Disturbing the Peace 

It is easy to believe that Hong Kong offers a life of world-class comfort and convenience when everything is going one's way – especially as the clouds of pollution clear to reveal blue-ish skies thanks to massive factory closures in southern China. But not all is as it seems writes Lynne O'Donnell from Hong Kong.

 It is frustrating and disappointing to find that Hong Kong's claim to be the one place in China where citizens' rights are protected by rule of law is little more than a veneer that when scratched, however lightly, flakes off to reveal a failure of tax payer-funded public services.

 I’ve found this for myself in recent months, as attempts to ensure my peace and quiet are indeed protected have come up against official indifference and inaction.

Let me explain.

I live on what used to be a quiet and peaceful lane in Central, on the cusp of the central business district, nestled between the nightlife districts of Soho and Lankwai Fong. I have lived here, in this same building, on and off for many years, and have always felt lucky to have found a haven in the middle of the big city that really does have the Three Ls – location, location, location. How lucky visitors have believed me to be when they walk through my front door to find a room flooded with natural light, thanks to the huge prison site to my immediate north which has yet to be developed into a garish, high-rise, commercial-residential monstrosity. I can see, beyond the tower of The Centre that lights up at eight each evening, the hilltops of Kowloon. Within two-minutes' walk I can enjoy some of the best restaurants the city has to offer. From home I can hike to the southern beaches of Repulse Bay, Stanley or Shekou. I can walk to Happy Valley along scenic Bowen Road. I can be on the Peak in less than 15 minutes. Apart from the howling Basset Hound my cruel neighbour keeps locked in her apartment opposite, I have little to complain about.

That was until about six months ago, when a local florist company opened a branch nearby, its workshop abutting the same back path as my flat. The workshop is covered by a tarpaulin to hide its activities from residents. And from 7.00am until 8.30pm, seven days a week, the florist sends vans into my lane every half hour to collect its wares for delivery. Sometimes this goes on even after midnight, such as now, as I write, having been awoken at 3.30am.

To do this, the vans back in to my lane. And in backing in they sound an alarm (one of them even shouts between the beeps) to draw attention to their presence. This didn't work so well a little while ago when an elderly lady, who had also taken the no-parking, no-through-road status of our lane for granted, was knocked down by one of the florist's vans and so badly injured that her blood stained the path outside my front door. I have not seen her since.

 I have made a habit of calling Central Police Station almost daily to report the vans – whose drivers have removed some of the no-parking signs from the prison wall. I have brought the police in to see the workshop. I have described to them the brain-piercing beeping. I have provided them with no fewer than four registration numbers.

Still the vans come – conducting illegal commercial activity in a residential zone, parking illegally in a no-parking zone, flouting the law and abusing the rights of the people who call this place home.

I even have a case file number – CRN08028633. Still the vans come to blight the peace of our lane.

 I have called the owners of the florist to tell them of this problem but they have refused to entertain questions, or return calls. In the meantime, my life, and that of my fellow residents, is being made a misery by the selfishness of the florist and the inability of the police, for whom I pay, to enforce the law.

 While the florist selfishly goes on with its business, it is my own selfish hope – echoed by many of my neighbours – that it is hit so hard by this downturn that peace is returned to Chancery Lane.