No holds barred in honest guide to Hong Kong

PEOPLE are always criticising the Hong Kong Tourist Association, but I think they do a great job. Why, without reading their wonderful website, I would never have known that I should bargain in shops here.

'Offer less than what you would be willing to pay and gradually increase the amount until you reach a reasonable compromise,' it says. I shall try it this afternoon in Watson's.

In the mid-1970s, the association was even more daring. It gave tourists a little hardback book that included several pages of photographs of prostitutes.

'The easiest way to find a charming partner at a fair charge is to choose one of any nationality from Hong Kong's quality escort services mentioned on the following pages,' it said.

These days, the association is far too high-class to stoop to such methods.

But perhaps in this difficult period, the time has come to return to a more wide-ranging, creative, honest type of guidebook.