September: Where's my iPod?

That brings me mostly up-to-date. September is not apt to be much better for me, work-wise, so I can't promise that I'll be much more prompt this month than I was last. (Actually, I should not have much freelance work, so my evenings will at least be more free...)

Last Wednesday, Apple announced its new iPods, which came just in time for me. I started looking for a new one about two weeks ago and quickly discovered that there weren't many left in Hong Kong. A quick check with Brad revealed that the new iPods were due to be announced soon. When I bought my current iPod in early 2005, I bought it one week before they released a new model, with more features at the same price as I had just paid, so at least I dodged that bullet this time.

But now I'm stuck waiting for the new models to make it to Hong Kong. Some of them are in, but not the one I want. I hate being the fanboy who rolls up to the Apple store every day asking if the new iPods are in yet, but the truth is, my old iPod is lurching towards death, each day getting a bit worse. I've been told the new ones will be in Monday, but I was also told they'd be in Saturday, so....

August: Mahjong

Also in August, we sort of learned how to play mahjong. Mahjong is a very popular game in Hong Kong; you can often hear tiles clacking when you walk the streets, especially on the weekends.

So one evening when we having dinner with some Chinese friends, they decided to teach us.


I can't really say that I learned how to play mahjong. It's like baseball in that while you can quickly understand the basics, there are so many complexities to the game that you'll have to play it over and over and over again before you really start to get it. I mean, I now know the basic rules to mahjong, but if I hadn't had an assistant, I never would have been able to play the game.

We did learn the Chinese character for "fat choy."

August: Singapore

Also in August, we both went to Singapore. This must have been Shelly's 20th trip there, but it was my first. Unfortunately, I was there for just over a day, so I didn't have much opportunity to see much of the city. (I had an oh-so-wonderful schedule of leaving Hong Kong at 8 pm on Wednesday and leaving Singapore at 8:15 am on Friday. It was a terrible way to visit Singapore.)

I was in Singapore for a day for an interview and a few meetings with law firms around the city. In between the meetings, I was able to see a few things, eat some Kenny Rogers chicken and some great Indian food for dinner.


It was rainy much of the day, so I spent more free time than I would have liked to in shopping malls. But I did make sure I visited Singapore's famous Raffles Hotel. I wandered briefly through the lobby and shot a few photos and then wandered back out. I'm sure the rooms are fantastic, based on the lobby and the grounds.

My meetings did give me lots of opportunity to view Singapore from tall buildings.


In the foreground is a tiny part of old Singapore, on both sides of the river. The government and courts are on the far side, and old houses -- now converted mostly to restaurants -- on the near side. Also on the far side, you'll see one of the oldest cricket grounds in Asia -- it's right up there with Hong Kong's. The flying-saucer-like building on the left is the Supreme Court building. After my afternoon meetings, I walked along the river and had dinner. Then, I went back to my room and worked, and then got up really, really early for my flight home.


In such a short visit, it's hard to really report on a city. Singapore has very clean air -- a great change from Hong Kong -- and nice, wide streets, which result in much better traffic flow than Hong Kong has. But I really do prefer old cities, and Singapore is definitely a new city, which makes Hong Kong preferable for me.

August: The Simpsons Movie

My plan was to try to back-date everything to the date it happened, but that's just too much hassle, I'm so far behind. So instead, I'll use this week to post some of what we've been up to for the past month.

One of the highlights of the past month -- for me, at least -- had to be The Simpsons Movie, which try as I might, I could not convince Shelly to see with me. My brother-in-law Jim had better luck convincing Lisa to see the movie, but Lisa was only slightly more enthusiastic about the movie than Shelly would have been.

I did convince Shelly to play around one evening and make avatars on The Simpsons Movie website.


I'm not sure I quite like the nose and mouth on mine, but my wife insists it's accurate. I managed to lose the password to her avatar, so I re-created it without her, but I think I was quite kind in re-creation.

One of us is a hottie. :-)

The Cat Who Eats with a Spork

No, not ours. But it will give Fat Choy and I something to do when Shelly's gone.

Too. Much. Writing.

My brother asked me a good question recently. I had written to him, telling him that I generally produce somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10,000 words a month for the magazine I write for. His response:

Do the 10,000 words per month have to form coherent stories? Or is it strictly a word count?

After this month, I find that to be a particularly good question, because my output this month has been not doubled, but nearly trebled. Late this afternoon I wrote my 28,374th word of the month. And by “of the month,” I really mean “of the past two weeks.” My work has consisted of four chapters of an annual legal directory we publish, four separate stories for the magazine and a massive news section for the same magazine. (I’ve produced well over half the magazine’s content this month, which is – and hopefully shall remain – an aberration.)

