Every man for himself

One of the best things about being in this part of the world is that a lot of the ultra-conservative safety measures that are in place in the US have not yet made their way to Asia. From what I can tell, this is not a lawsuit-driven culture, so things that are questionably or even clearly dangerous are generally still open to the public. Nearly every visitor who steps foot in our apartment is shocked to see that at 26 floors and up a hill, we have no screens on our windows. We have witnessed behavior that would cause entire terminals to be shut down in the US, been on flights that have taken off with no safety announcement and had people standing in the middle of the aisles arguing with the flight attendants about seat assignments. My sister and I walked in and out of passport control/customs in Laos probably 4 times each going to the ATM and on one trip home from Mumbai, John, along with a group of people, continually walked in and out of security then on to the tarmac, right next to the plane to pull luggage off.


John and I have grown accustom to a lot of the behavior, but I still haven't really gotten use to the construction sites. I have come to believe that there are no rules regarding the safety of construction workers.
Most do not wear shirts, some wear sandals and it's completely normal to see a worker with a welding device, no goggles, sparks flying everywhere, sans shirt and a cigarette hanging from his mouth working on the sidewalk. It is your personal responsibility to watch out for what he is doing and it is the workers responsibility to not blow himself up. No one else. There is nothing to warn you that some may be brandishing an open flame, no barricades, no apparent or obvious safety equipment. You just have to watch out. I took these pictures this morning of a "normal" HK working environment -- there were even some I couldn't get good shots of that were equally as crazy.









Rather than metal scaffolding, here they use bamboo stalks. They bind it together with plastic rope and some person has to put it all together manually. It's terrifying to watch