Margaret Ng

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Food Shortage in the US

美爆搶米潮 超市喊限售 (星島) 04月 25日 星期五 05:30AM

(綜合報道)

(星島日報 報道)泰國 米價周四跳升逾百分之五，首次升穿每噸一千美元 。糧食短缺危機直捲全球，連英美等發達國家也不能倖免，兩國皆有零售店開始限制顧客購買大米。在美國 ，兩大零售集團包括沃爾瑪（Wal-Mart）旗下的山姆會員商店（Sam's Club），以及全美最大貨倉式零售店Costco Wholesale Corp，突然宣布採取特別措施，限制顧客購買數種白米的數量，為美國史上前所未見。

　　綜合報道

　　糧食短缺和限量購買一向是發展中國家的現象，但如今竟連美國也出現這項情況，情況令人憂慮。現時美國東岸和西岸多家大型零售商的分店對麵粉、米和食用油開始限購，部分消費者也開始囤積糧食。

　　沃爾瑪山姆：每人最多四包

　　最新宣布限制購買白米的山姆會員商店，是全美第二大以貨倉形式經營的商店。該公司宣布，顧客若要在旗下商店購買泰國Jasmine香米、印度 Basmati香米、美國長米，每人每次最多只可購買四包九公斤（二十磅）裝的米。該公司保證，會繼續與供應商保持密切聯繫，確保白米貨源充足。

　　山姆會員商店在全美各地共有五百九十三間分店。相比之下，沃爾瑪集團分布在全國的大型零售店，多達二千五百二十三間。沃爾瑪現階段無意限制顧客購買白米和其他貨品的數量。

　　Costco分店限購食油麵粉

　　Costco也表示，察覺到一些基本的食品例如白米和麵粉的需求量，近期有上升的趨勢。它證實旗下一部分商店，已開始限制顧客購買白米和麵粉的數量。此類貨倉式商店除了為一般的「散客」提供服務外，主要顧客是那些靠大量入貨享受廉價優惠的小型商店和食肆。隨覑糧食價格持續上漲，很多顧客都轉向光顧這些貨倉式店鋪。

　　限制購買糧食的情況對美國人來說，可謂天方夜譚，聞所未聞。第二次世界大戰期間，美國人都只是被限制購買石油、燈泡及長罴。

　　有店鋪說，有居於美國的菲律賓 人大量購入白米，以便送回家鄉給親友。有零售專家說，美國的餐廳及小型零售商因應米價將進一步上漲，已開始囤積大米。

　　在紐約 唐人街，一家專賣泰國食品的店鋪經理說，由於需求大增，一袋廿五公斤裝的泰國Jasmine香米，售價在短短數月內由十五美元漲至廿美元。在皇后區，Costco的職員表示，他們店裏沒有限制顧客買米，但食用油和麵粉卻限量購買。

　　限量發售 擴至英泰多國

　　在英國 ，也出現限購糧食的情況。亞裔社區的店鋪已開始限制顧客購買白米，當地最大的Basmati米入口商Tilda說，他們的批發商已限制每名顧客只可購買兩袋米。Basmati米的顧客除了一般家庭外，還包括咖喱屋和中餐館。而在泰國，大型超市也已開始限每位顧客只購三袋五公斤裝的米，防止恐慌性搶購。

　　部分市場交易員稱，由於最大進口國菲律賓需求巨大，米價未來可達每噸一千三百美元。

　　(全球糧荒)

HONG KONG J U N E 1 9 5 7

J U N E 1 9 5 7
today picture
The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong is something of an Asian miracle. Tiny in area (391 square miles), with a population that is overwhelmingly Chinese, this free world outpost throbs with life, builds incessantly, and is undaunted though it borders Red China's Kwantung Province.

No one doubts that the massive military power of China could seize it almost at will. But for all that, Hong Kong is in the midst of a public housing program whose dimensions might dismay New York. Everywhere, houses, hotels, and factories are going up, while amid the tall structures of Hong Kong's central district there are rising three sixteen-story buildings and one of nineteen stories: skyscrapers by Far Eastern standards.

Since the Colony seems to exist within the lion's mouth, its position appears extremely precarious to the foreign observer. Yet there is no panic and very little fear among either its Chinese or European citizens.

