10 things this week (Week 41)

CLEARLY the week hasn’t been a smooth one by virtue of my doing another ’10 things’ summary.

For the week ended Saturday, 13 October 2012.

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ONE

DISCOVERED my password booklet went missing (UK) / gone missing (USA).

Disaster.

I’m not particularly worried about my passwords for various online espionage services (like WordPress) falling into the wrong hands. Having this blog is already wrong hands enough.

The worst thing about losing the booklet is that it contains my ID authentication codes for various stock exchanges and government regulatory agencies in several different countries — the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the USA, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, our Securities and Futures Commission, etc.

Result? Super major aggro for the authorities because I’ve had to report the loss to the police in several countries. This is self-pwnage par excellence.

Moral of the story? Things disappear notwithstanding the best security measures. Save your skin by having an action list for that eventuality. It isn’t if disaster will come — disaster will always come. It’s a question of how you manage the disaster.

Super excellent moral of the story? Now is the time to start stealing loads of money from everybody because whoever now has my password book will be taking the heat for it. Like I said, it’s a question of how you manage the disaster…

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TWO

LAST WEEK, the Oscar-winning documentary “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons in the Life of Robert S. McNamara” was on telly.

Since then, memories of Mrs Lee and her six sons — all KIAs in Vietnam — kept playing in my mind. (Mrs Lee: same surname, no relation.)

Mrs L went a bit loopy afterwards, and got worse as her kids’ insurance payouts rolled in punctually month after month to remind her of that personal disaster.

Yes, folks, it surprises many that I’m actually old enough to have schoolmates who fought in Vietnam. It surprises even me.

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THREE

THE BEST

BAZ LUHRMANN’s “Romeo + Juliet” (1996) on telly. Shakespeare’s famous play updated to a hip modern suburb, modern dress and modern gunfights but retaining its original 500-year-old ‘attitudes’ and dialogue.

The love scenes were über-crap and corny, but the other scenes were fantastic. Summary? Our lives are shite and violent, and it’s been like that down through the ages, and no change in our propensity for stupidity. Yay! Something doesn’t change! The 500-year-old dialogue really puts the whole thing into sharp focus.

Just imagine —

• Romeo and Juliet in their original 13-year-old selves
• 500-year-old dialogue
• Vietnam War as backdrop with Italian carabinieri as troops
• hippie astral light sunflower music for the love scenes
• CCR, ZZ Top, Stanton Warriors and Crystal Method music for the actions
• Merseyside Mods as the Capulets with fake ‘Suh’thern’ American accents
• German-Iranian skinheads as the Montagues in broken London Cockney English

What a killer that would be!

MEH

“Real Steel” (2011) — boxing by hip-hop robots set in ‘old-fashioned’ America in 2020 (just seven years from now).

Honestly, I don’t get it — what’s the thrill in watching two lumbering steel robots punching each other’s circuits out? The blood and gore‘s the whole point.

Why boxing robots? We’re inundated already with news about those two robots (Romney and Obama), c’mon.

Meanwhile, the rest of the TV fare had been moronic — constant repeats of:—

• “National Treasure” (2004)
• “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” (2007)
• “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011)
• “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” (2010) *groan*

It would’ve been better if they’d just reshow the original “Planet of the Apes” (1968). Or “Centurion” (2010), for which I wrote a faggoty review.

THE PITS

No surprises here: “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” — which kept repeating endlessly, like a vampire sucking the life out of you using a catheter inserted into your … well, you get the idea.

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FOUR

SIGHTED on a T-shirt: “Time Immemorable” (McDonalds, 10 Oct, 1.20pm).

Sorry, no pics — so you can classify this into the  No Pics, It Didn’t Happen category.

It’s “time immemorial” — I know the T-shirt writer meant ‘immemorial’ because of its ‘context’ (i.e. the surrounding text and other non-compos-mentis’try).

Interestingly, ‘since time immemorial’ is a legal term of art defined as before 6 July 1189 by the first Statute of Westminster of 1275 (3 Edw. I), whose 51 Acts are still in legal force in the UK. That was the date of accession of King Richard I (the Lionheart) to the English throne.

