It's been a couple of years now, since we've moved to HK. The longer I'm here, the less clue I can make out of this place... is it the people here? or is it me? No doubt, I have met some very nice and "normal" people here, but some of the things/people that I've come across really puzzle me.
In a housing estate, flowers and seed pods on kapok trees must ALL be plucked (removed) because some district council member thought that the fiber from the seed pods may be bad for the health of the residents in the area (the news report in Chinese here). In another housing estate, frogs that make noise at night, on the podium of a few blocks, have to be removed because some residents complained about the noise (the news report in Chinese here). Trees on a slope near where we live have to be chopped for no obvious reasons, and I'm not talking about branches that stretch over the road/sidewalk (some of them are big trees, obviously been there a long time). AND, durians don't stink here (of course, to me it's scent, but, how??)!! Obviously, a lot of people here cannot cope with nature!
And then, I notice that most girls/women have very fancy and expensive handbags that they don't carry -- their boyfriends do that for them. Most women are descendants of vampires -- not only they have to cover their faces with 5mm thick sun block, on top of that, they have to carry UV protected umbrellas and possibly face masks! O, there's a sunroof in this shopping mall, I'd better open my UV umbrella!! And when it rains, they make full use of their umbrellas as well, even on the covered sidewalks...
And then, there are people that don't buy sugar, tooth picks, salt, pepper, wet tissues, tissues, chili oil, soy sauce, etc... because whenever the family visits anywhere that provides these items for free (and individually packed), they would grab a whole lot... and this particular family owns a Mercedes Benz S-class, sent their children to universities in the UK (no, they didn't get a loan and the children did not get scholarship), who now have very well paid jobs. And the most important thing is, this family still lives in a public housing unit.
These are just a few of the many that I've seen/read recently. I wouldn't want to list it all out... that would mean that I have to write a few thousand words in this post.
Where you come from, is it the same? Certainly, where I come from, it is different. Well at the very least, flowers grow as they wish, frogs can make as much noise as they want, trees get removed after they have collapsed and durians stink (you can smell it 50 meters away!!), big time!
