Pacific Rim 3D is definitely not the sort of film to get your intellect racing, but if giant robots beating the living crap out of enormous alien monsters straight out of the Oligocene tickles your fancy then this is definitely something for you!
The Plot: great big monsters called Kaiju emerge from the deep to destroy 'everything in their path', especially coastal cities on the pacific rim. They emerge from an 'interdimensional portal' somewhere in the ocean and are detected making their way in double time to San Francisco, Manila, Lima, Sydney, etc. Only one thing can stop them – man's only hope, the human-controlled metal fighting machines called Jaegers.
Of course, this is an old theme that pays homage (actually in the credits) to the splendid ideas of Ray Harryhausen and to Ishirō Honda with his magnificent Godzillas. Their films wowed audiences through spectacle that came perilously close to camp farce, be that stop-frame animation, men in rubber suits or even CGI. Their eminently watchable films are predictable precisely because they are format-based and entertaining –hurrah!
The production values of Pacific Rim are high, especially the all-encompassing CGI, but I won't go into the acting skills necessary for such an outing. Suffice it to say, Charlie Hunnam is the shattered reluctant hero brought back to lead the ultimate fight, Rinko Kikuchi (magnificent in Babel) puts some actual meaningful effort into her supporting part and the wonderful Idris Elba (of the brilliant TV series Luther) is the superior wise older man figurehead.
The theme of epic monster battles, of course, goes back much further to Greek and other heroic tales. We need our heroes, whether they be Hercules, David, Gilgamesh, Rama, Beowulf and James Bond. All the stories are pretty much the same, beginning with a startling opening – Argh! M...M...M...Monsters!! – that moves on to the call for the hero – M to Bond: "You're booked on the 8:30 plane in the morning" – the hero's near-defeat – Beowulf's near defeat at the hands of Grendel – and final vanquishing of the foe – Rama returns home with his beloved Sita to a magnificent reception.
The second half of Pacific Rim takes place in Hong Kong, the sort of fantasy dystopian Hong Kong of little boys' imagination. It borrows, at least, from Blade Runner in the rainy over-crowded street scenes and from the Matrix Reloaded's restaurant scene in Hannibal Chau's suave hidden store of enormous Kaiju body parts – I'm sure you could find a whole host of other similarities with sci-fi and grand movie traditions. Apart from the linking 'busy street' scenes, Hong Kong is portrayed in moody panoramic harbour scenes or as glittering backdrops for the action out at sea. Certainly the canyons and highways of the Gloucester Road corridor are the perfect smashing locations for spectacular messy monster vs metal men fights. Street signs may be realistic enough, but don't look for any sort of continuity if you are a native Hong Konger; e.g. the north-facing harbourside faces out to southerly seaborne monster invasion.
One cannot help but wonder why Hong Kong was chosen as the location for such a mega-fight. Seeing the city get smashed up is splendid enough, but maybe the location has more to do with the film's wooing of mainland Chinese audiences (and future investors in the franchise).
I also couldn't help wonder about the film's HK people and their demolished homes. If you have ever been to HK then you may not be surprised to hear that it has some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. As this excellent BBC piece explains, many people are forced to squeeze themselves into smaller and smaller 'apartments' to the point where prison cells compare like spacious condos. Where will this end? As written previously in a post, and suggested in this WSJ article from two years ago, in one way or another this housing pressure simply has to give. The HK government has sought to build more public housing, but this is little more than a finger in the dyke. The city has to address rampant price rises (18% per year since 1989) in some way. Morality plays no place in this open market as folks get squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces to maximise the almighty dollar.
So the city is trashed by angry monsters (no doubt to be built again by happy investors) and its people are killed whilst the rest of the world looks on. I couldn't help but wonder, however, whether this may already have happened – the old Hong Kong, the Pearl of the Orient that was a place of refuge, civilisation and freedom in the East being swept away by its own home-grown, voracious and victorious bellowing monsters. The problem is, in real life there doesn't seem to be anyone powerful enough to stop them.
