“…for just HKD 2, you can have breaths of fresh air, just like the rest of the world has for free.” Ha ha ha.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmH3xCpOSW8]
After 6 consecutive days of pollution warnings last week (which is when they remind people with respiratory illness to try and stay indoors) this ad made CNBC and Bloomberg news. A mum sitting next to me as we waited for our rockstars was repeatedly going up to check on her boy because his asthma had flared up.
You can work as much as you want, afford all kinds of things – including clean air – but do you really want to go around toting them fugly oxygen cans?
I… was just thinking…. they’re n-ot easy to coordinate an outfit around… Surprisingly Daniel Wu didn’t hold up a Louis Vuitton – branded oxygen can holster in his bogus ad to raise awareness.
People care very much about the pollution here. I wish and wish I didn’t have to close all the windows and fill the home with ugly spider plants that our helper “rotates” around the apartment. (Apparently they die much faster if you don’t.)
Suddenly it occurs to you you have a child whose lungs you wish were filled with the crisp, 50%-better-than-WHO-advised-health-standards air of some tiny town along Margaret River.
So we do what little we can, like not leaving the engine (and therefore air-conditioning) running even in a horrendously humid summer, and installing heavy-duty water filters (bought in Malaysia, gift from my dad haha) so we still drink boiled tap water.
(What comes out of the filter looks like it leads a double life as a movie extra on the Aliens quadrilogy. 3 movies = trilogy. 4 movies = Well I Learned Something New Today.)
But everything’s a package – pollution is part of Hong Kong’s package that includes the rush we feel from everything moving so quickly and efficiently. Neurotic (other) parents mean schools are so on-the-ball we can just sit back and relax knowing that pretty much any school (save for the very worst – I can’t even think what those could be like) already offers a lot more than we can think of to ask for.
Sadly we don’t get to pick just the good bits in any package (even more sadly, that also goes for boyfriends and inlaws)
Instead, look at it this way – if we really succeed in cleaning up a bit more pollution than expected, our package of choice is that much more attractive. It’s a win-win – for us, really.
(Ok fine, this is me rah-rah-ing myself as much as anyone else. We do the best with the hand we’re dealt – that includes our attitude to the hand we’re dealt.)
In a city with so much wealth, where people work-hard-find-joy in affording the latest It Bag or Shoe or Car, the silver lining (if you look hard enough in that smog) is a lesson in humility, in community.
Because the (marginally) clean air you “contribute to” by putting up with no car air-con in summer is enjoyed not by you, but by all. Just as someone else’s careless behavior toward the environment is uh, enjoyed by you.
Oh, ding-ding. So thaa-at’s why people yell at you if you leave the engine running to nap in air-conditioned comfort in your car.
Residents of Hong Kong don’t have a choice, they have to work together – I like to think of it as God’s way of teaching us to be less proud of our own ability and earning power, and more respectful of His creations.
And then everyone gets mad at Certain Polluting Neighboring Countries.
Opening mouth removing tongue from cheek for the moment however, talk is cheap. (Blog is cheaper – technically I can write any crap I want with a pseudonym and double espresso and all that will happen is I get lots of hate comments – oh wait, I’m not on a pseudonym… Why the hell didn’t I think of using a pseudonym?? Now readers can go up to my mum when she’s queueing for Char Koay Teow in Gurney Drive and say “your daughter wrote crap today”)
Developed countries preaching against industrialisation and pollution are asking developing countries to slow their own growth by watching their contributions to pollution. But. How do you think developed countries got developed in the first place?
It’s just really hard to get someone from Alcoholics Anonymous to listen to you for the martini in your hand… This umm isn’t going to be easy…
Yet it’s all we can do to buck up, or be treated to The Daniel Wu Clean Air Sequel.
Co starring the Louis Vuitton Oxygen Mask, of course. Maybe there’s even a waiting list already.
