Zeit zur Abreise

Dienstag, 16. Oktober 2001

Zeit zur Abreise

Wenn du dich so wie ich beim Lesen der folgenden Liste vor Lachen einfach nur wegschmeißen könntest, dann ist es wirklich Zeit, Hong Kong wieder zu verlassen. Gefunden bei Kam Leung.

1. You have paid enough rent to buy a moderate-sized North American or European town.
2. Most conversations with your friends involve mobile phones or mutual funds.
3. None of the sea-front buildings existed when you arrived.
4. The shoreline itself shifted by half a mile.
5. All your friends are now living in London, New York, Singapore or Paris.
6. You can't put a proper sentence together in your native language.
7. You got really excited when Starbucks opened their first outlet in Hong Kong.
8. At the movies, you take bets on the number of phones that go off during the performance.
9. The funniest jokes revolve around your stockbroker.
10. You developed an acquired taste for mooncakes.
11. In a crowd or a queue, you learnt to stay away from frail-looking old ladies carrying umbrellas.
12. You seriously considered taking up golf.
13. You have a Mont Blanc pen clipped to your shirt pocket.
14. You have stopped noticing the grotesquely deformed leper on the Exchange Square flyover.
15. A sexual pervert is a man who prefers women to money.
16. Your building's security guard is 4 times older than the building itself.
17. You have become a shameless name-dropper.
18. You feel a compulsion to take exams.
19. All you need is Louis Vuitton.
20. 165 decibels is a normal noise level for lunchtime conversation.
21. It's OK to throw rubbish, including old fridges, from your 18th-floor window.
22. Thanks to karaoke, you know who has the most singing talent in your building. Not that this is a great achievement.
23. You believe that pressing the lift button 63 times will make it move faster.
24. The ultimate status symbol is a lawn-mower.
25. You know it is useless to protest when the lady at the supermarket check-out wraps one toothbrush in 6 plastic bags.
26. You will never ever EVER buy Miracle Foot Repair.
27. You learnt to recognise Andy Lau, Leon Lai, Aaron Kwok and Jacky Cheung.
28. You aren't aware that one is supposed to pay for software.
29. Pink bathroom tiles can make any building or public garden beautiful.
30. Your colleagues eat sun-dried cuttlefish coated in sugar and you don't bat an eyelid.
31. You actually purchased a canto-pop CD.
32. You actually played it several times.
33. You believe shopping and eating are the only forms of entertainment in Hong Kong.
34. Queuing in the rain in a diesel-choked Kowloon backstreet to buy a HK$6 Hello Kitty plastic doll at a McDonald's store is not the mark of an insane person.
35. You believe Li Ka-shing is a saint.
36. You test your seafood for mercury, hepatitis B and cholera.
37. You have attended at least 4 weddings and a funeral in a language you don't understand at all.
38. A PhD in Nuclear Physics fluent in 7 languages irons your socks for a pittance but she is from the Philippines so it's all right.
39. All the clothes you own are tailor-made or come from Giordano.
40. You are not surprised to see your tap water run dark brown.
41. Drilling on the walls in the wee small hours in the morning is considered acceptable behaviour.
42. If it's Friday, it must be Typhoon 3 day.
43. If it's Saturday, it must be Typhoon 8 day.
44. You tell your parents their house back in your home country has bad feng shui.
45. You get offended when people admire your chopsticks skills.
46. You compiled a 3-page list of weird English first names that Chinese people of your acquaintance have chosen for themselves.
47. You learnt to bring a coat, a scarf and gloves to fight hypothermia in supermarkets, buses, ferries and cinemas.
48. Your collection of business cards has outgrown your flat.
49. You are convinced that the only thing that moves more slowly than continental drift is a Causeway Bay crowd on a Saturday afternoon.
50. You are not surprised to see 85-year old ladies pushing tons of garbage up the streets of the financial district.
51. You bulldoze your way into lifts and MTR trains before other passengers have a chance to alight.
52. If someone smiles at you for no particular reason, you know she is a Filipina.
53. You know that leather shoes can grow leaves during the wet season.
54. The word "wildlife" refers to the family of cockroaches that dwells  in your kitchen drawer.
55. You use the word "Ayyiieeaaahh" every few sentences to convey surprise, pleasure, pain or anger.
56. You speak enough Cantonese to make your colleagues laugh their heads off (attempts with anyone else still only draw blank stares).
57. You are not surprised to find footprints on the edge of the toilet bowl.
58. You believe you are really tall when you are only 5'8".
59. You know that leaving Hong Kong will break your heart.
60. You read this list and understood everything.

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