Middle-Aged Hongkongers Can't Quit Yet

People retiring soon don't have much saved in their MPF

 

Hong Kong's Mandatory Provident Fund, or MPF is a compulsory savings scheme for retirement. Both the employee and employer contribute a maximum of HK$1,500 each per month and the employee decides which mutual funds to invest in.

As a result, a maximum of HK$36,000 as a principal is added to the MPF per year, and since it was only started in 2000, people who are now in their 50s feel the amount in their MPF accounts is hardly enough to financially cover them in retirement, and as a result many want to continue working.

HK$36K per year is invested in the MPF

In a survey commissioned by the Hong Kong Retirement Schemes Association, a group that promotes pension schemes in the city, nine out of 10 middle-income earners reaching retirement age don't want to stop working because they feel their pension is hardly adequate.

Many also worry that because of the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare costs will rise.

The MPF on average can only provide about 40 percent of a person's salary after retirement. 

"Many people in Hong Kong don't plan for retirement and fail to make a long-term plan," said Doris Ho, chairman of the Hong Kong Retirement Schemes Association.

"The MPF is not going to be enough for those who are now in their 50s. The middle-class individual may either need to continue to work or they will need to accept a lower living standard if they are forced to retire at 60," said Kenrick Chung, general manager of employee benefits at Realife Insurance Brokers.

HK should encourage more mature workers

"This will be bad news for restaurants and retailers in the city as Hong Kong has an ageing population. Many people are entering retirement age. If they are unemployed and need to tighten their belts, they will spend less on dining out or shopping. It is inevitable."

However the opposite is true for younger employees, who have had more time to contribute to their MPF and as a result will have a bigger sum when they retire.

Hong Kong is one of the fastest-ageing populations in the world. Between 2018 and 2038, the number of people aged 65 and older will almost double from 1.27 million to 2.44 million, and their age group will increase from 18 percent to 32 percent, according to government estimates. Life expectancy in the city is also the highest in the world at more than 85 years, according to the World Bank data from 2018.

HK has the fastest-aging population in the world

While Hong Kong does not have an official retirement age, many companies require staff to retire at 60 or 65, similar to civil servants -- but they have much higher salaries and more benefits than others.

These days retiring at 60 is very young and Hong Kong employers can't just kick out employees who have a lot more to offer in terms of knowledge and experience, especially to the younger generation. This is particularly true in trades, but it applies to all kinds of companies. 

Will the government read this report and take it seriously? Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor herself is 64 years-old. She says her administration is concerned about social welfare. Time's ticking, Carrie...

Chief Secretary Advises Youth to Wash Dishes

Matthew Cheung says young people should lower their job expectations

Senior government officials think they understand the lives of average Hongkongers, but they really do live in an ivory tower. Career bureaucrats are the worst people to dispense career advice to the next generation.

At a virtual meeting held by the Youth Development Commission yesterday, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung tried to assuage young people's fears about their job prospects in the current economic climate.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in Hong Kong's unemployment rate at 6.1 percent, but for young people aged 15-29 it is as high as 22.1 percent, while for those aged 20-24 it is 16.2 percent.

Unemployment among young people is as high as 22 percent

He said the government will hire 10,000 civil servants this year, with most of them being junior positions, and that there were 5,000 internships with the government and HK$6 billion for youth entrepreneurship and employment.

Given that younger cohorts of the civil service now have to swear allegiance to the SAR and uphold the Basic Law, and will probably have their social media accounts carefully scrutinized for their political leanings, not many of them may be eligible for these posts.

And how can one even start a business without any previous work experience? Isn't that even more daunting and riskier than finding a job?

During the meeting, one young woman named Chloe introduced herself as a recent history graduate at Chinese University. She said she sent out some 70 CVs but didn't get much of a response, or the position that was previously advertised was not available because companies were cutting costs.

Would a university graduate like to get a job washing dishes?

Cheung replied he didn't think it would be harder for someone with a liberal arts degree to find a job, and that the most important thing employers were looking for was the right attitude.

"You should lower your expectations," he said. "Dish washing is also work experience. So is sweeping the floor."

How is that advice even aspirational?

When this quote was circulated on Twitter, Cheung got a virtual drubbing. Many tweeted that there were fewer dishes to wash these days because more people were ordering takeaway because of the dining ban in the evenings.

Others criticized him for dismissing young people's valid concerns about job prospects, and instead frames it as their own fault that their expectations are too high.

It just goes to show how the government perceives the next generation of Hong Kong, and doesn't give them any hope except to literally start from the bottom despite working hard to get a tertiary education.

Fake Job Hunters Wanted

Some 200 to 300 people in this room are pretending to want a job

It looks like hongbaos or red envelopes in China, have arrived in Hong Kong.

A recent job fair organized by the government of Ningbo promoted 820 positions with annual salaries as high as 3 million yuan (US$432,000) were apparently available.

The event was held at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, where 51 recruiters, from universities research institutes, state-owned enterprises, private companies and NGOs were looking for people from Hong Kong to fill the positions.

