Lesson one: walking

A few months ago came the news that Hong Kong is now officially the world's largest financial market. Based on this reputation as a time-is-money big-business cut-throat dog-eat-dog over-hyphenated metropolis, I expected that Hongkongers would be the world's most efficient walkers, charging to wherever it is they need to be to make that next big deal, buy those undervalued stocks or foreclose on some poor bastard's house.

However, as everyone who comes to Hong Kong quickly discovers, the truth is quite the opposite.

Hongkongers are frustratingly slow walkers. Now in summer, this is understandable, because as the temperature rises to 35 degrees and the humidity increases to the point at which there is no longer any difference between the air and the sea, the miracle is that anyone is able to walk upright at all. But this is true all year round, under all conditions.

Hongkongers wander along the footpath as though they are just having a lovely day out, with no particular place to be, just smelling the flowers (although if you are at the flower market, that may actually be fair enough). The slowness of their pace is both literally and figuratively staggering. You have to wonder where they are going; it is presumably somewhere close enough that they can walk at that pace and still arrive there before they die.
The dawdlers like to walk n abreast (where n is the necessary number of dawdlers to block the entire width of the footpath). If there happens to be (n-1) dawdlers, they compensate by drifting randomly from one side of the footpath to the other and back again in order to prevent overtaking.  The only way around is to step on the road, which is not recommended given that Hong Kong bus drivers do not slow down for jaywalkers.

Because Hongkongers walk so slowly, it is necessary for them to use smartphones while walking in order to update friends and family about the month and year in which they will be arriving at their destination. Beginners simply text while they walk; more advanced users check their email, watch streaming media and play Angry Birds. I actually saw a woman wandering down the street with a laptop open in front of her face the other day. Presumably a mere smartphone would have been inadequate for the massive parallel data processing project she was working on.

Then there are the escalators.  I worked out on day one that the rule is stand on the right, walk on the left.  Some people appear to have not worked this out by day six thousand.  If you stand on the left, I reserve the right to walk up right behind you and sigh or clear my throat in a passive-aggressive manner, until you notice me and step to the right.  You have been warned.

So when you come to Hong Kong, my advice is to be prepared for the dawdlers. Breathe deeply and keep calm. Feel free to vault over fellow pedestrians if you think you can make it. And, whatever you do, don't look up from your smartphone.