THE Spice Trader and his wife once adopted a homeless Filipina secretary, who lived with us for a year. She was rather shy and sat watching television, while we pottered around the flat, cooked dinner and so on. The word soon got around Tin Hau that there was a lunatic foreign couple who did all the cooking and cleaning while their maid lived a life of indolent luxury. This neatly reinforced the prevailing prejudice that foreigners are too soft on domestic helpers, while local Hong Kong people are too strict. This, of course, is rubbish. A fascinating document has come into my possession. It is an eight-page, desktop-published list of instructions given to one domestic helper by her employer, a Westerner who is, or was recently, working at Standard Chartered Bank. The day starts early, with breakfast served at 6.45am, and finishes late - taking the dog for a toilet walk at 9.30pm. In between are a stunningly detailed list of instructions. For breakfast, she has to set the table with knife, fork, spoon and water glass. Serve one banana, half a Japanese apple cut into four sections, one slice of rock melon for sir, one larger portion of rock melon for madam - plus one small section of papaya, one slice of toast each (must be lightly buttered, and must be muesli bread from the bakery at the Furama Hotel). There are individual instructions for the care of every pot plant in the apartment and a page-and-a-half of details about the dog, including the name, phone number, pager number and portable phone number of 'the dog's doctor'. All floors and furniture are to be vacuumed every weekday and Saturday 'even while we are away'. This document is described as 'core duties', as they would not want her to think of it as a complete list. RESTAURANT spotted in Japan by Hong Kong journalist Jo Anderson: 'Cafe de Cancer.' DR Robert Dunlop of Hong Kong Adventist Hospital yesterday told me about a recent seminar for cardiologists. One of the panellists asked the chairman: 'What do you do in those cases, we've all had them, where you check up the patient from head to toe, do all the tests in the book, the results all come back normal, the patient walks out of your office - and drops dead on the street?' 'Nothing to it,' said the chairman. 'I sneak out to the street, turn the body around. Now it faces my office.' DID you see that story in yesterday's paper about a Hong Kong group which paid $88,000 to rescue a 172 kilogram garoupa from the chopping board because 'it might be a dragon king in disguise'? I suggest the animal welfare people use this technique in Guangzhou. 'Did you hear that the Dragon King is hiding in this meat market, disguised as an endangered mammal?' FROM The New York Times, a beggar seated in front of Radio City Music Hall gave his cup of change one loud shake and called out: 'Last chance - I'm leaving.' E-MAIL from reader Mike Martin: 'I think you misunderstood Henry Kissinger's response to the question about Hong Kong's human rights report. Given his personal history - the Vietnam War, the 'secret invasion' of then neutral Cambodia, his support for right-wing dictatorships in South and Central America - I suspect he meant he was unfamiliar with the idea of human rights in general'. FOUR excuses former South Korean president Roh Tae-woo can use to explain the US$650 million (about HK$5 billion) he was found holding. 1. Isn't it amazing how bits of small change add up? 2. A Hong Kong bar hostess called Pauline Sham gave it to me, then disappeared. 3. I was looking after it for Imelda Marcos. 4. It's Kim Jong-il's hair mousse budget, confiscated from North Korea by my secret agents. Send ingredients to the Spice Trader by phone: 2565-2624; fax: 2565-2626; or e-mail: spice