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FIVE

“There’s been a persistent and virulent lack of discipline on my ship.”
— Captain Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”

OH, I find living in Hong Kong is really getting under my skin these couple of years.

Attitudes, basic manners and general behaviour have gone to pot these couple of years. The Cantonese (which makes up 95% of our population) are not generally known for quiet speech. Now, I’ve gone deaf from the goddamn constant hollering.

5.1

The “post-80s” (people born in the 1980s) are cocky (a feat to behold in a city already renowned for its cockiness), pedantic and callous. In short, stuffed-shirts and know-alls.

The “post-90s” bunch are ugly or stupid, or ugly and stupid, wear outlandish garb, and have no working or workable skills to speak of. Their Chinese-language skills are as bad as their English skills, and that’s seriously some feat to behold.

The Hong Kong education system has always been extremely competitive. Think of the U.S. system multiplied by (literally) 100 times. Think of the UK system multiplied by 25 times. Only the mainland Chinese, Japanese and Singaporean systems are more competitive than Hong Kong’s — and I tell you that’s saying something.

But Hong Kong buggers its educational horsepower by working in ‘streams’ (Science, Arts and Commerce). In the UK, for instance, a secondary student is basically free to choose whatever subjects to do at O-level. (In Scandinavia, students study everything: sciences, arts and commerce subjects regardless of personal interest.) In Hong Kong, choice outside the stream is disallowed.

Because of that insane policy, we’ve now descended to the point whereby students from one stream are unable to hold a reasonably informal conversation with those from the other streams because the stream contents and instruction are so mutually exclusive.

The education authorities officially recognise this problem (but do nothing about it). The politicos complain about it (and do nothing). The parents see it in their children on a daily basis (but don’t know what to do about it). The new, reformed academic structure (“334”) in place since 2011 for sure is going to accentuate this bubble mentality in a whole generation of people.

Can we not say this refusal to remedy the situation is in itself a sign of refusal to learn from mistakes? Draw your own conclusions.

What’s the point of extreme competitiveness when everybody knows nothing except what’s in their own little bubble?

5.2

Personal hygiene is sinking — the ‘pong’ in the underground/subway trains during rush hour is just excruciating.

General urban cleanliness is sinking too — debris in the streets, overflowing rubbish bins not attended to as a rule, hosing engines no longer seen plying the streets to wash them, busted kerbs and sidewalks, unrepaired traffic lights, etc. The list goes on.

5.3

Expats, semi-expats and Eurasians born and bred in Hong Kong are having a hard, hard time landing a job because the usual ‘anti-personnel’ tactic is to play up the Chinese-language requirement of the job (for those whose Chinese-language skills are weak).

For the locals and new immigrants, employers simply reverse the anti-personnel tactic by playing up English-language skills.

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SIX

I’ve been meaning to write this for a very long time, at least for a whole year already.

Xenophobia is on the rise in Hong Kong, and pro-Hong Kong, pro-Cantonese, anti-Mandarin or otherwise anti-mainlander sentiment and rhetoric is growing. Xenophobia is mostly against visitors and new immigrants from mainland China. Domestic workers from the Philippines and Indonesia also get the soggy end.

I remember this is exactly what Chris (now Lord) Patten (our last Governor), The Economist, Newsweek, Time magazine, Die Südedeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel, La Repubblica and Pravda predicted would happen 10 to 15 years after Hong Kong’s sovereignty transfer to China.

Interestingly, I remember only the NME (New Musical Express, a music newspaper) actually said Hong Kong will turn “racist” under Chinese rule, so a certain kind of music had to be catered for. All the other ‘serious’ newspapers and magazines either missed it or sanitised their words so much that it pretty much came to the same thing.

On local Chinese-language and regular social networking sites, at least I’m seeing a rise in groups such as Cantonese Language — there are many others on Facebook — making highly defamatory, insane, invasive, irrelevant and inciting declarations on everything wrong that isn’t Hong Kong and everything right that is.

Many of these xenophobic Hong Kong groupings have followings that number in the middle thousands. And nearly every insane statement put out by these groupings is greeted with support by thousands of followers and/or sympathisers. I grew up partly in Italy and the UK at a time when those countries has sizeable right- and left-wing militant movements, and the same thing is happening right at home now.

