Apparently the Two IFC was opened last week for "public" or what the owners seem to perceive as public. Those pigheads only let mainland people (you need a mainland passport) and spend HKD800 (easy part) in the shopping mall. Thus, even Hong Kong citizens (and expats/ visitors from somewhere else) are not eligible to visit the top floor. Just comment on that: Welcome to socialism Hong Kong! You have the money and the right passport ...

As you probably know, Chinese people have their usual Chinese names that are hard to translate into English (read it as: impossible without being laughed at). Additionaly, Westerners are usually incapable of pronouncing these Chinese names correctly (by that I mean: not insulting the called one) they give them names as they like and the stock exchange moves. Thus, also my girlfriend has two Englisch names. One she used to have on documents and the other one she likes to be called and if I try to pronounce her Chinese name ends up in arguments. But obviously choosing a decent name is not an easy task. What might be a nice Chinese name can be pretty embarissing. Want some examples? Here we go:

• Apple (a sales lady in a shop in Times Square)
• Bear (a girl in a new and good Ramen restaurant in Causeway Bay)
• Milky (also a sales girl, wearing that name badge on her breast cough)
• Pimp (yes I looked twice!)
• Heydee (now, guess dear German friends how to pronounce that)

I will keep my eyes open on those badges. If you have some more add them to the comments. Apparently BigWhiteGuy had a collection of names but I can't find them right now. would be nice to have a pointer on the frontpage