Hong Kong was home to us for nearly 15 years: we embraced the city, fell in love with it, lived happily with it, fell out of love with it, went through a reconciliation with it and eventually, like the torrid end of a bad love affair, finally moved out, not only to another country but another continent! 15 years is long enough for any relationship to have a deep impact and wistful thoughts, like those of a fondly remembered lover, occupy our minds daily – Captain Wong waving madly at us from the driving seat of the 97 Wong Shek Bus, the dirty mechanical smell of the Star Ferry's old engines, seeing distant Macau glisten in the evening sun from the very top of Victoria Peak... Sipping coffees in the many wi-fi friendly cafés of our new home city in the Czech Republic, we have been able to maintain a steady review of the on-line lives of our good Hong Kong friends that we bade farewell to earlier this year. Their weekly, even yearly, routines are so familiar because they were the habits we had ourselves adopted and then found difficult to release; the kids' morning bus runs, hurried lunches with colleagues, experiencing the relief of school holidays, waiting for the release of the end of term and pouring all remaining life into desperately mad weekends. Six months on from the final completion of all of our work contracts and academic requirements we found ourselves living in the city still half-clinging to these modes, more out of habit than affection.
When reflecting on the long hours at work and the desperate weekend playtimes that emerged from such a poor and widespread work-life balance (the deleterious effects of which we continue to see in the lives of friends, colleagues and acquaintances), we came to realise that it was decision time: for to accede that if health allowed our lives would continue in the same old way until retirement was a dreadful prospect, one that would eventually prompt either of us to reach for the revolver. Getting out of Hong Kong was, therefore, not simply to change the scenery or career or to merit some other excuse – it had become a necessity.
From our breakfast terrace balcony we daily observed the hurried departure of ex-colleagues and their children for busy desks and noisy classrooms. It all seemed to become stranger and more distant from us, particularly so when for the rest of the day there remained an enjoyable, placid calm in the Sai Kung Country Park. We had already seen many attractive alternatives to the established frenetic Hong Kong lifestyle we had hitherto led, but most of these were inevitably linked, one way or another, to the pursuit of the dollar in other money-oriented places – Dubai, Saudi, Singapore, Bognor. In the end we felt that in order to make an honest and genuine change in our lives we would not only have to leave Hong Kong but also change our lifestyle.
It is not difficult to love Pearl of the Orient, the fascinating magical kingdom of glitter and gold, of filth and squalor, of daily chances that permit amazing opportunities. It is, however, an extraordinary city that exists in a bubble of its own making, where it is always safe to walk the streets at any hour of the day or night, where there is minimal interference in personal affairs from government, where the accountants are good and the taxes really low. No doubt it is possible to get as rich in other cities, but Hong Kong’s famous and somewhat nebulous quality is its Midas touch that enables those with the merest whiff of entrepreneurship the means and opportunity to create and achieve success: ‘it's all about the money’. Money talks in this town and enables a very pleasant and pleasure-dependent lifestyle. Surely, then, it would be foolish, if not crazy, to leave such a place of great opportunity? The answer is, of course, ‘yes’, yet that’s exactly what we did. Doesn’t that then make us foolish (if not crazy)?
I gave a rather convoluted works leaving speech to a receptive but somewhat puzzled bunch of fellow-teachers in which I briefly discussed this decision, one that seemed to lack good sense. I admitted that to leave a well-paid place of work with only a very vague conception of our income and future lives seemed the epitome of commonly accepted notions of folly. And yet realising all this, and with sadness in our hearts, we upped and left the magic kingdom, its opportunities and freedom, its protection and safety, its lovely people and the streets that we know so well. Why?
In recent years it became evident that the development of a teaching career and any pecuniary rewards that came with it were neither sufficient nor possible (nor desirable). Both of us were well aware of short-sightedness and ineptitude in Education management decision-making that, coupled with work environment issues (and the rewards that such extra responsibility held), yearly soured any appetite we had for career advancement within the system. It was not that we belittled or disdained Education, nor the enjoyment of earning good money. No, it was more that we could no longer swallow the bitter pill of a life that we no longer believed in.
Actually, it was even more than this. For me, crunch time came one Friday night in Wanchai when I realized that I had been short-changed: lots of good money had been spent on travel into town and on drinks with friends in a noisy and familiar bar, but the usual pleasure promised by this investment failed to materialize. My friends were happy and we continued the revelry, as before, well into the night, but the price for my pleasure had suddenly risen and I was not sure the next time would be any better. Before me, therefore, were several options: drink more (and spend more and therefore earn more), seek yet other diversions, find an all-consuming perversion or just stop! I couldn’t continue like this forever. I wanted to get off the merry-go-round.