The Establishment here are adding to the winter of discontent by sitting on their hands, letting things slide, and showing no operational (let alone political) leadership.

Then we have that completely brain-damaged bunch of otherwise straight-A kids who banded together and formed Scholarism, a pressure group opposed to the new ‘National Education Curriculum’ (NEC) for secondary education that they (and many others) branded as pro-China nationalistic brainwashing. For an education-related pressure group, Scholarism sure knows jack about the politics of education.

I’m not f@cking stupid, boyo. I can suss out what their game is. I spent enough time in my kiddie and non-kiddie days living in countries with juntas, corrupt politicos, fascista e comunisti, paramilitary formations and other ‘interesting’ inhabitants. I escaped from one full nighttime military invasion. The front is NEC opposition, the driving engine is anti-mainland politicking.

If the real worth — the true value — of a organised cause is in what and how it presents itself to the public, then it’s clear as the goddamn sunshiny day whenever their conveners speak in public. These guys are having it in for the authorities and anyone else not on their side. Hongkongers are not great or even consistent consumers of news, so this stuff tends to go right over their heads. Many of these newer lobby groups have secret agendas — just that their disguising them aren’t done expertly. I ought to know — I once worked as a political fundraiser in the UK. Don’t f*cking fob me off with disguises and crap.

Personally, I’m no happy bunny about the NEC either, but I’m even unhappier about a bunch of people who get straight As but still manages to screw up big time with the wrong name for their own pressure group (‘scholarism’ means pedantic learning, by the way: they meant ‘scholasticism’ — and even that is problematic for a lobby group). I’ve heard they’ve been told numerous times about the error of their name; they point-blank refused to change. (The media is full of stories about them; just Google.)

RIDER: I hate and detest naming names like this and definitely out of character even for me. But as a person who grew up in 13 different countries around the world (including a crazy place like Beirut, Lebanon) and also trained in psychology and law, I’ve seen my fair share of crazed and fanatical people in my day in and out of psycho labs and courtrooms. I’m pretty insane myself anyway, so it takes one to know one.

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SEVEN

Ruminated on the number of times I’ve ended up having to ‘apologise’ for the insane faggotry of Hong Kong people when I’m in the company of foreigners or in other countries.

I’m nothing like the average run of law-abiding, God-fearing, forex-loving, real-estate-speculating, forward-contract-arbitraging Hongkonger, much less the insane bunch mentioned in SIX. Yet, it befalls on me to get hit with remarks like, “Why do YOU as a Hong Kong person do this?”

I don’t know ‘WHY’ — I can’t answer for them because I’ve never spent my formative years here. Ask them, not me. Don’t give me a hard time because of them. I came back to Hong Kong already a fully grown, fully tired and emotional (drunk), and fully insane person (albeit according to non-Hong Kong patterns of insanity).

For crying out loud, I don’t even read or write Chinese!

In reverse, I get the Operation Rolling Thunder treatment from Hongkongers: “Why do you always side with the gweilo (foreigners) when you’re a Hongkonger yourself? Why won’t you be Chinese and tell the mainland Chinese to be in their place?” I don’t and I can’t.

WTF-ness scores: 9.9 – 9.8 – 9.7 – 8.7 – 9.8. WTF Gold Medallist!

I totally relate to why Robert S. McNamara said “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” about his role in the Vietnam War.

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EIGHT

THIS IS THE PART where I get tough on people.

An essential trait of an entrepreneur (or at least a person TRYING to run a business) is to NOT have tolerance for loonies. It’s the 80/20 rule — 20% generates 80% of the income, 20% of the time is with sensible people, 80% with the ‘drama’ of the loonies. Just can’t afford to piss about with the loonies.

My last post mentioned a less-than-crystal-clear-minded friend of mine decided out of the blue to redo something highly likely to blow up in my friend’s face several years from now.

A background primer. My friend is 20-something, local born and bred, works a steady but part-time job, and holds a B.A. in English Language. Has a long-running fantasy desire about working for the government in the legal area.

