The Final EPD Email

This arrived in my mail box today from the EPD:

Dear Mr. Fai Mao,

Again, please note that the number 2838 3111 is open for public to report pollution complaint to us to follow up. It is not necessary to send us the poster you mentioned. Anyway, thank you for bring this matter to our attention.

Notice I did not post the senders name or their Email. Unlike previous Emails this one came from a real person with a non-public Email. I will honor their privacy by not revealing who they are.

However, the telephone number IS for the public to complain about smoky vehicles and that would mean that the people encouraging middle school and high school students to "Put this number on your Cellphone" to call are, in fact, legally encouraging children to spy upon adults and society at large.

Despicable.

The Basic Law in Hong Kong gives us the right to face our accusers. Except in this instance.
The Basic Law in Hong Kong says we are innocent until shown to be guilty. Except in the matter of taxes and this instance.

There is already a vehicular inspection program in Hong Kong so this program is a waste of funds and manpower.

The government either needs to follow the law or admit that they take orders from Beijing and that the Basic Law is a sham.

Holy Cow! I hope that Hu Jintau comes to Hong Kong and his Red Star limo gets reported for smoking like an old-man in a brothel. I hope every school kid in Hong Kong reports him and the EPD sends him a letter.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger rides the bus

A response

Blogs are interesting things. I have wondered why I write one on occasions over the years. There seems to me to be a certain amount of arrogance required in thinking that other people will be interested in what you have to say; or possibly a certain amount of stupidity. At least whenever I use the "Next Blog" button provided by Blog Spot I often see the most banal, shallow and trite blogs. Sometimes that is OK, a shallow blog can be funny and interesting in small doses just as Bugs Bunny is funnier in an 11 Minute cartoon than a 90 minute movie; but it should be evident to lots of people looking than many people writing blogs are not writers but parrots who simply spout prepackaged political, cultural or religious ideas often in immature, insulting or derogatory ways.

Now to be fair, I have also run across some very good blogs using that button as well and it is a good way to spend an otherwise dull lunch hour with something besides my sandwich and coffee. The question "Do I have anything unique or meaningful to add to the discussion of the human condition with this blog is one I've asked myself over the years? Since I write, in large part for a group of friends and family back in the US as a sort of open letter or circular letter this is a question I can often ignore because I am really writing for a group of people who know who I am for whom the inside joke, the hyperbole and verbal jesting that goes on between family and friends is part of the conversation. Other readers are, for me, a bonus. That is why I normally just post comments to this blog and make any replies in the comments section.

However, someone named Paul left a quite detailed reply to my post about creating a free trade zone between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and it deserves a longer, more detailed reply. Because I am responding to a comment this post is very different one than normal because it is primarily to people who do not know my name. Indeed, it deserved it last week but I've been fighting a cold and been otherwise occupied. I need to get back into the habit of posting three times a week.

Paul's questions are in red my answers in normal black

Question #1
But to open the border would mean a much larger infrastructure to handle the number of people crossing everyday.

No. It would simply mean removing the checkpoints at the four crossing points between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The infrastructure is already there the train stations are next to each other the trains go there so it would just mean that more people could go back and forth easier. Just like taking the train from Manhattan to the suburbs up on Long Island.

Would it mean more people crossing the border everyday? I don't know but if they didn't have to clear customs each way I would imagine that the number could double and it would still be less congested.

Actually, a massive upgrade would be needed.

No, I do not think that is true as explained above. Thousands or tens-of-thousands of people cross the Hong Kong Shenzhen border everyday already. I think that the biggest issue might actually be (Please remember I suffer from Anglo-phobia) that in Hong Kong we use right hand drive vehicles while in China they use the more civilized left-hand vehicles. Thus, going from one city to the next without the border check could be an issue because drivers leaving Hong Kong would find themselves on the wrong side of the road or vice-versa. This might require some innovative freeway interchanges but given the poor level of driving quality both in Hong Kong and the PRC it is also entirely possible that nobody would notice.

Do you think Hong Kong has the right to encourage people to live in Shenzhen?

The classic red herring. The real issue is that right now people here, for the most part have no choice but to live in Hong Kong. If you live in the UK and decide you do not like London you can pack up and move to Leeds. In Hong Kong if you decide that you don't like Hong Kong you can pack up and either, immigrate to another country or put up with Hong Kong. Thus I am proposing giving them the freedom to do so if they wished. But, I think many of the poor and middle class people in Hong Kong would. They need no encouraging from me.

The people on that side of the border make those decisions, and would it be in their interest?

I think that Shenzhen would love to have something like this happen. The issue is that it would probably cause the Hong Kong property market to collapse and while that would benefit Hong Kong in the long term by lower the cost of living and doing business here in the short term it would cause considerable economic disruption.

They already decide who can come here via the individual travel scheme. Side trips to Macau are being rationed now as well.

Shenzhen is an SAR just like Hong Kong. The rules are different there than the rest of China. While this is an issue it may not be a major one.

I heard a story recently about school children crossing the border everyday to come to school in the SAR. A time consuming process, and only a certain number of buses are allowed in the closed area at a time. They live in Shenzhen. Why do they come to school in Hong Kong? Who's taxes are paying for that?

I have combine two of your objections into one answer. This is an question that shows you really live here but probably do not have a child in school. There are two answers. 1st the buss issue would simply disappear; they could come if they want. The second issue is a little more complex. Schools in Hong Kong are assigned by a district. Children apply to a school near where they live but schools have the right to take a percentage of students from out side their district. In any case potential students need to provide proof of residency to apply. So, if a child lived in Shenzhen, and was not a resident of Hong Kong they could not apply to schools here with the exception of some of the international schools that are not tax supported because they didn't live here. Would people try to work the system by obtaining a false address? Sure they would but they do that anyway.

