H
ong Kong has two seasons: Too Hot and Too
Cold. My office has the same two seasons on
a shorter cycle. Too Cold runs Monday to
Friday, while Too Hot runs every weekend,
when air conditioners are switched off to save cash.
I like the fact that Hong Kong is reckoned to be the
world’s most vertical city, despite the fact that I often
find myself sharing a lift lobby with a group of primitive,
uncivilised Neanderthals.
(No offence intended to
Neanderthals.)
1) They press the Up button to
tell the elevator where they want to
go AND the Down button to tell the
lift to come down and get them.
2) Every few seconds, they
repeat the process to make the lift
come faster.
3) Each person who arrives
performs the same two actions to
make the dumb lift realise that a
crowd is building up so it should get
a @#$%ing move on.
When the lift finally arrives,
our community’s most popular
team sport starts spontaneously.
Team A has to force its way into
the lift, while Team B has to force
its way out. I don’t complain about
this. It’s the only exercise I get.
The other day, I heard a
Singaporean air traveller boasting
that he had once survived a
Singapore to Newark flight: 19
hours in an economy class seat.
I one-upped him by boasting that I was once in the
air for 136 hours non-stop. It was true. Hong Kong has
more raised walkways than any other city on earth, and I
used to work in a building linked by walkway to my home
and TWO shopping malls. I didn’t touch the ground for
days on end. It was like being at college without the illegal
substances.
The downside of losing touch with Mother Earth is
At home
We live in the world’s most vertical city,
says father-of-three
Nury Vittachi.
that some property developers skip 13 and 14, so floor
numbers jump straight from 12 to 15. I’m told this fools the
Bad Luck Gods, who cannot count. So how did they get to
be gods? Is there no entry exam?!!!
Once I had to go to an address described as being on
“Level Two” of Festival Walk shopping mall, a building
which has 82 escalators (not a joke). I arrived at the
basement car park and went up ten floors (including “the
upper level of the Lower Ground
Level Mezzanine”) before reaching
Level Two. I swear this is true.
And, of course, there was
the Hong Kong developer who
deliberately mis-numbered the levels
of his building so he could advertise
property for sale on the lucky 66th
and 88th floors of a 46-storey
block. It would take A LOT of
persuasion to get me to hand over
my life savings for the 88th floor of a
46-storey block.
I once told someone from
Europe about how Hong Kong has
multiple fake ground levels, and he
got excited, seeing it as a solution
to “turf wars” around the world.
“Hong Kong developers could pave
over Israel and Palestine and re-label
everything so that the whole place
has multiple ground layers,” he said.
Nice idea, but I find people other
than East Asians like to keep old
structures as they are. For example,
if something ancient like Stonehenge
was stolen, Westerners would weep.
But we in Hong Kong would say: “That old thing? Better
they make a new one, and this time they can build in a
shopping mall and a McDonald’s.” It’s the Hong Kong way.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to go home and I
need to go press the lift button 10,000 times to make it
come and get me faster.
Nury welcomes your comments at
I didn’t touch the
ground for days on
end. It was like being
at college without the
illegal substances.
in
the
sky
96
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