Was sagst du? 樣樣都德

It started as a normal morning some time last month with the same train ride to work, apart from spotting a few passengers taking photos of the train after alighting. I wondered what was special about the train, and I found out when I alighted: one whole carriage was completed painted over by pink and golden graffiti. But I only caught a glimpse of it since I was in a hurry to change trains. 上月某天上班坐火車，看到中途有人下車後為火車拍照，很是好奇，待我下車後便明白究竟：原來其中一車卡整卡被人噴漆塗鴉，一片鮮粉紅一片鮮黃的頗搶眼，不過人多且趕換車，所以祇是匆匆一瞥。 Little did I expect that I would travel on the same train back home! It was indeed a rather rare occurrence, with so many train services in a day and the possibility that trains would switch lines in a network of more than a dozen lines. I decided to sit in the ‘graffiti carriage’ to mark such an unlikely coincidence. It was bright sunny outside and the carriage was flooded with a dreamy mix of pink and yellow light as the sunlight shone through. The usual views outside the window were replaced by the huge ...

內地和香港矛盾加深，不少港人尤其覺得內地人掠奪資源、爭奪機會，挑起港人的仇視情緒，但罪魁禍首，不一定祇是內地來港掃貨的旅客和水貨客，香港本身「幫兇」也不少。   就以鬧得滿城風雨的奶粉短缺問題來說，內地人「搶」奶粉的範圍遍布世界多國，誠然遠赴重洋買奶粉的人遠到香港的少，但在外國「奶粉荒」往往很快便平息，其中一個原因就是在零售層面實施限購，不論是當地居民或中國遊客都一視同仁，反觀香港不但沒有全面限購，更有商人寧可囤積然後以高價大批賣給內地客或水貨客，也不願以正價少量賣給港人，全世界絕無僅有。試想外國的商人也可依樣畫葫蘆圖利，但為何他們沒有這樣做？ 負責運水貨的，內地人和本港居民也有，但能夠在香港統籌物資採購、運輸和分配的不可能是內地人吧，因為他們哪裡有網絡、人脈和資訊呢？當然香港是自由經濟，從事水貨活動的任何環節並不犯法，但沒有這些行為，奶粉供應何來緊張？ 「螞蟻搬家」式搬運水貨過境需大量人力，保安局數字便指出水貨客中港人佔六成，而最近水貨商為增加貨源而聘人在藥房排隊買貨，這些排隊黨不少便是各區居民。水貨客和排隊黨有的是時間，為的是金錢，每次過境或排隊，為賺數十元花上兩三小時也在所不惜，這些報酬誠然在香港仍有購買力和吸引力——在外國一個漢堡包隨時不祇那些價錢，可謂微不足道——但有這麼多人參與其中，究竟是那些人大多生活拮据，還是貪錢？ 港人看得多內地食品和其他產品的醜聞，都會說內地商人為了錢甚麼都做得出，但我想港人祇是五十步笑百步，且看多少港人為了這場國內奶粉誠信危機而趁機發財，祇不過香港和國內最大的分別，就是香港人還不致於會做出例如在奶粉加添三聚氰胺出售的犯法事而已。港人貪錢本色，比五十年不變更有保證，在發這場「國難財」時表露無遺，但正是這些貪錢行徑，造成一場貽害社會秩序和公共健康的奶粉荒。 Hong Kongers are feeling increasingly threatened by the mainland Chinese on a daily basis as they witness a fight for common daily items on a daily basis and perceive further competition for other resources and opportunities in...

Recently foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong have launched a judicial review against a law which disqualifies them from permanent residency in Hong Kong regardless of how long they have resided in Hong Kong. Many Hong Kongers oppose to it fiercely, much as they do to migrants from mainland China in recent years. Last week one of my mum’s friends came from Hong Kong to visit his son who is studying at a university in Melbourne, and we talked to each other on the phone. He asked for some career paths that would help his son to secure permanent residency in Australia. My dad saw some parallels between the domestic helpers and my mum’s friend. There are conceivably plenty of Hong Kong families who send their children abroad for education and employ a domestic helper at the same time. While some of the families would see their children abroad as a foothold to possible future emigration, they will on the other hand probably object if their domestic helper managed to gain Hong Kong’s re...