The job fair was organized by the Ningbo government

The Ningbo Human Resources Service Centre that organized the event, is a public institution under the Ningbo human resources authorities, and the job fair was arranged with support from the Beijing Liaison Office in Hong Kong, and Ningxing Group, which is the Ningbo government's investment vehicle.

Five days before the event, an advertisement was circulated on WeChat, which was looking to hire part-time actors to make the job fair look well attended.

"You need to prepare a resume and wait for an interview, which will be conducted for appearance sake," the advert said.

"Salary of HK$200 will be paid at the scene. Only nine places are left now. Add me [as a friend on WeChat] if you are interested. I will put you into a chat group."

A Hong Kong-based reporter went undercover to sign up, and was recruited as an "actor", but on the day of the fair was told there was enough people and didn't need to take part. The reporter still got the HK$200 -- easy money for just showing up! -- which was then donated to a charity.

Having fake job hunters helped boost attendance numbers

At the fair, the recruiter told the reporter there were 200 to 300 people paid to be there. She also said the liaison office and Ningxing Group were not involved in finding part-time actors.

"Unemployment rate in Hong Kong is so low. It's unlikely for such a recruitment fair to be popular here. But every government has its performance goals," the recruiter said.

"There are some companies paying money to hire people to fill the room and make it a lively scene. In return, they will have a better relationship with the Ningbo government when they do business there," she said, adding nothing illegal was taking place.

Meanwhile after the event, some people were seen receiving HK$200 each from a man who was standing across from the hotel in a park.

Some of the companies were contacted to ask if they knew some of the applicants were fake, but they were not aware -- except one noticed it was strange that one woman wanted to take a picture while she was being interviewed...

Sound familiar back on the mainland? It's not unusual for companies to hand out hongbaos as "transportation allowances", but in Hong Kong?

Perhaps someone needs to explain to the Ningbo Human Resources Service Centre that Hong Kong operates under "one country, two systems", and the latter part means no hongbaos!

Fact of the Day: Hongkongers are Overworked

Hongkongers are some of the most overworked people in the world

A study released today has found one in five employees work an average of 11 hours a day, with security guards working the most.

The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions analyzed the latest labour data from the Census and Statistics Department and found 20 percent of the city's 3 million employees worked an average of 55 hours per week last year, or an average of 11 hours a day for a five-day work week.

Half of food and drink employees work 56 hours a week

"Hong Kong employees have been working super long hours for years," says Mung Siu-tat, chief executive of the confederation. "This is because the government has never taken any concrete measures to ease this problem, which has been harming workers' family well-being, health and even lives."

People who work in security, food and drink, land transport, construction and retail industries have the longest working hours.

Almost half of security guards work 56 hours a week, a quarter of them work a staggering 72 hours. Also almost half of food and drink employees work 56 hours a week, along with one-quarter of land transport workers, 16 percent of construction workers and 16 percent of retail employees.

On top of that their salaries hardly compensate for the hours worked -- entry- and mid-level employees saw an average growth in their salaries of just 0.7 percent between 2008 to 2018 -- after taking into account inflation rates, while gross domestic product per capita rose annually by 2 percent.

"This shows that even though employees work so hard, they cannot get reasonable returns," Mung says.

Many security guards work 12 hours shifts, six days a week

While the government set up a Standard Working Hours Committee in 2013, it was only two years ago that the committee recommended the government require employers to establish agreements with entry-level employees about working hours and overtime compensation arrangements.

But the government has so far only promised to introduce working hours guidelines in 11 industries, with no plans announced yet to legislate standard working hours.

This shows the government doesn't care about the city's 3 million workers, the ones who keep Hong Kong's capitalistic characteristics functioning, whether it be feeding people, selling customers products, or making sure a property is safe from intruders.

Instead it's all about helping companies squeeze out as much labour as they can from their staff to ensure a profitable bottom line. If they're burned out, just hire the next person.

In 2016 financial services firm UBS released a study of working hours among 71 world cities and found Hong Kong workers had the longest.

Is this something we really want to brag about?

China's Painful Economic Woes

The chances of finding a job is harder with more people out of work

The New York Times recently reported how the economic slowdown in China is affecting its workers and it's very worrying.

It's not just the factory workers and construction workers who are hurting -- it's also the white-collar ones with university degrees, making them wonder how stable their futures are.

There are fewer jobs available, some companies reporting layoffs of up to 30 percent in firms that employ hundreds of people, while jobs ads across all sectors have dropped by 10 percent. Start-ups have had it the hardest with new positions falling 51 percent in the third quarter of 2018 from a year earlier.

Not just factory workers, but white-collar ones are laid off too

Just after Spring Festival in February, Didi Chuxing, China's largest ride-sharing and taxi-hailing service, told employees that it would cut 2,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce.

Previously the Chinese government would create an economic stimulus by throwing money at infrastructure projects like bridges and airports, and that would generally solve the problem, but not anymore.

Fraser Howie, co-writer of three books on the Chinese financial system says now, "there is no obvious catch up, and therefore it makes it all the more important that China makes important, difficult decisions to move forward."

