The current economic environment reminds Lam Kwok-kuen, 40, of conditions during the Asian financial crisis and Sars
Mainland businessmen are so desperate for money that they will do anything to eke more money out of people. That milk powder poisoning scandal is not the first one. I remember years ago they also made substandard milk powder that makes the heads of babies grow abnormally big, like watermelons. At that time they said they would tighten up controls, monitoring the level of protein in the milk etc.
Well, this time they managed to get the protein levels right, except that there are also a bunch of harmful chemicals in the milk powder because they spike it with chemicals. Where will it end? We have fake sales, fake herbs, fake eggs, contaminated meat etc on the mainland. It is really sad. I guess this is also why I have decided never to go to the mainland for travel - I don't even have the mainland pass. I did not bother to apply. Why go across the border when Hong Kong offers everything better in quality? Just to save a bit money? Well you have to spend hours to travel there and that is more than the saving's worth.
Raising children is no easy business. There are all the health checks before you actually deliver the baby, then you have to run around and try to line up the best kindergarten in town, the best you can afford, even before the baby is due. And after that you have to read everything up to choose the right milk powder, find the little kid different classes to develop their interests, and prepare the little one for school.
But school is also more complicated now than when we were small. I've got a friend I grew up with, known him for more than 20 years, and his 11-year-old boy just died last year. Jumped off the roof of the building they were living in, and he was his only son. My friend and his wife were devastated. They have not fully recovered from the shock and grief yet. Pressure of school work, they said. Peer pressure, the pressure of growing up - stuff like that. But to us adults they are just really nothing at all, small problems that can be easily solved.
Why would a child kill himself just because of that? It's so difficult to get to understand what is going on in their heads now, with all the computers, internet surfing, mobile phones and whatever it is that is making their lives so complicated. And then you have to worry about your son making a young girl pregnant, or your little girl getting together with someone unworthy. You read all about that in the news. It's so awful.
