As I See It

Not since the SARS outbreak in 2003 has a news event gripped the city with such intensity, as live coverage of the hostage crisis in Manila unfolded on prime time television and left us in shock and disbelief. On August 23rd, what started out as a media stunt staged by a frustrated ex-cop ended in a shooting gallery leaving nine dead and three seriously injured. In the days that followed, as details of the bungled rescue were exposed, dissected and analyzed, citizens of Hong Kong united in a kind of collective anger never seen before directed at another sovereign nation. A man-made tragedy A lot of ink has been spilled by the local press over the sheer incompetence of the Manila police force. We saw it with our own eyes: rescue units performing a slapstick comedy titled Amateurs’ Night at Rizal Park. Using props from sledgehammers that bounced right off unbreakable windows to ropes that broke after a few pulls and purple glow sticks that smacked of a Halloween toy, the comed...

“I have never given much thought to how I would die,” wrote Stephanie Meyer in the opening line of her bestselling vampire romance Twilight . Meyer's bestseller has an apt opening line Well, neither have I. But on the ordinary summer morning of July 14th, at a busy intersection on Pokfulam Road not 50 feet from my apartment building, my moment of reckoning finally arrived. In the last few seconds of my life, I realized that death — the ultimate leveler of mankind — was not nearly as fearsome as I had thought. Nor was it as remote... _______________________ Read the rest of this essay in HONG KONG State of Mind , available at major bookstores in Hong Kong and at Blacksmith Books . HONG KONG State of Mind