Life is not bad for a crocodile named Pui Pui. Hong Kong's favourite reptile currently lives in 600 sq ft purpose-built quarters at Kadoorie Farm. Home comes complete with a sizeable filtered swimming pool and a discrete retreat where she can retire, should the press of curious humans become too intrusive. Nothing is too good for the scaly reptile from the putrid waters of the Yuen Long nullah.
In 2003, voters chose Pui Pui as Hong Kong's Personality of the Year after the crafty juvenile saltwater crocodile eluded professional and amateur hunters for seven months.
I can see why. I feel a bond with the wily reptile. She's a classic Hongkonger: self-sufficient, intolerant of interfering bureaucracy, tough and a mite cranky. She just wants to be left alone to get on with business, which, in her case, is eating rats, birds, fish, frogs and anything else that comes within snapping distance of her formidable jaws.
When the 1.5-metre crocodile arrived at the farm two years ago, she weighed about 14kg. A steady diet has now bulked out her frame.
Hong Kong took the elusive reptile to its heart in the autumn of 2003, soon after someone noticed a stranger-than-usual creature sliding through the rancid waters around the Yuen Long nullah. Within days, the crocodile - thought to have originated in Australia and freed here by an irresponsible owner - was the focus of worldwide television cameras.
Reptile farmer and crocodile-catcher John Lever was flown from Australia to catch the creature, joining scores of ambitious Yuen Long farmers and fishermen, who suddenly became ardent Crocodile Dun-Lees. When Pui Pui was finally noosed, there was a widespread feeling of regret that a free spirit had been caged.