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