Of course, there are those that do not at heart believe in their religion and yet continue to go through the motions required of them; they attend services or festivals, keep up appearances and, when required, say the right things. But do we not disapprove of such people? Indeed, we are quite keen on pointing out such hypocrisy. Surely it is better to come clean, shake off the dishonesty, lay to rest all that expected doublespeak – even if doing so has a social cost. Wisdom decrees that merely conforming to other people's expectations is a lost cause; eventually conscience wins through, the tension of maintaining such a dishonest position breaks, something has to give.
In a similar way we decided to give up Hong Kong and all it had. It was easy enough to walk away from the constricting work environment and the bad air pollution, but it also meant leaving behind our good friends and the means to acquire good money. We resolved it was time to move on, even with a massive drop in salary (about 9/10ths of our combined Hong Kong income) to another country – the culture of which we knew little and the language even less. Of course we could not have made this move without the good money already earned, but we resolved that our future lives should no longer be constrained by old worries that had brought misery. Our mantra in all this became, ‘It's not about the money’. We certainly needed a certain amount of courage to make that decision and leave all that we had grown to know, but is it possible we can say now that have what we wanted?
So far our new lives are just as rich, if not richer, than they were before, our experiences just as full and our relationship has become deeper. We’ve lost all that damaging stress, have been able to sleep all night and have begun to effortlessly shed weight. Each morning feels like the beginning of a holiday and weekends are simply the days when the city streets are quieter. We have to pinch ourselves that we now free to do the things that we really enjoy and are no longer at the beck and call of anyone. By simply taking the chase for money out of the equation, our lives are better. Do we have what we want? The answer is an emphatic, ‘yes!’
Admittedly we really miss the long rambling walks within the beautiful Sai Kung Country Park (our poor doggies miss running off to chase the naughty monkeys – they still bark at them in their noisy dreams), but it is great to be in walking distance of anywhere in this old city. We ache for the scenic splendour of the cicada-thronged and perfumed forests on mountains that rise from the warm South China Sea, but now live in the midst of beautiful ancient buildings known to Mozart, Mahler and Dvorak. We miss our wonderful old friends, but have met some great people here –friends of the future. We fondly remember the mad evenings of merriment and mayhem in Wanchai, Mid-Levels and Lan Kwai Fong that ended in long taxi rides home, but have already had some great nights out here, at a fraction of the cost, and have been able to stumble through the cobbled streets back home to bed.
We may now have less cash in our pockets, but things are cheaper here. Our Hong Kong acquisitional lifestyle centred on lusting after things that are quintessentially inessential, if not damaging; aspirational luxuries, nice though they may be, are necessarily transient. I cannot deny the enjoyment of shopping in the hallowed air-conditioned malls of Central, but also recall balking at the ever-rising prices and of the glad smugness of being within such a good wage bracket –and all for consumery stuff that we didn’t really need. We are not building empires nor forging dynasties, we are not planning on retiring in a deck chair on a cruise ship or settling into another day's drinking on the same poolside bar stool. Although money may be able to buy love of sorts, it certainly can't buy happiness. So, without the stress that chasing the dollar entails we probably get even greater pleasure from our lives, seek personal growth without opening bottles of wine (nice though they are), and strive a little harder for integrity by talking more and taking a little more notice. The city of Olomouc is by no means a paradise and no-one moves here to get rich. But so far – and in so many ways – our life here has proven, if such a point ever required clarification, that not only is there life after school but there’s also life after Hong Kong. We simply chose Europe over Thailand!
Here then are the reasons we chose to subtract those ingredients in our lives that were not good so that we could instead concentrate on those that we always loved. Reducing our complete reliance and our terrifying dependence on one ingredient, that fearsome jewel of a monthly salary (the security of which we once thought would be impossible to live without and so long the major focus of our lives), has taken some adjustment. For myself, leaving Hong Kong, the city I thought I would die in, and removing to a small provincial city of the Czech Republic has been a great adventure, one that could only have been imagined if tethered to a regular job. Although it is obviously impossible to live without money, we believe that life is more, much more than mere dollars, is more than a job with a good salary or a stellar career with drive and ambition. It's high time we lived according to our beliefs.
