Big Lychee, Various Sectors

The South China Morning Post reports that Christian fundamentalist group Hong Kong Media Evangelism has discovered what may well be an authentic remnant of Noah’s Ark on eastern Turkey’s Mount Ararat.

This is in fact the second time the organization has accomplished this feat. The first was in October 2004, when the biblical literalists returned from an expedition up the snow-capped peak with a petrified part of the boat’s wooden structure. I personally witnessed this alleged fossil just a few weeks ago. It is kept under respectfully subdued lighting in a secure glass case at the famous Noah’s Ark at Ma Wan Island and looks remarkably like a lump of rock.

This time round, the intrepid believers have procured real pieces of relatively recent-looking tree, which they say has been carbon dated as 4,800 years old; this, it goes without saying, matches the date of the flood implied in the Book of Genesis.

However, the dangerously splintery-looking bit of cypress (apparently) is just a hint of what they have found. The team, the SCMP informs us, “said they had excavated and ventured inside seven large wooden compartments.” Accompanying photos show the fundamentalist amateur archaeologists peering into a small black crevice among snow-strewn rocks, and what appears to be the interior of a wooden structure. One shot reveals a bench with some sort of wooden vessel on it – like you would use to feed an animal from – and (nice touch) some straw. They say they have some rope, as used to tether beasts.

"It's advertised as 750 square cubits, but that includes your share of the corridor, stairwell and the foyer"

The discovery of ancient man-made wooden chambers of any sort around 12,000 feet above sea level on an old, uninhabitable volcano in Asia Minor would be remarkable. It doesn’t have to be a boat; just finding an old hut, barn, granary, prehistoric skiing lodge, or whatever would be a big deal for antiquaries the world over. Amazingly, however, the most exhaustive search on Google and Google News fails to uncover any coverage of this exciting breakthrough. The SCMP have a huge scoop here, and they put it in their City section with all the celebrity drug busts and school kids’ suicides!

Unless… Unless Hong Kong Media Evangelism took the photos in an old Anatolian farm shed or something. In other words, are lying. That doesn’t sound like something devout Christians would do, does it? But then we consider how God has smiled on Thomas Kwok, the Noah’s Ark fan and Sun Hung Kai Property tycoon, who has made billions of dollars by telling people that 500-square-foot-flats are in fact 640 square feet. Reject science and embrace creationism, and the Almighty will dump cash on you. It remains to be seen how HK Media Evangelism will capitalize on their latest relic of the ark. I look forward to the next one.

Meanwhile, I am delighted to announce that I have the following items for sale to the highest bidders:

• pieces of the true cross, each complete with rusty nail and nasty discoloration;
• thorns from the famous crown (slightly dulled over time);
• the newly discovered Discarded Shroud, which Christ’s followers tried briefly to wrap his body in before finding it was too small – complete with even more stubborn, hard-to-remove stains than the famous Turin version;
• and some glass phials of Mary Magdalene’s blood (available in 25 and 50ml sizes).

Reserve prices are modest enough to be within reach of SCMP reporters.

Fans of disharmony in the Big Lychee sit on the edge of their seats viewing with eager anticipation the growing ructions over Hong Kong’s proposed minimum wage. The Provisional Minimum Wage Commission mentions social harmony as one of the ‘other relevant considerations’ it must mull over as it hears emotional stakeholders’ wildly differing and irreconcilable opinions on the lowest level of pay employers should be legally allowed to offer. Its task is to weigh them up and recommend an hourly sum everyone likes. The minimum wage bill, which officials would like to see passed before the Legislative Council starts its summer break in July, will stir up conflict before it even comes into law.

This is one of those rare public consultations where officials have not decided the result in advance. It is too hot a potato for our consensus-obsessed, ideologically barren bureaucrats to handle. So the PMWC must do it. Its non-official membership consists of two (pro-Beijing) labour union representatives, two bosses of big catering and retail chains, a clutch of well-meaning academics and, looking even more slightly out of place than usual, Sun Hung Kai’s Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong, property tycoon, evangelical Christian and Noah’s Ark fan.