The island of Hong Kong, a rock in the ocean, has no more natural resources than Rockefeller Center. Its adjacent so-called New Territories -- leased in 1898 from China for 99 years -- are physically part of the Chinese mainland. The Colony's water supply is dependent upon the summer rains, collected and stored in expensive reservoirs. Even in the luxury hotels -- although new reservoirs will soon relieve the shortages -- water flows only from 4:30 to 8:30 P.M.
Discuss this article in the Global Views forum of Post & Riposte.

Return to Flashback: Hong Kong's Future, Then and Now

Possessing less than 62 square miles of usable land, Hong Kong must wrest "new land" either by sea or by leveling stony hills in order to accommodate its population of 2.5 million and to absorb a natural annual increase of 75,000 persons. (By contrast, in the Pacific, New Zealand with its 104,000 square miles has a population of approximately 2 million.)

The colony seems to draw its very life from Red China -- the source of more than half of its coal and of huge quantities of food. A constant supply of eggs, poultry, oil seeds, beans, garlics, fruits, fresh vegetables, live pigs, and canned edibles flows into Hong Kong from such Chinese centers as Tientsin, Tsingtao, Canton. Peiping permits substantial shipments of food to go to this market in order to accumulate foreign exchange, but it is careful to manipulate the supply in order to keep prices at high levels. And along with the food, to satisfy strong local demand, come Chinese window glass, silk yard goods, sawn timber, camphorwood chests, cotton textiles, drawn lacework, paper, and cement.

A Chinese city

Hong Kong, with its more than 2 million Chinese, is one of the world's great Chinese cities, and as you walk its streets, especially at night, you are strongly aware that this is how it was in the cities of China before the Reds stifled their brightness and liveliness and muted their voices. Long after the European shops have closed for the day, the indomitably industrious Chinese are at work, while others who are not working are affirming their joy in living.

The narrow, crowded streets swarm with people buying, selling, or making things in the open. Overhead lines of washing flap in the breeze; the fishy smell of Chinese cooking arises from the stalls; the sound of clattering mah-jongg counters comes from inside the houses; rickshaw boys doze beside their vehicles; children sleep soundly in slings on their mothers' backs while their mothers cook, shop, gossip, squat over rice bowls, or work.

During the last world war, when the Japanese captured Hong Kong, it even then appeared to be hopelessly overcrowded. Japan expelled a million Chinese to live as they could in the villages and fields of South China. But since British rule was re-established only ten years ago, Hong Kong has taken in 700,000 refugees from Red China and has had to find jobs and housing for perhaps a million new people.

Hong Kong was faced with the question of caring for an enormously swollen population just when its once great trade with its giant neighbor shriveled, first under the American and later under the United Nations embargo on the export of strategic goods to China. Meanwhile, China's new trading methods were designed to bypass Hong Kong as much as possible.

The Colony's future then looked black. Foreign visitors called it a "dying city" and wondered how it could ever survive with a great part of its normal trade being sacrificed for the common good. But the political refugees, who constituted so large a part of Hong Kong's problem, made their own contribution to its solution.

On their own

Tens of thousands of them were an abundant source of labor. The businessmen, bankers, and industrialists among them had brought from northern China new techniques and business and organizational abilities and stubbornness of will which exceeded even those of the native southerners -- Cantonese. They asked aid of no one, for they had their own capital.

Confident, vigorous, aggressive, they built factories that produce a wide variety of goods for local consumption and for export to Southeast Asia and the Western countries. (Complaints are now rising in the United States -- on the part of manufacturers, not consumers -- about the import of Hong Kong dress shirts.)

Today at least 50 per cent of the population is directly or indirectly dependent upon local industry. But here again the Western observer is likely to shake his head incredulously. For he sees that hardheaded businessmen who had lately fled from Red China to save their fortunes and their lives have chosen to resettle and invest their money in a tiny outpost of capitalism that is, at some points, within sight of Red China.

The Western observers, moreover, who are inclined to see political struggle in terms of black or white, are the more bewildered when they note the constant crossing of the frontier by Hong Kong Chinese who go to visit friends in Canton and other cities, or when they read in the local press such an item as this: "The motorship Tjiwangi arrived today from Singapore with 1400 Chinese en route to China."

This year the crossing at the great holiday of the Chinese New Year was especially heavy -- approximating a Klondike gold rush. The returning visitors reported that the Chinese customs at the border station of Shum Chun had been lenient with them and numerous persons had profited by selling watches, nylon stockings, and other luxuries they had smuggled into Canton.

