After INTA in San Francisco, I dissapparated back to Israel for Shabbat and then, a few days later, dissaparated on to Hong Kong, and felt totally splitched with all the travelling and changes of time zones.
I appologise to readers relying on me to update on Israeli IP developments. There have been a couple of important Supreme Court rulings concerning pharmaceutical patents, one relating to Unjust Enrichment in marketing products described in patents that are under opposition. There has also been a decision of the Israel Patent Office regarding service inventions. I have reviewed these briefly and will blog them properly when I get back to Israel next week. In the meantime, I share some reflections on Hong Kong.
No doubt due to my English roots, I am commencing with the weather. Hong Kong is more humid than Tel Aviv. It is clingy and uncomfortable out in the streets, but pleasantly cool in the high rise buildings with their air-conditioning.
Hong Kong has a similar population to Israel. It is densely packed into vertical, high-rise villages. To get a view of the country, the best place to go is Victoria Peak, and I took the Peak Tram to the top. As we were yanked up at a steep 45 degrees, I realized how only a week ago, I thought the tram in San Francisco was impressive with its easy negotiation of mere 25-30 degree slopes. The Hong Kong Tramway, more accurately, a Fernacular railway, is so steep, that the passenger is subjected to an optical illusion and feels that the sky scrapers the railway passes are tilting over in a Pisa like manner.
The peak had a welcome surprise in the form of a Haagen Dazs ice-cream parlour. Suitably refreshed, I walked around the peak, enjoying the exotic trees and shrubs and the colourful butterflies. I saw a very impressive rubber tree. My mother had a potted rubber plant that she was rather proud of that eventually grew to the ceiling of our home in London and needed to be circumcised. Seeing a 20 meter high monstrosity, with a trunk that appeared to be over a meter in diameter, with aerial roots that had become supporting pillars, really put things into perspective. There were some truly monstrous monster plants, impressive camphors, and a host of trees with helpful names and descriptions, mostly indicating how impressive the blossoms would have been had a come three months ago, and what interesting fruit I could se if I waited around for another 4 months. In what could best be described as a Narnian anomaly, the path had wrought iron Victorian lamp-posts.
Hong Kong is all about perspectives. To me, the Chinese influences gave a very oriental feeling. I suspect that for a first time visitor from mainland China, the place has a distinctly Western, indeed, English feel. Are hydrangeas Chinese plants brought over to England, or English plants imported into Hong Kong? I saw very many so called house-plants,growing wild and growing well in the tropical, high humidity climate.
Although I speak a little Mandarin, Cantonese, Tariaki, Sweet & Sour and number 34, I couldn’t understand what people around me were saying. Indeed, it hardly mattered whether they were talking Chinese or English. I am not quite sure what a Nasal Dipthong is, but assuming it is onomatopoeic, it aptly describes the pleasant twang of Chinese to an uncultured ear.
As always, I wandered around in a Kippa (skull cap). I suspect that even if I had worn a baseball cap, I would have somewhat stuck out, as I am rather larger than the typical Chinese. I understand that there is no Antisemitism in Hong Kong. I certainly felt very comfortable wandering around.
Only the most jaundiced eye would describe the attractive compexion of the Chinese as anything other than the colour of milky coffee. Apart from the odd Buddhist monks trying to give me good luck beads, clothing was western and thus rather boring. The school children wore English style school uniforms. Even more Western and boring!
The business area is ultra-modern. Nevertheless, it was noticeable that scaffolding was made of bamboo, lashed together with nylon. Clearly bamboo is a superior material to steel tubing for this purpose. Notably, construction workers or supervisors are both sexes.
The street markets seemed to sell clothing, underwear, Chinese souvenirs like silk, jade and teapots, electrical toys and Unidentified Frying Objects. The king of the sky is the black kite which is common in Israel as well. I would have thought that the tower blocks would be ideal for peregrines, but then I realized that the orderly government must have banned pigeons as being untidy.
San Francisco is laid out in a tidy grid, but people there are disorderly and all do their own thing. The atmosphere is relaxed. In contrast, Hong Kong’s streets are anything but neat and tidy, with walkways weaving through a warp of main-roads. The population seems orderly and there is an urgency. Everyone seems in a hurry to get to wherever they are going.
I spent the first three nights in the Bishops Lei hotel which is convenient for the Ohel Leah Synagogue. I asked for a low floor, so as not to have to climb too many stairs on Shabbat. However, we were given a room on the 15th floor. Charitably, it could well have been the lowest twin bed room available. Nevertheless, I decided that the Catholic owners wanted me to do a penance for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.
