Wandering Montreal's CBD

Ju Ming's Tai Chi Single Whip

Montreal is a relatively easy city to get around by the metro of subway. We don't know what it's like during the freezing depths of winter, but we already had a good idea from the intense wind tunnels in some of the metro stations. Just pushing the station door open can be a Herculean task as a gust of wind barrels past you.

Nevertheless, we had fun wandering around the city. On the way to the Notre Dame Basilica, we saw the entrance to Montreal's Chinatown, with a Chinese-style gate with "唐人街" on it. When we arrived at the famed church, one of the towers was under renovation and we weren't keen on paying C$16 admission to go inside.

The entrance to Montreal's Chinatown

Not far from there was the financial district, where we saw a number of banks: BMO or Bank of Montreal, TD, or Toronto Dominion Bank, and even Molsons Bank. 

It was started by Montreal brewer John Molson's two sons, William and John. Not only did William serve as the bank's president until his death, but also expanded the family business empire with a distillery, a lumberyard, a foundry, steamships and railways. 

William Molson was also a leading philanthropist who served as president of the Montreal General Hospital, and donated funds towards the establishment and construction of McGill University, where he later became a governor.

After we crossed the street, we came to Victoria Square, where I spied Taiwanese artist Ju Ming's sculpture!

His blocky tai chi figures graced the Bank of China in Hong Kong, and now there was one in Montreal!

Molsons Bank building

There was no information about it and I had to look it up online. The sculpture is called "Tai Chi Single Whip" that was cast in bronze and erected in 2006.

It became an endearing figure in 2015 when some Montreal Canadien fans made a giant Habs hockey jersey for the sculpture with the number 31 on it for the goalie Carey Price at the time.

Price had won his 43rd game that year, breaking the Montreal Canadiens' single season record previously jointly held by Ken Dryden and Jacques Plante.

Sadly the Habs weren't able to go on to the Stanley Cup finals this year, after they were eliminated by the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference final...

Extreme Counterfeiting

The trio entered this Standard Chartered bank in Mong Kok

This story can be filed under "completely wacko".

Hong Kong media have reported that three mainlanders were arrested after they were found to be in possession with suspected counterfeit bank notes.

On Tuesday, around 11.15am HK time, a 72-year-old man, a 75-year-old man surnamed Lo, and a 65-year-old woman surnamed Li entered a branch of Standard Chartered bank on Nathan Road in Mong Kok with the intention of opening a bank account.

They presented a giant stack of 1,999 counterfeit bonds, each with a face value of HK$500 million (US$64 million). 

That would mean they were trying to deposit HK$999,500,000,000, which would be HK$357 billion more than all of the Hong Kong government's fiscal reserves at the end of February this year.

Needless to say, bank staff were suspicious and called police. The trio, who claim they are friends, are being detained for further questioning.

We'll be following this story!

Poilievre Wants to Stop Scams on Seniors... But Can He?

Poilievre wants to protect Canadian seniors from scammers

Less than two weeks to go before the federal election on April 28 and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has pitched the idea of preventing seniors from being scammed by passing the "Stop scamming seniors act", forcing banks and telecom companies to use state of the art technology to detect scams.

Not only that, there will also be automatic blocking of seniors' accounts when there are suspicious transactions, and a 24-hour hold on high-risk transactions for seniors. There would also be active reporting to the public of how many scams have been stopped, while those who are convicted of these scams would be sentenced to at least one year, and up to five years in jail.

While these proposals are well-meaning, how would it all work?

Poilievre doesn't seem to understand that many scams don't originate from Canada but abroad and the nefarious ways they can "mistakenly" text someone and strike up a conversation and soon becomes a trusted friend. 

It's after months of daily contact that the scammer eventually begins the extraction of money for "investment", and by that point the victim is so driven by the dreams of becoming wealthy that they will do whatever it takes to transfer the funds to the scammer.

Some of these conversations aren't even in English or French. How to stop these scams in other languages?

And what if a senior is legitimately trying to purchase a big ticket item? They need to wait 24 hours before they can make the transaction? It makes them feel like children.

In addition, it would be so hard for banks and telecom companies to detect scams -- while there are some bank tellers who are alert and flag customers who come in asking to transfer large amounts of money with strange requests, a lot of funds are transferred through setting up crypto accounts or online transfers. 

