Dubai may be positively insane but then Hong Kong is absolutely shameless in its display of wealth and consumption, especially now that it is christmas time. Now x-mas is not only taken as an excuse for excess shopping but there are special x-mas themed stages all over the place. Passed by the one in central tonight where they had a chinese band playing covers of pop songs and while i passed there the (very attractive, young) lead-singer announced the next song (i am a survivor or i survive or something like this) by telling the crowd that

… two months ago she had a really tough time, because all three of her boyfriends had left her on the same day – on the same day get this! – but this experience only made her stronger because [song starts]

Meanwhile the the lcd screen that displays txt-messages send to santa changes from ‘i wish i had 2.000.000 dollars to spend’ (not specific whether HKD or USD) to ‘i wish all the people in the world had a gun and would kill themselves’.