Hong Kong Complaints

From what I can gather, Hong Kong is the world’s capital of complaints. Sure, you find some prissy bitches in New York, but when it comes down to it, nobody can complain like we Hongkongers.

I don’t think it’s our fault. This city was built on an island with everything deliberately made convenient. Taxis are ubiquitous, bars are one drunken step away, and you can get a foot massage for a hundred bucks.

So what does this mean? It means that living here you can get spoiled and complain about stupid things. Like the guy I knew who flipped out when he only got four pillows at his Intercontinental Suite; like the guy who yelled at me in the club because I didn’t pour enough free champagne in his glass. Jeez… So, without further ado, here are my top three biggest complaints about Hong Kong complaints.

Complaint #1: Complaining about your domestic helper: This one takes the cake, and sadly, it’s rampant. I’ll be hanging with some colleagues and suddenly, it’s “My maid’s so lazy” this, “my maid’s so stupid she couldn’t figure out where to put my hats” that. First of all, if you own so many hats that you need a special space devoted to them, kill yourself. Second, your maid is not lazy. Anyone who leaves her home country to work for low pay cleaning up your slop is not lazy, just unfortunate. You are lazy because you leave huge piles of clothes, magazines, and hats on the floor for your maid to pick up. You are lazy because you forgot how to cook food (or worse, never learned). If you think your maid is lazy, clean up for yourself. Or at least vomit in the toilet instead of the floor when you get home at 5:30 am. Every little bit helps.

Complaint #2: Complaining about how you hate your job: When I worked in banking, the analysts would play a game called “I’m so tired.” It would start with one analyst saying something like I hate my job; I’m so tired; I’ve only slept four hours. Then another, more annoying analyst would say, I only slept three. Then that weird analyst who drinks Coke Zero like its cocaine would say I’m on my third all-nighter! Such is the way with people here and their difficult work they get paid millions of dollars to do.
Look, if you need to support your family or you have a crappy job that was the only one you could get, I’m sorry for you. Otherwise—as Johannes would say—STFU, or as I would say, shut the fuck up. It sucks that your boss makes you work 60 hours a week—get another job. Oh no, you make $1 mil a year but hate your life—get another job. At least don’t tell everyone at the bar how much you hate your job and then complain about it again next week. Life is short—you can find another job. You’re probably paying HK$34 for a coffee right now as you’re reading this—clearly you have the means to find another job.

Complaint #3: Complaining about how far things are: Central to TST is not far. It’s probably 7 minutes by MTR or Star Ferry or 25 minutes swimming, taking into account the extra arm you grow while floating in the contaminated water. Yet people act like you asked them to get you a snow cone in Antarctica if you suggest dinner on the other side of the island. If you don’t believe me, try this experiment: send out an email inviting people to this awesome thing. Say it will be cool with drinks and RSVP. After you get all the RSVPs say, btw, it’s in Tai Koo Shing. People will cancel and say that they went out hard last night and can’t come. These same people had 90-minute commutes wherever else they lived. What can you do?