Lesley in Hong Kong

A Poem

 

How HK Expat Zeitgeist are you?

 

Are you whole house, or top floor
Duplex living, out in DB or Midlevels, are you moving
near the tunnel, with your soft top
Is the school good, and the teachers
Do you zumba, or play netball
Is it Curves, when you've got time

Majong or to Shehnzen, with mainland and congestion

Are you android, or just wireless
on your iphone, makes you feel good
Are you connected, on Facebook, or Skyping
back to home town, do they know you?
in the real time, would you go home, if you knew where

 

Immigration, with the masses

Have your thumb print, and the forms filled

Is it legal can they do that – can you make me?

Are you public, red taxi on the metre

Get a good price, if you ask him

Did you say that?  Did you get there?

Were you on time, is it faster

Is it OK, to be scathing, international or the locals

 

Are you aware that you are living on the edge of a communist regime with a woeful human rights record and a demographic transition interconnected with commercialism on a global scale?

 

Do you have - an air purifier

And a maid from Manila

Is she on time,  keeps your house clean,  an accountant

Does she cook, for your husband can she massage

Pick out presents, for the play dates

Comes in handy for the handoffs

On Sundays, do you miss her

 

After Christmas, can you pay it

Does your bonus really cut it

Did you weekend in The Hyatt, was the buffet as expected

Fizzy white wine from New Zealand,

With the sushi and the chocolate, not from Hong Kong

Always imports, is it hep B you recover from

 

Local media, do you see it

Can you miss it,

RTHK in a time warp

The advice from Legco

Be happy and be nice, to your family and the dentist

Use a cliché if in doubt.

So I guess what I’m kinda asking
While I’m kinda multi tasking
Is how freakin Zeitgeist are you?

 

Illegal Structures in the New Territories

There has been a flurry of activity in the local Hong Kong press recently on the topic of so called 'illegal structures' and the blind eye that is metaphorically turned when residents of 700 square foot apartments get ideas of making their life better and giving themselves a little more space.  The press have conjured up headlines such as:-

Government Faces Pressure over Illegal Structures

Rural Roofs spur double-standard rap

Limited Agreement offered on Illegal Structures

But the fact remains that way back in 1972 the 'Small House Policy' came into force allowing indigenous males the right to build a 'small house' in the New Territories.  Under this policy, a person over 18 years old who is descended through the male line from a resident in 1898 of a recognized village in the New Territories in Hong Kong may apply to the authority for building a small house on a suitable lot once in their lifetime. 

Not surprisingly, for Hong Kong,  the rules that came with this policy are typically baffling and obstructive to anyone with an ounce of creativity or common sense.  What has been constructed as a result of this policy are masses of identical, ugly, houses in a mock 'Spanish' style.  All are three stories and all are 700 square feet per floor because... these are the rules.

We are now into 2011 but anyone who wants to build a new house or renovate an existing badly designed village house is restricted by the rules that exist because they exist.

Ecofriendly Houses

There are many examples globally of good design and sustainable living where materials and specifications blend in with the traditional style and scenery of the area.  Houses where the design takes into account growing families and the need for storage, efficient heating or cooling systems as well as appreciation of the way a typical family operates with need for privacy as well as spaces to interact.

Bad Design

What we have here in the New Territories are ugly, badly designed living spaces that are freezing cold in the winter with no appliances supplied to heat or cool the space.  Air conditioners knocked into walls as an after thought causing noise and drips.  More often than not the kitchens are simply a bench and any appliance such as a fridge or, wait for it, an oven, may not even fit into the designated area.  There is no whisper of storage space for kitchenware or clothing in any room.  If a family has an idea of washing their clothes at home then fitting a machine into the house will be looked upon as some alien weird idea so the only place to have one is OUTSIDE.  Yes its true.  You have to put your ELECTRIC washing machine on the balcony or on the roof and hope that it doesn't short circuit during rain storms.  I know you can buy washing machine covers from Japan Home Stores but come on, when did that start to become acceptable?

There is a lot of hot air and fuss being created about so called illegal structures in the New Territories when all residents want to do is improve their living space which was badly designed in the first place and too small.  Instead of fixating on old and outdated rules about the small house policy we should be accepting of the fact that it is possible to be flexible and allow differently designed houses that have humans who occupt them and the way we live in the 21st century in mind.

The very idea of restricting people to a smaller space when they have a rooftop available to them is draconian. 

Instead of harking back to a time when there were no illegal structures on rooftops the government should be employing creative architects who can move with the times, build sustainable housing for the population and start approving building plans that show initiative with appreciation for resources and human beings.

 

 

The Internet and me, a work in progress.

Dumber

Does the internet make us stupid?

It seems quite hypocritical of me to write a blog which is anti Google.  To write anything and publish it on the internet for all to share and read while at the same time be full of doubt and worry and concern about whether it makes us stupid could make me stupid too?

 But I am genuinely worried.

 
Click Here

Is the capability of finding information at the click of a button  really the best way to run ones life?

 Who is Accountable?

