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Hong Kong (Threads Merged)


roobob

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@Thai...

Again, the HK people have never had more say so in their governance than they have today. And they want more, and China will continue to try and push back. China is becoming more like the West. Li's strangehold as lifetime ruler is quite perilous domestically right now. China itself is a cauldron of social unrest getting ready to blow. 

Yes old hands "expats" are leaving HK. Just like they leave NYC, they leave SGP, they leave any battison of opportunnity as the opps become harder to come by. That said and done, here is another fact....there has been an INCREASE in non resident visa and work permits every single year in HK since 1979.......so there are more "expats" in HK today than ever. You don't have to be a lilly white euro or n american to be a switched on make it happen EX PAT!

I just arrived back late last night. Plenty of deal making going on and plenty of flourishing commerce. The Cantonese are some of the most resilient people on the face of the earth. Many bumps in the road ahead for HK, just like for every major city on face of the earth. Maybe less in HK than the rest of G20 major commerce/urban centers. The societal issues that plague HK today is much more CORPOCRACY driven than becoming Chinese. In HK it is called the property cartel. That has been in place since the 70's and their stranglehold gets worse by the year. 

HK has changed. I was astounded I had a HKD$20.00 pint of ice cold Carlsberg yesterday at Queen Vic. That was unthinkable in years gone by. I than moved down the street and went upscale Italian and had a nice Italian Micro draft for HKD$67 hh price. I than headed over to 1 IFC as I had time to kill b4 going to airport and had a 150 HKD 12 oz bottle of flipper san miguel.....3 beers, 3 establishments, ranging in price from under USD$3.00 to USD $20.00.

Will be back in  2 weeks to look for my new apartment. HK has changed, but one thing has not changed. If you are good at what you do, there is so much opportunity and so much energy. It is a one of a kind place......

queen vic.jpg

italy.jpg

 

1 ifc.jpg 

 

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2 hours ago, Thai Spice said:

Main cost : lodging. It is the most expensive place in the world.

For the rest (food, entertainment, it ok if you make decent money. Transportation is rather reasonnable)

But lodging is the killer.

If you make decent money then its a great place to live!

Sure transportation is cheap, you can pretty much walk to anyplace.

Food? Can be very cheap, but also very expensive.

Bar girls? forget it. 

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@STARGAZER,

I have my HKG P.R., and as you know when you have it, its for life (except a few legal details) . Mean anytime I want go work there, I can, no need for visa, W.P. etc....

Q.V. is a shadow of what is was (to do with the departure of a lot of construction expats) but yep the prices are still very good.

You and me are in 2 completely different worlds, professionally speaking, you are aware of that. 

I still have have a bit of $$$ over there, but as much as 10 y ago I considered it as 1000% safe, now I watch the future and consider it only 80% safe. 

I am still not too bad at what I do, but it would take serious, serious $$$ to make me go back work there, and then only for short term contracts.

The peaceful Bali lifestyle is not bad. 

But this being said, I wish you all the best in your new venture !

 

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16 minutes ago, Mrmango said:

If you make decent money then its a great place to live!

Sure transportation is cheap, you can pretty much walk to anyplace.

Food? Can be very cheap, but also very expensive.

Bar girls? forget it. 

Step by step :

No its not a GREAT place to live. Quality of life is zero, even with money, except you are blind. And I spend 8 years.

Define "decent money" ? Anything under 50k HKD plus 20k living allowance per month, you will have a very average life.

Public transport + taxi allows you to go everywhere. Forget walking. Its like walking amongst 1 million headless chicken running in every direction.

Food, if you cook at home, western living food style is very affordable. Wine and alcohol are very cheap compared to Thailand or Indo.

Girls ? Everything available, anytime, any variety, any price... From the cheap Mongkok mainland brothel to the expensive Russian escort.  And marrying an HKG national will give you P.R. without admin hassle...

