long. Now bloggers and other right-thinking people all over the mainland are up in arms, pointing out quite rightly how the Chinese nation sacrificed all for these stubborn people, even letting Tibetans be part of the government of Tibet!!! Only as figureheads you understand, but still?

Haven’t the Chinese let them come to the National People’s Congress dressed in their funny costumes, haven’t they even trotted them out time and time again to do their quaint singing and dancing thing on national TV at Chinese New Year?

It makes you wonder, what are some people like?

Fortunately, these Tibetans who can’t see how good they have it under Chinese liberalisation are a rabid minority. With a little help they will soon come to their senses and realise that what Tibet needs, has always needed and will always need, is to be taken under the benevolent wing of the more spiritually developed Han Chinese.

The majority is glad and will always be glad, to get rid of this

in exchange for this

I think the Americans have a responsibility here. They’re helping everybody else in the world to get rid of injustice and oil, now it’s time the policeman of the world stepped in to help the Chinese get rid of the last of the Tibetan.

Burn Lantau Festival

Burn Lantau Festival, also known as Ching Ming, came early this year.
Normally coming around only on boring, predictable April 5th, this year the festivities had already started on Friday, March 14!

Yes, on that night, the entire hillside above Mui Wo, Lantau Island, could be seen festively ablaze; some people even said they could hear the crackling of a thousand trees burning to uphold sacred Chinese traditions all the way from the ferry pier, but people do like to exaggerate, don’t they.

What couldclearly be heard from the ferry pier and pretty much everywhere else, however, was the charming hum of the helicopter (see picture above) all day Sunday as it cruised merrily between the burning hillsides and the South China Sea, carrying thimblefulls of water to put out the fires.

What spoilsports, and now that we were having so much fun?

But don’t despair, people of Hong Kong: There’s still the festival of Yeung Chong – I think it is in September? By that time the forests will be cinder dry again, and fortunately, despite everyone’s earnest efforts, there are still acres and acres left to burn.

It’s a good thing that our government takes such a tolerant stance on this festive burning – I mean if I went around to these people’s flats and torched them twice a year I think somebody might take a dim view!

But this is Hong Kong, and when it comes to empty and non-productive old nature it’s only natural that Chinese Tradition must have the upper hand.

Welcome back in six months, people! Or, seeing the latest developments, perhaps you’d like it to be an all-year event, taking a break only in the rainy season, naturally.

A Bridge Too! Far Out

So! Only a few small creases to iron out before we are the proud owners of another shiny white, soon to be grey-with-pollution elephant: The bridge from a small, quiet village on Lantau (which apparently doesn’t yet have the required density of trucks worthy of a village in a world-class city,) to Zhuhai.

I’ve been to Zhuhai, and the first thought that strikes the casual visitor to that affluent, bicycle-less city is: Here is a place exhibiting an astonishing lack of urgency to acquire more air-borne particles.

Some bleeding-heart, tree hugging liberals might say the same about Lantau, but in this as in so many other things our government stands firm: Lantau has been lagging behind in the air-borne particles-stakes for too long.

The dull-brown pall hanging over young family paradise Tung Chung aside, the island just doesn’t have enough trucks spewing out emissions from illegal diesel bought in places like, yes, Zhuhai.

So it’s HK government to the rescue.

Now all Lantau dwellers will be able to enjoy the kind of air, noise and traffic density that is the birthright of everyone else in Hong Kong. Hooray.

Although the project still hasn’t been put out to tender and although the government isn’t confident that any one company will take it on (what, Cheung Kong Holdings turning down an opportunity to create jobs for the boys entirely paid for by the HK tax payer?) – when the environmental assessment is all in the box, (no prizes for guessing the result there) the job can go ahead.

So it will cost some $1,300 for a truck driver to pay the bridge toll one way, according to the figures our economists have tentatively put out. So what? As one can see from the Western Tunnel, the more it costs to drive through it, the more people will clamour to do so and the more we will have solved our traffic problems.

But if, like Disneyland, this new white elephant should be a case of “Build it and they will stay away in droves,” at least we can count on our government to foot the bill.

Hong Kong’s Excellent Solution to Problem of Troubled Neighbourhoods

You have to hand it to the Hong Kong government: They are not short on good solutions when it comes to recurring problems in troubled neighbourhoods.

Take Tin Shui Wai for example, a new town on the outskirts of the known world, built to accommodate disposessed people; you know, the jobless, the single mothers (mainly lured to HK by truck drivers and other low-income HK guys who impregnated them when they were still high-flying mistresses living in the mistress village outside Shenzhen,) the old and the infirm.

