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Asia History - Vyoos

Dare to dream: a return of the Orient Express?

March 10th 2010 10:14
orient express

The old Orient Express had many incarnations but is associated mostly with the journey from Paris to Istanbul. The time the journey took varied, but it was at all times the stuff of legend, luxury and romance. It was mentioned in the literary works of Bram Stoker, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, George McDonald Fraser and Ian Fleming.


The old Orient Express made its first journey on October 12, 1882, from Paris to Vienna. The menu read: oysters, soup with Italian pasta, turbot with green sauce, chicken à la chasseur, fillet of beef with château potatoes, chaud-froid of game animals, lettuce, chocolate pudding and buffet of desserts. The first Paris-Istanbul all-train service was on June 1, 1889.

The service ran for the last time in 2007, when the name Orient Express disappeared from all European train timetables. It was a victim, they said, of high-speed trains and cut-rate airlines. It left the world a sadder place.

The new Orient Express has just been announced.

It will run from London to Beijing. It will pass through Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev, St Petersburg, Moscow, Astana in Kazakhstan and Khabarovsk in Russia's far east. It will travel at about 320 kilometres per hour, and it will make the journey in just two days. The service could start operating as early as 2020.

It is a business vision from the only economic power on Earth with the energy, momentum and financial muscle to make this work, China.


I should make some caveats here. This is a proposal rather than a firm plan, 2020 is the "earliest possible" completion date, and there is actually no suggestion that it will be called the Orient Express. But they have to call it that, don't they? Please call it that. The world is a sadder place without an Orient Express in it.
www.telegraph.co.uk

orient express



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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Asia, China, Europe, History
   


Hong Kong environment

October 27th 1999 07:01
hong kong harbour
"Hong Kong, unlike Singapore, never had a mandate for eternity. As a borrowed place in borrowed time, it evoked about as much protective instinct as a hotel room"

I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.


The only place where you can wake up in the morning and hear the birds coughing in the trees. -- Joe Frisco (of Hollywood)

Gunk mail

Red Inque got a call last week from a head hunter who, in a long and fruitful conversation, offered an insight into Hong Kong’s pollution problems. The expatriate Brit and his partner had set up their personnel business in Hong Kong, but had moved to Singapore when the partner’s bronchial system had proved incapable of handling the SAR’s less than prophylactic milieu. This was just before the Indonesian bush fires rained ash and dust on Singapore, which was a bit unfortunate.

Back in Hong Kong, we have a gov­ernment which proclaims commitment to cleaning up the environment, but which draws howls of derision every time it announces another inadequate initiative.

Hong Kong is one of the most beaut­iful cities in the world. It is, along with the likes of Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Sydney and San Francisco, one of the great water cities. When visitors come to town, we take them proudly up to The Peak and, standing there high above the Fragrant Harbour, explain that the view would be breathtaking were it not for the smoggy haze.

Some would argue that the haze is not always caused by nasties in the air. Hong Kong, it is true, has a natural seasonal haze, caused in spring by cool water and warm air and in autumn by warm water and cooling air, which can so thoroughly obscure a view that Somerset Maugham was moved to record the phenomenon after a visit in the 1920s.

Others would argue that there never really was a problem until Hong Kong manufacturing started moving over the border into China. This started in the late 1970s when China began opening its doors, and turned into a tidal wave in the late 1980s. China, let it be known, has anti-pollution laws as tough as any. What it doesn’t have is effective policing there­of. So when it comes to Hong Kong’s poor air quality, much of it is being produced across the border by Hong Kong’s own.

Yet others will argue that no-one has given a damn about pollution in Hong Kong since the first British trading ships arrived here and started throwing slops overboard. There was never any profit in it. Hong Kong, unlike Singapore, never had a mandate for eternity. As a borrowed place in borrowed time, it evoked about as much protective instinct as a hotel room.

But now the hotel rooms are too empty too often for profitability and slow­ly, surely, those in the political and cor­porate corridors of power are beginning to listen to arguments which include concepts such as eco-tourism.

The SAR government’s Web site is big on environmentalist rhetoric, if a little short on action. It says all new taxis must run on LPG from the end of next year, but there is no timeframe mentioned for converting the vast existing collection of diesel belchers. Hong Kong’s double-deck­er bus fleet may be newish but is never­theless potently malodor­ous. The Web site mentions that some have now been fitted with catalytic converters but that, whatever it means, hasn’t made Red Inque’s walk to the pub any more agreeable.

What the Web page does tell you is that the government is aware of the sit­uat­ion. “Air pollution is a threat to the health of every citizen,” it admits. “Acute respiratory and cardiovascular disease linked to air poll­ut­ion is already costing Hong Kong $3.8 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity.

“Air pollution is a threat to Hong Kong's econ­omy. Poor visibility and a rep­u­tat­ion for poor air quality are a dis­in­centive to tourism and to companies est­ab­lishing or maintaining their operations in Hong Kong.”

For those of our readers interested in a social perspective of the diesel eng­ine, the following is also illuminating: “The extremely high density of built-up areas and the unusually high reliance on diesel vehicles in Hong Kong are unique.

“Thirty per cent of Hong Kong's veh­icles have diesel engines, compared with 19% in Japan, 17% in Singapore and 10% in the UK. Our diesel vehicles account for 70% of all vehicle kilometres travelled each year.”

A broad warning came yesterday morn­ing from that stentorian Asian thunderer, The South China Morning Post, which opened its leader column with the following paragraph, “Regard­less of which aspect of the econ­omy is under discussion, the con­clusions are always the same: without a clean-up of the environment, Hong Kong’s prospects for recovery are weak.”

