It can be pretty easy to become depressed, especially when there are so many issues surrounding us.
I can tell you I felt the same in my home town in Adelaide, South Australia. It's called the city of churhes and has a reputation for being sleepy, quaint and a 'nice place for families to grow up'.
A few years before I left for Hong Kong, I became really disappointed with the way things were going. There was crap graffitti everywhere, lots of low level violence and some very sick murders. You wouldn't walk the city at night and the surf was becoming a battle ground. Road rage was on the rise, housing prices were crap (very little investment opportunity) and general costs and unemployment were growing. Wages were low and incentive even less.
In Hong Kong for the first five years I felt like this was the place to be. Lots of opportunity everywhere you looked. If you worked hard you were rewarded. Violence was minimal. Your wife could walk the city at 3am (I'd be worried what she was doing if this were the case
) and travel the underground train system and you would not be concerned for her safety.
The past few years unemployment has rocketed, residential property prices are insane and people are getting mugged in country parks every month. Diseases seem to ravage the place and many of the expats are leaving. The standard of English is declining and China is holding a big stick of the SAR's head.
Now I'm off to LA. I get depressed when I hear some of the guys here lament about the decline of the city (state of Ca. included). As an ozzie surfer I always dreamed of the 'life in LA' and I still look forward to it with great anticipation. Having visited it only once so far, LA still really appeals to me but the mass marketing is astonishing.
Again as an Ozzie, we use to be very cynical of Americans who seem to always tells us 'country folk' they were bigger and better. Well, after my albeit brief visit, I now believe, the US IS bigger and better.
Problem around the world is the good people need to get back the control. What the hell does that mean?
The punks that create violence and theft, push drugs on our kids, the wankers who emit road rage where-ever they go, the self serving beauracrats and dishonest business people need to be overcome.
I'm as mad as hell and I can't take it anymore.....
Rant over...sorry!
