The Early Birds
By Chip Tsao | published May 27, 2010
More global warming, but less harmony. Hong Kong residents in Ma On Shan, Shau Kei Wan, and areas in the New Territories and Mid-Levels have complained to local district councils that chirping birds are disturbing their sleep at early hours in the morning. Birds in the nearby trees outside their bedroom windows used to start singing between 4:30am to 5am, the complainers say, but as a result of global warming, the birds are now starting up earlier, tweeting and awakening people.
District councilors and government officials appealed to residents to be “more tolerant,” as there is not much that they, or anyone, can do about the annoyingly noisy feathered creatures. For those who are less historically informed, Chairman Mao showed greater efficiency. During the famine that resulted from Mao’s Great Leap Forward Movement, the Great Leader launched a nationwide “anti-sparrow campaign,” calling for the total annihilation of all sparrows to protect crops. To be the most cost-effective, peasants rushed around under trees howling and striking gongs or metal washing bowls to scare off the birds. The frightened sparrows kept flying until they were so tired they dropped dead. The campaign was once hailed as one of the great victories of “Chairman Mao’s great thoughts,” alongside the defeat of US troops in the Korean War. The result was a total breakdown of the ecological system, leaving pests to proliferate and destroy the crops. The total death toll of the great famine reached an amazing 38 million people.
Hearing the tweet of birds is normally considered a blessing, especially in a skyscraper jungle like Hong Kong. Many gweilos move away from the city and seek to live in Sai Kung or Lamma Island where they don’t hear as many Chinese housewives yapping at their husbands in a shopping mall, or office ladies babbling about trivial gossip or shopping information in a crowded elevator in Times Square. Hongkongers are more tolerant with noises as long as they’re made by those who have money or power. For example, the deafening bangs of pile drivers can sound as colossal and grand as Mahler’s symphony No. 9 after you realize that they are the great work of Sun Hung Kai, and that the price of your 300 square-foot flat will rise when the construction of the new luxury building outside your bedroom window is completed in three months. A man in a cinema was beaten earlier this month after he complained to another man who was squawking on his mobile phone in the auditorium during the middle of a movie. The lesson: never give the bird to the tattooed Triad members in a restaurant, or the thundering loudspeakers announcing Mao’s orders in a people’s commune. Only chirping birds in the woods never fight back.
Some helpless residents were reported to have closed their windows and turned on their air-conditioning. Doesn’t that ultimately make global warming worse leading to even earlier chirping birds? Chop down all the trees, and you’ll stop your chirp and tweets.
More global warming, but less harmony. Hong Kong residents in Ma On Shan, Shau Kei Wan, and areas in the New Territories and Mid-Levels have complained to local district councils that chirping birds are disturbing their sleep at early hours in the morning. Birds in the nearby trees outside their bedroom windows used to start singing between 4:30am to 5am, the complainers say, but as a result of global warming, the birds are now starting up earlier, tweeting and awakening people.
District councilors and government officials appealed to residents to be “more tolerant,” as there is not much that they, or anyone, can do about the annoyingly noisy feathered creatures. For those who are less historically informed, Chairman Mao showed greater efficiency. During the famine that resulted from Mao’s Great Leap Forward Movement, the Great Leader launched a nationwide “anti-sparrow campaign,” calling for the total annihilation of all sparrows to protect crops. To be the most cost-effective, peasants rushed around under trees howling and striking gongs or metal washing bowls to scare off the birds. The frightened sparrows kept flying until they were so tired they dropped dead. The campaign was once hailed as one of the great victories of “Chairman Mao’s great thoughts,” alongside the defeat of US troops in the Korean War. The result was a total breakdown of the ecological system, leaving pests to proliferate and destroy the crops. The total death toll of the great famine reached an amazing 38 million people.
Hearing the tweet of birds is normally considered a blessing, especially in a skyscraper jungle like Hong Kong. Many gweilos move away from the city and seek to live in Sai Kung or Lamma Island where they don’t hear as many Chinese housewives yapping at their husbands in a shopping mall, or office ladies babbling about trivial gossip or shopping information in a crowded elevator in Times Square. Hongkongers are more tolerant with noises as long as they’re made by those who have money or power. For example, the deafening bangs of pile drivers can sound as colossal and grand as Mahler’s symphony No. 9 after you realize that they are the great work of Sun Hung Kai, and that the price of your 300 square-foot flat will rise when the construction of the new luxury building outside your bedroom window is completed in three months. A man in a cinema was beaten earlier this month after he complained to another man who was squawking on his mobile phone in the auditorium during the middle of a movie. The lesson: never give the bird to the tattooed Triad members in a restaurant, or the thundering loudspeakers announcing Mao’s orders in a people’s commune. Only chirping birds in the woods never fight back.
Some helpless residents were reported to have closed their windows and turned on their air-conditioning. Doesn’t that ultimately make global warming worse leading to even earlier chirping birds? Chop down all the trees, and you’ll stop your chirp and tweets.
Labels: Politically Incorrect, 陶傑
posted by Gemini Saga at 12:00 AM
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