All I wanted was a quiet spot to have a tea and read the paper. I was looking forward to knowing what all Carrie Lam said in her Policy Address.

The shop was not crowded and I found a convenient corner to sit down and waited for my hot milk tea to arrive as I started scanning through the paper.

The lady who runs the shop herself came over with the tea and placed it on the table.

After the usual pleasantries, her eyes suddenly caught the headlines of the paper I was scanning through. I knew this was going to be trouble.

“So Carrie Lam thinks there is not enough innovation in Hong Kong?” she said with a scowl.

I pretended to be busy stirring the sugar as I tried to figure out what exactly she meant.

“Or else why would she ask young people to go to Shenzhen to find jobs in innovation and technology?” she added, clearing the air. Maybe she saw I was completely lost on this.

“Hong Kong has some of the most innovative brains in the world,” she declared. “Especially our top officials,” she added.

“Surely not,” I said. And I immediately regretted it as she sat down opposite to explain.

“Ah, that’s where you go wrong. See, innovation means not trying to imitate what is going on elsewhere,” she started. “Our officials take ideas from outside and tailor them to suit us.”

“Like how?” I asked, not knowing where this was going.

“Look at our MPF. Everywhere it benefits only the workers. But here our government expanded it to benefit employers like us too. That’s how we innovate,” she said, waving her finger to underline her point.

“I am glad they had the vision to include people like you,” I replied. “But I think Lam was talking about technology, not policy.”

“We did that too,” she shot back. “See how we use the telephone answering system to get rid of all those pesky people who call the banks, airlines and cable TV services with their silly complaints. "

Having spent an hour yesterday trying to tell my bank that I wanted a replacement credit card, I was not sure I will be able to control myself if she said anything more on this.

“Internet technology, not telephones,” I interjected before she could go on. That caught her off the guard. She went silent and I could hear her brain creaking.

“We built the Cyber Port. It helped a lot of people, like the developers,” she said in a triumphant note.

“Oh, I didn’t think of it that way,” I replied. “But wasn’t the idea to make it a technology hub?”

“Ah,” she said with a disdain. “Again you think Hong Kong should just follow others. No, we take their models and give it a local touch. And our government has kept pace with the latest ideas.”

“Really? That’s a claim a few even in the government would make,” I said.

“See how they tackled Uber. All those people driving around offering ride to people would have left our taxi owners in trouble. So they quickly thought up ways to stop that,” she said.

“That was very innovative,” I replied, but my sarcasm was lost on her.

A woman with a kid in tow walked into the shop and sat down at another table. I secretly hoped that would draw her away.

But the owner seemed least bothered and signaled to a waiter to see what they wanted. I was stuck.

“Tell me, what is the biggest invention you can think of?” she asked as she shifted the gaze back to me.

This sudden challenge startled me. “Pineapple bun?” That was all I could blurt out.

She pretended not to hear it and said: “Wheel.”

I felt like an idiot about my answer. So I grabbed the tea and tried to gulp down my shame.

“But we kind of re-invented it too”, she continued.

“How?” I managed to say as I put down the tea after I almost choked on it.

“Just look at those awful food trucks. We were scared they would ruin people like us,” she said.

“But our brainy officials stepped in again and made them stationary. Nowhere else can you find food trucks that can’t move. Pure Hong Kong genius,” she said, breaking into a cackle.

“I never thought of it that way,” I said with a weak smile.

“That is how Hong Kong innovates,” she said. “We do it in a different way.”

“Right,” I was seeing light at last.

“I had never noticed this kind of out of the box thinking before,” I said as I gathered the paper and headed out into the most “innovative” city in the world.

(A fictional satire written by Hari Kumar, who is a journalist based in Hong Kong.)

We invite you to join the conversation by submitting columns to our opinion section: [email protected]

Apple Daily reserves the right to refuse, abridge, alter or edit guest opinion columns for accuracy, length, clarity, and style, and the right to withdraw and withhold columns based on the discretion of our editorial page editors.

The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board.

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play