Welcome to Batgung

Our articles about Hong Kong are grouped as follows – just click on the section that interests you, or scroll down to see the most recent articles. If you can't find what you're looking for, please leave a question in the discussion forum.

Visit Hong Kong
Move to Hong Kong
Hong Kong daily life
Old Hong Kong

Cold at Chinese New Year?

You’ll hear it this week (if you haven’t heard it already): Chinese New Year is coming up, so it’s going to be cold!

The assumption that Chinese New Year (CNY hereafter) invariably brings a cold snap is deeply-ingrained in Hong Kong culture, among natives and expats alike. Read more »

A peaceful walk in Hong Kong

The research study that I have long awaited has finally been published. An article in the Wall Street Journal summarizes the work of researchers in the USA who have identified and analysed ‘Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome’: Read more »

How to start a one-man business in Hong Kong

I'm just starting on this, so I'll jot down notes as I go along.

There are three options for starting a company in Hong Kong: a sole proprietor, a limited partnership, or a limited liability company (LLC).

There's a summary of the differences between them on this website. Though as you read their final recommendation, keep in mind that their business is to sell you a service to setup a limited company! Read more »

Hong Kong museums

Although I've mentioned Hong Kong's museums in an article on things to do for visitors, I thought I'd spend a bit more time discussing their relative merits -- and deficiencies. I feel much more qualified to do so at the moment than I did several years ago, since Daughter Tall is now entering the optimum age range for museum action (she's seven going on eight). So let's take a little tour of our fair city's publicly-funded repositories of history and culture. Read more »

How to get rid of mould?

Oh warm and fertile Spring, new growth bursting out all around.

Which in our flat means mouldy ceilings.

Hong Kong's Urban Heat Island

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.

Climate change in Hong Kong

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 »

Where do you shop?

In particular, where do you go to buy TVs, cameras, computers, mobile phones, etc?

Our suggestions about this on batgung are around six years old. Then we wrote about visiting small stores to get a good deal, but these days I find I'm more likely to go to the big chain stores, especially if shopping with visitors.

I feel the difference in price between them has got much smaller - or maybe I've just got more cranky, and can't be bothered visiting lots of shops. So, cranky or rational - that's the question I hope you'll help answer.

Here's where I bought most recently: Read more »

Teaching kids about race

There’s a remarkable article on kids and race in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine (yes, Newsweek actually still exists). The article’s authors, the novelist Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, have written a book on raising kids they’ve cutely titled NurtureShock. The article is an excerpt. Read more »

Twenty years in Hong Kong

20 Oct 1989. That's the first Hong Kong stamp in my passport.

Twenty years already? That's gone past quickly. Will I be here for another twenty?

Our younger daughter is only three, and we want her to grow up reading and writing Chinese. That means another ten years at least. Then even if we did move, where would we go?

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