The government really should be restructuring its state-owned enterprises that have grown into lumbering behemoths but they are the elephants in the room that aren't being addressed. Instead the government is in denial and hoping things shall pass, but perhaps not this time.

The economic slowdown is impacting young professionals like Sherry Xu, a 34-year-old finance professional who did all the right things, studying at a prestigious university and then rising up the ranks of the finance industry.

Infrastructure projects aren't solving China's economic issues

And then recently, right after she had just pitched a group of potential investors Xu was called into a meeting with human resources who told her that her employer, a financial firm was having difficulties and she would be laid off.

Xu then accepted a job as a freelance contractor with the same firm for half her previous salary. "The job marketing isn't looking good. I feel this time, it will be harder than ever for me to find a job."

Not only that but people's budgets have tightened which means less disposable income for shopping, dining and travel.

Maybe it's because of this worrying sentiment that the government just announced on Friday the May Day holiday would be extended to four days instead of one in a desperate bid to stimulate the economy.

But really, who is in the mood to spend when their futures are uncertain?

A Portrait of a Left-Behind Child

Jia Yi shows what life is like for a left-behind child in Hunan province

I recently saw a documentary at Asia Society called Jia Yi, which focuses on a family from a farming village in Hunan province. The parents make the decision to go to Guangzhou to make more money to provide for the family, but that means leaving behind seven-year-old Jiayi and her younger brother with their grandparents.

The film gives a rounded portrait of the family, though mostly following Jiayi as she walks several kilometres to go to school, a bare room with antiquated wooden desks. After school she has to take the cows out to graze before dinner, wash clothes in the river, and then feed her young brother his food before doing her homework.

For us in the city folk to watch this child do this and then come home to a dirt floor with no running water and very little electricity is a rude awakening to realize people in China still live like this, that there are still tens of millions who have yet to benefit from economic reforms.

Jiayi does her best with her chores and cares very much for her younger brother, but she gets scolded for getting low grades -- her grandmother says she watches too much television, and yet the television is on all the time in the room... how is she supposed to concentrate on her studies?

Jiang Nengjie has made several docs on left-behind children

Director Jiang Nengjie follows her, her younger brother and grandfather as they make the long trek to Guangzhou by train to visit her parents. While her father is excited to see them, their mother is alternately exhausted and upset -- she works the night shift in the factory and the children interrupt her sleep, and at the same time she feels guilty for leaving them behind.

Jiayi's father explains his wife got pregnant before they got married, and so they had to find other means of income to raise a family as farming wasn't enough. He can't get a good job because he doesn't have much schooling. Meanwhile his wife misses her children terribly and she cries a lot. She worries they won't even know who they are as they only see their children a few times a year.

These are the sacrifices the parents make when they leave home to work -- tens of millions of them doing mind-numbing work in factories to make more money than they would tilling the land. As a result there are millions of left-behind children all over the country, left behind not only because the parents aren't there, but because they do not have access to good education and other resources which makes them even more behind than their counterparts in the cities.

Jiang brings these issues to light and in stark focus -- there have been many news stories about left-behind children but hardly a face to them, and Jia Yi gives a very good picture of the situation for many of them.

What's also interesting is that Jiang himself is a left-behind child. In fact his family is neighbours with Jiayi's family, which is why he was able to film so much of the family for many months.

He recalls as a child his mother was away the whole time he was in primary and secondary school, and even university, while his father left later to earn more money to pay for Jiang and his younger brother's school fees.

A typical rural school with left-behind children

While us city folk may think Jiayi may need more financial resources, Jiang disagrees. He believes what she lacks the most is a good education, not just academic, but also family education; this is hard to remedy as her parents aren't there to raise her.

The parents also believe others look down on them, thinking they have deserted their children, when in fact they are doing whatever they can to keep in touch with them via video chats or phone calls. Remote parenting may not be the best solution, but technology has allowed them to correspond often with their children.

It is hard to figure out what the solution is, except to somehow create industry near the places where the families are so that the parents don't need to go so far away. But factory owners aren't going to do this due to the lack of good transportation networks for distribution and so on.

While the Chinese economy is slowing down, some factory workers have returned to their villages to farm -- at least they can feed themselves. However this leaves the state off the hook for providing a safety net despite the huge sacrifices these people have made.

It's a story that won't go away right away, but it is a plight we should all be aware of and the consequences that will result from having so many left-behind children in China.

Post Typhoon Woes Continue

Commuter chaos in Tai Wai on Monday Morning, after Typhoon Mangkhut

This morning I went to my hairdresser Joanna to get a trim. I asked her how she fared during the typhoon.

She said it was fine, but it was the next day, Monday's commuter chaos that was terrible. Joanna lives in Yuen Long and in the morning her clients were texting her to see if she was still keeping their appointments. She hadn't kept up with the news on the transportation issues and said she should get to the salon on time.

Trees fell on cars and streets, making some roads impassable

But when she got to the station she realized it would be a long wait. In the end it took over two and a half hours to get to Central.

Her colleagues in Sha Tin had a trying time -- there were massive lines already outside of the station trying to get in.

