Hong Kong through the Looking Glass:
“We need more bullets…”
by Dante Archangeli

Currents, Hong Kong Looking Glass
2
By Dante Archangeli       "Oscar keeps asking me for more bullets ", Dev confided to us at lunch. Dev might be 20-something. Earlier Oscar told us he is 73 and looks older. Oscar is the caretaker of  a tiny Southeast Asian island marine reserve (let's call it Ranganju, not it's real name). He grew up far away, at least 30 kilometers, on the larger, but still not large, adjacent island. Locals call it the mainland. Dev is the new reserve manager, grew up a little further away, and studied Buddhism at the University of Hong Kong. Buying bullets wasn't covered in the curriculum. Dev continues, "He tells me he shoots at poachers to keep them from running away when he's trying to catch them. I'm worried that someone is going to get hurt, probably Oscar."

Hong Kong through the Looking Glass:
Is the Ocean Safe + Clean?
by Dante Archangeli

Currents, Hong Kong Looking Glass
By Dante Archangeli       "Chinese people don't care about dirty water," Sam, my barber, asserted. We'd been discussing Hong Kong beaches and commiserating about how something that appears so beautiful from a distance can be so unpleasant up close. But Sam's declaration threw me for a loop. Just a minute before she'd told me about the beaches she wouldn't swim at because of the trash in the water and on the sand. "Ummm, but aren't you Chinese?" I asked. I knew that she'd grown up in Hong Kong, but my ability to differentiate Hong Kong Chinese from other Asian ethnicities isn't anywhere near as good as a native's. "Oh yes I'm Chinese" she confirmed with pride. "But I don't like to go swimming in dirty water. Other Chinese people don't care. They just go in." I suspect that nobody really likes swimming in dirty water and I hope the Hong Kong government cares. But it may have a narrow definition of dirty.