The mayor is king

Mayors in this part of the world are quite powerful, almost like kings. The mayor of this town is well known for his strong armed tactics, yet the majority of citizens flock to the polls and re-elect him time after time. He is credited with turning this city around from being a syndicate-infested killing field 15-20 years ago to a fairly safe city today. He is probably most well known for his anti-drug campaigns. It is said that he once pushed an unrepentant drug lord out of a helicopter into the sea. He has also had an anti-smoking campaign - smoking is now banned in most public places. He has had a garbage campaign and as a result this city is one of the cleanest in Asia. He was annoyed at young upper class kids drag racing on public streets and threatened to catch them and tie them up naked in front of city hall. Since it is known that he does what he threatens to do, the kids believed him and the drag racing problem has ceased. He has banned firecrackers within city limits, and recently banned rowdy music and drinking in cemetaries.

Of course some bans are easier to enforce than others. It is illegal to give to beggers, but, well, obviously this is not strictly enforced. It is illegal to sell pirated CDs but as soon as the police stop patrolling the pedestrian bridges, the sellers return. It is illegal to urinate just anywhere. Of course you cannot police a whole city's urinating habits but at least I have observed guys being a LITTLE bit more discrete about it. This month begins a traffic campaign. Starting today if you want to turn left you are to get in the left lane. If you want to turn right you are to get in the right lane. If you want to go straight, stay in the middle lane and if you don't you will regret it. We can expect that at least for the month of December this will be enforced. But old habits die hard - why not get in the left lane to go straight, especially when the center lane is backed up? To tell the truth, traffic in this city generally moves VERY well. Especially when you consider how very few traffic lights there are. In fact it seems that the more traffic police there are on the streets, the more snarled traffic becomes.

I hope that one of these days the mayor can figure out a way to stop the teen aged gangs.....