The property tycoons are fairly laid back about the minimum wage; it won’t affect their bottom lines much. The employers that will bear the brunt are the restaurants, shops, security and cleansing companies. The opening bid was made by Tommy Cheung, the legislator representing the catering industry, who opined that HK$20 an hour seemed about right. This is about as rock-bottom as wages currently get; any lower and you’re better off collecting cardboard and food scraps in the market. Even his fellow representatives of business interests disowned the suggestion, for which he quickly made a sniveling apology. He and his colleagues have now suggested HK$24.

At the other end of the scale, the pro-democracy labour unions are demanding HK$33. At that rate, caterers warn, many basic food places serving office workers and the like will either have to boost their prices and thus reduce secretaries and clerical assistants to penury, or simply shut down. They don’t mention other possibilities, such as lower profits for themselves or – more realistically – for the grade B commercial landlords whose rental demands are a much bigger overhead than labour.

One person, Lam Woon-kwong, says a lower minimum wage for the disabled could be OK. We might consider raising an eyebrow before strolling past this rather distasteful idea before we realize that he is… chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission. At least he isn’t suggesting gassing them.

Libertarian groups predictably foresee nothing but doom arising from a minimum wage. It will result in mass layoffs, because – as we all know – white-collar workers will start cleaning their own office toilets, and middle-class housewives in fancy housing complexes will mount their own late-night security patrols. Also it will be a foul interventionist assault on Hong Kong’s pure and virginal free-market tradition, except that laissez-faire has been eroding ever since bubonic plague forced Victorian-era colonists to levy taxes to dig sewers. With state-owned enterprises like the Mortgage Corporation and the Trade Development Council throttling free enterprise, and government picking lucky winners to form new economic pillars with cheap land giveaways, we are halfway to corporatism already.

No, the only danger is that the vested interests on the PMWC will cancel each other out, and the genius professors of economics and sociology will come up with a proposed figure that, miraculously, leaves both sides less than seething. “Twenty eight bucks an hour!” they might proclaim, and, after much muttering and deep, disheartened sighing, both employers and labour activists will mumble a resigned “OK”. It would be such a letdown.

As yesterday’s massive 0.35% collapse in property stocks shows, the Hong Kong government is finally getting tough with developers’ sales tactics. After consultations in an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding, officials are now politely requesting the real estate cartel to voluntarily:

• tell prospective home-buyers where the property will be
• tell them the price more than five minutes before they sign on the dotted line at midnight while panicked crowds outside bang on the door insisting to be allowed in to pay 10% more
• give them a somewhat-you-know-kinda-vaguely better idea of what the apartment will actually look like, eg, where the walls will be
• conceal advance cut-price sales to family and friends more effectively, so everyone else doesn’t get so upset

courtesy of Glengarry Glen Ross

In return, the government assures property developers that it will:

• continue to keep land in artificially short supply to keep prices high
• permit them to continue colluding at land auctions and in sales timing, pricing, etc
• let them carry on adding 200 square feet of elevator shaft, stairwell, external air-conditioner platform, hallway, entrance lobby, pigeons’ nest and mailbox interior to every 500 square feet of advertised apartment area
• publicly defend their inalienable right to make profit margins of at least 50%
• recognize their children’s contribution to the community by naming them Justices of the Peace this year, giving them Gold Bauhinia Stars further ahead and actively considering the possibility of dukedoms

If the developers fail to give the general impression that they are going along with this deal, officials will talk about giving active consideration to the potential possibility of discussing statutory measures at some stage in the future, though of course without doing anything that might threaten our Healthy Property Market.

This is of course a Good Thing for the community, as it guarantees the market stability we enjoy from having high property prices and avoids the dreaded market volatility we would suffer if homes became more affordable.