This final of the trilogy is an attempt to review the current zeitgeist of Hong Kong, to suggest directions it should now pursue and to make summary of our time living in Hong Kong. Blogs are essentially rants, often angry and best forgotten, but this post is written with a sense of the gravity of impending times. So please allow repetition of what was said in the first of the trilogy, that I make appeal to that
which moves a person and that it should strike a resonant chord in order to provoke discourse and, hopefully,
action. It is also noted, with some serendipity, that this is my 100th post!
In the previous post a brief sketch of the political background was given along with brief outlines of education and the undelrying theme of the centrality of wealth acquisition. Although within this excellent city there are innumerable fascinating examples from which to choose, those in this post are language and ethnicity, domestic helpers, and housing and accommodation. This post has caused some difficulty, not least because the intention was to steer away from sounding like another useless complaint against the inescable negative foibles thrown up by life in the Pearl of the Orient. In fact, the beloved city of Hong Kong and its beloved people have a charmed place in the world – one that requires wisdom and intelligent direction.
Language and Ethnicity
In our time here Hong Kong's population has increased by at least 1 ½ million to a little over 7. This statistic appears to contradict the fact that the fun-loving boys and girls of the city are simply not having enough babies to effortlessly sustain this growing economy – 0.9 per child-bearing woman, way below the required replacement rate of 2.1. In fact, the increase has been achieved largely through immigration. The city has always been a transient place and because of the nature of work here will probably always be thus, nevertheless each year more settle than leave (or die). The constant and consistent population growth has been one of the largest engines of this perpetually expanding economy fuelling the demand for housing, services and infrastructure and constantly prompting the expected sale of government land to this end. More on this later, but future economic dependency must surely encompass other dimensions and not merely rest on the bedrock of lucrative land sales to already-profitable individuals and companies. Hong Kong and the world deserve something better.
94% of Hong Kong's population is ethnic Chinese, either home grown or specially imported (everything, even the people, are imported from China). That ethnicity, however, is somewhat difficult to ascertain because the perception of one's origins –Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Bognor Regis– can get a little blurred after a few years domicile in Kowloon City. Obviously this is a very personal thing, but has to do with an established and local mind-set: Hong Kongers are tearful, flag-waving Chinese only up to a point! Even ethnic Chinese returning here from western countries can find it hard to fit in and may forever feel like outsiders: their co-patriots sneeringly call them bananas – yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Apart from the more obvious minority skin differentiations amongst South Asians, real ethnic identity appears, therefore, to be focused on mother tongue usage, particularly at home. Some families may speak three or more languages each day, but prefer one when seated around the dinner table. Indeed, it is possible to walk down Nathan Road and hear 20 or more languages and dialects being casually spoken, and yet most are able to get by using Cantonese.
Getting by in Cantonese, however, can be a minefield of uncertainties. It may begin with a puppy-like glimmer of semi-encouragements, grow in to a confusing mix of happy discoveries and semi-encouragements only ultimately to miserably sit a constant and dismal puddly reminder of overall linguistic failure. How is it 20 million people learn this language as babies but I can't ask the time properly? There are no tenses, for God's sake! God knows I've tried – indeed I cannot recall how many times I have given taxi drivers simple directions in the clearest, best-remembered Cantonese only to be met by furrowed brows that deepen with each more sinicised repetition until finally something clicks, there is a long "Ahhh!" and those very same words with identical nuance and tone is parroted. I swear, and sometimes audibly, that they bloody do it out of grudging and deliberate obduracy... Sorry, I promised not to rant!
By the way, there's no Knowledge required of taxi drivers as there is with the London cabby – Hong Kong's taxi drivers simply queue up to buy their license, get in, start her up and wander about, puzzled passenger within, until they find the required address – or not! If they don't know where they're going they may a) 'fess up with a "You show me?", or b) bluster merrily until the see by your red-faced interjections that they're going the wrong way. And don't get me started on the evaporation of taxis in the rain or at 'changeover' time, whatever that is, or of charging double for the tunnels, or the shameless shouting down the phone to their mates, or of belching, farting and drinking beer whilst driving or of leaving bottles of taxi driver's lemonade at the traffic lights... Upon our emigration in '98 drivers we learned a lot about Hong Kong from good and amicable taxi drivers, but they have ceased bothering to chatt, amicably or otherwise,
in English at all. They are a belligerent lot, as are taxi drivers in any city of the world, but surely it's time the public required them do a better job, one worthy of Asia's World City? Sorry – this has become an extended taxi rant!
