This photograph was taken at 2pm yesterday in Wellington Street. I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense, unlike the handbag declaring “I am not a plasac bag” which I saw someone proudly toting the other day.
The front of this t-shirt said (obviously) “WONDERFUL THING WITH PEACE”; sadly I wouldn’t have been able to get a picture of it without causing alarm to the lieges. The best way to keep out of the heat (34 degrees yesterday) and pollution (q.v.), to get back to my office from my meeting is through a labrynthine air-conditioned above-ground network of connections between posh shopping malls – to wit, I can go up the escalator to HMV and thence past Harvey Nichols into the Landmark; from there past Burberry to Alexandra House; and from there to Prince’s Building and out of the exit by Cartier. The above litany of luxury shops clearly attracts legions of tai tais and I pondered, as I often do when walking briskly through Central during working hours, that if I had nothing to do all day but wander around spending money and having lunch with my “friends” (ie other women who didn’t have to work), how terribly empty I would feel.
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Now, you've hit on one of my key grammatical irritations in Hong Kong - if I didn't know myself better I'd think I needed more to keep myself occupied.
My PA, and my staff, have great English. However, they all use "on" incorrently, er, can't think of an example right now, but you may well have opened up a fllodgate here... Must be something about how Canto works compared to English?? Damn, wish I could remember a reasonable example.....
Here you go - from an email today:
"feedback on this Friday"
why not just "feedback this friday"
??????
Of grammatical irritations that seems minor, and is not one I've really picked up on, I must say.
In respect of Hong Kong traditions, by contrast, I am enjoying collecting first names: the travel agent called "Evil" who arranges your flights from her secret lair; and the waiter who served me and A at lunch today who slithered off into the undergrowth as soon as I tried to catch his eye: his name tag said "Snake".
I LONG to be a lady who lunches and know that I would never ever tire of it - but MSH is having none of it.
Funnily enough MSH (who hails from the Netherlands) regularly makes preposition mistakes as well - my favourite is 'it's on you' - when he means 'it's up to you'.
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