The government often talks about the user pays principle. Why is there an airport tax, but no departure tax at the land crossings?

Good question. One way to deal with right now is through toll roads and such. But, isn't the cost of a visa to enter China sort of like this? But what does this have to do with a free trade zone between Hong Kong and Shenzhen?

Hong Kong is Hong Kong
Shenzhen is Shenzhen

It would remain so under a free trade arrangement. Look at the city of Texarkana in the US. It basically straddles the border of three different states Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. You don't have to cross a border check point to reach any section of the city. Suburban communities often have a different culture and ethos than the larger cities they surround.

Who knows where we will be in the 39 years to go before 2047?

We will certainly be more fully integrated into the PRC. We can either embrace that change and try to manage it or be swallowed up by it.

If I lived in Shenzen, could I access your blog on the Internet? Would I still be able to check out news on the BBC web site?

In many places in Shenzhen yes you can just as the cell phone networks over lap. While this is an issue I think it is one that will become less important over time. As the Internet goes wireless this is going to be truer than it is today. The PRC cannot simply keep everything critical of their government out. The Internet is to vast and people are too creative. China will have to open up or it will have to become like North Korea. If it chooses the second option it won't matter where we are.

Can I post my comments on web sites without them being censored?

See the answer above. Having spent some time in the PRC getting my PhD (I know my spelling still looks like I am in form 5) I can honestly say that that I don't feel that the censorship there is as bad as it is often presented in the Western press.

Could I wear my range of t-shirts that have all sorts of vaguely political slogans on them?

Have you seen what they wear in China? My guess is as long as it is English you could probably do it now.

Can I openly ask my neighbors about what happened in Beijing in 1989, and why their kids have no idea about it?

I have done this with a table full of academics in Wuhan. What you cannot do is have such questions appear in the local newspaper.

Will the customs officers confiscate my bibles and all the magazines I bring in with me?

There won't be any customs offers at the Shenzhen check point to take them. One of the reasons the peopleand government of Shenzhen would like this is it makes them more free.

Can I ask why the mainland Olympic medalists are forced as a group to go to Hong Kong to perform in an embarrassing dog and pony show?

I doubt you could print it in a paper but you could probably ask. You might be surprised at how many people there agreed with you and how many didn't understand the question. But what does this have to do with the question at hand?

Can I trust my building management and security guards?

Can you trust them here? The home owners association in the building I live in looks to be run by triads, I don't think it would be worse there.

Hong Kong has many faults, but I wouldn't want to live in Shenzhen.

Less, crowded, less expensive, clean, well planned streets, better grocery stores lovely parks, bigger apartments are answers that come to mind. Besides, nobody is saying you'd have to. An arrangement like this would simply give you the ability to move there if you wanted to.



Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who might live in Shenzhen if the border was removed

Home and Hearth

Thomas Jefferson once said "That everyman owes allegiance to that home and hearth into which he was born and beyond that, France!" So I guess the idea of dual citizenship has been with us a long time.

This issue of dual citizenship has been pretty embarrassing for the local Mandarins over the last week or so. THBT appointed a whole bevy of young (i.e. under 70) Yes men (or madams!) to fill positions in the government that were created just for them to occupy. I guess this is to start grooming the supply of Beijingophiles that can be trusted by the PRC to run for the Chief Executive office after Hong Kong gets universal suffrage in 3024.

As it turns out, everyone of these people had citizenship or permanent residency in another country. In normal circumstances that would be fine. If you are a lawyer or butcher, baker or candlestick maker here in Hong Kong it is OK if you someday plan to abandon us for retirement in Montana. But, governments should not be run by foreigners. That is what happens in a colony. Hong Kong is not a colony of Canada, the formerly great Britain which is now just the UK, Australia, the US or anywhere else. If you are going to be in the government be a citizen of the country that pays you and nowhere else. This is just basic patriotism.

Now to their credit, all of these people at once renounced their other passport as soon as it became know that they held them. However, they should have done this BEFORE a public outcry was raised. I would also question how much the renunciation really means? Did, for example the entire family of Greg So, who I have met and is fairly nice guy, renounce their Canadian citizenship? If not, what is the possibility of him regaining Canadian citizenship if his family moves there in the future? Given the insularity of the HK government from criticism I guess that this is about as good as we can expect.

The other part to this scandal is both more sinister and more repugnant to me. The government has not published and indeed refuses to publish the salary scale for these glorified paper-pushers and Donald Tsang want-to-be officials. The salaries of civil servants here are always somewhere above outrageous and generally just below what averagely corrupt third world dictators pay their mistresses to do the landry but at least we know what the salary is. How much are these people being paid if the government is embarrassed by their salary? The fact that we are not being told makes me believe that these salaries are the real reason that Henry what's-his-name the financial guy says that Hong Kong needs to broaden its tax base.

Hello corrupt mainland bureaucracy.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who believe that government officials should work for less than market value rather than 4 to 6 times the market value

Re-considering

I guess I shouldn't be so hard on the group of Islamic scholars that said health insurance violates Islam yesterday. After all that means that people who employ Malaysian housekeepers in Hong Kong could justify violating Hong Kong law and not providing them with insurance on religious grounds. Most of the population here would probably like that.

Indeed, if the government insist on its mandatory insurance scheme despite already having having socialized medicine you might see a sudden conversion to Islam by lots of the population to avoid this program for similar reasons.

But then what do I know? I've been cynical since I was born.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who hasn't had a selfless thought since he was two.

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

Maybe someone on the HK Judiciary should read this?

However, putting more reckless drivers in prison or keeping murderers in prison for longer than 13 months would mean money that wouldn't be available for the Human Bow-Tie to raise his salary with.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Throw in Prison and Throw-away-the Key Blogger