A World of Pain: Story of an Unwanted Puppy

Puppies awaiting adoption at HKDR

When the word pain is mentioned, many will immediately think of their experience of physical pain, while some will say pain comes from within. Pain is often one of the main factor that has prevented people to do things, like taking up martial arts, snowboarding, rollerblading, Brazilian waxing.., just to name a few.

My most physically painful experience so far came from receiving 3 stitches on my scalp, while the emotional one came from the ending of a relationship. Nonetheless, none of my experience matches the last hours of a little puppy called Pinky.

Pinky was mauled to death by his kennel mates and left to die alone.

I am writing about an abandoned dog whose short life was filled with more pain than happiness. Pinky was a 6 months old puppy whose name came from his distinguish pink nose, along with his nose he had a beautiful cream coat and dark eyes, he could had been an animal actor in the film "Babe". In another word, he was a very cute puppy.

Before ended up being an abandoned pet, Pinky had a home, however his owner's constant absence prompted the owner's sister to give him up to Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD). The role of the AFCD is to house a surrendered animal for approximately 4 days and then promptly destroyed by administrating euthanasia, this practice applies to all domestic pets including dogs.

Pinky had his lucky escape when he was rescued from the AFCD by Hong Kong Dog Rescue (HKDR) during one of its scheduled visits; there he was given a semi-permanent home, along with 200 other abandoned dogs, while waiting for a permanent one.

I was one of the fortunate ones who have met little Pinky, he was such an unassuming little dog who was happy and liked to play with his fellow kennel mates, also puppies around his size. Sadly, the last time I saw Pinky was 3 days before he was found lifeless, with bites all over his little body at another kennel for larger puppies. The reason why he was moved was unknown, it doesn't matter now anyway.

I suspect Pinky was first picked on by larger puppies in the new kennel, there were at least 4 of them in a field of approximately 20 puppies. Little Pinky was known to be feisty, he must had tried to defend himself but was outnumbered, the exchange probably stirred up bad air within the kennel resulting a fight.

It must had happened in the dark of the night, where there were no humans around to hear his distress cries or to protect him from the horde of puppies who ganged up upon him. Poor little Pinky died alone in a world of pain, watched on by his aggressors, it must had been a very slow and lonely death.

Pinky's story is just one of too many among the abandoned dogs in Hong Kong. There are of course happy endings where the dog is adopted and welcomed as part of the family, however the chances of re-homing for an abandoned pet is slim, particularly for mongrel and older dogs. The rate of pet abandonment is high in Hong Kong, according to statistics, there were approximately 3,700 abandoned dogs last year, a rise from 3,000 from the previous year.

Without a proper pet ownership policy from the AFCD, ie. licensing or sterilizing, owning a pet is an easy process; furthermore, there are plenty of pet shops in Hong Kong, with at least one on every street, buying a pet is easier. While there are many responsible pet owners out there, it is those who treat their pets as commodities that are the ones who are getting away with the crime of animal cruelty by abandonment.

The irony is that in Hong Kong, it is an offense for littering but abandoning pet is not. Meanwhile, there will be more pets to be destroyed at the AFCD and animal welfare groups such as the HKDR will struggle to house more dogs due to overcrowding and funding issues, until the government of Hong Kong put its foot down, there will be more stories similar to Pinky's.

RIP Pinky.

Phuket Days

Sunset over Kata Beach

The saying every bum needs a holiday is true, everyone needs time out, even for those who doesn't do much. Thanks to my 8 long haul flights accumulated over a period of 2 years, I finally earned enough air miles to get a free flight to Phuket. For an unemployed bum, free is good and any destinations in the Land of Smiles is even better!

I stayed at Kata, which is located on the southwest side of Phuket island, just south of the more popular Karon. Kata is a quiet and convenient base if you are looking for a relaxing beach holiday - the beach is blessed with soft fine sand and clear blue water, the wave is gentle enough for swimmers yet creating enough swell for surfers or body boarders to catch the breaks.

Although Kata is quieter comparing to Patong or Karon, it still has its fair share of hotels, restaurants, bars, shopping arcades, tour operators, convenience stores, massage outlets, tailors, chemists, etc, just so the tourists don't run out of touristy necessities. For a fancy night out, rowdy Patong is only a 15 minutes ride away and Phuket town is not far either for shopping excursions during the day. As for me, I hang around Kata during most of my stay, coming from crowded Hong Kong, hanging out on the beach is just the relief I needed.

