EAST MEETS WEST

Most of the time Hong Kong is like any other big city, and the locals bahAve like inhabitants of any other big city, but occasionally things happen which make me wonder what is going on. Perhaps there really is a vast gulf between "Easterners" and "Westerners". For example....

At lunchtime today I went over to Tsim Sha Tsui for a fitting for a new suit. I took the MTR (MRT / subway / tube / metro etc depending on your home country), which I might add is the way all these systems should be - wide, spacious, clean, airconditioned, cheap... Ken Livingstone could learn a thing or 2 here.

Anyway to get to the train you obviously have to descend into the bowels of the earth on an escalator. In every city i've been to there is a rule, either written or not, which requires people standing to stay on the left so that people who want to walk can pass on the right. Not here. They all stop dead on the escalator as though their limbs have been turned to wood, no matter the time of day, the weather, the heat, or, in this case more importantly, the rush they're in.

So there we all are standing on the escalator. It's impossible to get through as all the steps are jammed with 2 or 3 people standing stock still. At the bottom is the train. The doors are open. There is a big display clearly stating 1 minute to go. Still we stand. Then the familiar "the doors are about to shut" beeping starts. Still we stand. The doors start to close. My little section now reaches the bottom of the escalator. As soon as their little feet hit the platform they are transformed into scurrying little ants, all desperate to get to the train before the doors are closed. They all fail, and all make long faces and noises which I assume are whatever the cantonese for "tut" is.

?EH? IF YOU WERE IN A RUSH WHY DIDN'T YOU AT LEAST WALK DOWN THE ESCALATOR? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? THINK ABOUT IT! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!