Nearly complete

Here's an odd thing about being home. One of my senses has dulled.

At first I wondered if my hearing was kaput, so I listened hard for birdsong and traffic noise and people talking as they walked together along the street.

I followed the sparrow, frowned at the car alarm, and eavesdropped on Mavis. (I'd have him put down, with a bladder problem like that.) Then no, not hearing.

I wondered if it was taste. Dig said that life lived in airplanes can do that to a person. But PG Tips and Hob Nobs taste just the same to me.

Sight? Well, I'm appreciating the shadow and light slipping about the walls. Maybe too much. Yes, it's becoming odd, my habit of staring at the wall, but I can't help myself. After the concrete of Hong Kong I can't get enough of the texture of England. The slopes and slants of light, passing slowly bright to dark across the bumps and grain of plaster, wood, brick, is quite addictive. It fixes me in a mystic trance. Sometimes I want my fingertips to stroke the wall as the light shows up the minute crumble of old horsehair plaster. So we can eliminate touch, too.

And smell. No, not that. I know it, for I'm sniffing the pomegranate perfumes of gift soap, Sapone al Melograno, effusing in my knicker drawer.

Maybe there is some other sense called English. Somewhere an intuition or a shared understanding in me got blunted. Perhaps I'm looking at the street and I'm reading it with all the wrong rules, and wrong assumptions and judgements.

It must be that. I began to be think so when I found I broke the law in Tesco. A woman customer hissed frosty words at the back of my head, something about it being nice to be patient.

In my defence, I thought I was doing normal walking behaviour. Maybe normal for Hong Kong; weaving your way through a crowded street, making no concessions for the elderly, infirm, or the beggar outside Wan Chai station. What a stupid place to sit! Of course I didn't mean to kick him. But you have to! There are six million people to get past. But I learn it's not okay to do that weave routine here, around the OAPs inspecting the sugar in the cooking aisle.

So my missing sense could be this. I need to relearn the intuitions of my behaviour; English in England, rather than ex-pat English in Hong Kong. The two are very different.

I must reacquire the ability to tut more, shuffle, and sigh while standing in queues. I must remember to raise my eyebrows while waiting at the bank, sure in the knowledge that everyone around me will understand that to be a satirical comment on the finance industry. And I should reinvigorate my dysfunctional relationship with my own wardrobe, which will result in me gaining six pounds around my middle, which I can then disguise by shapeless fleece leisure clothing. Once I have attained these, I can move on to the higher levels of English achievement, by becoming embarrassed and awkward around all social greetings and partings, including who steps first through the door of the Co-op.

Ah, soon I will have all senses intact, then it will feel good to be home.

A much better memory

Thank you for the send off, you lovely Homeschool Moms.

No. Or maybe yes.

I am here to save you from wondering, Shall I go to Ocean Park? The enormous theme park in Hong Kong?

Of course not. It is just another retail experience. But with this one, you have to pay to enter, then must stare gloomily at a sleeping panda, two sturgeon, and a man dressed as a jellyfish.

Here. Have pictures of the retail experience. Now you can say you've visited.




See? I saved you from being elbowed to death by two million Chinese.

You can thank me, then spend your thousand dollars on a slap-up tea at the Peninsula. You could even invite me along, to show your gratitude, if you like.

(But of course this advice only works if you have NO KIDS.)

If you have kids, you will be foolish! You will stupidly say to the creatoids, What do you want to do in Hong Kong? To which they almost certainly answer, Visit Ocean Park.

Then this must be your plan.

Lie.
My darling children. I have grave news. Ocean Park has CLOSED. Yes, it is TRUE. The entire area is infected with ebola. It is one giant hospital filled with zombies. And monsters. They have those too.

(Fail. Kids these days can use a website.)

Have an injury.
Oh no! I have fallen down the stairs and cannot walk!

(Fail. Shark tricks me by declaring she has uncovered two chocolate eclairs sans fluff down the back of the sofa and will give them to the first person who can reach them.)

Claim to have become a monk.
Yes. I have given away all my belongings. I have taken a vow of poverty and cannot pay the entrance fee. Sorry about that.

(Fail. They can smell the desperation and taste the fear. Only one route left.)

Give in. With bad grace.
ALRIGHT THEN. I will GO. But don't expect me to enjoy myself. You can look at some pandas then SEE ME SUFFER.

(Fail. They don't care, quite frankly.)

