Hating Grace, Loving Hong Kong!

I'm beginning to suspect that Hong Kong needs a drama every February. After the excitement of Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year, and Spring Festival, we need a big absorbing story to keep the party going as we wind down from our long festive season. Last year, it was the so-funny Edison Chan saga, and the year before it was that Nancy Kissell poisoning-her-husband-with-a-milkshake business, and the year before ... oh, I'd have to think back and I'd much rather be thinking about this year's big, big drama!

Grace Mugabe! Whoever would have imagined she'd be so entertaining. No one talks about anything else.

The big stories?

* The arrest of the protesters who want Bona gone!

* Universities playing silly buggers. Most of them - I think we have seven - are saying she's enrolled in theirs. Oh, except for HKU who says she isn't studying there! Sus, huh! Know where my vote goes!

* Students on all the campuses playing "Spot the Bona!", keeping a weather-eye out for "Bitchy spoiled-brat African girls!", and that's a direct quote! As you know, Bona is here under a fake identity and everyone now wants to be the first to Name-and-Shame!

* The realisation that Bona is 20 and that Grace didn't officially come onto the scene until 15 years ago. That means Sally was still alive and married to Robert when Bona was born! (I KNEW IT!!!)

* Attributing all the ills of Zimbabwe to Grace! No, wait! That's me doing that one! And I don't think I'm wrong! You'll recall that "Operation Throw Out the Trash" - the start of all Zimbabwe's ills - began in 1996, just after Grace married Robert. I really do believe, since that one was all about shutting down the small-shareholders - Sally's baby - this stupid destructive act was really all about a spoiled-brat, overly self-assured, downright stupid woman undoing her predecessor's legacy. Just like Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca", only evil!

* Beijing announcing that if Grace and Robert want to buy houses and land here we should just let them! If they want to move here, hey, throw open our arms!

The Beijing pronouncement is a real worry, isn't it!

Beijing has recently told HK we have to start toeing their line, yet this is their first direct order? Oh, PUL-EASE!!! Who are we? Saudi Arabia!!! Aren't those guys meant to be the ones forever giving refuge and protection to Monsters! I mean, Idi Amin! Michael Jackson! And this is who Beijing orders us to be!

And don't forget Hong Kong got the #27 fortune stick for this year: meaning, "the people clash with the government!" and Beijing ordering this outrage is soooo setting themselves up for a mighty CLASH!!! I think we simply won't do it! If Beijing wants us to follow orders they MUST be on the side of righteousness! Sorry, but that's the simple truth! Hong Kong has enjoyed over a century of free-thought so we can all see that this edict to welcome Evil-Personified is atrocious and wrong and that the only true reply is to go all "Mahatma Gandhi" on them and just say NO!!!

Mmmm! It all smacks of money, doesn't it! Like, someone, somewhere up North, has accepted ... ooohhh, forgotten the delicious Cantonese word for "a sweetener!"

Or could it be something even more sinister! Did you know that Grace Mugabe, before her marriage, lived in China? Returned home and started bonking the President! Very "mmmmmmmm", huh! And remember this guy?

Son of the President of the Congo.

Lived in China for a while, and the minute he returned home his dad was assassinated and he stepped in and made himself President for Life.

OK, it's all very mysterious, but I think it is a mystery that even I should leave well enough alone!

Or maybe I'm making too much of this, and it's really just China being helpful. They say they want to get more involved in world affairs by doing good in Africa, and maybe they realise that the major issue at the moment, apart from Somalian pirates, is this one and that the Mugabes must be got out of Zimbabwe for that country's sake and so are offering them an enticement.

But please notice that they don't actually want him in their own country!!! It looks like it's going to be Our Beloved SAR that gets dumped on!

And if that's the case, what's wrong with Macau!! That's the funky, groovy SAR that encourages the residency of vice-filled foreign folk ... provided they gamble, naturally, and I'm sure Grace is someone who'd take to gambling with a vengeance! Yup, Stanley Ho would like that very much; the former wealth of a once great nation ending up in Macau! It wouldn't be the first time, as we all know from Kim Jong Il's prodigal son, now a resident of our happy-go-lucky Sister-SAR across the water!

And maybe the Macanese could then start paying locals a decent wage! Oops! Where did that come from!

And here's another stray thought! Has anyone actually seen Robert Mugabe lately? In Zimbabwe, I mean! As far as I know, his last public appearance was his so-sad, poignant and, I admit it, hilarious speech: "Britain says it will invade our country to stop this cholera epidemic, but the epidemic is now over so there is no longer a need to invade!" ... and meanwhile tens of thousands are still dying in the worst-imaginable way!

But has he been seen since? What with a raging cholera epidemic sweeping the land, isn't Zimbabwe exactly the place this Monster wouldn't want to be?

