First in line
I did it! I finally, totally unplanned and by pure luck, was the first one in the waiting line at a local HSBC branch.
Not just any branch but one in Causeway Bay where usually the crowd spills back to the road to withdraw cash. It's not really a branch designed for counter services but nevertheless they do have some tables set up for personal paperwork.
Quake vs. savings
A week after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, more news articles and discussions are focusing on why so many buildings - in particular the over 9000 destroyed schools - collapsed.
The answer to that question is very simple and has nothing to do with prejudgement: absolutely no construction quality.
That was my very first thought when I heard about the quake (I didn't feel it myself in Hong Kong though many others did). Sadly but true, Mainland China is well-known for saving wherever it can even if enough money is available, and most of the times the savings go into some local officials' and constructors' pockets.
How would you interpret the following sentence?
"All 61 schools funded by Hong Kong charity group Sowers Action were
still standing after the quake and no casualties were reported at
them - including 7 near the epicentre in Wenchuan County."
You would probably come to the same conclusion as I did. As the group's chief executive Johnny Leung Kin-wah points it out: mainland authorities were particularly concerned about the quality of projects involving foreign capital.
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