Friday is the best day of the week. Friday is like finding a magical kingdom where the streets and houses are made of chocolate and burgers, and rivers run with beer (and rehydrating drinks during hangover days). Good-looking girls everywhere and all seem to think you're really good-looking too!
Just imagine how cool that would be.
That's how Friday is.
It's all a matter of perspective.
However, this Friday has already gone through a number of setback and they seem to continue. Preliminary plans failed miserably and now I need to think of a plan B. Blah. I hate plan B's; they never live up to match plan A.
I suppose I'll stay home but I don't even have plants I could watch grow. However, I suppose I could watch flat surfaces in my apartment gather dust and then clean them just for the sheer fun of it.
Plan A's failing suck: It leaves me standing at an edge of dark space, scary and cold.
Okay, enough is enough. I'll just go home after work. Get beer from the local grocery store. Drink it. Have happytime and then sleep. Sounds like a perfectly good Friday to me. Huzzah!
On other news:
This weekend will herald the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the glorious nation of People's Republic of China. July 1st, 1997, Hong Kong was passed from British ownership back to the PRC and everyone thought this place would fall like a dead bird. Well, it's still kicking, and kicking strong.
Despite being a part of PRC, Hong Kong was given special freedoms (ie. own legal system, police force, monetary system, customs policy, immigration policy, and delegates to international organisations and events). PRC, however, is responsible for defence of HK (so HK doesn't have its own army), and takes also responsibility over foreign issues and politics - and of course Beijing keeps a close eye on Hong Kong's internal politics as well.
So, what is Hong Kong like, compared to the PRC? Why should HK have its special status? Well, the obvious reason is that under the British rule, HK featured a number of differences from the Communist China. Democracy was introduced, and Hong Kong governments policy on minimal intervention (in terms of business) has been one the key-issues ensuring the growth of this area. Hong Kong has been described numerous times the world's freest economy - a model for capitalism.
On a practical side, there are number of differences that make Hong Kong different from China. Of course I can't honestly speak of the whole Mainland China, but from my experience in Souther China (Guandong province) it's pretty clear that Hong Kong's longer history as a modern and "western" city has left a positive mark in many ways. Hong Kong, for example is more:
- organized (people actually make proper queue's when waiting for something, traffic actually follows some elementary rules, etc.)
- developed (modern infrastructure, higher education, etc.)
- cleaner (streets are clean, buildings are clean, everywhere is clean (within the realm of possibility of course))
Other things too, of course, separate Hong Kong from Mainland and one of those things is the general language proficiency of this place. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, pretty much everyone in Hong Kong speaks good enough English to perform their jobs. Of course we have exceptions and language barrier can sometimes surprise you like a pack of angry baboons with sticks jumping on you out of nowhere. But that's rare. As it is to be attached by angry baboons with sticks. In China, however, it happens all the time; the language barrier, not the baboons (or how the hell should I know - they could have random baboon attacks there quite often). Shit. I'm being confusing now. Well, nevermind.
The bottom line is: Hong Kong rocks!
Despite being now a part of the evil communist PRC where evil people eat babies, malevolently experiment on TaiChi-activists, and on purpose do all the nasty things western nations are so innocent of, Hong Kong is quite well off
Many people thought the turnover will sink Hong Kong. Clearly it didn't. And I think HK is better off like this anyway. China is a good host and knows how to best deal with HK, respecting the current way of life in Hong Kong. And who'd want to be owned by the Britons anyway?
Sorry for going a bit political and boring.
To compensate, here's a picture of a squirrel:
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