The news set off a stampede towards China. Many cooks and other domestics quit their jobs, invested their savings in luxury goods, and took the first train to China. But the gold rush was short-lived and the amateur smugglers returned to their jobs, as the Communists at Shum Chun tightened their controls.

Orderly calm

Hong Kong is one of the world's great Chinese cities. But among both its Chinese businessmen who wear conservative British dress and its coolies in black blouse and trousers, there is at least one common attitude. In the words once applied to it by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Chinese Republic, Hong Kong maintains an "orderly calm." No nationalist fervors burn among its citizens. They are torn by no political ructions. The huge Chinese majority of the Colony remain there law-abiding and industrious for the compelling reason that they want to be there.

The Colony's government is autocratic. But it permits complete freedom of opinion, and Communist newspapers are freely published. The publisher of a local Chinese language Communist newspaper recently gave a large cocktail party with much fanfare at one of the city's leading hotels -- the Gloucester. It was attended by the local brethren, Communists from Southeast Asian countries, consular representatives, Western newspapermen, and many Westerners who detest Communism. One of them told his host that he had come only to drink Mao Tse-tung's wine to Chiang Kai-shek's health. "To Chiang Kai-shek's health," he said, and his friends around him joined him in the toast.

But the Communists perhaps had the last word, for they incessantly photographed the Communist-hating Westerners, and their photographs appear in the Red China press as "proof" that Westerners delight in fraternizing with Hong Kong Communists.

A great port and one of the world's few free ports, Hong Kong is a so-called "tourist's paradise." Here one of some 6,000 tailors will make you a dress or suit of clothes within twenty-four hours for a fraction of the price you would pay at home. Here French perfumes, Swiss watches, American typewriters sell for less than they do in their country of origin.

While many currencies are shaky, Hong Kong's currency is freely convertible into any currency of the world. The street money-changers, as though by way of commentary upon our sometimes massive mismanagement of "aid," will give you 100 to 120 Laotian, Cambodian, or Vietnamese piastres for an American dollar, while the United States, to the enrichment of local speculators in these countries, is wasting $240 million a year supporting their musical comedy currencies at the arbitrary rate of 35 to the dollar.

Foreign investors

Although Hong Kong is next door to Communist China, substantial quantities of capital are sent to this island Colony for investment from Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaya, and Indonesia. This inflow of capital reflects the stability of Hong Kong and the confidence that foreigners place in it. It also reflects the less stable conditions prevailing in some of the other Southeast Asian communities.

Overseas Chinese have invested heavily in Hong Kong. One Chinese businessman in Manila is reliably reported to have invested the large sum of H.K. $10 million in Hong Kong real estate, and it is estimated that in 1956, no less than H.K. $200 million (approximately U.S. $33 million) was transferred to Hong Kong from Southeast Asian countries.

The Colony's taxes are incomparably low. Its police force of about 6000 men is courteous, efficient, and honest. Its law courts, where the practice of the English courts is followed except as it has been modified by legal legislation, administer the law swiftly and justly. Its public health, despite appalling overcrowding, is, by virtue of superb management, excellent. Its water is drinkable from the tap -- a rarity in Asia. The island is free from epidemics of diseases that often plague much of Asia: cholera, typhus, smallpox. No other Asian city is as clean as Hong Kong.

Nowhere else in this part of the world are men so free to criticize their government without fear. The majority of them work overlong hours for small pay, and neither the Chinese nor the Europeans of the Colony have pretensions toward anything except a fierce, nineteenth-century kind of mercantilism.

One finds that men are free here, and none of the people of Hong Kong, with the exception of the Communists, are hankering to rid themselves of British rule. On the contrary, they are addressing constant petitions to Sir Alexander Grantham, the able, well-liked governor of the Colony, to continue in office, although he has served for an unprecedented period of ten years and would like to retire to Britain with his American-born wife.

Housing the refugees

Asia is now the principal field for American aid. Last year 70 per cent of our economic and technical aid went to Asia. Hong Kong was not among the beneficiaries. It has survived through its own efforts; it managed to accommodate 700,000 Chinese political refugees, and it has achieved the extraordinary feat of housing them. The tiny colony not only gave immediate sanctuary to the refugees but then undertook on its own a herculean task of rehabilitation.

The problem became acute in 1953 when 300,000 squatters colonized slopes and ravines too steep for normal development, where they built huts of boards, pieces of tin, sacking flung on frames. Density was at the rate of 2000 persons per acre, accompanied by a large number of pigs, chickens, and ducks that shared the huts. Drugs were made and sold; brothels and gambling houses flourished; and every form of crime was bred amid the filth, the disease, and the darkness.