During the high season which runs from October to March, Kata can be swamped by visitors from Scandinavia, creating a little Viking colony. In Kata and Karon, it is not uncommon to see sign boards advertising in Swedish or Swedish cuisine on restaurant menus.

The low season on the other hand, Phuket gets the occasional thunderstorms and patchy rain, with low hanging clouds constantly shielding the sun. My experience in September wasn't too bad with some rain but mostly sunny days, even though it poured down hard when I was out snorkeling near the Phi Phi islands, the downpour did not last long.

My holiday was what I imagined it to be - relaxing in a rural and quiet environment, even better because Phuket is in Thailand, my favourite country. I must add that the best thing about travelling in low season is a relatively empty beach with plenty of vacant deck chairs, uncrowded bars with free pool tables, and most importantly, special deals being offered by hoteliers and tour operators!

Noise Pollution in Hong Kong

I think NOISE POLLUTION is the forgotten sibling of the more popular air pollution issue in Hong Kong. Ever since the approval of the West Island Line, apartment units have been selling like hot cakes in the vicinity of the 3 new stations.

I am unfortunately a victim of this transaction since the end result of all successful settlement is essentially NOISE POLLUTION, because the first thing landlords to do their new acquisition is to knock down walls and send in the power drills! The noise generated the renovators conveniently does not bother the landlords but their poor new neighbours.

Noise pollution is unlike air pollution where people can pretend it is not there. Sure you may not be able to see across Victoria Harbour on a smoggy day, so what? People are usually sitting inside their air conditioned offices, homes or shopping malls, or travelling from one air conditioned room to another, always in an air conditioned transport. So, as long as you are not outdoors long enough, air pollution is not a nuisance. It is different with noise pollution, it follows you everywhere in Hong Kong.

Any outsider will agree that Hong Kongers are probably one of the loudest people on the planet, I swear almost all of them were born with the lungs of a Drill Sargent in order to create that kind of volume. Press Play on the below clip to experience an everyday public transport ride in Hong Kong.

On top of that, add the following factors to the equation:

• Traffic noise - double decker buses, goods trucks, mini buses
• Pets - small dog syndrome (I believe small dogs are planning a secret invasion of Hong Kong)
• Street noise - a nuisance when generated by human loud speakers
• Constructions - building buildings
• Renovations - always involving power drills
• Road works - always digging somewhere and involving (power) drills

An average household in Hong Kong have to live with the above noise factors day-to-day, the locals are either numb to it or they are part of the culprits, blocking out one kind of noise with another.

As for me, I have been plagued by the sound of power drills in the past 3 months. Beside the constant street noise, noise from renovation is my biggest bitch. In the beginning, it was renovation being done on the 3rd floor of my building, I thought it was just a temporary thing, how wrong was I when I heard power drills and hammering noises escaping from my next door neighbour's wall. Imagine my pain for the past 2 months as the whole unit being re-designed all over and my joy when the renovators finished painting the place.

To my dismay, the noise is not going away as it is now 8th floor's turn to create havouc, with 2 power drills going off at the same time, echoing each other. One may think renovations done on other floors should not affect my unit, but the noise generated by power drill is so powerful that it ricochets across the building via the walls, taking away all sense of peacefulness and quietness.

By the way these units are selling, the noise of the power drill is hanging around like a curse. My home used to be my sanctuary from noisy Hong Kong, but it is only an illusion. Hello air pollution, welcome to my nightmare.

Hallelujah, I'm a Bum

Oh, why don't I work like other men do?
How the hell can I work when the skies are so blue?

Hallelujah! I'm a bum,
Hallelujah bum again,
Hallelujah! Give us a handout and revive us again.

Oh, I love my boss and my boss loves me,
And that is the reason I'm so hungry.

Well, springtime has come and I'm just out of jail,
Without any money, without any bail

Oh why don't you save all the money you earn?
Well if I didn't eat, I'd have money to burn.

Oh, I like my boss, he's a good friend of mine,
And that's why I'm standing out in the breadline.

I can't buy a job 'cause I ain't got the dough
So I ride in a boxcar 'cause I'm a hobo.

I went to a house and I knocked on the door,
The lady said, Scram, bum, you've been here before!

