Golf in Honkers

After another trip to Shenzhen to purchase some golf clubs (and an ill-fitting jacket. Dammit!) I decided to have a look for an affordable golf course in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the words 'affordable' and 'golf' rarely make it into the same sentence over here, and it looks like I'm going to have to settle for the good old driving range, of which there are many.

There's a golf course just up the road from me, but it costs a lazy $1500 ($250AUD) for one round. Out of curiosity I asked how much a membership costs. Well, they haven't been for sale since 1997, but if I were to purchase one privately it would set me back 1.5 - 2 million Honky dollars. That's about $300,000 Australian! You'd really have to love golf, wouldn't you?

To make matters worse, last night I took a walk 40 minutes up the hill to the driving range only to be told that non members are only allowed to 'drive' on weekdays, and besides I didn't satisfy the dress code requirements. They honestly looked at me like I was a walking, talking piece of crap who had sludged its way through the door and was bringing the club more and more into disrepute with every breath I took.

Well, excuse me for breathing, Mr. Fancy Golf Course Man. If I had any moral issues with sneaking onto the back of the course and playing a few cheeky holes before, they're completely gone now. I might pop on down there and play the back nine tomorrow morning and save myself 750 big ones! And I won't even wear a collar. Take that!

Careful Drivers

Last night, Nomes and I went with a couple of friends to see The Prestige. It was pretty good, but the thing that has motivated me to post is not the movie, but the taxi ride home.

My friends will tell you that since getting together with 'Swerves' Borkoswki, I haven't been the best passenger in the world. Her inability to differentiate left from right, combined with a general indifference to things such as traffic lights and roundabouts have ensured that I'm always on edge in the passenger seat. However, last night was something else altogether.

During a ten minute taxi ride, we managed to do about 120 in a 70 zone, cut off literally dozens of cars, inciting road rage inspired threatening revs and swerves from other taxi drivers, and cause 3 almost accidents. I was half way through a sentence at one point when the taxi attempted to run down a guy on a scooter.

"Hey Nomes, do you ever get the feeling you're about to be in a car cr..... Shit! Watch where you're going!"

It felt like that scene in The Naked Gun where the girl from the Driving School starts to chase the criminals, and we hastily reached for the hitherto ignored seatbelts and found religion.

After endangering a dozen or so lives and breaking possibly hundreds of road rules, we finally arrived at the ferry pier - shaken, pale and ready to make the next leg of the journey. Naomi felt ok, though. A certain lightness came over her, as the crown of 'Worst Driver In The World' was lifted from her head and passed on to a worthy recipient.

Hold Tight! Stand Firm!

I received some fantastic advice today. This advice was not given to me by a friend, colleague, parent or mentor - it was given by a big old sign, which read, 'Husband and wife should talk to each other and be understanding'. No argument here, but why is this kind of advice plastered on signs all over Honkers? The government (or whoever commissioned these pearls of wisdom) obviously don't give the people here much credit, do they? I wonder how many alcoholic wife beaters have been on their way home, ready to down a bottle of JD and give the missus a knuckle sandwich, only to be stopped in their tracks by that particular sign.

"My God! What was I thinking? I'm going to go home now, make Bobo a cup of tea and ask her about her day."

There are many other examples, which usually take the form of street signs and public service announcements.

- 'To prevent Avian Flu, always wash your hands after eating meat' (that'll work)
- 'Please take care of your personal belongings'
- 'Never swim directly after eating'

and the Grand Daddy of them all....

'Always hold the handrail while travelling on the escalator'.

Not sometimes... always! You have no idea about how seriously they take escalator safety in Hong Kong. There is a team of people called the 'Escalator Safety Crew' or something like that, who travel from station to station, dressed in yellow and armed with a megaphone, and yell in commuters' ears about holding onto the handrail. As I see it, there are two major flaws with this (and a few minor ones too).

Flaw the first:
The picture they use to emphasise their point is of a person holding BOTH handrails. While this may be safe, it's also slightly annoying for the dozens of people trying to get past.

Flaw II:
Come on. We're clearly not 3 years old, and those of us who are shouldn't be travelling on those bad boys without Mummy and Daddy. Plus, they can't reach the handrail so through no fault of their own they're flying in the face of public safety.

"We understand that some passengers may be in a hurry and choose to walk on escalators rather than standing still on one step. However, our advice to all passengers is to stand firm and hold the handrails to avoid hurting themselves in the event that they lose balance while walking on the escalators," said Mr Wilfred Lau, Head of Operations of MTR Corporation.

Every time I see the Escalator Safety Crew (picture them in walking together in slow motion with rock music blaring in the background, credit sequence style) I am overwhelmed with the temptation to let go of the handrail, arms flailing and say, "Look at me, no hands!" Although if I tried that, chances are I'd take a tumble, knock 10 people over and get my fingers sucked under, causing one of the biggest escalator catastrophes Hong Kong has ever seen.