On the one hand, it means home-buyers will be ripped off about 1% less than before. On the other hand, this deal recognizes that, unlike in other parts of the planet, the gross domestic product in Hong Kong rises every time someone sells a property for more than they bought it. And if families didn’t have to spend at least 35% of their incomes over a 20-year period to buy a 400-square-foot home, the economy would collapse. And without the multiple billions of dollars in profit being made by the property cartel every year, tycoons would make fewer donations to mainland universities and local medical schools, cross-border integration and partnership would cease, there would be widespread unemployment, all our babies would catch rickets and men’s penises would shrivel up and drop off.

So we have struck a good balance.

Anyone flicking through some (but not all) editions of today’s Standard will be forgiven for thinking that the Over-Hyped Achievement by an Over-Titled Nonentity of the Month Award for April must go to Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Dr Teh Hong Piow. HP Teh, as his buddies call him when dispensing with the Malaysian honorifics, receives a full-page congratulatory ad from his own company, Public Financial Holdings, on being named Asia’s Banking Grandmaster.

They will be forgiven for thinking that… But they would be wrong.

I am indebted to a bearded public relations person for drawing my attention to the true winner of this much-coveted trophy: Duke Dr Raymond Lee, a member of that outstanding social climbing club known as the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals board of directors. His doctorate in business administration comes from an unaccredited US distance-learning institution, apparently now-defunct, known as Barrington University.  Not much surprise there. But a dukedom?

According to his not unamusing bio, he is a Duke of de Mistra of Constantinople. Mistra, as any idiot with access to Google knows, was at one time the Byzantine Empire’s second city, located down near Sparta. Another Google search suggests that His Grace is the first in what we all, of course, hope to be a long line of nobility. Since Greece today is a republic, and Constantinople was long since renamed Istanbul, we can’t help wondering how he came to acquire the title. Someone must have passed it to him somehow. Where did they get it? Did it cost more than the Barrington U DBA?

We could probably find out how much he donated to get on the board of Tung Wah – Hong Kong’s original and most prestigious home-grown charity. It wouldn’t have been as much as the fragrant socialites and shoe-shining mini-tycoons whose portraits appear higher up in the directors’ gallery. (Note the careful way pictures of the 1st to 5th vice chairman are positioned.)

Nearly all of these people belong to patriotic and united front bodies, such as obscure local government-level offshoots (mostly in Guangdong) of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee. And, inevitably, there’s some overlap – here, say – with the intriguing World Outstanding Chinese thing.

One face stands out: Maisie Ho, linked with the Macau casino clan. (Actually so does that of Katherine Ma, – but for her, shall we say, striking eyes.)  One’s a hypnotherapist (did he get at Mrs Ma?). Several more have dubious doctorates and other baubles, including membership of the Home Affairs Bureau’s Public Affairs Forum – a self-described middle class advisory body most of us had forgotten existed. That one was free, though invitation-only, of course.

One other thing they all have in common: they will never be seen dead in one of the Tung Wah Group’s lowly hospitals.

Only one, however, is a Duke!

Click to hear ‘Duchess’ by The Stranglers!

Is there a law somewhere that says civil servants are a sub-human breed, entitled to fewer human rights than other people? So asks mentioned-two-days-in-a-row former bureaucrat Mike Rowse in today’s South China Morning Post.

“If not, why not?” many right-thinking people will no doubt wonder by way of response. Mr Rowse, however, has an agenda of his own. Understandably, he differs from most of us in that he actually gives a hoot about the rights of Hong Kong civil servants – specifically, the supposed right of senior pen-pushers to retire on their very handsome pensions and then to un-retire and work in the private sector, even for companies that could use their insider knowledge and contacts, or that previously benefited from their decision-making.

Like many former and current members of our extremely highly remunerated bureaucracy, Mr Rowse bitterly resents the current restrictions on the oxymoron that is post-retirement employment. These self-absorbed public servants may be correct in saying that these restraints break the spirit of international human rights treaties and offend such principles as equal rights and the right not to have to prove your own innocence. But the rest of us don’t care.

To Mr Rowse, the right of the ex-bureaucrat to work counts as a “policy imperative” on a par with that of the need to ensure there are no conflicts of interests. To the rest of the community, however, the latter overrides the former.