I went to a bar and I asked for a drink,
They gave me a glass and they showed me the sink.

Oh why don't you work like other folks do?
How can I get a job when you're holding down two?

Whenever I get all the money I earn,
The boss will be broke and to work he must turn.

I went to a house and I knocked on the door;
A lady came out, says, You been here before.

I went to a house, and I asked for some bread;
A lady came out, says, The baker is dead.

When springtime does come, oh won't we have fun,
We'll throw up our jobs and we'll go on the bum.

Lyric Credits: Harry McClintock

All That Glitter Has Lost Its Sparkle

All that glitter has lost its sparkle, such is the story of a man that calls himself Gary Glitter. Gary Glitter, a former pop singer and is also known as Paul Francis Gadd, is a newly registered sex offender in the United Kingdom.

On the 22nd of August, he returned involuntarily to his native UK, 4 days after being released from a Vietnamese prison, where he served a 2 years and 9 months sentence for sex crimes involving two pre-teen girls. He claimed he was teaching them English and let them sleep over at his place because they were afraid of ghost, he was reportedly paid off the victims' family and thus avoiding a mandatory death sentence should he be convicted of child rape.

Gary Glitter is an indecent man who exploited children.

Glitter was perhaps unlucky enough to be a famous person that was caught and charged, there are others like him who are getting away with sex crimes involving children - ordinary people whose faces you see on the street with no names.

Some committed the offense by downloading child pornography, but the most commonly convicted offenders sexually abuse children by ways of exposing their genitals to a child, performing sexual activities on a child, or sexually molesting a child.

Unfortunately the world has heard too much about the predators and not enough about the victims, victims simply do not speak up publicly with the exception of Oprah Winfrey.

I often wonder how can a child trust again after such atrocious act happened to him/her? As children we were taught to trust adult, but what do a child do if the adult, supposedly a person of authority, a friend, a neighbour, or a relative, touches the child in a way the child knew he/she is not supposed to? Will the child report such incident to his/her parents or would the child feel too embarrassed to? To what extend such act affect the way the child is in the future? Sadly, I can only wonder and have no answers.

One thing I can do is to raise the awareness of this issue, I feel that we as adults should be the protectors of children and their innocence.

We can be observant to the behaviours of the children we come in contact with, be that your own children, relatives, friends' children, neighbours, students etc, if a child suddenly became withdrawn, it is best to approach the child gently and talk about it.

Don't be afraid to ask questions, but be discreet since this can be a sensitive issue to the child.

Don't over-react, children may think it is their fault and would rather remain silent about the issue than having an adult making a fuss over it.

Lastly, use your instincts, if you feel something is not right, it probably isn't.

Socially Acceptable: How to Cyber Friend

The saying a friend in need is a friend indeed is so true, one usually find out who their real friends are when they are facing a crisis. What if there is no dark clouds brewing in the horizon, how do one tell who's a real friend and who's a dud?

With the increasing popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, one can be friend with anyone by sending a Friend Request, thus further blurred the true meaning of friendship.

Are you really friends with someone whom you met once and perhaps never meet again? Do you really want to invite this person into your life (or rather, online profile page)? What was the ulterior motive of adding or sending a Friend Request to such person? Worst, do you even like this person who sent the Friend Request?

I am guilty for happily adding many long lost friends I've found via Facebook, they are people I went to high school or university with and have lost touch, as well as ex-colleagues and ex neighbours. At least I had real interactions with these people in the past - we talked, played, studied, worked and socialised - they were considered as friends at some stage of my life.

We were friends back in a time where there is no internet or mobile phones, heck, even with email people get too lazy to write, nonetheless it was good to see them again, even if it's on the internet. Sadly, I can't say too much vice versa, I couldn't get back the connection with most of them no matter how hard I tried to get them talking.

I am also guilty for greedily adding many people I hardly knew, people I met only once and perhaps never to meet again, as friends. My ulterior motive? To make my Friend List look longer... Seriously, being a new kid on the block and an unemployed bum in Hong Kong, I wish to pursue new friendship.

There are a lot of hits and misses in this department, the majority are just a bunch of young professionals who seem to be in a race to win the biggest-friend-list championship. There are a few pleasant surprises of course, these are the people who don't judge me by the size of my wallet or my status as an unemployed bum, they made an effort to get to know me, and I am very glad to have met them.

