The Gigantic Sit-In

Sunday is the day where you have to realize that there are 5% or so (improvised statistic - I think that's what I read somewhere) of non-ethnic-Chinese living in HK. At least, some proportion of it is made up by Filipino, Indonesian and other Southeast Asian domestic helpers who get a day off and gather altogether in outdoor public places. Most notably, you will see them in Central, in the area around Exchange Square. Most middle to upper-class families employ domestic helpers, and they are surely one of the reasons why many many Hongkongers afford to work overboard overtime (so if I were ever ask to work overtime in the future, I'll shut my mouth and think of the folks down here).

On Sundays that I spent in Hong Kong (provided I go out that day...), I always noticed something new about those sit-ins. Last time in Wan Chai, it was those seemingly-maids, perhaps a hundred of them, gathered at the base of an emptied commercial building (when the yuppies take their weekly break on Sunday, the maids-on-break-too take over). By groups of a dozen each, they wore coloured team t-shirts, as if participating in some sort of rally.

This week, it was the helpers gathered in the lobby of the HSBC building in Central (that mass of people does *not* occur everyday!):

As I was taking the bus near my aunt's flat this early afternoon, I noticed those university-age kids in suit, on the side of the road, waving what seemed to be promotional fliers of some sort. Students on a end-of-term project? (Gosh, they were just in suits, with a purple-ish file in hand waving at passing cars...) Actually on my way back home, I had my answer from fellow bus passengers (they were still around, after a few hours in suit at 30 degrees centigrade, taking turns at waving and PSP-ing). Those kids were actually of the same race than those I encountered in that shopping mall three years ago (my cousin Sophie, surrounded with them, about to surrender): they are selling flats!

The housing market is teh competitive in HK, so what do they do to sell newly built flats? They send university-age kids in suits to older upscale neighborhoods like Tai Hang and have them wave promotional fliers at passerbys from bus stops on the side of the road...