BUSINESS NEWS

China has depegged its currency from the dollar. TUPNews has no idea what this means, but I can tell you a few things about elevators in Hong Kong banks.

The first thing to bear in mind is that Hong Kong is entirely made up of skyscrapers and high rises, because you’re cramming 6.9 million people onto 1042 square kilometres of land. Less than that, in fact, because a great chunk of Hong Kong’s land mass is taken up by the mountains and nature reserves in the middle of the island. So the visitor to Hong Kong – and in particular the business traveller - is immediately struck by the sheer amount of time spent in elevators.

(This is also one of the reasons Hong Kong has a poor-to-non-existent indie scene – there’s nowhere to practise without making too much noise.)

But as a consequence of spending so much time in elevators, the people who design the elevators put a little more effort into making them inhabitable than their European or American counterparts. Every elevator TUPNews used in Hong Kong was spotlessly clean and elegantly modern. Several banks, including HSBC Asset Management, even had TV screens tuned to Bloomberg inside their elevators. One even had an old-fashioned lift attendant. Riding elevators is fun in Hong Kong.

The second thing to bear in mind is the Chinese obsession with public hygiene. SARS understandably shat them up a treat, and as a result you now can’t walk fifty yards in Hong Kong without having to dodge public works employees hosing down the street. There are posters everywhere warning people about various epidemics and fevers. Not just SARS and avian flu either – those are just the epidemics that developed enough of a reputation to gain an international following. Rat fever, dengue fever and yellow fever are all constant threats as well. In fact I understand there is a massive rat infestation currently affecting central Hong Kong.

(At the time of my visit last year, a Hong Kong-based colleague reported that the latest avian flu warning had advised the public not to blow into a chicken’s ass. We assumed this was a comedy mistranslation. But later that night, I caught a TV advert that showed an old woman blowing into a chicken’s ass, only for a younger, suited woman, perhaps her daughter, to grab the chicken and shake her finger disapprovingly. I don’t speak Cantonese, but the old woman’s expression seemed to say, “What the fuck is your problem? I’ve blown more chicken ass than you’ve had dim sum, you jumped-up little bitch.”)

As a result, all elevators are sprayed down with disinfectant every ten minutes, and a soothing automated woman’s voice informs you that the elevators are sprayed down with disinfectant every ten minutes. It doesn’t smell too bad, though. So there you have it: Hong Kong elevators are both fun and hygienic.