The reason is not simply because of the Leung Chin-man case, in which a bureaucrat used his discretionary powers to make decisions that resulted in billions of extra profits for property developers, and then accepted a senior position with one when he retired. It is because everywhere we look we see officials doing favours for tycoons.

Mr Rowse (only following orders, of course) negotiated the curse on taxpayers known as Hong Kong Disneyland, a massive transfer of wealth from the populace to a corporate giant. The company that hired Leung, New World, recently managed to redevelop a neighbourhood in partnership with the government’s Urban Renewal Authority and build the Masterpiece, an eyesore that flouted zoning rules and made billions for insiders by selling luxury units to mainlanders with funny-smelling cash.

The list of smaller examples is endless. On countless occasions loopholes have appeared in paperwork mysteriously allowing developers to build higher than they should have, to omit facilities they should have included, to block public rights of way, to call ‘residential’ a ‘hotel’ and so on and so on. Pedestrians died at the junction of Wyndham Street and Queens Road because developers didn’t build the required walkway between Central Tower and the Entertainment Building. All the result of civil servants making decisions that, amazingly, translated into extra profit for property tycoons. And let’s not get into the lavish highway construction, rural pathway enhancement, playground equipment contracts and other grubbiness.

People are sick of this. And if some former bureaucrats of integrity – and I have no doubt Mike Rowse is clean as a whistle (he’d shut up if he wasn’t) – have to have their fingers cut off when they leave the service to keep them out of all the pies out there, too bad. It is true, as Rowse complains, that politically appointed officials with true policymaking power should have tougher post-retirement rules, but that’s no reason for civil servants to insist on two rounds at a banquet most Hongkongers only dream of seeing even once. It’s also true that a more rules-based administrative system, with less space for discretionary decision-making, would help clean things up – but we don’t hear much call for it from inside the ranks.

And who the hell wants to work anyway? In the old days, the retired civil servant got on a steamship and sailed back to the UK to spend the rest of his days tending roses, and no-one ever heard from him again. Nowadays, they stay here, their lust for ‘serving the community’ apparently unsatiated. Doing some charity work, writing columns for the newspaper, mentoring deprived kids, hiking, basket-weaving – are none of these things good enough? After slaving robotically in a suit behind a desk for decades and being released on a full pension, they feel a pressing need to go straight back to an office. Why? If they’re not on the take, they’re mentally ill.

From left to right: what private-sector workers earn before retirement; what civil servants earn before retirement; what civil servants earn after retirement.

Time Out Hong Kong, a magazine usually devoted to nothing deeper than surveys of up-market hamburgers, gets philosophical and asks the age-old taxonomical question: in what box do Western residents of the Big Lychee go? Are they expatriates or immigrants?

The classic ‘expat’ still exists. Ordered to come here by a company, accompanied by maid-dependent bored wife/bratty kids/smelly dog, living rent-paid in a white enclave, following their native land’s soap operas and sport, eating only meat/potatoes/veg, doing stereotypically – even self-consciously – expatty things like junk trips, going to Phuket, buying a property in some place like Perth, joining the Hash House Harriers (if they’re still around), and looking forward to their next trip home. But they are very much a minority.

Those of us who turned up for whatever reason 10, 20, 30 years ago and never left will say that Hong Kong at some stage became home: our friends are here, our job is here and our whole life is here. Many of us find the lands of our birth are now unfamiliar and maybe uninviting. Through years of exposure, we have absorbed some local culture and, to whatever degree we are comfortable with, speak, eat and even act or think locally. It all sounds respectable and honourable. And then, halfway through the article, along comes someone called May Holdsworth who hits the nail on the head by saying, in effect: “Naaah, they’re just tax exiles.”

