Unfortunately, I really don't remember where I saw the suggestion, so I can't credit it. In case anyone doesn't know, Flickr is the dominant photo-sharing site on the Internet, now owned by Yahoo!, and, importantly, allows you to tag your photos - to give them labels - which can then make searching easier. You can also subscribe to a tag as an RSS feed, meaning you can watch all new photos being posted on the site under that tag. A few months ago, I subscribed to the 'hongkong' tag, and I've been watching it ever since, sometimes finding it fascinating, sometimes boring, sometimes frustrating.

It's also interesting that Flickr lets you set a license on your photos - either "all rights reserved" or a variety of Creative Commons "some rights reserved" licenses, which generally allow other people to reuse your photos, but allow you to chose whether they can change them, or must use them as-is, and if they can use them commercially. I'm not sure what my legal position is here - I would like to be able to include at least thumbnails here, which is fine with CC-commercial-use licensed stuff, probably not fine with "all rights reserved" stuff, and borderline with the CC no-commercial-use stuff. So, for now, no pics, just links.

Some themes become clear after watching the feed for a while. There are a few regular posters under the hongkong tag - Charles Lam, James Mok and streetdog come to mind, for different reasons. Charles tends to post nature pictures, particularly of birds and insects, describing them as his friends, streetdog tends to post people-on-the-street scenes, almost all taken at such an angle that women's legs are the focal point of the picture - yes, it's a bit creepy, particularly the ones taken from behind. James does take nature pics, but also random street and other scenes - but he's a prolific and talented photographer.

The more interesting photos are probably those from visitors - and there are a lot of people who pass through Hong Kong. Some of them take and publish great photos - landscapes, street scenes, sunsets behind the skyline and so on - but disappointingly, lots and lots of people come to Hong Kong and take exactly the same photos that everyone else takes. Seeing all the photos aggregated makes some trends and common things clear - for example, there are lots of pictures of the airport which, to be fair, is impressive and photo-worthy, but I suspect that most of the photos are either people arriving and excited, so taking pics, or about to leave and realising that they haven't taken enough photos to show to the folks back home. It may be cynical, but I think it's a fair theory.

There are lots of pictures from the peak - most of them not very interesting, in the end. Pictures taken to the north tend to show lots of tall residential buildings, maybe some commercial buildings, and if the angle and level of pollution are right, some harbour and some Kowloon - that one is from Mr. Mok. Pictures to the south are more interesting, to me, because, frankly, it's a much nicer view from above, and people get some nice sunset shots. There are a few particular scenes which show up, almost identical, time after time - two would include pictures of the incense spirals in the Mo Man Temple and pictures of the Star ferry taken from another ferry - although to give some credit, this one is slightly different because it's face-on rather than side-on. Some things change - some stay the same.

I'm going to write more about this in future, because I think it's an interesting topic, but for now, some random thoughts: There are loads of pictures of food, mainly but not exclusively Chinese food. I've been watching for pictures of people I know, and they've come up a few times, but less than I expected - I think it's more common for tourists to post to Flickr than expats. There are some great photos, which capture a moment, or a mood, or sum up some facet of Hong Kong - but there's also a lot of crap. I skip all photos of Disney-related stuff, on principle. It has happened, slightly more often than I'd expect, that I'd go somewhere and find a photo posted of that place on Flickr within a day or two - even non-tourist places - just coincidence, I know, but sometimes a bit of an odd feeling. Once, I've seen a picture which was obviously taken at almost exactly the same time and from somewhere very close to where I was taking a picture with my phone.

Last year, I moved to Hong Kong, on somewhat of a whim, with a provisional offer of a job from my cousins. I had been here less than a week before they offered me a full-time position, and less than a year before they decided it wasn't working out and gave me my notice. I'm not going to go into that, except to say that although it was a unilateral decision, I don't think it was particularly a wrong one - I think it's fair to say that, depending on which way you look at it, either I was wrong for the job, or the job was wrong for me, and that it wasn't going to go anywhere useful in the longer term. So, on 25th August this year, I left my place of work with and stepped out into the job market.

Actually, that's not true. On 25th August, I left my place of work. On 26th August, I left Hong Kong, where I'd made a home over the previous 15 months or so, and headed back to the UK for a bit. I spent a few days in Spain, then a few weeks in Leeds and London, seeing my family and friends, doing the Jewish festivals which fall at that time of year, and trying to do a better job of tying up my affairs in London than I'd done the previous year. I came back to Hong Kong at the start of October, and stepped out into the job market.

Actually, that's not true. I came back to Hong Kong, spent a couple of weeks finding a new place to live - having moved out of my previous place when I left in August, and not being sensibly able to afford going back there. I then spent a couple of weeks doing... very little. I then spent a couple of weeks agonising over my CV (resume), before actually sending it out, for the first time, in mid-November - to Google, as it happens.

I'm fully aware that I wasted time - a lot of time - and I don't have much of an excuse. I was somewhat scared to venture out into the open market, since I've never needed to do so before. Of my three significant professional jobs, one was from a graduate careers fair, one from internal contacts between individuals at that company and my subsequent employer, following a mass layoff, and one was pure nepotism. Anyway, I'm now out in that market, and finding it exceptionally hard going.

I don't think it's arrogant to call myself a qualified, experienced and talented software engineer, specialising in Linux/Unix and Python development. I've worked within the Solaris kernel, and as a volunteer on a charity website taking significant amounts of money and being used by large numbers of people - and on various things in between. In the UK, I would start looking for work by prompting my contacts - both social and professional - and investigating within the Linux community. Unfortunately, my contacts here are rather meagre, and there is no Linux community to speak of - at least, none that I can find.

Even more unfortunately, it seems there just isn't that much demand for my skills in Hong Kong. One thing I've heard too many times over the past few weeks is that nobody does development in Hong Kong, it's just to expensive, and have I considered working in Beijing? I'm not sure how much this is a feedback loop - people don't do development in HK because there is no pool of talent, and there's no pool of talent because there's no demand for it. And no, thank you, I have no desire to work in Beijing - I want to work in Hong Kong, which is why I'm here and looking for work here.

Now... there is work here - there's just not much of it. I've never been one for 'networking' - previously, I wasn't even one for 'socialising' that much - but I've been working at it for the past few weeks. I've been talking to people I don't know that well... meeting friends of friends... sending my CV to anyone I know anywhere who may know someone in Hong Kong who may be interested (it's certainly gone to London, Taiwan and Australia, in order to get back here)... and I went to the very large ITU WORLD expo in town twice this week - there may or may not be a separate post on the subject - which, while a telecoms show, still all comes down to computer hardware and software anyway nowadays. I've also sent a few CVs out to HR departments regarding publicly-posted jobs, and have not received a single reply to any of them, so I've pretty much given up on that - it's become clear that if it comes through the public door it isn't going to go anywhere, so it's got to bypass that and come from inside - in other words, from contacts. And that comes back to networking, and to my lack of professional contacts in Hong Kong.

Incidentally, just on the off chance that anyone reading this is desperately looking to hire a Linux/Unix/Python developer in Hong Kong, you're welcome to grab my CV and to contact me. It's worth a try - you could find the developer you need and I could find the job I need.