Hong Kong: Legislative Council Questions

Some of the questions (and answers) from the LegCo meeting of Wednesday, 17 January 2007:

LCQ3: Assistance for persons in need during cold spells
LCQ9: Counterfeit Renminbi banknote
LCQ20 : Regulating village vehicles

Reading matters

Lurking in the Blogosphere of the 1840s -- Hotlinks, sockpuppets, and the history of reading, by Meredith L. McGill: common-place

Connexions? We have connections (update)

Connexions? Noun, chiefly British: dictionary

It was only after the earthquake off the southern tip of Taiwan on 26 December 2006 severed IDD and Internet links that users hereabouts learned most international telecommunications are routed eastwards along undersea cables through the Luzon Channel and onto (and through) the USA -- regardless of final destination.

For the American security services, this long-established eastbound routing has, since at least post-9/11, proved to be a a mighty useful facility in their so-called War on Terror. How so? Because of the routing of a good chunk of international telecom traffic through continental USA they are able to scan and sniff most such telecom traffic emanating from the Far East, easy-peasy. But I digress.

In the Far East, connections on Ye Olde Internet have been restored.

Yet accessing some web sites can be grindingly slow -- most especially of an evening when local traffic congestion is at its most congested. It doesn't look as if things are going to improve any time soon:

Workers couldn't apply any electrical technologies or dispatch a robot, as the damaged cables are 4,000 meters deep under the water, said John Walters, general manager with Global Marine, one participant in the repair.
It will be a long time before Internet access is fully recovered between Asian and the US as workers are using "technologies of the 19th century to solve problems of the 21st century," Sina.com said today.
Workers have to adopt a method used in the 19th century to identify the location of the slender cables, whose diameter is about 21 centimeters, Walters said.
---
No single cable has been fully repaired till now, Walters said.

Read more? Repair lags over poor equipment, weather: Shanghai Daily Thanks, Gavin!

Hong Kong: Year of the Pig -- postage stamps

What breeds of pigs? Haven't a clue. All Mister Bijou knows is Hong Kong's Year of the Pig postage stamps feature four plump pigs and, according to Hongkong Post, a "spirited" piglet. Stamps available 4 February 2007. Details here: hkpost

This year, Chinese Lunar New Year is a bit later than usual in the Western calendar. Chinese Lunar New Year Day is 18 February 2007. Oh, Chinese Lunar New Year holiday period hereabouts is Saturday, 17 February to Tuesday, 20 February 2007 (inclusive).

Hong Kong: Tunnel vision

Fascinating exploration around Hong Kong's Central Business District and Government offices:

Hong Kong’s financial and government leaders have traditionally been based in the Central district, so it’s no surprise that the area was given several air raid tunnel shelters in the lead up to the second world war. Can you still see any sign of them? Let’s take a look.

Air Raid Precaution (ARP) tunnels in Central: batgung

George Carlin: Modern Man

For the weekend, a guilty pleasure.

George Carlin (69) is in fine form, he's a modern man:

Eye | Land | View

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Night time, public pier

Hong Kong: Legislative Council Question Time

Some of the questions (and answers) from the LegCo meeting of Wednesday, 10 January 2007:

LCQ3: Three-pronged strategy adopted to combat street deception activities
LCQ14 : Roads works at Tung Chung Road and South Lantau Road
LCQ19 : Designation of marine park plan

Eye | Land | View

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Once upon a time on a little island in the South China Sea, old people and parcels were treated much the same: ferried about on crude trolleys, like the one on the left.

Thankfully, those days are no more. For people, anyway. Wheelchairs have become commonplace (usually powered by a Filipino), while the more affluent and independent have the run of the island on their electric-powered wheelchairs. Good for them!

Oh. that electric Esso "truck"? Used for delivering LPG bottles, the primary energy source for firing up the wok and other cooking needs.

Hong Kong: Grass Temperature at Ta Kwu Ling

Late afternoon, the harbour of a little island in the South China Sea. Fine, dry, low humidity, blue sky, warm, a day to be out and about. . .

But with the prompt setting of the sun (around 6pm), the temperature plummets -- from 17.3C to what is now 11.9C.

There are colder places hereabouts. For instance, there's somewhere called Ta Kwu Ling. Apparently, it's in the New Territories. It's not yet midnight and the temperature there has already dropped to 4.5C. Maybe there'll be frost there in the small hours?