And over there on sweet little Tai Po Island, 'Gabe Goons shriek "He's got a camera! He's got a camera!" before they hoe into their latest mega-rage beatings! Is that kinda sus to you too? What are they hiding? Why are they so reluctant for people with cameras to appear on the scene? What are they afraid folks will get image of?

Things that make you go "Mmmmmm"? Strange days indeed.

Fun but!

Oh yeah, one more thing: "Bona" is Fijian for "stink"! Do you love it? Feel free to use it at every possible occasion!

What Kills Us this Week!

No panic in Hong Kong over this latest drama, but everyone is certainly expressing loud opinions, both for and against, and there is a lot of anger; strange considering Hong Kong is usually so disinterested in international events that o/s names aren't normally even recognised!

Not so this time!

What happened is that, last week, an African lady in Tsim Sha Tsui, over in Kowloon, burst into a sudden mega-rage temper-tantrum and began beating up people around her. She also got her goons to beat up a few more. Naturally, these Africans were all arrested and hauled off to the police station where it turns out that the lady - or is lady the wrong term here? - was none other than Grace Mugabe, wife of hideous Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.

She is here, she says, to visit her daughter Bona Mugabe who, it now turns out, has been a student at Hong Kong University for a couple of years, under a false name naturally.

OK, for everyone else the big question, now that she's been exposed, is whether Bona Mugabe should be allowed to stay. Some people are saying "Hey, she's just a kid. Leave her alone." while others say "This is injustice. Her father destroyed all education in Zimbabwe. No one else can afford to sent their children abroad, so why should he be allowed to." Me? Without proof she's the full measure of her father, as culpable and horrible, I think she should be left alone.

But, you know, coming from that gene pool, she's undoubtedly as awful as the pair of them, so I'm probably being naive here.

However, for me, the real worry is what Grace Mugabe is really up to. Seems she has started a company in Hong Kong that is spending zillions - undoubtedly Zimbabwe's money - to buy up land here. Why? It seems really odd ... unless ... well, unless the Mugabes are planning to do a runner. Do you think so too?

Which means the real question now is "Do we really want That Hideous Man living among us?"

Or maybe that isn't an issue. We didn't let Thaksin Singawat move here after the Thai coup, and we turned Garry Glitter away at the airport, so I think HK will see that it doesn't happen!

Although ...

... Africans, specifically Zimbabwean Africans, are beating up people over on Tai Po Island.

Us on Tai Po
several years ago.
Not an African in sight.

This blog has already talked about Tai Po, a little island out there in the South China Sea, and you'll recall how I promised to drop by again to photograph several very odd rock formations and other "nerd-heaven" features, to share the strangeness of it all with you, which I still haven't done. And maybe I now can't! Zimbabweans maybe won't let me.

So what are Zimbabweans doing on Tai Po? British tabloids are already taking an interest in all this and journalists are turning up in numbers to follow this story, so I should stop being coy. Yes, Grace Mugabe has brought up a significant chunk of Tai Po Island and has already begun to dominate the place.

Grace Mugabe? As culpable and hideous as her husband? Should we be stopping her from living here as well?

I first took an interest in Grace Mugabe back in the 90s when she was still a teenager; when she very assuredly and with great aplomb married the President.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that, back then, Robert Mugabe was a good man and a great leader. Fiji has always taken a great interest in Great Black Leaders, so there were always lots of stories about Mugabe in the Fiji Times and other newspapers and, collectively, we all liked what was happening, first over gaining their independence in 1980 and then in post-Independence Zimbabwe.

We weren't wrong either. Remember how the country post-Independence immediately went from strength to strength? How they set up that so-impressive education system? How their new health system was so exactly right? And how, after 10 years of Independence, in 1990, the World Bank gave them full marks for everything they'd done in turning the place from a sleepy backwater into a strong and healthy country with a thriving agricultural system and booming economy.

Me? Mmmm! Although I thought it was all great, Mugabe always worried me. I used to look at his photo and think "He looks weak. He looks like he's someone's puppet." So, being me, and even then unable to resist a mystery, I went all out to find out who it was behind the scenes pulling this puppet's strings?

I eventually decided it was his wife Sally who was puppet-master. She was a political activist with a strong interest in small-holder agriculture and seemed so strong and good; so clever and well-educated and with such a strong moral compass. I used to look at her photograph and think "You're the real leader of Zimbabwe and the country couldn't be in better hands."

But then she died suddenly in 1992 and no body seemed to care very much. There was no real mourning for her and it seemed so wrong.

Too quickly afterwards I thought, Robert married Grace and I must confess I found the whole situation very odd. I started to wonder how long she'd actually been on the scene, this jumped-up teenage girl with too much aplomb and a self-assurance that didn't seem warranted. She wasn't clever. She had no education. There was no visible signs of why she thought so highly of herself. But no one could doubt she was strong!

I thought at the time of the marriage "We will now find out the true measure of Robert Mugabe!" but I was surprised that it all happened so quickly. It was less than two weeks, from memory!