The number one question has to be about trust.  Do you trust the information you are taken to?  Is it up to date?  Is it ethical?  Is it accountable?  Newspapers can be taken to Court for slander or liable if they do not report the truth.  They are accountable whatever you think of them, even the News of the World  or even South China Morning Post (actually I need to check that!).   But any old slapper can write an article and whack it up on a  website and pass it off as being true.  People can pretend to be someone else and actively try to hide their identity.  (My name IS Lesley Croft btw).

Close Your Lid

As a teacher of students who all have their own MacBook on their desk and have the capability of googling anything.  I suspect that they have all become completely addicted to their computers and are a bunch of slovenly layabouts who can't even do any thinking for themselves. The recent best seller by Nicholas Carr called The Shallows  suggests that the use of the internet is altering the way we think and we have become less able to digest large and complex amounts of information such as...books.  Are we now a world of 'slacktivists'.  More about Nicholas Carr

"Should we reintroduce the death penalty?" I ask my class in an attempt to spark a discussion where opinions will be flying around the room like electricity. (not meant to be a pun)

Then I find a student who has typed the question into google and sets about opening up the squillion results to find the right answer.  FGS (I'm not sure if that is a cool and hip acronym to write, like LOL, but For God's Sake comes natural to me so I feel it is worthy of a FGS).  Use your own brain I yell!  Close your lid!

Shirley Turkle has expressed much the same concerns in her book, Alone Together Why we Expect more from Technology and Less from Each Other.  Because when it boils down to it using the powerful tool that is the internet via your lap top or your blackberry or your iphone is just you, in a room alone.  You/we/me enjoy the contact and communication and sense of sharing we can get through the power of the internet.  As humans we want to share and we get immense enjoyment out of sharing.  This must be true otherwise why would Facebook or Twitter or the capability to comment on any random YouTube video be so popular?   But would we enjoy it more or less if we had that face to face communication as easily. In this world of social networking just how sociable are we really?

Hello FB Friends!  Come to my party

So if I was in a real live room with all my real live friends on Facebook would I be so keen to like them or comment on their new hat or latest holiday snaps?  I predict there would be lots of moments of awkwardness, perhaps a few stifled yawns where the latest photos of their latest meal would get the better of me.  Would I really be able to show the same enthusiasm towards their beautiful wife on her birthday.  In the past those sentiments would only be shared in a personal birthday card which would stand on the sideboard.  Now everyone gets to read it!   I would struggle to remember names.  And there would be at least one full-on-punches-and-everything-thrown fight, quite a few slanging matches not to mention one or two intimate, yet flirtatious, conversations in a few dark corners.  And because all of these people are my friends I would be responsible for such an event and be the one who is blamed for the disaster that would be a party.

Those Where The Days

In my day when there was no internet or mobile phone or even a phone in the house.   What did I do?  I watched the three available channels on the telly, once they came on in the evening.  Before that I read as many Enid Blyton books as I could get my hands on.  I knocked on the doors of my friends to see if they wanted to come out to play.  All friends lived no more than 100 yards away.  When the local paper came I read that and found out what was happening in the area approximately of a 50 mile radius of where I lived.  For a change we would walk to the chip shop, sometimes we would have money to buy chips.  When I got older and could venture to Stockton to buy music I brought home 45rpm singles and played them on repeat with the arm back on the record player so I would learn them by heart (ask me to sing Puppy Love by Donny Osmond).

You know what, it was boring compared to the information sharing, movies, music and breaking news we have available to us now so perhaps this 'real world' that many hark back to is an illusion and just never really existed?  Being in a room alone with a computer seems much more attractive to being in a room alone with a Danset record player and a Donny Osmond 45.

 

What do you hate?

As I mature and develop into a much wiser human being (that just means I'm getting old) I now know there are things I just don't like.  At some point there will be things you only think you don't like but may not have actually tried them.  But as the years go by and more experiences are open to you, you have opportunities to try different things.  You can't like everything can you? 

By the process of elimination I now have a very definite list of things I don't like, dare I say, hate?

So here is my worst case scenario.

I am alone on a boat.

The toilet facilities involve squatting.

The only thing to eat is tinned tomatoes with brown sauce and piccalilli.

The tv remote has broken and the only programme I can watch is Extreme Makeoverr Home Edition.

I only have access to the South China Morning Post without the letters page and The Sun.

When not watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Sky News I have to play Monopoly.

The only beverage is espresso.

I am visited at night by a rat.

 I am visited occasionally by a rotweiler.

The sun is burning hot and I have no suncream or shade but my feet are in a cold draught all the time.

The only decoration on the boat is a picture of Hello Kitty.

I can listen to music but it is classical and jazz.

My clothes are all made from 100% polyester.

The only cooling device is a ceiling fan.

I have long hair.

Sometimes I am allowed off the boat, say if the water is too calm so I actually stop feeling sea sick, and taken on a trip where I visit a dried fish and tofu shop.

I am made to join a prayer circle.

So what makes you sick, what makes your skin crawl, what brings you out in a cold sweat?