October 15, 2003

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They finally opened the longest

They finally opened the longest bridge in the world outside work yesterday. Not the longest by length, it's maybe 30 metres long. Not the trickiest, it's a simple footbridge over a busy road. The longest by time taken for construction. I arrived in HK in February and the bridge was 3/4 complete. It has taken 8 months for them to put on a roof and put some slate on the ground. The idea of the bridge is to allow for the additional foot traffic for the massive new IFC building. IFC standing for Incredible F**king Colossus, being about 10 miles tall with 3,000 stories. They've even been kind enough to put a bulls-eye target on it in case you can't see it. Funniest of all is the building is mostly empty. The HK Monetary Authority (the Central Bank) bought the top 10 floors for some monstrous amount just before the property market crashed in 1997. They're subletting some of the space themselves because they don't need it all. Another good use of HK's reserves. But I digress. So they built this extra bridge for all the extra pedestrian traffic coming through. For those not familiar, much of HK is roadways with elevated footpaths. I think they got sick of the cars using the footpaths as an additional lane.

The opening of the bridge itself should have been a monumental affair. At a minimum some balloons, ticker tape and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Instead they quietly removed the barricades and let people wander across. This is to cover their embarrassment at taking so long to get it open. It's a cover-up that I'm proud to expose. You heard it here first.

Anyway, it all got me wondering about the move to HK in the first place. You would think that deciding to pick up one's family, leave the place you were born and grew up, starting afresh after years of being comfortable and settled would be a momentous decision. Hours of deliberating, arguing, weighing pros and cons. The reality is it was nothing like that at all. I got told by work there was a chance to work offshore. I told my (then) boss it should be OK so long as the job was good and it was somewhere they don't like eating you and apologising later. A few weeks later I sat in an office with CF, my now boss and a fellow Aussie (well, via South Africa) and he offered me the job in HK. Went home and told Mrs M, who said should be OK, let's go check it out. We checked it out, it was OK. Back to Oz, said yes. A few months of back and forwards with contracts, settling everything, packing and preparing for the move and suddenly we were here. Looking back there were a couple of discussions with Mrs M, but the opportunity was too good and the tax rate is 1/3 of Australia's. Mixed reactions from the families and friends but it was pretty obvious to all that it was "a good thing".

That was it. Picked up Mrs M, JC, PB and Misti and changed hemispheres, language and culture. Occasionally it hits me, like last night when I stared across what's left of Victoria Harbour at the bright lights of Kowloon. I'm not at home any more. Or maybe I am in my new home. Mrs M always (rightly) corrects me whenever I say "home" meaning Australia, saying HK is now our home. I suppose that makes us citizens of the world, or maybe just confused.

Either way we're loving HK. JC and PB are right into things, with JC invited to birthday parties constantly (at least one every weekend), PB in two playgroups. Mrs M has met a good crowd of fellow Disneyland inmates, as well as others via the usual mafia connections. Plus she's playing tennis again and taking up bridge. As for me, the not-so-new job is good, the people I work with are good (I have to say that, they read this), the lifestyle is good and the city is good. We're removed from some of the day-to-day of family and friends back in Oz but that works out both good and bad. But most importantly the family are happy.

Did I mention the tax is 1/3 of home? That's good too.

posted by Simon on 10.15.03 at 02:16 PM in the




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