My TakeIs this the wild and wacky world of investment banking in Hong Kong?
The murder of two Indonesian sex workers and the arrest of a British banker have set tongues wagging across our city, not least among expat bankers. Someone sent me this disturbing article from the respected businessinsider.com.
Written with a pseudonym by someone who claims to be a young American banker working in Hong Kong, I sincerely hope his portrait of his banking colleagues is not true. After all, they are the (imported) pillars of this financial hub of ours.
It's titled "Hong Kong bankers could get away with murders", and the writer thinks many expat financiers live in a state of nature where ordinary restraints have been removed. "Hong Kong is a tropical island masquerading as a legitimate city," he writes. "Expat bankers in Asia can do whatever they want. They tend to get treated better than locals. They can start food fights at The Mandarin Grill, flee the scene of a car crash, or take their pants off and run around Lan Kwai Fong. And if they get so out-of-control that they get banned from 3 bars in one night, the cops will just take them home."
I am sure the Mandarin and bars in Lan Kwai Fong would not tolerate such behaviour from anyone.
"We once staked out our regional head of sales, 'Dirty Sanchez', until we caught him walking out at 3am on Tuesday with a love monkey on each arm," the article says, claiming drug-taking and buying prostitutes are common among his colleagues.
"Dirty Sanchez" is slang for a particularly unhygienic sex act. "[At] dinner at [a famous] steakhouse, an investment banking colleague showed up with two prostitutes and proceeded to hold a contest to see which of them could keep their hand on the famously hot plates the longest."