Batgung

The theme of my first Hong Kong climate change article was simple: average yearly temperatures here have been going up more less steadily since the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) starting keeping track of them, but they have skyrocketed in recent decades. Yet over the past 60 years, essentially all of this warming has occurred at night, i.e.

The message from the Hong Kong Observatory is unequivocal: global warming is real; it’s affecting Hong Kong’s recent and current weather in obvious ways; and future trends for the world, and perhaps for Hong Kong especially, are ominous. Read more »

If you’ve lived in Hong Kong for any length of time, and gotten to know a few local people well enough to visit their homes, you’ve likely seen it: the black leather sofa.

Allow me to offer up a hot proposition to anyone who may be thinking about coming to live in Hong Kong.

(No, no, Mrs Tall – I assure you – not that kind of proposition!)

Ahem. Yes, times here are bad economically, and life in Hong Kong has its challenges. Yes, Hong Kong is a crowded and sometimes-crazy city. But here’s my offer: moving to Hong Kong gives you the chance to live what is likely the most ecologically-correct lifestyle you will find anywhere in the industrialized world. Read more »

The Talls have recently returned from a highly satisfactory trip to New Zealand. I won’t bore you with the tedious details, but I will expand upon one cultural comparison that came to mind as we enjoyed our visit.

I can sum up the constrast in one word: pace. Read more »

Mrs Tall and I are hopelessly old-fashioned. When we bought our current flat, times in Hong Kong were bad: we signed our purchase agreement just a couple of weeks after 9/11. Property agents were desperate for business, as were the developers themselves. We could therefore get not only an ordinary mortgage covering 70% of our flat’s price, but also (since our building was new) a loan from the developer covering an additional 25% (at a higher interest rate, of course). We had to come up with just a 5% down payment.  Read more »

This past weekend we saw one of the sharpest and most welcome weather changes I can remember here in Hong Kong. This year’s unusually hot and humid autumn finally gave way to the gloriously Mediterranean-style sun and dry air we expected to arrive several weeks earlier.

What was the problem? Why did it stay so uncomfortably steamy so long this year? We can blame it all on the failure of the northeast monsoon to arrive on time.  Read more »

I read an article recently that really struck a chord. It’s from the April 16 2007 New Yorker, written by one Nick Paumgarten, and it’s all about commuting. Although it focuses on commuting in the USA, and inevitably spends a lot of time on driving, parts of it that deal with commuting in New York City itself are quite apposite to life here in Hong Kong.

Most strikingly, perhaps, Paumgarten quotes the punchline from a recent academic study on commuting: Read more »

You remember that original Star Trek episode where Jim, Bones and Spock are mysteriously transported into a parallel universe? Oh, sorry, that doesn’t narrow it down much. I mean the one where all the alterna-univerna-Trekkers have bad facial hair? Spock’s goatee? Now you know the one I mean.

I would like us to go on a little dimension-swapping trip of our own, where we will face the wrath of a disturbed and surly Mr Tall – a Bizarro Mr Tall, if you will – who’s seeing what one aspect of his life might be like if he didn’t live in Hong Kong . . . . Read more »

I've just re-mortaged our flat, so while it's fresh in my mind here are some points to watch for. If this will be your first mortgage in Hong Kong, keep reading. If you already have a mortgage but it is over three years old, skip to the re-mortgaging section to make sure you're not missing out on some big savings. Read more »