It’s little surprise, then, that I haven’t blogged in three weeks. When Brad complained that his RSS feeds weren’t showing new posts, I offered to send him a draft of my chapter on corporate law firms in Vietnam, which he promptly declined.

Smart boy, that Brad. The Laos chapter is much shorter.

***

My day got off to a roaring start this morning.

Shelly is in the US right now, first visiting family and then doing some work, and the cat is feeling her absence. Shelly usually wakes up sometime between 5 and 6, though lately she has been waking up even earlier.

So, at 4:30 this morning, Fat Choy decided it was time to get up. She was very persuasive with her arguments. Or maybe it was that she was very loud. Or maybe it was her repeated head-butts to my face. After finally giving in, I was up at 5 and couldn’t go back to sleep. (I don’t remember the last time I was up at 5, but it must have been to fly somewhere. It almost certainly wasn’t because I *wanted* to be.)

What this boils down to is that, after I put the dishes away, brought in the laundry, hung out more laundry, surfed the Internet, etc., etc., etc., it was 6:30. So I went to work. The No. 1 bus from Happy Valley is very empty at that time of day, which is exactly what Shelly has been telling me.

Oh, and the cat? As I was sitting at my computer at 5:15, she curled up on the sofa and went back to sleep.

***

This evening I’m in the process of updating the blog. You’ll see a couple of things back-dated to the approximate date they actually occurred. I know that mass updates aren’t really appreciated, but I’m sure there is some reason I haven’t been blogging lately.

Oh, yeah. It has something to do with those 28,374 words. Anyone want to read my chapter on Cambodia?

Yesterday Must Have Been An Auspicious Day

Posted by Shelly

Buddhists in Hong Kong pay homage to the gods that inhabit the land. This is done by leaving offerings of food and drink and by burning incense and fake paper money. In return for leaving these gifts for the gods, the Buddhists are asking for the gods to bless the building and the people in it. Depending on how fervent the believer this ritual can take place anywhere between twice a month and several times a day.


I visited a printing company a few months ago. The salesperson who gave me the tour introduced me to his boss who was burning the fake paper money in the hallway of the building. He told me that she did this every time she went through the entrance of the office as a wish for lots of good business to come their way.

As an earlier blog entry mentioned, my co-worker's mother-in-law came and blessed our office shortly after it opened. She brought several foods, incense and money. She lit the money right under the fire alarm. There was plenty of smoke, but fortunately th alarm did not go off requiring 20 floors of office workers to evacuate.

Our apartment building has incense lighting stations in two different areas of the stairwells (on the top floor and a mid-level floor). As far I can tell, incense is lit here twice a month.


Outside of buildings you can often see a small shrine area built into the foundation. This is where the offerings can be left. Common foods to leave for the gods are deep fried pork, steamed yellow cake and fruit.

This weekend must have been an important time to make offerings. On Saturday when I was walking around the track at The Jockey Club, two grounds keepers were offering the most interesting offering I have seen to date - 2 cans of Pepsi Max, 2 bottles of Beer, several Snickers and other snack foods. The beverages were opened (who knows, maybe Chinese Buddhist gods don't have thumbs). By the time I had circled the track a second time, they were done burning the money and had taken the offering away. On Sunday night while walking around the neighborhood I saw 6 groups of people out burning incense or money. This morning on the way to the bus there were several food offerings that had been left out overnight.

Entrance Exams

Posted by Shelly

Since my co-worker’s daughter just went through Hong Kong’s high school entrance exam process, I have learned a lot about the Hong Kong education system.

Hong Kong has a British-style school system. There are 6 years of primary school followed by 5 years of secondary school. Instead of 7th grade or 8th grade, they refer to their year of school as Form 1, Form 2… At the end of Form 5 (11th grade) students have finished their compulsory education. If they want to continue, they need to take a standardized government exam. Most students take tests in 9 or 10 subjects. The test is several days long and is held every spring.

On August 8, the results were announced. A perfect score is 30 points (the total score for your top 5 highest subjects). Most subjects have a total possible score of 5 points, but English is weighed heavier with a total possible score of 8 points. If their scores are high enough, students will continue on the university track and attend an academic high school for an additional 2 years – Forms 6 and 7. At that point they will take their entrance exam for university (A levels and O levels).

Students who don’t do well on the high school entrance exam can transfer to a technical school for Forms 6 and 7. Schools announce the expected minimum test score for acceptance into their Form 6 and 7 program in advance. Hong Kong’s secondary schools are ranked into 4 tiers. Many top tier schools set their expected acceptance level at 16 points or higher.

