I’ve just come back from what should have been an invigorating walk with Piles; a walk training not only the calf muscles and improving my overall well-being and benevolence, but my arm muscles as well seeing I have to drag Piles the whole way. That boy hates heat and should live in Norway, leaving balmy HK to us amphibians.
Anyway, the walk turned out not to be invigorating at all but a kind of nightmare, the reason being CARS.
Pui O on Lantau Island where I have been living for five years; no, not only Pui O, the whole island actually, has turned into some kind of haven for lazy show-offs. Not only can they not walk five meters, when they get their sacred cars (at least two per household) it has to be enormous, fkuc-off SUVs, covered in stickers saying “Save nature!”
Pui O is the countryside and has country roads. These bastards drive as if they’re on the Tolo Highway, clearly vexed at having impertinent pedestrians like Piles and me being in their personal space which they and only they own. They glower. They stare. they honk their horns. 
Here I am saving the world’s resources for their children and I get grief?
Because they can’t be arsed to ride a bike to the bus stop 200 meters away or walk, I won’t have shampoo in ten years’ time. The whole world’s everything is based on oil, but they use it like they have their own personal oil-well which will never run out, tucked away somewhere behind Park’n'Shop.
But the worst thing about cars is they’re so incredibly ugly. Everywhere I go, they are, marring the scenery, making it impossible to take photos or let the eye get a good nature workout.
Now Pui O is being swamped by pilots who, not happy being away from their planes for any amount of time, need cars the size of a Boeing 747, to feel more comfortable as they drive a bottle of laxative home from the shop.
Meanwhile the entire Pui O is looking more and more like the gigantic parking lot outside a mall for people with particularly bad taste.
And the ever helpful government doesn’t have to be asked twice: To ensure that these people and their families will soon lose the use of their legs from atrophy, our civil engineering/transport dept is building more and more roads, widening roads, flattening roads and taking away nasty trees dropping leaves on roads, all for the purpose of letting guys with cars the size of houses feel they’re living back in the States or Oz.
I’ve written about this before and no doubt I’ll get back to it again and again.
You really want to do something for your children? Don’t drive!
for once, could not agree more.
I concur with you too. I can remember when I came back to Hong Kong after have been away for about 5 years. I stayed in Pui O for a year and there were very few cars around.
The devastaing thought is that with more and more cars, there will be fewer and fewer places to scrap them all, when they wear out and breakdown and slowly rust. It reminds me of the mountain of computer monitors and other computer spare parts that have built up since the advent of the microchip and then the home computer.
Ah but I think we can help you there. Just a few islands down the road there’s a big country insatiable for any kind of scrap metal.
I don’t know why these Pui O people just let the cars sit around rotting (or whatever it is they do) when the smuggling boat from China swings around several times a week to pick up old fridges etc. Dismantling and selling car wrecks could be a nice little earner for them.
I have to say, Pui O does have something of a car graveyard thing about it. But new life! New cars! Rich people moving from DB who couldn’t afford a golf cart now have a car! Or two! Bastards. Maybe it was the deprivation that made folks go so mad.
I think one of the reasons people must have a car is that they see others getting something for free. Free anything is a big attraction and the free parking in Pui O’s case may be motivating people to buy cars and then just leave them sitting around. I know it doesn’t make much sense to spend a small fortune buying, running and maintaining a car but the desire for free parking might just be too strong for car owners who seem to lack basic intelligence anyway.
Couldn’t you encourage the water buffalo to sleep in the middle of the road more often, just to get at the drivers?
Yes there’s a thought. But a common complaint among drivers is not so much that the water buffalo SLEEP in the road, but that they take SEVERAL SECONDS to CROSS the road.
On those few seconds alone rest all the killings of water buffalo currently taking place on Lantau.
Yes I know you were joking, ah-Pete, but for the buffalo, unfortunately, it’s all deadly serious. Their survival depends on how fast they can get out of the way of bloody drivers who shouldn’t be there in the first place if they want every country road to be their own personal animal and pedestrian-free highway.
Water buffaloes shouldn’t be in Hong Kong. All land in this glorious territory is owned by the
Governmentcartels and tycoons. And if they don’t pay their rent, they don’t have the rights to stay.Simple. Yes?
Ciao!
This post was very meaningful to me. I am at a similar cross roads with my life. I have been here for about a decade.
It is sad to see the very things that people drive places for such as nature destroyed by the cars. Soon there is only parking lot and highway. All the means to get places with little room for stuff to go to. I often wonder where people are going when everything looks the same.
On the other hand, it is a vast comedy played out at everybody’s expense. The car drivers are actually suffering, too. They lose their patience and suffer each time they can’t drive as fast as possible. There is the stress of parking, rising oil prices, and so on. So I try–emphasis on try–to empathize with drivers. I agree with the other commentor that car drivers don’t seem to be that bright. I might add that they act a bit mentally ill, alternating between violent rage and paranoid hysteria. All the more to pity them, I guess.
Needless to say, I have no answers. I reckon that things will sort themselves out. We are all powerless to change the results of our collective actions.
I have been car free for a decade. I found that when you drive a car, you see the world much more differently.
Leroy said:
“I found that when you drive a car, you see the world much more differently.”
You are absolutely right, Leroy. When you drive your own vehiceley, the world is different and pleasant as you don’t have to tolerate horrible fellow passengers (on communal transport systems) with unbearable body odor and who pick their noses in public.
Thank God, whether you exist or not.
Yes, I am a private car owner (in fact two cars – including my wife’s), curse me to hell!
But I drive a Euro Standard III car that creates absolutely none (or minimum) pollution compared to the thousands of huge double-deck buses that use Government subsidized diesel (ugly quality) and create pollution and kill my children.
