A Rare Smile

Sometimes God, in his beneficence,  gives me a good laugh.

This one is so funny on so many levels and in so many ways that I just couldn’t help but burst out laughing right in the street.

Nice to see the Association of North American Reverends get some love…

Of course, Hong Kong being as it is, and its citizens/businesspersons being as they are, there was an attempt to ruin the moment.

As I stood on the (public) sidewalk taking a photo of this sweatshirt that was hanging over the public sidewalk, i.e. in the public space, an employee of the shop admonished me curtly that I was not allowed to take photos.

I looked at her, looked at my feet, and said, in Cantonese,  ”Here I can.”

For a city (and citizenry) that ceaselessly trumpets its advocacy of democracy (and the rights intrinsic thereto) as well as the rule (if not comprehension) of law, local approaches to things like the delineation of public and private are fascinating at times, and rather irritating at others.

It’s not okay for me to take a photo of something in the public space, an idea that has no legal basis (except as a legally insupportable assertion) per se, but it isokay for the media to chronically intrude into the privacy of non-public figures, i.e. accident victims, or public persons involved in private activities (see Edison Chen et al). These behavīors are patently illegal under American media law, and more than once the media have had significant punitive rulings levied upon them.

Not in Hong Kong. The rules for privacy are… different.

If I am arrested for gang activity, I get my identity protected by a hood.

If I get hit by a bus while minding my own business, my face (and/or corpse) ends up on the front page.

I love living in Hong Kong.****************

Because you haveto love it to live here.****************************************************

But you don’t have to love anar.****************************************

It helps, though.