tim's experiment

The local higher education industry is slowly preparing for four-year degrees in 2012. One of my colleagues attended a talkfest on the topic, and heard an interesting statistic. The impression most people have picked up is that under the new system all the people who would have gone to university for three years will instead go for four. But the official planners do not expect this to happen. They expect about a fifth of our students to go and study in the UK.

This is an unintended consequence of several groups of people doing their best. The new 3-3-4 arrangement requires a new qualification, to replace A Levels. It will be taken at the end of Form 6, instead of at the end of Forms 5 and 7 as the present examinations are. Clearly overseas countries who have their own Form 6 exam already can easily be persuaded to regard ours as equivalent to theirs, and in many cases this has been done.  The UK presents a problem because there is no Form 6 exam there. So basically ours can either be equivalent to the Form 5 one or equivalent to the Form 7 one. To the great satisfaction of the people in charge of this problem the UK has been persuaded to regard Hong Kong’s new diploma as equivalent to British A Levels.

Now we come to the unintended consequence. This means that a Hong Kong student who has completed Form 6 can hie himself off to the UK and complete an internationally recognised degree in three years.  From the parental point of view this is an interesting saving. Of course you have to pay for more travel but a year’s fees and subsistence could add up to a few airfares easily enough. And in the saved year the student might be earning some serious money.  Hence the guess, and in these matters a guess is all we can expect at this early stage, that 20 percent of the potential students will skip Hong Kong higher ed altogether and go to dear old Blighty. Well, I suppose it’s one way of dealing with all those complaints about falling English standards.

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This is not quite in the same class as the one about the monocle and the Colonel’s wife, but it is of some interest. I went to the Hang Seng branch in Shatin to use their ETC machine. They have two such machines. I took the most promising queue, and for once it was not headed by someone who was trying to rewrite “War and Peace” on the keyboard. I made reasonable progress until I was number two. Looking over the head of the small lady in front of me I happened to see what was happening on the screen. A brief message appeared saying that “this transaction is cancelled”, followed by words to the effect of “do you want to try anything else?” And the lady had, evidently, not been concentrating. She pressed “no” and then held her hand hopefully under the money slot. And of course no money appeared. The machine spat out her card and a piece of paper, then waited expectantly for the next customer.

After a few moments the customer realised that something was adrift. She started making distressed noises. I tried to look sympathetic. Real gentleman do not, I decided, contribute at this point something along the lines of “I was evesdropping – the machine told you to to take a running jump.” I looked at the piece of paper, hoping it would clarify the situation, but it seemed at least at first glance that she was supposed to have received $1,000. The lady departed for the counter where, I hope, she raised Hell, because my situation was now also a problem. The people in the next queue were convinced that my machine was not working. One kind lady actually grabbed my hand to stop me pushing my card in it. So that was out. On the other hand all the people who had been lined up behind me had now switched to the other queue, which was now about ten people long. Nobody was proposing to let me in. So I went to another bank.

So the question is, firstly why is it considered rude to look at the computer screen while someone else is using an ATM? It’s a public place. You are not going to get any personal data because you don’t know who the customer is. Still it seems people don’t like you doing it, and indeed when I find myself doing it without particularly meaning to I feel guilty. Secondly under what circumstances should one admit to having looked and seen something the customer has missed. If life is in danger, obviously (philosphers love these unlikely possiblities) but to save inconvenience? I hope the lady got her money sorted out. I was late for lunch.

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Everyone seems to be very pleased with the new rules on plastic bags, which require supermarkets to charge you for them. Enthusiasts boast that the number of plastic bags dished out in Hong Kong shops has dropped considerably. A success for the environment lobby?

Not so fast. The number of bags has dropped but the nature of the bags has changed. In the old days a supermarket plastic bag was a whispy little thing. Our week’s shopping often filled 12 of them. If you put too much in they broke. Awkward shaped items made holes. They were certified to be environmentally friendly and bio-degradable. Often they were degrading visibly before you got out of the shop.

