We started our day with a visit to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. What an experience. This is one of the biggest stock exchanges in the world and has been heavily affected by the Global Financial Crisis. I’m using capital letters because our friends in Hong Kong, many of whom are deeply involved in the financial markets, refer to it as the “Financial Tsunami”.
Disaster
It has wiped billions of dollars off the wealth of people in Hong Kong. Despite this, their generosity knows no bounds.We expected to see a bustling trading floor like you see in the movies, but our guide explained to us that a lot of trading is done electronically nowadays and most traders don’t even have to come into the exchange, they trade live on the exchange’s network from their offices. Most of the people on the trading floor are representatives of companies that trade for clients and client institutions.
It is all very high-tech but they have examples in the exhibition area of the old trading screens and telephones that used to be used in the old days.
Nivs, the trader
Siyanda, the stock exchage trader
On our way to our meeting at the Rotary Club of Hong Kong, we passed some demonstrators outside a bank in the financial district.
Apparently because of the severe financial crisis, people have lost a lot of money and they are blaming the banks, holding slogans up calling the banks liars and devils. It is all very orderly, no toyi-toying. We could teach them how to get some rolling mass-action going, man.Lunch at the Hong Kong Rotary Club was great. It is the first and oldest Rotary Club in Hong Kong having been chartered in 1931. It’s President, Patrick Lam, is a delightful man who has invited me to play golf with him before we go back to SA. Can’t wait, that will be something in Hong Kong! I don’t know if they allow handicaps as high as mine in Hong Kong though.
The Club meets in an very exclusive place – the Hong Kong Banker’s Club and has many ex-patriates as members. One of the Club members is my home host, Sandra Logan. She is the Chief Executive Officer of a large insurance business and a really delightful, friendly and knowledgeable person. We heard a delightful speech by Dr. Robert Cautherly whose family have been trading in China and Hong Kong for 200 years. He traced their history and told us really interesting stuff about the old trading days when his forebears, the great trading family the Heard’s, had been the backbone of East-West trade in the area and when Hong Kong was a tiny port used as a gateway for trade with mainland China.
The Rotarian who thanked the speaker could give Patrick Schultz a lesson in after-dinner thanks. He was a dry, witty Hollander who had us in stitches with his thanks. He said he had never heard of the “Heards” but was thrilled to hear they had actually existed!
After lunch, we had a free afternoon and I took the opportunity of visiting a shop in Tsim Sha Tsui called Tom Lee Music. It is a music store that has 4 floors with every conceivable music instrument – from Bosendorfer Grand Piano retailing at over HK$ 1,2 million (that’s over R1,5 million, folks) to a chrome-plated Harley-Davidson signature Fender Stratocaster for over HK$ 100,000!! An absolutely amazing store. I drooled and got a chance to sit and play the most fantastic Yamaha Stage Piano for a bit.
A really nice piano for 60,000 dollars!
It’s not Texas, folks, everything is really bigger and better in Hong Kong except the size of the ranches. A Car with dual-registration - it can operate in Hong Kong and China
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