There was a special report in a newspaper yesterday on the effects of a strong Swiss franc on Switzerland’s economy. It wasn’t that long ago that I went to Switzerland twice , and I know a few people living there, so I could relate the article to a few of my personal experiences. 昨天讀報談到 瑞士法郎大幅升值 如何影響瑞士經濟，我不久前 到過瑞士兩次 ，也認識一些在瑞士的人，所以讀後甚有共鳴。 Before the Swiss franc has reached such crazy heights as today's, Switzerland is already rather (in)famous for its high prices. My friend who is studying for a PhD in Switzerland came for a weekend break in Munich during last year’s Oktoberfest in September, and everywhere he went he would remark how cheap the prices were in Munich. My other friends and I joked that he must have become a millionaire since moving to Switzerland! 瑞士法郎還沒有今日如此瘋癲時，物價之貴已舉世聞名，在瑞士唸博士的朋友， 去年九月 趁啤酒節來慕尼黑過周未時，所到之處他總會說：「怎麼這裡的物價會這樣便宜？」我和其他朋友都取笑道，他一定是成了大富豪了！ This January when I went with another friend for a visit to Konstanz , I still remember vividly how the roads in ...

Hong Kong is well known for its intense and pressurising work conditions. Now a survey on the finance, accounting and human resources sectors in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand has added weight to this reputation. Many employees would stay in contact and continue working through their supposedly ‘leisure’ times, while many employers expect the employees to be reachable outside normal working hours. The hard-working ethic is no doubt a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s economic success, and working long hours and being constantly in touch with colleagues or bosses are facts of life when there are deadlines to meet. But when Hong Kong employers become over-reliant on placing exigent demands on employees all the time, one has to wonder if they have overlooked other important factors in lifting workplace performance and business competitiveness, such as improving efficiencies in certain processes or the overall workflow. There are many other effects of such demanding workloads. T...

Australia has a place called the Surfers’ Paradise; very soon it will add another place called the workers’ paradise! So what is keeping everyone happy? Firstly there is the rather generous minimum wage of more than A$ 15 (approx. US$ 16, 11 euros, HK$ 120) per hour, which is among the best in the world. There is also the labour union which will campaign for a higher minimum wage regularly. While the minimum wages in many countries are set at subsistence level, in Australia it is clearly more than that – an hour’s minimum wage will enable the worker to buy a typical meal in a fast food chain with a comfortable amount of money to spare. Australia’s minimum wage can indeed provide a basic guarantee of livelihood and dignity to the worker. Also unlike many other countries, the other end of the pay scale is not monopolised by those working in the government and big corporations. Notably, many are tradespersons or are involved in manual work. When I had a chat with a neighbour some time ago...

In a matter of within 24 hours, Egypt’s Mubarak lost his grip on power and resigned from his presidency, with the military assuming power in interim. While the protesting project erupted into a euphoria and many leaders around the world welcomed the change of regime, the future is not necessarily as rosy as many would hope for. The most powerful force driving this turn of events is certainly not the US whose attitude seemed to be swaying day by day. It may not be the protesting mass either, if not with military support, and in fact the political power has fallen into military hands for the moment. There is no way for outsiders to fathom the political dealings behind the scenes, but the fact that the military has taken over seems to suggest that the military has been exerting great power. How may one otherwise explain why the power wasn’t handed over to the newly created vice-presidency? It is common practice in many countries that the vice-president (or someone else in the government a...

