So the story goes like this: my buddy in Hong Kong is considering moving into a bigger flat (yes, flat, I already got used to saying flat as oppose to apartment). The reason, is two folds. Firstly, he and his wife are thinking of expanding the family, and their current two-bedroom 670 square feet flat is just too small for a future baby, a future baby sitter and themselves. The other reason is for investment - although the current property market is already at a sky high, but one can argue some flats have the potential to go higher. At least, the bubble concept is not a widely accepted one, not yet anyways.
So on a Sunday afternoon, we decided to check out the Grand Waterfront. The estate has five towers sitting adjacent to the old Kai Tak airport in east Kowloon. The estate is branded luxury, equiped a five star european style lobby and a fine club house featuring state of the art facilities including: a swiming pool, karaoke rooms, fitness center, a spa, a 20-seat cinema (the seats are actually full-size massage chairs) and more. Each tower has its own lobby and each lobby has two concierage person and a security guard. The concierage people actually deserve a word of attention as I find them being much younger (some of them in their twenties) than the average ones I have seen elsewhere.
Oh, and yes, did I mention you do not need keys for these flats? You unlock your door by putting your thumb on a scanning device on the door, or, keying in your password through a numberic keypad. Is this just cool or what? NASA style technology is being incorporated into our daily lives. And, you know, my buddy told me about this doorlock thing 3 times before coming to see the flats myself, and it is one of the few things I associated this estate with: the one you scan your thumb to open the door. Yet, I did not remember the name of the estate.
And onto the surroundings: east Kowloon is actually an old district, filled with public housing (public housing is quite common in HK) and an old airport pending for new development. So if you take a walk outside, you will see some aged buildings and dark streets; it will feel like you are in a forgotten part of the city. But, the thinking is that east Kowloon will be redeveloped in the next 5 to 10 years so its land value should rise. However, if you believe in market efficiency, the land price has already been priced in for the potential rise.
So if you wonder why I have not talked about the flats themselves, it is because I think they are the most interesting part. The agent showed us 3 flats, they are all 3-bedroom flats, but the smallest one is around 757 square feet. Yes, 757 square feet for a 3-bedroom flat. And what is more, one of the 757 square feet flats has 2 bathroom, one for the living room, and one for the master bedroom. Now, if you haven't seen a flat in this part of the world, let me tell you, the usable size of these flats are somewhere around 75%. So 757 times 75% gives you 567 square feet. If you don't have an idea of how big 567 square feet is, then you really have to come and see it in Hong Kong, it is smaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall.
The smaller bedroom of the flat is probably the size of, hm, say an evalator. Although it is stretch side ways so you can actually fit a 6 feet by 2.5 feet bed. The room, nevertheless, has a window overlooking the sea, but the size of the window is so rediculously small that it reminds me of prison break. Actually, the ones in Fox River have bigger windows than this.
So how much does this thing cost you? Well, the asking price for the 757 square feet flat is HK$4.8 million. Which works out to be around US$630,000. Keep in mind, the usable are is 567 sqaure feet.
So is this bad? NO! there are way more rediculous flat prices in Hong Kong, especially on the island side (Hong Kong is devided into three big district: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, and New Territories). But what I found interesting is that, when you can't get space in a luxury flat, you are offered with a whole package of other things but space. You will get a nicely decorated club house (which is not very big either), a keyless door, Germany-imported home appliances, and a lot of people to greet you at the lobby.
2008年2月27日 星期三
2008年2月24日 星期日
intro
Well, I have been wanting to start some blog for a while...most of my desire comes from the experience of having started working in Hong Kong in November 2007, and along came with the cultural differences - mostly in the businss environment.
So here is a few sentence of background of what has led me to my current working life in Hong Kong:
Upon completing my undergrad in 2000, I have worked for various IT companies in Canada and the US. In the early days of the millennium, it was a very glamorous thing to work for a technology/dot-com company, in particular, software companies. I had worked with software developers who really took pride in their work and some 12 hours work day was an industry norm. I guess the same could still be said for guys at Google, well, my salute to the Google guys.
After some five years of seeing a relative fast changing IT industry, I have decided to take a different career path and moved on to completing a MBA degree at the University of Toronto. As fate would have it, I received and accepted an offer from a regional conglomerate in Hong Kong. W Holdings, became my first company after graduating from business school. Like my classmates, I had high hopes to what I could achieve in this company. Although, well, high hope is what most MBA program wants you to have, especially at a tuition of over fifty grand in two years.
So here is how I would describe my typical day in Hong Kong: I wake up at 8:30 (my official office hour is 10am to 6pm), eat my breakfast at home, or on my way to work at Tai Kai Lok (Cafe De Coral). Touch down on my desk at 10 sharp, read the news for 30-60 minutes, and start on cleaning up/replying emails. Although this routine can be scrapped if I have meetings scheduled or my boss wants something really quick. And in Hong Kong, people tend to schedule a lot of meetings and quite a lot of them are ad-hoc. My routine do get scrapped very often.
