SAFE AND SUPERVISED ACTIVITIES FOR OLD PEOPLE

Closing down Portsmouth Square is probably one of the stupidest things this city has ever done. Well-meaning people probably gave bad advice to the powers, and with undoubtedly the best of intentions came up with plans for civic improvement. Let's give those old people a clubhouse! Wherein they will find fun activities suitable for the dessicated old relics far far better than them wasting their time playing gin-rummy for nickel stakes! Warm, sterile, with institutional seating, and clean water! Treadmills! Educational talks to improve their minds!

Y'all haven't actually dealt with many Cantonese seniors, have you? And no, your gonggong and porpor (grampa, granma) are NOT representative of the class in any way. They are on their best behaviour when you are around. But they need times and places to be on their worst behaviour. Cussing, playing cards, and snarfing down unhealthy snacks while gossiping. Okay?

You could have kept the old park, AND the trees. Just policed it a bit better to keep the kwailo bums from smoking pot and robbing people. And, if you really wanted to show concern and respect for your elders, made one corner of the park a smoking area. Grampa (gonggong) really wants to huff some of those cheap smuggled in illegal fags that keep his favourite bad habit affordable. Which he did surreptitiously anyhow.

Amateur social improvements that will take till 2028 will not help anybody. The public restrooms were fairly new and reasonably clean. You want grampa to piss in an alley?

Yehyeh, gunggung (爺爺、公公), maamaa, porpor (嫲嫲、婆婆) really want a comfy place to sit, near restrooms that are clean, safe, private, and can be locked. They might smoke and swear loudly while sitting. Or using the conveniences. If they do, that ain't your concern. They're off-duty, they're retired, and they're cognizant of limitations.

Dutch uncle (荷蘭叔叔) understands this better than you.
They're real around me because I'm invisible.
I am closer to them in age anyway.
And not a relative.

Meanwhile, because Portsmouth Square is fenced off, the old people are being a nuisance elsewhere. Getting in the way of mahjong players visiting the "social clubs" on some of the alleys, or quietly fainting somewhere because in addition to their doctor's prescribed pills they are also taking herbal remedies as well as various tonic supplements that do exactly the same thing for their ailments (double or triple treating whatever it is). If one medicine is good, two must be better. Neither their traditional doctor nor their western doctor know about the other, and could be either working at cross-purposes OR treating the same symptoms.
If you spoke better Cantonese or Toisanwaa, you would know this.

There are many ways you could improve Chinatown, especially for the elderly, but ripping out the biggest park there, their park, for two years or more, isn't one of them.

Dutch uncle will shut up now. Talk among yourselves.


The bookseller arrived about ten minutes after I finished my pipe. Aged red Virginia with a smidge of Perique in a fat Dunhill bruyere billiard. While smoking I had nodded and mumbled good evenings at a number of familiar faces that walked past. Including some of the unstable non-Chinese I've seen on pub-crawl evenings while waiting there. It was cold, but the wind had died down, and I was wearing a better coat than during the day. Someone had told me in the morning that it was likely going to get up to sixty nine or seventy degrees. It didn't.

At the burger place the Austria-Jordan match was on. As it was at the bail-out bar, which, remarkably, was still open. The karaoke place had been filled with blonde women attempting to Mongolian throat-sing and failing, so we gave it a miss.

The bookseller has no plans for his weekend. Which is splendid.
I've already done bucket loads during mine.
Lunch and shopping tomorrow.
Relax.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================