我有位好朋友，女仔黎o既，唔見o左部手提電話。相信是坐巴士時從褲袋掉出來的。她說可能是褲袋淺，所以造成今次慘劇。

我想，男仔們比較喜歡提錢包、電話及鎖匙等放在褲袋中，而女士一般都將以上東西放在手包裡。再者，男士的褲袋一般都比女士的來得大和深。所以不容易掉東西出來。

在以上這一方面，做男仔會比較方面一點。

Checked this out from the school library and watched this today with Meow. I think the whole movie is rather old-fashioned. Its content seems to hav eappeared in other movies too....

(By Hong Kong Observatory: Typhoon HAGUPIT at at 23:00 HKT 23 September 2008)

Sigh..the typhoon is leaving too early.

Anyway, today is an excited day.

This is so unexpected because at around 2pm, the HKO said "天文台會在下午4時至8時考慮是否需要發出八號烈風或暴風信號". People mistakenly took it as "天文台考慮在下午4時至8時改發八號信號". How can that happen!

At around 4pm, the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) start their consideration process. They considered (考慮) it. They announced that Typhoon No.8 will be hoisted at or before 6pm. According to the University policy, that's a Pre-No.8. Our Office is somehow obligated send a bulk email to all staff, telling them in what situation they can go home. So I drafted that email really quickly and let my boss to comment before sending out.

Once the email is out, people felt happy and relieved to go home!

From time to time, I touched on employment visa cases for new employees.  They are from all over the world; they all need an employment visa to work legitimately in Hong Kong.

The employment visa in Hong Kong is a self-adhesive label.  The employee, upon receipt of the employment visa, is required to stick the label onto a blank page of his/her passport.

However, from time to time, there are smart people who forgot to stick their employment visa onto the passport before they pass through the Hong Kong Immigration checkpoint.  Consequently, some of them entered Hong Kong as "tourists".  Apparantly, visitors in the capacity of "tourists" are not employable.

To resolve the problem, the Immigration requires those "tourists" to exit Hong Kong and enter again with their employment visa properly glued to their passports.  The point is....where are you exiting to?

Fortunately, there are 2 interesting places to tackle this awkward situations --- Macau and Shenzhen.  Non-Chinese-passport holders would usually spend half/one day to take a round-trip to Macau.  Taiwanese people are the same --- go to Macau because they can't go to Mainland China.  For Chinese-passport holders may not be allowed to go to Macau; they would have to go to Shenzhen to do some shopping and return Hong Kong.

For the purpose of HK employment visa, It's interesting to see how the Immigration categorizes the applicants:

1. Chinese Residents of the Mainland (i.e. Chinese living in China)
2. Not Chinese Residents of the Mainland, which are:
   • Taiwan residents
   • Macau residents
   • Overseas Chinese holding Chinese Passports
   • Others (e.g. Americans, British, stateless persons...etc)

From the above, you'll see that the Immigration holds one set of administration to manage employement visas for Chinese applicants from China and another set of administration for virtually everyone else.  I believe this is because the immigration system in China is so different from the rest of the world.  For example, if a Chinese from China is granted an employment visa to work in Hong Kong, he/she is also required to apply for an exit-visa from China to allow them to exit.  More example: for a Chinese applicant from China, he/she is required to get some kind of consent from the local official authority in China to allow them to leave and work in Hong Kong; there is no parallel thing for people of Category 2 above.

You'll be asking, why the employment visa applications from Chinese of the Mainland (in Category 1) is processed so differently from the applications from Chinese residing overseas (in Category 2)?

I can't tell for sure.  But obviously a Chinese residing overseas are free from the limitation of the local official authority.  To my understanding, when a Chinese from Mainland is obtaining a Chinese Passport, he/she will be removed from the local account/record.  So, a Chinese Passport does mean something symbolic to a Chinese from Mainland!

If i'm working for the Immigration, and if i'm sensitive enough, I think I can't just say "I'm a Chinese".  To be on the safe side, I must say "I'm from Hong Kong."  hahahah.

The Typhoon is coming up soon. Hagupit, while you're at the ocean, pick up as much moisture as you can, so you can grow stronger and bring us an extra holiday!

(By Hong Kong Observatory: Typhoon HAGUPIT at 20:00 HKT 21 September 2008 (18.0 N, 125.6 E))

The Take (2007) has so many shots at LA.  I love the scenes.  I also like the ethnic elements in the movies.  Not so much ethnic tensions but the rich ethnic characteristics of LA.

This movie was a.k.a. Angel (2007).  What a pity.  "The life she lived?  or the life she dreamed...."

Someone likes it; someone hates it.

Typhoon Hagupit, + oil !!!

(i moved the typhoon-forecast map to the blog entry on the next few blogs. I realized that the map, linked to the HKO, will be updated as HKO updates the typhoon path.)

Today (public holiday) Meow and I went to Lamma Island for fun and sightseeing etc. (BTW, I think I like Stanley better.) We had some good street-snacks at Lamma --- Thai BBQ and some local stuff.

Returned to Central at 8pm, we went to Subway sandwiches in Wan Chai. Hong Kong has 4-5 Subway restaurants --- the same old 6" or foot-long..etc. Italian BMT..subway melt..etc. Soda re-filled at HK$10.

While we were eating the subs, we heard how other local people ordered subs. When it comes to the choice of sauces, an old man asked whether there are "tar tar" sauce. The Subway guy couldn't understand what "tar tar" is, so the old man spelled out "t-a-r t-a-r". BTW, as you know, tar tar is a sauce for dipping fish sticks, or similar to the sauce in McDonald's filet-o-fish. But sorry----there's no tar tar in Subway!

http://world.subway.com/Countries/frmLocatorResult.aspx?CC=HON&LC=ENG&Mode=

Meow was experiencing a tough time --- "why is this guy (i.e. Joseph) so obsessed with American stuff?". I have clarified to her, and I don't mind saying it more than once: I like good stuff, and not all American stuff are good. It just happened that another good stuff is around in Hong Kong ---subway. Whether it is a good thing or not, it is totally subjective.

Today the new boss has assumed duty, not to mention to ex-boss left us on last Friday. My ex-boss has served the University for over 13 years. I don't know. When she's here, no one likes her. When she's gone, people started realizing how good she is.

For me, I kinda know that she's good from the beginning. I must admit that no one is perfect. She has her own way to show her "affection" to her colleagues; it is just that people don't feel it.

My ex-boss is very smart in working things around during adverse conditions. "Working things around" means to avoid touching on the problematic problems directly and to solve it by other subtle ways. This is to temporarily ease the heightened situations and to kinda solve the problem before the affected parties would know. We all know ---- avoiding admin-problems could not really get things properly done because things avoided would somehow "revisit" you in the future. But we are still appreciative of her smart mindset.