@matigo Yeah, that's generally how things go. Email attachments get ignored, anything past the first paragraph might as well be in English, etc.
If it genuinely matters, I just send an email/text every day until it gets done, and start calling if there's no response of any kind. It's unfortunate, but being pushy to the point of what many other cultures (certainly HK) would consider disrespectful seems to be the only way to get anything done on time here.