The heatstroke has finally kicked in, I think. My friend has now gone off on a tangent and is preparing to resit high-school subjects for 2014 admission into the local top-dog university, most likely for another bachelor’s degree in law.

*Eyeroll*

Non compos mentis doesn’t even begin to characterise this insanity. Why would anyone in their right mind should want to do this?

The way my friend explained it to me, resitting high-school exams post-degree-wise would “develop the CV” specifically for joining the Hong Kong Civil Service. It was (almost) explained to me that our esteemed bureaucracy would—

“… consider all your best achievements, despite [sic] whether it is a resit or first time — the whole life achievements.”

My friend has been mislead, either by someone or by my friend’s own self. Despite my friend being an English major, my friend’s command of English is … just … f#cking abysmal. My friend is probably unable to fully comprehend the nuances of language in those Civil Service assessment guidelines, I don’t think.

To cut a long story short, my friend is stubborn and barmy — a dangerous combination — and has a distinct penchant for rationalisation and textbooky-type intellectualisation. This person generally can’t see the forest for the trees in most things, and doesn’t realise it.

► If the Civil Service really DOES consider best achievements regardless of first-time pass or resit, wouldn’t it have done that before rather than now or in future for a degree holder?

► If the Civil Service really DOES consider best achievements, wouldn’t resits be a contradiction?

► If you’re preparing for a second stint at Uni, why not just use your present degree to get in, instead of trying “develop” your CV with high-school stuff?

► Presumably at the end of all this you’ll have two degrees under your belt. Aren’t two degrees worth a tad more than high-school stuff?

See what I mean. You and I can see this, plain as daylight, but my friend couldn’t.

Time factor too: Age mid-20s now. Second stint at Uni 2 years from now. Four-year bachelor degrees in Hong Kong. Altogether 6 years to elapse. Graduation over 30 years old. Left behind by the rest by a big stretch, pal.

► Will our Civil Service want a 30-something for first-time entry into their ranks at establishment grade? You’ve got to be farkin’ kidding me! Hahahaha.

Oh, suuuure they will — preferably you’re overseas-educated, preferably overseas-raised, preferably Distinction passes for undergraduate qualifications, preferably solid postgraduate qualifications, etc, etc, etc. Otherwise, those six extra years trying ‘to perfect’ things will get you no better edge than other first-timers with first degrees, and only getting non-establishment-grade civil service rank.

Wow, 6 years to get exactly the same thing what you could get now.

My friend also has an annoying habit of talking about “monetary returns by [age] 35” — whatever the hell that Chinglish means. I’ll just assume (for my own sanity) that it means ‘return on investment.’ If that what my friend means, then business acumen is also seriously lacking by doing this faggotry.

I make an honest living working with crooks the likes of bankers, lawyers, accountants and government officials, day in, day out. I don’t know how the government works in absolute terms, but I sure as hell know more than my friend does.

It’s a test this “consider your best achievements” thing. The “whether it is a first-time or resit” is just another red herring. It’s to sort the wheat from the chaff: those who follow ‘rules’ like drones will forever be slotted into low-level or support roles — someone’s got to do the dirty legwork in the machinery of government, right? It the same sordid routine with H.M. Civil Service in the UK. Duh.

Honestly, I don’t care if my friend gets to read this. My friend needs a good slapping around to bloody wake the f#ck up.

TRIVIA: I have a certain vicious streak in me. I stop being friends with those who later come back and say to me, “Yeah, man, you’re right, it was no good.” I’m rubbing my palms in expectation of that day with this particular friend.

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NINE

A senior journalist from our local English-language broadsheet wants to interview me over luncheon. I couldn’t believe he wants “to meet a great man and intellect” because of my other, even-stupider, zero-inspired blog, Learn English or Starve.

Details to come. Otherwise, if I’m not back in an hour, call in a bomb scare.

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TEN

Writing this post, which surely is a sign that things aren’t going well with me.

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“You live only once. Why ruin it with a rash decision?”

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012. (B12349)

Images: ONE via c4c | TWO via Wikipedia | THREE via Graham’s Down Under Thoughts | FOUR via Imgur | FIVE via c4c | SIX via c4c | SEVEN via Idle Hearts | EIGHT (1) via Hammer’s Hall of Viking Supremacy | EIGHT (2) via Funny Junk | NINE via eHow | TEN via Keep-Calm-And.

