Hong Kong Fluey

Now, I know that I might have ruffled a few feathers when I said that Singapore was the most cosmopolitan place on Earth, especially amongst the Hong Kong fraternity.  Now that I'm here in HK, I had better smooth said feathers a bit.

Hong Kong is amazing.  It's still as vibrant, as exciting, as twenty-four hour and as organised an apparent chaos as one is ever going to find.  We are, unfortunately, back in the land of concrete-footwear as far as cab drivers are concerned, allied to an almost suicidal tendency towards lane-changing manoeuvres and automatic transmissions that are well past their use-by date, but that is all a part of the magic of this little island of capitalism.  It is, however, when all is said and done also unmistakeably Chinese, despite the best efforts of 150 years of British rule which ended, let us not forget, only 13 years ago.  Many different nationalities make their home here, do business here, and stamp their imprint on the place, but it is still a part of China.

Talking of different nationalities, I would mention in passing that throughout my long and varied travels, there has been one language which has slightly disturbed me in the regularity with which I have heard it ... French!  There is definitely a gentle move by the French to take over the world.  They are everywhere, trying to establish a hegemony of claret and grenouilles.  I think the media should investigate this new phenomenon before we are all lambs dressed as mouton!

But back to Hong Kong.  I persuaded Julian to take a photo which, I feel, sums up this business-led society.

What's so special about this, you may ask?  Well, where else in the world can one imagine a Rolls Royce dealership nextdoor to a Burger King?

In any event, it's off to the restrained opulence of the famed Hong Kong Club for the alumni reception.  Here the youthful Giles Surman (his phrase) and his delightful alumna wife Julia (Julian's phrase) host a wonderful event.  Edith Lam brings gifts and a sparky enthusiasm from the iCable corporate library where she runs the show (quite literally). 

Talk was rife about the good old days at Aber and the select audience were suitably appreciative of a well-travelled ewe.  Offers of future help were forthcoming and I can assure any Aber grad landing on these shores of a warm and supportive welcome.

Now it's another cosmopolitan centre, this time a newer one in the Gulf.  Dubai, here we come on the last leg of our round the world in 40 days.