Top news
Diversity is a good reason for governments to impose universal second language requirements. Hong Kong does not fall under the heading diverse. In this issue EARTH takes a careful look at Hong Kong's diversity and compares it with that of several other societies including Indonesia, Singapore, and Switzerland. It also observes in Singapore what has yet to be formally observed in Hong Kong -- namely, the socioeconomic effects of  Singapore's UEL requirement. Hong Kong English and Singlish have more in common than just poor quality!

Government relations
Several months ago EARTH decided only to deal with the Hong Kong government when it was convenient or necessary to do so. Working with the Hong Kong Housing Department has proven a difficult task. Thus, for the moment no further effort will be made with regard to filling the gap of hidden income information. See under Government relations in HKLNA-Project Newsletters Nos. 11, 15, and 16.

Community relations

• The EPSON Foundation - EARTH is still waiting for further response to its invitation and request (pdf document - 60 KB) for funding from the EPSON Foundation.
  
• Reaching Out Across the Worldwide Web - No further effort was made this month.
  

Website additions and maintenance

New additions

• Quality Assessment
• A new subsection entitled Hong Kong's Neighbors was added to Section IV. This was an enormous project including more than 41 new graphs and charts, 35 footnotes, innumerable new links, several new webpages, several megabytes of information from the Singapore Statistics Division and Ministry of Education,  a graphically illustrated discussion of Greenberg's diversity index, and tremendous additional new insight into Hong Kong society via its close and distant overseas neighbors. Diversity in Hong Kong is not an appropriate justification for Hong Kong's UEL requirement.
• Hong Kong's Trade Partners - A new graph was added and the entire section edited anew.
• EARTH's Viewpoint - If you enjoyed EARTH's article entitled The Swimmer, do not miss The Swimmer - Part II. It provides further insight into Hong Kong's system of jurisprudence and public relations in Hong Kong's athletic community.
  
• Tsong Kit - Good progress was made on Chapter 3 of Part II, but the chapter has yet to be completed.
  

Maintenance

• Many additional minor changes were made to improve viewing performance. EARTH does not recommend Internet Explorer for optimal performance. Nevertheless, if IE is all you have, you will not miss anything. Simply, you will become bored seeing the same page heading over and over again. More down-scrolling will be required, and the paragraph spacing is anything but ideal.
  

Software update

• No new updates.

Strategy Update
EARTH continues to push forward with completion of the section Quality Assessment while filling gaps in the old data and always looking for new angles and approaches for the best perspective possible. After all, finding proper perspective is half the battle toward understanding in a world with so many standards and conflicting values.

Financial hardship is likely to continue to way heavily on further progress, however. This is unfortunate, but EARTH must live within its means.

Acknowledgments
This month has been a solo operation.

Closing Remarks
If you would like to provide support to the HKLNA-Project but are unable to donate to the HKLNA-Project Fund, then at least hire EARTH to provide you with the best in telecommuted translation. Surely many ProZ.com translators would also be grateful. See EARTH's translation services' promotional material or better yet visit EARTH's homepage.

Sincerely,

R. A. Stegemann
hsmr@pacific.net.hk