Sadly racism, like many other negative and primitive hindrances in our social make-up, appears to be near-universal on this planet. Although Hong Kong was no stranger to racism in the past, largely by the colonial Brits, public and physical demonstrations of a racist nature are pretty much unheard of or kept carefully hidden behind the closed doors of slang Cantonese in schoolrooms or unleashed from the carefree tongues of market traders. Funny foreign names, especially south asian ones, may merely provoke titters or unequivocally act as surreptitious hindrances to flat viewing and job opportunities. Having said that, as outsiders in a new culture the Mem and meself felt no outward hostility upon our arrival and, apart from the odd quizzical checks askance on the minibus or at the local Wellcome supermarket, we have felt entirely comfortable and fully at home here: I guess compared with some we're lucky. In truth, it has been hard to leave this comfort zone. For the local population racism may not be fully recognised or even viewed for what it is, but it is a cancer that requires excising – from all walks of life and if legislation is required then so be it: only good can come from such a focus.
Domestic Helpers
If in this city, as elsewhere, wealth is the indicator of status then those at the bottom of the Hong Kong heap are the most despised – the homeless, those with menial jobs, asylum seekers, anyone with dark skins. Included in that are the ubiquitous domestic helpers, the invaluable labour force of around 274,000 – that's 4% of the population. Many of these poor girls from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka may be expected to work more hours than their employer is awake, daily scour floors and walls, provide gourmet meals on every occasion, keep the car spotless inside and out, endlessly child mind, care for elderly parents, provide security when the family are elsewhere AND sleep without air-conditioning, sometimes in a shed on the roof or on the kitchen floor with the dog (this is still expected by some employers). This they do for the minimum wage provided: HK$3,920 (US$505) per month. The employer may also be expected to provide a food allowance of HK$875 (US$112) per month. Whilst this sum amounts to more than a lawyer or doctor would acquire outside Manila, Jakarta or Colombo, in practice these human beings are often expected to work under near-slave-like conditions and may suffer from endless berating, beatings and sexual abuse. Other than their holiday time, their only glimpse of their own children growing up at home may be the occasional photo or phone call. In addition, the employer may take away their passport and not pay wages for months only to ultimately plant jewellery in their suitcase and call the police. Then there's the case of a helper 'falling' from an apartment window when that troublesome payment time ultimately came round. In reality, accused domestic helpers don't have a legal leg to stand on (it's their word against the employer's), they will almost certainly be jailed only to be deported, never again able to obtain employment in HK or elsewhere unless desperation drives them to choose somewhere like Saudi Arabia.
Why do some put up with all this? Permanent employment in Hong Kong means that their families back home have the chance to escape poverty; it's probably very few of us reading this blog share a similar background. Millions of people rely on regular incomes sent home to alleviate suffering, build houses and pay for their family's education (remittances account for a yearly US$24 billion injection into the Philippine economy). So it's ok to have a seat with the family at a restaurant (glass of water if you're lucky) in order to chase the fidgety children around the tables all evening whilst the parents get on with the business of eating and having a good time, it's ok to be daily shouted at, to be cursed, to keep all your possessions locked in a suit case: the monthly remittances are Western Unioned home and the families offer thankful prayers on Sundays and late-night phone calls in return.
Unlike the United Kingdom, many Hong Kong families, including our own, have
employed domestic helpers, enabling both parents to work, the dog to get
walked, the house to be cleaned and the children be safe at home. To obtain a good reliable helper is an achievement
in itself and for some she becomes an extension of the family. Any helper will tell you that being employed by a gwailo family is often a better and less demanding deal for them
too. So, it's not all that bad for some in ole Hong Kong: each Sunday after church they gather in their thousands at any available open space and do what Filipinas love the most – sitting around chatting, eat chicken wings and letting off a bit of steam. Sometimes they'll get a group together and sing and jig about to the sound of guitar and tambourine, praising God for his miracles in their lives. If they're lucky they may find love interest, maybe a serious boyfren' or even husban' – the answer to the whole family's daily prayers...