(Nine boys and 1 girl received perfect scores this year. The girl is only 14. One university contacted the girl and offered to accept her now, without even attending Form 6 or 7. )

At 8:30 am on the morning of August 8th, the students went to their schools to get their test results. If they received a score that meets or exceeds the advertised minimum of the school they want to attend, they turned a Form 6 and 7 application into the school by 11 am. Before 1 pm, the schools had informed each student if they had been accepted. Students who were not accepted had until 2 pm to submit an application to their second choice school, which notified them by 5 pm if they were accepted. This pattern of 2 application timeslots per day will continue through Friday afternoon. The TV news will advertise how many remaining openings there are at each school.

So, if a student received 16 points and had been attending a top tier school but were not accepted by their current school because the spaces were already filled by students with higher results, then the student would have to decide if her 2nd choice school is another top tier school where they may or may not get in, or if she should drop to a B-tier school where she would have a very good chance of being accepted. Each time a student has to apply at a different school, the number of openings will have decreased. It makes for a very stressful 3 days.

200,000 students finished Form 5 this year. There is only room for 45% of them to stay on the university track. If a school had 200 students finish Form 5, they might only have space for 90 students in Form 6. From this they will offer 80 spaces to current students and save 10 spaces for outstanding students from other schools who want to transfer in.

***

Students pay huge amounts of money to private tutors in order to prepare for the exams. In a recent newspaper story, teachers in the public schools were complaining that students were sitting in their classes, ignoring the lectures, and doing their homework for their private tutors.

The tutors' advertisements tend to be over-the-top. This ad, from the back of a bus, is actually very subdued, despite the fact that the guy on the right says he has "Math-e-magic Power" and the guy on the left has (or is part of, I'm not sure) "Super English Force". Something about that phrase tells me that K. Oten is better at teaching test-taking techniques than actual English.

And that's it from here, other than to add that we have "Super Blogging Force".

That's One Confused Storm

As you can see, Pabuk is one confused storm, changing direction yet again. I just wanted to let you know that, at least in the part of Hong Kong where we live, the worst of the rain and wind were over by the time I got home from work. It looks like Pabuk will wear itself over Macau and southern Guandong province, and then will be no more.

So now, it's on to more important questions: Will I make it to The Simpsons Movie tomorrow, or not until later? It (finally) opened here on Thursday, and I've been driving Shelly crazy waiting for it, since it opened pretty much everywhere else in the world two weeks ago.

The Return of "Pabuk"

After our disappointment at having to go to work yesterday, I was surprised this morning to wake up and find an alert from the Hong Kong Observatory that we were back under Typhoon Condition One. By lunch time, we were back in Condition Three. An hour later, the Observatory announced it would be hoisting the signal for Condition Eight, and we started turning off our computers and heading home. Pabuk had turned back towards Hong Kong, and had once again strengthened into a tropical storm.

(There's no two, four, five, six or seven, just one, three, eight, nine and ten. There's a history of the warning signals here, if you're interested.)

Here's the map from the Hong Kong Observatory web site at 5 pm this evening. Hong Kong is the big red asterisk.

I left the office sometime around 2:30. I headed towards the bus stop, planning on taking the bus home until I saw the huge lines of people waiting to get on board.


I decided that it would probably take less time to walk home than it would to wait for the bus. It wasn't raining hard at the time, and it wasn't at all windy, and while both picked up during my walk, they have once again subsided. Shelly says the subway system was more crowded than she's ever seen it, and made the Tokyo subway at rush hour seem almost spacious. Getting a little wet during my walk seems like a good trade off.

Everyone had their umbrellas open, even when it was only misting. Hong Kong sidewalks are narrow enough as it is, but it was nearly impossible to dodge the umbrellas today.


Most of the stores in the mall on my route home were closed, though grocery stores were still open when I got home. There's not really any rain or wind, but I suppose it might pick up as the storm moves past us.

At any rate, I'm home early, just like there was a snow day.

No Snow Day

Tropical Storm Pabuk has weakened into a tropical depression and is currently about 50 km southwest of Hong Kong, and there are no winds whatsoever where we live.

In other words, I'm getting ready to go to work.

To Storm or Not to Storm?

I've been waiting for a typhoon -- or at least a tropical storm -- since we moved back to Asia. We missed one in Manila last year (it hit when we were apartment-hunting in Hong Kong, actually). We haven't had one yet in Hong Kong, but that might be about to change.

