Real Estate Agent Game

In Hong Kong whenever a real estate developer sets up a showroom for a new residential property, real estate agents from various agencies would hover around to ask every passerby if they would be interested to look at the property. This in itself is a very annoying thing for the passersby.

While walking in a mall in Hong Kong I saw something that one would only see in Hong Kong.

Real Estate #1Real Estate #2Real Estate #3

As you can see, like I described previously, there is a bunch of real estate agents hovering around a property showroom.

One thing even I haven’t seen before are the boundary lines laid across the floor to mark the area where real estate agents must stay behind.

This is just like a sports court where lines mark areas that are out of bounds. Funny… eh?

Where is My Seat?

I don’t know whether you’ve been to a Chinese restaurant during the busy hours. If you have you will know what I am about to describe.

The most congested place at a Chinese restaurant is at the hostess’ podium. People usually crowd around the podium waiting for a table, as you can see from the photo below.

Hostess Podium

People do not just wait around quietly for their number to be called. For some reason they seem to have the need to constantly hover over the hostess to find out exactly, minute by the minute, how many people are ahead of them on the wait list.

It is not as if the hostess does not announce the current number. The people who wait have a constant need to look over the hostess’ shoulder to find out their place on the wait list.

What is the reasoning behind this phenomenon? Your guess is as good as mine.

Speeding Stop

Consider the question:

Why do drivers in Hong Kong speed up to a red traffic light?

Having driven in Hong Kong for over a year, I have seen so many drivers speed up and then slam on their brakes towards a “red light”.

Drivers who exhibit this habit the most are taxi and mini-bus drivers. You would think that of all people, taxi drivers would have the most to gain if they approached a red light progressively. It would save them gas and lessen the wear on the brakes of their cars.

So, is this just another phenomenon of Hong Kong’s bustling life style?

Courtesy

We can be much more courteous to others.

This became much more apparent to me while living in Hong Kong. In general, people in Hong Kong are not too courteous (as mentioned in a previous post “Manners of Hong Kong”).

By making a point of saying “thank you” to every driver who is courteous to me. I hope to be the catalyst of change to improve the driving etiquette of Hong Kong drivers.

Traffic Solution

Traffic congestion in Hong Kong is a big problem. This is especially so, for the areas around the “Central Harbour Tunnel”, on both the Hong Kong island and Kowloon sides. This congestion had been a problem for many years, and for almost every hour in the day, 365 days a year.

Recently the Hong Kong government wants to levitate the congestion by increasing land reclamation on the Hong Kong island shore front so to build more roads.

In the mean time there are 2 other tunnels; “Eastern Harbour Tunnel” and “Western Harbour Tunnel”, neither of which are used by many Hong Kong drivers. This is mainly due to economics. There are truck drivers who would drive many kilometers more just to take the Central Harbour Tunnel rather than taking the more direct route of the Western Harbour Tunnel.

I believe there is a much simpler and more economical solution. Just increase the toll of the Central Harbour Tunnel so that it is much (approximately HKD10) more than the other two tunnels.

While at the same time decrease the toll of the Western Harbour Tunnel, which is capable of accommodating a much larger volume of traffic.