AS JAPANESE star Ryuichi Sakamoto warmed up for the first of his two concerts earlier this month at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium, a group of Filipinos gathered at the venue's entrance.
Each carried a stack of handbills advertising concerts by American singer Cyndi Lauper (below) at the QE on November 28 and 29, which they were handing out to members of the audience as they arrived at the venue.
The Arena Group, which was putting on the Sakamoto event, was unimpressed since the Lauper gigs were to be staged by the rival Entertainment Company.
A security officer was sent down to disperse the ladies and, wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene, he decided to use a softly-softly approach.
He told them he was from the Immigration Department and demanded to see their ID cards to make sure they had the right to work in Hong Kong. Exit Filipinos left, right and centre, leaving a stack of handbills in their wake.
BACK in the 1980s, when China was still a closed society, a senior manager at one of Beijing's joint-venture hotels decided to do his bit to open up Sino-British relations.
Tired and emotional after an evening on the tiles, he got into a hotel lift with a pretty Chinese woman. Somehow the lift got stuck, and as they waited to be rescued the couple decided to get to know each other better.