So what's the purpose of this blog? Just to give some random thoughts on life and work in Hong Kong, reflections on politics and finance, plus plucking some funny or interesting morsels from the net as I come across them. As I get better at this I will try and post photos of the family too. I'm not one of those idealogues who will constantly rabbit on about vast right or left wing conspiracies. Instead I'll just call it how see it.

So what's today's thoughts? I've been working here in HK for 6 months and it has turned out to be quite a different place to what I imagined. Physically it is larger than I expected. Certainly the vast number of high rises was not a surprise. And suprisingly it is beautiful in parts, with a generous amount of space devoted to parks and nature. It is more family friendly than I expected, although it certainly seems more of a town suited to the kid-less with plenty of night life. The expat community is large enough to not be claustraphobic but small enough to remain a community. Most (but not all) are outgoing, friendly and hospitible, no doubt repaying the favours shown when they first moved here. There are enough like minded and similarly positioned people that we don't feel like we're Robinson Curusoe.

Economically the place feels like it has had the stuffing knocked out of it for years. It might just be finally reaching a bottom as the place managed to rebound from SARS in spite of the Government.

This brings me to the most interesting part of HK. Like people everywhere most of the population just want to get on with their lives. They may be clawing their way out of negative equity on their apartment, or looking for the fast buck, or just plugging away doing whatever they need to to get by. But most don't give a flying f*ck about politics as long as they achieve whatever it is they are trying to achieve. Mostly it seems to be able to buy the latest and greatest irrespective of their ability to pay. I've seen more Ferraris in the carpark of my apartment complex than I did in 30 years in Australia. So when 500,000 people protest as they did in July, they're mighty angry about something. The reality is article 23 is only one part of why most got off their backsides and went for a walk that day. A big part of it was to protest about the state of the economy, the inept government and the one thousand and one other complaints that people have about life in general. But the scary thing is it worked. Article 23 shelved. The CCP must be wondering what they've got into in taking on HK. You can be sure the mainland papers won't be running articles on HK politics. And the Government in HK will be scratching their heads in wonder.

Despite all the propoganda of HK being a laissez-faire free market economy, the reality is the government and media act paternalistically. It could be a Confucian/Chinese thing - I don't know enough about the culture to judge. I think it wasn't arrogance on the Government's part that saw them driving this legislation when it was obviously doomed. I think they genuinely saw it as the right thing to do and expected the populace to fall into line. The implicit contract is the Government does what it likes and the people obey, and in return they get ever increasing wealth via a rigged property market. But now the property market has crashed and the Government cannot unrig it enough to even make things stabilise. That's because markets have a way of correcting until the right level is reached. Fiddling too much tends to be counter-productive, although sometimes markets themselves get things wrong and then intervention may be necessary. That's for another time.

So the Government got a kick up the pants when they realised that the populace have ripped up this social contract. It is scary in that now they have to start listening instead of telling Hong Kongers what to do. It is the start of a form of democracy. The politicians HK does have are pretty woeful to say the least, but people power has been tried and tested and worked. I imagine most HKers don't care about many of the day-to-day issues of Government and politics, but what they do care about should become the focus of the Government if they want to retain any shred of credibility. It could well lead to the start of proper debates on real issues affecting HK.

For real debate to happen though more has to change. In particular the newspapers here, in particular the lamentable South China Morning Post (SCMP). They surely see themselves as the paper of record for HK, which is a horrific thought. Rarely does an article involve more than superificial reporting and even the editorial pages estimate the reading audience to have a low IQ and a mental age in the teens. If real debate and politics is to start in this place their needs to be the media to do it. Television is even worse. The answer is the SCMP needs to start treating the population and its readers like people who can think rather than people who need telling what to do, muh like the Government is discovering. I doubt it will happen because HK is a set of duopolies and vested interests mascarading as a free market.

The conclusion to this rant is the simple observation that despite the Government's best efforts HK is managing to recover. It feels vibrant and it feels like a place with a future. It didn't 6 months ago. The people here are amazing in their ability to get on with things despite the obstacles official-dom put in their way. I guess that's the legacy the British left.