2012 New Year's resolutions for Hong Kong

Curb the gag factor in property ads

Hong Kong's luxury property developments have no end of tacky names and advertising campaigns so cheesy they stimulate our gag reflexes.

Witness Dynasty Heights (where daytime soap operas take place), Villa Lotto (you might get lucky) and JC Castle (a medieval JC Penny).

There is a tendency toward the regal (Queen’s Terrace, Royal Court, The Hermitage) and a penchant for the definite article (The Masterpiece, The Sparkle, The Zenith, The Hermitage, The Cube).

French is always best (L’Utopie, Valais, Les Saisons, Legende Royale), being tall is everything (Peninsula Heights, Beverly Heights, Celestial Heights) but being number one trumps all (The One, Peak One, One Wanchai, No.1 Oxford Road).

Let 2012 be the year where we don't have to be afraid of property ads when we turn on the television.

Also on CNNGo: Viral this month: Parody video of Hong Kong luxury property

Get a new rep for Hong Kong tourism

Hong Kong tour guides made it to news headlines in 2011 -- "Hong Kong tour guide fights mainland tourists for buying too little." 

The image of Hong Kong's tourism industry has been going downhill since and urgently needs a makeover.

The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau came up with an idea for a new independent travel industry authority that regulates the industry and replaces the Travel Industry Council.  

Yet, it also claims to take at least three years to set up. Can Hong Kong wait that long to spruce up its tourism image? 

To stay on top of the tourism industry, the tourism board should either hasten its process or look into other quality control mechanisms for 2012.

Also on CNNGo: 6 things mainlanders like to do in Hong Kong

Keep our autonomy 

Next year will mark 15 years since the Hong Kong handover. 

For the duration of the post-handover period, Hong Kong’s right to autonomy has been left mostly intact save for occasional notable incidents. The past year, however, has been rife with indications that Beijing is becoming increasingly bold with regard to infringements of Hong Kong’s autonomy.

In May, the Education Bureau proposed that primary and secondary schools begin offering a compulsory “moral and national education” that closely weaves Chinese patriotism into the curriculum.

In August, Li Keqiang, Vice Premier of the PRC, visited Hong Kong University in the midst of a security lockdown by Hong Kong Police. Students and media were barred from even getting in sight of Li as he partook in a carefully choreographed visit that looked a lot like the dissent-free political theater of the mainland.

With universal suffrage in 2017 being dangled in front of the masses, could it be that Beijing wants to end (as subtly as possible) this experiment in autonomy? Let’s hope this premature reunification slows in 2012.

Stop putting the same crap everywhere

Here’s a drinking game you can play: go to Causeway Bay or Sai Yeung Choi Street or any other high traffic area. For every chain cosmetics store, jewelry store, pharmacy or bank that you see, take a swig.

Stratospheric property prices are turning Hong Kong into a really boring place. High rents means small businesses die and franchises flourish.

What makes a city great are the cool little shops and eateries tucked away everywhere. But then a bank branch opens on one corner, a jewelry store on the other and suddenly the little place that made the best milk tea in town is shuttered and the old couple that ran it are nowhere to be found.

When high-end retailers are willing to spend HK$7 million per month on rent, the trickle-down effect scalds us all.

For 2012, we would like to discover more little shops when we go for a stroll. 

Let us use Octopus where it really matters

It’s 3 a.m. and contrary to the wisdom of the ages, we have consumed nine drinks containing four kinds of alcohol and are paying for the 10th round at the bar. Our motor skills fail and counting cash becomes downright impossible, if we have enough cash at all.

What these situations call for is the Octopus.

An Octopus would allow revelers to “doot” their way to their next drink as quickly as they can whip past a turnstile.

The folks at Octopus say the smart card system is already the world’s most used with 11 million transactions totaling HK$110 million per day. Over 95 percent of Hong Kongers aged 16 to 65, they say, have an Octopus.

We want to see them hike up those figures by adding one of the oldest and best-loved activities to its repertoire -- drinking.

Don't forget the humans 

The bane of any rapidly developing mainland city these days is the inhumane scale of development: 10-lane highways crisscross giant expanses punctuated by monolithic structures. Pedestrian friendly? Forget it.

