For those of you who read Tiger Mum this photo of children performing at Hong Kong airport may bring back some thoughts of the book, tactics, parenting pride and pressure not necessarily in that order. They were kinda cute.
There is so much emphasis on achieving and spending a day with a delightful young civil servant I was able to fully appreciate why. She was one of 20,000 applicants for a civil service job. They took 32 applicants and she was one of them. She commutes on a busy underground from the New Territories. The idea that she could ever own her own flat is almost a pie in the sky, and if she does it will be like a little floating cloud. Massive sky scrapers with tiny apartments where the land value is among the highest in the world. She is on a rotating training programme which enables her to become familiar with policy and process and takes it all very seriously. She considers herself to be extremely lucky but I said I was luckier as she was showing me around. She introduced me to Abalone, and for those of you not familiar with this mollusc, it is considered to be a very great delicacy here. It seemed to be a bit like a chewy mushroom and perhaps you need to appreciate it from a young age as well as some of the other rather odd items that are sold - gift wrapped and ready to go to a good home.
A gift box of Abalone and below some delightful sea cucumbers.
Some sea horses but do they eat them I wonder?
I think the nicest nugget I heard from her was when I asked her what was happening at the temple I had visited the day before where I saw people coming in with offerings. She said in HK people go to the temple and pray to the god for something specific - a job, a cure etc- if their wish is fulfilled they visit the temple again with an offering. Pay back. I loved the idea that you only had to pay back if the God did his job. Surely there is a PHD in there somewhere to investigate the success rates of these Gods.
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