So the question now is, what do I do with the duds in my friend list? What are the socially acceptable ways to deal with them? While I think it is ok to clean up your friend list by removing the undesirables, how does that make them feel to be removed? Since I doubt these people treated me as a friend, do they even notice? Do they mind? What will happen if you bumped into them again? What will they think of you? Do you really care?

The above questions linger on my mind as there is no black and white on this issue. I mean I would only remove those I think is not worthy to be called a friend, based on the amount of interactions I had with them on and off line. I don't want to know what they are up to, nor I want to share my information with them.

At the end of the day, I think we as humans are bound by an unspoken social code to be nice; removing people from friend list online is not one of the thing perceived as being nice, therefore it is not quite socially acceptable, especially on a social networking website!

Cheap Thrills: Surviving Hong Kong on a Budget

Hong Kong Island, view from Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

Money makes the world go round is quite true in a materialistic society such as Hong Kong, it is said that 6% among its adult population are millionaires and this figure is growing with soaring property prices. Coincidentally, Hong Kong is one of the best markets for luxury sport car maker Porsche, the other being Dubai. In Hong Kong, shoppers queue up a mile long for the Louis Vuitton's sale, prestige is EVERYTHING.

Imagine the challenge for an unemployed bum to live life on the cheap yet living within the expat circle, it's not easy but it is possible to tip toe around it.

Here's how I have been doing it:

1. Retail Therapy - Convert clothes/shoes/bag shopping to grocery shopping! Walking down the supermarket's aisle yield a whole new meaning when you are denied the luxury of real retail therapy, after all, who needs another Moschino t-shirt, Gucci dress, Armani underwear, Louboutin stiletto heels, another Louis Vuitton handbag? Seriously?!

Realistically now, grocery shopping can be so much fun when you make it to be, just imagine the fantastic gourmet you will cook up while browsing the many different food products on the shelves. Of course, it helps if you think cooking is an art and you love to eat, I do!

There are a few supermarket chains to choose from (even though most are owned by rival firms - Jardine Matheson Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa) - on my rich days I go to Citysuper or International to get my dose of foreign foods, on my normal days I grace the aisles of the local Park'n'Shop or Wellcome, on my strict budget days I check out Kai Bo Frozen Food Supermarket.

To make the experience last longer, make sure you check out every aisle, there is always something you will need in each supermarket aisle. Take your time while browsing, just like buying clothes, does the product looks good on my pantry? Should I get the large or the small pack? How many cans of chopped tomato do I need till the next time I shop again? See, grocery shopping is equally as sophisticated as clothes shopping...

2. Club Membership - Forget the expensive and snotty country clubs that are located miles away from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, I got mine by simply signing up with the Hong Kong Dog Rescue. When I first started out as a volunteer dog walker, little did I know it is really a club house filled with many cuddly, barking canines and volunteers in a situation similar to mine.

Like other clubs, this club requires its members to do some real exercise like walking the dogs (total body workout), cleaning the kennels (power lifting) or picking up poop (yoga). I got fit, made some good friends, get treated like a VIP by some dogs, and I feel good about myself - all while working out, what's more, membership fees is nada.

3. Cool Drinking Place - Anyone who has been to Felix's Bar on top of the Peninsula Hotel on Kowloon will attest to its million dollar view and steep pricing. It is possible to drink at a fraction of the price, think HKD12 bottle of beer (as oppose to paying HKD50), without compromising the fantastic view, by transporting yourself to the look-out by Star Ferry Pier in Tsim Sha Tsui.

There, you can stock up alcohol from 7-eleven, buy your favourite snacks at Okashi Land, wear whatever you feel like, then put your feet up and enjoy the view. Oh, the pier is also a good place for people watching if you fancy the touristy types and there is a public toilet nearby so you can drink more cheap alcohol. So what if you miss out on cool air-conditioned air? At least nobody is blowing smoke in your face and everyone else is sweating like a pig anyway. Now go and get me another bottle of Blue Girl, please?

Sleeping Cat

Cat by shop window on Caine Road, Central, Hong Kong

I was walking home from brunch today and saw a cat sleeping comfortably by a shop window, I just had to take a photo to share with everyone. I think cats are the master of sleep, they can always make the most awkward position look comfortable. More importantly, they also manage to make sleeping look adorably cute that makes you want to say aww..