Sublimate your resistance by smuggling lunch past the bag checkers.
Ha! That beat you, you bastards! You only want to confiscate my nosh so I am forced to pay for your overpriced, E-numbered meat crap in the food outlets. And squid? You're selling fried squid at the aquarium? Well, mateys, today in my handbag without your consent I have one loaf of bread, three bananas, a giant pack of roasted peanuts and a bottle of wine. See? Proper food.

(Success! Now you can begin to enjoy yourself, having triumphed in one small but significant moment.)

Don't say anything about the cable car.
Yes, I admit it is good. Go early so you don't have to queue, and go on a sunny day so you can actually see the damn mountains.


Don't smile at the sight of the creatoid faces when they come off the roller coaster.
Otherwise they will think their choice of Ocean Park is endorsed, then they will want to visit a theme park again. That will never do.


And don't say anything about the jellyfish, either.
But they are fun, dammit! Shark says they have no brains, so they cannot spend their hours wondering why they are lit up in colours. Then you can spend your time wondering about their brains, which must mean that you must have one. This obviously leads you to existentialist thoughts. Ocean Park is sounding like a bargain now isn't it? Jellyfish and Jean Paul Sartre.

Handy hint for the homesick Brit

So you find yourself in Hong Kong, yearning for a slice of home? Follow these instructions.

1. Take the MTR to Tai Po Market Station.

2. Wait a minute for me. I'm just popping to the loo, right there before the turnstile. You never know when the next one is.

3. Leave the station on the right-hand side; follow the green covered walkway.

4. Observe the sign over the bakery on the opposite side of the road: No Animal Fats. Spend some time wondering how much pork fat the children have consumed today.

5. Reach the end of the covered walkway.

6. Cross the small road that forks to the right-hand side. Don't go to the library side! No matter how much you think about 'popping in'. It will only delay us on this mission of mercy.

7. Take the first turn right. Yes, the pedestrian route through the fruit and veg market.

8. Stop to buy some apples for later, where you can be ritually humiliated by the woman stallholder who gesticulates in your direction while shouting. All the other people in the street stare at you then hold their sides and laugh helplessly. Smile, feebly.

9. Reach the square. Take the first turning to the left.

10. Cross the road. Use the appropriate crossing point. Observe how the Hong Kongers do this. They are very obedient, are they not? They probably know something about jaywalking and certain death.

11. You're over the road! Face the street ahead of you. You should see a sign. Can you see it?


12. A proper caff! The Shortbread Company.


13. Relax and look around. It's like a refugee station for Brits. (If Chris and kids are in there, wave.) Everything is perfect. Formica tables, ketchup, paper napkins like greaseproof paper. Run by Scottish-Cantonese. Enjoy your all-day breakfast if you are a meat-eater. Enjoy the bowl of chips if you are Shark, Squirrel and Tiger. Enjoy the cup of tea and ginger cake if you are Grit.


And if you cannot follow Grit's journey, then use your map or GPS for no. 16, Nam Shing Street, Tai Po. The ginger cake is highly recommended.

Scared of England

No, really, I am. Especially, I'm scared of these.


The border officer.
Do you know, life in Hong Kong isn't filled with polite people who hold open doors for each other, smile in greeting, offer assistance, or say gentle words in social support? If someone smiles at you in Hong Kong, it's usually because they want your money.

Once - no, it was 16 January 8pm - a European gentleman held open a door for me in the IFC shopping mall. I could've kissed him.

I want England to be polite. I want people to say After you, How do you do, Please and Thank you. I want my first introduction to England to be warm and happy.

Like the border officer. I want them to be kind. They don't have to blow up balloons and wave banners or anything. Just smile, mean it, and maybe say Welcome Home.


Have they changed the money?
Yes, it has happened to me before. You leave the country for five minutes and the Bank of England does something, like whips off Elizabeth Fry's head and shoves up Emily Pankhurst.

It leads me into a social minefield. For the first few days I stand in shop queues, holding everyone up, scrutinising the money in my palm, looking like Scrooge counting out ha'pennies. If I get it wrong, the shop assistant is calling the security guard. I am clearly trying to pass counterfeit coins and dodgy notes.

England, please don't change the money and not tell me.


The tax office.
I would dearly like to avoid our liabilities, I really would.

We won't be able to, of course not. We are not skillful enough in finance. Neither is the accountant who deals with the multiple income streams. He isn't brilliant enough either to be a criminal mastermind. He merely sinks his head to his hands when he sees the plastic bags bursting with paperwork, then charges us another thousand pounds to sort it all out.