At this point I stop and look at myself in the mirror. When I arrived in Hong Kong I had a 29-inch waist, little money, no job, little useful work experience and a distinct lack of any sort of burning ambition. That last item on the list still holds good, but everything else has changed. I came in search of an income as much as exotic adventure – we all need to eat. Today, I have a crummy but convenient and long paid-off property and an accumulation of liquid wealth equivalent to several decades’ worth of current monthly outgoings. Where else in the world could I have done that? Not somewhere with 2% annual GDP growth and 40% tax. If Timbuktu had hit on the right economic formula, we’d all be able to get by speaking Bambara in the street market, enjoy chicken and peanut stew and know a fair bit about and genuinely appreciate Malian history and culture. But Hong Kong did it instead.

Inevitably, Time Out interviews Mike Rowse, the 1970s British backpacker who ended up in a senior position in the Hong Kong civil service and took Chinese citizenship. Other non-Chinese Hongkongers have disowned their existing citizenship to do this. Some are of south Asian extraction and were left here with only second-class British documentation after 1997. German-born Canadian entrepreneur Allen Zeman quite possibly thought it would help his local political connections and mainland business interests. Rowse seems to have done it because it emotionally felt right.

He likes to tell the story of how, when he worked for the government and would travel with an ethnic Chinese colleague with Australian citizenship, he would hand both passports over to the immigration inspector and enjoy the look on the official’s face as he tried to puzzle it out. Also, you can use the fast PRC home return permit channel at Lo Wu. That’s about it as far as advantages go. (I am pretty sure that Rowse, being UK-born, could reapply for British status any time he wants.)

One thing you can be absolutely sure of, regardless of your Putonghua/chopstick/erhu skills, is that you will never be considered Chinese without serious cosmetic surgery. Ask young, gifted and half-black Shanghainese Lou Jing. Who would want her detractors as fellow citizens?

An article in Time Out HK two years ago reported that…

In 2004, Andrew Yuen Man-Fai and Pastor Boaz Li Chi-Kwong of evangelical Christian media organisation Media Evangelism climbed Mt Ararat in eastern Turkey and found what they claimed were the remnants of Noah’s Ark. Excited and inspired by their discovery – which they documented on blurry video that was unfortunately corrupted by a ‘mysterious force’ – they returned to Hong Kong determined to build a replica of the famous life-raft.

Four years later, they’ve done just that, with the help of Sun Hung Kai.

It sounded irresistible: a Hong Kong version of the creationist Dinosaur Adventure Land ‘Where Dinosaurs and the Bible Meet!’ (last seen being seized by the US government). But my long overdue trip to Noah’s Ark at Ma Wan proves disappointing. I wanted hard-core, ignorant, anti-scientific, pro-Biblical literalist, anti-evolution propaganda rammed down my throat. What I got was an insipid, semi-secular mishmash of vaguely animal-oriented, warm and fuzzy niceness wrapped up in Hong Kong officialdom’s finest concrete, fake natural features and barrier tape.

As with the origins of life and the universe, the genesis of Ma Wan Park leaves some unanswered questions. It seems that Sun Hung Kai Properties, who were building the Park Island residential development, originally proposed a commercial theme park with rides. When Disney came along, the plan changed. I would hazard a guess that evangelical forces in the developer and sympathizers in the civil service attempted to steer the government-financed, SHKP-run project into a Christian fundamentalist direction at some stage before having to largely back down in the face of behind-the-scenes secular opposition, or maybe fear of public ridicule. Thus the future facility came to be officially referred to as having “a theme of ‘Naturally Hong Kong’, with emphasis on … conservation of the natural environment and cultural heritage, as well as promoting harmony and family values”.

Most of the park is free to visit and contains things like newly weds being photographed and rocks with ‘peace’ and ‘love’ painted on them. The part we are concerned with here is the bit you have to buy a ticket to enter: the Biblically correct ark nestled beneath the vast Tsing Ma Bridge to the airport: it is a Christian theme park with God largely stripped out of it.

After getting one type of ticket and passing through the turnstiles, the visitor has to get another to enter the garden walk adjoining the ark. The idea is to stagger the flow of people, and it goes without saying that the various checks by brightly uniformed youths wielding barcode readers quickly becomes tiresome, especially if you have stuffed the requisite coupon somewhere and can’t find it. The good news is that the staff are docile and turn cooperative at the merest hint of an attack of irritable gwailo syndrome.