It’s not wise to judge a book by its cover, and to judge how wealthy a person is from their appearance is even more hit and miss. There are plenty of them floating around us any time, and the Frankfurt Airport and Munich are a couple of places where they are more easily spotted. At the Frankfurt Airport it took me 20 minutes to receive my 13 euro tourist tax refund. The culprit was a very slow-moving queue of people who would submit multiple receipts with forms that were filled incorrectly or incompletely, including a Russian man who submitted almost 20 receipts. Then there was a Chinese woman who asked me for help with translation. I told her that the staff could pay her refund only in US dollars but not euros, and charge-back to her credit card was not allowed since the amount was a stunning 3000 euros! Based on the general 20 % sales tax rate across Europe and tax refund would usually give back only 70 % of the tax, I estimated that the woman would have purchased at least 20000 euro...

While dad and I were looking for places for afternoon tea in the city on Sunday 25th July, I was astounded by the prices. 7月25日（星期日）跟家父到市中心閒逛後找地方吃下午茶，驚覺物價如此貴！ We first came across a French-style patisserie/boulangerie and had a quick look through the cake cupboard. While the prices of pastries were still acceptable (albeit slightly expensive), we quickly turned away as we found that many of the cakes were not that cheap. Lemon tarts and similar delicacies cost A$7.4 each (HK$50, US$6.3, 5 euros), and we were wondering if they were really worth the price even though we could well afford them. Still there were no shortage of customers – and that was why two price-conscious (or substitute with a more disparaging adjective) people could sneak in and out of the shop unnoticed. 我倆先到一家法式包蛋糕店，看看窗櫥內糕點的價錢，酥皮餡餅還不算太貴，但一看到其他糕點的價錢，我倆祇有轉身掉頭走的份兒，每個澳幣$7.4（港幣$50、$6.3美元、5歐元）的檸檬撻（檸檬餡餅），我倆不是負擔不起，但很懷疑是否物有所值。那家蛋糕店，少了我們兩個寒酸顧客也不少，反正樂得花錢的顧客擠滿一店，所以我倆走進商店和離開都無人理會。 Then we walked into an arcade and were attracted...

Melbourne had a new rail operator since the start of the year. Many passengers like I had high hopes for this rail company headed by Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation, but instead of reducing cancellations and improving punctuality, railway operation has been going downhill recently. 墨爾本年初換了火車營運商，由港鐵公司為首的集團經營，本對其寄予希望，能減少火車脫班誤點，不過近來則每下愈況。 Last week there was a series of railway delays, and it struck when I least wanted. The trains decided to make a fool of me last Wednesday. I left work earlier than usual for a family occasion, but there was a problem with overhead power supply that was affecting train departures. I could sense something serious as the count-down timer for the next train had frozen, and I had to dust off my Plan B and took an unaffected train line so that my parents could pick me up somewhere else. (A Plan B is indispensable in Melbourne if one relies on public transport for the daily commute, and it will be practised at least 2 to 3 times a year.) It also didn’t help matters...

The dust is rising around my work place these days. It’s really no surprise given that the government, university and property developers are all in a construction frenzy. 最近工作地點四周都塵土飛揚，無他的，不論是政府、大學和地產商都大興土木，好不熱鬧。 Directly opposite to the Royal Melbourne Hospital building (to the south) where my laboratory is located, what was once the Royal Dental Hospital has finally been torn down after it was relocated elsewhere 5 to 6 years ago. The demolition works have been in preparation since the start of the year and finally started last month. Within two weeks the whole building was almost reduced to rubbles, and it is indeed a rare sight to be able to see the front of the Royal Melbourne Hospital in full view from afar (see above). The site will turn into a new cancer hospital which will house both medical and research facilities (see below). 實驗室所位處的皇家墨爾本醫院（Royal Melbourne Hospital），正門對面（南方）本是牙科醫院，但自五、六年前搬遷後一直丟空，直至今年初才部署清拆，上個月開展工作，不消個多星期便夷為平地，能從遠處無遮無擋遙望醫院正門，實是難得一見之景象（見上圖）。該址將重建為新癌症中心，集醫療和研究...