"They decided to lower the typhoon signal from T8 to T3 at 6am," she says. "Why couldn't they have just waited a bit later and then we would get to work by the afternoon?" she asked.

That makes a lot of sense. Did the Hong Kong government think about that?

Then there would be time given to the army of cleaners to clear as much of the streets as possible and for electricity to come back on in some areas, and as a result some more buses could be on the road.

Some say people should not be complaining to Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor about their transportation woes -- they should really be directing them at their bosses to have a bit more understanding.

Glass strewn on the streets from blown-out windows

One example is a Facebook post by the union at Radio Television Hong Kong or RTHK saying their bosses forced them to use their annual leave on Monday if they didn't show up for work. Eventually RTHK backed down and employees didn't have to claim the day off.

Sometimes there are acts of God that you cannot control -- but yet we have the best of intentions to come to work -- or you don't believe us?

It's high time employers have more faith in their workers to do their utmost to come to work. Most of us just want to come in, do as good a job as we can, and then go home, then repeat the next day.

The vast majority are not slackers, though there is a small minority of them. We all need the job for money, so why not trust us to show up for work?

Treating us better would go a long way in terms of productivity.

McDonald's: For Food and Refuge

There are a few hundred people sleeping in McDonald's on a regular basis

There are a lot of assumptions made about people who are down and out in Hong Kong. We think it has to do with someone's financial situation, but our perception of someone being "poor" should change, and we should have more empathy for them.

Some of these people hang out in McDonald's for long stretches of time -- some even falling asleep there. They are called McRefugees or McSleepers, and there was worldwide attention in 2015 when an elderly woman was found dead 24 hours after she walked into the McDonald's in Kowloon Bay.

Meanwhile a survey back in 2013 found 57 street sleepers in these fast-food restaurants. But this June another survey was conducted which found a whopping 334 street sleepers; of the 110 branches that are open 24 hours, 84 of them had seen overnight sleepers. Most of them were in McDonald's branches in Tsuen Wan.

Some have jobs, some have homes, but still go to McDonald's

Junior Chamber International, which conducted the survey, was able to interview 53 McRefugees aged between 19 and 79, and found 57 percent of them had a job, and 71 percent of them had housing, either rented or owned.

Some of them lived in sub-divided flats and because the small space had no air flow, they felt it was better to be in a place that was air conditioned. They also wanted to minimize their electricity spending, as air conditioning can be expensive.

Others had jobs but didn't get along with their families, and would rather not go home, and instead would rather hang out and eat at McDonald's.

There are also seniors whose husbands or wives had passed and they didn't want to be by themselves at home so they went to McDonald's to be around people.

"Family is the basic unit in a society," says chamber publication commission chairwoman Jennifer Hung Sin-yu. "Even one person who has a home but cannot return is too many. This phenomenon is worth our attention."

More needs to be done to reach out to these people

What is being done about these people?  It is sad to find Hong Kong as a community is not there for these people, whether it's offering companionship to lonely people or giving them a leg up to find a better job. The Hong Kong government will be on the hook for this latest report, as the city is so filthy rich and yet it doesn't have enough compassion for mostly underprivileged people.

But also the onus is on these people to find better solutions, such as a network of friends to talk to or to find some space that is welcoming -- hanging out in a McDonald's all day is hardly fun; it must be tiring too.

Everyone needs to be more open to reaching out and giving a helping hand to someone, or saying hello or even smiling to them.

These are small ways we can make Hong Kong more friendly to everyone.

Xi's Look Back at 2017

Xi Jinping gives his New Year's address with two red phones on his desk...

On New Year's Eve, Chinese President Xi Jinping read out an 11-minute televised message where he went over the country's achievements in 2017.

He praised the Chinese people's "great creative forces that have burst forth" (迸发出来的创造伟力 bèngfā chūlái de chuàngzào wěilì) and listed accomplishments, such as the high-speed rail, the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge mostly completed, military progress, and increased health insurance coverage.

This picture was spotted on the shelf behind him

Xi repeated his commitment of promising to lift all rural residents living below the current poverty line out of poverty by 2020, and said China would "resolutely uphold the authority and status of the United Nations", be a responsible global actor and keep its promise on climate change and actively move forward on the Belt and Road initiative.

Interestingly he also observed people have encountered frustrations and admitted the Party could do more, saying the government needed to deliver on education, employment, income, social security, healthcare, elderly care, housing and the environment.

But throughout the video broadcast, viewers were more interested in the pictures he had on the bookshelves behind him than what he was saying. What were the pictures of?

Three showed him posing with different groups in the military, three were of him visiting the poor, one was about the Belt and Road, one had him posing with young Hong Kong people to mark the 20th anniversary of its handover to China, and one showed him retaking the Party oath

This photo showing his love of football was not there...

Xinhua news agency said Xi's global vision is to chart out a more prosperous and peaceful future for humanity with the joint efforts of the Chinese people and people from other countries, and the photos behind him were meant to reinforce this message.

A friend of mine who covers sports in China noted in Xi's other New Year speeches in 2014, 2015 and 2016, there were football-related pictures on the bookshelves, but this time there were none.

