Beijing Keeps shooting itself in the Head

Why is it that all the people in the Chinese government are such knuckle-dragging thugs?

Until Next Time
Fai Mao

A new way to create wealth in Hong Kong

I'm being sarcastic here folks.

After all why do we need another pyramid scheme here when we can, with impunity engage in insider trading just like David Li the president of the Bank of East Asia?

Holy Cow! All we have to do is invite the CEO's of big brokerage houses here and hobnob with them over cocktails and canapes.

Who needs to be able to sell kits for producing "magic cheese" to peasants when we can rig the markets so that HK investors, at least the big rich ones like David Li never lose?

More than that, why is the Human Bow Tie so concerned about his friend David that he is willing make Hong Kong an international pariah in financial circles?

David Li is a criminal. He is also if you talk to people who work at the BEA a very mean and stingy boss. He should go away. I don't care where. Maybe retire in the South of France with the other third world dictators and tax evaders.

Hong Kong may not not have the insider trading laws like most non-corrupt nation but he knew that what he was doing was unethical. He should not only be barred from the government but removed from his post as CEO of the BEA as well.

Geez, this guy makes Li Kai Shing and Nina Wong look good. The only way this story could be better is if he'd used some of the money he stole to hire prostitutes in Macao.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks Hong Kongers should get over their "Get rich quick mentality"

Me and Eric and that Woman on the Bus (Another long and rambling post)

I must confess I don’t much like cold weather. I grew up in a hot place and I enjoy the heat. I’m not really comfortable until it gets close to 30 degrees Celsius. While air pollution here is horrific and the humidity is a killer I don’t ever feel like the heat just assaults me like I did when I was a boy in Texas. The recent, by Hong Kong Standards cold weather has just made me miserable. I wish it would end and can’t help but have nightmares about the possibility of this being one of those freak years without a summer that seem to happen every 100 years or so. I can almost see the marathon runners in Beijing plodding along through the snow during the summer Olympics this year.

My grumpiness at the cold has been somewhat mitigated by my job. The new building is very nice, not drafty at all and I now have adequate work space for processing materials, and for doing all the things that school libraries should really be doing that I couldn’t do before. Indeed, if it were not for the new library I’d probably have taken a couple of sick days this week and gone somewhere warm like Phukett.

Another thing that is unexpectedly pleasant this winter is the new bus I now get to take to work. It is faster than the MTR in this case and much more comfortable in that I always get a seat. Sometimes it is just me, the driver and my MP3. I guess that not many people live in Causeway Bay and work in the Sha Tin area or if they do they go to work later than me. This bus is also nice because it doesn’t go through that hideous Hung Hom tunnel but the Eastern Tunnel. That means I don’t spend an hour on the bus in the afternoon waiting for it to enter the tunnel. It only takes about 30 to 45 minutes each way to go back and forth to work and home or home and work and that is about as fast as a car could drive the same route. The Hong Kong bus system is really amazing. I wouldn’t think that I could get a bus that goes pretty much from here to there but there it is.

I think that a nearly empty bus is a good place to be in the morning. It gives me time to think and have my morning devotions without being overly concerned about who is looking. However, my devotions have changed in the several months since I got my new bionic eyes. While I generally see much better now that I no longer have cataracts, color blindness or myopia and greatly enjoy seeing in 3D for the first time in my life there are some things my new eyes cannot do as well as the old pre-cataract surgery ones could. Two those things and they are the only two which really bother me all the time are that I am now quite far sighted which means that I require reading glasses and I can no longer read in a moving vehicle. I am now much more comfortable reading print on a screen than I am on a page. All of that means that I don’t read on the bus anymore. My morning devotions are now stints of thinking about what I’ve read other places while plugged into the MP3 so that I cannot hear the infomercials for weight loss clinics that play on the commercial video system on the bus. I guess that’s just middle age.

I’ve been thinking of late about how we change and grow spiritually as we get older. I know that some people don’t seem to change much as time goes by but I think that most people do and I think most people are better for it. I’ve also been thinking a lot about the way we hide behind codes of language and fashion to hide our flaws and how that becomes or should become less important to us as we get older provided that we are happy with ourselves.

I started thinking of this, in part because my ever lovely, gracious, looks-25 years younger than she is, hard working and really smart wife gave me an Eric Clapton CD and DVD this Christmas and I've had the CD on my MP3 for a couple of months now. Clapton is an interesting guy and his music has been intriguing to me for many years because he is someone that you can really see change and become a better person over time. I like him because he is also an anomaly in many ways in the contemporary music industry, especially when contrasted to Canto Pop singers who can make the 1980's version of Elton John look like a conservative dresser. Clapton doesn't do the big stage shows, fancy hats or weird costumes but just comes out and sings and plays. There is also an obvious spiritual element in much of his music and yes I know that sometimes, especially in the older stuff the spiritual parts are code for drug use but sometimes they don’t appear to be either.