The Colony was required to provide decent, permanent, fireproof housing for several hundred thousand people. (On a comparable scale of population, New York would suddenly have to receive, house, and find jobs for more than 2 million people.) Hong Kong also had to find land for the housing -- a problem that was partially and terribly solved by fires that swept the squatter settlements and made 70,000 people homeless. The Colony did not wait for outside aid, although, as some of its residents say, the problem of 700,000 Chinese refugees was certainly as much a world problem as that of 700,000 Arab refugees who have lived miserably in the desert for years with most of their support coming from the United States and little of it from the Arab states. In any event, the Hong Kong government became financier, contractor, and landlord, and it has housed over 300,000 persons. But there still remain more than 300,000 squatters who are anxiously awaiting resettlement.

No place to hide

However difficult living may be for huge numbers of Hong Kong's Chinese, they do not want to become citizens of Red China. When you ask them whether China will one day reclaim Hong Kong for its own, they say yes. But they believe that the day lies in the vague future. Chinese and European businessmen, in reply to the same question, say that Hong Kong's fate will be decided by the play of international forces beyond their control, and since they cannot do anything about it there is no point in becoming upset by it.

It is true, they say, that they live next door to 600 million Red Chinese and that the Colony is indefensible. But how much safer, they ask, are London, Paris, Rome, Bonn, all of them only minutes removed from Russian air bases in the satellite states? They suggest that the world has been made one by the monstrous weapons of our nuclear age, and in such a world they see no greater safety in New York than in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong therefore goes about its daily business of making money and enjoying its blessings with a kind of purposeful fatalism, convinced that it is no nearer the possibility of holocaust than any of the great world capitals. It is not corroded by despair. It does not use tranquilizing pills. It does not read how-to-get-peace-of-mind books. It merely goes calmly about its workaday tasks, an orderly community in a region torn by conflict and a center of stability whatever the earthquakes that occur near it.

Copyright © 1957 by The Atlantic Monthly. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; June, 1957; Hong Kong; Volume 199, No. 6; pages 16-22

Ma, pirate radio not on same wavelength

Ma, pirate radio not on same wavelength

Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Frederick Ma Si-hang warned yesterday that the government has zero tolerance for unlawful acts.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Frederick Ma Si-hang warned yesterday that the government has zero tolerance for unlawful acts.

Ma said that those who took part in Sunday's broadcast on Citizens' Radio will be prosecuted once sufficient evidence has been gathered. He said the government has issued a number of summonses to Citizens' Radio in the past.

Office of the Telecommunications Authority officials were present at the Mong Kok pedestrian zone on Sunday when five pan-democrat lawmakers took part in the broadcast.

It was the first time in three months the unlicensed station went on air on the FM 102.8 MHz frequency. The three-month, off-air truce was declared by the station for the government to review the Telecommunications Ordinance.

Non-action from the government, however, forced Citizens' Radio to go on air on Sunday, the station said.

Citizens' Radio founder and head Tsang Kin-shing said they will not resist if they are arrested, adding that Ma's words will not stop them from planning another live broadcast at Times Square in Causeway Bay.

hate it when passages in the document go all misaligned with the fonts going crazy when i compile it up in the final step before printing it out...it's like such a let down... and every time i correct something, something else would change and go wrong... it's like running a race and you are only like 3 meters from the finish line and then your shoe laces came undone and you trip over again and again...

my boss is looking at me from afar, i wonder if i m in trouble or something...i hope that i m just too good-looking

Inmates get pay rise as prison bars fail to keep inflation out (SCMP) 04月 18日 星期五 00:03AM

Prisoners have been hit by rising inflation, with some popular items doubling in price in a month.

The Correctional Services Department has raised inmates' salaries by more than 10 per cent in an effort to keep pace.

Ng Wai-tung, of the Society for Community Organisation, said more than 90 per cent of the products sold to prisoners had become more expensive since March 1, when a new contract with suppliers took effect.

"We, as well as those who are imprisoned, are affected by inflation," Mr Ng said.

Data provided by the organisation showed that many snacks were at least a third pricier. Digestive biscuits rose 57 per cent to HK$10.90 a pack, while wafer biscuits climbed 52 per cent to HK$5.50. Prices of cornflakes and nuts jumped 40 and 37 per cent respectively.