10 things this week

THINGS haven’t been smooth sailing lately for me, so I’ll just summarise and leave things at that.

ONE

I’ve managed only eight posts last month, way down from my average batting record of 20 a month. The below were some of the distractions for me for this state of affairs.

TWO

Money is tight.

This toilet bowl of a city I’m living in called Hong Kong has stopped making money.

Financial printers like me depend on printing IPOs (initial public offerings, a.k.a. public stock flotations, a.k.a. initial public outrage) for the bulk of their income.

Notwithstanding media reports and official government announcements to the contrary, the worldwide financial situation is worsening by the week, and no light at the end of the tunnel in sight.

A London-based jeweller pulled the plug on its US$1 billion Hong Kong IPO in May because of the eurozone crisis and China’s economic slowdown. Had it gone through, it would have been Asia’s biggest flotation for the year. It was the fourth major IPO to be aborted this year here.

Right now, I understand a mainland Chinese dairy company with a longwinded name is planning a Hong Kong IPO this year. I understand the dairy company is hoping to raise US$800 million to US$1,000 million (i.e. US$1 billion) from the IPO. If true and the deal sees the light of day, financial printers in this deal-starved market will be in a mad scramble to win the printing contract.

The dismal IPO market this year has been the lowest for Hong Kong since 2003. That year Hong Kong led the world in IPOs. For most of this year, printers have been begging Oliver Twist-style for any kind of print jobs. Things are highly likely to stay rough because banks themselves have been cutting costs to the bone as those IPOs that made it through have seen their values dropped by 80%.

THREE

Three days of high court hearings. This is the long-running lawsuit my building’s Incorporated Owners (that’s Hong Kong-speak for ‘owners and residents association’) got faultlessly sucked into with the government and a third party. Ergo, the flat owners got faultlessly sucked into pooling the legal costs.

Courtroom-side fee is HK$6,000 (US$770 or £480) an hour × 3 hours a day × 3 days of hearings per lawyer. (Hong Kong has a ‘split’ legal profession: barristers are trial/courtroom lawyers and solicitors non-trial/non-courtroom lawyers.) Repeat the rate for the solicitor.

And that’s just the cost for court time. Repeat the rate for non-courtroom work such as legal preparation, research and ‘discovery’ during the lead time to court hearings. You work out the costs.

FOUR

Shut your gob … I don’t want to talk about it, but it’s something related to my kitchen.

FIVE

Ratta (you’ll remember her if you’ve been following this blog for more than six months) lost her job with Ferrari (“for those with more cash and a love to crash”) in February.

Since then, she’s been bouncing from job to job. Her cash is pretty tight too.

Fortunately, she became a nursery or kindergarten schoolmistress two months ago.

Unfortunately, her employer (the owner/headmistress) turned out to be right royal bitch of a psychopath (no kidding!). I’ll update about her in another post another time.

You just wouldn’t believe the things that go on in schools here.

SIX

Big fight with Johnny, my neighbour’s son.

Let’s say the fracas had been a One-Way Saturday Night Square-Up On A Monday.

(A British ‘square-up’ is a ‘square-off’ to our American cousins.)

Let’s say:—

• I was in charge of Johnny on behalf of his mum
• he became Mr Invisible all day and all night long
• he lied through his teeth about his whereabouts
• his lies were lame-arsed and I ‘tipped over’

Let’s not actually indicate:—

• how I scared the living daylights out of him
• in the street
• in full view of the general public
• with certain body parts of his
• ‘voluntarily impacting’
• against certain body parts of mine
• whilst I explained why it’s bloody dangerous for him to become Mr Invisible
• somewhere in the city
• when he’s only 18 years old
• and a skinny, scrawny, chronic asthmatic to boot
  

No, honestly, it’s nowhere violent as that. Hand on my heart, if I lie, hope to die. (Err, best forget that quickly.)

Truth is, Johnny’s a bit of an oaf (a blockhead).

