Good night, work hard!

I am currently in one of the few cities in the world where it is forbidden to "meet friends" in the subway. People standing around, being idle, would be too much of an interruption in the steady, rythmic flow of thousands of people rushing through every second. It is also one of the few cities where "work hard" is a more common goodbye phrase than "take it easy"; where "chilling" usually means taking a walk on Nathan Road, one of the most crowded and densely populated streets on earth.

Office culture is a world in itself. As I checked out of the office at 7pm Friday night, wishing everyone a good weekend, I couln't quite work out the weird looks I was getting. It wasn't until the week after, when my co-workers started talking about phone calls they had received during the weekend, that I understood that I had actually missed a day of work - the six-day work week is as established a phenomenon here as "elvakaffe" is in Sweden.

Hong Kong may be the height of efficiency (there is actually an outdoor escalator up the hill to my office), but the work-hard mentality comes with a cost. The link between a 70-hour work week and so called "political apathy" (which by my judgement is a myth) is not too hard to figure out. If people barely have time to meet their own family, who would expect political activity to flourish? I get the sense of that for many people in HK, the struggle against time is the biggest struggle of all - trying to make ends meet at the end of the week, with one's sanity intact.

A new proposal of implementing a five-day work week within the civil force is without a doubt a step in the right direction. The economic effects are not necessarily negative (in fact, there is much to indicate that productivity would increase with a shorter work week), while the benefits for society as a whole exceed a purely economic calculation. More time for civic engagement, more time for the family. And with less inclination to choose a "fast-food lifestyle", there are environmental benefits as well. Anyone who has seen the overflowing trash cans outside a Hong Kong Island fast-food joint around lunch hour knows what I am talking about.

Sitting at a 24-hour internet cafe at 2 am writing about the benefits of a slow-paced lifestyle may seem a bit hypocritical, I admit. Probably time to go to bed...