Hate is a strong word

I feel juvenile laughing out loud at this blog. But I really couldn't agree more with these two posts:

http://ihatehongkong2.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/sick-as-a-dog/

In more backward parts of the world, lazy workers are allowed ridiculous leeway by crazy employers who allow multiple instances of having a day off work that don’t involve a trip to the doctor to fetch a note. Employers with this kind of hippy mentality are asking for trouble. How could someone who is sick for a day notgo to see the doctor on that day? There would be something very, very fishy about that…more fishy than a Sai Kung fish butcher. In Hong Kong when you are sick, you must get up and get outside and get to the doctor. It doesn’t matter at all if you end up having to wait hours to see a doctor or that appointment times seem to be as flexible as everything else in Hong Kong is inflexible…or that in going to the doctor you are ultimately doing everything you set out not to do that day…commuting, lining up, waiting, being pushed, yelled at, listening to people eating MacDonald’s in the waiting room…just generally being assaulted by all those aspects of Hong Kong culture you sought to avoid. Anyway…you got pills coming…and pills make it better.

http://ihatehongkong2.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/work-hard-play-hard/

“Work hard play hard” is a pathetic excuse that blankets a justification over everything that people don’t want to really think about. It’s a catch-phrase that paints over a lot of cracks. ‘We can take our six allotted holiday days a year from our shit job where we’re under the microscope of pitilessly cold and heartless supervisors…we can work overtime without warning for no extra pay, undergo appraisals by power drunk morons one rung higher on the ladder than us, ride on dizzyingly overcrowded public transport seven days a week…and feel ok because…we can play hard after our work is done!!‘

So, what do they do when they have a chance to ‘play’? Fuck all that’s good. Their favourite activities, I’ve come to learn, are eating and buying shit. Pretty much the same as the rest of the world I suppose…but hey…this site is for complaining about Hong stinky Kong. I suppose they can’t help it – every slogan, ad campaign, TV show and even the education system itself indoctrinates Hong Kong people to value their environment as one where you can shop for and eat anything. That’s what Hong Kong is – one big gaudy shopping mall riddled with bistros.

Belated 9/11 post

You know what I was doing when 9/11 happened? I was in Hong Kong, watching the Hong Kong version of the Weakest Link. When it went to breaking news. Then I had nightmares every night for about three years straight. Literally. (I didn't make the connection, by the way, until it was pointed out to me years later.) I wished I could stop going to sleep so I could stop dreaming so I could stop having nightmares so I could stop being terrified. I forgot what it was to go to sleep and not be terrified. I also became oddly fearful of the strange act of sleeping itself: How do I know to keep breathing when I'm unconscious?

Of course, I'm much better now, thanks. I love sleeping way too much, and I rarely dream that I have to stab someone to death or that I'm hiding from a killer in a really really bad hiding place.

Why I should write more emails

Lead me to a higher understanding:
When I start typing an email to ask someone what to do about a certain situation, usually related to work, 100% of the time while trying to explain the situation, I end up analyzing and answering my own question and discarding the email.