WHAT makes a 78-year-old man stand in a 500-metre-long queue at 5 am on a cold winter's morning with thousands of other people? And he's been doing it for 30 years.
It's not to collect his benefits, although he is at a Post Office. And it's not to buy shares, although he is bullish enough.
It's stamps. Mr Chan Sik-kwan is an obsessive philatelist, and last Thursday was a special day because the Post Office issued a new set of stamps to celebrate Chinese New Year and the Year of the Cock.
But it was not a day of polite philatelic conversations about the latest issue from Paraguay featuring pictures of singing blackbirds. Discontent was rife with allegations of theft, bribery and queue-jumping.
The thousands-strong queue snaked its way around the back of the General Post Office and disappeared beyond the Lantau ferry terminal.
An enterprising 65-year-old, Mr Yuen Chen, took advantage of the opportunity to have so many fanatics in one place by pinning thousands of stamps on his clothes, and wandering up and down the line offering them for sale. Ever wanted a First Day cover from Lesotho? ''There were already about 20 people queuing up when I arrived at 5.50 this morning,'' he said.
