DEMOCRACY: YR DOING IT WRONG, PART 12,170

UPDATE: The NPC verdict on full democracy in HK is in, and the answer is: “Let’s say 2017 for now.”

The actual wording goes like this:

"The session is of the view that... the election of the fifth chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 2017 may be implemented by the method of universal suffrage." [Boldface mine]

Which basically means they’re not ruling it out for the time being, but reserve the right to rule it out later. Which the smart money says they will.

Why not? They’ve done it before. We were promised ten years ago that we’d be having full elections in 2007, no problem. Then after seeing 500k people march on the streets in 2003 protesting Boss Tung’s reign, Beijing decided, “We’ll make the decisions around here” and called the whole thing off indefinitely.

There’s no reason to assume the same thing won’t happen ten years from now. Beijing has made it all to clear that they are in charge here, and if they’re not happy, nobody’s happy. And they won’t let us pick our own leaders until they have some kind of assurance that we will only elect leaders they can live with. After all, what’s the point of democracy if yr guy loses?

Unimpressed,

This is dF

A NOT SO GRAND DAY OUT

Yesterday we made a day trip to Macau, mainly just to have somewhere to go, seeing as how (1) I was off this week, and (2) I don’t need a visa to get in. We’d planned to go to the weekender in mainland China, but China keeps raising the cost of a visa, and at the moment a single-entry visa costs almost what we spent on three ferry tickets, lunch and almond cookies in Macau.

Anyway, the main thing we went to see was the new MGM Grand, which opened a couple of weeks ago. Verdict: the only thing “grand” about it was the big screen thing outside.



Maybe I’m a bit put off by the trouble we had at the front door (security didn’t like the looks of our water bottles and made us drink them first to prove they weren’t explosives – then when we went through the door, another security guard ten feet from the first guy told us we couldn’t bring water in). Or maybe it’s because one of the restaurant menus contradicted itself bilingually (i.e. the English menu promises fries with the tuna melt, the Chinese version says nothing about fries, and the waitress had no idea what “French fries” even were when we tried to point out the discrepancy). But hey, they’ve only been open for ten days, so I’m a fair guy.

No, in the end the MGM Grand is okay as casinos go, but basically it’s another high-end Vegas casino. So we went to The Venetian again, since I didn’t get too see too much of it last time, being on the job and all. Still comes across as a Disneyland attraction with a shopping mall and a casino in it.

On the other hand, guess who’s celebrating New Year’s Eve there?



How very ... Vegas.

Still, the Venetian seems to be the place where all the big music names who would otherwise skip HK are going to play. They had the Black Eyed Peas there last month. And here’s who they've got for the other New Year.



I probably won’t go (it’s expensive enough without figuring in the ferry tix), but it’s nice someone made the effort to book them round these parts.

It’s alright for you,

This is dF

FULL DISCLOSURE: I blew HK$20 on the slots in the MGM Grand.