As if 21 days’ compulsory quarantine isn’t enough: food thieves in Hong Kong hotels really take the cake
- A friend in quarantine complained that he wanted dessert served at lunchtime, not dinner time. Another made a game of catching the hotel staff dropping off food
- But it’s food theft in city quarantine hotels that’s perturbing Kate Whitehead, who found someone had home-made meals stolen by the person in the room next door
Hong Kong is experiencing a new crime wave – food theft in quarantine hotels. And it’s the hotels with a reputation for delivering the least appetising meals that are heading the trend.
We humans do like to complain. A friend incarcerated at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong on Hong Kong Island whinged that dessert was served with dinner but he wanted to have it at lunchtime, which would allow him to work off the calories on the exercise bike in the afternoon.
The heart bleeds.
A British friend knew this when she booked, but she had no choice; it was the only quarantine hotel with rooms available and she needed to return to Hong Kong for work. She decided to get around the food issue by asking her helper to drop off meals once a day, lunch and dinner.
That plan worked well – until it didn’t. Her helper messaged to say she’d dropped off the meals, but 40 minutes later she still hadn’t received them, so she called the front desk.
It turned out that the food had been delivered and her neighbour had stolen it. Her room, at the end of the corridor, had a room on either side, and it was easy for a neighbour to reach out and swipe it. (Set foot outside your room and you risk being sent to a government quarantine camp to serve the remainder of your sentence, before facing prosecution).
My friend was shocked, but the front desk receptionist wasn’t: “It happens quite often,” she said.
I briefly wondered what might happen if my friend called the police to report a theft. Would the cops enter a quarantine hotel? If the evidence had been eaten how would they prove a crime had taken place? Surely there was CCTV footage?
Fortunately, my friend’s sense of humour was still intact – and she had a little cheese left in the fridge – so she laughed it off as part of the surreal existence that is quarantine life.