Hong Kong in rain trauma

Wow – and I thought it would be those good-for-nothing low-life cheating Botswanan scum…

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The subject of the Great Mouth-Froth Du Jour is the Hong Kong Observatory, who yesterday morning sadistically implemented a period of severe rain, and then abruptly suspended the downpour, and then turned the storm back on again. To gain maximum pleasure from their extreme cruelty, they waited until every little kiddy in town was nearly at school, and then cancelled classes. Just as the soaking-wet children were wading back to their homes, the Observatory announced with an evil laugh that the crisis was over. The bedraggled kids bravely set out back to school, only to find that the Malevolent Meteorologist Maniacs had recommenced the torrent and shut down all educational institutions again. Thousands of innocent children perished after being swept into storm sewers, where they were consumed by crocodiles descended from escaped pets.

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Angry parents and politicians are demanding that the HK Observatory get its act together, calculate precise weather, traffic conditions and winning Mark Six numbers three months in advance, and telepathically transmit this information in full, instantly, to all sentient beings.

How things have changed. Some of us remember this…

In those days, kids just got wet. It was a part of growing up. People were alert and self-reliant and didn’t cling to some nanny-state Red and Black Signal nonsense. Now, the little mites are so precious that burly firemen have to rescue them from school buses trapped in two inches of water.

I still recall that morning, opening my he-man-size umbrella and stepping out off to work in normal office attire. It was immediately obvious that this was not normal rain, and I got 10 yards before retreating back to my apartment, sodden from the thighs down. I changed into shorts and sandals and splashed down the hill as detritus floated past. One of the few other people to make it into the office was the kindly old Financial Director, who told me that when he was my age, he had dutifully walked from the Peak into Central in a typhoon, only to be told by the Chairman of the time to go back home a put on a tie. The decline of Hong Kong’s moral fibre – from ‘can-do’ stoicism in the face of bad weather to pathetic whining at the onset of a slight shower – has been going on for generations.

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The South China Morning Post continues its insider tealeaf-reading scoop on what Beijing is really going to do about the Glorious Motherland’s possibly-utterly-screwed-but-we-don’t-know economy. By ‘Laid Bare’ we mean ‘vague, gnomic, anonymous gibberish, with flashes of Chauncey Gardner, woefully failing to disguise complete cluelessness and despair’…

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(More on this here.)

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9 Responses to Hong Kong in rain trauma

  1. Walter De Havilland says:

    Terrible day 8th May 1992. A young boy was swept off Bowen Road to his death. I got off relatively lightly when my car was hit by a wave outside Happy Valley Race course. Very surreal experience.

  2. Revolution says:

    The odd thing about the red rainstorm signal yesterday was that when it was first hoisted it was not raining on Hong Kong island, and only rained for about 10 minutes at most before schools began. Conditions were clearly bad in the New Territories, but closing schools on the Island was pointless. The weather is not the same all over the SAR at any one time…

  3. I always tell people I’m not afraid of the rain because I’m waterproof.

    Lots of Hong Kong umbrellas in evidence yesterday: the rolled-up newspaper held over the head.

    YOU in shorts and sandals. Plllleeeeeaaaase!!!

  4. Walter De Havilland says:

    @Revolution. Hong Kong is famed for its micro-climates created by steep terrain and adjacent waters. The hourly weather is extremely difficult to forecast under such conditions, although yesterday the weather radar on the Observatory web site clearly showed the majority of the heavy rain was over the NT.

  5. Joe Blow says:

    Why they still call it the New Territories ? They are older than Moses. Better names would be The Sticks, Kuk Country (cue: Marlboro jingle) or Here Be Containers.

  6. Joe, you are much too kind these days.

    Shurely “Here be ugly inbred lard-sweating cousin- fugging corrupt Triad-related land -grabbing Government-chiselling fake aborigines”???

  7. Joe Blow says:

    @Enid: that’s a mouthful, as Mae West said to the vicar.

  8. Chinese Netizen says:

    @Enid & Joe: LMFAO!

  9. PCC says:

    One of my employees reminded me that on that day in 1992 I was in the office when she called to say that she couldn’t make it into work. I told her it was just a little rain. What an understanding boss I am!

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