We could do with fewer spam calls and texts, but it's harder to crack down on scammers than Poilievre thinks and to educate seniors to be on alert...

Chinese Money Flows into Hong Kong Again

Hong Kong is again attracting mainlanders with deep pockets

In April this year a huge money-laundering scandal rocked Singapore -- where 10 Chinese nationals were charged with laundering US$2.2 billion involving real estate, watches, luxury handbags, jewellery, and lots of bottles of alcohol.

It was revealed in court that these men, with passports from Vietnam, Vanuatu, Cyprus and Dominica managed to live a crazy rich Asian lifestyle in the Lion City, paid for by money made from scams and online gambling.

The fact that they were able to live in Singapore without any scrutiny for years shocked residents and resulted in a massive review in policies, particularly banks tightening rules, particularly around clients with multiple passports.  

As a result, the Chinese are moving their money by the truckloads back to Hong Kong, where there is less scrutiny of the source of wealth.

How much is coming in? US$44 billion, three times the amount last year. 

With lots of money, come the wealth managers and banks in Hong Kong are on a massive hiring spree these days.

Swiss private banker Julius Baer has expanded its office space by 40 percent to house all the staff they are adding, while Bank of Singapore in Hong Kong is boosting its number of staff by 30 percent. Standard Chartered wants to double its staff in wealth management, and same with Citigroup.

It's also not just the uber wealthy looking to move their money to Hong Kong, but even those with assets ranging from US$5 million to US$10 million.

The Hong Kong government is also enticing the rich to come over -- those who invest HK$30 million in the city can get residency -- and 500 have applied.

However the tricky part is for banks to verify the applicants' assets over the past 24 months, which won't be easy.

Nevertheless, it seems that the wealth management sector in Hong Kong is seeing lots of dollar signs in the long run.

"I'm getting three to four calls daily from clients regarding immigration-related matters including the capital investment entrant scheme," said Patrick Yip, vice-chair for Deloitte China. "Many of the wealthy Chinese are looking for options. They want to be able to travel with a 'user-friendly' passport and get education overseas for their kids."

Hong Kong Still Struggling to Get Beyond Covid

Hong Kong still struggling to recover from Covid pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic changed people's lives, and in Hong Kong, the well-heeled set have changed their ways so profoundly that it has had a knock-on effect on the city's economy.

A friend who works in the luxury sector told us that her clients used to love going to charity balls and galas, which meant spending hours in the salon, spending money on new dresses and new jewellery, didn't have to do that for three years when Covid struck in early 2020.

Many well-heeled aren't going to balls anymore

Once Covid was over and Hong Kong opened up with parties back on, these wealthy people didn't feel the need to go back to those old ways. They got used to eating at home instead of going out to eat, and parties? Why go when they have become homebodies and would rather play with their grandchildren than dress up and go out for a few hours?

Or if they did buy jewellery, they didn't care to buy real diamonds anymore -- they are content to buy lab-grown diamonds at one-fifth the price at HK$20,000 compared to HK$100,000 for a real diamond mined underground.

When diamond sellers point out the lab-grown diamonds aren't worth much, the rich clients didn't care; they didn't even care to invest in diamonds either when they can get 4 percent to 5 percent on a term deposit in the bank. With diamonds you still have to check the market value and be able to sell them, so they are not a guaranteed return on investment.

Eating out has changed a lot too. During the pandemic in Hong Kong, the government mandated that restaurants could only open until 6pm -- the joke was that the virus only came out after dinner time. So people would eat dinner at 5pm to beat the deadline, or they would cook at home, and more people did this, a chore that for many became a staple, or sparked a culinary interest for others.

Once all the restrictions were lifted, people continued to eat early and go home early. Meanwhile there are others who want to catch up with friends and linger, but the restaurant staff present the bill at 8.45pm or start stacking chairs at 9.30pm. Gone are the days of eating dinner at 8.30pm or 9pm and going to a bar afterwards. Oh and did you know cocktails cost HK$170 these days? 

Who is willing to serve others in Hong Kong?

So many people flock regularly to Shenzhen not only because they find the food there is cheap and there are many choices, but also because they feel the service is much better than in Hong Kong. Here in the city, no one wants to do grunt work, no one wants to serve others. They would rather become a security guard who sits around all day, some in air conditioning, than to stand around for 10 hours a day carrying plates, cleaning tables and fulfilling customers' fussy requests.

