So gangster (1842)

This guy is so lazy.
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A couple of weekends ago, I met up with a couple of friends (Seth and Tommy) in incredibly hot and humid Hong Kong. It just so happened to be the 10th anniversary of the Hong Kong handover from Britain to China.

Which made me think back to the original circumstances leading up to this event. Talk about a gangster moment in history.

Britain: "What?! You don't want me slanging opium in China? I know you did NOT just dump my product into the harbor. I know you di-iidn't!!!!

Do you realize what kind of cannons I roll with? Have you seen my cannons, son?!

Oh you falling back now? Well you are now going to have to pay me for lost product and wasting cannonballs. Oh, and how about you give me Hong Kong? Please sign here: Treaty of Nanjing (1842)."

Fast forward 155 years and England agrees to hand Hong Kong back to the motherland in 1997.

Many HK residents, like some of my uncles, left HK right before the handover, because they were worried about how Hong Kong, a capitalist bastion under British rule (famous for such signs as "No dogs and No Chinese"), would be integrated into a communist country. In other words, they didn't know if somebody was going to fock with they paper.

Fast forward another 10 years, and the official policy, "One country two systems," seems to be working like gangbusters. HK is still awash in C.R.E.A.M. with all these mainland Chinese companies listing themselves on the Hong Kong bourse. Many people who left in 1997 are now returning to HK, after seeing nothing has really changed since the handover. Their worst fears unrealized.

And what better way to celebrate the 10th anniversary than with an outdoor music concert in downtown Hong Kong?





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Oh and I found my long lost great-greatgrandfather's road in Hong Kong...



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Anyway after the weekend was over, Tommy went off to Singapore. Seth went back to Manila, where word on the streets is that this shorty is taking over.



(The author, Ryan Nerz, of my favorite book so kindly sent this clip.)