And that’s the problem. ‘Bad’ kids usually can take care of themselves. Oafs can’t. True fact.

Just these two years in our district, two people went missing (or ‘gone missing,’ if you’re an American). Both were expat women in their mid-30s. Nothing’s been heard of them. No word from the police either.

If fully grown expats can disappear in a tiny town like Hong Kong, be sure you’re putting your own life in your own hands when you’re an oaf.

Lesson learnt (for now, at least).

SEVEN

BEST ON TV

Had to be “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons in the Life of Robert S. McNamara,” a 2004 Oscar-winning American documentary film.

“Never answer the question asked of you. Answer the question you wish it had been asked instead.” — Robert McNamara (1916-2009)

The 11 lessons:—

1. “Empathize with your enemy”
2. “Rationality will not save us”
3. “There’s something beyond one’s self”
4. “Maximize efficiency”
5. “Proportionality should be a guideline in war”
6. “Get the data”
7. “Belief and seeing are both often wrong”
8. “Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning”
9. “In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil” (but minimize it)
10. “Never say never”
11. “You can’t change human nature”

Average age of GIs in Vietnam: 19 (not 22).

Those who don’t know who McNamara was, ask your grandparents.

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SECOND BEST

Gennie, Mongolia’s first female rapper

“Mongolian Bling“ on Al Jazeera (English) about rappers and hip-hop people there. If you think white supremacists are scary, wait till you see non-racist Mongolian supremacists.

Average age of Mongol rappers: 30.

EIGHT

Two chicks girls ladies. Jacinta (a blonde from Sydney) and Bella (a Filipina who lived her entire life in Peking/Beijing). Nice chat with them at the IKEA Bistro on Thursday.

Not either of them: just a placeholder girl to whet your appetite

Sorry, no pictures available (because I was distracted). I know, I know, “no pictures, it didn’t happen.” I’ll do better next time.

NINE

Bizarre dream the other day (it was day, not night).

I think I met myself and was being interviewed by a news crew about it. I was asked to describe the other ‘me’:—

“This man is easygoing, a bit of an oddball, with a sense of humour that puts friends in stitches but doesn’t seem like such a person to outsiders. Paralleling this is a vicious streak in him, which sometimes makes him take umbrage over the smallest matters.”

What?! I’ve nothing vicious or umbragey in me!

Oh, well done … now I have myself making defamatory statements about myself in my dreams to subconscious news services for broadcasting to my subconscious audience.

*Headdesk* I need to get a hamster (see why below).

TEN

As a ‘next-level’ kind of guy, I’m going to have to take this blog to the next level. Just a bit, not too much. I don’t want to scare you lot off, but mainly I don’t want to scare myself.

I’m going to have to start posting ‘interesting’ pictures more.

Those ‘interesting’ pictures might be ‘inappropriate’:—

• possibly inelegant
• probably off-colour
• likely to contain nudity (or, even worse, fully clothed)
• gore is possible (but only in a non-gorish way)
• politically correct
• or whatever takes my whim

Can’t help it — the images are piling up badly.

I need to rant more. Bottling things up inside is not good for health (yours and mine).

Need to tone down my ranting/bitching drafts first. Need to ungrammaticalise them too so that they would appear more ‘authentic.’

Would like to get a pet hamster again in order to have some semblance of sanity. But I just can’t live with the fact that hamsters live only 20 to 24 months and can’t be cloned in the home kitchen.

Longtime readers will note that I have a long history of either over-delivering or not delivering on my promises.

It is true: my mileage varies.

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LIFE …

I don’t understand why it can’t be stretched

_____

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012. (B12341)

Images: Silver moneybag charm by thenakedlistener | Hong Kong High Court via HK Pinoy TV | Rat doll via furry.org.au | Star Wars dogfight wallpaper by A.L. Meerow and Nick Kurochkin via arts-wallpapers.com | Kennedy and McNamara via Movie Mail | Gennie, Mongolia’s first female rapper via Film Ink | Placeholder girl via c4c | Dreaming artwork from http://4.bp.blogspot.com via Our American Generation | Level-Up Letterpress by artnoose via Flickr | “Can be cut to the desired length” by thenakedlistener.