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What I don't undertand about Hong Kong

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  1. #1

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    What I don't undertand about Hong Kong

    I moved to Hong Kong about three years ago. Overall, my experience has been positive. However, there are some things I just don't understand:

    Driving: HK drivers love to tailgate, don't like merging properly when a traffic lane is blocked and rarely use their blinkers when changing lanes. The tailgating is the worse. You're in a tunnel, there's no way the car behind can overake you and the driver is so close he could read your speedometer. I guess every country has its own driving culture and it's probably even worse in other Asian countries, but I can't help but wonder why the taigating is so prevalent. A lot of drivers also don't have eTags. So they drive like madmen and then I pass them while they're queuing at the toll booth.

    Banking: Prior to moving to HK I hadn't used my cheque book for at least two years. I'm now half way through my second book of 100 cheques. There's no bPay equivalent and people seem to like being paid with cheques. For a leading financial centre, it seems really backward.

    Shopping: I always thought that HK was a shopping paradise. I couldn't have been more wrong. Take one example: big screen TVs. They cost three times as much in HK compared to the US. Although everything is made in China, it's much cheaper to shop online via Amazon. The best thing I did was get a US address (check out myus.com) so that I can buy whatever I need online. Cheaper and saves the pain and suffering of going to some of the most crowded shopping malls I've ever seen.

    Taxis: HK is one of the few countries I've been too where you can't pay electronically. And the red/green/blue taxis system: I can't undertand why they do it that way. Nothing worse that wanting to travel from the New Territories to Hong Kong island and all you can see is green taxis.

    Waterways: HK has a beautiful harbour and waterways, yet they're underutilised. Too many people in the shopping centres and too few going boating.

    China knocking: There's some really strong predjudice against mainland Chinese. Don't people realise that the HK economy relies more than ever on mainlanders coming to HK and spending their money?

    Overseas helpers: I can't believe the sort of crap the overseas (mainly Philippino) helpers have to put up with. Too many HK parents also outsource their parenting to helpers. I think it has a corrupting influence on HK society- you see it with some of the children who are used to bossing around the helpers (rather than the natural order, which is partents telling their children what to do). And all this recent nonsense about imposing sanctions on the Phiippines over the bus hostage incident because the president wouldn't apologise on behalf of the entire nation for the actions of a lone gunman. Unbelievable.

    Tiger Mum attitudes: I guess this is more of an Asian thing, rather than anything that is specific to HK. Some kids have their entire days filled with music lessons, maths lessons, language lessons and everything else you could imagine. What about letting kids play and have some fun?

    Hongkong1981, winyups and ryan_w like this.

  2. #2

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    I like cheques. They make it easier to keep accounts in order.

    shri likes this.

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by bookblogger:
    I like cheques. They make it easier to keep accounts in order.
    yea, but you like that old technology thing called books too

  4. #4

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    I am proud to be odd!


  5. #5

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    You're not odd; just retro

    Fiona in HKG likes this.

  6. #6

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    I do wish they would hurry up and allow octopus payment for taxi's. They have been trialling it since 2006 but still dragging their feet on this one. Octopus company even offer the taxi drivers a 'guaranteed tip' of $3 for every octopus transactions but the knucklehead taxi drivers still say they don't want it.


  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    I do wish they would hurry up and allow octopus payment for taxi's. They have been trialling it since 2006 but still dragging their feet on this one. Octopus company even offer the taxi drivers a 'guaranteed tip' of $3 for every octopus transactions but the knucklehead taxi drivers still say they don't want it.
    As I understand it a couple of reasons why taxi drivers have rejected the Octopus payment system so far:

    They have to return the reader to 'base' at the end of every day to transfer all the Octopus payments back into the system (not sure if this has been rectified)
    They are reluctant because of the tipping system (or the way it is implemented)
    The hassle / downtime required in getting the readers installed

    But yes, I agree, it would be great if they could overcome these obstacles and implement the system - another convenience added!
    Last edited by jmbf; 06-08-2014 at 07:28 PM.

  8. #8

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    + Stupid weather warnings

    Whoever came up with HK's weather warnings obviously wasn't familiar with the "boy who cried wolf" story. There are so many warnings issued that they're very hard to take seriously. Sometimes the warnings seem to contradict themselves - eg fire warning and rain warning at the same time. And do we really need a hot weather warning to be issued in July? Everyone knows it's stinking hot every day in Summer. The thunderstorm warning is perhaps the most annoying - so often the swimming pool where I live is closed on a hot, sunny day because of this warning.

    Last edited by bmanj; 06-08-2014 at 09:22 PM.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by bmanj:
    Whoever came up with HK's weather warnings obviously wasn't familiar with the "boy who cried wolf" story. There are so many warnings issued that they're very hard to take seriously. Sometimes the warnings seem to contradict themselves - eg fire warning and rain warning at the same time. And do we really need a hot weather warning to be issued in July? Everyone knows it's stinking hot every day in Summer. The thunderstorm warning is perhaps the most annoying - so often the swimming pool where I live is closed on a hot, sunny day because of this warning.
    The disciple of the Heat Index would disagree.

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by jmbf:
    They have to return the reader to 'base' at the end of every day to transfer all the Octopus payments back into the system (not sure if this has been rectified)
    Couldn't they simply get a 9th phone for that? Or would that finally block the windscreen?
    bffallo and tparker like this.

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