Health-care products cost more as well. A bar of soap costs HK$3.10, more than 40 per cent higher than in February, and the price of shampoo increased 14 per cent to HK$18.50.

But the price of a photo album has increased the most, surging from HK$2.90 each to HK$9.

"Photo albums are a popular item among prisoners because their family and friends can only visit them twice a month. Some prisoners keep photos sent by their family and look at them when they miss home," Mr Ng said. "They need some emotional support."

He said only two items remained at the same prices - cigarettes and stamps.

A spokeswoman for the Correctional Services Department said the prices of popular items - apart from cigarettes - had increased by 10.3 to 210 per cent since last month.

In view of the inflation, she said the salaries of prisoners had increased accordingly on Saturday by 12.14 per cent - which equalled the average inflation rate of the popular items among prisoners.

About 6,000 prisoners and inmates are engaged in various types of industrial work - which includes ironing uniforms for some disciplined services units and laundry work for public hospitals. Their salaries range from HK$200 to more than HK$400 per month.

Those who are unfit for work receive about HK$50 a month.

The spokeswoman said prisoners were given four meals a day and were provided with necessities such as toothpaste, toilet paper and clothes. But they were allowed to order extra items every month.


Watchdog checks prices more often (SCMP) 04月 18日 星期五 00:03AM

The Consumer Council is planning to conduct price checks every two weeks to increase transparency of information on consumer products.

The watchdog's chief executive, Connie Lau Yin-hing, said it wanted to compare prices regularly of essential items, such as food and household goods, in different districts and shops.

"We are conducting an internal investigation on the criteria. One of the considerations is that the goods should be related to people's livelihoods - as well as their [the goods'] popularity."

She added that planning was still at an initial stage. The city was facing inflation this year and the council hoped to play an active role in letting consumers make an informed choice.

Ms Lau said the council hoped not to focus solely on oil and rice every time. "For instance, during Christmas and the Lunar New Year, consumers purchase more gifts ... and perhaps we can do more in this area as well."

She said the programme would start later this year.

The council conducts an annual price survey, which mainly looks at inflation or changes in the consumer price index. Ms Lau said the latest one, which showed supermarkets charging more than local shops - had received wide attention.

Meanwhile, Federation of Restaurants president Wong Ka-wo, expects that 200 to 300 restaurants will be forced to shut down in the next three months because of soaring food prices.

On a radio programme yesterday, he said restaurants' operating costs had risen 10 per cent this year, but restaurants had raised food prices by only 5 to 8 per cent.

Inmates get pay rise as prison bars fail to keep inflation out Prisoners have been hit by rising inflation, with some popular items doubling in price in a month. ...

Watchdog checks prices more often The Consumer Council is planning to conduct price checks every two weeks to increase transparency of information on consumer products. ...

OFFEE 

The alternative to plain old regular coffee.

OFFEE

The alternate coffee.

OFFEE

Let’s begin the next journey.

OFFEE

The next alternative journey awaits. 

OFFEE

Turn off the coffee. 

OFFEE

Believe in the human body.

Sometimes, I wonder what we are working for…why we are serving in church. Is it out of selfish ambition or for God, and if for God, what’s does it mean by “doing it for God”? For me, I think there is a vision to somehow be a part of “making this world a better place” by serving in church. It’s very selfless, at least that’s how I want to see it. Is church building “making this place a better place”? A lot of fellow brothers and sisters serve hard in church, spending up to three days at church per week. Of course, we believe that we are doing it for God, for the betterment of people. Almost all of us believe in that, and most of us are doing it for the right intention, mind and heart.

What do humans do?

I remember some of the older generation of clergyman like Pastor Thun and Pastor Bao. They are the authority of the Chinese church, head pastor of large churches and congregations yet they are so humble, so gentle. They are not boastful. They are like gentle giants.

l Read Bible everyday

l Devotion every week

Type Chinese journal entries at least twice a week

vomiting electricity

由於中央內部的評比以第二本帳為標準，故此第二本帳到了地方便變為必成的第一本帳；為了有更好的表現，地方在這一本帳之外，又提出一本指標更高的期成計劃。這就是地方的第二本帳，交由下級執行。

As the Central People’s Government took the second account as the basis of internal assessment, it became the first account which must be completed at the local level. To strive for better results, another expected programme with even higher target was introduced. It was the second account at the local level for implementation by the inferior levels.