Penang

When mum and dad were over just after Chinese New Year we headed over to Penang for a long weekend. The capital of the island, Georgetown, had the feeling that little had changed in the last couple of hundred years. The pictures and photos in the history museum seemed very familiar. As well as enjoying a colonial afternoon tea lifestyle, we headed out to a national park and ended up on a secluded beach worthy of a postcard.

Breakfast was fetched every morning by the guy who ran the B&B, Charlie. At times, it was a little tricky to distinguish between breakfast food and dinner food - noodles seem to be the order of the day anytime!

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CNY

Just noticed that my last post before today was December, which means I didn't cover Chinese New Year in Thailand. Apart from experiencing some of the world's most unreliable trains, we had a great time - elephants being a particular highlight (including bathing them in the river and feeding them).

We visited the old capital of Thailand and Eve had her first experience of street food (I've been trying to convince her of its benefits for some while) - a rampaging success. The concept seemed to be to create a sandwich-like dish with lettuce for bread and a fish filling. Delicious.

We met an American student that same night who had won a USD20,000 scholarship. The terms of the scholarship required her to travel the world - with one catch: she had to do it alone.

After that, we headed north on a (much delayed) sleeper train. Thanks to Eve's negotiating skills, we got a free upgrade to the jacuzzi suite. We breakfasted every morning down by the waterwheel.

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Offsite

I was over in Shanghai last weekend for the bi-annual Asia disputes offsite. I do wonder how so much lovely old colonial architecture managed to survive the Cultural Revolution. The Bund gives the impression that it looks as it did 100+ years ago. The French Concession is equally as striking. We had dinner at the Old British Consulate, which was like something straight out of a film.

The main highlight was eating a soup dumpling the size of my hand.

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Taipei

We went to Taiwan for a weekend back in March. Taipei was great - it's got a lot of the things Hong Kong hasn't, which makes for a fun weekend - little alleys to explore, some old buildings actually still standing and hot springs! The hot springs we went to were of the public swimming pool ilk. Rammed to the gills, you had to try to find a few square inches to yourself. The pools came in three varieties: nicely hot, very hot bath and scalding. I lasted about 2 minutes in the scalding one (followed by the near compulsory cold dip), but some guys looked like they were settling in for a while.

The food is nothing short of exceptional. You could go anywhere and know the food would be great (although you may have to like stinky tofu).

Contrasted with Hong Kong's skyscrapers, Taipei only has one tall building of note - Taipei 101 (no prizes for guessing how many floors it has). It's genius is that you really see the traditional Chinese architecture in the way it's been put together. They've also got a big coin on each side for a bit of prosperity.

Sounds like Taiwan had a pretty nasty government post war. Another example of Western political expediency propping up a less than ideal regime.

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It's been a while

I looked back over some old blog posts and - given that I couldn't remember some of the stuff I'd written - it occurred to me that I need to get back into it!

We went for a hike up in the new territories today. Macaques everywhere! Sadly, people feed them which means that they are a little less frightened of humans than they should be. Despite signs everywhere warning people about fines if you feed wild animals, they carry on regardless.

We also came across some old army tunnels from the second world war. To make the soldiers feel at home, different parts of the network had very familiar names e.g. Oxford Street, Regent Street. We even saw a sign to the Stand Palace Hotel!

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Cheung Chau

It had been some time since we'd booked the work Junk (i.e. boat), so we headed out a couple of weeks back to Cheung Chau (Long Island). I'd been once before - about 6 years ago. Little had changed: there's still a huge number of fishing boats in the harbour and cycle rickshaws on land. Although I did see one thing unknown to the island in 2005: a car. There was a tiny little police run around, but it seems of limited use on an island where the streets are steep and narrow. They've also got public baths in the truest sense of the word.

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Lights

The proliferation of Christmas lights is starting to become overwhelming. From our living room you can see a mass of different colours flashing. Flashing lights are not unheard of here with the nightly Symphony of Lights, but the Christmas lights achieve a whole new level. Sadly photos can't quite capture it. Across the harbour in Kowloon, there's a particularly fine collection of hypnotic colours. With Chinese New Year at the end of January, we may be treated to them for some weeks to come.

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New experiences

On Thursday, I experienced a sensation which I hadn't felt in a fair few months. After mulling it over for a few minutes, I realised what it was: I felt cold. Walking down the street in mid-December in my shirt, it felt a bit nippy.