The garden walk contains the semi-lifelike models of animals set against the bridge to the airport and the rabbit hutch factory that is Park Island. Twee and anthropomorphic descriptions of the animals assign each creature an admirable personal characteristic of its very own. The zebra, for example, practices sincerity. This bears no relationship to biological science, but nor is intelligent design explicitly mentioned. The rocks are fibre glass, and the animal sounds and songs come from loudspeakers, but the plants are real and flourishing under copious amounts of horse manure, which adds a certain authenticity to the ambience.

After more ticket checks you enter the ark itself. The Biblical account of Noah, the boat-building and the flood is set out museum-style, but with a notable lack of fiery, pulpit-bashing conviction. Mostly. Of the idea (new to me) that the Ark had only one pair of ravens, we are told “This is wrong!” We also learn that while on board, “all animals were cooperative – at a time of hardship and anxiety”. Not like some people, presumably.

Some interactive games offer you the chance to see how the world would be different if we were closer to/further from the sun, had more/less oxygen in the air, had stronger/weaker gravity, and so on. This is standard creationist circuitous logic: life on Earth could not have arisen except under very specific conditions, therefore someone planned it. But directly opposite the games are displays of live animals, including a nautilus shellfish (still going, it says, after 500 million years) and a chameleon, complete with descriptions of how evolution – chance genetic mutation – has left them well adapted to their environments. It’s almost as if a committee of officials told a bunch of Christian fundamentalists that they could have some intelligent design content in their publicly funded museum only if some Darwinist exhibits appeared next to them.

Far and away the best part of the museum is the film about the flood. It is on a 180-degree screen and gripping: bad people have orgies, good guys build a boat despite being laughed at, animals turn up to board the vessel, the vicious storm breaks out, naughty people die horribly, the rain eventually stops, a dove finds a twig, a rainbow appears, the ark comes to rest as the water recedes (where did it recede to?), the animals get out and everything lives happily ever after. Not only are the surround-sound effects amazing, but you get shaken in your seat and, at one stage, surrounded by an eerie mist. It is better than Avatar. God’s Cantonese, by the way, is excellent.

While waiting for the 10-minute movie, you can see artifacts from the sorry-sounding expedition to Mount Ararat, including a real piece of Ark. It looks like a lump of rock, but as we all know, Evangelical Christianity has roots in the Calvinist backlash against the Catholic Church’s acceptance of relics and other idolatry, so it must be real.

The crowd control measures continue after the film as you are herded to the next exhibit (flood myths found in different world cultures) for an allotted period of time. This is necessary because the Ma Wan Noah’s Ark is ‘very popular’ – Hong Kong-speak for ‘crammed into a tiny space’. What sort of people does the visitor rub shoulders with?

The bulk of visitors appear to be youngish Hongkongers out for a good photo-taking opportunity rather than a spiritually uplifting experience. Some are undoubtedly devout, scribbling notes down in booklets for further reference. Quite a few pairs of young, clean Westerners with one kid and plans for eight more roam the place. Groups of Muslim Indonesian women are also much in evidence (Noah is a prophet to Muslims, though Islamists would be horrified at what subliminal Christianity appears here).

I can recommend the Singapore noodles in the Harvest Restaurant canteen. If you want a souvenir, the shop near the entrance sells little cardboard road signs bearing supposedly morale-boosting slogans like ‘everyone has a job’ (road works ahead), ‘pay rise’ (steep slope ahead) and ‘wealth goes round’ (roundabout ahead). They sum up what is, after all, Sun Hung Kai’s most morally ambivalent and confused project.

The Chinese government, working through its local proxy, unveils the take-it-or-leave it ‘reform’ package for the election of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive and Legislative Council in 2012. Despite an intervening period of public consultation, it is no different from the proposal put forward last November, which itself was barely distinguishable from the one proposed for the 2007-08 polls, which was vetoed by pro-democracy legislators in 2005 on the grounds that it contained no meaningful change from the 2004 arrangements.