Now that supermarkets are forced to charge by the bag, the standard bag has changed. Supermarkets wish, after all, to give you value for money. So nowadays a supermarket bag is the size of a small parachute, and is constructed from some close relative of the stuff they use to make flak jackets. Archaeologists of the year 40,000 will puzzle over the layer of durable deposits which appeared in Hong Kong sometime just after the beginning of the 21st century. Because these bags are going to be here for ever. It is certainly true that we use fewer bags. When I forget to take the old ones, as often happens, our weekly shop now fits into three or four of the new Dreadnought class supermarket bag. But is the planet better off, one wonders. Or did our leaders fall for a trendy catchphrase just when the invention of biodegradable plastics had made it obsolete?

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I have become resigned over the years to the fact that any computer running Windows will sometimes not work.  Bill Gates may be the world’s most generous man but I suspect that may be a sign of a guilty conscious. You may get rich on a small scale by doing a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. But for record-breaking levels of wealth it is difficult to beat selling over-priced rubbish. 

A new technology is entitled to our indulgence for a while. Early personal computers were temperamental and sometimes downright difficult to deal with. But they were pioneers in a new field. Users, makers and programmers had a lot to learn. We have now all learned something. Users have learned that if you can afford it you should buy an Apple. I know there is a continuing argument about the rival merits of the two systems. But this is conducted between computer geeks who are advanced users. For the ordinary working stiff who just wants something reliable and easy to use, Apple wins hands down. Makers have learned that they are at the mercy of the software people. And the software people have learned that they can get away with a lot.

Consider my current computer. I have now had about as many computers as I have had cars. As it is impossible to get any meaningful repairs done to them I buy the cheapest possible computer and throw it away when it starts behaving badly. This is a cheap system as long as you keep the old monitor. Compared with cars, though, my computer is a grossly unreliable piece of work. The car – OK it’s a Toyota – starts when you switch it on. Failure is so rare that you do not consider it a serious possiblity. The computer, on the other hand, is so prone to reluctance to start that it comes with a free “start-up repair” programme which you run, sometimes in vain, when it refuses to start. This refusal can take two forms. In one it goes through all the motions and then dies. The screen goes blank. The CPU mutters to itself. In the other version you are treated to a little animation which indicates, mendaciously, that something useful is happening. After a while you realise that actually nothing is happening except the graphic display. Underneath it is a little line of type which claims copyright in what is going on for Microsoft Corp. I’ll say. Failure to function as expected is their signature dish.

Last Tuesday I made a new discovery. We had failure to start of the blank screen variety. I checked the hardware, which was fine. I ran the start-up repair, which made no difference, back-dated the system twice and floundered about a bit. Then I noticed that there was a flash drive in one of the ports and removed it. At this point a little window opened and announced that failure to start when a memory device was in a USB port was an established Vista glitch. It even had a registration number. That made me feel much better.

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It was a normal week in Hong Kong. One story told of a series of legal gymnastics which resulted in a developer putting a monstrous block of flats in a part of Tsim Sha Tsui reserved for commercial development, and thereby making a great deal of money.  Another story told us that thousands of flats had been kept vacant for years by the government and the Housing Society lest their sale to the public result in lower prices and profits for developers. And another story told of an old man who died sleeping in the street during the cold spell.

In a sense, no doubt, it would be unfair to see any link between these stories. Developers who put up posh flats for sale to mainlanders with money to launder are just responding to the situation in which they find themselves. Building accommodation for poor people is not lucrative. So why bother? No doubt the official who promised the Real Estate functional constituency that Donald Tsang would cherish their financial interests if he received their support had the interests of Hong Kong people at heart. He sincerely believed that a few more years of Donald would be good for us. Nobody concerned in these manoevres intended to kill anyone. Everybody concerned went home in the evening proud of another day’s work in the interests of the community.

But still, there is a connection. Because the accommodation for poor people is given a lower priority than featherbedding millionaires, the housing available to such people is crowded, dirty and unattractive. So they live in the street. And if enough people live in the street some of them will die in the street. I do not blame the millionaires. You do not get seriously rich without being seriously greedy. We are what we are. The officials are another matter. It is too easy when all your work comes to you on paper to forget the human consequences of it all. Memos circulate, agendas are approved, memoranda are drafted, regulations promulgated, legislation proposed and policies implemented. And at the end of all this, somewhere out in the grubby world beyond the office window, someone suffers or rejoices, lives or dies. It is too easy to maim or hurt or kill when you don’t have to see the victim’s face. But the consequencews are there all the same. We live in a city where poor old men die of exposure in the street. I am ashamed.