Let the bus companies’ owners and drivers go to deeper hell (Buddhist philosophy?) than I am designated to.
Yes, I am drinking.
Ciao!
Mighty handy this morning when it was bucketing down. Leroy, did you find that the rage and paranoia lessened when you gave up driving?
Nude King, a car driver cannot claim the moral high ground over public transport passengers. A bus may use more fuel but it may also carry 70 people. Per head, you are a worse polluter and it is you who is killing your children.
Pete (I was almost going to write “Hi, Al Gore!”),
While I will try not to argue, and I think you are referring to my other comment where Gweipo mistakenly commented on a wrong post, let me write a long comment and explain some things about pollution in Hong Kong before 1997. Bear with me.
Now I don’t know if you lived in Hong Kong during the 80s or 90s, but the air was much cleaner, the skies definitely blue, and Hong Kong skyline spectacular.
What’s gone wrong?
In the 80s there were factories in Hong Kong, not just the New Territories, but also areas like Kwun Tong and Kwai Chung / Tsuen Wan, etc. The airport – Kai Tak – was right in the middle of this small colony (at that time), and flights landing or taking off every minute.
Strangely, more people used to drive private cars back then (compared to now), as the transport infrastructure had not expanded to present levels. Now, most car owners only drive during weekends, or short distances to nearest MTR stations and/or schools.
Agreed, there were fewer tall buildings, compared to now, and tall buildings in Hong Kong seem to have mushroomed after 1997. Property cartels rule, yeah!
There were only three bus companies – KMB, CMB, and Lantao Bus Company (though the later was insignificant). And four railway lines – Island line, Tsuen Wan line, Kwun Tong line, and KCR.
There was only one cross harbor tunnel, called, well, Cross Harbour Tunnel. There were vehicular ferries, where people could drive cars or trucks on to the ferry and cross the harbor.
As I mentioned earlier, more people used to drive private cars at that time, compared to now.
And you have to agree that with all those cars, the congestions, the airport being right smack in the middle of the town, one would expect the pollution to be worse at that time, compared to now. No?
But that wasn’t the case. At the risk of being repetitive, I will say that the air was cleaner and the skies were blue. Just rent a DVD of a local (Hong Kong) Cantonese movie from the 80s and 90s and look at the outdoor scenery. Particularly the skies and the skyline. That’s your proof.
So, what changed after 1997, or even before that?
Factories relocated to nearby regions in China. And more and more factories popped up in the Pearl River Delta region. Exponential growth and boom. Yeah!
Taller and taller buildings erupted in Hong Kong seemingly almost overnight, that started creating huge wall effects.
More railway lines were built, and suddenly, after 1997, lots of new bus companies came around on the scene. It was like the Government wanted to award a bus franchise to each prominent tycoon. In fact, there are so many bus companies (also private bus companies, cross border bus companies, blah blah blah) now, that I don’t even care to count them.
Besides, most (in Kowloon and especially the New Territories) double-deck buses in town run almost empty in the afternoons. But they still maintain their 15~20 minute frequencies.
Two or three more cross harbor tunnels were constructed. The airport was relocated to Chek Lap Kok, apparently, far from the center of the town.
The shipping industry, and the Kwai Chung terminals were booming then. Now they are in decline (less re-forwarding business). There used to be more container trucks back then, lining up highways all the way from Lok Ma Chau border in the New Territories to Kwai Chung terminals. That number, now, has almost gone down to 10% of what it used to be.
But we are now experiencing pollution at worst levels. All right, blame part of it on factories in the Pearl River Delta region.
Thinking about that, also be aware that the largest power company in Hong Kong, namely the CLP – China Light and Power, creates excess power that it then sells across the border to China. Why? May I ask? This wasn’t the case prior to 1997.
Have you ever been to Tap Shek Kok in Tuen Mun, New Territories where CLP’s largest power plant is? Seen the condition of the beaches nearby? Well, I have. Many times. The beaches there were great, but only before 1995. Now, it’s trash all around. Mostly sulphur crystals and sulphur dioxide all around.
You talk about buses carrying 70 people and you agree that buses consume more fuel.
But you seem to miss my point. What kind of fuel? What grade? What quality?
How can you justify huge amounts of cheap quality and subsidized diesel that is extremely polluting as acceptable with comparatively less amounts of environmentally friendly but extremely expensive (in this city) gasoline/petrol?
Why are you taking potshots at us? If you are so concerned, why not form a team and approach the Government and force the bus companies, the power companies, and other culprits (read property cartels that build giant wall effect buildings) to do something about it?
It’s easy to single out few that drive cars in this expensive city. Same as it is easy to single out smokers with weird laws. But beyond that, does our Government, or anyone else, do anything practical about the problem? No?
So Hong Kong Government, the cartels, the tycoons, the franchises, are all super heroes. It’s them bloody bastards that drive Euro Standard cars with environmentally friendly fuel. Ha!
Note: Population in 80s and 90s – roughly 5.5 to 6 million. Today, roughly 7.x million (both periods not counting tourists in Hong Kong – everyday). More than half a million people came to Hong Kong from China after 1997. Most are dirt poor and can’t even dream of having a car.
But for some of us, car isn’t a luxury. We have non-polluting assembly lines in Dongguan, and China license plates on our cars. And we need to drive back and forth (odd factory shifts and timings – can’t use public transport). And no, I resist the cheap fuel available in China (spoils the car engines) and fill up in Hong Kong.
End of the story.
Ciao!
PS: If taxis and minibuses are forced to go for environmentally friendly fuel (gas), why not the bus franchises? And why CLP still uses outdated technology of coal fired plants that creates more pollution (that’s where the railway lines get their power from)? Think about it. Will you?