However, I'm more interested in the two red phones on his desk...

Numbers and Reality Don't Match Up

Hong Kong's GDP for the first quarter beat analysts' forecasts

Breaking news, folks -- Hong Kong's economy is doing really well -- according to the numbers on paper.

On Friday official figures released showed the city's economy grew at the fastest pace in six years in the first quarter, as the gross domestic product rose 4.3 percent.

This was due to the buoyant stock market, increased trade, the hot property sector, robust employment and an encouraging global economic outlook, said government and experts.

Unemployment is low, but most people need a job to survive

The GDP was well above the 3.7 percent average forecast by analysts, and now that they are readjusting their forecasts, these analysts believe Hong Kong's economy will remain strong in the second quarter.

However, as a lay person, I see a different picture of the city's economy.

There are lots of shop spaces that have been empty for months, or over a year, other shops and restaurants closing because they can't pay the rising rents demanded of greedy landlords, and because of that people are losing their jobs or finding it hard to sustain their business because their clients' budgets have been slashed or don't renew contracts.

Does the GDP take this into consideration as well?

There are many vacant shops around town

The heated property market is thanks to uber wealthy people snapping up multiple flats as if they were several articles of clothing, or bags of candy, thinking nothing of dropping over a hundred million dollars, and mainland developers overbidding for plots of land.

There is low unemployment because the vast majority of us need to have a job -- it's expensive to live here!

We don't know how these financial experts come up with these numbers, but if it psychologically boosts Hong Kong, then we can't complain too much. But the reality on the ground is very different from what's on paper.

Just see for yourself.

Hong Kong Getting More Depressed

Hong Kong seems to have more depressed people since about three years ago

There are concerns there may be a growing number of depressed people in Hong Kong. According to a survey by the Mental Health Association of Hong Kong -- a non-profit group funded largely by the government -- says around 5.5 percent of 2,351 people show signs of clinical depression, almost double the number in 2014.

In addition, 9.1 percent of respondents scored a medium level on the depression index, which means they should be monitored for depression, up 8.6 percent in 2014.

Ching Chi-kong, an assistant director of the association, believes people had an outlet to voice their frustrations during the 79-day Occupy protests.

The 2014 Occupy protests allowed people to let off steam

"At that time, people had somewhere to express their anger and they may have hoped for change," he said. "If we think we lost something, we will get depressed more easily."

Another factor, suggests Dr Benjamin Lai, psychiatrist and chairman of the association, is the economic downturn that could contribute to "a high chance of depressive symptoms".

But look more closely at the survey results and 35.8 percent of respondents did no exercise for at least 30 minutes during the week, and only 18.1 percent did so only once a week.

"We need a balance in life, so it's not just about money or work," Ching said.

The Hospital Authority estimates about 1.7 million people suffer from various mental illnesses, but wait times for mental health treatment were the longest of all public health services. This is partly because there aren't enough trained psychiatrists and psychologists in the public sector.

Exercise is a good way to relieve depression and stress

The economic downturn has made it harder for people in Hong Kong. There are constant fears of being made redundant because companies are concerned about their bottom line, and there are fewer opportunities for people because some may be holding onto whatever work they have even though they may not be happy in the position.

No wonder so many don't have time for exercise, but just some movement for 30 minutes a day would alleviate some of the stress and rush of endorphins could people feel a bit better about themselves and manage their stress better.

It's tense times in Hong Kong -- for pretty much this entire year. We can't feel sorry for ourselves, or commiserate -- there's no time really. We have to have that can-do attitude and keep pushing forward.

Snowden Shines Spotlight on Asylum Seekers

Edward Snowden criticizes Hong Kong on its treatment of asylum seekers

Edward Snowden has popped up again, this time criticizing the Hong Kong government for its treatment of asylum seekers in the city.

The former National Security Agency contractor speaks from experience, as he was sheltered by three groups of asylum seekers when he was in Hong Kong for two weeks in 2013, after he had fled the United States.

In an interview with Canadian news outlet Ricochet Media, Snowden described the poverty, "discrimination and repression" suffered by asylum seekers in Hong Kong.

Snowden criticized the fact that the were not allowed to work in the city, and so they were left "hungry and destitute" as they waited for their claims to be processed.

They cannot work and have barely have enough to live on

At the time he was housed by a Filipino family, as well as a family and a man from Sri Lanka, who are still asylum seekers.

"Hong Kong is one of the richest cities in the world, yet I saw refugees struggling through days, whose poverties were punctuated by discrimination and repression," Snowden said.

"It seems beyond imagination that a government could deny people the right to work for a wage while also refusing them money to eat, instead providing food provisions that were wholly insufficient to survive on, and often spoiled and out of date, but that's how the system worked there."

Food provisions have since been replaced with supermarket coupons worth HK$1,200, along with a monthly housing allowance of HK$1,500 per adult, transport expenses averaging HK$200 per person and HK$300 for utilities.

"Today food coupons and food debit cards with a limited value per month are provided to the asylum seekers, but again it is far from below what is required to survive on. So asylum seekers in Hong Kong are still left hungry and destitute today," he said.

