sham shui po: eat, live, play
(some pics of SSP)… Read More
irish travellers
S: it’s the most capitalist place in the world, you cant have children protection trump marketing and advertisement J: even on a govt website? While on the HKSAR Labour Department’s website, I noticed a link on the bottom of the page: “This website supports protection of children on Internet.” After clicking it, I was very confused by the page that … Read More
free, but not free
If Mr Friedman had a favourite economy, it was Hong Kong. Its astonishing economic success convinced him that although economic freedom was necessary for political freedom, the converse was not true: political liberty, though desirable, was not needed for economies to be free. Why, he asked, had Hong Kong thrived when Britain, which controlled it until 1997, was so statist … Read More
another day
11.00: shamefully eat a bowl of indonesian instant noodles, so I can rush to meet my group for our presentation tomorrow.
11.30: our presentation is about …… Read More
one country, two systems?
I’ve been really impressed by the Economist’s semi-recent institution of a “correspondent’s diary”–essentially a 5-day blog, each time written by a different foreign correspondent. this week’s is on Hong Kong and Taiwan (“Long-haired radicals seize power”), and muses whether the former–on the 10-year anniversary of its return to the Mainland–has been a shining example of “one country, two systems” (the … Read More
health care review task force
After the takeover in 1997, the Government of Hong Kong commissioned a team of economists, physicians, epidemiologists, and public health specialists from Harvard University to conduct a study on Hong Kong’s health care system. An extract from their report: One explanation for the highly variable quality of medical services in Hong Kong is the privilege enjoyed by the medical profession … Read More
hazy HK sunsets
just don’t ask about the air quality… (view of victoria harbour, as I was about to hop onto the star ferry in tsim sha tsui)
victoria harbour cruise
why are these boats so big?? why is the harbour so small? this is just weird.
pop bites
small café/takeaway place that a friend and I accidentally found on its opening day last week–cool music, artsy people… and obliging owners who fed us tiramisu & mousse. so quite by coincidence a bunch of us walked by it last night and I remembered that they were supposed to have parties every saturday. we popped in and found people eating, … Read More
no human rights problem in hong kong?
the topic of today’s governance & law class was “monitoring government processes” (ie, ombudsmen, commissions of inquiry, judicial review, etc.). there is currently no human rights commission in HK, so our prof was suggesting that perhaps we could expand the powers of the (independent) ombudsman, so as to have a supervisory role with respect to human rights issues. (kind of … Read More