Unfortunately, Hong Kong is trending toward this type of development as well.

Can the powers-that-be please pursue development on a human scale?

Neighborhoods such as Wanchai, Sheung Wan, Kennedy Town, as well as portions of Mong Kok and Kowloon Tong, are desirable places to live because crossing the street is possible and it doesn’t necessarily require courage.

Also on CNNGo: West Kowloon Cultural District: Hong Kong's ambitious cultural experiment

Travel on two wheels

In persistently gridlocked Hong Kong, there’s no speedier way to get around town than by bike. They also keep you and the environment fit. Only problem is that the government maintains a policy against cycling in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

Even in the bike-friendly New Territories, where the government plans to build an additional 82 kilometers of bike paths, a shortage of bicycle parking makes it a hassle to get around on two wheels.

Chief Executive candidate Henry Tang said he would like to see the creation of a bicycle corridor from the new West Kowloon Cultural District all the way east to Kwun Tong.

And cyclists are lobbying for a 16-kilometer harborfront cycleway that would make it easier and safer to bike on Hong Kong Island.

Keep those wheels turning in 2012.

Enough with the froyo

The frozen yogurt mania was cute at first, with a new froyo shop cropping up practically on a daily basis in Hong Kong.

But as the city's snack scene gradually became subsumed by a wave of low-fat dairy products slathered in canned lychees and Froot Loops, it’s time to stem the tide.

No more cartoonish decor. No more rigged scales. And for the love of all the cows in Heaven, no more punny names (Holly Cow? Berry Good?) in 2012.

Bring Edison home

In 2008, racy photos leaked from singer-actor Edison Chen Koon-Hei’s laptop provided tabloids with endless reams of scandal fodder and spiced up water-cooler conversations throughout this territory, making the lives of many office drones that much more bearable.

Earlier this year, Edison watchers were not disappointed when new photos surfaced, this time of him with 16-year-old model Cammi Tse in Canada where he now lives. 

In the straight-laced entertainment world of Hong Kong, where the slightest misdeed by a star can trigger a public apology and “sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll” can signal the end rather than the launch of a career, we need some unabashed, sexy tabloid fun.

Edison, you never disappointed when it came to sex scandals, what's more, you always pull it off while perfectly coiffed.

Which begs the question: what is he doing in Canada when he could be doing what he’s doing back here at home?

Please come back to Hong Kong in 2012, Edison Chen.

Strengthen "Hong Kong chic"

In theory, Hong Kong could be a major fashion capital. It's on the doorstep of the world's factory and home to an affluent image-conscious population.

But in a city notorious for its sky-high rents, it can be downright impossible for young designers to open a store, which would go a long way toward increasing their visibility.

Last year, private retail rents averaged HK$1,239 and $1,172 per square meter per month in Hong Kong and Kowloon, respectively, according to the Rating and Valuation Department.

There needs to be more noise for the up-and-coming designers.

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council has gone to great lengths in promoting Made in Hong Kong. Now if only consumers would vote with their wallets in 2012 by buying Hong Kong fashion. 

Let the dead rest, once and for all

In Hong Kong, one of the world's most expensive housing markets, there's no affordable space for the living, let alone the dead.

By law, if you bury someone's body at a public cemetery, you must exhume and process them in another way six years later.

With deaths projected to rise to 52,800 per year in 2020, space is only going to get tighter. The government recently released for public consultation a licensing scheme for private columbaria and that has created fresh concerns.

Under it, Hong Kong's 96 private columbaria must be licensed and regulated by the government. Long term, it could bring welcome improvement to standards, but it will be years before it becomes law.

Until then, on top of mourning, the bereaved will have to deal with the headache of deciding whether to buy niches with private operators that might not end up passing the bar to get licensed.

Hopefully, an agreed version of the legislation will come sooner rather than later so more final resting places can be just that: final.

Also on CNNGo: Visiting the famous in Hong Kong's cemeteries

More instructive Canto lessons from Carlos Douh

Carlos Douh might be a 26-year-old white guy from Canada, but he has managed to explain the intricacies of “princess sickness” and other Cantonese slang with such pizzazz that his instructional YouTube videos have notched over 4 million views.