It's an issue Snowden is passionate about because not only was he grateful for these asylum seekers' help in housing them even though they could be caught, but also he could easily have been one of the 10,815 asylum seekers in Hong Kong seeking to have their refugee claims processed.

Activists give voice to asylum seekers, but is anyone listening?

"In my own case, I was told it could take a decade to process an asylum claim," Snowden recalled. "Try to imagine that, if only for a few seconds. For the next 10 years, you'll be arrested if you dare to work, but you're on your own to find sufficient food, to pay the full rent, to pay the full utility bills.

"How long could you last? There is a kind of law which is itself criminal, and this is a clear example," he says.

In Hong Kong asylum seekers are a group of people that literally live on the fringes of society. They aren't very visible, and if they are, it's because they were arrested for selling or trafficking drugs because they were desperate to make extra money to just be able to survive.

Locals hardly ever come into contact with these people, who are not encouraged to integrate, or work -- God forbid they take away jobs from Hong Kong residents.

Aside from refugee activists, Snowden is the only high profile person to speak up for these asylum seekers and educate people on their sad plight in the city.

Greater awareness will hopefully build momentum to shame the government into looking after these people better -- though locals would probably think there are many other more pressing issues in the city to fix first!

Black Friday -- Brexit and Blaze

Prime Minister David Cameron announces his resignation after Brexit result

At noon I was in complete shock over the Brexit results, but I was not the only one. Many British colleagues were in disbelief that their fellow countrymen had opted out of the European Union.

Some moaned they were deeply ashamed of being British, while others were outraged their parents -- first generation immigrants -- had voted Brexit.

Someone on Twitter posted that now we'd see Boris Johnson become the next prime minister, and Donald Trump the next president.

Politician Boris Johnson on one of his bad hair days...

Both of them have bad hair.

Last weekend at the gym, I watched part of a BBC documentary about why people were choosing for or against Brexit.

Basically many people living outside of London were for Brexit, as they felt overwhelmed by the amount of immigration into the country and felt staying would lead to even more people coming in, taking jobs and taking advantage of education and health services.

The BBC found education-wise, the children did quite well academically because their parents felt it was a priority for the next generation to integrate into the community.

However, in terms of accessing health care, one doctor told of how she saw many cases of families living together under one roof, each family living in one room of a home, and so illnesses were easily passed around.

Counting votes in the Brexit referendum

They also didn't have much money to spend on housing, so their usually rented low-quality homes that were more prone to mould, which resulted in respiratory diseases.

Some people were concerned more immigrants would push salaries lower, making profit margins even smaller, while others said some sectors like seniors' homes were in dire need of immigrant labour because educated young people were not interested in looking after old people.

Within families, couples are split down the middle whether to stay or go, but mostly it's a younger generation/older generation divide. While 64 percent of young people were for staying in the EU, 58 percent of seniors preferred Brexit, and one wonders if perhaps the population of older people outnumbered the younger ones, which led to today's result.

The deadly fire in Ngau Tau Kok has claimed two lives

The other sad story in Hong Kong, is that a fire continues to rage in Ngau Tau Kok, and firefighters still cannot control the blaze that's been going on since Tuesday at 11am.

It erupted in an old industrial building where a few floors have been converted into a mini storage facility. According to firefighters there are 200 lockers per floor, basically subdivided rooms separated by metal sheeting.

The challenge is that firefighters do not know what is in each of the lockers and have had to try to open each one. Today they showed pictures of what they saw in the building, and reported seeing flames in different colours, which indicated they were burning at different temperatures due to different materials.

There were also concerns that hawker stall equipment was stored here as well, some maybe storing gas tanks, but this has not been confirmed yet.

Initial reports were that firefighters fought with their commanders on how the fire should be contained, and that the order to be sent into the building to try to contain the blaze from inside may have caused the first firefighter, Thomas Cheung to lose his life. The second died last night, Samuel Hui Chi-kit, succumbing to his injuries. Two others were also injured.

Firefighters are exhausted trying to battle the blaze

Many questions need to be answered, including why did industrial buildings built before 1973 not have to be retrofitted with fire sprinklers? And why aren't there regulations for how mini storage facilities do business? Shouldn't there be rules on what can and cannot be stored? And what about insurance?

A lot of people have lost their treasured belongings that they can never get back. But at the same time, two lives were lost trying to fight this fire that still continues to consume the contents inside.

The pollution levels in the area are pretty bad too, affecting residents who may opt to be evacuated from there temporarily.

We can only hope the firefighters can finally contain the fire and put it out. And then we can begin to ask why it happened and what can be learned from this.

As for Brexit, it will take two years for the reality to set in.

How can there be so many things going wrong these days?

Hong Kong's Plunging English Standards

People in Causeway Bay and Mongkok were asked to pronounce English words

It is not surprising that English standards have fallen in Hong Kong in the past 20 years.

When I first arrived in the mid 1990s, secretaries spoke perfect English on the phone. Now you must speak Cantonese to ensure you are understood.

