Racked up along a checkout line at a Hong Kong CitySuper with all of the other impulse-buy junk: “Keep Memory Gum”: a Japanese chewing gum (from Lotte, a Korean company) that claims to somehow boost one’s memory. A geek.com article about this gum describes it as minty and says that it contains ginkgo biloba.An umbrella and a USB-chargeable hand fan? That’s all well and good, but I hope he’s got a contingency plan for fending off the mobs of umbrella-less, fan-less unfortunates once heat stroke begins to take its toll and desperation sets in.Some buildings have piano-hinged-connected wooden or plastic sheets. Others use raggedy cardboard. Every time I’ve seen a building management in Hong Kong take measures to protect the interior of an elevator from damage when tenants moved something substantial in or out, the solution has been improvised and shoddy-looking. A recent appointment took us to an office building that was using something much nicer: quilt-like pads covered with burgundy-red corduroy fabric.