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All right I know the daily fluctuations have nothing to do with it but why is it getting so damn cold? I managed to walk the dog for an hour today, but it took me ten minutes to get dressed. I finished up in the fur hat I bought in Prague – feeling guilty because when would one wear such a thing in Hong Kong? I also dug out the gloves I wear on winter trips to Beijing and suchlike places where snow is expected. A kind friend had given me a beautiful lined dogwalking coat, which I thought might be in the same category as the Prague hat, but it was just the ticket. The overall effect was not fashion statement, but it worked.

The distressing weather has brought one unprecedented event. We bought a coat for the dog. I have been giggling at the displays of dog coats in our local department store for ages. But what can you do? He’s OK if it’s dry but if walked in the rain he comes back looking like a drowned rat. And he doesn’t like being towelled. So now he has a rather snazzy mac in pale yellow. It doesn’t seem to bother him but I feel … conspicuous. All the other dogs are wearing coats except Christie, who is so hairy she looks like a Polar Bear already. It is too cold for them and it is too cold for me. Could someone tap the Observatory?

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My son called the other day to say that he was engaged. This was not, I gathered, a request for advice. A relief. As President De Gaulle said about the Cuba Missile Crisis, “I was glad to be informed; I did not wish to be consulted.” As filial phone calls go this could have been worse. Some parents whose children are overseas only get the phone call after the wedding. Still this is one of those moments when you realise that parenthood is a state of gradually increasing helplessness. The right to control dwindles gradually away, as Lord Denning put it, until it amounts to nothing more than the right to be consulted, and even that… I now understand the rather strained approval which greeted some of my own early errors in the matter of marriage and such like. Whatever you parentally think, you have to keep to yourself. Then if it all ends in tears at least they are not your fault.

These are not cheering thoughts. My first reaction was, as one of my former Standard colleagues put it on Facebook, that “we chicks are too young for this sort of thing”. But we chicks aren’t. This is one of those moments when you hear the distant roar of that waterfall over which time’s inexorable river is going to waft us all, sooner or later.

But we must look on the bright side. The wedding will be here. The prospective bride is beautiful. And I always thought it would be nice to have a daughter…

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Hong Kong’s New Territories still have a good deal of rural charm. I lived in a village for five years and got on very well with my neighbours. They were all surnamed Li; it was that sort of village. The only reason we were able to buy a house in the village was because the Post Office, when numbering the houses to prepare for dour-to-door delivery, had allocated ours the catastrophically inauspicious number 44. But the Lis were very hospitable. We were invited to an annual feast outside the ancestral hall, the village lion dance team performed on our doorstep, for a small tip, at Chinese New Year, and our then small son ran in and out of everyone’s houses with the other kids, loosely supervised by a network of grandmas, elder sisters and domestic helpers.  I was even invited to clan meetings, not because I was expected to say anything, but because the village welfare fund, to which I had contributed, supplied free beer on these occasions and I was expected to drink my share. A small tree in our front garden had some traditional role in wedding folklore, so every time one of the village youngsters got married the happy couple would knock on our door and politely ask permission to take a twig.

This was very law-abiding of them because the tree overhung a public path and they could have just helped themselves. In other respects I fear my neighbours were not so fastidious. I did not inquire about the mysteriously high rate of comings and goings in the dog population, but you could not miss the firecrackers. We were up to our ears in them every New Year. Large lorries would sometimes appear in our little car park and I fear things sometimes fell off the back of them, as it were.