And the latest news is that the average person's pronunciation of basic English words is described as "shocking" and "disappointing".

A recent test asked 300 people above the age of 18 who had an educational level of at least Secondary Five, including some undergraduates and postgraduates, in Causeway Bay and Mongkok to pronounce 10 commonly used words, like admirable, southern, estate, suite and fiance.

The company says falling English standards is "shocking"

Nearly half of them scored zero.

No one got them all right, while only five got 50 percent right.

The study was funded by Prime English Learning Centre -- obviously a ploy to market itself as the place to improve one's English skills -- and its head Wennita Fong was horrified by the results.

Fong said many of the mistakes came from placing the stress on the wrong syllable, using hte wrong vowels and not being familiar with loan words, or words adopted from a foreign language.

She said the standard of English pronunciation had fallen, probably because of incorrect pronunciation by primary and secondary teachers, and the prevalence of internet slang.

Fong warned Hong Kong people's job competitiveness would be hampered if English pronunciation was not improved, as the centre's students cited being at a disadvantage in job interviews and passed over for promotion because of their poor English pronunciation.

"One student even pointed out he felt threatened by his mainland colleagues' better English standards," she added.

Children must understand the importance of learning English

One Hong Kong senior manager at a multinational bank said impressions counted and speaking good English was a criterion when hiring.

"Recently, I was hiring a management trainee and interviewed seven candidates. There were three local graduates but they all could not pass my interview. One of the reasons was that their English was not so good," he said.

Meanwhile lawmaker Claudia Mo Man-ching, who has been critical of falling English standards and usage in the city, said English education in Hong Kong focused too much on grammar and writing, and not much emphasis on speaking the language.

It also depends on the willingness of the person to learn English -- if they are keen to make foreign friends or improve their job prospects, then they will try hard to improve their language skills.

But if they don't see the importance of learning English, they will just learn enough to get by. While Hong Kong claims to be an international city, there's a vast majority of locals who hardly every interact with foreigners or use English in their daily lives.

When people don't see the importance of English -- or worse -- see it as a vestige of Hong Kong's colonial past -- that will be the beginning of the end of the city's future.

Hong Kong people need to know English at a minimum, and other languages like French, Spanish and even Japanese or Korean would be a plus.

This also indicates local residents' attitude towards others -- that they are very insular and don't look outwards, which is also sad.

So in the meantime can we get our English pronunciation right at least? That way we can least communicate with others more effectively? Maybe then we'd get more tourists coming our way?

China Tries to Entice Foreigners

Wanna live in China? The government is making it easier to get residency

It's interesting the Chinese government is easing its green card requirements so that more foreigners can be eligible to live and work on the mainland. But is anyone biting?

The State Council issued a directive on Thursday, stating that foreigners working in a greater range of areas would be able to apply for permanent residency, but did not specify which ones.

"In the past three decades, China focused on attracting foreign capital, and in the three decades ahead, it should shift to foreign talent," said Wang Huiyao, director of the Centre for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based think tank.

Perhaps air quality isn't really attracting expats to China...

Up until last June, only foreigners who worked in government departments or laboratories involved in "key national projects" could apply for permanent residency. Then the rule was later relaxed to include researchers at more institutes, including those with international funding.

While a 2010 national census says there were about 600,000 foreigners living in the mainland, Wang estimates about 6,000 to 7,000 foreigners have actually acquired permanent residency.

However, as someone who has lived in Beijing for three years, it's hard to understand why foreigners would want to have permanent residency in China, when the government creates such an aggressive stance against them, blaming them for the country's social ills and jealousy of the success of foreign brands.

And then coupled with the horrific air quality in major cities, particularly Beijing and Shanghai, and questionable food safety, why would anyone want to live there long-term?

Just sayin'...

Tung Still in Denial...

Tung Chee-hwa still doesn't understand the underlying tensions in Hong Kong

Former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa is still hammering away at the premise that Hong Kong people don't know enough about China which is the root cause of the tensions between locals and mainlanders.

He said this during a speech marking the first anniversary of Our Hong Kong Foundation, a think tank he founded.

Tung also criticized pan-democrats for filibustering against government initiatives and voting down the political reform package that would have allowed the public to directly vote for the next chief executive in 2017.

"A minority of Hong Kong people ignored the achievements made by the Chinese people... selectively focused on individual incidents and magnified them to an unlimited extent," Tung said. "They created conflict... and the so-called 'China-Hong Kong conflicts' -- this destroyed the 'one country, two systems' principle."

Need we be so dramatic?

Tung did not elaborate on what conflicts he was referring to, but it is believed to be about human rights and corruption on the mainland.

During his speech he urged locals, particularly young people, to understand China, because President Xi Jinping's recent visits to the United States and Britain showed that "to understand the country is to understand the future, and to be ignorant about it is to be ignorant about the world".

It sounds like either someone suggested Tung say this, or he felt this comment would get him brownie points. Either way did he have to point this out, when it is quite obvious Xi has the upper hand these days when it comes to economic power?

Tung then added he was touched by young people who felt passionate about justice and ideals, but that it "pains his heart" that they needed to take to the streets to express their discontent.

