Those Were the Days
By Chip Tsao | published Sep 09, 2010
Eight Hong Kong hostages perished tragically in the fiasco on August 23, where Filipino armed police performed a blind-leading-the-blind rescue stunt that flabbergasted the seven million people in Hong Kong. After many days have passed, it’s still not cliché to talk about what should have been done during the wasted eleven hours of “negotiations,” and raise a few questions about why the gun-wielding armed policemen behaved like a vaudevillian troupe.
Money is the ultimate solution to all riddles, enigmas and mysteries in business, social life and politics in Asia, and any colonial British Hong Kong government of days long past would have had the best understanding of this core Asian value.
Ask perhaps Sir David Aker-Jones, a former acting governor of Hong Kong, how the Brits would have tackled the situation. It might go something like the following hypothetical thought experiment:
First the Governor, appalled by what he sees on the television, would have grabbed the phone on his desk to call the colonial secretary in London. He would then be told that a 23-year-old Oxford graduate cadet in charge of Far Eastern affairs had just called the Filipino foreign minister and reminded the FM that those held on the bus were Her Majesty the Queen’s subjects, and that it would be too regrettable a matter if they were harmed by the Rambo-like savage with the M-16.
Then the Governor would ask the Chief Secretary to summon his Executive Council for an emergency meeting. With the absence of Dame Lydia Dunn, who was reportedly on a Harrod’s shopping trip in London, someone like Allen Lee would have been given the job of calling the travel agency boss to convey an important message.
“Hey Chow,” Lee says with relaxed confidence, “Now listen. Get three million pesos out of your own pocket ready to be wired to a Chinaman called Mr. Wilfredo Antonio Lim, who is the leader of the Amoy Grocery Shop Owners Association of Manila. Here’s his account number. Mr. Lim will sort things out there. Do it now. The government will then foot the Cathay Pacific bill for shipping our people back home.”
Mr. Chow, a member of the Royal Jockey Club, hesitates because three million pesos is a huge sum of money, even though his horse had just won handsomely on the previous weekend.
“Come on, there’s no room for negotiation.”
Mr. Lee gets the message straight away: “Wire the fucking money now you stingy bastard! Delay no more. This is an order. Any delay, the big boss behind me will hold you solely responsible.” All 15 hostages would have landed at Kai Tak safely by midnight on the same day. Not a single life would have been lost. Those were the days when there was little “transparency.” After three years, Mr. Chow would have been awarded an OBE.
Eight Hong Kong hostages perished tragically in the fiasco on August 23, where Filipino armed police performed a blind-leading-the-blind rescue stunt that flabbergasted the seven million people in Hong Kong. After many days have passed, it’s still not cliché to talk about what should have been done during the wasted eleven hours of “negotiations,” and raise a few questions about why the gun-wielding armed policemen behaved like a vaudevillian troupe.
Money is the ultimate solution to all riddles, enigmas and mysteries in business, social life and politics in Asia, and any colonial British Hong Kong government of days long past would have had the best understanding of this core Asian value.
Ask perhaps Sir David Aker-Jones, a former acting governor of Hong Kong, how the Brits would have tackled the situation. It might go something like the following hypothetical thought experiment:
First the Governor, appalled by what he sees on the television, would have grabbed the phone on his desk to call the colonial secretary in London. He would then be told that a 23-year-old Oxford graduate cadet in charge of Far Eastern affairs had just called the Filipino foreign minister and reminded the FM that those held on the bus were Her Majesty the Queen’s subjects, and that it would be too regrettable a matter if they were harmed by the Rambo-like savage with the M-16.
Then the Governor would ask the Chief Secretary to summon his Executive Council for an emergency meeting. With the absence of Dame Lydia Dunn, who was reportedly on a Harrod’s shopping trip in London, someone like Allen Lee would have been given the job of calling the travel agency boss to convey an important message.
“Hey Chow,” Lee says with relaxed confidence, “Now listen. Get three million pesos out of your own pocket ready to be wired to a Chinaman called Mr. Wilfredo Antonio Lim, who is the leader of the Amoy Grocery Shop Owners Association of Manila. Here’s his account number. Mr. Lim will sort things out there. Do it now. The government will then foot the Cathay Pacific bill for shipping our people back home.”
Mr. Chow, a member of the Royal Jockey Club, hesitates because three million pesos is a huge sum of money, even though his horse had just won handsomely on the previous weekend.
“Come on, there’s no room for negotiation.”
Mr. Lee gets the message straight away: “Wire the fucking money now you stingy bastard! Delay no more. This is an order. Any delay, the big boss behind me will hold you solely responsible.” All 15 hostages would have landed at Kai Tak safely by midnight on the same day. Not a single life would have been lost. Those were the days when there was little “transparency.” After three years, Mr. Chow would have been awarded an OBE.
Labels: Politically Incorrect, 陶傑
posted by Gemini Saga at 12:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home