Short Selling

Yesterday it was the IT guy, today it’s the photographer. And another in that line of stories that used to keep Nury Vitacchi in clover when he worked at the South China Morning Post and presided over a column called “Lai See”, in which he reproduced stories that readers sent him. (By the way, has anyone read Nury's book North Wind, in which he apparently claims he was sacked by the Post for upsetting Beijing? Did they really care about plagiarism so much in those days?)

Ah Hing, AKA Hing Jai, is responsible for capturing for posterity all the junkets and jamborees that senior management get up to. You can guess the kind of thing: "The Southern District Civic Education Outstanding Enterprise Awards cum Care for the Elderly Poster Design Competition" or "The Most Professional Toilet Attendant Election". (What is it with the Chinese and phoney elections?)

So, last week, Hing Jai is there in the Marketing Conference Room to take snaps of the latest "meaningful activity undertaken by the Company", as the PR blurb would have it. This event not being deemed quite meaningful enough for the MD to attend, he had deputed the Commercial Director to go in his place. "

Now, the Commercial Director (or “CD", as she is known) is six feet tall, which is rather above average for a Chinese woman. Much more of the average height was her co-organiser at the event, a lady who wouldn't look out of place at a congress of Shetland Pony jockeys.

This is where it gets a bit complex, so I'll endeavour to keep things as simple as possible. Besides CD and the other woman (to whom I’ll give the pseudonym Tai-nee), there were a bunch of schoolkids. One lot were sitting in the front row, while another lot were standing behind them, with CD and Tai-nee in the middle.

Behind everyone was another feature beloved of the Hong Kong activity, the backdrop with slogan. And the problem was, that in the photos taken by Hing Jai CD’s head blotted out the key Chinese characters. Thus it was that Hing Jai was asked to switch the positions of CD and Tai-nee. No problem for photoshop. Problem solved.

Or so he thought …

The corporate magazine in which the photo was to appear had all but gone to press when there was an intervention from the deputy head of the department that had run the original event to say that Tai-nee must be elevated by six inches, thereby halving the height differential between her and CD.

Hing Jai dutifully complied, only to find (as he had secretly suspected) that Tai-nee's bonce now blocked out the key Chinese characters, which it had been top priority to protect. Which just goes to prove that, when push comes to shove, face really does come before character.