Headline August 07, 2017/ ''' *STUDENTS -HONG KONG- SCRABBLE '''

''' *STUDENTS -HONG KONG- 

SCRABBLE '''

WITH VERY SPECIAL DEDICATION   :   Esteemed Dr. Chris Darby/ Oxford :

The Curfew tolls the knell of a parting day.........

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman slowly homeward plods his way,

And the leaves the World to darkness and to me.......

Well, Chris, what would Thee make of this?

See you on !WOW!, You and family, on the World Students Society and.................    Twitter-!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011: 

AMONG THE CROWDS ON Kweilin Street in the run-down Hong Kong neighbourhood of Sham Shui Po, Alla Lau darted between street signs-

Peering at the backs of them until she found what she was looking for. She beckoned a group of tourists, mostly white, in flip-flops and with American accents.

''There,'' Ms Lau said, pointing to a handwritten white sticker in Chinese characters that referred to the grimy building across the street. 

It was an advertisement for one of Hong Kong's notorious cage apartments, where-

For as little as 1,200 Hong Kong dollars a month, or about $150, people could rent a cage to sleep in, stacked three deep, with barely space to sit up.

The group led by Ms. Lau had signed up for a tour of the less glamorous underbelly of this fabulously wealthy city.

Over the course of three hours, tourists learned about Hong Kong's underpaid foreign domestic workers, its freewheeling street vendors and the suicides afflicting young students pressured by their parents to succeed in school.

Despite the horrid conditions in the cage apartments, Ms. Lau said, they still were not cheap.

Per square foot, the monthly rent was more than that of the costlier apartments in Hong Kong, one of the world's most expensive housing markets-

And many people living in the cages make far less than the city's monthly median income , roughly 12,000 Hong Kong dollars a month.

During the eight or nine tours she leads a week , Ms, Lau 26 gathers people at the subway station in Mong Kok, a teeming area where there where clashes last summer when the police tried to crack down on street hawkers.

Greeting tourists in a neon jacket and with a wide smile, she gave them brightly colored maps. 

A recent tour at first seemed like any other as she directed her group past the street vendors selling goldfish in plastic bags.

But there was an already an edge to the trip........

Shepherding the tourists past Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers, Ms. Lau quietly told her group that these women were not covered by Hong Kong's minimum wage; different, lower pay scales applied to them.

Tourists calculated that into their local currencies and expressed surprise and dismay.

Ms. Lau was inspired to become a tour guide in Hong Kong while back packing around Europe; she took a tour of Sofia, Bulgaria, that highlighted the city's darker side.

Determined to bring a similar experience to Hong Kong, she joined a tour company as a guide in her native city., but she was disappointed that the script she was given did not delve beneath the surface. 

She was NOT interested in telling tourists where to shop. 

Ms. Lau jumped ship to Hong Kong Free Tours when she was offered the chance to share with visitors the problems she and her friends faced, including the struggle to make ends meet.

''People come to Hong Kong for three or four days and see Tesla, Mercedes, skyscrapers in Central, all things the government tries so hard to promote,'' she said.

''If I was a tourist, I'd see those things, how expensive everything is here, and think :

Hong Kong people must have a really good life,'' she continued. ''That's one side of Hong Kong . It isn't telling people a lot of stories.''

The Honour and Serving of the latest Operational Research, on Life, Quality of Life, and the World at Large continue. And with many thanks to researcher and writer Charlotte Graham, for these unique insights. 

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of Hong Kong. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Power & Gains '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless