hello john, there are certainly some bad sides to hk, as there would be within all societies, in particular, we have an issue with air pollution (but frankly, nothing that effects our longevity) and an issue with trouble-makers wanting to make 'perfect' a near-perfect system by introducing universal suffrage so that suffering can be voted on by the tyranny that would be the majority.
as to public safety, imo, and probably by stats, hong kong is one of the safest urban centers in the universe, and that statement is not even qualified by truth that hong kong is also one of the densest populated piont in the galaxy (97% of hk is green, and so our 7 mil folks gets squashed in highrises, except for a few thousand families who choose and are able to live in low density locales deliberately set aside). our policemen are good enough for traffic policing, and there are plenty of plain clothes officers about who would magically appear at a moment of need in strategic spots where the riff raff try to pickpocket. our policemen are also considerate and polite (an example i sighted was a pair trudging down to the beach in heat of summer to ask all illegally parking drivers to go tpo their cars and standby, so that the police do not have to ticket anyone and can leave :0), genuine public servants.
the public areas of public housing (shops and such) are actually publicly listed and provides a steady yield finance.yahoo.com , initially publicly seeded, and then spun-off via ipo on stock exchange
as is our public transportation finance.yahoo.com (subway is safe, clean, airy, beautiful, and affordable), again, initially publicly seeded, and then spun-off via ipo on stock exchange
hk has the best public transport system in the world that i know of.
as to nanny and helpers in general, they make more (2x+, between usd 450-650++/month) than they would as teachers and executive secretaries and nurses in the philippines, thailand, indonesia, and sri lanka, gets room and food, pay no taxes, gets off all public holidays and sundays, gets 1 week paid holiday back home per annum, gets a thirteenth month pay, gets one month for each year worked when leaving on good contractual terms, and enough employers give a bit extra as added loyalty incentive. their medical is effectively free, and they do have mandated life/injury insurance coverage by employers.
we treat our helpers a bit better than usual. their ordinary clothing and personal care purchases are covered by us as a matter of course. should they take care, they really do not have expenses except that which they choose to send home or spend on self or with friends. one of our previous helpers left our employment with usd 6k blessing, enough to put up an abode on her part of her family land back in the village, and we picked up her accounting tuition.
another one, who also did office work for us, put her filipino-greek son through college on scholarship funded by my partner and i and we funded the navigation by her son to obtain eu passport.
the reason we do 'forced' savings program for our helpers is that they all tend to be tremendously 'family-valued' and tend to frit away their income on helping their family back home, putting brothers and such through school. we and many do not discourage such family care, but we wish that our helpers have something put away when they eventually leave our employment.
enough folks from si have visited us in hk, and so know i speak the truth.
i am sure there are plenty of homes who mistreat their helpers, and i am sure such families shall be scripture-ly held accountable.
amongst enough of our friends, if not all, we would walk out on biz meetings should our counterparty be rude to the service folks at whatever venue we are at for the meeting.
in hk we may not all be religious, but given the intensity of biz life and closeness of community (hk is a village) we and many have faith in karma.
hk is one of the more generous donor societies in the world.
cheers, tj |