So I would just like the tax office to alleviate my fears of the worst, and be nice.

Dear Grit and Dig, nice to have you home. Don't worry about the tax demands in the hall until you're unpacked. We can come to some agreement over a bottle of wine!

(Ditto for corporation tax, companies house, people at the late filing penalties admin desk.)


The judgements, the judgements.
You can do nothing in England without someone making a silent social judgement about you on some level. Fear of negative judgement makes people afraid to be different, but they resent being the same.

Well, I must be brutally honest.

What with the hair, the kids, the lifestyle, the strange choice of foodstuffs, the talents to swig from a bottle and swing a punch while wearing a frock, I'm never fitting easily into a social niche (unless maybe it's eccentric).

But I make it worse, the way I walk about your High Street with my do I give a toss attitude, spouting the stuff that comes out of this mouth that I was born into. (Isn't that why people leave England in the first place? Because they feel like they don't fit? Thanks, Ed Balls and your version of the Labour Party.)

Even so, please England, be tolerant of me and mine.


The advertising.
This always scares me. I don't want to see images of semi-naked women selling stuff. We do not see a lot of this technique in public spaces in Hong Kong, unless it's a Western style campaign.

It makes me miserable that England so easily presents sexualised representations of women and girls; I'm genuinely saddened that the media spews out a diet of celebrity doings.

That's not going to change, is it? I'd better tackle my fears and introduce my girls to the pleasures of the spray can.


The local council. Especially the people sitting at the education desk.
Ah, yes, officialdom!

How I miss the jobsworthies, criminalising my every move! It is an irony to me that I feel freer in Hong Kong, being blatantly illegal, than coming to the radar of England, where I am legal but not wanted.

Have you a new person, a new broom, sweeping clean? Have you paperwork you would like to patronise me with?


The abusive relationship with the house.
What have you got in store for me this time, you bastard? Last time you flooded the cellar, took the plaster off in the bathroom, and let the mice live in your underwear.

You don't know how much I adore you. And this is how you treat me.

God, I love your wooden floors. Let me clean them for you.


The wardrobe.
Have you been harbouring those moths? Have you? I tried so hard to eliminate them from Planet Grit. Is Betty Jackson sitting in there, all chewed up? Even thinking about opening your doors is bringing me out in a sweat.


Bum. Now I think about this, what of the heartless Tory government, the Jubilee year, the dishwasher, the car, the exterior paintwork, the endless duties, obligations and responsibilities? And the man with the chainsaw. He wanted paying in December.

This is the stuff of nightmares, isn't it?

England, help me out. Can you folks just wave a cheery hello, show me your rolling green fields, and remind me why I'm coming home?

Walking

Walking is very stimulating, isn't it? I have so many thoughts and ideas when we start walking. It's good and bad. I end the day feeling too undecided, mostly because there are too many options; and all the options I thought about have advantages and disadvantages that weigh against each other, and if I started out with a problematic thought, by the end of the walk I have twenty.

I couldn't even settle on today's diary entry, which should be about a walk on the rugged wooded and wild side of south Lamma Island.


Should I remember Hong Kong and China? How poetic and irritating the damn place is? How you can take in the view of seas and mountains in one grand, eyeball-punching vista, then catch a sight of the young fisherman, diving from his wooden rowing boat, acting out the same answer to the problem of catching his dinner and feeding his family like several thousand years never passed?



Or how I'll never convince all unbelievers that this mucking about on country paths is a valid education, one conducted out of school, with wandering talk about building regulations, graves, death rituals, fish farms and pastry.



Could be the cruel realities of being a home educating parent. A narrative of the vengeance I wanted to take about half way round, when one of the creatoids abusing the name of daughter tipped me so far to the brink of exasperation that equalling and returning her force by pushing her off a cliff seemed a much better response than merely clutching at my head and choking on the sobs.



But then I wanted to remember the discussion about Hong Kong rural architecture, and the protection of a heritage, and how problematic that is, if the heritage architecture is composed of disused pig pens, agricultural outhouses, old concrete buildings, and an abandoned village school, which merits a panel explaining how rare and important the structure is, but inside it's the community dump.



I wondered, of course, about reporting on local news. The fretting over illegal immigrants, the tree hunting, wild pigs, and politics of gully maintenance.



But then we walked through an area of abandoned houses, so spooky and creepy there in the woods that I could only think Blair Witch and wish I were a proper photographer to shiver you to your marrow with those staring empty eyes and broken bones.





