3 + 4 quarantine for inbound travellers to HK

 

We’re finally at the point of opening borders to point where Singapore was 2 years ago. 

Ah bless the HK Government’s little black hearts. 

A lot of people don’t know that China still requires 7 fucking days of quarantine for inbound travellers. So Chinese people use HK as a washout, booking up all quarantine hotels.

So HK is still fucked. But less fucked than it was before. So…. time to breakout the champagne! Any excuse to get shitfaced in the midst of this clown-car of a city-autonomous region-China-Whatever the fuck this is.

Hong Kong in 2022

Still here, kids in the same school, husband has moved on to a different bank & loves the Japanese work culture in this place. In the last year, I’ve picked up Japanese and will stop short of the language exams at translator level, as that is not what I want to do. Hopefully that’s where we’ll end up next. 

Almost 6 years in Hong Kong at its decline as one of the world’s best cities. 

View from a serviced apartment in Odaiba.

Hong Kong in 2021

 Hello, still in HK as we near the end of 2021. Kids in the same school, husband in the same job, we’re still living in the same building. Spent the last 2 years mostly at home and not socializing. 

We’ve been lucky that it never got very bad with COVID here in HK. We made one last trip to Singapore in 2021 and tied up some loose ends. And now, for the first time, I’m glad to say we live in HK instead of Singapore. 

Universal masking: the one factor that saved everyone in the early days. Your gweilo ass can thank HKers for this. You’re welcome. 

The borders are shut to non-residents who are unvaccinated. 21-day quarantines for those from high risk countries. I’m grateful for these measures, because it keeps us all safe, the schools open, life goes on pretty normally. Mainland Chinese tourists cannot enter HK yet. This arrangement suits us- the city is quieter and more pleasant these days. 

Hong Kong in 2020

 Hello all, we’re still here in HK.

It’s been tough here since 2019.

First, the anti-extradition law protests in HK.

But it’s definitely given me a new level of respect ✊ for Hong Kongers, for Mainland Chinese as well. 

I hope everyone can live together in cooperation for a new future. I hope I don’t sound like a propaganda machine. If everyone respects each other, then there is hope.

When HK Hospitals started to buckle and there weren't enough beds for mounting COVID patients, China sent a team of medics, and construction teams to build makeshift hospitals for HK's COVID patients.

The world seems to blame Chinese for COVID.

People with Oriental features everywhere else in the world will face some form of discrimination, vitriol, resentment from others. Abuse in all forms.

I get it, I DO get it.  

I mean, I'm angry at the state of the world right now, too, thanks to unpoliced unclean practices from a country that SHOULD police those people more. 

And my great-great grandfather did come from China too. 

Snippets from SCMP

Oh, Hong Kong. You try and try and fly off on the wrong tangent. and you keep flying off further and further on that tangent. Tsk tsk.

25 perfect scores in the whole of Hong Kong.

27 perfect scores in one school alone (Anglo Chinese School) in Singapore.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/singapore-schools-score-better-results-in-ib-exams

Red Tape here, there, everywhere.

Currently embroiled in a never ending red tape saga with 2 governments of countries which we lived in. Singapore and Australia.

Australia & Singapore governments are very advanced- they all have social media accounts, they all have online services and systems for everything.
Singapore especially has a super efficient system accessed using Singpass. EVERYTHING is efficient. Except if there's a little incident that falls outside of their set processes, they can't handle it. They refer to their upper management, who refers it to their higher management, CC the email to everyone in the universe, ask for double confirmations on everything. It's almost as if the individual human capital working in the company is devoid of any human ability such as: intuition, judgment, flexibility etc.
Hong Kong is the same as the above EXCEPT they don't bother to even refer to their upper management or CC the email. They just tell you: CANNOT.

Australia, for the most part is excellent. Efficient- most problems are solved when speaking to a human. It's their processes that aren't as high tech. BUT there are people in Australia who still use the black & white fax machine, people working in offices who can't scan....
Hong Kong has these people too. LOTS.

HK is doomed to bureaucracy.

Singapore vs. Hong Kong.

A daily recurring theme is comparing HK vs Singapore in my mind about very fucking thing

And for 9 months, Singapore wins each time.
Preamble: Sorry if I come across sounding like every blind patriotic Singaporean fuck.

Everything is more efficient in Singapore. Everything works.
Everyone is more polite and friendly in Singapore.
People speak English in Singapore. Singapore is multicultural. Chinese, Malay & Indians. Plus fucking expats. HK is 80% Chinese. There is no international outlook for locals. No attempt at it at all. Except speaking to each other in broken Canto-English thinking that they are improving their English. On cable TV there are no fucking subtitles in English.

