nwoT eikgnoH Hongkie Town

With the collapse of Bear Stearns and other horrible financial news from the US, news this morning is that Asian stock markets are tumbling. I see that as of 11:30, the Hang Seng index is down more than 1,000 points. That means it has dropped by about 1/3rd in the past 3 months. The US dollar is tumbling too - 96 yen to the dollar in Japan is the worst exchange rate for the US dollar there in 13 years. (As just one example, it means a Big Mac meal in Tokyo now costs double what it costs in HK.)

Among many other things, I wonder how this news will impact local real estate prices, which have been skyrocketing in the past six months. Will continued financial setbacks bring HK prices back down to earth again? And if so, why couldn't this have happened when I was looking for a new place, instead of right after I've moved into one.

Over the weekend I was able to contrast two different HK landlord styles, my previous landlord and my current one.

I met my old landlord on Saturday at the old flat to hand over the keys. He and his wife walked through the place in two minutes and then he pulled out a check and asked how much he owed me. He wrote the check and then said I should call him if the figure is wrong and he owes me more. His wife apologized about ten times for them returning to HK from Shanghai, saying if they hadn't decided to return, they'd have been delighted to have me continue as a tenant.

There are several major repairs that my new place needs. The new landlord agreed to these and they have been written into the lease. Two weeks after lease signing, the repairs have not even started. My gf spoke to the landlord over the weekend and the landlord attempted to weasel out. "Well, you know, I didn't need to say yes to these, I did it out of the goodness of my heart."
Goodness, schmoodness, they're written in to the freaking lease that she signed.

Not to mention the fact that when I gave her the mail sitting in the mailbox a week ago, there was a disconnection notice from the power company. This Saturday yet another disconnection notice received. I went to the realtor's office and told him to tell her to take care of it that very day. He said he would but I didn't get confirmation on that. Power was still on this morning so ....

Considering that I've handed her a huge sum of money two weeks ago and all she has to do is make a couple of phone calls to get all this done, I'm feeling bushwhacked by her lack of responsibility.

Well, the answers are simple.

Next month's rent will be withheld if the repairs are not complete before then.

And unlike with my last landlord, where I paid every month's rent and waited for him to refund my security deposit, I know the only way I'll ever get my deposit back from this one is by following the time honored HK tradition of not paying rent when it comes to my last two months there, whether that's two years from now or more.

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If you haven't tried it already, you can probably guess that highly touted video streaming site Hulu.com, a joint venture between Fox and NBC/Universal, doesn't work in HK.

And four Japanese ISPs have announced that they will start shutting off internet service to users who are using file-sharing software - so much for net neutrality but presumably there are other ISPs there who are a bit more open. I don't think the question is if this will happen in Hong Kong, I think it's when will it happen.