"If everyone is hot-blooded on the streets, will Hong Kong continue to prosper and be stable?" he asked.

His remarks clearly illustrate how out of touch he is about what happened last year. People went out to occupy the streets for 79 days because they had no where else to voice their grievances. Even their elected representatives didn't voice their concerns in the Legislative Council.

People had to do it themselves. And on the whole, they did a good job, creating a mostly peaceful demonstration save for a few skirmishes that unfortunately ended badly.

If Hong Kong people were happy with their work, their job prospects, able to buy flats and afford children, then yes -- Hong Kong would prosper and be stable.

But when the authorities are not offering practical solutions to the housing issue, the yawning wealth gap and job opportunities, then yes -- people will resort to desperate measures to have their voices heard.

But Tung does not see it that way. He seems to think people who cause trouble are a nuisance.

That's because he's not listening and not appreciating what we plebians have to go through.

He seemed genuinely shocked to hear a woman tell him she was planning to buy a 170-square foot home for more than HK$3 million for a family of three.

Get your head out of the clouds on the Peak and see what's happening down at ground level, Grandpa Tung.

Then maybe -- just maybe -- you'll change your tune...

Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Still out of Touch

John Tsang and Gregory So (right) attending the Wine and Dine Festival

Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah is at it again.

On his latest government blog post, he wrote in Chinese despairing that entrepreneurs in Hong Kong were hamstrung from making profits because they had to pay more money for low-skilled labour.

He wrote that workers like dishwashers were making HK$12,000 ($1,548) a month, but that put pressure on small and medium-sized businesses.

Tsang came up with this latest notion after visiting the Wine and Dine Festival which closes tonight at the Central harbourfront.

While he observed the city's low unemployment rate at 3.3 percent this quarter, and for all of last year at 3.4 percent indicated stable employment, but he expressed concern for small and medium-sized businesses in the dining, retail and recycling sectors.

"Hiring staff was their greatest difficulty," Tsang wrote. "A restaurant owner said he couldn't find anyone to do a dishwashing job in the city centre even if he offered HK$12,000 a month.

"The market has a huge demand for such low-skilled labour, causing a continuous rise in salaries for these jobs, and increasing the burden on entrepreneurs."

He warned that businesses could not survive the rising labour costs and the adverse economic situation could collapse, which would lead to an increase in unemployment and less spending power.

Uh, excuse me -- how about telling greedy landlords that they are charging so much rent that they are the ones who are killing these businesses?

It's not the labour costs -- this is the market rate for dishwashers because no one wants to do this job. It's hard work, having to stand in a hot room, cleaning dishes non stop. Oh maybe Tsang has never had to do the dishes in his life and doesn't understand how laborious it is.

Can he blame people for wanting to find less back-breaking work for almost the same salary?

Perhaps Tsang should wash dishes for that restaurant owner for a day to see what it's like, and maybe he'll appreciate why dishwashers have to be paid at least HK$12,000 a month.

Does he not understand that as Hong Kong becomes more of a service industry, particularly in hospitality, that we will need low-skilled workers in restaurants, hotels and retail outlets who can serve guests, prepare food, open doors, and clean up after them?

He is only hearing one side of the story, and not bothering to hear what workers in retail, hospitality and recycling have to say about the long hours they have to work and at times how tedious their job nature can be for little pay.

Can someone explain to me again why Tsang is our financial secretary?

10 Chinese Cities to Watch

Of all the Chinese cities, Chengdu is considered to have a booming economy

It's interesting to discover Chengdu is considered to have the most successful economy in China, according to a US-based think tank, considering such factors as job growth, foreign investment and high value-added industries.

Shanghai and Tianjin were second and third respectively, while the Chinese capital was 13th in the Milken Institute study.

Shanghai is in second place in the Milken Institute study

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province was praised for its "human capital, central government support, established industries in high-end aerospace and aircraft design, and a more recently developed electronics manufacturing sector".

The study said mainland cities were developing in two ways: For Shanghai and Tianjin it is about urbanization, industrial clustering and infrastructure investment bolstering larger regional economies.

The other way, due to the slowdown in economic growth, was the focus on technology, private investment and consumption.

This is the first time the institute has ranked mainland cities, assessing 266 at the prefecture level and above, and divided them into two categories -- 34 first and second-tier cities, and the rest as third-tier cities.

Tianjin comes in third with lots of potential for growth

The study didn't just look at economic growth, but also job and wage growth, gross regional production, foreign direct investment and the strength of high value-added industries.

Chengdu may have done well in the study due to having several respected universities and has lower labour costs.

Interestingly Shenzhen just made number 10 on the list, and seven of the top 10 third-tier cities were in Jiangsu province, which has a strong transportation network of airports, highways and high-speed rail links.

The top 10 cities are:

1. Chengdu

2. Shanghai

3. Tianjin

4. Dalian

5. Nanjing

6. Hefei

7. Xiamen

8. Changchun

9. Chongqing

10. Shenzhen

There should be lots of information to be gleaned from this study and potential investors and entrepreneurs should take note.