The SCMP is like a luxury goods store: you often walk past it but hardly ever look inside. Deciding to have a rare sniff around Jack Ma’s organ, I find Mike Rowse bemoaning Hong Kong’s de facto curfews during bad weather, which these days seem to be once a week…
I feel obliged to ask if Hong Kong has become a city of wusses. Do we really have to close down much of the city every time there’s excessive rain?
…For the most part [during a recent ‘black rainstorm’ episode], trains, buses, minibuses and taxis seemed to have run smoothly … convenience stores were open, as were various food outlets. Newspapers were being delivered normally. Some fitness studios were open. Other aspects of daily life ticked along.
As I sat alone in the office reading the news and eating my McDonald’s hamburger, I asked myself who else was missing. The answer was clear: it was mainly office workers. If it was safe enough for the men and women who drive our buses to show up for work, why were all the people who would normally occupy the seats on those buses not there?
If it is fine for 7-Eleven and Circle K stores to open amid severe weather, why isn’t it for government offices or banks? I feel bound to ask whether there is some kind of division based on class that makes it acceptable for some people to get rained on while other precious types must be kept dry at all costs.
(Sort of. People in blue-collar jobs are probably more afraid of having pay docked or being fired.)
He suggests a vaguely more flexible approach to striking a balance between ensuring public safety and keeping calm and carrying on.
One problem is that Hong Kong can have distinct micro-climates. It can be a normal breezy day in northern Hong Kong island, while in Cheung Chau they have 100-mph winds. Kowloon might be flooded, while Yuen Long has a light shower. And it can change suddenly.
The current alerts kick in city-wide automatically when a tropical cyclone exceeds a certain strength and/or proximity to Hong Kong, while the black rainstorm signal depends on overall quantity of rain in previous hours. Except that it seems (maybe I’m imagining it) that bureaucrats tweak the signals – traditionally to encourage people to go to work, but increasingly out of fear of being criticized for doing just that. They can’t win.
My proposal…
The Number 3, 8, etc typhoon signals were designed in and for an era of sailing ships. Today, sailors have their own dedicated high-tech weather warning info, so this numbering ritual is redundant. Landlubbers don’t need numbered signals. Similarly, there is no need for amber and red rainstorm alerts: we can see if it’s raining by looking out the window.
The only thing people need to know is: do we go to work/school (or go home early) or not? In other words, all we need is a ‘stay in place’ advisory when conditions look likely to be seriously nasty – regardless of whether it’s a typhoon, a plain storm, a volcano, or whatever.
It really comes down to transport, and much depends on where you live. Outlying islands’ ferries cancel services when it’s too windy, so they should have a ‘stay in place’ notice that applies to them only. And some rural areas with minimal bus/minibus connections might need something similar. But there’s no need to shut everything down throughout the urban areas, where the MTR and buses keep running, unless it gets really bad. This was obviously the case on Tuesday morning last week – even if, as Rowse noticed, by the afternoon most downtown districts were fine but empty of office types.
Home Affairs Secretary Alice Mak celebrates international brotherhood week…
The Home and Youth Affairs Bureau is organising a series of activities marking the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War…
Efforts include … improving a section of a village road connecting to the Sha Tau Kok Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall.
“This is to enable all sectors of society to make better use of the rich local anti-Japanese war historical resources and deepen public understanding of the history of the war,” Mak said.
Mike Rowse is STILL alive?
Why getting your Burberry raincoat wet if you can work from home instead?
I remember back in the 1980s and 90s, a T8 was a major event – a cause for awe and celebration (remember typhoon parties?). Everything closed, even 7-Eleven, and many folks just sat by their windows, looking out, as if waiting for aliens to arrive. Nowadays most places are open.
“Mike Rowse is STILL alive?”
And eating McDonald’s when HK is a foodie hub.
Anecdotally on my estate during, what was it, the second or third Black Rain Signal the other week?
Cleaning aunties and uncles, security types, all hard at work, outdoors, some with no more protection than a straw hat.
Teenagers who operate the gym, two storeys underground with direct, indoor access from the MTR without stepping outside: nowhere to be seen.
Weather days are a middle class perk.
Oo-er missus. It has been a long time since I had a “sniff around Jack Ma’s organ”. How did it smell?
“And eating McDonald’s when HK is a foodie hub.”
Perhaps THAT is why? At McD’s you can get in, get what you want and be out all in under 15 minutes or so, depending on whether you choose to dine in.
“Foodie” places….usually small, cramped, bumping elbows with strangers and that’s AFTER the 1hr or so queue snaking around the building.
Mark Bradley — to be fair to the Rowster (not something I would normally do), he was making the point that McD’s was open, while all the fine-dining establishments were closed.
Isn’t the issue, as the author indicates, a reflection of the territory-wide policy? The system isn’t great and I don’t have a solution, but to suggest the city’s office workers are all having a free paid day off for bad weather implies people aren’t just working from home – like we all do after 6, on weekends, holidays, statutory leave… HK doesn’t consistently rank among the cities with the highest booked work hours globally because we’re all having typhoon parties.
Yeah, we called them „ Blow Job“ parties…..
Given your mention of International Brotherhood Week, I’m surprised you didn’t make Tom Lehrer’s National Brotherhood Week today’s music choice.
Weather warning/curfew systems are a lot like vaccines — they’re implemented because people died before they were, and the government got in so much trouble they decided to start a program.
And then about seventy years after they’re brought in, some right-wing establishment idiot with zero sense of history or irony and no faculty for critical thinking starts up with: “Measles/Severe weather hasn’t killed anyone that I can remember, so why are we bothering wasting money on all these superfluous vaccines/weather warnings?”
Growing up in the UK in the seventies, I have fond memories of the power cuts when the power workers went out on strike to demand their annual 20 per cent pay rise or whatever. I think the same applies to number eight typhoon signals and black rainstorm warnings. They’re exciting and a bit of a cultural event, as hinted at in an above post. As with all situations, from wars to economic booms, there are economic winners and losers so why not err on the side of safety and tell people to stay put.
The hard-working poor don’t have the luxury of working from home or bosses who understand when they can’t make it into work for whatever reason. Maybe Mr Rowse should focus on that
@Been Here Too Long
The sentiments you express do not embody the kind of spirit that built a globe-girdling empire.
Instead, they embody the kind of cowardly spirit that collaborated with a foreign invader that occupied its land and raped its women whilst waiting for a more righteous & martial nation to defeat the enemy for it.