Asia's World City?!?! Pfft.... Hitler was a better joke than this!

[fth]

I've been offered drugs on Wyndham Street (whilst just walking along the pavement), and see it regularly on street corners in Wanchai. It's not exactly hidden.

There was a guy who used to walk around Soho/Wyndham street shouting his wares out loud, he seems to have either developed a new marketing strategy or has hopefully been caught.

[hullexile]

Having spent many a night in Wan Chai I am another one who has never been offered illegal drugs.

[reddbod]

if you think you're being discriminated, point your whining to EOC.

Equal Opportunities Commission

[NewtoHK11]

I truly Wish the Brit's would come back to be the controllers...... I may or may not be wrong, but as far as I know (Coming from someone who works for the police) the minimum grade that you need to join the POPO is F**king Form 5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really, are letting people who haven't even finished their GCSE's/what ever they call it in chinese into our police force?!?!??!

Its simple their house their rules.....they may very well have had just cause

[paenme]

"It is still many decades behind a the western world in terms of personal liberties and tolerance of dissent."

Hong Kong is also light years behind in catching up to the western world's high crime rates, personal as well as government bankruptcy/indebtedness rates, tort rates, welfare/entitlement fraud rates... Yeah, so much for personal liberties and tolerance to the extreme.

We can go back and forth about which system (Western vs the countries you mentioned) is "better" or who is "right", but we will get no where. However hopefully we can agree that China, Russia, Pakistan, Nigeria and to a much lesser extent HK, have some overly harsh and oppressive laws which many Western countries have done away with.

I don't know about that. I recently visited UK and in London experienced prejudice that I have never encountered in Hong Kong. The laws are only as good as how they are being applied and practiced by each individual. When one looks different from the local majority, the chance of being singled out/treated differently naturally increases, whether in HK or the western world. At least in the OP's case we do have some evidence that the different treatment may be due to actual historical crime profiling, in my case the treatmet was completely based on stereotypical perception of personalities of a particular race/gender.

[Vessy]

Do you really think you have more personal liberties here in HK than you do in Canada or the US? I suggest you travel to those places and then let me know what you think. Would you say that an average person in Hong Kong has a better quality of life than someone who lives in a Western country, like Canada? I would have to disagree. Personally, I don't really appreciate "random drug searches" here in HK, and I know for a fact they don't happen as often in most Western countries.

Personally, I can tolerate higher crime rates as oppose to random drug searches, prostitution advertised so openly, and poor/homeless people scattered around the streets as they are here in HK. I live in a fairly nice area here, but there are still old ladies who sleep in piles of garbage every night.

Every country in the world has it's own set of problems. I realize that. But if Hong Kong is going to call itself a "world city" I would expect it to be the quintessential example of a city - and it isn't. A lot of cities in North America and Europe wouldn't make the cut either. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy living in HK. It's a fascinating and rich city. But I would still stand by my statement in that is is far away from being considered a "world city".

[hullexile]

Of course it all depends on what the hell "Asia's World City" means in the first place.

[AceOfSpades]

With all due respect to everyone, I have forgiven and let the matter go, its now all up to you what you do with this post.... thanks

[ferdyh]

Do you really think you have more personal liberties here in HK than you do in Canada or the US? I suggest you travel to those places and then let me know what you think. Would you say that an average person in Hong Kong has a better quality of life than someone who lives in a Western country, like Canada? I would have to disagree. Personally, I don't really appreciate "random drug searches" here in HK, and I know for a fact they don't happen as often in most Western countries.

Personally, I can tolerate higher crime rates as oppose to random drug searches, prostitution advertised so openly, and poor/homeless people scattered around the streets as they are here in HK. I live in a fairly nice area here, but there are still old ladies who sleep in piles of garbage every night.

Every country in the world has it's own set of problems. I realize that. But if Hong Kong is going to call itself a "world city" I would expect it to be the quintessential example of a city - and it isn't. A lot of cities in North America and Europe wouldn't make the cut either. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy living in HK. It's a fascinating and rich city. But I would still stand by my statement in that is is far away from being considered a "world city".

I don't know what about Canada, but I know US as I lived there before, not sure Canada is better than US, altho some Canadians I met living and working in US told me different stories (according to their version definitely).

To some extent I can agree with you there is liberty there in US, you can look the way Bush tried hard to extend this "free stuff" to Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and everyone 'd believe it. But if you compare that liberty in US with the one in Western Europe, you would get surprise ! Where you can find naked public beach in US ? Where in US you can drink alcohol on public without getting caught by cop ? (some friends told me there may be some few states only). In Asia it is free to express negative feeling too, what Americans usually only reply "I'm fine. How are you ?" if you ask them "how are you?", here you can say "not good, I'm feeling bad".

There are more things both negative and positive about US or HK but guess it's time for lunch!

[hullexile]

in my case the treatmet was completely based on stereotypical perception of personalities of a particular race/gender.

Would be interested to know what sort of treatment this was.