Under this package, the method for electing the Chief Executive in 2012 would be the same old Election Committee farce under which a small group packed with loyalists goes through an elaborate charade of nominating and then voting for the person already chosen by Beijing. The rubber-stamp body would simply undergo a cosmetic increase in size.

The proposed system for electing the 2012 Legco involves the addition to the chamber of 10 new seats: half geographical, half functional – but with the latter elected by all popularly elected district council members. After some slight tinkering with the 2005 formula, which would have allowed the appointed (pro-government) district councilors to vote, this could yield pro-democrats maybe an extra seat or so in the largely toothless legislature.

Cynics who doubt whether our leaders even want this proposal passed are probably wrong: Hong Kong and even mainland officials are vigorously talking it up, as are the pro-establishment media. Beijing seems to find the pro-democrats’ rejection of political reform measures irritating, maybe even humiliating; it amounts to a loss of face, it highlights a breach of China’s pre-1997 promises, and it sends a negative message to Taiwan and the world in general. This is why it is important that the pro-democrats use their veto – it is their only way of telling the central government that things aren’t working here.

Constitutional affairs secretary Stephen Lam is telling anyone who will listen that under this package the proportion of seats elected democratically, either directly or via district bodies, will rise from 50% to ‘about 60%’ (58.57% if you want to be picky). But the truth is that in practice it would make zero difference to the distribution of political power in this city. Donald Tsang promised when he became Chief Executive in 2005 to sort out the whole political reform issue once and for all. But he has failed. Beijing overuled him – apparently as some sort of punishment to Hong Kong for the 2005 veto – so his successor’s administration will be left with all the post-2012 electoral reforms, like what to do with the vested interests’ functional constituencies.

Thus Beijing has spoken: Hong Kong is condemned to well over another half-decade of this system of governance, at least on paper. It practice, it could turn out differently. The Chinese Communist Party will never allow true universal suffrage in Hong Kong or anywhere under its control. What do you think ‘under its control’ means? Only our pro-democracy lawmakers dream of unrigged polls in 2017, 2020 or whenever. However, the Politburo, realizing that Hong Kong needs some radical change, could choose a non-bureaucrat/non-tycoon-caste CE for 2012.

Such a maverick, let’s say Leung Chun-ying (though Rita Fan is a possibility), would not be any more accountable to the people. Indeed, we could expect a less tolerant and pluralistic style from such a person, who would be chosen not least for his enthusiasm about the next stage of Hong Kong’s ongoing reunion with the motherland. He would not be a warm and cuddly, faintly louche, wine-collecting Henry Tang or a merrily shoe-shining Catholic, Brit-trained Donald Tsang. The approach would be more austere, and the expressions of respect for rule of law and freedom of speech noticeably less frequent. Think Lee Kwan Yew-meets-Oliver Cromwell.

But he would also be less accountable to the vested interests, notably the property tycoons (who loathe CY Leung). Through some device or other – maybe strong-arming FCs or using an interpretation of the Basic Law to reduce legislative oversight – he would rule more decisively, effectively by decree, rather than floundering through the consensus-swamp in unending search of solutions to all those contradictions Beijing worries about. He would trim the post-1997 growth of plutocratic privilege and tilt the playing field back a bit in favour of the masses, thus restoring the harmony his bosses in the capital value so highly. Universal suffrage wouldn’t come into it.

That’s the best-case scenario. If the pro-democrats prefer muddling through under the rule of tycoons and bureaucrats who distract them with a phony promise of democracy, they can always vote for this package.

It seems every civilized community has a group of misfits who take pleasure in deliberately creeping out their harmless and innocent fellow citizens.

In the UK, certain women insist on wrapping their heads, necks and arms in shawls, scarves and sleeves – even if it presents a hygiene hazard in hospitals. They claim the Koran requires them to do so. In fact, the book simply advises women to dress modestly, not weirdly, and definitely not in such a way as to unnerve or irritate passers-by. Many faithful Muslim women in the West and in Southeast Asia and elsewhere happily go bareheaded. These British women’s decision to wear forms of dress dating back to then-as-ever feudal, pre-Islamic, Bedouin culture is not religious: it is to make a political statement.

