HOW TO SPEAK CHINESE

"Well Mike, it's like this," said my taciturn Ulsterman mate who's lived here for seven years.

"If you want to speak Cantonese, use the wah-wah pedal. If you want to speak Mandarin, make a noise like one of the Clangers."

Simple eh?

HOW LONG OH LORD, HOW LONG?

FA Premiership

1. Chelsea - Played 4, Points 12

2. Man City - Played 4, Points 10

3. Charlton - Played 3, Points 9

4. Man Utd - Played 3, Points 9

SMALL EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE

- NOT MANY DEAD

Kuala Lumpur: A Malaysian could be walking on the moon by 2020 if the country's current space programme is a success, the science and technology minister Jamaludin Jarjis, said. A proposal on a lunar mission by 2020 would be forwarded to the cabinet soon, he said, adding that Malaysians would like to see a fellow citizen on the moon. AFP

Why?

It started raining on Wednesday evening. It's now Sunday night. It's very very wet indeed. Welcome to a sub-tropical climate.

A genuine Chinese rug

DISNEY DOGS - THE LATEST

(Above: Pluto takes child hostage in protest)

Stray dogs caught near Disney's new HK theme park will in future escape the death penalty.

Instead they will be neutered and released further away from the attraction, reports the Sunday Morning Post.

It follows criticism by animal rights groups after about 40 feral dogs were rounded up and given lethal injections.

Jason Riddell loses focus while researching his next filming assignment

WHO NEEDS DEMOCRACY?
When a senior member of HK's Legislative Council (Legco) complained about the cost and secrecy surrounding renovation work to the official mansion of Beijing's top man in the territory - including HK$ 300,000 (GBP 23,000) spent on a fish pond - she got the following response from fellow Legco member Patrick Lau:

"Look at ancient Egypt. The Pharaohs even forced people to build pyramids like slaves. The renovation at Government House is just a trivial matter."

CHINGLISH &

JAPLISH MARKETING

PART 1

Yes, yes, I know it's easy to mock.

Photo taken by an Indian man - who then tried to sell me a suit.

Notice Victoria Harbour appears to be running slightly downhill.

Glad I didn't buy the suit.

Kenny Hayes' favourite snack - so good they named it twice

101 DAMNATIONS DOG DISNEY'S HK DREAM

(Above: Some dogs. Top: A fake castle)

News: Hong Kong's newly built Disneyland theme park has some less than cuddly animal characters to contend with.

Hundreds of stray dogs are reportedly plaguing the Magic Kingdom, attracted by food discarded by staff and construction workers around the site.

But the hounds bit off more than they could chew when they chased the park's boss as he drove in to work.

Now at least 40 of the animals have "gone to live on a farm" as my granny used to say when family pets suddenly disappeared.

The feral packs are thought to have lived in caves in the Penny's Bay area of Lantau Island for many years, but only became a problem when developers moved in last year.

Micky Mao and his friends Donald "Crispy Fried" Duck and Goo-Fei are due to open the park to the public in September.

News:
Replica Chairman Mao suits hit the club scene in Hong Kong. Fashion commentators describe it as a cultural revolution. Clubbers just say it's easier to decide what to wear.

Tattoos:
HK magazine is reporting a female expat recently returned from a trip to the mainland proudly sporting a new tattoo on her arm in Chinese characters.

When she showed it to Chinese colleagues at work, they fell about laughing.

She thought it said "Rachel is a babe".

What it actually said, was "My abusive husband pimps me out".

Ten things I miss about London:
1. Kebabs
2. Public drunkeness
3. Casual violence
4. Bombs
5. A can-do service culture
6. Greasy spoon caffs
7. Non air-conditioned underground railways
8. You people
9. Futbol
10. Newspaper articles and TV programmes about lists

Expat Corner:
It's not easy to find places - even quite large places - in Hong Kong. A lot of offices and services are buried deep inside tower blocks and plazas.

Recently I tried to go to Garden Road post office in Central to set up a PO Box account.
My taxi driver looked as bemused as if I'd asked him to drive me to Beijing.

He appeared not to be aware of the existence of such a place, and cheerfully attempted to drop me off outside the US consulate.

I stayed resolutely in my seat. I have had extensive experience over the years of being dumped in wrong locations in sweltering tropical or sub-tropical heat by practitioners of his noble profession.

I showed him a street directory of Hong Kong, indicating where I thought the post office might be. This he found a most mysterious document, even though it was written in Cantonese as well as English. I began to think that he had spent even less time in Hong Kong than I had.

Perhaps he was - heaven forbid - a "mainlander". Mainlanders, or what the rest of China would simply call Chinese people, tend to get laughed at and blamed for everything that goes awry in HK, from overcrowding on buses to pickpocketing in Kowloon. They can often be spotted by their crappy shoes, fake fake tee-shirts with meaningless English words or phrases on them (a language known by expats here as "Chinglish") and a complete inability to wait patiently or queue for anything. (Three of them literally climbed over me as I bent down to get my passport from my bag while waiting to go through immigration at the airport.)

Anyway, back to Garden Road post office. It's as discreetly advertised as a Soho private drinking club (that's Soho in London, not the fakes in New York and HK) and about as friendly.

In the UK, certain buildings are always in certain places. Post offices are always in the centre of town and usually well signposted. Pensioners, motorists and legal secretaries depend on this as a fact of life.

Crowding and breakneck development means that in HK this doesn't apply. There IS a huge general post office in Central (built by yes, you've guessed it, the British) but it charges twice as much for a PO Box at its prestigious address. Meanness and bloody-mindedness drove me on to Garden Road.

To be continued...

Dateline: GMT+7 Hong Kong

Welcome,
Dear Readers, to Friends Disenchanted, the official blog site for Mike Grimes during his stay in Hong Kong.

Here you will find a ragamuffin collection of rubbish from a late thirtysomething "meeja" has-been.

What you will NOT find here is any criticism, direct or implied, of the fine upstanding Cantonese people. We all know what happened to that banker guy who boasted in an e-mail about getting boffed by a female colleague.

The web has made the world a VERY small place indeed.

As a new member of the FILTH (Failed in London, Try Hong Kong) I am still finding my way, but hope to build the site up and perhaps even supply some of my own pictures once I get a photo card reader for my lap top.

I bet you can't wait.

Thanks to geraldbrimacombe.com for the Star Ferry picture.

News:
Chinese to buy ITV
................only kidding.