On Saturday, we headed to Sai Kung for a trip out to an island about thirty minutes by slow boat. Deserted apart from our little group, it was great. It also has the distinction of being the only time I have ever been sunburnt in December.

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Parks

We made a lovely discovery on Saturday afternoon. It turns out that if you walk about 20 minutes south of where we live you end up in countryside with rolling green hills and streams. It feels a million miles away from the city. The well protected national parks have to be one of Hong Kong's finest features.

It's now the ideal time to go out exploring. The summer heat has dropped off to very pleasant temperatures in the mid 20s.

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Hanoi

The exam's been and gone - only got to wait til February for the result!

After a lovely lunch, it was off to the airport to board a flight to Hanoi. It's only an hour and a half's flight, so it's an ideal long weekend break. Lovely old French colonial buildings abound and the Old Quarter is full of motorbikes buzzing around. In fact, the good people of Hanoi seem capable of living their lives on vespa-style motorbikes: a family of four seems to fit snuggly and eating and sleeping are easily accommodated on any journey.

The food is wonderful, plentiful and cheap. We went to one lovely restaurant in particular which took us on a 12 course spice journey for about 25 dollars each.

The museums were genius with their unmitigated bias. Undoubtedly, the French did not cover themselves in glory, but even the introduction of a legal system by the French was frowned upon. The history museum demonstrated the advance of spectacular progress up to 1945, it appears that the Vietnamese didn't suffer a single reverse in the whole period covered because they fought so heroically against the French in particular. The revolution museum covered everything since 1945, which was an equally successful period you'll be pleased to hear. I didn't see an explanation for all the Vietnamese faces in the pictures of French officers and prison guards - that doesn't quite fit the narrative.

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Right, where was I?

Ah yes, Sun Yat Sen the opera. We spent the following weekend up at a conference at the centre where tter church does its drug rehab work. Very impressive set up with since great sports facilities including a climbing wall, a swimming pool and all weather pitch. The conference itself was very interesting despite a bit of initial scepticism and cynicism! The speaker was a psychologist who was talking about how experiences in childhood can continue to affect our behaviour today - going back as far as conception! A few real life stories suggested it wasn't as pie in the sky as it first sounded.

Anyway, lots of other bits and bobs have been going on, including catching up with a mate I used to play footy with at uni but hadn't seen for about 10 years. We also took in our first real Cantonese film (our first attempt turned out to be a Mandarin film dubbed into Cantonese): Life without Principle. Worth a watch.

I'm now on study leave - exam on Thursday and then we're heading straight off to Hanoi for a long weekend.

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3 full weeks

Three full weeks since I last wrote something, so it's high time.  Starting with the things freshest in my memory: I had my first go at wake boarding yesterday.  It was nigh on impossible to get going (i.e. to get the boat to drag you out of the water) and everything hurts today, but it was great!  The weather is really nice now - down to mid to late 20s and lower humidity.  The water temperature is also down to about the same level, so it's a bit more refreshing that it was.  With the winter closing in (!), the open air swimming pool across the way is only open during the morning in November and is then closed until April.

A couple of weeks back I had my first work trip to the Mainland - Shanghai and Beijing in quick succession.  It's funny to think that they both feel like quite well trodden territory now and it was great to meet Terence and Nikki for a drink at a Peruvian place in Shanghai.  Beijing was more polluted than I'd seen it before.  It's reputedly the worst its been since the Olympics (when they created rain to clear things up a bit).  It was really easy to spot: just looking at the hotel window you could see it clearly with the sun trying as hard as it could to get through - and largely failing.

I got back from Shanghai just in time to go to Sun Yat Sen the opera - the man who holds the distinguished position of being regarded as the father of both Taiwan and Mainland China - work that one out!  It was the first Western-style opera written in Hong Kong and the first ever Western-style opera with Chinese instruments.  For good measure, it was also banned by the Mainland - apparently talk of revolution and democracy doesn't go down so well up there.

Ah, Matt's calling on skype...

The world's cheapest one Michelin star restaurant?

We went for lunch today at a dim sum place up in Mong Kok.  It's got a Michelin star and is very popular - big queues ensue (although if you wait long enough other people give up and you get bumped up the list!).  The bill came in at a whopping HKD88 - about GBP7.50 - for both of us.