Perhaps one way to view the way domestic helpers are treated is as an indicator of the health of Hong Kong society, a barometer of social
trends regarding the way Hong Kongers think about their city and those within it. And yet – to broach discussion on such things with many-a local Chinese is to court a certain amount of ire. Long-gone are the days of the poor pig-tailed Chinese amah who sweatily argued for cheap bean sprouts at the local market stall, baby on hip. Some of my students saw domestic helpers only as lazy, opportunistic, money-grabbing spongers that the local population only endured because they needed squeaky clean clothes each morning and a squeaky clean car to drive the kids to school. I've seen so many children (and parents) get a little too used to proxy parenting; picking up after them, tidying their rooms, walking five paces behind them carrying their bags to school, their only care when sick. These permanent babies never learn how to pick up after themselves or use the Hoover or know how to iron or even cook and wash-up and it is almost certainly expected that they will have their own domestic helpers in adulthood. So ingrained are they kids to this life that in classroom discussions it was sometimes hard for them to see that the difference between indentured slavery and the lot of some Hong Kong domestic helpers can oft be slim indeed. Yes, it may be worse in other countries, but that doesn't make it right in Hong Kong.
Accommodation
On paper Hong Kong has it all – a welfare state by which all needs are met from cradle to grave. In truth, this society deals a mixed hand to those that require benefits. When all eyes are turned upwards it may be hard to look down. School and kindergartens are packed sometimes with 40, 50 or even 60 to a class. Hospital wards are infamously crowded because of the economic benefits of meeting their needs en masse. Some patients decide not to return home to their even-more crowded apartments and stay for years, even if each ward has 24-hours of TV blaring cartoons and Cantosoaps. 'Retirement' homes are truly dreadful, dingily-lit waiting rooms of death where waist-height partitions separate the unfortunate and uncomplaining old folks.
Even in this land of superstition and ancestor-reverence the bodies of the dead are sometimes forgotten and left for the government to deal with: after the customary burial time the relatives are supposed to disinter the fleshless remains for transference to ossuaries or commit the remains for final cremation. This rather unpleasant duty, however, is increasingly not done by the more fussy of families – a constant headache for the government's Cemeteries and Crematoria Department. Land prices are so high that 'coffin spaces' in government graveyards are not held in perpetuity! After six year's interment, and regardless of family consent, the space is re-used, the remains disinterred and cremated and then re-interred at the Sandy Ridge cemetery near the border with Shenzhen.
Hong Kong land prices hold such a vaunted premium and command a value way above their actuality in raw materials. As mentioned earlier, land sales are one of the most-revved engines of the economy and forms a permanent grip on the average Hong Konger's psyche that one of the litmus tests for any des res area is the number of realty or estate agents shops. This is how the engine works:
the government mandarins are ever-seeking politically-expedient ways to generate income and regularly does so through the tried-and tested selling/auctioning off of gazetted sites dotted all over the territory,
the boys who 'have' (corporations/powerful and rich families) put in their tender for development as close as dammit to their margin of profitability,
the sale usually goes to the highest bidder,
most of the planning gets whizzed through and processed pronto (unless some bearded lefty cries the frightful words 'environment' or 'heritage'),
building starts using imported (and illegal) cheap Chinese labour who get killed in accidents,
by this time the realty agents with connections to the developers begin pitching – this results in multiple besuited property agents on the streets eager to escort potential customers around showhome apartments or office space in cut-throat competition,
all flats/offices are bought immediately and then sold again for profit – square feet of sky can exchange hands several times before the builders even get there,
by this time the average Wong or Chan family have scraped together enough dough to put up the deposit for an apartment, office or retail space is a slightly different kettle of fish,
the flat is rented out to cover cost of mortgage or the retail/office rent is set for maximum income within the allotted lease (usually 2 years) with the management taking note of the success of the business.
The whole economy benefits from development – the government coffers are filled, the developer's stock value increases, the workers get paid, the café owners sell lunches and taxi and bus drivers transport to and fro, the Wongs and Chans get a foot on the property ladder (and a little social caché), the new occupants get a home and service providers get income. Above all, the financial institutions of Hong Kong benefit from every transaction at every level.