This blowing of a smog horn is rather stretching reality, but it is the sort of message which may make Hong Kong’s polluters think twice in future before emptying their slops into our harbour.
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A storm in a stockmarket

September 20th 1999 06:47
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.

And here is the weather forecast. Tomorrow will be muggy. Followed by Toogy, Weggy, Thurgy and Frigy. -- Anonymous

Blow me down but the market’s up

Hong Kong has a typhoon warning system which involves progressively higher numbers between one and 10, depending how close the big blow is. When the warning system was invented, back when Genghis Khan was playing full-back for Ulan Bator, they would raise the one signal, then the two signal, then the three signal, etcetera, as the typhoon got within certain pre-determined distances of Hong Kong's hallowed shores.

In the early and middle part of the 20th century, however, it was decided that 10 numbers was excessive and so the system should be revised. Politicians and/or civil servants were undoubtedly involved because what transpired can be explained by no logic except that of the bureaucrat. While it was agreed that the system was cumbersome, it was also decided that the population, which had been dealing with it for many decades, understood it.

Therefore, instead of introducing a completely new system, they decided simply to drop a few numbers. A few years later, a new generation of politicians and civil servants dropped a few more.

Which is why one of the more difficult things about living in Hong Kong is explaining to newcomers why our typhoon warning signals are as follows: Number 1 (technically defined as: there's a stiff wind somewhere off the coast of Botswana); Number 3 (technically defined as: there's a very stiff wind somewhere off the coast of China); Number 8 (technically defined as: there's a typhoon headed our way and if you don't put masking tape in cute little X patterns over all your windows, the windows will probably be blown inwards and ruin your antique Chinese chest); Number 10 (the most scary time of your life is happening right now).
Our highly technical warning system, therefore, comprises the unsystematic rais­ing of the 1, 3, 8 and 10 signals. Umm, say the newcomers, what happen­ed to numbers two, four, five, six, seven and nine? And that's when, for the four thousandth time, you retell the story in the first paragraph.

Number eight signals get raised in Hong Kong maybe four or five times on average every summer. Batten your hatches and tape your windows, this one is heading our way. But typhoons, like a woman with a tray full of engagement rings, are irresolute things, and the last time Hong Kong took a direct hit – a number 10 – was in 1983. The result was 10 deaths, a far cry from the 1937 typhoon which killed 11,000.

Eight years ago, when Red Inque first came to Hong Kong, he met a couple who lived on the top floor of a luxury high-rise apartment block in salubrious Repulse Bay (so named last century by a young official in the Lands Department because his love declined his proposal of marriage; Happy Valley was so named by the same official a few months later when the young lady changed her mind). The couple in Repulse Bay, recalling the 1983 typhoon, pointed at their ornate ceiling fan and described how, with the wind shrieking and the building swaying, they sat on the sofa and watched the fan's blades crashing into the ceiling.

Last Thursday, for the first time since then, the number 10 signal was raised, and it stayed up for 10 hours. Typhoon York came to town.

They say York was bigger and meaner and badder than anything which has hit Hong Kong since they began keeping records in the 1940s. Certainly, a 10 signal had never been up for 10 hours.

The idea when this happens is that you stay home. Hong Kong closes down. Red Inque’s home, right in the middle of the Hong Kong Island high rises, is about as sheltered and safe as you could hope for outside a concrete bunker. We have a first-floor flat, and our 10-storey apartment block is surrounded – and I mean surrounded on all four sides – by much bigger buildings. All of which means that the things we saw out our window, things which had us bug-eyed and slack-jawed, were probably nothing compared to what was happening in more open areas.

One of the nicest things about our building is the small open area in front of it, a tranquil Chinese garden with dozens of plants in big terracotta pots and, overlooking it all, a 70-foot fig tree which was probably planted back in the 1950s when the building was built. It's seen a lot of Hong Kong history. It survived the 1983 typhoon. But it didn't survive this one. In the first light of Thursday morning, before York had even fully arrived, our beautiful tree came crashing down – in the only direction it could have to miss a building. It came to rest on a wrought iron fence, one foot above all the terracotta-potted plants.

Another victim was Chek Lap Kok airport, which has recovered from its humiliating introduction to the world to, recently, be voted amongst the world’s top 10 buildings. Apart from kudos, they apparently have plenty of buckets, which were needed when the roof started leaking during the storm.

Another building hard hit was Rev­enue Tower, the Wanchai home of Hong Kong’s much-loved taxation depart­ment. Dozens of windows were punched in by York and personal tax files and documents were blown into the street. The tragedy is that Red Inque’s were not amongst them.

On Friday, as the SAR began cleaning up and counting its losses, including two deaths and almost 500 injured, the stockmarket opened up. After being hammered earlier in the week following the release of strong US producer price index figures, the market recovered about 50 points for the day on solid turnover, bringing smiles back to a few faces.

But it won’t bring back our tree.
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Timor outrage

September 10th 1999 08:33
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.

People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. -- A.J. Liebling

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Government spending

August 11th 1999 11:02
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people, on a level with dentists, that would be splendid! -- John Maynard Keynes

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Chinese embassy bombing

May 18th 1999 09:54
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.


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A public relations coup

May 7th 1999 09:08
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.

The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. -- David Ogilvy (Confessions of an Advertising Man)

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Consumer confidence

April 27th 1999 08:50
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.

Tell me Dobkins: How long have you been with us – not counting today? -- David Frost (The Sack and How to Give It)

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Chill wind from Beijing

February 8th 1999 03:57
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. -- Alexander Pope

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Bad press

December 7th 1998 03:16
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political, investment and social commentary articles for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor at the time, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, especially in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.

Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.-- Adlai Stevenson

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Indonesia’s lonely battle

November 16th 1998 02:53
Expendable pawns and few mates

I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political, investment and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, especially in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.
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