Maybe this applies to all of China. All of east Asia. I don’t know.

But I can speak for Hong Kong Island, and here, everyone goes to lunch at the same time. And I mean everyone.

From 1-2 p.m.

No one starts before 1. No one finishes after 2.

Entire sets of logistics are set up to handle this all-together-now lunch hour.

Restaurants gear up for the 60-minute madness by filling every corner of their rooms’ with tables. The help dashes around in a sort of organized chaos, bringing out food within minutes of it being ordered.

Big offices arrange for transport to the nearest shopping center (or restaurant area) … and back again. Running continuous loops. With the mini-buses empty in the middle of the hour but jammed at the start and finish. At least outbound, early, and inbound, late.

Major buildings even bring in staff to coordinate the movement of employees through the lobby and into elevators.

I arrive at the K Wah Centre at 2 p.m. — just as the lunch rush is ending, and I often am caught up in the 1-2 p.m. crowd trying to get back up the 30-something floors.

Smiling crowd-controllers, young women in dark dresses or young guys in suits, oversee the lines that form and break them into halves — those who are going up to the lower floors, and those going higher. The first half get three elevators, and the other half does, too.

The crowd-controllers hold open the doors to the elevators until a car is full. Not packed, but full. Then they send them on their way. No empty space. And when another arrives in the lobby, they gesture to it as if to say, “This way, please.”And everyone gets in in the order they were lined up.

It is fairly weird to be out and around HK Island, from about 12:45 until 2:15.

First, the normally busy streets … get even busier. Then they go dead. Aside from the lines that form outside the popular restaurants — the ones that manage to rush through two seatings in an hour.

If you walk the streets, or drive them, at 1:30, you might think you live on an island of 500,000 people.

If you walk or drive at 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., you might think you live on an island of 5 million.

The actual population of HK Island is 1.2 million.

Anyway, it seems to work out, somehow. Though you would think it would make more sense (from the point of view of street traffic, and restaurant crowds, etc.).

I suppose the up side, and the point, is that everyone’s days end up in perfect alignment. If you’re at work, so is everyone else. And you eat lunch when everyone else does. No missed calls. Outgoing or incoming. No “he’s out to lunch” messages left on phones or from secretaries.

And if you like to eat early or late?

Better bring your own food. Everyone in the office is going to think you’re weird, if you try to take an hour at noon. Or at 2.

Lunch is 1-2 p.m. here. The end. Get used to it.