You'll recall that Grace, during her honeymoon, jaunted off to Italy at public expense to buy shoes. I recall Fiji was vaguely amused and decided that Grace Mugabe was "an Imelda Marcos-type" who was very interested in luxury. Didn't augur well, did it! But no one seemed to pick up on it. For a country ruled by a weak man, used to being a puppet for a strong woman, it wasn't something to be laughed off. And I will offer my opinion was at that exact point that everything started to disintegrate. Corruption began in Zimbabwe on the day Robert married Grace and it was that jaunt to Italy set up the entire nation for this current fall!

So, Grace Mugabe? As culpable and hideous as her husband? You betcha! I would venture to offer my strong opinion that this heinous woman is the reason for everything bad that's happened in Zimbabwe!

Get her out of HK, I say! Confiscate her land. Wait until Robert Mugabe falls, sell off what she's bought on this latest spending jaunt and return the money to Zimbabwe for reconstruction! And then create a museum for Grace Mugabe's shoes, just like they've done with Imelda Marcos'.

So that's my choice for this week:

THREATDOWN

Hideous shoe-loving women who use their husbands
as the front for their venal and self-serving activities!

My Favourite Room. For Lady R.

Lady R and I have been drooling over Violette's place in the blog Cape to Cuba, so I'm going to show her photos of something I recently drooled over in person. Feel free to drool along.



Light shining through blue glass onto blue and white china. Is there anything more beautiful on earth, or is that just me?

Hey, and I discovered something really cute the other day: In China, when they're speaking English, china is called ceramic!

The Australian Bushfires

Been sent some amazing photographs of the Australian Bushfires currently raging across the south of the continent.

AUSTRALIA, BLOODY BUT UNBOWED

Thank you for these, David. They are beautiful.

It's all so very, very sad and my heart goes out to everyone suffering through this. And to think they were all caused deliberately. Arrest those criminals!!! Give them life imprisonment! Hate, hate, hate!!!

But I do have to say, while acknowledging the horror of what is happening, that, first in the heatwave and now in the fire, it's both strange and wonderful how the reclusive koala has featured so large. It's almost like they've come to realise that, in a crisis, humans can be friends.

So let's look at another shot of our old friend Sam the Koala reaching out to touch her rescuer!

Sam.

Oh, by the way, did you read that other story about Sam? It happened at the animal shelter these CFA guys took her to after this famous water incident. Seems another group had already rescued a koala in the area and had taken him to the shelter earlier, and when they saw each other, both started to squeal and Sam started squirming so much they let her go, and she raced over and the two koalas hugged each other for ages and everyone said it genuinely looked like they were both crying. This story made the Hong Kong newspapers.

China TV

Chinese television! Mmm-hmmm! Now there's a treat for you.

Let me share the best of the worst:

BLACKFACE COMEDY

Like, why hire black actors when,
with a tin of shoe polish and a dishcloth,
you can create your own.

CENSORSHIP

I told you in an earlier blog about this. That when something comes on the English language station they don't want you to see, suddenly the screen goes black and this pops up:

Woman's torso in corset.
Is it meant to distract you?

And then, intercut with ads for slimming tea, these two cheery ladies talk for half an hour or more about corsets. In Chinese naturally. No one said this was sensible!

Say what?

And, while this is going on and on and on and on, when you whizz through the other channels this is what you see:

LIVE-FROM-BEIJING CORRUPTION COURTCASES

Justice seen to be done?

CHINESE NEWS BROADCASTS

Chinese-speaking Western guys.

OLD MOVIES


DUBBED OLD MOVIES

Vincent Price.
Met him once.
Gorgeous guy.
Didn't know he spoke Mandarin.
James Bond all in Mandarin
rocks too.


SERIOUS MINDED SCIENCE SHOWS

Loved this guy.
That tie sooo rocks.
Watched it for ages, trying to guess
what he was talking about.

ANIMATED VIOLENCE


WACKY TEENAGE HORROR MOVIES
Wack-eee!

Check out that Baddie-Vamp.
Helen Bonham-Carter has
much to answer for.


WACKY TEENAGE ROM/COMS

The Love Interest!
Such a sweetheart.
You can tell by her pink top
and that chocker that she's all-innocence.

WACKY TEENAGE GOD-ONLY-KNOWS.

Mmmm?

GOD-ONLY-KNOWS

I think you ring to vote for him
if you think he's the handsomest!
That, or phone him
and he'll drop by your hotelroom.

Ended up watching a Chinese retelling of the Roswell Incident. It was such a hoot watching Chinese actors doing the reenactments; did you know American G.I.s goosestep whenever they carry aliens bodies in for autopsies? Fabulous stuff! Don't have any photos however. Battery was flat so I was recharging.

And apart from the treats above, everything else is music shows and variety shows along with the odd travelogue. Good stuff, folks!