I can't decide. Squirrel says her thinking is clear. She's coming back to Hong Kong and walking that path we never took. Shark says it's sensible to leave something undone. Tiger scowls, and says she never chose to come along in the first place.

Single woman in Hong Kong!

Yes! I am a single woman in Hong Kong!

Well, for four hours fifteen minutes, anyway.

Sadly, I do not spend the time productively, not even managing a search for cheap men and even cheaper booze down old Wan Chai.

I decide to go shopping. Which means I stagger about Queen's Road Central for a bit, staring at the buildings and wondering why the voices in my head have gone, then I wander about dazed for two hours in Sogo, half-heartedly trying to part with a gift voucher worth $100 (about a tenner).

Sogo, for those who do not know it, is a Japanese department store. It is built for people who are the height of a domestic rabbit (probably also explains why the buttons on Japanese electronic goods are the size they are).

Because the place is built for rabbits, or gnomes, or hobbits, or very teeny, tiny Japanese people, if you are a BigFatWesterner like me (5foot 4ins), then you have to crawl around this hobbity store mostly on all fours.

I bet it is designed this way to make the tiny people feel at home, as if you are in the cosy comfort of your own warren: narrow passages, floor to ceiling less than the cupboard space under the stairs, product stocked top to bottom, and miniature escalators up and down like moving tunnels conveniently placed around your burrow.

But it seems to have bypassed everyone's attention, probably because they are too busy crawling around looking for a way out, that all the products in Sogo are priced at least 30% above normal prices. The only item I could find under $100 was a pencil case with a teddy bear face. Then I decided the best way to use $100 was in discount, maybe if I handed over $15,000 in exchange for a Vivienne Westwood purse.

Dig is glad I came to my senses just before the handover, but as I explained to him, after you have spent two hours locked in a rabbit warren with 20,000 tiny people, then $15,000 for a bit of folded cow skin with a embossed orb on it seems reasonable if it justifies your presence in the burrow and secures your escape.

But the afternoon shopping time spent all alone was not entirely wasted (even though my Bone Lady was shut). On a street market in Central I bought a large wheely bag suitable for check-in luggage.

I expect we will soon see why it cost a mere $168.

Time for the thank yous

Of course I'm changing my tune! Hong Kong is amazing. And I am grateful for having had the opportunity to experience life here.

Especially Sham Shui Po, one of my favourite places on earth.


The geeks know this Chinese district of Hong Kong for the computer centre. Leave them in there. Come out on the streets with me. Messy, noisy, dirty, overcrowded, with rat warning notices everywhere. I love it.

If you are a dedicated crafter, maker or doer, it is nirvana, and you will never want to leave.

There are shops here like Lewis's wardrobe. Pass by each doorway, cluttered with buckets of beads, and you will wind your way into a labyrinth of buckle, button, trim, zip, sparkle, ribbon, sequin, decorative metal, and thread.

The only lion and witch you will encounter are inside your own head, struggling for control of your purse, because $4 for a bag of yellow sequins is a bargain, but since you already spent $200 on novelty buttons, maybe it is time to go home.

Forget it. Down the road you can acquire more trim, fastenings, and cloth.


Here, amongst the fabric merchants, you will pass the fashion designer, searching out the composition you'll be wearing in Spring 2013.

For the dolly dressers crawling at snail's pace behind you, it is all an Aladdin's cave. Should she choose the pink sparkle or the purple sparkle? (At HK$10 a yard, I know that never again will I be able to pay Hobbycraft prices without a shop-floor brawl.)


I will miss all Sham Shui Po, and the street sights it offers.


Yes, that's grandma, pushing a few crates up the main road. To help her out, the family have strapped some nylon cord round her body and attached a few crates at her rear, too.

It tells me there's a different work ethic here in Hong Kong from Essex! Here the Chinese don't expect benefits at all. Just carry on working until they fall over.

I think grandma is worth another view; she came back round the block again in the 10 minutes I stood there, waiting for Squirrel to choose between silver or not-quite silver thread.


And the cafe culture.

I will miss Starbucks and Ditta egging me on, that much is true. I will also miss watching the trade of the street-cookers. Here's one of my favourite restaurants. It occupies half a road in Sham Shui Po and is always busy with street-eaters perched at rickety plastic tables. To pass down the street, pedestrians must first be submerged in the noise of Cantonese and the clip of chopsticks against large plastic dinner bowls of soup, rice, noodles and tofu with green peppers in sticky sweet black oyster sauce.

