Or rather, the best response I've ever had for why it's okay to do something that wrecks it for everyone else:
Today, like many others, we decided to change our morning dog walk (yes, we do clear up their shit) and headed for the breezy ClearWater Bay park entrance area. We go there often, we know it's used at weekends by hordes of half-crazed kite fliers, enjoying those few scant seconds of interest that holding a piece of bright plastic at the end of a lengthy thread of nylon can bring. We know many get lost in the trees, we know they are such cherished items that no sane Hong Konger would bother to try and retrieve it once it gets tangled in a tree and we know that some days the whole park looks like a strange colourful triangular fruiting forest.
Today however as we took our first few steps I suddenly felt something around my neck, I had like many countless birds and other wildlife before got tangled in a length of nylon kite rope. One of our dogs trotted over to see what I was fussing about, naturally she got herself also entangled and in her panic started to dash around, causing the piece attached to me to tighten like a bright pink plastic garrotte. After a few fun minutes of swearing and untangling we got free and I took the time to unravel the lengthy killer, ball it up and put it in a bin. We took a few more steps and walked straight into another piece.
Raging I headed for the park office and got my anger sated by politely filling in a form...
20 minutes later I got a call from a very apologetic park ranger and during the conversation he advised me that the problem was that time was very precious to Hong Kong people, when they come to the park they often only have half an hour, or 2 hours, and so you can't expect them to have to clear up after any mess they create.
I must remember that as the answer to everything, my time is too precious, I no longer need to stop for that group of children crossing the road in front of me, my time is after all precious and nobody could expect me to actually have to brake and slow down.