What started as a simple exchange of hellos with my neighbour in the lift lobby last week ended with me letting loose the foulest expletives you can imagine. My verbal filth embarrassed him - a polite man who works in the financial sector. But I couldn't help it. He told me his landlord had raised his rent by a non-negotiable 25 per cent - forcing him to either pay up or move. He chose to move.
You tell me: what sane person wouldn't curse like a madman at the mere mention of our greedy landlords?
Before you conclude I am a foul-mouthed maniac, you should know my neighbour and I have the same landlord - a big-time property developer. I live in a complex of serviced flats where tenants are only allowed yearly contracts, after which they face preposterous rent rises. I am now like a dead man walking - mortified by the thought of a 25 per cent rent rise which I simply cannot afford.
How I wish Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen would curse, too, when he talks this Wednesday about families being locked out of our outrageously overpriced housing market. That would really endear him to the people.
It is one thing, however, for me to swear uncontrollably at property-sector greed, quite another to expect our leader to hurl obscenities at Hong Kong's most powerful people. Besides, it is unreasonable to expect expletives from a devout Catholic.
But what, then, should we expect from the chief executive during Wednesday's annual policy speech? Fixing Hong Kong's many ills would require a miracle of biblical proportions. Don't expect that. A man of faith he may be; a miracle worker he is not.