Apologies for being such a deadbeat blogger, there are many factors that contribute towards my lack of blogging prowess, (including parental visits, dodgy laptop and too many weekends gallivanting around and not staying at home long enough to blog) however, I'm back to updating once a week. (yay!)
Having spent the past few blogs pretty much bashing Hong Kong, I thought I would share an insight on what I think Hongkies do better than anybody else - and that's getting things done, hella fast.
Genuinely, if there's one thing that the Chinese can really excel at, its their undeniable ability to be bloody efficient.
Take for example, the time when my bus home was crashed into by a lorry in the middle of the motorway. Absolute nightmare. It was late, I was tired from work (I download music legally too.. I'm officially an adult, sigh) and most importantly, I was hungry. Hungry to the point where I was mentally evaluating whether a McDonald's number six meal (I can only order by numbers, damn my lack of Chinese menu-reading ability), noodles and dumplings with a side of steamed buns could be considered as just one meal. I was dreading the hours it would take for all this bus pallava to be sorted out, the hours standing between being rescued and finally getting my hands on all the food in the world. Having broken down in the UK in my tiny ass car before, where I waited a good 2 hours for the freaking RAC to turn up and save me, I thought a similar situation would transpire here. Sigh.
Oh, how wrong I was. Within fifteen minutes, we'd been moved to the hard shoulder, the police had turned up and taken statements, the lorry was carted off on a tow truck, and another bus had shown up to continue our merry journey home. Daaaamn girl, it was amazing! It was like nothing had ever happened!
On a grander scale, Hong Kong has the mighty Octopus card, which I think is pretty much the epitome of what efficiency is. Similar to London's Oyster card (except about 4834739343 times better), we use this for public transport as an alternative to cash, so all one has to do is simply *doot* their card and they can be on their merry way. Not only is it for public transport, it can be used pretty much anywhere - to buy coffee in the morning, to pay the bills, purchase cinema tickets, enter the swimming pool..the list can really go on. I can pretty much be like the Queen and not carry cash at all, as long as I had my octopus card on me. Not only does it mean I can survive on just using this lone card for the rest of my life (in HK anyway), it is undoubtedly more time effective. Just think how much faster it is to *doot*, rather than rummaging around a purse for the right change, then realising that you're 10cents short, then start rummaging in the bottom of your handbag, then pockets, then fuck it you're really holding up the queue so you'll just pay with a $50 bill instead.. yknow what I mean?
Efficiency is also apparent on a more day-to-day basis. From quick service at pretty much every restaurant and retail store in HK (in the UK, I spend an ungodly amount of time trying to make eye contact with waiting staff in restaurants because its polite, right? Over here, its a pretty much 'take my order NOW' hand raising situation) to sorting out phone contracts and opening bank accounts (which would've taken literally years and LOTS of to-ing and fro-ing back at home) everything just seems so much more fast paced, but equally as effective.
Yep, if there's one thing the Chinese can whoop yo' ass at, its being speedy and effective.
