Reading matters

Reminiscing: Alice Poon
The Big Hotel: Learning Cantonese

Hong Kong: handover hangover

Ten years on, the natives are restless, by Daisann McLane: slate

Hong Kong: local action

Local Action, by Daisann McLane: Learning Cantonese

It's a good read. And not for the first time, Daisann mentions the book Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong, by Alice Poon. Book review: hemlock

The digested review? Poon's book explains why and how a small group of property developers became mega-rich and in the process took commanding positions in the domestic economy: buses, electricity, gas, supermarkets and other retail chains, telecommunications. . .

Even shorter? Why things are the way they are.

According to Ms Poon, Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong, which was published in 2005, is available in Hong Kong at Dymocks as well as the other retail chain bookstore Bookazine.

It's also available online at Amazon, but the Amazon resellers are asking from US$29.50 to US$38 for Used copies.

However, although Land and the Ruling Class is not listed at Hong Kong's English-language on-line book retailer Paddyfield, an email to paddyfield elicits the following:

We are pleased to inform you that we can order the book for you.
The price is HK$150.

The order is in. In the meantime, Local Action.

Hong Kong: political battlelines shifting?

Daisann McLane writes

The pro-democrats aren't squabbling over democracy, but class interests. The grassroots democrats are pulling away from the stock-portfolio owning upper-middle-class lawyers and professional democrats.

Ten years after the 1997 handover, Hong Kong's battle lines are changing. The people, and the politicians of Hong Kong have begun to focus less on Beijing, and more on the enemy within -- the collusion between home-grown tycoons and a government that exercises almost unlimited control over the city's wealth and development.

(The way this system works to choke Hong Kong's economic growth and initiative is very ably explained by Alice Poon in her great book, and by my buddy Hemlock, in his.)

Hong Kong people have figured out that universal suffrage is meaningless if Li Ka Shing and his family are still getting sweetheart land deals from the HKSAR. That the control freaks in Hong Kong's own government and civil service can be as oppressive and unconcerned with the public's rights as any Beijing bureaucrat. That you can't fight for democracy on a single front.

And so the political game is shifting, re-configuring around new issues. For instance the environment, and heritage -- issues that turn the abstract concept of democracy into something very concrete. As concrete as the four lane highway and gratuitous shopping mall which, if completed according to government plan, will obliterate downtown Hong Kong's waterfront and historic Queen's Pier.

The fight for universal suffrage is no longer taking place in a bubble but in a real Hong Kong, where the right to vote for your government isn't a defense against the excesses of Beijing, but against a clearer and more present danger. That's the difference between 1997 and 2007 in Hong Kong.

More: Learning Cantonese

Hong Kong: the naming of names

Daisann McLane writes:

You can pretty much divide Hong Kongers into generations, based on the English language names they use. Anybody over 45 will probably sport a common and somewhat archaic British name like Margaret, Grace, Gordon, Alan, Alice or, perhaps, Donald. But under 45, things start to get looser. Among 35 to 40 year olds you'll find Tiffanys, Jennys, Jackys and Eddies. Then, below the age of 35, the dam breaks open in the Chinese-to-English name game: Serendipity, Durian, Ecstasy, Napoleon.

Great read: Call Me Durian

The naming of names. Mister Bijou remembers once meeting a girl called Alcohol. Mister B queried the name, and she looked at Mister B as though he were dim-witted.

There used to be a girl who worked at a professional photo film developer and printer in Central who called herself Bad Wong. Must have been a fan of the words, music and moonwalk of Michael Jackson.

Then there was the salesman called Beatrick. He said people remembered him because of his name. He was right.

That's enough. Please read Daisann.

Hong Kong: daai seng, the big sound

Daisann McLane writes:

I am in the middle of having a brain operation without anesthesia and a mad surgeon is holding a power drill millimeters from my skull. Oh, wait. The damn jong sau is still going on in flats 15A and B. Here at Profitable View Court, we tenants are living in renovation hell. Every morning at 9am, the construction crew arrives. At exactly 9:15 they finish drinking their naaih cha, plug in the power drills, and the daai seng, the big sound, begins. I'm jarred out of sleep, my head starts to throb and my chest feels like it will explode from the stop-and-start whining and hammering.

Great stuff. To read the rest, please go here: Learning Cantonese