I wandered along to 7-11 at lunchtime today to get a carton or two of tea, and I noticed some digest-sized magazines sitting in a little rack by the cash register. There were two magazines about Windows Mobile version 6, and three about the Apple iPhone. I did a little shopping yesterday, including some video game-related stuff, and while I was waiting for something, I had a bit of a chat with the guy running the booth/stall/shop about the current prices of Nintendo Wiis in Hong Kong. Both unremarkable things, except for the fact that 'officially' there are no iPhones or Wiis in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has one of the busiest ports in the world - and there's no doubt that the if you combine the tonnage shipped through Hong Kong with Shenzhen, you will find the heaviest traffic in the world, by a long way. A very large proportion of manufactured goods from China ship through Hong Kong or Shenzhen, and a large proportion of all the manufactured goods in the world come from China - including the Wii and iPhone. The iPhone, in fact, is only available in a rather limited number of markets - approximately 6 at that point - due to Apple's policy of close and exclusive partnering with a single phone network in each country. The Wii is generally available globally, but there is neither an official Hong Kong model nor a price. The Wii and the iPhone are, of course, both widely and easily available in Hong Kong, but due to a lack of official release, support and pricing from the manufacturer, the market is free to act as it will.

Hong Kong regularly ranks as 'the free-est economy in the world', but even leaving aside the interesting point of Hong Kong now being a semi-autonomous part of a communist country, that's not really true. While the government doesn't generally interfere in the economy too much directly, there are some strong distortions of certain markets which have a measurable effect on things at a macro level - but at a micro level, things are very free. That is, of course, a good thing and a bad one - Europeans tend to get upset at the lack of consumer, tenant and employee protection in Hong Kong, but it also means that really, nobody official is interested in the vast grey market. As an example, Apple doesn't have official resellers in Hong Kong, but there really isn't much they can do to stop unofficial ones springing up, selling products Apple does not wish to have available, or in ways they disagree with. Due to the lack of an official Apple-supported route to get an iPhone in Hong Kong, every single iPhone in Hong Kong is unlocked - and I would assume that a large majority are also 'jailbroken', modified to run non-Apple-blessed software. Once you are operating outside the official limits of the device, breaking the warranty for sure, and probably the software license as well, just to get the device to work, why not open it up as far as you are able - rather than as far as the manufacturer wants?

The Wii, of course, is differently interesting. There has been no release of the Wii in Hong Kong, and while there are mod-chips and other methods available to play games from foreign regions, nobody has managed to hack it enough to change the language. While there is only a single model of Wii, unlike the Xbox360 and PS3, there are effectively 2 models available in HK, the Japanese one and the US one. They are identical hardware, but the US one has menus in English and allows access to the US Wii shop, and comes with a copy of Wii sports. The prices are purely set by the market, there is a certain demand for each 'model', there is a certain supply - more of the Japanese machines are available than US ones - and prices change, both up and down, over time.

The really interesting thing is that while neither of these pieces of in-demand consumer electronics hardware are officially available in Hong Kong, both are in fact easily and widely available. In fact, there are enough of them in Hong Kong that there is a flourishing support market - Wii games and both Wii and iPhone accessories are very openly sold by major retailers, even if the actual device is still sold slightly underground. That is what makes Hong Kong an open, free market, where what might be considered at least grey market, if not black, elsewhere, is just considered 'doing business' here. And one final point: while in many ways Hong Kong is a small town, with small town mentality, this is one way in which locals are very open and progressive - it seems unnatural to them that a manufacturer would - or would be allowed to - limit their markets or the uses of their devices, and it is second nature for Hong Kong to just route around these limitations.

I had lunch with a friend on Wednesday, curry in Lan Kwai Fong - a friend who I haven't seen that much of recently. We were discussing various mutual friends who neither of us had seen much recently, and as you do, we were doing a bit of gossiping. Some of the people who came up are in stable relationships, some are stably not in a relationship, and others are less stable. The particular thought was, if you haven't seen or heard from or about someone recently, what can you guess or assume about their relationship status? It came to me later that these different types of people can be described in terms of electronics:

Stable 'ON'

These are people who are in stable relationships - relationships which are long-term, or feel like they will be. Most marriages would fall into this category, but nowadays it's common for people to be this stable, without getting a piece of paper to confirm it. And of course the paper doesn't really mean that much anyway...

Stable 'OFF'

People who seem to be permanently single, and are relatively happy that way. This doesn't mean no dating, celibacy, anything like that - but it means that you can generally assume that unless you hear otherwise, they are not in any sort of ongoing relationship. As an example, career-minded people might fall into this category, since they are putting their romantic life second to their professional life.

Flip-flip

People who fall in and out of relationships, but don't seem to stay either single or attached for very long - more than a few months, say. If you haven't heard their latest, they are probably not in the same situation they were when you last heard, but it's quite hard to guess what they could be up to now. It depends on what part of their 'cycle' they are in.

Oscillator

People who are constantly switching. They may not be particularly relationship-minded and are probably more interested in some flexible fun - not getting tied into anything, but not going without either. If you haven't heard from them since last week, you're probably out-of-date, but on the other hand, there's not necessarily much point keeping up with what they're doing this week either, since it probably won't last until next week. For friends like these, you want to concentrate on your friend, not their relationships.

I have friends in Hong Kong who fall into all of these categories - some of whom will probably read this, and some of whom will recognise themselves. Of course, since these are generalisations, they aren't really true, and none of them are meant to be judgments - there are good and bad things about all of the categories. The other big thing to say is that, also of course, people change. Sometimes they are not happy how they are, for example a flip-flop who wants to be stable 'ON' but is looking for the right person. Alternatively, people can change because other things in their life change, either things they have no control over, or things which are more important to them.

As for me? I seem to have moved from stable 'OFF' to stable 'ON' recently, and I'm quite happy that way!