Douh, whose real surname is Vidal, has given us “chok yeung” (“the guy in pictures who always tries to make a cool face” and “makes a girl really want to choke herself”) as well as “bao shek” (“to explode some rocks” or “when you need to do the no. 2” after eating a lot).

Things have gotten busy for Vidal since he unleashed his videos in 2010. Now he also sells T-shirts emblazoned with Cantonese slang online and he has been featured in Yes! and Face magazines and TVB’s Dolce Vita program.

Hopefully, he won’t be too busy to keep the videos coming.

There are many more Cantonese phrases that need to be disseminated, chief among them “o jui” (literally “o mouth,” which conveys surprise) and “leng mou” (meaning “young models” or "pseudo-models" because how else are you going to refer to E-Cup Baby)?

Let us breathe

There was a time when you could take it for granted that you could visit the Peak and see across the harbor. Not anymore.

Hong Kong’s air pollution is not only bad, it’s getting worse.

New research has found that the level of fine particles in Hong Kong’s air is higher than all but seven cities in the world.

Local green groups say the culprit isn’t mainland factories, it’s our increasingly clogged roads and lax regulation. Even though the city’s fleet of buses and trucks is rapidly aging, there are only weak government incentives to switch to new vehicles with less polluting engines.

For 2012, we wish for a breath of fresh air.

Stop overzealous tree grooming

Given the density of Hong Kong’s concrete jungle, the government makes a good effort of greenifying by planting trees and adding potted plants to parks, municipal buildings and roadsides.

In 2009, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department met the goal of what it called a “massive planting program” and then some, by planting 3.46 million trees and plants.

Now, if only they would let greenery do what it is supposed to do: grow.

Besides zealous planting, there has also been overzealous grooming. Awkwardly truncated branches and overly sparse foliages abound.

The department, which is responsible for managing 650,000 trees, carried out maintenance and trimming work on 95,000 in 2010-2011. Of course, some of that work is necessary for safety and functionality.

But where pruning and preening is not needed, it might be better to just give the clippers and shears a rest.

Really define "organic"

The organic-food movement is finally taking off here. According to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, as of October, there were 401 organic farms in Hong Kong.

With that in mind, the city should consider developing a comprehensive legislation to regulate the production and sale of organic foods.

Currently, there is no official government standard for what constitutes “organic." Sometimes vendors claiming to sell organic cannot produce certificates to prove it.

Introducing comprehensive legislation could go a long way to increasing consumer confidence and defining and ensuring standards.

Let pooches travel cheap

You might think the idea of jumping into an MTR carriage with your pooch in tow sounds too outlandish in this crowded town, but it isn’t for another metropolis: London.

Transport for London allows passengers to travel with pet dogs and other domestic animals.

Hong Kong allows the visually impaired to take guide dogs on the MTR.

But people who keep dogs as pets do not have this privilege. Under Mass Transit Railway By-Laws, flaunting this ban can result in a fine of HK$2,000.

That isn’t so great for the city’s 248,000 pet canines. A feasibility study should be done to consider letting man’s best friend on board the MTR.

Maybe in 2012, we can look forward to a dog Octopus card. 

Keep the music pumping

Hong Kong and outdoor music have a troubled history. Just about every outdoor concert is plagued by noise complaints.

All it takes is one angry neighbor to put a damper on the party, which makes Hong Kong an especially unfriendly place for al fresco beats, despite our balmy climate.

But things may be looking up. Recent events such as Clockenflap have shown that the city has an appetite for world-class entertainment and that international artists are keen to come here and perform.

December's Clockenflap music and arts festival not only showed that local and regional talent is thriving, but also that a group of Hong Kong residents had the vision to put on a show that was worthy of its counterparts worldwide.

Most importantly, it was a fun, inspiring and free space for Hong Kong's young people from all across the territory.

The organizers will lose millions this year, however, and the Clockenflap team will need the government's help if they are to make Clockenflap 2012 happen at all.

It seems wrong to throw so much money at the West Kowloon Cultural District when there is grass-roots talent already here waiting to be tapped. These are the people who will form the foundation of an international cultural hub and they must be given support.

Also on CNNGo: Clockenflap: Santigold, West Kowloon and free entry!

What new year's resolution would you like to see Hong Kong make? Let us know in the comments box below.