It's dress-up day and the Sevens always brings out the most outrageous costumes. This annual Mardi Gras masquerading as a sporting event is the type of gathering that only a truly entitled society can hold. Forty-thousand people shoehorned into a gorgeous downtown stadium including 170 corporate boxes jammed with sycophants reeking of money, booze and privilege. Recession? Please, this is Hong Kong and frankly it doesn't suck.
I am firmly ensconced in the cheap seats sitting high above it all with a friend who is visiting the city. His eyes are wide with wonderment; he's eating it all up and has a grin on his face wider than J Lo's rear end. He's been here a few times before but it never seems to get old. 'Most people can't appreciate how unbelievable Hong Kong is until they come,' he says. 'You know how lucky you are to live here?'
Well, yeah, I guess so. But it often takes an outsider to make us appreciate what we have in front of us. And the more I think about it, the more I realise how right he is. It's a privilege to live in this place, especially with the way most of the world is hurting. There is money and there are jobs. There is little violent crime and there are virtually no guns. You don't look over your shoulder here; it's an enormously civilised place with a highly educated populace.
'I can't believe how free it is here,' my friend adds in amazement. Freedom? I guess it's all relative. Yes, we are free to do everything around here - except to choose our leader and that's why I can't seem to shake this forlorn mood. Directly below us England are battling Fiji in a seismic struggle. The sun bathes us in a warm hue and there is no shortage of beautiful people to gawk at. The view from our seats is stunning with Causeway Bay and the harbour unfolding on one side while the gorgeous greenery of Jardine's Lookout climbs skyward in the other direction. And yet it all just feels so wrong, so very wrong.
'Look out there in the harbour past Causeway Bay,' I said to my friend, 'You can almost see the Convention Centre in Wan Chai. Don't you think it's in poor taste to be partying like this when there is a massive public mourning going on over there?'
He just nods blankly. Not only would Hong Kong crown a new Sevens champion today, but they would also crown a new chief executive and they would do it almost simultaneously. When we left my home for the stadium a couple of hours earlier I was cursing at the TV. The gilded, the mega-elite, were arriving at the Convention Centre to cast their ballot for the new boss. In a city of 7.1 million, only 1,193 are allowed to vote.