If things don't go out of wrack, I will have my lunch at 12 sharp. Yes, only 2 hours after my breakfast. This is because foodcourts in business districts get very busy between 12:30 and 2:00. So unless you don't mind waiting in line for 30 minutes (and my observation tells me a lot of HK people actually don't mind), you either have your lunch at 12, or after 2.
I would finish my lunch in about 20 minutes, and sometimes less. I developed this habit since coming to Hong Kong, and I am hoping that this could change once I find my regular lunch-mate. I would head back to the office and start my afternoon work. And again, what happens in the afternoon depends on if there are any meetings scheduled.
I will be blessed if there is a meeting-free afternoon and I can actually get some work done. It is not that I dislike meetings. On the contrary, I think meetings is where men are made. It is the best channel for communication and learning if all relevant people show up on time and are prepared for the subject of discussion. Unforturnately, this is not the case here.
From my 4 months of service, I can't recall one meeting that started with everyone show up on time; 90% of meetings don't have a meeting agenda and most of them are booked with no end time. This, has been the most frustrating part so far in my business encounterments.
Having worked in North America for the last five years, I have learned to respect other's time (although my girlfriend may disagree...), particularly in a business setting. I mean, how does a meeting become productive if there isn't a meeting plan to follow through? And most importantly, I want to look smart in these meetings, I really do...or, well, at least, not dumb. But I can't. I could only be prepared for these meetings if I was given some notice of their subjects in advance. But, I digress, maybe this is a key to sucess in Asia/Hong Kong, you either somehow figure it out or get kicked out. After all, there are westeners in these meetings too, who are educated and worked overseas (so I assume they had some different type of work ethics before coming to work in Hong Kong). So during the process, I assume they probably resisted, adjusted, and finally fitted-in (or gave up).
So here is a few sentence of background of what has led me to my current working life in Hong Kong:
Upon completing my undergrad in 2000, I have worked for various IT companies in Canada and the US. In the early days of the millennium, it was a very glamorous thing to work for a technology/dot-com company, in particular, software companies. I had worked with software developers who really took pride in their work and some 12 hours work day was an industry norm. I guess the same could still be said for guys at Google, well, my salute to the Google guys.
After some five years of seeing a relative fast changing IT industry, I have decided to take a different career path and moved on to completing a MBA degree at the University of Toronto. As fate would have it, I received and accepted an offer from a regional conglomerate in Hong Kong. W Holdings, became my first company after graduating from business school. Like my classmates, I had high hopes to what I could achieve in this company. Although, well, high hope is what most MBA program wants you to have, especially at a tuition of over fifty grand in two years.
So here is how I would describe my typical day in Hong Kong: I wake up at 8:30 (my official office hour is 10am to 6pm), eat my breakfast at home, or on my way to work at Tai Kai Lok (Cafe De Coral). Touch down on my desk at 10 sharp, read the news for 30-60 minutes, and start on cleaning up/replying emails. Although this routine can be scrapped if I have meetings scheduled or my boss wants something really quick. And in Hong Kong, people tend to schedule a lot of meetings and quite a lot of them are ad-hoc. My routine do get scrapped very often.
If things don't go out of wrack, I will have my lunch at 12 sharp. Yes, only 2 hours after my breakfast. This is because foodcourts in business districts get very busy between 12:30 and 2:00. So unless you don't mind waiting in line for 30 minutes (and my observation tells me a lot of HK people actually don't mind), you either have your lunch at 12, or after 2.
I would finish my lunch in about 20 minutes, and sometimes less. I developed this habit since coming to Hong Kong, and I am hoping that this could change once I find my regular lunch-mate. I would head back to the office and start my afternoon work. And again, what happens in the afternoon depends on if there are any meetings scheduled.
I will be blessed if there is a meeting-free afternoon and I can actually get some work done. It is not that I dislike meetings. On the contrary, I think meetings is where men are made. It is the best channel for communication and learning if all relevant people show up on time and are prepared for the subject of discussion. Unforturnately, this is not the case here.
From my 4 months of service, I can't recall one meeting that started with everyone show up on time; 90% of meetings don't have a meeting agenda and most of them are booked with no end time. This, has been the most frustrating part so far in my business encounterments.
Having worked in North America for the last five years, I have learned to respect other's time (although my girlfriend may disagree...), particularly in a business setting. I mean, how does a meeting become productive if there isn't a meeting plan to follow through? And most importantly, I want to look smart in these meetings, I really do...or, well, at least, not dumb. But I can't. I could only be prepared for these meetings if I was given some notice of their subjects in advance. But, I digress, maybe this is a key to sucess in Asia/Hong Kong, you either somehow figure it out or get kicked out. After all, there are westeners in these meetings too, who are educated and worked overseas (so I assume they had some different type of work ethics before coming to work in Hong Kong). So during the process, I assume they probably resisted, adjusted, and finally fitted-in (or gave up).
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