All day today, we've been watching Severe Tropical Storm Pabuk fly across the Taiwan Strait, lining up for a direct hit on Hong Kong. Now this is just about the best of all worlds: The storm isn't terribly strong, but with a direct hit of even a small storm, we're likely to get the day off. It's like having a snow day in Iowa, only warmer.

(Pabuk, by the way, is named for a kind of fish in Laos.)

The truth is, I'm spoiled when it comes to typhoons and tropical storms, because my first real typhoon or hurricane experience was with Supertyphoon Paka when I lived on Guam in December 1997. (Click that link, as it's actually pretty interesting reading.) Paka had sustained winds of 150 mph when it hit Guam, and one gust was measured at more than 230 mph, so it's been really hard for any storm since to live up to Paka.

Around 5:00 this morning, the Hong Kong Observatory hoisted typhoon signal number one, which means that a storm is within 800 km of Hong Kong and could affect us. The storm was tracking slightly north of Hong Kong and flying across the strait at 44 kph. If it had maintained its speed, it would have blown in overnight and been gone by morning, so we were quite happy when it suddenly slowed down to 20 kph and adjusted its course directly for Hong Kong. Remember: Small storm means not much damage, but direct hit means probably no work.

All afternoon, it continued its track towards Hong Kong. With its new, slower speed, getting the day off was looking better and better. We expected the winds to arrive any moment and, with them, the hoisting of signal number three, which means there are sustained gale force winds. But about 45 minutes ago, it started to weaken. It became Tropical Storm Pabuk. The Observatory says its future is now in question due to the influence of another tropical storm in the area.

After all the excitement today, it's looking more and more like I'll have to go to work tomorrow. And it will be just like waking up and discovering that the promised blizzard hadn't actually left any snow behind.

Tax Time

It's tax time in Hong Kong and I have completed Shelly's first tax return.

(It's actually a few weeks past tax time, but there are provisions for first-year tax payers so that we're not actually late. We pay taxes here based on an April 1 - May 31 fiscal year calendar, not the calendar year.)

As Americans, we're "privileged" to pay taxes to the US, even though we haven't lived there for nearly two years. The US is one of one two or three countries that requires its citizens to file a tax return based on income earned overseas, which means we get to file two returns. (It's true that our tax liability to the IRS usually ends up at zero or near zero, but the fact that we have to file and report overseas income really chaps my hide, so to speak.)

The best things about filing taxes in Hong Kong are that 1) the tax rate is just 15%, and 2) the return is really, really easy to complete. For example, here's exactly how I completed Shelly's return this evening:

7:00: Turn on the TV. Turn on Prison Break.
7:13: First commercial break. Gather a pencil, Shelly's tax forms and the calculator on my mobile phone.
7:16: Watch TV.
7:27: Second commercial break. Start reading the instructions. Fill out return.
7:32: Watch TV.
7:44: Third commercial break. Double-check my work. Determine it is correct.
7:46: Finished watching TV show.

Total time: approximately six minutes.

Just for comparison, I kept track of how long it took me to do our US tax return in March. Granted, our US return involves a rental house, a small business and a variety of forms we have to fill out because we live overseas, but I spent more than 12 hours gathering materials, reading instructions and filling out forms. And the truth is, that 12 hour period was probably less than it would take most other people, because, well, I am a highly-trained, IRS-authorized enrolled agent. Plus, I used H&R Block's Tax Cut software so I wouldn't have to make all the calculations by hand.

What makes the Hong Kong return so easy? Well, on Shelly's return (I won't have to file one until next year), I filled out precisely three lines: how much money did you make, how much was the value of the housing provided by your employer, and how much did you give to charity? Inland Revenue will calculate tax liability for us and send us a bill.

The downside to paying taxes in Hong Kong, besides the actual act of paying taxes? Hong Kong doesn't have withholding tax like we do in the US. This means that when we get our 15% tax bill, we'll have to pony up that much cash. Fortunately, we're the type of people who can save money, so it won't be a big deal. Most people I know in Hong Kong put away 16 or 17% from each paycheck, which guarantees they'll have enough to pay their tax bill at the end of the year with a bit leftover for a night out.

Barcode Art

Posted by Shelly


Most offices and many homes in HK have 5 gallon drinking water dispensors. You can order water from many different companies including Coca-Cola. My office recently switched providors and is now drinking water from Coca-Cola. As a signing bonus we received
8 cans of Coke Zero. (In HK there are 4 packs, not 6 packs.) The cans sat next to our mugs for several weeks before I noticed the unique shaped barcode.