Hey Mohan & Tekgk, Nice Call!
And Bonnie, I spent more time in HK than I ought, and it is one
funny place. A lot of electronics was more expensive there than
here, this has something to do with our huge market size and
efficient distribution.
The people there do not spend money like they do here. They
really have no where near the personal space we do, so they
always buy small things. For instance, you will find a substantial
percentage of the middle class with real Rolex watches.
And families don't work the same as here. If you live at home,
and this is expected until you are married, you will work, and
you will give all your money to your parents. They will then give
you back enough to live on. This may be the allowance you
were looking at.
After marrying, you still work, and send money back to your
folks. This is sort of a way for people to save money, as older
folks generally have a better control of their spending than
younger ones.
I know the people more intimately than most, and I am very
sure that the threat of that HK peg slipping will make a lot of
them dump the HK dollar on a moment's notice.
People there save money like sons of guns, historically. There
was an interesting article in the British weekly Economics, about
6 years ago. A lady who was discovered with her carry on bags
stuffed with cash ($100 bills). There had just been a $40M
bank robbery, so they took her into questioning. She managed
to prove that the roughly 100 pounds of $100 greenback she
was carrying to Australia were legitimate earnings of her family.
She was just pulling it out of HK and into Australia, which, along
with Vancouver BC is one of the two places you now find the
HK upper classes. Differences are fascinating. They are human,
but they are not western. Typically they wouldn't dream of
worrying about people starving in some far corner of the world,
(relative to the western world) much less worry about animals'
welfare. But they would work far more for their even distant
relatives' welfare. Sort of makes us look like the communist
society, not them. (They think that anything that moves under
the sky is edible, but the idea of eating blue cheese really doesn't
appeal. The reasoning is that when milk goes bad it makes
yogurt. When yogurt goes bad it makes cheese. When cheese
goes bad it makes blue cheese. This is one too many "goes
bad" for the HKese. On the other hand, if you visit the
specialty meat section of your local HK grocery, you will
find things like "pork uterus", literally "pig birthing chamber",
on sale for human consumption. They value the fish head
more than the rest of the fish, and HK loverboys always give
the head to their sweeties. "The cheeks are the softest part
of the fish."
-- Carl |
