Via Miyagi, we learn that Asian cities came out at the bottom of the list in global courtesy rankings based on a survey by Reader’s Digest.:
A Reader’s Digest survey conducted in 35 various cities across the globe analysed and tested the politeness and helpfulness of people in each urban centre. More than 2000 separate tests of behaviour were conducted to try and find the world’s most courteous place….
Researchers awarded the cities points for various tests such as holding doors open for other people, assisting in picking up dropped documents and whether shop assistants said “Thank you” to customers after they paid…
Asian cities featured highly on the survey’s least courteous list. Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Bangkok and Seoul were all ranked in the bottom ten. Other unhelpful cities included Sydney, Moscow, Milan and Amsterdam.
The bottom of the list is a who’s-who of great Asian cities including Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Taipei, Singapore, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and Mumbai. No mainland China or Japanese cities are mentioned in the list.
AsiaPundit is actually shocked by this, in no small part because New York captured the number one position as the most courteous. The Big Apple is a favorite city, but it does not have a reputation for politeness.
AP’s immediate reaction is to disregard the survey as a vacuous marketing gimmick, but he will briefly entertain the possibility that it is an accurate measure.
This article suggests there has been a change in NY since 9/11 and Rudy Giuliani’s politeness bylaws — noting a $50 fine for putting feet on subway seats. It the latter is the case, Singapore’s government should ask why its creation of a Fine City and it’s 37-year long courtesy campaign have been such a failure.
(Image of Singapore’s Courtesy Lion, ubiquitous in the City State, stolen from the Singapore Kindness Movement website.)
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The papers today are filled with stories that are seen as proof that Donald Tsang did indeed attend a pro-democracy event in 1989, and to me they seem pretty convincing. I choose to believe these stories. And if they are true, it shows that Tsang once did believe in democracy. That is, until he got into a position of power himself. Now that he has power, it would appear that freedom of choice is only allowed if it is his choice. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely. But he does not have absolute power as he is just a craven toady to the bosses in Beijing. Which to me says he is so inept he cannot even be successful at moral corruption.
This installment of the Hard Hat Show features Roland Soong of 
The opposition seems to be a combination of misguided economic nationalism, mixed with a vague but real appreciation of possible security concerns. Surprisingly, this article does not mention the security chip Lenovo has been installing on their domestic models. Now, it would of course be trivial to see whether nor not that chip is installed on the machines being purchased by the State Department, but doing a full-blown security audit would probably be enough trouble so that it would become more economical to just go to the next lowest bidder instead.
Take for example, the Port of Seattle. Of the three terminals, one is leased to an American stevedoring firm MSS America, one to Hanshin, the South Korean shipping line, and the other to the American President Lines (now APL) which, despite it venerable patriotic name, is actually owned by Singapore.
Sir John Cowperthwaite was the main figure responsible for Hong Kong’s economic transformation, lifting millions of people out of poverty. While scholars like Milton Friedman and F. A. Hayek put an intellectual case for the free markets, it was Cowperthwaite who provided the textbook example showing laissez-faire policies leading to swift economic development. His practical example provided confidence to the Thatcher and Reagan governments, and was a key influence in China’s post-Mao economic liberalisation.
Chinese investors couldn’t buy an oil company or the maker of Maytag appliances, but now one Hong Kong group will be able to claim a real American icon — Wham-O Inc., the maker of Frisbee, Hula Hoop, Hacky Sack and Slip ‘N Slide toys.
Coming just days after the conservative Heritage Foundation awarded Hong Kong the top spot in its 2006 Index of Economic Freedom, the local government is debating a “anti-racism” bill that would require companies to justify their offers of generous "expatriate packages" to foreign employees.
In Singapore, it is the government itself that stands in the way of the unfettered private enterprise that the Heritage Foundation’s criteria are supposed to favor. The major real estate, banking, transport, manufacturing and utility companies listed on the stock market are all government-controlled entities. They may be efficient, but is this an economy free of government intervention? The index also claims that "the market sets almost all wages." But actually "wages are based on annual recommendations made by the tripartite National Wages Council."
After a couple of unexplained extensions of detention without charge, Straits Times reporter/Hong Kong resident Ching Cheong’s case has 
Inside China, I would have liked to run an anonymous public opinion survey to ascertain how people feel, but that won’t happen, of course. So all is left to speculation. I would say that it is a function of one’s age and personal history. For the younger Chinese, it is likely that they have no idea who this person was. After all, they were 5 or 10 years old in 1989 and the subjects of Zhao Ziyang and the June 4 ‘incident’ have been excluded from the public discourse. As for those who were old enough in 1989 to know what went on, I can’t get a reading. For the majority of the country who are mostly rural peasants, they did not hear about Zhao Ziyang or the June 4 ‘incident’ back then, and it would have no material effect on them now. For those who were involved or paid attention at the time, I have no way to gauge the preponderance of opinions — a very tiny fraction have gone into exile and written a voluminous amount of protest materials; perhaps some are still despondent and angry; perhaps some have settled down in middle-class comfort; or perhaps others have even accept that what happened was necessary. I have no evidence about the distribution of these opinions.
The democrats will 
What do the protesters stand for? It’s a diverse collection. There’s the migrant workers, the rural protectionists, the manufacturing protectionists, the anti-globalisers and the merely confused. In short, it’s a collection of all those who don’t understand economics and aren’t interested in eliminating their ignorance. For example, try this guy in a chicken suit:
With the upcoming WTO summit, there will be a huge influx of up to 10,000 protesters from around the world — including around 1500 Korean farmers. The protesters (especially the farmers) have a reputation for violent protests to severely disrupt previous WTO meetings and cause damage to property (Melbourne, Seattle and Cancun). They now want to bring their extreme demonstration tactics to Hong Kong and someone needs to make a stand.
We found that of the 191 eligible Transport electors, 36 are taxi-related associations, 19 are minibus associations and 10 are driving instructor associations. These three lobbies alone amount to 65, or over one third, of the electorate. Bear that in mind next time you hear their legislator whinging about diesel duty being too high, when it is far lower than the duty on unleaded petrol which private motorists pay, and when LPG is exempt from duty and franchised buses are exempt from diesel duty anyway. And don’t forget the $1.4bn in taxpayer grants handed out to get the taxi and minibus owners to buy LPG vehicles in the first place. Yes, in Hong Kong, we don’t charge the transport trade for air pollution, we pay them to reduce it.
