Dear Alums,
President’s Babble No. 2 (Oct, 2013)
A few of my classmates told me they haven’t got my first babble, and instead of emailing them one by one, I have asked Dr Daniel Lo to give us the link to that first babble below for convenience, and that first message essentially spelled out what objectives and events we have in mind for the coming year or so in addition to a brief intro on myself, just to get acquainted:
http://fac.arch.hku.hk/rec/alumni/news/your-presidents-babble-our-no-wishful-thinking-wish-list/
Being surveyors and professionals-practitioners in real estate and construction, I think the sharing of market information and opinion may be one way to communicate with you and to foster communications among ourselves. And being a real estate columnist and website writer, I have had the advantage of having readily available articles. Here is a link to one of my recent Chinese articles in the newspaper, and I was pointing out that while raising the interest rate and / or reducing QE may dampen property prices, the global economic-financial system is now sufficiently fragile that there is no need for raised interest rates and so on to cause market disruptions:
http://www.real-estate-tech.com/big5articles/hkej727.htm
Earnestly, I also encourage you all to share your knowledge, view, insight, and the like with fellow alums whenever you can and if feasible, we can help circulate such information for you via our website and / or FB.
But then life is not all about real estate and construction, and I am sure our alums collectively harbor vast wells of interests, hobbies, and expertise outside of our profession, i.e. all work and no play makes Jack or Jill a dull person. One of my hobbies is WWII and I have found out that quite a few 80ers and 90ers (and naturally 00ers too) have only faint ideas of what WWII was all about. Can’t blame them, we old cakes (baby boomers, those born after WWII from 1946 to 1964) grew up among WWII movies and toys. So here is a 55 second refreshment course on WWII:
1) Who fought who = The Allies comprising the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, China, Russia, Poland, New Zealand, France, Norway, Brazil, India, and many more, fought against the Axises consisting mainly of Germany, Japan, and Italy along with some Eastern European countries such as Rumania, Hungary etc. The Allies won (if not, the world today might have been very different).
2) When = September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland all the way to August 1945 when Japan surrendered (Germany surrendered in May 1945, and Italy in 1943). China fought the Japanese since July 1937 and the USA only joined the fray after being attacked by the Japanese in Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Hong Kong, along with other British / American / Dutch colonies in SE Asia, such as the Philippines, Malaysia-Singapore, Indonesia etc, were attacked by the Japanese at the same time Pearl Harbor was being attacked in December 1941. Hong Kong fell on Christmas Day 1941.
A couple of interesting side notes:
a) Germany and Russia invaded Poland together in September 1939 but then in June 1941 Germany attacked Russia (somehow Germany and Russia tended to have conflicts when they shared common borders).
b) Russia had fought a short war which it won against the Japanese in 1938 and until the last remaining week or so in WWII (August 1945), Russia and Japan were not adversaries and there was no fighting between them. Russia only declared war on Japan in August 1945 during which the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan by the Allies / USA.
3) Why = this calls for a history dissertation which is beyond me but let’s say it is a sequel to WWI.
4) How = imagine fighting a war without computers, emails, internet, GPS, smart phones, i-pads, not even TV or fax, just the land phones, radios, and radars, and military planes were mostly propeller-types.
5) Cost = tens of millions military casualties, hundreds of millions if civilians are included. For instance, just the USA alone had some 350,000 troops killed, divide this by 3 years and 8 months, and see on average how many are killed per day. Compare this casualty rate with what we are seeing today.
6) What = its outcomes affect even the world today.
Another side note is IF you wish to learn something about “logistics”, a much abused term today in my humble opinion, read a book on how the Allies prepared for (not on how they fought) their D-Day landing in Normandy, France in 1944. It’s amazing how detail and coherent the plannings were, given the rather “backward” technologies. This will give you a sense of what logistics could mean.
Need to sign off now, and have fun,
Your WWII-Nut President
