Our morning started with the sad news that Oscar’s friend Phoebe, the blonde bombshell, will be leaving for her new home in Sweden in the next month. She’s moving because her Swedish human dad no longer has a job here. He worked for Cathay Pacific, which has cut thousands of jobs this week.

Discovery Bay, near the airport on Lantau Island, is home to hundreds of Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon staff. The airline group had suffered badly from a decrease in passengers during last year’s protests but the 98% decrease in airline traffic caused by the Covid pandemic has seen many staff laid off or forced to take unpaid leave and pay cuts since the spring. The news this week that Cathay are axing Dragon and hundreds of other jobs was hardly unexpected but it’s a shock nonetheless.

In the pet shop yesterday and on the bus I overheard a young man pushing a baby buggy talking about how he was now going to try to move to the US. Whereas his wife could be at home with their son until now, they’ll both have to find full time work in order to pay for housing and school fees. The man was negotiating his pension rights on the bus journey. His October contribution had not yet been paid.

The redundancies are going to leave this community decimated. People who’ve had their housing assistance withdrawn are no longer going to be able to live here in what is a pretty expensive part of Hong Kong. As it is, most of the houses in our immediate vicinity are now empty, with more garage sales and boxes of stuff Sharpie-marked “Free” appearing on the bottom doorstep every day, their families having left Hong Kong because of the political and economic situations both here and in their home countries.

Now, of course, this has happened to working class communities across the world with the demise of heavy industries such as mining and steel working  but it’s still a shock when it happens. So many people around here depend on the airport and its associated industries. Tourism contributes 10% of Hong Kong’s income, which has slumped with our ban on non-Hong Kong residents since the Spring. Apart from that there are all the restaurants, some of them barely surviving because of the social distancing and curfews which have, admittedly, stamped on Covid spikes three times now.

What then happens to the domestic workers, the helpers from Indonesia and the Phillipines who come here to do the housework and look after our children and dogs in exchange for lodging, a small salary and a food allowance, much of which is sent back home to support family and pay school fees? They find their contracts terminated with little notice and themselves turned out of their usually meagre living quarters. They have a month to find another job otherwise they are deemed to have overstayed their visa and can be deported.

Many find part time work with several households suits them in the absence of an ever-dwindling permanent contract but this is illegal here in Hong Kong, where a condition of a domestic worker’s visa is that she (it’s normally a she) has a full-time live-in contract with a financially secure employer. A part time helper is vulnerable to exploitation and being deported at any time if the authorities find out. She can’t go home on holiday or to see her own family, because she will not be allowed back into Hong Kong.  If deported for having a part-time job, she will never be able to return. Helpers pay agents large sums to arrange their employment, and they’re often in debt already. What happens to this precariat in the face of a sudden town collapse?

Now, you might tell me that the collapse of international airline travel is for the common good of the environment, and of course that is a valid argument. And do we really need a choice of so many airlines to travel on each route? But people are going to need to travel for work or to see their families and friends, for leisure, to educate themselves and experience different cultures, to support their families.

We are concerned about Phoebe’s Aunty, who is the only one who can make the langorous golden do any exercise. She’ll miss her terribly. And we’ll miss Phoebe and we’ll be thinking of her running free in the lakes and forests of Sweden, ideal retriever country. It’s going to be very quiet around here for the foreseeable future.