What Kills Us this Week!

Since I've been away I'm not up on what this week's HK-Panic is about. We did get the tail-end of the Fengshen Typhoon that killed 1,000 in the Philippines, but as the nice old lady in our building said to me yesterday in the lift "HK is happy for typhoons. Because our buildings are solid and well-built we have nothing to worry about, so we like typhoons because they mean we get a holiday."

So this week's panic was definitely not Fengshen. Although it was America's! We had the US Navy in town but the moment they heard of the Fengshen's approach, they took off at high speed leaving Wan Chai littered with their crew! Crew didn't mind, however. The US Navy guys spend so much time in Wan Chai they are used to suddenly being deserted, only this time a bunch of little Thai prossies didn't steal their wallets.

Me personally, my Panic is about this:

Winsiest rabbits I have ever seen!

I was in Shamian Dao, determined that this time I'd get to Peaceful Markets on the other side of the Pearl River and was crossing the skybridge when I saw the sight above. So cute, la? I never knew rabbits came that small and when I stopped to take a photograph, the very nice man took one out of the cage and gave it to me to hold.

Here! Have a rabbit!

It was so cute and I was fondling it when my eye itched so I rubbed it ... and that's when I remembered that Peaceful Markets is Ground Zero for all the species-jump illnesses on earth and, on the grounds that all the modern Chinese plagues always are the ultimate in Post-Modern Irony - cute and harmless that KILLS - and this rabbit was the cutest thing ever! - I just knew this rabbit was a carrier for some brand new killer disease that I'd just introduced into my body. Yeah, I know there's no such thing as a Rabbit Flu Epidemic ... but, since we've been in China we've seen viral species jumps from civet cats (SARS), birds and pigs so who's to say rabbits won't do it too and even if there isn't an epidemic YET ... you know, someone has to be first!

That's when I was overcome by an urge to bigtime wash my hands, and really regretted that I hadn't brought the antisceptic wipes Keith got me to take on this trip ... which I wouldn't bring on the grounds that "I'm not some big sissy-girly-fusspot!" ... so I instantly gave back the rabbit and raced back to Shamian Dao to scrub my hands with the anti-bacterial handwash at the White Swan Hotel.

So once again I didn't get to these 10,000 year old Peaceful Markets. AND I've just developed a nasty cold which is probably psychosomatic ... but which I'm convinced is the first case of a rampant epidemic of Rabbit Flu!

OK, that's my panic ... and I'll get a copy of HK Magazine to tell you what they think is this week's Threatdown ... which definitely won't be the same as mine.

THREATDOWN

Wrong again! They've picked that new Japanese robotic "girlfriend" and say that she's such a great kisser (How do they know that? Ooooh, that is just so creepy!) that no one will ever want a real life girlfriend ever again! Mmmm, plugging a Stepford Wife! As Jim Morrison would say "Journey we more into the nightmare!"