If you are in Hong Kong today, you will read news about the current stale state of the economy, the poor governance, massive retrenchment by established firms etc etc. It is almost Christmas but the no one is giving……. The recent saga of the Asia TV’s 'resignation' of its newly recruited CEO which, I should say, is an example of what bad economy is bringing us. And then there is the Fed reducing interest AGAIN…….how low can it go?? This is no limbo, you know. However, buried deep under the stacks of bad news is the good news. Yes, the much talk-about Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau Bridge!!!
That’s the bridge we have been talking about for the last 15 years, everybody said how wonderful it was but nobody wants to build it for anybody. And so, everybody waited for anybody willing to build but nobody can think of anything better until last Monday 8th Dec. A tender was called on that day for anybody interested in the bid to design the super long bridge. A site visit was arranged today for interested parties to attend but each company is only entitled to one person.
Here is the catch! The boat has a capacity of 30 person but about 80 person checked into the hotel the night before. They had a wonderful dinner, compliments to the client’s office (incidentally, the three governments acted as the client and financed the entire project!). The boat trip is scheduled at 8:30am…tell me do you need to be at sea that earlier? I supposed we need to rise earlier than the fishermen around the Pearl River Delta. Yes, probably to beat the heavy traffic of trawlers, container ships and forever busy Jetfoils.
I am not a marine specialist but whoever plans this must be really stupid and whoever attends must be dumb (yeah including mou!). Out there in the rough sea, what do you expect to see? Mind you, can you expect anything decent when all directions are simply a flat horizon? Apart from occasional trawlers and seagulls, I can’t see anything and this was made worse by poor visibility. The light buoys are only visible until we came close to colliding it. And as if this is not enough, we have the boat’s captain arguing with our client’s representative as to where HK is. I felt like saying…… “Hey, check your radar and compass!!! That’s a supertanker in front of us and HK is at the east easterly direction in front of you. In case you don’t know, try looking up on the sky, there are planes trying to land every 3 minutes of so, you idiot.” The Chinese (I am sorry for this degrading remark) loves arguing for the sake of arguing, never mind there are others who prefers to rest against the damn sea-sickness. I guess we went out enthusiastically and half-way through the journey, a number of my fellow professional fell sick and vomited sparingly all over the boat. Those who did not vomit (me) were shivering in the cold whilst the remaining portion went away puffing merrily and in the process reduces the visibility in the boat!
I can’t say much about this bridge apart from the fact that this is a propaganda to join the country and no more “one country many systems.” Realistically, China is a country where each province enjoys its own jurisdiction and each county in the province also enjoys another set of jurisdiction. Every little VIP is known as leader and the classic lesson for these so call leaders is to know when to clap their hands when a federal leader speaks. This is the only commonality within their system. Apart from this, they differ or they opt to differentiate.
I rest my case; my only consolation is that I may one day help to build this momentous mega structure of the new millennium and be a patriotic Chinese!!!!
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