Just Another Moron

I don't get much negative e-mail, but every now and then some moron feels the need to chastise me.

From my inbox:

Subject: Re: you must really have an unhappy childhood where you came from

You only use "re", which means "with regard to", to call attention to something on my site.

Not a big white guy wrote:

what were you thinking? you are going to a third world country, do you expect american or west european standards? get off your high horse, prince philip, and go back where you came from, leave hongkong and stop whining.

1. Lack of capitalisation. Who do you think you are, E.E. Cummings?

2. I'm not "going" to Hong Kong, I'm been here a long time. And it's not a third world country, it's a Special Administrative Region of the PRC. Some parts of the mainland may be in rough shape, but not this town. The British left behind a fabulous city.

3. You forgot to mention Canada: is that also Third World in your eyes?

4. Hong Kong is two words. Yes, many corporations write it as "Hongkong", and the Pinyin version is written "Xianggang", but until major world atlases change the way they reference this place, I'll stick with the usual method.

5. Since you didn't mention specifics, I can only guess at what you believe I'm whining about.

I took a stab at it anyway in my reply:

Are you insane?

I love Hong Kong. Sure, I poke fun, but being a smart-ass hardly qualifies as "whining".

Feel free not to reply, anonymous coward.

It bounced, of course.

Look, I have no problem if people disagree with something I write, but it would be nice to have an intelligent discussion with someone who has enough courage to leave a name and working e-mail address.

← Older Posts · 早前 | →