Before dinner on 30th April, I went for a wander in the streets of Chinatown near the restaurant while waiting for my friends. Friday evenings are busy times for restaurants, and that evening was no exception with quite long queues in front of several places, including a Shanghaiese dumpling eatery, a restaurant serving local specialties from Suzhou, Hangzhou and surrounds (which are all near Shanghai) as well as a restaurant serving dumplings and cuisine from the provinces near the seaboard south of the Yangtze River (which also covers Shanghai). Most of those in the queues, very interestingly, were Westerners, and that had me wondering what all the rave about Shanghaiese cuisine was. When I asked my friends at the dinner table, one of them joked that it was brought about by the Shanghai Expo fever, while another said that the Shanghaiese dumpling eatery was famous for its large servings at one of the cheapest prices in town. For A$ 10 (HK$ 70, 7 euros or US$ 9), there would be enough...

The Hong Kong government has proposed new guidelines for floor numberings of new buildings. Apart from the omission of 4, 13 and numbers ending with a 4, other forms of omissions or aliasing will not be allowed. 香港對樓宇層樓編號有新 規管 ，不容許不合理的大幅跳層，但刪去4、13和尾數是4字的樓層還是可以的。 These guidelines may not make sense to most of non-Chinese readers, unless you happen to know that 4 is a homophone with death in Chinese, and 13 is supposed to be an unlucky number for Christians even though most Westerners don’t really care about it. Skipping certain floor numbers may make people feel better but doesn’t change the reality. Those living on the so-called 5th floor of a building which has omitted the 4th floor numbering are still living on the actual 4th storey of the building, although the residents can probably take comfort that they are not living on the death floor. 4字是中國人的忌諱，13雖說是對西人（或信耶穌的）不吉，但平常西人都甚少理會。跳樓層這個做法其實自欺欺人，沒有4樓的大廈，住在所謂的5樓其實即是第4樓，祇是聽覺上和心理上好過一點，但根本沒改變過住在樓宇本身的第4樓這個現實。 Superstitions such as the abov...

Last week I was arguing with my Dutchie buddy on the use of the English word ‘bastard’. Either he was being mischievous or he really meant it; he called a girl bastard but the girl argued that bastard could only refer to boys and not girls. My Dutchie buddy didn’t believe her. I understand that bastard originally means someone born outside a legitimate marriage, and although it was clear from dictionaries that the word could refer to a child of either sex, but I have always thought that it originally only meant a illegitimate son. In order to prove my point, I quickly looked up German and Dutch dictionaries online, then told my Dutchie buddy: the German word Bastard and Dutch bastaard are both masculine nouns, and if those words can indeed refer to both genders, they should have been of neuter gender like the word Kind (which means child in both German and Dutch). My Dutchie buddy wasn’t convinced, so I sought to look up an etymology dictionary for the origin of ‘bastard’. It turned ou...

A day where so many runners have broken their personal bests must have been a record in itself, except it’s one that the organisers would not be particularly proud of. Many runners in the Melbourne marathon yesterday found that they have finished their courses faster than expected, but it was all because the actual distances of the 5 km and 10 km runs were shorter than what they should have been. The organisers admitted there was a problem but would not revealed how much difference there was between the advertised and actual distances; they have only denied that the difference was as much as 20%. Here’s the news report that says it all. Close enough is good enough – this should be the new motto for future Melbourne marathons. P.S. (18/10) - The organisers have finally revealed what the actual distances were for the 5 km and 10 km courses. One has to wonder how sloppy those people have been. 做事「提早達標」有誰不想，體育運動不斷打破往積也是很多人的目標。昨天舉行的墨爾本馬拉松，這些目標很多人都實現了，但他們也知道自己開心得太早。 原來五公里和十公里賽事，主辦單位承認實際距離比...