The Ohel Leah synagogue, which is five minutes away from the hotel is something else. It reeks of dignified history. Built by the Sassoons, the seats appear to be camphor wood with woven wicker back-panels. The floor is grey and green marble. The Torah scrolls are Eastern cased, and apparently travelled from Baghdad via Bombay. The nusach is Sfarad, and the tunes are English. The membership seems to include some older, long-term residents and a lot of young bankers and accountants who are stationed in Hong Kong for 2-3 years.
I purchased a Friday night supper in the Jewish Community center, and the food was excellent. Not expensive either. Not being used to it, my brother and I found the Chinese waiter service a little uncomfortable. As every time I took a couple of mouthfuls, my glass was topped up, it was good that I was drinking water only.
There was a Bar Mitzva the week I was there. The Bar Mitzva boy seemed a little tall for a 13 year old, and it turned out that he was 15; his family was simply becoming more committed. The community is Orthodox, but tolerant. One long-time member explained how he had married for love, but that his wife attended Synagogue and kept a Kosher kitchen. Eventually, the Rabbi suggested that converted. We had Shabbat Lunch and Seudah Shlishit with the community. Apparently everyone eats these meals together every week. I suspect there are levels of intrigue there as with all communities everywhere, but for my one Shabbat, I found the community very welcoming, open and non-sanctimonious. A pleasant sociological and even spiritual experience.
I found an Indian tailor. To be more accurate, his sons and nephews found me. They hijack tourists coming off the ferry from Hong Kong Island, offering hand-made suits. I ordered a suit to be made-to-measure within 24 hours, with spare trousers, shirts, etc. Bearing in mind the amount of material that goes into a suit for me, the price is quite good. There are a number of such establishments in Hong Kong, all situated near to each other. I suspect, like the joke regarding the two beggars outside the Cathedral, that the trade is a cartel; the unsuspecting tourist or business man thinks that there is stiff competition, but actually the choice is limited to the tailor who measures you up and swipes your card. I suspect that in actual fact, all the establishments front the same sweatshop, and the various suits are cut and sewn by the same people, regardless of which Indian tailors one patronizes. Indeed, even if the cloth in adjacent establishments is cut and sewn by different Chinese seamstresses, does it matter?
Although I am not in Israel, the newspapers and television keep me in touch with developments. It is very difficult to make small talk with a Hong Kong Patent Attorney who asked what I think about the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza being opened. I explained that if it results in the free flow of tradeable goods and an increased quality of life, I am in favour, but if it is results in missiles being transported in from the Sudan via Egypt, I am less enamoured. With its British occupation and serving as a port into the relatively backward, enormous market and awakening giant that is China, it strikes me that Hong Kong and Israel are somewhat similar. Indeed, if God forbid, Israel would return to the pre 1967 cease-fire lines, the country would be about 15 kilometers wide at the narrowest point. To rehouse the 300,000 ‘Settlers’, Israel would have to build high-rise tower blocks and the Tel Aviv skyline would resemble that of Hong Kong. To keep the international airport out of reach of Palestinian guns, Ben Gurion airport (which is 2-3 kilometers from the pre-1967 border) would have to be evacuated and building an airport on an artificial island off the Tel Aviv coast seems a workable solution. Such an Israel would be very much like Hong Kong. If accompanied by peace, it could serve as the g ateway to the Middle East. In a similar manner to Hong Kong serving as the gateway to China. It would be a businessman’s dream; a western, English speaking metropolis, banking and business center. A businessman’s dream perhaps, but totally soul-less. No history and no destiny. I don’t believe that the issue between Right and Left is about Palestinian rights or demography; the Arabs living in the West Bank under Israel occupation have more self-determination and greater political freedom that any other Arabs in the Middle East outside of Sovereign Israel. self-determination. The issue is simply one of whether one wants a Jewish state, with Biblical holy sites, history and destiny, or a Hong Kong like frenetic business opportunity. The Westerners I spoke to who lived in Hong Kong before the hand-over by the British were pleased with how things turned out, but were worried before hand. It is possible that the Arab Spring heralds a change in heart and new democratic Arab, and that a return to the 1967 ceasefire lines will lead to peace and prosperity for all. However, I see the repressive regimes in Syria and Libya shooting dissenters and am skeptical. The problem with revolutions is as Orwell framed it; typically the pigs become men.
Next stop, Shanghai.
Posted by Dr Michael Factor 
