Will half a million free tickets save Hong Kong from tunnel vision?

WITH Hong Kong opening up and quarantines lifted, I wondered what might be in store for visitors to this fine city, my home of almost 40 years. Travellers will be glad to learn that masks of all colours remain popular and are mandatory. This protects arrivals from toxic garlic fumes that can be particularly incapacitating at close quarters on the Mass Transit Railway.

There are other courtesies. In some countries, you might get your hands and feet washed before entering a shrine. In Hong Kong, great reverence is accorded to tonsils and nasal passages. These get coddled and swabbed with religious intensity for a few days, starting with arrival at the airport, where new washbasins bear the cryptic message: “Do not enter”. The city has thought of it all, but the goodies and outreach don’t end here.

Near my home, signs point out: “Wild pigs are monitored and protected through surveillance cameras”. Residents are urged not to feed porcine friends who are rampaging through residential neighbourhoods nowadays, having knocked over and rooted through garbage bins along remote nature trails. Feeding them pork BBQ sausages would be really bad manners and insensitive. But could you end their fruitless foraging by cooking and eating them in an Asterix and Obelisk-style wild boar feast? This is a grey area.