Copping an "I told you so" from the Escalator Safety Crew would be one of the most degrading and humiliating things that could ever happen, so for now I'm a good citizen who holds the handrail, looks straight ahead and waits to be told what to do next.

Let Me McHelp

I'm going to tell you about one major cultural difference between Australia and Hong Kong – tray etiquette at McDonald's.

I was always, always told to clean up after myself back home. Unless my memory fails me, it is considered pretty rude in Australia to leave all of your mess on the table after finishing your meal (although throwing pickles onto the roof is perfectly acceptable). In Honkers, on the other hand, if you clean it up by yourself you are considered a freak. Perhaps even, “very diiiirty la”. There are people employed specifically to do that job and if you take that away from them, perhaps that is the height of rudeness. I don't know. All I know is that this morning after finishing devouring my Sausage McMuffin and hot coffee, I cleared the table and the staff stared, looked confused and eventually laughed at me!

I just hope I don't get too used to it. I don't want to get back to Australia, go to Maccas and spurt out things like, “It's not gonna clean itself, darling. Now come over here over and wipe my mouth.”

If I tried that, chances are I'd cop a pounding from a toothless sales assistant called Shazza. “Wipe this!” Smack.

A Fool's Cap

If I told you that the biggest problem at my office is paper size, you'd probably laugh, leave or tell me to get a life. However, I would argue that consistency in paper size is essential to good human relations at work. Allow me to illustrate my point.

I work at a Primary School. This school has a ridiculous policy of printing all of their staff handouts on A4 paper and all the their student worksheets on F4. We all share the same printers, so you can imagine how many times a day people get to the printer to find that some inconsiderate staff member has stuffed the thing with F4. ("Whoops! Looks like I've just ruined pages 3-6 and 11-12 of your twenty-page document. No worries, just print them again. Or better yet, get your scissors out and try to cut it back to size. It'll be fun!") I'm no paperist (well, no, maybe I am), but I think we would all get along better in a mono…err papery society. A4, A5, A3. I think they've got the bases covered. I might even be willing to switch to F4 as long as we only used the F family and all its kin. I'm just looking for a little consistency.

After printing a six-page document at work (two of which were F4) I had an argument with a fellow staff member. She was convinced that the school could not survive without F4 paper because, "sometimes you need extra room on a worksheet". I tried to tell her that I went all of my schooling without a piece of F4 in sight, but she just laughed at my ignorance and reassured me, "But F4 is better. A4 will be too small la". (Many Hong Kong people add "la" to the end of just about any sentence they utter in order, I think, to emphasise their point.) I wanted to push the argument further, but I had a feeling she was one of those pesky F4 sympathisers and I didn't want to push my luck.

Enough is enough. I don't want to sound like Hitler or Pauline Hanson, but it's time to implement a One School, One Paper policy.

Fat fat fatty

Those of you who've never been to Hong Kong may not be familiar with the general attitude towards overweight, or even slightly pudgy, children. The general consensus is that if the opportunity presents itself, everyone should remark upon the child's size in a loud and bold voice, have a hearty chuckle (finger pointing and knee slapping are optional extras) and he or she must laugh along heartily and pretend that they're very lucky to be the centre of such undivided attention. If you think it's a teacher's job to stick up for the little porker, then think again! In most cases, it is the teacher who is the ringleader. I have seen many examples of this, but Naomi's story of an incident today left me speechless.

Nomes (that's Naomi, for those not up with the lingo) has just started at a new school - a hoity toity one with a great reputation - and today was her first day of teacher observation. This is when she just sits at the back of the class and watches the masters at work. The lesson today was on opposites, so after a few minutes of "black...white", "tall... short" and such things, the teacher had a little giggle and asked thin girl and a slightly overweight individual to stand up. Barely containing her laughter, she asked, "Can you guess what this one is?" The children were in hysterics, yelling out "Fat! Fat! FAT! Ahahahaha" while the poor kid stood there with a half smile on his face. The teacher responded proudly, "Yes, fat! He is fat!" Not content with humiliating the young fella, she then asked him to stand on his side, presumably so people could see that "He really fat", and put a sticker on him that said, "fat", while the whole class continued laughing their heads off. I'm not joking. She labelled him fat, and she didn't even have the courtesy to do it metaphorically.

I'm no expert on political correctness, or even teaching, manners, courtesy, respect or common sense, but you do not laugh in a fat kid's face. I don't care if he weighs a hundred kilos. I don't care if he looks as if he'd swallowed an inflatable ball that gets foot-pumped a little more each time he takes a step. I don't even care if his name is Fat (which is sometimes the case in Hong Kong), don't call him fat! Don't tease him, don't laugh at him and certainly don't encourage a class full of kids with a predisposition to laughing at anything remotely different to do the same.

My advice for the offending teacher: If you want to be funny, take a whoopee cushion to class instead. Farts are always funny. Sure, it's just as juvenile as laughing at the fat kid, but at least no one's feelings are getting hurt.