The miracle of Hong Kong

Since he moved to Hong Kong three years ago, the Rat’s Cantonese has been coming on apace. This has rather less to do with his language skills — never that much in evidence on his school reports — than it does with the fact that my stepson works in what is still, despite the mainland Chinese’s best efforts, one of the most aggressively free-market cultures in the world.

‘It’s like this,’ Rat explained, when the Fawn and I visited earlier this year. ‘If you want to get a cab somewhere urgent in the morning and you can’t speak good enough Cantonese then basically you’re stuffed. The drivers just swear at you and drive off. They haven’t got time to be wasting listening to dumb Gweilo trying to make themselves understood. In Hong Kong time is money.’

This was the first time we’d seen the Rat and his girlfriend in their new home and it was a joy to see how much happier they were.