Why Ta Kwu Ling? Why so cold? Google -> Wikipedia -> Ta Kwu Ling

Hong Kong Observatory: Grass temperature at Ta Kwu Ling

NB: "This webpage displays the grass temperature during the period 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. the following day. It is updated every 10 minutes. The grass temperature during the period 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. is not displayed. The measurement may not truly reflect the grass temperature due to direct exposure of the sensor to the sun."

Since frost is so rare in Hong Kong, it is a matter of some import -- people will drive out in the middle of the night to places such as Ta Kwu Ling or even climb one of the many peaks in the New Territories to view the frost, touch it, photograph it. You might do too if you grew up in a place which is mostly warm.

Postcard from the edge (bis)

Further to this previous post. Here are two other members of the Brighton branch of a little island in the South China Sea on their hols in the Carpathian Mountains. Thanks, Gavin!

Zoe Keating: Legions

For the weekend, a guilty pleasure.

Zoe Keating, cellist:



There's more in a similar vein on her album One Cello X 16: Natoma: Zoe Keating

Life of Brian

Not Monty Python's Life of Brian, but the other Brian, Brian Clough. Cloughy the soccer player, alcoholic, football manager of Hartlepool United, Derby County, Brighton & Hove Albion, Leeds United (for 44 days in 1974) and, of course, manager of Nottingham Forest for eighteen years.

Now this:

Released without fanfare in the summer, David Peace's novel The Damned Utd became the sleeper hit of the year. Tracing Brian C[l]ough's 44-day reign at Leeds United this tour de force offers a compelling insight into the mind of a footballing genius, proud father and legendary drinker.

That's the opener -- complete with a Gruaniad typo -- for a great review of the book The Damned Utd: Guardian

Thanks, Fat Buddha!

Eye | Land | View

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One of the three sets of doors of the fire station on a little island in the South China Sea.

Hong Kong: A different pair of glasses

Hong Kong labour activist Au Loong-Yu was born in Hong Kong in 1956. Au describes growing up in Hong Kong, Hong Kong's Maoists, Trotskyists and anarchists in the 1970s, June 4 1989, the impact of Chinese sovereignty on the former British colony, Pacific Rim protests against the WTO, and mobilizing around the 2008 Olympics. A taster:

British rule in the postwar era can be divided into two periods either side of 1971. In the earlier period, there was a form of spatial apartheid—the Tai Ping Shan area was restricted to Westerners—and conditions were much more oppressive: working hours were long, wages low and strike activity ruthlessly suppressed by the colonial government. National oppression took a very visible form: nearly all high-ranking posts were occupied by Brits, and English was the only official language; at school, we would be refused permission to go to the bathroom if we didn’t ask in English.

The British clamped down hard on the labour movement after the 1967 events—perhaps 4,000 or 5,000 trade unionists were sacked, and thousands put in prison. This took a toll from which the Maoist unions never recovered. Nevertheless, by the early 70s, pressure had begun to mount on the British, both from within and from without, to make some reforms in order to maintain any legitimacy. Hong Kong students and social activists were agitating for Chinese language rights, and against the possible transfer of Diao Yu Island to Japan. A key turning point came on 7 July 1971, when the colonial government harshly repressed a demonstration by radical nationalist youth movements. A wave of further protests ensued, and the government was forced for the first time to permit demonstrations. After that student groups mobilized with some success against official corruption, and in 1973 pressured the government into forming an Independent Commission, which continues to function. Externally, China’s rising international status — its assumption of a Security Council seat in 1971, Nixon’s visit and so on — was an important factor pushing the British into granting limited political freedoms.

New Left Review

Postcard from the edge

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Some members of the Brighton branch of a little island in the South China Sea enjoying the tail end of 2006. Where? In the Carpathian Mountians, Translyvania. One of them even has a travel leaflet. That's Romania, right? Thanks, Gavin!

Desolation Row: They're selling postcards of the hanging

A Hanging, by George Orwell:

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working — bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming — all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned — reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone — one mind less, one world less.

Orwell library

Eye | Land | View

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Still life

Hong Kong: I Ching, Book of Changes

Hexagram 54, 歸妹 Kuei Mei / The Marrying Maiden -> Hexagram 1, 乾 Ch'ien / The Creative
Source: afpc

Bonne année!

Tout le monde! Bonne année!