Why, oh, why!?

Doors in Hong Kong open inwards. So what?, some ignorant individual might say, but it's really stupid actually.

The door of your apartment occupies a square meter of your home. In Finland you would use this place for keeping your shoes but not in Hong Kong. You must have an empty space which you cannot use for anything and still have to pay rent for it. Why can’t the door open to the common area which is used only for getting out of the apartment or getting in?

I had a carpet outside of my apartment door for wiping the dog shit out of my shoes but the management forbid it saying that it "obstructs the means of escape". Naturally I ignored what the management said because the carpet doesn't do that because the door opens inwards and not outwards. The carpet would actually obstruct the means of escape if it had located inside of my apartment.

Well, anyways one day I heard a knock on the door and I was like what the hell!? I have no friends so I assumed it's the police or TV-license inspector, so I flushed down the drugs and threw the TV out of the window. It wasn’t the police or the inspector. There was a pretty lobby hostess and a security guard. They had come to inform me that I need to remove the carpet "immediately". Jeez! Is it really that serious that the management sends a blushing girl and guy who keeps staring at the ceiling to my place to say just that get rid of the carpet? Now I have the carpet inside obstructing my means of escape...

The reason why the girl was blushing and the guard was staring at the ceiling was that I was wearing a towel around me, gold necklace, a pair of eyeglasses and nothing else. I guess they had never seen a body figure shaped as well as mine…

Oh, yeah! Let's say you need to crap and you must use a public toilet. First you walk in to the toilet room. So far, so good. Then you open the door of the stall where the toilet seat is actually located. You walk inside and try to close the door but the stall is so small that you can't close it because there is not enough room between the door and the toilet seat. To solve the problem you either stand so that the toilet seat is between your legs or you stand on the toilet seat to be able to close the door. Try to do this with a bag and an umbrella and you really start to appreciate Satan, who designed the Hong Kong doors. And the same difficulties wait after you have wiped your arse.

Then you want to wash your hands. You wash very carefully with soap. Just like the public awareness ads teach you. Then you dry your hands and are just about to leave. In Finland you would kick the door open to avoid SARS and avian flu waiting on the door handle to kill you. In Hong Kong that's not possible because the door opens inwards. Great! So either you wait somebody to get in or use a hand towel and enjoy the convenience of Hong Kong doors.

Let's say that you are indoors in a place packed with people. Somebody farts so terrible fart that everybody needs to get out of the room or they DIE! So what happens is that dozens or hundreds of people are pushing against a door that opens inwards. And they all die. This kind of situation could be caused of fire etc.

Why, oh, why!? I tell you why: because of Feng Shui, the Chinese magic. The doors must open inwards or the good fortune flows out.

I definitely appreciate Kung Fu over Feng Shui.

Attenzione!

I'm the last and least of the four authors of this blog. The name is Lasse and the rank is irrelevant. Air France brought me in Hong Kong late November 2006 where I have stayed ever since. Well, I have visited Shenzhen, P.R.C. (four hours) and Malysia (four days) and Macau (four times). Four is the unluckiest number of all in the minds of Chinamen but whatever brings bad luck to other people brings me wealth and fortune.

I don't consider Hong Kong being the best or the worst place on Earth nor anything between. It's just a place where I am now. I have always enjoyed the place where I have lived, even Valkeakoski. This is the second time I live abroad the first time being a year in Kosovo. Luckily I have been blessed with the wisdom from Cross Cultural Communication course so I don't need to worry about anything. Besides I know 74 different ways to kill a man with a library card. I'll be just fine.

I don't make any future plans so I have no idea what will happen later. But one thing is sure: it won't be pretty...