Life in Hong Kong: February 2014

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Traffic Casualties

At the entrance to the Aberdeen Tunnel there is a digital sign that displays the number of traffic casualties last year and the number of casualties to date this year. I have often wondered about this sign. It currently says that there were over 20,000 in 2013 and there are over 2,000 so far this year. To me a traffic casualty implies that someone was killed in a traffic accident. Could there really have been over 20,000 deaths due to traffic accidents in Hong Kong last year? This didn't seem possible. I do spend the majority of my time on the south side of the island which definitely doesn't have as much traffic, but I'm downtown a fair amount. I've also been over in Kowloon a number of times. In all of my travels I have only seen a handful of accidents, none of which looked too serious. Then last week I was riding the school bus home from one of PJ's basketball games when the driver stopped before going over the dam. At first I thought he saw another big truck or bus coming from the opposite direction (the bridge doesn't accommodate two large vehicles driving in opposite directions). Then cars behind us began passing us. Then I saw the reason he stopped. An ambulance was coming from behind. Now I was appalled. We stopped for the ambulance, but all of the cars that passed us just ignored it. Could this be the reason for the large number of casualties? I decided it was time to research.

Apparently a traffic casualty is any accident. In 2013 there were only just over 100 fatalities in all of Hong Kong. There were about 2,500 serious accidents and the rest were minor. So, no need for me to be concerned about the sign. Thank goodness!

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Red Envelopes

As a part of the Chinese New Year celebration, red envelopes are handed out. The red envelopes contain "new" money. It is very important that the money is new. All of the local banks make sure that they have plenty of new bills on hand in all denominations for their customers. These envelopes are given to any employees, service personal that you encounter frequently, neighbors, kids, etc. They are to be handed out during a two week period encompassing Chinese New Year. They are given as a wish for a "healthy and prosperous" new year.

The girls and I were out of town over the Chinese New Year break, so PJ and Dave were in charge of handing out the envelopes. We gave them to everyone working here at our complex. Dave said they were all extremely grateful. He and PJ said that the maintenance people were especially thankful. Being new to this I'm not sure how many people give out the envelopes to everyone like that. Dave took some envelopes to hand out to the employees he encountered at the American Club. He brought 6 envelopes with him thinking that he would hand them to the 3 people working in the parking garage and the 3 people working at the front desk. As he pulled out the envelopes to hand to the parking attendants the head guy was so excited he called all of the other attendants up. Thankfully there were only 6!

As CFO, Dave was also responsible for handing out all of the envelopes at work. His assistant had to keep a list for him and she would check off people as he handed out the envelopes. At the end of the two week celebration Dave's office had a big celebration. As a part of the celebration there were drummers and a dragon making the rounds of the office. Lettuce was hung from the doors of the executives and the dragon would come and take the lettuce and then dance in the executive's office. Dave had to put a red envelope in the dragon's mouth for good luck.

There were many Chinese New Year celebrations around town. Because I was not here, I do not have pictures from any of the celebrations to share with you. I do have a few pictures leading up to the New Year. Places all around town were decorated with signs, flowers and small "orange" (I believe kumquat) trees.