John Tsang (right) with some fencing students at La Salle College
Tourism is down in Hong Kong, with hotels offering cut rates on rooms -- even Disneyland is slashing its room rates in half -- and there are lots of shopping incentives -- if you have the money to spend.
To pitch in and do his part, Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah is starring in a new mildly amusing video encouraging people to visit the city.
It starts off in his alma mater La Salle College where he is a fencing coach -- who knew Tsang was a fencer! -- and then he asks a group of students if they are talking about him.
They reply they talking about Hong Kong and one asks the senior official in a Cantonese pun, "Sir, would you tai sou?" which means "shave", referring to his moustache.
He doesn't miss a beat and instead says, "No, but I'll definitely tai show", or "watch a show".
Groan.
Then the video continues much like any other tourism video with flashy nightlife scenes, mouthwatering food, verdant hills, famous landmarks and so on.
Should we be impressed? Amused? Proud?
Just seems weird the Financial Secretary would do this, but then again practically everyone else in the administration is mired in mini scandals (Paul Chan Mo-po, Gregory So Kam-yuen), or burned out (Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor).
Then again Tsang is the one trying to promote his food truck idea too which is somewhat touristy...