As you tread a careful path, feel the pavement clinging to your feet with chicken fat, be careful of the gas flames roaring and hissing and the clouds of hot steam rising from wide, bubbling woks. You can smell the burning peanut oil, hear the cleavers chop on worn wooden boards, and hope that the entire structure, leaning thirty degrees to the left, doesn't collapse on top of you as you push your way out.


After watching the meat cleaver come down on the chicken head, Tony's hired burger van just isn't going to be the same.

Thank you, Sham Shui Po. You occupy a special place in my heart.

Big Buddha

Huzzah! Last day for Travelling Aunty in Hong Kong!

Today we must show her Buddhism! We are escorting her to the mighty tourist attraction that is the Tian Tan Buddha, affectionately known as Big Buddha.

This has to be on everyone's tourist itinerary of Hong Kong, doesn't it? Of course it does. Lantau must offer you something apart from the airport. And when you're fed up with Buddha you can shop at the fantastic themed retail experience that is Ngong Ping village!

The Chinese have this sort of thing organised. Big buses to get you there, large coach parks, directional signs, plenty of dining opportunities, toilets for the disabled.

But la famille Grit is not here simply to take part in the great tourist enterprise! No! Any reader knows that Grit is a half-hearted follower of the Buddhist business. She can even manage a bit of mumbled chanting in exchange for a free dinner.

So you can take it that our tour today also means we can actively demonstrate our Buddhist virtues of zeal, charity, morality, patience, meditation and wisdom. The Travelling Aunty can enjoy them as well, whether she wants to or not.

(She can call it home education, religious studies.)

First we show zeal. I set Shark on shovelling the reluctant aunty out of bed at 9am. Then we can push her on the ferry, force her on the underground to Tung Chung, and prop her up on the Number 2 bus, bumping its way round the hills in Lantau. For it is here the Chinese proudly display the world's biggest bronze Buddha sat outside on a hill, facing north! (V. important.)

To experience the momentous meeting with Buddha close up, Travelling Aunty must then walk up the hill.

We immediately have problems with the hill. Apparently the Travelling Aunty has a blister which she says got worse when I made her wear flippers.

I say a blister is no problem. Stop groaning. (More zeal, double tick). After all, the Chinese have provided steps! Lots of them. Like a runway. (Choose the correct side to ascend! Right side up! Left side down! Do not get these instructions confused if you do not want the tourist guard to beat you with the baton.)

But then Travelling Aunty With The Blister says she must rest half-way up because she is Clapped Out. She attempts to cling to the railings. After waiting a considerate moment I send Squirrel back down to force her to get a move on. Given the length of time she has spent hanging over the railings gasping, I think I show a great deal of patience, so I'm ticking it on my path to nirvana. And morality. I am sure it is in there too.

Because, sadly, we are against a time limit on our visit to Buddha. We must attend to the Buddha, walk round him anti-clockwise (or clockwise, I forget), look under his seat to visit his display, say a venerating ooh at his ancient relic (v. v. v. tiny slither of bone, possibly from middle finger), and then get to the restaurant by 4.00pm before they close up and the cook goes home. Here we can gaze upon the lovely vegetarian dinner! (Tick meditate.)

That is from Dig. He bought the full dinner set for six people by accident. If you are likewise visiting Big Buddha, be warned! You do not have to buy the full meal set! You do not have to buy the snack set! You do not have to buy any food at all! You can just visit Big Buddha!

The Chinese craftily position the Buy Your Ticket booths at the foot of the steps to Buddha, so in Dig's confusion (not getting to bed until 2am thanks to flight from Philippines) he persuades himself we must acquire curious forms of entry ticket, so buys a full set dinner for six.

Now on that score we have achieved wisdom (tick). And I will say how very kind it is for Dig to provide us all with dinner (tick charity).

Thus, having mostly achieved the objectives for nirvana, we walk briskly about the Buddha, make all the right noises, do not fall out with any security guards, and enjoy a fantastic vegetarian dinner for six!

I think we do it all in the right order. We save the gift shops till last. The directional signs are very good and the entire complex is unmistakably what industrial-scale Chinese tourism is all about.

Now here are the variety of rubbish photographs taken on the day. You'll have to bear in mind that we were here for business! We couldn't hang about to compose shots, or frame anything! Just enjoy all the heads-in-the-way, the over-exposure, and the tilted statues.









PS. I only deliver it to the Buddhists because I know they can take it. And they are unlikely to retaliate by punching me in the face, kneecapping, bombing, or any other non-nirvana-inducing means of retribution. (And I love 'em.)

