Hong Kong crazy is all too clear from here
The onset of Occupy has meant outsiders have had to grapple with the crazy that lies in the shadow of our dazzling skyscrapers. Of course, CY Leung has done his best to make [...]
Teargas debacle sums up Hong Kong’s dysfunction
The deployment of riot police at Admiralty on Sunday is a fine illustration of Hong Kong’s malaise. The evidence is that this single decision, more than any amount of [...]
Democracy in action (or should that be ‘inaction’?)
On my last visit to LegCo the taxi driver thought it was the High Court and proceeded up the hill past the Shangri-La. He was ex-mainland, but these days you can almost [...]
A monument to waste
Hong Kong suffers from bad decisions because of our dysfunctional system. In particular, it encourages grandiose public works in favour of long-term problem-solving. [...]
More blue cabs? It can be done
The good news is the Islands District Council agrees that we need more blue taxis. The bad news is that the council has had no luck in persuading the Transport Dept, despite [...]
The silence of the cabbies
A quick update on the transport story, which has become primarily a taxi story. First, getting a response from the Lantau Taxi Alliance is like trying to hail a blue cab on a [...]
Lantau’s transport problems
My task over the next week is to write a story for Life on Lantau about our congested and erratically available public transport services. On a cold weekday in December it [...]
Park politics
Across the mainland, enthusiasm may have waned for Chairman Mao’s vision of turning cities into forests of smokestacks, but Hong Kong’s ambition to pave the territory [...]
Lantau development mania
When Hong Kong’s British rulers announced plans for a new airport at Chek Lap Kok in 1990, they set off a minor boom on Lantau. Not even the sleepy southern parts were [...]
Here on Lantau, Hong Kong’s cheapest property
Running around Chi Ma Wan peninsula last year I noticed a bunch of apartments on the shore below. Not knowing the epic importance of the dwellings, I took this photograph [...]