myHK: Rule Thumpers in Hong Kong
Rule thumpers are all around us Hong Kong!
The other day, I was trying to put together an event for our Down Syndrome football team here in Hong Kong, and I thought I had come up with a wonderful idea of taking a group hike to a nice beach in Sai Kung for a BBQ and game of football.
I passed my plan on to the organization, and was met by the question, “Is it legal to play football on the beach?”
How silly of me! I’ve been here long enough to know that ball games are extremely dangerous-especially on a beach!
We would have destroyed this beach, and all the beach goers!
Actually, we all know looking at this beach, that a game of football would not have hurt anyone.
But, something worse, MUCH WORSE, would have happened!
Someone would have COMPLAINED!!!!!!
Yes, complainers… they are all around us. Just waiting to pounce on anything that goes against their perfect scenario.
At the school where I teach, the catering company provided free lunches to all teachers. Very nice!
That was until one of the teachers who brought her own lunch to school each day complained that it wasn’t fair.
So, the school did the obvious resolution by canceling the free lunches and making the teachers pay for them from now on. Genius!
The other day I was in a park with my daughter, watching her ride around on her scooter. I love watching her on this thing! She’s having the time of her life and we’re making sure that she isn’t going anywhere near others.
Mr. Secret Service Park Ranger comes up and grabs my 4 year old’s scooter!
I enter the situation very quickly and WonderGuard starts repeating, “No scooter here!” Again and again like a broken robot.
I attempted to bring some reasoning into the discussion, but he quickly muted my suggestion with faster and louder repetition of his go-to statement, “No scooter here! No scooter here! No scooter here!”
I couldn’t get my point across because he didn’t seem to be breathing.
This time doing it while pointing at, THE SIGN.
Yes, THE SIGN!!
Clearly you can’t see, “No scooting here!”
Let’s hear your best, Rule Thumper story!
I know you have one!
On another note, we’re having our first impactHK fundraising party.
It’s on Friday 6th of June.
I really hope to see a lot of you there! The drinks will be flowing! The light show will be on, and I’ll have some great groovy music for you to jam to!
It should be a fun night, and all for a good cause!
Check out THIS for more info!
Cheers!
MrJ
The Guest Room 
Hi Mr J, if it’s not a gazetted beach (ie no lifeguards) you will be fine playing football. The one in the photo looks like it’s not a gazetted beach. I live right by a gazetted beach and there are various rules – no ball games, no littering, no smoking, no dogs. But the only one they are interested in applying is no dogs. Kids play ball games all the time and I’ve not seen anyone complain or the lifeguards tell them off. (But agree, rules overload…..)
Hey Caroline,
Great info thanks! I’m going to try again at this beach party idea! (I really should have known that as well…)
Cheers and thanks for commenting!
MrJ
I have had the same problem with my daughter on a scooter in Jordan Valley Park, so we had a fun couple of hours trying to scoot down the hill every time he wasn’t lookng, not sure it taught my 4yr old the right message but we did have a lot of fun – oh and we had taken a ball and kite too to play with, obviously two more no-goes!!
Hi Tara,
Too funny! My daughter is on the lookout for cops already! 😉
One time she spotted the park police before I did. She jumped off and quickly started walking it in the other direction.
Very proud moment for me!!;)
Cheers and thanks for reading!
MrJ