People in Singapore are happier than people in HK.

-Singaporeans have a government that is big on control, but they actually do good for the people. No subdivided homes in Singapore. If you dare to peep a protest, you would disappear. But everyone's prospering. Everyone's happy. Read this British expat's essay about Singapore.
-HK people are always protesting loudly against their joke of a puppet government. Nothing happens, yet the activists often disappear as well.

People in Singapore are wayyyy happier than people in HK.

-In 1965, tiny island of Singapore declares its independence from Malaysia. There was no resources, no land, nothing. People were poor, there was crime. A tiny island. BUT it had an intelligent, fearless leader with so much foresight like Lee Kuan Yew who got everything in order.

And Singapore today, is far ahead of Malaysia economically, socially and every other aspect that can be measured with parameters. (Sorry Malaysia. I was born in Malaysia but I owe Malaysia & love Malaysia enough to speak the truth.) Read all about it!↓

-In 1997, Hong Kong ceased to be a British Colony and was handed back to China.

-Some educated HKers say that this is when HK gained their independence. How? What? HK just became part of China again. That's not independence. So, these educated people who have a Canadian passport in their back pocket, (but are sick of getting nowhere in your careers in Vancouver, Canada, aka "the promised land") but are back in Hong Kong to earn $$$$$! Fully prepared to bail out anytime!

50% (dare I say even more) HK people: "HK is not China! We demand our own rights!" Says ALL  Occupy Central protests of 2011-2012, 2014's The Umbrella Movement, Youngspiration party's elected delegates for HK's Legislative Council flubbing their oaths for some attention to their cause etc.

Pretty desperate measures by HK's youth, its future.

50% (possibly much, much less) HK people: "HK and China can continue to prosper together! *whispers* "as long as we make money, we don't have to like you or anything. We can always bugger off to Vancouver anytime." Taiwan declared its independence from China. And it is surviving, despite China's immense power. BUT HKers say that HK is not China, but they just don't have the guts to go the route of declaring independence.

Unlike Singapore, HK have not welcomed foreign migrants and given them PR easily, HK has actually begrudged them a place in everyday HK life & relegated foreigners to the status of transient expats.

Rental is cheaper in Singapore.

Subdivided housing in Hong Kong.

Spaces are for humans, not hamsters. Greedy landlords rule in HK, taking advantage of the fact that rent is unaffordable to the average HKer. 

There are no subdivided flats in Singapore because the government would crack down and hang you out to dry like pickled fish.

Singapore's landscape of HDB flats. One of LKY's

greatest legacies.

The Singaporean government created subsidised HDB flats for those who cannot afford the rent.
Life is good for everyone & no one complains.

The caliber of education is. Much, much higher in Singapore.

In what respect?
The National University of Singapore is ranked #1 in Asia in 2017, according to Times Higher Education.
Local Singaporean schools are better than local HK schools. English is better. Mandarin is better. Science, Technology and Mathematics are miles ahead.
International schools in Singapore are better than International schools in HK.
-No debentures. But higher school fees in Singapore.
-STEM is one year ahead of HK. Go on, my kids have been in both systems, I dare you to compare IF you have had the same experience.
-Facilities are bigger & better in Singapore, way bigger than any school in HK. New Territories included.
-My 5th Grader is sitting here doing probability after school in HK, which she had already done in 4th Grade in Singapore.
-Our international school is the most popular because it's known as a happy school with happy kids. It's also full of HKers who have "done their time" in The Promised Land and got their citizenship in their back pocket. But ya can't take the HKer out of them, and it's full Tiger Moms. At least in Singapore, the Tiger Moms are the Indian moms in International schools and Singaporean ones in the local schools.

Lately though, I am noticing a few positives about our new life in HK. 

Hear me out first: My kids have a Chinese surname, thanks to my husband. I have one too. I am xxxx 太 here in HK. Chinese people (not mainland China) are the majority in HK. We are also the elite Chinese who speak "native" level English that all HKers and Mainland Chinese aspire to. Those who can afford it are in Vancouver doing their time or have done their time, so they're back here- as the elite.

The expat circle in Singapore was a friendly, supportive bunch of women. Nicest people.
And there are nice expat women in HK as well, but it isn't as much of a community here. I suppose if we were to break it up into Sai Kung expats, Discovery Bay expats, Southside expats etc. then you get more of a community.

I totally love it when Expats in Singapore mistake me for a local, for certain reasons I do go incognito sometimes when it suits me. Heh heh.

Singapore is accepting way too many spoilt, entitled "serve me-NOW" expats working in Finance from a certain country I won't name, but it starts with an "I". Life can get as insufferable there as you think it is for us in HK with Mainland Chinese.