Jon,
OT
for those who are interested in a "direct from the street" report, below is an email from a HK friend of mine, degreed in something from University of Wyoming. He used to work for the HK Tourist Association and decided to take a less stressful job of teaching.
Ramsey
********
Hello, it's me again.
The HK economy may be heading for more trouble but the average HK
people are not so aware of what is going on. Most locals are
used to colonial rule and they can only blame themselves for not
getting a pay increase, for losing their jobs and for poor business.
And then there are those who just came from China. These new arrivals
think HK is too good to be true. It's their children who are going to
suffer because 90% of them will end up in the lower part of the social
strata.
My neighbour has a photo D/P shop in Tsimshatsui handling a lot of
tourists' orders. His business dropped by 90% and his wife (a
Taiwanese) is now teaching Mandarin part-time to make up the loss in
business. A friend of mine who got laid off by a watch factory has not
been able to find a job for 6 months and he said most prospective
employers are paying HK$1.30 for assembling one high quality watch.
Man, that's a real rip off because an average worker can only put
together about 200 high quality watches a day.
A lot of companies are using the economic crises as an excuse to lay off
high-pay, long-serving staff and then rehiring new people at HK$4,000 to
$5,000 less.
Rents are high but the gov't is cutting shop rent in public housing
estates for at least 30%. I think the decline in retail sales are due
more to the proliferation of chain stores. People are tired of looking
at G2000, U2, Esprit.... especially when all the shopping centres are
very much alike. Citibank disclosed last week that credit card spending
for the 1st half this year has decreased by 20%. Actually, interest
rate is still quite high which is why we have to tighten up our belt.
For a HK$70,000 car, a 5-year mortgage requires $7,000 down and $2,100 x
60 payments, i.e. HK$133,000 in total.
I am trying not to think too much about the unemployment rate or the
closing down of retail chains. The world is getting very crazy. One of
my colleagues was asked to add 7 to 8 marks each to the total of two
subjects (for every student) because her class' average is lower than
the others. As a result, about 6 students were upgraded to a "pass".
Who cares about quality education! It is all about statistic and
everything is just a number.
I told my class that the English words they should learn first is "I
love money". Next, "I love my country" and then put them together "I
love my country's money". My students are like "The Three Stooges".
Mandarin is one of their course subjects and one day I asked them to say
something in Mandarin and one of them replied "we have not yet learned
to speak Mandarin yet; we are still listening to Mandarin tapes".
Too bad you are not interested in teaching. I am sure they've got a lot
to learn from you! |
