Lying Bastards

To experience the epitome of false or misleading advertising in Hong Kong, all one has to do is look at television and print ads created by property developers.

These guys are truly shameless, often giving their ritzy properties French or Italian names and manipulating the viewer with soaring operatic music, all the while depicting Hong Kong as a haven of sparkling, pristine waters; acres of open green spaces; and clear blue skies free of the taint of Pearl River Delta smog.

The lying bastards.

The most egregious offender of late is Sino Group, which has been heavily pimping Lake Silver, its newest property under construction above the Wu Kai Sha MTR station in Ma On Shan, New Territories. The web site is a monument to blatant dishonesty: once you get past the swanky flash intro, the home page shows the residential complex standing all alone, when in truth construction exists all around it. I should know; we used to live in the housing estate across the road, both of which are mysteriously absent in the illustration.

Lake Silver (follow the link if you haven't already done so; I dare you) is being marketed as a paradise, except it's located on Tolo Harbour: not one of Hong Kong's least-polluted waterways. The developers conveniently left out that a waste treatment facility is situated nearby, where Tolo Harbour meets the Shing Mun River channel from Sha Tin. Trust me, the smell isn't all peaches and cream when the wind is wrong.

While the Kau To Shan mountain range (part of the Pat Sin Leng Country Park) can be stunning (top row, middle image), such views will not be common until Hong Kong and Guangzhou get air pollution under control, and that's a long time coming.

See all that green space under the Whitehead Golf Centre? It ain't there, because the Wu Kai Sha Village has been in that spot for quite some time, and no villager in his right mind would surrender prime real estate just so that the developer could plant trees (like that would ever happen).

And let's face it: no matter how sexy they make it look, from personal experience I can assure you I've yet to see a residential building in Hong Kong where walls meet at a 90-degree angle. Let's just say that construction standards are rather sloppy and leave it at that.

Now there's nothing wrong with putting a bit of polish on your product, but companies such as Sino Group throw the polish out the window in favour of pure fantasy. How they get away with such gross deception is beyond me.

I don't know who they think they're fooling with these ads, but it isn't anyone in Hong Kong with a working brain.

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