Someone could take a lesson here

As a person who is apparently libertarian leaning (I took a quiz), it isn't surprising that the politics, culture and society of Kowloon Walled City fascinates me.


This city of 30,000 people - encased in a vertical area roughly the size of your local park - came about thanks to a British-Chinese diplomatic failing.

Originally the land was a Chinese military fort. The British never took possession of it, as they did with the surrounding land in the nineteenth century.

After the Japanese occupation and surrender, the Chinese reasserted their rights over this space.

For what point, I'm not sure. The place had lost its walls (pulled down by the Japanese to make the airport), and the politicians in Peking were far too busy brutalising the population with the Cultural Revolution to bother with what must have been a minor problem of local politics, far away down south, on colonised soil.

But, thanks to this Chinese reassertion of rights, the Brits could implement nothing of control in this growing city. No taxes, no business legislation, no building regulations, no registrations, no licensing, no insurances, no police, no services, no bleedin'health'n'safety, no legal requirements, no administration, no inspections, no sanitation, no monitoring of civilians, no clipboards, no bin collections, no formalities, and don't complain to the council.

Maybe it was the perfect libertarian state.

The drug pushers, pimps, criminals and ne'er-do-wells probably thought so too. The stories go how Kowloon Walled City was a sanctuary for the Triads, a centre for gang culture, a place of general lawlessness, and a street of dentists who didn't need professional certificates but you could guarantee they were cheap.

Not surprisingly, the churches and charitable groups moved in.

In the exhibition we visit today, in Kowloon Walled City Park - the city was demolished in 1993 and landscaped into Qing Dynasty gardens - personal narratives come through loud and clear.

Stories of communities helping each other. Neighbours sharing food, belongings, miseries and triumph. Successful businesses flourishing. Employment, family successes, mutual support. People making lives for themselves; setting up resident groups, internal patrols and community associations to govern their own affairs.

Some residents were so reluctant indeed to give up this autonomous, self-regulating status that they clung on, defying all eviction orders, waiting to be carried out by the demolition team.

I'm sorry that I only know it by the diplomatic anomaly, and that I never got to see it as a working, heaving city.

But the park is pretty.


So that is Kowloon Walled City (Park). I thought home educators would like to know about it.

Especially the very loud and awkward ones who are further gone than me, and who keep Rottweilers to sniff out any form of control or regulation in any guise.

Secretly, they sometimes make me feel a tiny pang of sympathy for local council staff - particularly the thin, sad, weedy types, called Maureen and Denis, who would rather work in accounts than extract a bit of educational information over the head of a butcher's dog.

But let's think positive. I'm sure there is a ring road in Hemel Hempstead that could be up for a land grab.

Thank you, Kadoorie Farm

I'm told the differential between rich and poor in Hong Kong is much wider than it seems.

A visitor might tour the shopping malls and pass by Baby Dior, but never know the extreme inequalities of wealth that exist here. I'm told that Hong Kong data - richest to poorest - can place this sparkling international city alongside Sudan.

It's easy to see the sparkle and glitz. The super-rich drive this place, and the wealthy families of Hong Kong clearly hold a concentration of power. They stitch the deals, throw up the buildings, and provide our entertainment in the South China Morning Post.

It's all the drama you'd expect. Mistresses (number 1 and number 2) top the character list alongside spurned wives (number 1 and number 2). Then come the righteous offspring (from both sides of the blanket), and controlling figures on executive boards. Together, they set about fighting (literally) for dynastic control, power, and inheritance rights. It's ugly, and not made any prettier when the battles are conducted over the living heads of the elderly men who sired and acquired this noisy lot.

By contrast, the super-poor sink into invisibility; they survive on a meagre few dollars, daily or weekly, maybe none at all. Their stories pop out at Christmas in feel-good captions about gratitude. See them here, lining up with the Salvation Army, where they need only join in a little prayer to secure dinner and bed for the night.

I watch it all. It seems true to me - as shoeless Farmer Chang trundles away with his lettuces, and a passer by casually swings their new Versace coat - that a system which encourages such extremes of wealth is morally wrong. But a wealth distribution constructed by an economy of communism, of the controlling kind that exists just over the dotted line? Downright scary.

Well, I don't have any answers; I'm no statistician, nor economist. I only observe while I pass through. So I'm sure I'll sound naive when I wish that people of wealth and resources would simply feel it is their human duty to be philanthropic. It's not as if Hong Kong has no precedents.









Thank you, Kadoorie Farm.