Curse and People at Work (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

Every so often, I look at certain people at work and think "what a hell of a job they have".  That was the case the night that I went to a horror movie premiere and saw "ghosts" wandering about in the theater -- and got to wondering if those young women assigned those roles looked upon it as a curse (this particularly since I find Hong Kong to be a very superstitious society)!

More usually, however, the jobs that get me thanking the heavens that it's not been my lot in life to undertake them tend to be of a more menial nature, and often involve literally heavy burdens.  As an example: see the middle photo in this entry for Sandi's and Gattina's Photo Hunts -- of one of a number of men whose work involves transporting heavy cylinders of liqufied gas on bicycles from their stores to the many homes in Hong Kong -- some of them on upper floors of elevator-less buildings -- which use them.

Then there was the elderly woman I spotted manning her open-air stand at the pier on a windy winter's day the last time I visited Po Toi, Hong Kong's southern-most island.  She may not look like she's doing much in the photo but she definitely is one of those people whose work I would not wish to have, especially on the day that I saw her at her job.

At the same time though, I got the feeling that she actually didn't consider her lot in life as one that was the result of a curse -- since she was surprisingly cheery when I went and bought some pickled scallions to snack on while waiting for the ferry to arrive.  In addition, seeing her also got me musing that while there are some folks who are envious of those who can opt for early retirement, there also are  people who are happy to be at work -- and not just because they feel forced to either - way past what many of us consider to be retirement age!