In which Chairman Mao will gladly give you change for Ben Franklin

The first picture above was what greeted me when I walked out the door today. The building you're seeing is just next to the building we live in and when it's complete it will be International Finance Center 3 (IFC 3) and will house a bunch of finance companies as well as several floors of a 5 star hotel for business travelers.

The white stuff on the outside of the building is an enormous movie screen and at night various light projections are bounced off of it to make a pretty cool glow in our development. What caught my eye, though, was several people scaling the building looking for and reparing any tears in the screen. How cool is THAT job?!?

After school today I decided that I'd get a little more familiar with the Causeway Bay area of the island. I don't go there much because it's usually weekends when Taitai wants to go to Times Square (enormous shopping mall / skyscraper) and the crowds are just RIDICULOUS. These pictures were taken at 2 PM on a Thursday (this is not a Thanksgiving holiday crowd- just the usual) and, as you can see, it's pretty busy even then. Now imagine what it's like in the evenings or on weekends. Unbridled Pandemonium.

Last time I was here, I did promise myself that I'd get a picture of the "People's Money Exchange & Bookstore" (that's the red sign underneath the big one). I guess they were just trying to catch the eye since the Chairman doesn't really pull much weight here. He's treated more like Elvis is by many people in the states- kitschy and great fun to take jabs at. And I gotta believe that the PROC doesn't know about this place otherwise someone would have moved to shut it down or, at the very least, change the name. Still, it is an amusing thing to walk by for the first time.

Other than taking the above pictures, I basically screwed off all day. I watched a city worker from a crew that was putting up a massive Christmas display punch a pedestrian who was giving him grief. Got the guy with a fairly decent shot in face, after which 15 cops, two ambulances and three news crews arrived.

All that for one punch that didn't even knock the guy down OR out! Anywhere else, that's a Love tap. Here, it's a spectacle. I was too late to get a shot of the punch and couldn't really get a good shot of the melee afterwards due to the crowds that queued up to watch. That one punch will be on the news and in the SCMP tomorrow though, I'm sure.

After that I walked through Wan Chai (home of my school by day, red light district by night) on my way back and ran into scores of American parents who were pissed that China had refused to allow the USS Kitty Hawk to dock in Hong Kong. Apparently they'd flown here with the express purpose of having Thanksgiving with their sons and daughters who are among the 8,000 sailors expected to have come ashore. No reason given as yet why the refusal occurred as it's pretty standard for the US and British Navy to stop off in HK. Hell,Wan Chai pubs and brothels circle the dates on their calendars. The HK government says that in 2006 US Service personnel were responsible for US$32 million in revenue to Hong Kong. $32 MILLION. Wow. Those cats know how to party huh?

I can't be sure but I'll put my money on it being something stemming from the "diplomacy" within the Bush administration. On the other hand, it might just be issue driven. If that is so, perhaps it's revenge for the product recalls? Unlikely, I feel. Revenge for the Dalai Lama's visit? Likelier but probably not. A response to the recent sale of US$939 million in missiles to Taiwan?

I'd bet the house on that.

Pardon me, but isn't the good ol' US of A screwing up the rest of the world enough already without feeding it weapons as well? Weren't WE the ones that originally armed Saddam in the first place? Ok, sorry, that wasn't really relevant to this post but I get my dander up pretty easily over stupid people running my government. And I don't just mean Bush- they all seem to be idiots. Okay, I'm off the soapbox.

Anyway, I can't say I blame the parents for being mad but a few of them were being extremely rude to the average Hong Konger walking by; people who hadn't done anything to them. I felt compelled to tell one seemingly drunken Dad to shut the hell up before somebody, me if necessary, beat his ass for him.

I can't stand it when people do stuff like that and this town already has too many ugly American tourists. The difference is, most of them are in their teens and twenties. This guy had to be 40-45. Certainly old enough to get a grip on his disappointment or, at the very least, not take it out on strangers who had nothing to do with it and have no great love for the PROC either.

This just in: Just a short time ago, China reconsidered "for humanitarian reasons" and has notified the US State Department that the Kitty Hawk and the support ships can dock and the soldiers can come ashore. Hopefully I can get some pictures of the fleet (because I'm a geek like that).

I think I'm going to go to Wan Chai tomorrow night to see the mayhem. How could I resist? Just think about it- an aircraft carrier's worth of drunken sailors in Hong Kong's red light district? Yeah, those will be some good photos.

And, hopefully, I'll come away with a good story or two....... ;-)

Postscript: Apparently, the US fleet was already steaming toward Japan when they got the okay to turn around and come back. Conventional wisdom has someone in the State Department or White House saying, essentially, "screw it- let's go to Japan anyway".

Can't say I blame them.