(Ricoh GX200)
All indoor areas in Hong Kong have now been designated as non-smoking areas. For that matter, some expats and exchange students have the impression that this city is turning fascist. That remark is a bit over the top.
What the heavy-handed policy does change is this city's culture. The transformation is at least twofold, one being social and the other lexical. On the social side, the sighting of rubbish-bin-flies circling around rubbish bins, in the fashion of bar-flies around bar tables, has never been more common in the street. The smokers cannot but smoke in the open, and the most obviously convenient place is near a rubbish bin on top of which is an inset ashtray. The accumulative effect is that it is becoming increasingly difficult and perilous for the non-smoking lots to risk the veil of second-hand nicotine wisps to get to the bins. A fair bet is that eventually the city will no longer have any division between the democratic and pro-Beijing-pro-government camps, but one between the smoking and non-smoking sides.
Lexically, the change is in the phrase "hot potting", which is a popular gastronomic pastime of the locals. Imagine this: a bunch of smokers shivering with nicotin addiction and puffing around the rubbish bin from the top ashtray of which wafts the cigarette mists. What does it remind you of? Right, a group of joyous hip-swaying fellas hot potting or, to put it more relevant to the locals, having a hotpot.
So next time if you would like to have a cigarette break with your local friends, just say, "Hey, let go hot potting outside (Cantonese: Wai [hey], chukhuei [go out] oi min [outside] dabinlo [hot potting] law [exclamation] )."
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