Time to move again?
SHOCKING NEW figures reveal that a space for my car now costs more than a space for my family in Hong Kong.
It’s only a matter of time before we Hong Kongers start herding our families into tents on basement car parking lots (now US$1,100 per sq ft) and winching our cars up to our 31st floor apartments (US$1,050 per sq ft).
Added bonus: cars don’t do karaoke, take hot baths, etc, so noise pollution, electricity bills. etc will fall. TEMPTED.
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THE OTHER DAY I was trying to explain Hong Kong to someone.
“A guy called Henry was all set to become leader. But he was deemed unfit to rule after it was revealed that his home violated building codes by having unauthorized basements, etc. So instead, Hong Kong’s leader is a guy called CY, a man whose home violates building codes by having unauthorized basements, etc.”
No, it didn’t make sense to me, either.
The tourist, from Malaysia, had a good question. “How come violating building codes is such a big deal in Hong Kong?”
I explained that the Hong Kong Buildings Department is excessively, ludicrously, stupidly strict against poor people here, but appears blind to infringements by the rich.
Case in point: Members of the elite build underground complexes and get away with it for years.
But this columnist, an ordinary citizen, recently bought a welcome mat and placed it outside his door.
Two days later, I was forced to remove the mat because it “contravened building regulations”.
At my previous Hong Kong apartment, I got into trouble for having a plant on my window sill. Officials are that strict.
I have a good mind to make a point by building a massive secret basement complex under my floor. Of course, the guy in the apartment below may object.
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IN OTHER NEWS….
SCIENTISTS MIXED aromas together to create a non-smell they dubbed “the smell of whiteness”, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported last week. The 40-component new fragrance smells of nothing.
This discovery has many important uses, such as, er, um, ah, ooh, well, none, actually.
This annoys me. If scientists really can’t think of worthwhile things to invent, why don’t they solve the world’s biggest problems? Create potions that rid the world of a) cancer, b) baldness, and c) boy bands?
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IT HAS BECOME so common for Thai women to cut off their husband’s genitalia and throw them into the yard that there’s now a popular saying among men, the UK Guardian newspaper reported last week: “I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat.”
For years, I’ve loved Thai duck breast red curry, but I’ve just gone right off it.
(“Dinner time!”)
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INTERESTING COMMENT on arranged marriages from a South Asian female:
“All your life parents tell you not to speak to strangers, then they make you marry one.”
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FROM reader Sarah Hymas:
“After almost 25 years of marriage I have discovered the secret of how to communicate with my husband. I update my status on Facebook, it pings on his iPhone and he then stops reading the newspaper to see what the text is about.”
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TO BALANCE THAT, here’s some wisdom from a married man:
“Arguing with a woman is like being arrested: everything you say will be used against you.”
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