Still, on the whole I am a fan of the NT and all who dwell in it. But this scene is being ruined by greed. Or to give it its official name, the Small House Policy. This states that male descendants of the original villagers can apply for a plot to build a small house near their ancestral home. This produces a supply of houses which vastly exceeds the requirements of the indigenous population, many of whom have in any case emigrated. But the policy persists because it is a racket. It was a racket in the 80s, when a member of the Heung Yee Kuk complained that some members of the Kuk itself were participating, it was a racket in the 90s, when there seemed some prospect of it being stopped, and it is a racket now, when there is no such prospect at all because the Kuk is effectively a functional constituency and the continuation of the policy is the price of its support for the government.  In my village the Lis commonly built their small house with an outside staircase, so that they could let one or two of the upper floors and live in the rest. This is not quite what was intended but near enough. However the vast majority of village houses are built for people who have no intention of living in them, or indeed of living in Hong Kong. The indigenous villager has simply sold his signature on the necessary form to a developer. And as a result real villages are surrounded by an ill-planned accumulation of new houses, most of them inhabited by outsiders. A way of life is disappearing, and it is no consolation that the people who used to enjoy it are the ones selling it out.

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The news that Mrs Kissel is to have a new trial is somehow cheering. Of course we cannot have married ladies doing away with inconvenient husbands who are an impediment to romance with the television repair man, if that is what happened. But after a while anyone caught up in the legal system looks like a victim, whatever they have done. The idea that some people can sentence others to spend a decade or two locked up is terrible. It may also be necessary, but not, surely, as often as you would think if you watched Hong Kong’s legal system in action.
It is interesting to contrast the muted reception to the news that there will be a new trial with the paroxysms of complaints about public waste which have greeted the five by-elections which we must not call a referendum. The Court of Final Appeal has now decided that the judge in the original trial made two important mistakes. In due course they were apparently overlooked by the Court of Appeal. So we have had three legal circuses so far without deciding anything, while Mrs Kissel, who may eventually be found to be innocent, has spent a few years in the bosom of the Correctional Services.
Of course you might see this as having improved her chances, in a way. As I recall the defence in the first trial was that the husband succumbed to homicidal rage on the same day as his wife had put a Mickey in his milkshake, which seems a bit of a coincidence. Nowadays, though, people feel differently about bankers. Before the financial meltdown one felt a bit of instinctive sympathy for Mr Kissel. Times have changed. Many of us, if offered an unsuspecting banker and a heavy ornament, would be happy to reduce the financial population a bit ourselves. I should think the prosecution in the new trial will be struggling to persuade the jury not to recommend a medal.

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I am not an uncharitable person. I contribute. But there are ways of asking which are nice, and there are ways which are not nice. Most of us do not wish to be manipulated. So I am heartily annoyed by the latest habit of the people who do their solicitation through unsolicited mail: they send you a gift. The gift is not valuable. The first time it was a keyring. Very useful if you happen to need a keyring but most of us have lots of the things hanging around the place. The latest offering was a piece of plastic whose purpose escaped me.
Clearly there is some psychological justification for this approach. It makes the recipient reluctant to throw the envelope away unopened, which is what tends to happen to mail of this kind. A gift! Let’s have a look. Having opened it you then face a moral dilemma. You have in effect accepted the gift. The gift may be worthless, or at least costless to the supplier, but it now feels wrong to throw it away, and wrong to keep it without sending them something. In practice of course the “gift” probably costs less than the price of the stamp. It’s only real value is its role in persuading some recipients to send money.

With me it failed, partly because of the blatant dishonesty which came with it. On the outside of the package was a picture of a small girl, who judging by name and complexion was in Africa. You could only see her face but she looked neither well nor well-fed. And we were exhorted not to “let her starve”. But actually your money is not going to save this girl and your decision whether to send it or not won’t determine whether she lives or dies. The picture was of course taken mnoths, if not years, ago and by now the kid has been rescued, or not. I suppose the advertising agency advising this enterprise thought this was a jsutifiable way to put a human face on a dangerously statistical problem. It is easier to get people to be moved by one named individual than by the thought of millions of starving third worlders waiting to be rescued by their benevolence. And I suppose if anyone complains the answer will be that this is a matter of life and death for the distant clients of this charity so the end justifies the means.

But surely we have a right to expect people to be a bit more forthcoming than that. Faced with a strange charity people are entitled to ask what it does, who runs it, how much money it is already handling and how much of that money is spent on sending junk mail to people with no previous acquaintance with the organisation. If essential information like this is not supplied we are being offered a rather mysterious opportunity to feel good on the cheap by sending money to someone of whom we know nothing. I suppose this sort of thing cannot be banned but it can be binned.

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