On the subject about cats, not far from where I live there is an old police complex, it's a spacious compound probably built in the colonial era but now it's sitting empty. For the stray cats of Mid-level it is good news, the empty buildings inside the compound provide shelter, and the residents around the area feed them regularly despite posters warned about feeding strays.

Comparing to other areas in Hong Kong such as Mongkok, these strays are having it good, their cousins have to make do with cramped and noisy conditions where humans and traffic are more of a threat than hunger or illness.

Thanks to a charity organization called Hong Kong Alley Cat Watch, whose aim is to trap, neuter, and release, and finding home for the friendlier ones, the number of strays are slowly being contained. The organization also advocates tolerance towards animal and responsible pet ownership, the stray cats of Hong Kong do have a fairy godmother to look out for them!

Do you know that cats are the only animal that can say their name in Mandarin?

Memoir of a Retail Travel Agent

With the introduction of electronic ticketing (e-ticket), I realised that fare basis may be a thing of the past as it is not printed on the e-ticket. It is too bad for the travellers who won't have a chance to realise how much fun it was to decode fare basis and learn its importance. Of course, they can be among the meaningless jiberish printed on an airlines ticket which hardly anybody bother to look at, except when you work as a travel agent.

I was a travel agent.

Retail travel agency work was mundane. For me, it was always about getting ahead in sales, giving advice to places you dreamed of going but have never been, and convincing customers why they should make the booking with you and not others.

There were the fun part of course, like travel educational - cheapish tailor made itinerary for travel agents only but they rarely came about, booking exotic holidays (wow I just made a booking for the Trans-Siberian) or planning a round-the-world trip for customers, however these instances were rare as our client base was mainly students and backpackers who usually go on the standard big trip after finishing their education (almost always to London).

I've also came across many interesting people as a travel agent. I once had a young lady coming to request a round-the-world travel quote from me. For those in the know, all round-the-world airfares are based on the mileage use, and how many airports enroute in order to calculate airport taxes and surcharges, in order to give an accurate quote a travel agent must has all that information.

To get these information, I begun by asking her the standard questions and the conversation went something like this:

Me: where would you like to go to?

Girl: where can I go?

Me: it is round-the-world fare, you can go anywhere, so long it is the same direction, like going from east to west.. So, where would you like to go to?

Girl: Er, where can I go??

This went on for a little bit and by the rate it was going she wasn't going anywhere, so I took out a brochure with a map of the world and placed it in front of her, in your heart, where do you really, really want to go?, she looked at the map, err, India... Thailand... London?. Great, I thought, that's something so I started to check the fares for her, while I was doing that, she looked up from the map, puzzled, where's India? Where's Thailand?

Wow...

Obviously this young lady isn't ready for her adventure yet if she has no clue where the countries are and so long she was in front of me, I was losing out on real bookings with serious customers so I gave her the brochure, told her the approximate airfare range she is looking at. I've also asked her to have a think about the destinations, I would be very happy to get an exact quote for her once I work out the routes.

Yes, it was unfortunate about the bottom line (real bookings) but some people obviously has no clue when comes to travel, yet it was these people that made days in the retail travel agency easier to pass by. Well, sometimes the joke was on us travel agents as well, especially when comes to making mistakes... When a travel agent makes mistake, it hurts big time.

I remember screwing up a connecting flight between Auckland and Frankfurt for a wealthy Russian university student who spent USD12,000 on a one-week Christmas break in Europe with her Gucci clad boyfriend, she had to delay her travel for one day because of my mistake.

My other major screw ups include booking the wrong month for a hotel room in New York City - customers were already in the US and noticed the date was incorrect, and another case, the wrong hotel in Hong Kong for a New Caledonian based customer. Yikes.

Booking the wrong booking class for air travel was also common, fortunately I usually managed to get away with that by either begging the airlines to do a waiver or offering the customer a discount, hurting the bottom line.

Fortunately, we all learn from our mistakes quickly or we suffered monetarily. 2.5 years in the retail travel agency business was enough for me, nonetheless it was my first real job after university and it has taught me a lot. I have met a lot of fantastic people and made some good friends, it was fun but never again. I think, deep down, I am still that geeky travel agent because I like studying the jiberish on an air ticket!