A Tale Of Three Cities - TIME

A Tale Of Three Cities - TIME

Three connected cites drive the global economy:

"They tend to be an optimistic lot, the bankers and business leaders, politicians and pundits, who every year make their way to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Those who have power and influence often have much to be optimistic about, to be programmed to lift up their eyes to the hills — of which Davos has plenty — and see more prosperity coming their way. ........ " Quoted from A Tale Of Three Cities - TIME

---- By MICHAEL ELLIOTT of TIME

China raises fuel prices --- the late move but the right move

The National Development and Reform Commission of China has announced to raise petrol and diesel prices by around 18 percent. The price adjustment was to reduce the gap with soaring international oil prices. The cost of aviation fuel is also going up.

Electricity prices will also be raised from the 1st day of July. It's a good news from the market economists' point of view.

Although the move was late, it's right as it could dampen fuel as well as electricity consumption. The excessive energy consumption could be checked as a result.

After the price hike announcement, paradoxically the price of future oil fell in New York by 3.5 percent to settle at $131 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after China disclosed plans to raise prices for gasoline and diesel fuel by 16 percent and 18 percent respectively.

My Chinese version also at http://wongtc.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post_19.html

Enjoy a mild hiking on LungFuShan and reminiscence of the old Hong Kong...

I recently have finished a pleasure trip of Lung Fu Shan Country Park on the Hong Kong Island. In order to resonance my feeling, I've written two verses in Chinese as follows with the reminiscence of the past of Hong Kong:

Poem One:

櫛比黌宮人地靈，桃紅李綠滿香庭；

維城界石今猶在，九約四環去無形。

Poem Two:

櫛比黌宮人傑靈，杏檀春雨百家鳴；

天吼震盪風雷起，虎嘯龍吟共此聲。

-----詠於戊子初夏遊港大後庭之龍虎山郊野公園

Lung Fu Shan Country Park covers the wooded slopes of Lung Fu Shan, including the disused Pinewood Battery and the Pinewood Garden picnic area. The area commands an excellent vistas of the western part of the HKSAR territory and the Victoria Harbour.

City of Victoria and Victoria Harbour were named after Queen Victoria, the then Queen of the United Kingdom in 1843. The City originally covered the Central, Admirality and part of Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island.

In the 1850s the British government expanded the boundary of City of Victoria and divided it into 4 "wans" or districts("環" literally means rings). The four wans are Sai Wan ("West Ring" in Chinese, present-day Sai Wan, including Kennedy Town, Shek Tong Tsui, and Sai Ying Pun), Sheung Wan ("Upper Ring" in Chinese, present-day Sheung Wan), Chung Wan ("Central Ring" in Chinese, present-day Central) and Ha Wan ("Lower Ring" in Chinese, present-day Wan Chai).

The four "wans" are further divided into 9 "yeuks" ("約" similar to "small district" or "neighbourhood"). The coverage also included part of the present-day Happy Valley.

The Hong Kong British Government established six (or more) boundary stones to mark the limits of the Victoria City in 1903. The stones spread from Causeway Bay to Kennedy Town.

The one on Hatton Road is still in its original location. It was tapered at the top with the inscription "CITY BOUNDARY 1903" on the body. It's now a historical relic for the identification of the past city bound. It also witnesses the enormous change of Hong Kong in the past century.

Our Hong Kong is now a renowned cosmopolitan city. With lot of skyscrapers and shopping arcades, it has shown its sucess with astonished economic achievements as a result of the effective working of market mechanism that always praised by the past great "Free market" economist, my idol --- the 1976 Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman.

P.S. The amber rainstorm warning has just been issued by the HK Observatory in the evening as I'd returned home. Will the coming torrential rains bring our SAR territory chaos again? Is it an omen worse ahead? I'm wondering!


Reference link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_City

also at http://wongtc.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post.html