 

 

Edited by Thai Spice
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From aviation forum Pprune.

This section and thread mainly populated by CX (Cathay) expat pilots and staff.

Simply confirms what I see since a few years, Chinesation, new expats being offered poor conditions, old expats struggling to keep their previous conditions. Majority left, or planning to leave.

https://www.pprune.org/fragrant-harbour/623210-end-fragrant-harbour-2.html

 

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The only problem I had with H.K. when I visited (only 5 days) was in some areas the wide spread odor of dog piss.

Otherwise I loved the place. But I have never lived there long enough to get a good assessment for if I could handle it long term.

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Protests are now including problems that have been simmering since years. 

 “Some of the actions are directly related to the government’s failure in handling the extradition saga, but there are also long-drawn-out issues like the impact of ‘mainlandisation’ on Hong Kong communities,”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/13/dont-mess-with-us-the-spirit-of-rebellion-spreads-in-hong-kong

 

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On 7/9/2019 at 2:13 PM, Thai Spice said:

From aviation forum Pprune.

This section and thread mainly populated by CX (Cathay) expat pilots and staff.

Simply confirms what I see since a few years, Chinesation, new expats being offered poor conditions, old expats struggling to keep their previous conditions. Majority left, or planning to leave.

https://www.pprune.org/fragrant-harbour/623210-end-fragrant-harbour-2.html

 

prob some real to it....but come on, anybody who lived in HK knows Cathay pilots, and stewardess etc etc might have the most misguided pov when it comes to the "good ole days"...they were paid 40% more and required to work 20% less than any other major airline in the world....one of biggest scams in history. And their out right greed and refusal to negotiate in the 90's and early naughts is exactly why Cathay went from the # airline in world to a one almost as crappy as one of the US carriers. One of the best moves Swire ever made was to dump that albatross called CX on the Chinese and walk away.

BTW, belated happy Bastille Day!

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2 hours ago, STARGAZER said:

prob some real to it....but come on, anybody who lived in HK knows Cathay pilots, and stewardess etc etc might have the most misguided pov when it comes to the "good ole days"...they were paid 40% more and required to work 20% less than any other major airline in the world....one of biggest scams in history. And their out right greed and refusal to negotiate in the 90's and early naughts is exactly why Cathay went from the # airline in world to a one almost as crappy as one of the US carriers. One of the best moves Swire ever made was to dump that albatross called CX on the Chinese and walk away.

BTW, belated happy Bastille Day!

Probably a good part of truth in this.

In the golden days (late 80', early 90's) our HKG branch was bringing in the same profit as all other overseas branches together. Needless to say the branch senior expat staff took some bad habits and living a great life.  Big wake up in 97 when it all went tits up ! 

And there was drastic action taken. Redundancies, and for the remaining staff 30% salary cut. Locals suffered most. Indeed as expat you will just be transfered back to a job in France, but still have your job. A bit less flamboyant....

Now it would be much worse as most are "local expats", and they dont exist for Paris HO.

 

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On 7/6/2019 at 7:59 AM, Thai Spice said:

View from my living room in HKG, sure not bad, but still didn't make.it paradise...

Of course, no problem to find a "live in" ...

20150413_175130-1024x576.jpg

20150905_133824-1024x576.jpg

 

I think its safe to say there's just no pleasing some people. 

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4 hours ago, Esco said:

I think its safe to say there's just no pleasing some people. 

I think you misunderstood me. 

I had a good time in HKG, but its no paradise. But like everywhere I lived, after a while it is good to move on to a new horizon.

 

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China's position on HKG is not new. Listen in this "vigourous" interview what the guy says about who "owns" HKG ......

Obviously he was in a bad day, and the journalist really get on his nerves !

Screenshot_20190716-163303_YouTube-600x1067.jpg

 

 

Would be fun to see him meeting Trump ....

 

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Situation has degenerated seriously yesterday.

