past the peak

ear bashing

Out with mates last night for some beers and a curry. Just like being back home. After work went straight down to Wanchai.  Surprisingly crowded, probably accounted for by the many gweilos keen to watch the cricket; most of the bars have big plasma screens A good day for England - what a series this Ashes is turning out to be.

On the way back on the MTR, surrounded by mainlanders speaking Putonghua (Mandarin), as opposed to the local Cantonese dialect. Putonghua really is a much nicer language, softer,more refined, altogether much more sophisticated. Anything, though, is a welcome change from the turbo-volume of the Cantonese speakers. When they all start shouting into their mobiles, especially inside a tube train, it can get a bit wearing. Nothing to do with excessive beer consumption on my part, or course.

are snakes scared of the dark too?

At last some sunshine today. After such a long spell of rain it was a strange feeling to be in strong sunlight again. Of course, it did nothing to staunch the humidity; at lunch it was Wet Shirt Time - don't go there.

Back home and a quiet night in before another bout of Social Madness starts tomorrow. Then just before bed (any minute now) took the dog for the usual 'squeeze'. Although it a bit cooler by 11, it's still very sticky, and with no wind tonight it was like walking through my Uncle's old cucumber house wearing a dufflecoat. The Mosquitoes were having a field day (field night?) and the ankles now look like Quatermass 3 - The Slime Returns (cert 18).

But the little niggling thought at the back of the mind as you walk along in the (pretty much) dark is: are snakes nocturnal? or not? which is it? Now I loathe the bloody things, and the fact that I've only ever seen one in three years (an industrial-sized python wonderfully disappearing under the wheels of the bus we were travelling in on our second day here) does nothing to lessen the dread of stumbling across one in the dead of night. A snake, as they say about golf, ruins a good walk. Made it back to base tonight, but each time the adrenalin is there and the fear of seeing one is palpable. Makes me wonder at times who the tissues in the doggie back are really for.

for they shall inherit the earth

The way the Chinese economy is growing and the increasing expansion of their major companies (Huawei, Haier, Lenovo etc) overseas make it pretty much certain that China is going to dominate the world economy in the next 20 to 50 years. The Japanese never learned to change (despite producing fantastic technology) and the Americans are, well, Americans. As for Europe, they're still talking about it. The plan, as I understand it, is to create a consultative body to identify and examine factors which may hold lessons about where Europe should be investing its massive energies. Will the last one out please turn off the lights. So it looks like the Chinese economic tsunami will carry away all before it.

But when you actually look at the way China works, and more importantly the way their people work, it makes you wonder what kind of world we're heading into. Now this is NOT a racist issue. Americans, Brits, French, Aussies, they all have their foibles and odd ways of doing things. But there is the sense with those guys (especially the French) that they know where they're going and why. And they have systems (even the French) to sort that all out.

But the Chinese, they worry me, frankly. While there is, I'm sure. some mega-strategy out there to drive all this forward (after all China didn't get where it is today by being organic), it seems that the plan never really gets the buy-in of those executing it at the rock-bottom layer. And more often than not that means the construction sector.

Now many strangers to this part of the world, especially Americans and Europeans, gasp in awe/horror at the way Chinese builders can use bamboo scaffolding towering up to 30 floors high (or much higher in these IFC2 days).  That comes, I guess, from a combination of disbelief that it's safe and an unthinking conviction that the way 'we' do it, ie with metal rods connected by solid metal connectors, must be the safest way, otherwise we wouldn't do it that way, would we? But given the climatic and cost pressures here, the fact is that bamboo is safe; indeed it has greater resilience in the face of high winds (it bends!). Otherwise, they wouldn't use it. I know there is a pretty much limitless supply of labour in China, but unless I'm mistaken, the people who climb it wouldn't be willing to put themselves in personal jeopardy unless the wages were considerably higher than we know they are (translation: piss poor).

That doesn't mean, though, that the average building site worker gives more thought to the quality of the building than to getting the hell home as soon as he can. And they get pressure to complete in time and to the right spec, although they prioritise in that order. Get it done quick and 'good enough'. I'm not sure what the Chinese word for 'slap dash' is, but I'm fairly certain that in my lifetime it will become one of those imported words that we take for granted and believe to be part of our own language. Like pyjamas, verandah, tsunami, siesta and dickwad. And by slap dash, I mean really bad workmanship.

Anyone who has lived in Chinese-built accommodation for more than a week will be used to the quaint waterproofing regime and the way paint is applied without the need to pamper the surface first (ie by cleaning it and applying undercoat). So within a few months it all peels off and (a) looks like shit, and (b) needs doing again, including the need to repair the damage to surface itself. There is a new block just down the road from us which was completed less than a year ago. It has some outrageously bad-taste metal work all over the front in day-glo primary colours. Probably someone's idea of style. Anyway, the paint on the metal portal is already mostly peeled off, exposing the bare (no oxide undercoat here, then) metal to the wonderful Hong Kong weather. How much it will cost to repair and repaint that?

They are also just starting a new block right next to us. Lovely pile-driving, traffic controls and mud everywhere. Yesterday, in the longest spell of unbroken heavy rain Hong Kong has seen for more than a decade, I walked past the site. They'd been using a truck to pile drive on the edge of the site for the last couple of days, usefully reducing the road width to the size of a Harley Davidson without crash bars. Now the truck had gone, and two workers had obviously been told to repair the surface where the truck supports had bitten in. So in the middle of a massive rainstorm, they were mixing cement and laying it. Of course the rain was washing the cement out of the mix as it hit the floor, leaving a mass of loose ballast to enjoy a good cleansing wash from the rain. Doubtless that'll be having fun soon jumping up at the sides of the Merc 500 limos as they rush past to get to Market Opening on Monday. In some ways there is a delightful irony, since some of the people who live round here are fat cats who have made their pile by 'investing' in the property market. Nice that their drive for low-cost. high price developments is biting them back. Not that they care, of course. Just get the new model. I just hope that we don't end up with the side of the hill sliding away thanks to crap concreting. Better go and get my snorkel ready ......

rain, rain, go away

God, how much rain can the sky hold? It's been chucking it down for at least the last two weeks, almost non-stop. The Amber Rain Warning went up today (which means that if you're unlucky your block will slide down the hill from under you any time soon and you'll need a snorkel to get to the shops). Everywhere the roads are awash as it runs in torrents down the hills. The dog is suicidal - doesn't want to go out, crosses its legs and won't do the bizzo when we do go out; too keen to back in out of the downpour. The family are much the same, except that they do do the bizzo, and indoors, thankfully.The forecast say it's going to be the same tomorrow and for much of next week. Thank heavens the football's back on the telly.

ego city

A good long break out of Hong Kong for the Summer hols. But back to another serving, though, of Hong Kong ego. On the way to work, a road rage incident. Probably my fault for telling the smooth rich gweilo exec that his driving of his fuck-off large German auto was dangerous to the point of lunacy - overtaking me at incredible speed as we came to a 90 degree left bend on a narrow road. But he was clearly late for his anger management course. Tried to break my side window by repeated punches, eyes popping out of his head. Eventually got back into his car and sped off through a red light. The very unhealthy side of the 'let's print money' mentality here. Gotta win, gotta be best, gotta be mean. Next time I'll bite my tongue. Sometimes it's nice being past it.