In the US, some gun owners have taken to openly carrying sidearms in such unlikely places as Californian branches of Starbucks. The hapless coffee chain is drawing criticism for sparing its (unarmed) employees from having to enforce any ban on the practice. The gun owners point out that they are within their rights and obeying the law by bearing the weapons unloaded. They also tend to claim that a visibly armed citizenry deters criminals. However, many coffee-drinking parents with young children and other Starbucks customers say they find the sight more alarming than reassuring.

In both cases, the misfits can be said to have a point. There is a backlash underway among devout Muslim and other believers in the UK against what they see as a society racked by drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancy, family breakdown and all the country’s other horrors. Many Californian gun owners are angry specifically because they feel the authorities have made it almost impossible for a citizen to obtain a concealed-carry permit unless he has the right connections. But in both cases, these malcontents vent their frustration by knowingly and deliberately worrying other people.

Meanwhile, back in the Big Lychee, we have our own oddballs who take pleasure in spreading unease among the community in order to declare their dogmatic virtue. Their mission is to oversee the gradual infiltration of mainland blather into our society, our homes, our minds and even, no doubt, our babies’ milk. This communist-inspired language and behaviour is simultaneously sinister and meaningless. Indeed, like the dialogue in a David Lynch film, the more vacuous and bland it is, the more creepy it seems.

Today’s example is the announcement of next Monday’s Commission on Strategic Development meeting on Hong Kong’s future role in the mainland’s development. The CSD is a talking shop, with no known accomplishments, under the auspices of Lau Siu-kai’s Central Policy Unit, the government department that specializes in producing ominous questions that fit our visionary leaders’ pre-determined answers. To get themselves into the right frame of mind before the gathering, CSD members – the usual selection of yes-men, minus Ronald Arculli, plus a couple of presentable pro-democrats – have been given some choice blather with a slight hint of totalitarian, centrally planned, ideologically crazed menace expertly woven between its inane lines:

Hong Kong needs to, under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle, better understand and support the Mainland’s overall development…

Key points of the [2007 Report to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China] stated that China would ensure the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020 … fully applying the Scientific Outlook on Development…

The Central Authorities have … on a number of occasions launched major initiatives mutually beneficial to the Mainland and Hong Kong, taking into account the actual situations in both places…

…Hong Kong and the Mainland … should make better use of CEPA and the important platform provided under the policy of “early and pilot implementation” in Guangdong…

We should explore in depth how to further develop [service] industries to better serve the PRD region and other places in the Mainland for mutual benefits.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong economic relationship has shifted from a “front shop, back plant” model to a partnership driven by “enhancing the secondary industry and developing the tertiary industry” of Guangdong.

The Framework Agreement on Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation (Framework Agreement) just signed by Government leaders of both places on 7 April this year is useful for translating the Outline [of the Plan for the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta (2008-2020)]’s macro policies into concrete measures conducive to the development of both places.

Another important development is Shenzhen-Hong Kong co-operation, which will enhance the overall competitiveness of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong metropolis.

Read too much of this, and you will wake up in a cold sweat at night with visions of schoolchildren chanting it all. Sir David Akers-Jones, Allen Zeman, Audrey Eu and the other CSD members are also asked to consider how the Big Lychee can best fulfill its patriotic destiny to serve the glorious motherland before itself and become as dependent as possible on the Central People’s Government:

In the latest Report on the Work of the Government, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged support for the first time for Hong Kong to develop industries with clear advantages and foster new areas of economic growth. In what ways would these industries match with the Mainland’s needs and require its support?

And then, the real nightmare:

Hong Kong needs to continue to develop new tourist attractions, organise  international events, promote exhibition and convention tourism and explore sources of overseas visitors… Besides, Hong Kong should fully utilise its status and advantages as a regional cruise centre…

Give me unhygienic Islamists in hospitals and gun nuts in Pacific Coffee any day.