Batgung
Sat, 2007-03-17 04:38 — Anonymous
I'm curious about the origins of this wonderful website. I realise you set it up to help future expats, but please can you tell me a bit more about yourselves? For instance: how did Mr. Tall and Mr. Balding meet each other, and why did you choose the name 'Batgung' (which according to babelfish means 'eight men') when there's only two of you? :-)
Woodpecker
Batgung genesis
MrB and I have been friends for a long time, having arrived in HK at more or less the same time. We both were friends with another guy, who's now long gone from HK, and met each other that way. I don't even recall the actual 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?' moment -- although it's likely beer-drinking or hiking was involved. Maybe you have more accurate memories, MrB???
Oh, and 'batgung' is meant to more or less romanize a Cantonese word meaning 'nosy guy', or something even less complimentary, depending on who's doing the translation.
Thanks for asking, and for the kind words about the site.
Mr Tall
Batgung?
Well, given that neither of us can remember when we met I guess that's a good sign it was a beer-releated occasion!
"you set it up to help future expats" - that sounds good, but I don't think we began with such an altruistic goal. I think it was a discussion about local blogs that got us started, as blogs were still relatively new then. We didn't choose a daily blog format though, as I couldn't imagine thinking of something interesting to say on a daily basis! Instead we try and put something new up each week. (My turn today - sorry Mr Tall, it's a bit late as I'm catching up after getting back from vacation...).
I'm not sure if Batgung has reached its fifth birthday yet, but if not it must be getting close. Here's a July 2002 copy of Batgung courtesy of the Wayback Machine.
Over time we've seen some questions get asked repeatedly on the discussion forum, so one of the things we do is try and prepare some FAQ's for those. We've also been very lucky to have some regular visitors to the site who've given a lot of the good information that shows up here. I think that's made a big difference to how useful the site is. Otherwise it would be a site filled with stories about old tunnels!!
Anyhow, enough navel-gazing, but thanks for writing and I'm pleased to hear you enjoy the site.
Regards, MrB
Hi
Thanks for the information. We love Batgung. Do you plan to celebrate birthday of batgung when the members can be called for a gathering? I am sure everybody reading these forums will support this idea. We will be glad to forward a small contribution too. Think it over.
No plans for a fifth
No plans for a fifth birthday party - we'll keep on with the low profile.
Nice idea though - something to think about for batgung's tenth birthday!
Cheers, MrB