Compulsory retirement age

Was reading about the abolition of the compulsory retirement age and some comments from the Federation of Small Businesses prompted me (via Eve's email address!) to send the chap who made them some comments :

Dear Mr Cave

I read with interest the comments that you gave to the BBC in relation to the introduction of a default retirement age.  In particular, the BBC said that the FSB considered the legislation "unnecessary meddling" and 

"It will lead to a legal quagmire for a lot of small business owners. If you can't get rid of someone, you then have to go through the process of performance managing someone out of an organisation, which if you have a big HR department and you're experienced in these things is easy," said Andrew Cave from the federation.

"The average business in this country employs four people. The owner-manager doesn't necessarily have that expertise."

If I have correctly understood these comments, I must say that I was surprised by them as I had thought the FSB would seek to promote best practice amongst its members rather than endorse the "managing out" approach of larger businesses - particularly because small businesses are of such a size where the relationships can be more personal.  It appeared to me that your position was that small businesses should be permitted "to get rid of someone" on the basis of their age alone, because otherwise it would not be possible to terminate their employment because a small business would not have a sophisticated HR function which could handle these issues and find other ways of letting someone go or follow the correct procedure.  

I do find the suggestion concerning that simply reaching a particular age should be reason enough to let someone go - regardless of any assessment of merit.  The counter point is no doubt that the business would do what it could to keep hold of someone if they were of sufficient quality, but there are various reasons why this is not always the case.

I wondered whether a better approach might be to encourage employers to take a more active interest in the careers of their employees rather than treat them like resources which can be "got rid of".  In practice, performance management is overlooked at a number of businesses - big and small.  However, it is often said that employees feel most engaged when their performance is being closely monitored and being held accountable for outcomes.  I anticipate that your response would be to say that small business owners do not have the time to focus on such issues (although your quote suggested that it was more a lack of expertise which could be easily remedied by a training course - which your organisation could no doubt run for its members).  However, I do wonder whether they would be better off seeing it as time invested in the business.


My husband's grandfather ran a successful small business for a number of years - generally with four or five employees.  If someone's performance did not reach the required standard, steps were taken and the employee in question left the business.  They did not wait until they turned 65 to avoid a difficult conversation and a fair procedure.  I wonder whether this is perhaps more the approach that the FSB might consider adopting?

Kind regards

The highest bar in the world

After work today we popped up to the bar at the top of the ICC building. It's on the 118th floor and claims to be the highest bar in the world. The decor is odd, but the view is great - you can even see our flat from up there. Something to add to the list of things to do with visitors (except those who suffer from vertigo).

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T8

We had our first T8 typhoon signal this week. The typhoon itself was some distance from Hong Kong, but they take no chances here - the whole place was on shut down. We first realised that something was up when the harbour was bereft of the usual hoard of ferries and they was barely a car on the road (I've put a couple of photos on facebook) - then an email came round saying the office was shut.

The typhoon had the good grace to hang around just long enough for the office to be closed all day and then disappear in time for us to go out for dinner.

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Kulcha

We've had our first real forays into the Hong Kong cultural scene the last couple of days: a piano recital last night and some theatre tonight. A lot of Liszt and an unusual, but thought provoking one man piece on the Hong Kong plague of 1894. It reminded me that pure descriptive words only ever tell you so much (but are very handy for accuracy). There's a whole array of other media which can communicate in a very different way and stimulate thought and debate. I think the writer-performer tonight was trying to deliver at anti-religious message, but I came away with quite different thoughts. I've been thinking about how I can explain the details of this, but eventually realised the limitations of descriptive words.

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New photos

Some photos of our holiday are going up as I write at flickr.com/trickymouse1

Due to popular demand, there are a couple of photos of the flat too

Tioman

Having had two months since our last holiday, we felt it was high time for another one so we headed off to Pulau Tioman in Malaysia. It's a lovely island off the east coast of Malaysia. The coral is fabulous, close to the surface and the visibility is excellent - you don't really need to scuba dive to the see great stuff under the sea here - a snorkle mask will do you just fine.

The wildlife above ground is great too: lizards of all sizes, fireflies, giant squirrels (it does what it says on the tin: the tails alone are about two foot long), all kinds of butterflies and birds and wild monkeys (although Eve was disappointed to be looking the wrong way when they appeared).

The piece de resistance is the fact that there is a jetty next to the airport and you get off the plane (which had a cassette player!), hop on a boat and it takes you to the beach where you are staying. We've got a beach hut looking straight on to the sea.

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Baptisms

The church had baptisms last week at Shek O beach on the south side of Hong Kong Island. It was a scorching 37 degrees and the humidity was well into the 90s again. The waves were pretty ferocious, which meant full immersion was guaranteed if you just stayed in the same spot for about 30 seconds.

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