HKR at it again

Well HKR is at it again. They are closing another fine DB institution, the Beer Bay, despite its obvious popularity and patronage by so many DB residents.

The Beer Bay was popular with many residents, did not default on its lease, and, though it offered to pay more rent, it was denied a new lease by HKR.

So Why then? To any normal person it seems strange that HKR should close them down. Particularly since HKR is always trying to convince us residents that it cares about what we want and thus make DB better for us all.

Between the group of us here, we have over 50 years experience in HK and we have learnt that there are usually calculated and selfish reasons behind acts perpetrated here that seemingly make no sense. Acts and policies that would not be acceptable in mature, democratic and pluralistic societies, regularly get instituted in Hong Kong. HK is becoming more like China everyday, a place where individuals have no rights, and where there is no actual rule of law.

But the main reason behind the termination of the Beer Bay:

HKR wants (like the government of HK itself!) to get rid of the complaining Westerners here once and for all!! Ha Hah!!

I am probably joking (I hope at least) but am I.....?

Don't be fooled by obfuscation. Even though it was Westerners and their pursuit of a reasonably decent lifestyle that made DB what it is, HKR figures that there are now enough middle-class local Chinese in HK to market to, and as such HKR figures they can now accelerate their efforts to make this switch and begin filling new developments, and the secondary re-sale market, with local Chinese buyers and tenants.

But why, you ask, do they want to remove foreigners? For the same reason as the Mainland and HK governments: the foreigners tend to stand up for their human and civil rights too actively, and thus they "upset the harmony" of a society that is basically geared to making a small elite even richer.

We have been told that the reason for HKR's strategy is that there was a marked increase in the activism of DB residents in the past few years, and that HKR believes this is being lead by Westerners. Apparently this reached a peak over the various renovations issues.

It seems that the furore and protests, primarily from Western residents, over the ridiculous Beach Village renovations and the 1.5 year plaza destruction really angered HKR. We have heard that not only were they angry that their management and dominance over DB was challenged, but that they also lost a lot of face in HK, and subsequently also resented the steps that had to be taken in order to both understand and appease the deeply-angered residents effected.

At the time of the Beach Village renovations there were several blogs initiated; with residents holding meetings, complaining, petitions etc. and local media picked up on the story with several articles being written about the myriad problems of life in DB. The basic gist of these articles was that these problems were caused by the avariciousness of the developer, HKR, who insists on owning everything here, including the companies that do the renovations and provide the basic services.

The uproar and subsequent bad publicity, city-wide, apparently made a certain Mr. C turn red, and since the most vociferous complainers seemed to be the Gwielos (the Cantonese word for Westerners which means Evil White Person) it was reasoned that the quickest way to get back to "business as usual" was to get rid of them once and for all. (Little do they realise that they really don't have to actually "do" anything; they just simply need to continue with the same me-first, profit-before-people attitude and all the foreigners would eventually leave anyway:)

So, though they did gain insight into their residents needs and desires, they never-the-less decided that treating people fairly was not worth the trouble. Instead of having to adopt best-practices and governing DB for the sake of its stakeholders, customers and residents, they calculated that local people are more "complacent" and "docile" and would not stand in the way of their corporate profits as much as Westerners. And so it became the right time to "move the Gweilos (Evil White People) out of DB."

We have not heard many details of the plan, other than the strategy of "marketing more towards local people" and "providing services as the Chinese people want" (as it is referred to apparently in the HKR boardroom) but from our long experience of life in DB under HKR, here are our predictions for the future:

1) Watch for a subtle but consistent shift to occur in the make-up and composition of the facilities, services and events offered in DB toward things local and away from those pursued by Westerners. For instance, look for less English services being offered, retailers and restaurants popular with Western people to be slowly phased out by non-renewal of leases (or by ridiculous asking prices,) as well as a renewed effort by HKR to turn the area behind DB, the hills, rock-pools and hiking areas, into a second golf course (this was floated in the 90's and we predict it'll be back on the table very soon.)

2) We also predict a sudden and mysterious change in both access and density within DB: watch for more taxis and other cars to be allowed on roads here, as well as an increase in the number of golf-carts licensed, and most significantly, watch for HKR to start increasing the density of their new developments, mostly by building larger buildings with more small flats, and by lowering the actual, useable square footage of new flats with things like protruding window-boxes etc.

3) HKR will get approval for all this from the HK government because the HK Government is in the pocket of the big developers that run this economy, and because the Cha family is perceived as being connected on the mainland and thus individuals within the HK government are afraid of them.

Let's hope that in 20 years DB will not be just another crap suburb/housing development in HK, with ridiculous density, cheap and dirty restaurants and stores, and lousy but expensive services.