Dear Hong Kong...

Rant...

I am not an expert on city planning, but it seems to me that you have the potential to be even more efficient than you already are. The problems are as follows:

1. Even though you put handy arrows on the sidewalks and stairs and walkways to indicate which direction people are to be walking, no one cares. Walking in a public place in HK is like playing a real life game of Frogger. Indeed, you will dodge cars if you are not inside or underground, but most often you are dodging people and fish ball stands and people handing out flyers and people and more people and people that just stop walking and stand in one place, mid traffic... It's all become very inefficient, but it's because the arrows are not helping. Perhaps shock fences like for cattle. I would be sure to obey the right-of-way, I promise, and maybe the classical conditioning would help. After all, there are cake stands around every corner.

2. You are also proficient in signage, but maybe no one can read them or no one cares. I do see people taking photos but it's probably because you put juvenile cartoon characters on them that probably detract from the message!

3. Furthermore, everyone has headphones on. So, your announcements in all public places as to what a person should and should not be doing, go unheard. If you could find a way to tap via bluetooth into peoples' headphones to make these important announcements about how often the escalator handrail that you're supposed to be holding has been sanitized (every hour, by the way), please also tell them to stop being texting pedestrians.

4. Speaking of texting and walking, or trying to do so...

Hong Kong-ians, you try to multi-task... you try so hard... cashiers, clerks, security guards, everyone... you are all trying to do 37 things at once, but it's NOT WORKING. Even if you are walking and texting at the same time, one activity suffers and it's not the texting that suffers, believe me.

5. Finally (for now), I realized why many of you wear shoes that are too large for you, even high heels where it is super obvious. Upon attempting to buy items that come in specific sizes (clothing, for example) over the past month, I realized why this is a problem. I would bring an item to the counter or a sales associate and ask them for another size. Sometimes they would tell me something to the extent that they don't have the desired size BUT they proceed to process my transaction for the item that was either too small or too big... as if I was fine buying whatever it was that wouldn't fit because there was no other option. Well, there is another option... don't buy it! Even though it's "so cheap", which is the #1 phrase heard in English in HK, you don't have to buy it... you don't...

Ok, I feel better now... that's my rant... relatively benign but was necessary...