Is it any wonder that Hong Kong can't pull itself out of its rut? There are too many factors and not enough solutions to these problems...

Palm Springs: Agua Caliente Cultural Museum

Entrance to the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum

Palm Springs has casinos in three locations called Agua Caliente, run by the indigenous people known as the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.  

Next door to the one in Palm Springs is the recently opened Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, giving visitors more insight in to this Indian band and how this land in Palm Springs is so important to them.

They occupied the land in the valley because there was a large lake there called Lake Cahuilla and they flourished there. But an earthquake caused this body of water to disappear.

Impressive 3-D video of the history of the area

Around the time of the gold rush in the late 1840s was when the Cahuilla Indians first encountered white people, who pushed the indigenous people into smaller and smaller tracts of land as the area became developed. 

Fast forward to today, the Agua Caliente band not only has casinos, but also hotels, land, businesses and banks.

A video of the faces of today show the Cahuilla have intermarried with non-Cahuilla, and they are all proud of their identity, wearing traditional garb and practicing their traditions.

In one of the earlier sections of the museum, an excavation of the land the museum sits on revealed numerous objects, some of which are on display, from shells to tools, and there are beautifully woven baskets too.

Another exhibition space showed the work of indigenous photographer Horace Poolaw (1906-1984), who was one of the first American-Indians to visually document his community in Oklahoma in black and white photographs.

Poolaw's portrait of his brother and buffalo head

"I do not want to be remembered for my pictures, but through my pictures I want my people to remember themselves," he once said.

Some feature his children in western or Indian clothing, others cultural events or striking contrasts -- one shows Horace's brother wearing his feather headdress and in front of him the head of a buffalo that he had killed. Another shows an American TV host posing with an Indian in full traditional garb.

Most impressive was a video projection of the history of the Indian band on a relief map that created animation, lots of information and clips that made the story much more rich and interesting as it moved over the three-dimensional map of the valley. Telling stories using the latest technology is impressive and memorable.

Agua Caliente Cultural Museum

140 North Indian Canyon Drive

Palm Springs

760 778 1079

One City, Two Systems

Lee addresses over 200 financiers without a mask

The Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit has kicked off just as Typhoon Nalgae approaches Hong Kong to cause the observatory to raise the T8 signal; all the top bankers are ensconced in the ballroom of the Four Seasons Hong Kong -- sans masks.

Practically no one attending the event is wearing a mask when anyone else outside the ballroom must wear one. And even Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu was maskless in the room. 

Fang says investors should not bet against China

Such is the double standard of the Hong Kong government in its desperate bid to tell the world the city is open for business.

"Don't bet against China," said Fang Xinghai, a vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission in a recorded message for more than 200 top financiers. 

"International investors [should] find out what is going on in China by themselves, and don't bet against China and Hong Kong."

Guess Fang couldn't make it in person to Hong Kong because it's so troublesome to return to the mainland? And how can foreigners go to China to see for themselves with such extreme Covid-19 measures? 

"As President Xi Jinping underscored during the 20th party congress, China's doors can only [open] bigger, and Hong Kong will play a very important role in the overall opening of China's economy and Chinese financial sector."

Only hotel staff wearing masks in the room

Also Fang's boast that China's doors can only open "bigger" going forward is akin to a pie in a sky, pigs can fly kind of notion. Xi did not mention anything about opening up anytime soon or focusing on the economy.

Fang even had the gall to say international media don't understand China very well so investors shouldn't read too much into it.

Wonder what the few foreign journalists left in China, like the BBC's Stephen McDonnell has to say about that.

Perhaps just as bad were some bankers lining up to prove they've drunk the Kool-aid.

UBS Group AG chairman Colm Kelleher was reported by Bloomberg as saying he doesn't read the American press and is "very pro-China." 

"We actually buy the story, but it's a bit waiting for Zero-Covid to open up in China," he said.

Kelleher claims to be "very pro-China"

He's insinuating they are literally waiting at China's doorstep for them to twist the door knob and open the door...

With China's economy floundering, and the banking and property sectors on shaky ground, foreign bankers are still bullish on China? Seriously?

Shows how much they love money more than anything else.

They may have to wait a while longer... possibly 2025?