When I was younger I’d have never used Eric Clapton in a meditative sense. I guess I was too orthodox or legalistic or whatever; but as I’ve gotten older “I Feel Free” to do so. Youth, it seems to me is often times like being in a “white room with black curtains” but those who are older know that we often time live in a world that is really shades of gray and I came to a “crossroads” several years ago and took a little less strident and to my mind more grace filled path.

I guess as I’ve grown older I’ve come to see that there might be more ways to stand in the “presence of the Lord,” and more ways of “running on faith” than I would have imagined when I was a 20 something idiot who was just walking around "after midnight" with nothing to do.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is still "Riding with the King"

Things in the World and Caring

I found out last night that a man I'd intermittently corresponded with on the Internet over the years had died. His name was Sheldon Brown and he lived in Massachusetts. It would be dishonest to say that he and I were close friends but he was someone I knew slightly through Internet user groups and respected though politely disagreed with on several issues.

Martin Heidegger wrote about how it is in caring for others that we separate ourselves from the animals and from inanimate objects. I think that is probably the truest thing that Heidegger ever said. Humans care for each other not because we have family ties or because it necessarily makes us more successful as a species in an immediate way but because we realize how much alone we would otherwise be. Other people add beauty to our lives. In at least some small way I cared for Sheldon Brown because he made me feel less alone and added beauty to my life; I hope that I did a little of both for him.

I am saddened by the death of Sheldon Brown. My world was made better because he was included in my life if only as a fellow poster on user groups that dealt with antique bicycles and bicycle touring.

I will grieve for Sheldon Brown today and weep in my own quiet way with his family. It is the caring thing to do; it is the human thing to do; it is all that I can do.

Rest in Peace Mr. Brown


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who is getting old enough to have friends die.

Ferris Wheels

They should have called this the Singapore Sling


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who would rather ride a roller coaster

Internet Sex - Hong Kong Style

This whole story is a joke.

Since when do HK Canto-Singers mind a few nude photos of themselves? Oh, I remember, these were obtained for free. If they'd been purchased from the celebritard's web sites then it would be OK.

As far as I can tell, all this scandal (The word is used in the most lose sense of the term) proves is HK signers and movie stars are about twice as immoral as the average stray alley cat and have about the same amount of body hair and fleas.

They can't sing, they can't act, and they aren't even that good looking without six pounds of makeup.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with a wife that is prettier than any of wenches in this scandal

Garlic flavored Chocolate?

I guess that this is just the stuff if your favorite food is raw fish and your boyfriend is a Sumo wrestler.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who prefers his chocolate without garlic

At least he couldn't smoke in public!

So the government was unable to find that this guy had done anything wrong but now wants to let life guards and street-sweepers give fixed-penalty fines for smoking in public.

And people wonder why I think the Hong Kong government is both corrupt and incompetant?

Anyway, happy Chinese New Year

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't like rats

Do you find this odd?

I don't find it odd at all that students with poor English skills have a harder time being accepted into a University that teaches in English. Indeed when the HKEdB changed the medium of instruction to Chinese in 1997 this was predicted.

I don't find it odd that the universities, especially HKU want to maintain English as the medium of instruction either. Indeed, given that something like 70 or 80 percent of all printed research is in English a strong case can be made that all tertiary education should be in English. English is, in that regard the new Latin. Please note, that says nothing bad about other languages. However, the arts and sciences are better served by having a "lingua franca" and English is currently that language.

I don't find it odd at all that the HKEdB would suppress a report that criticizes the decision it made to give fewer students an education in English in order to protect a few immorally overpaid running dogs and other assorted bureaucrats.

I do find it odd that more people don't see that limiting the number of students who can gain entrance to HKU and CUHK to those wealthy enough to get an education at an English school was exactly the plan. The HKEdB and the rest of the bureaucratic sycophants, aging shoe-shiners, running dogs and wealthy tycoons wanted to keep the entrance to the governance of HK in the hands of a few families, the local elite. While they might not say it publicly they believe that only those with the right breeding should lead Hong kong. One of the signs of having that breeding is that you are able to graduate from one of the "elite secondary school" that are on the Peak or in the Mid-Levels.

I have no doubt that the afore mentioned autocrats would heartily deny what I've just said being true. I would counter, look at who gets government jobs, what universities did they attend? What secondary schools did they attend? Did their families have either money or some other connection to the British? Now look at the secondary schools that are currently sending young scholars to HKU and CUHK, do you see a pattern? I thought you would.

The poor yahoos who don't have money or can't get a scholarship should just pipe-down and accept their place in life is to be lead by governed by the cartel.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who didn't come from an elite school