This Tin Shui Wai , instead of being the shining beacon of good town planning envisioned by the powers that be, has turned into something of a headache for our wise leaders. Its inhabitants, rather than shutting up, grateful to be given the opportunity to live in some god-forsaken ghetto with no work and unable to afford travelling to what little low-paid work there is, have shown themselves to be rabid suicides, stubborn wife-killers and enthusiastic child-defenestrateurs.

However! Today’s South China Morning Post carries an article about how our infinitely wise government, I’ll say that again, “legislators and top fung shui masters,” plan to solve the many problems Tin Shui Wai residents face.

They will erect a nine storey fung shui tower.

Excellent! Out of work? Rent and transport to work costing more than your salary? Husband beating you senseless? Wife throwing kids out the window?

Build a fung shui tower!!!

Would the legislator behind this brilliant idea by any chance be the same one who, a few weeks ago, suggested that the problems of Tin Shui Wai could be solved by changing the town’s name?

Hong Kong’s Excellent Legal System

A snippet from yesterday’s South China Morning Post: A policeman and his wife (of course not “an accountant (or whatever) and her husband”) have been arrested for assaulting their domestic helper.

Apparently, and of course, “allegedly” the couple had been imprisoning the Indonesian maid in their flat for six months and beating her with “hands, knees and slippers” as well as depriving her of food, because “she didn’t take proper care of their nine month old daughter.”
Way to go, people: to ensure superior treatment of your child, beat up the helper!

This woman is shown in a photo with cuts on her face as well as bruises, and according to witnesses, a “swelling on her face the size of a fresh egg,” whatever size that might be. I think: Rather large.

It is interesting and a good example of how Hong Kong’s legal system has improved since the handover, to see that this slap-happy couple is immediately released on bail, whereas for example the guy who (allegedly) showed the world that Hong Kong celebrities engage in (shock horror) sex acts was held in custody for two weeks without bail and without being charged with any crime.

In a different case, another Indonesian maid (so much more malleable than the irritating, feisty Filipinas, wouldn’t you say? ) was found hacked to death, a piece of news relegated to the “dog run over by irate trucker” pages way at the back of the paper and never mentioned again. Meanwhile everything to do with Edison Chen’s pecker has been commanding front page coverage for a month.

Man posts nude pictures on internet: Locked away forever! Couple keeps woman as slave and beats her up: Out on bail immediately! Nobody can say the HK legal system doesn’t work well.

It reminds me of the time a couple of years ago when someone suggested we should have an anti-racism law in Hong Kong. True to form, the government put the thought out to tender, as in, they sought public consultation in the new caring, sharing HK government way. And who (whom) did they consult about the alleged racism in Hong Kong? The Chinese Chamber of commerce, where no non-Chinese is allowed to be a member. Allegedly.

Not very surprisingly, this hallowed Chamber declared that racism doesn’t exist in Hong Kong. So that’s okay then.

Pretentious Wankers

I’m a member of WIPS, Women In Publishing Society, and every year we publish an anthology of our work called IMPRINT. So far, so product placement. This year the Imprint launch will take place on Tuesday next week in the pretentiously named dragon -i (no capital letter there I’m sure) in Central – the kind of place where you have to push vigourously on all the walls to find the toilet doors.

Imagine my surprise when, after having convinced a large group of people to pay $150 to come and see me get a free copy of the book, I received the following email from the organisers of the launch, stating that dragon- i was the most sophisticated establishment we’d ever met in,

” … so discreet and sophisticated, in fact, that the manager requests that we have no queue at the door and entrance fees be handled unobtrusively. We ask therefore that to speed up registration you kindly bring the exact amount for entrance.”

What the screaming hell? Are they afraid that some supermodels will spot us queuing at the door and turn away in disgust, never to return again?

Are they afraid, in fact, that we’ll look like real, normal people, the kind of people who would normally not go to dragon-i, and ruin their business for ever?

I immediately told my friends to dress in wooden clothes, smear dirt all over their faces and hair and linger by the door all night, bringing the entrance fee in coins which they would then proceed to count out slowly and loudly and with much scratching of their flea-ridden bodies.

So we’re good enough to bring in the revenue on a slow Tuesday evening but not good enough to be seen doing it?!?

It’s quite telling that the management of “drag – I???” only at this late stage has chosen to inform their paying customers about the door-entering etiquette of their establishment.

If they had done so sooner, I think any self-respecting writing society would have taken their good business elsewhere, and stuck not a few middle fingers up the dragon management’s pretentious, self-conscious face into the bargain.