Obviously a very organized and disciplined group (on some videos one can clearly see "leaders" organizing, holding or pushing their teams).

Very likely triad related gang, missioned by somebody for this. 

IMHO could be mafia themselve, if their business suffers because of the demos, but more likely orchestrated by pro Bejing government groups or even directly by Bejing.

Slowly building an excuse for crackdown and direct intervention. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-china-49066982

https://mobile.twitter.com/hyjpang/status/1153002842145337346

The HKG government reaction today will be a very good indicator of what it is. 

Such mobs have been used in the past, most recently in Mongkok during some demos.

Edit : see the comments on the Twitter link.

Edited by Thai Spice
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On 7/6/2019 at 2:35 AM, dcfc2007 said:

Surprised the Chinese haven't launched a more brutal crackdown.

Dictators have been evolving away from using clubs and guns for decades now.....Death by a thousand cuts is the new way.....

Death by a thousand cuts is exactly what the junta has been doing for years in the take over of the Thai economy...

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16 hours ago, Sigi said:

Triad gangsters from China in white shirts attack demonstrators:

 

 

 

Triad gangsters from China in white shirts attack demonstrators:

 

A few things here....

Why would the Triad gangsters be in Hong Kong kicking some protesters ass?.....The answer is $$$$$ and lots of it....
You see the mainlanders would never lower them self to inflect brute violence in Hong Kong...It was just thoes horrible bad bad bad evil Triad gangsters....lol

 

Edited by fforest
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23 minutes ago, fforest said:

Triad gangsters from China in white shirts attack demonstrators:

 

A few things here....

Why would the Triad gangsters be in Hong Kong kicking some protesters ass?.....The answer is $$$$$ and lots of it....
You see the mainlanders would never lower them self to inflect brute violence in Hong Kong...I was just thoes horrible bad bad bad evil Triad gangsters....lol

 

Correction : triad gangs from HKG in this case.

FYI, tugs and gangs are commonly used in the mainland for expropriation, forcing.people to resettle etc...

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/45-hurt-in-wild-attack-on-protesters-at-station/

If you watch the videos closely, they are not out to kill or really harm, but to frigthen people, and "give them a lesson" about what is the correct way ...

Those gangs are mainly active in the New Territories, and I would not be surprised that there were some mainlanders as well, Yeung Long being just minutes from the border crossing.

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Jambo said:

To paraphrase Lord Wellington referring to agriculture on the eve of giving it to the Frogs at Waterloo

"If there is one subject I know, I mean knew, absolutely nothing about it is Hong Kong." :default_book:

 

I lived there long enough, worked amongst them , and in a general way I try to learn about the mentality, politics, economics etc of any place I live for a certain time as it may (probably will) impact MY live in one or other way at a certain moment. 

And besides that, knowing your environment is always good, being it privately or for your job.

Even if I left, and with no plan to ever return, I follow whats happening.

 

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21 hours ago, Thai Spice said:

Seems we had the same idea at the same time ?

 

Never in all my years have I ever seen a congregation of so many triad foot soldiers without a tattoo in sight! 

My money on 90% PLA

Edited by STARGAZER
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2 hours ago, STARGAZER said:

Never in all my years have I ever seen a congregation of so many triad foot soldiers without a tattoo in sight! 

My money on 90% PLA

Have thought about it, specially when you look at their way of following orders. When some go too violent there is always somebody jumping in to stop it.  There are clearly "leaders" and "foot soldiers", but then again Triads is same. Another point is that I saw on one of the Twitter links that they were speaking Cantonese not Mandarin.

 I think this is a too early stage to have PLA involved.  But then again some reports mention the cars that picked up the white shirts after the events had dual China / HK numberplate. And that station is near  from the highway leading to the border, a few minutes away.

We had our old plant yard there. 

Anyway, the situation has suddenly got much worse. And Carry Lam's silence, or "pro forma" protest doesn't give much confidence for the future.

 

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