A Fifth Wheel?

Leung Kwok-hung wants to give the Election Committee a choice - himself

As if four candidates vying to become Hong Kong's next chief executive weren't enough -- a pan-democrat has decided to throw his hat into the ring.

And it's not a mild mannered, decently dressed one -- it's Leung Kwok-hung or "Long Hair", who seems intent on stirring things up.

The League of Social Democrats lawmaker said today that he would only officially put in his bid to become the city's next leader if he managed to secure 37,790 votes from the public, or one percent of the city's registered voters through a referendum held by post-Occupy group Citizens United in Action.

"I used to hold a stance of not voting, not nominating and not running in any small-circle election, so [my decision to run] is indeed a very huge change in my position," he told the media today.

Alan Leong (left) and Albert Ho (right) had run for CE before

"But I think the pan-democratic camp should never vote for any of the four pro-establishment contenders who cannot represent our camp at all."

Hmmm good point. But why him?

While the pan-democrats have 326 of the 1,194 votes in the Election Committee, some are divided on what to do; some plan to vote for John Tsang Chun-wah, while others may submit a blank vote as a symbolic protest to the unfairness of the small-circle election.

Leung said voting for Tsang would in effect endorse his platform to start the electoral reform process and try to pass the controversial national security law, Article 23.

When Leung made his announcement to run, critics immediately branded him a hypocrite, as he previously protested attempts by other pan-democrats to join the race, Alan Leong Kah-kit in 2007 and Albert Ho Chun-yan in 2012.

In 2010 Audrey Eu (right) challenged Donald Tsang for CE

Leung admitted he was not the best candidate to run, saying he had tried to lobby Audrey Eu Yuet-mee twice to get into the race, but she refused. You might remember she had a lopsided race against Donald Tsang Yam-kuen for chief executive many moons ago...

It seems Leung didn't get much support today from old school pan-democrats, and instead from people like Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, Lau Siu-lai and Nathan Law Kwun-chung.

Leung is definitely not the right candidate for the pan-democrats, but no one else really is. Are the political rookies supporting him just to agitate the situation?

Picture of the Day: License Plates

The cleverness of car owners abounds in Hong Kong

Ah Hong Kong. Some car owners like to think they are very clever with their license plates.

They are known as Personalized Vehicle Registration Mark, where the person puts in an application to the Transport Department, waits for it to be selected, then have their application checked against the requirements, make a deposit, have the plate name vetted, and then finally wait for it to go up for auction.

Yes, you have to bid for your own plates.

Some names that have been seen:

OOHLALA
THE CEO
PLAYBOY
PORSCHE (on a Porsche)
I M LATE
G1GGLES
EGGS
PIKACHU
HAPPY
D1AMOND
LOVE

And tonight I spotted this Porsche on my way home.

How funky!

Mr Pringles' Platform and Zhang Dejiang's Meetings

John Tsang officially announced his platform today

Everyone's eagerly talking about the race for the next chief executive of Hong Kong. While many believe it will be Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor who has the upper hand, they have a preference for former Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah.

They call him "potato chips" because he looks like the logo of Pringles chips, a man with a moustache known as "Julius Pringles". Many feel he is more down to earth than Lam, who revealed how out of touch she was when she took a taxi in the middle of the night from her Convention Centre serviced apartment back to her old digs on The Peak to get toilet paper.

Tsang revealed his platform today, promising electoral reform, but also he would enact Article 23, the contentious law on national security that was shelved in 2003. He would give tax breaks to SMEs and allowances for low-income families.

Some believe that he is still favoured by Beijing, otherwise why was he kept on as financial secretary when Leung Chun-ying became Chief Executive? They think that Beijing had a hand in having Tsang stay on...

Zhang Dejiang had meetings with Hong Kong heavyweights

A friend said she liked Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee and we asked her why. She said she's a hard worker, and she has had a tough life -- her husband died young so she was a single parent raising her daughter. As for trying to implement Article 23, she was only doing what she was told to do.

Others like former judge Woo Kwok-hing's personality, but feel he might be "too delicate" to do the job of chief executive in terms of health. They fear another Tung Chee-hwa situation would happen. But he definitely has better Chinese calligraphy skills than the other three candidates.

Adding to the mix is the National People's Congress chairman Zhang Dejiang, who is also the state leader overseeing Hong Kong affairs, go to Shenzhen to meet with influential Hong Kong businessmen and pro-Beijing political parties.

His visit comes a week before the nomination period for the next chief executive begins next Tuesday.

While people who attended the meetings refused to divulge what was said, they would only say it was normal for Beijing to want to know people's opinions on things.

Uh huh.

John Tsang biting into his pineapple bun in Tsim Sha Tsui

The fact the visit was announced after the fact is also curious, but we will leave it at that.

In any event, the other day Tsang visited one of the first three food trucks that have opened for business in Tsim Sha Tsui and got a pineapple bun for HK$20. While he said it tasted good, it was expensive for HK$20.

Excuse me? Isn't he the one who wanted to bring food trucks to Hong Kong? It ain't cheap to set it up, at a minimum of HK$600,000 in start-up costs alone.

Maybe his platform should include measures to prevent landlords from jacking up rents so that small local eateries won't go out of business!

Hong Kong Needs to Cut Paper Use

Some 8 million lai see envelopes were collected last year

Just before Lunar New Year, many companies send me lai see envelopes and I try to give them to colleagues to use, or I keep them. So I was very pleased to find out I could take them to a collection point at my apartment building, where they would be picked up by an environmental group called Greeners Action.

Yesterday I took a bag of unused and used lai see envelopes to the box. I had so many that I had to ask the attendant to lift the lid of the box instead of putting them through the slot at the top of the lid, and when he did, I was pleased to find there were already stacks of red envelopes in there.

Please put your lai see envelopes in this box!

The NGO is trying to make people more aware of the garbage they are accumulating, and that things like lai see envelopes can be used again and again.

Greeners Action's executive director Angus Ho Hon-wai estimates that the amount of paper used to make the lai see envelopes amounts to 16,300 trees.

Seriously?

Does he mean skinny trees or very thick mature ones?

"It's an astronomical figure," Ho says. "I've looked at some numbers and it doesn't seem like other places with Chinese people distribute as much lai see as we do."

Not only that but many people in Hong Kong like to use crisp bills too to symbolize a new start to the Lunar New Year.

Last year Greeners Action collected about 8 million lai see envelopes -- about 30 tonnes in weight -- and about half of them were still good to reuse, the other half was recycled.

The envelopes are given out to people to use again

People have until February 22 to collect their lai see envelopes and drop them off in 500 collection points around the city, including shopping malls, Jockey Club betting stations, residential estates, hospitals and banks.

We should also keep in mind that the city threw out 2,257 tonnes of waste paper everyday -- a 17.5 percent increase from 2015. Hong Kong people really need to not only be more conscious of using paper, but also the government needs to educate them on how to recycle and help make recycling paper and other items a viable business.