Bagpipes and heartlessness

Ever since the End Of The World (Financial Edition) in 2008, there have been clumps of old people gathered outside banks, complaining that they were mis-sold risky investments, and lost their life savings as a result. This being Hong Kong, their protests consist of them playing terrible music through a tinny loudspeaker, while the heartless workers stride past ignoring them, and a group of bored looking security guards stand around ensuring that they don't get in the way of the efficient running of the banks. Nothing much has been done to compensate these people, and because they literally have nothing better to do, they continue to stand outside the banks, holding up their placards and being ignored.

I assume the bank has done some calculations and determined it's economically maximal to just ignore them and wait until they die of natural causes, rather than admit any liability and pay them off.

It's a sign of how heartless one becomes that these people, now apparently destitute, are just one more thing to ignore on your journey through central Hong Kong, along with the man with one leg outside HSBC and the woman wrapped in plastic bags across the road. They're just furniture, noisier than other things on the street, but taken to be about as significant.

Today I went to the main HSBC building to bank some cash, getting caught in a cloudburst on the way. (Odd weather: sun still bright enough that I was squinting as I walked along, rain drumming on my head. And ten minutes later, dry again.) The protestors in the atrium of the bank had signs like "HSBC: Severely Bad Crooks" and other acrostics based on the bank's name, but that wasn't what caught my attention.

Nor was the sign taped to the ground, telling the CEO he was a very bad man. I found that easy to ignore too.

No, what disrupted my concentration as the ATM counted my cash, was the hellish wail of bagpipes.

I looked around. There was no sign of anybody in kilt and sporran, torturing an instrument. Still the wheezing, arthritic noise continued. Was there an invisible Scotsman? Certainly nobody else seemed to notice. Perhaps they were accustomed to it. That didn't explain why the bagpipes were playing; it wasn't apparent whether this was a further act of protest, or an attempt by HSBC to drive the protestors away by making the environment too unpleasant.

Or perhaps it was all in my mind. Could I have just started imagining bagpipes being played? I have been quite stressed lately.

I haven't heard the sound of Scotland's primary weapon anywhere else in Hong Kong, so I'm sceptical about auditory hallucinations. Perhaps I should get my head examined anyway, just to be on the safe side.