So what's wrong with this system? It is that people are considered less than the dollar at each point in the process: yes, there isn't a Hong Konger who doesn't like it when the government is in the black, or that work is plentiful, or that they are able to buy and rent new properties, but people come second to the mighty dollar. This inevitably leads to social problems for some – overwork and stress, bad borrowing and the inevitable complications for family life and overall social stability. It has also led to staggering inflation in the housing market to impossible and unsustainable levels – since 2009 property prices have risen by a staggering 110%! Great for developers, very very bad for first-time purchasers or low-income families that may wayit for years from the Housing Authority Department.
The bubble that is the Hong Kong housing market has long-been expected to burst. Thus far price have consistently risen largely on the backs of cheap borrowing and a plethora of mainland Chinese investors hoping to put their cash into something more solid than that available in China – something beyond their shores yet not too far away. The Hong Kong housing market has hitherto seemed the most secure of investments. But all good things must come to an end and just as in 1997 property prices inevitably took a dive, and sank all those chained with them, it looks like that time may be immanent.
For many the government policy regarding housing appears to have been mostly the latter of
an all-or-nothing approach, a timid floundering around the edges aware only of the political value of everyone's greed
and unbridled success and unable to take on the necessary and steely boldness of governance faced with tough decisions. No-one wants to be told they can't make as much money next year as they did this, or that their property's value may not actually equal the price paid, but if the government had not been so hands-off in the past few years then the expected property crash would not be so severe and uncontrolled. In truth, it's what has been experienced the world-over since 2008, but by its very nature Hong Kong has been immune to this.
The expected property devaluation, however, will not be the real issue for many Hong Kongers. Human cogs in the various machines of wealth, many are happy merely to put rice on the table and hope not get ill and take dips in wages or have to pay medical costs. At the very bottom of the ladder are those who can afford little more than a box to inhabit, such is the chronic state of public housing. Over the years, and with limited success, the government has tried many grand housing schemes, such as clearing slums and erecting massive public housing estates and even building new towns in the boondocks, but people vote with their feet and overcrowded and often dangerous private housing is rife.
Apart from cardboard boxes under flyovers, the infamous cages have always been the very cheapest accommodation in the city. These squalid, Dickensian conditions just should not exist in one of the world's richest cities – they are another testament to what is wrong in eden: their inhabitants the detritus of society, the poorest, most powerless and least heard of all Hong Kong's people.
To Conclude
Many Hong Kongers do not realise they have such an amazing role to fulfill as those who really have it all – money, opportunity, political awareness and individual conscience. Perhaps growing up in the territory has engendered amongst many a sense of entitlement without responsibility (whereas it could be argued the converse may hold more sway over the border). It could be argued that Asians relish the comfort the certainty that comes with the collective mind. Craftily formed, this collective mind of Hong Kong could be that best suited to bridge east and west and become a model for the rest. As exemplars of enlightened pan-Asians, others would look to the 'Hong Kong Way' as the most successful in financial, social, political and even religious considerations. I believe the wonderful tolerance and acceptance exhibited by many Kong Kong Chinese could be the watchword for success.
Instead, and unfortunately, there sometimes appears to be the worst of both where individual greed is seen as unquestioningly good, unhindered material self-interest the ultimate goal of life and rather dull middle class social mores are bludgeoned into the lives of the rest. At the moment it looks as if Chinese investors will be able to take advantage of overseas stocks: Hong Kong is once again ready to capitalise on a massive rush of investment from domestic mainland Chinese. But I hope that's not the sum total of Hong Kong's projected achievement potential. It also looks like Hong Kong will remain closed to outsiders, especially the domestic workers who now cannot apply for residency no matter how long they have lived there. The poor, the real poor of Hong Kong do not benefit from such investments either directly or indirectly.
So, what should be done to improve things?
Change government policy and, as in Singapore, make English the official language – this will encourage trade across continents and make Hong Kong less dependent on cronyism and Beijing-focused sinophiles.
Change government policy over discrimination and racism – ensure equality of opportunity for all regardless of the colour of their passport. This also will make Hong Kong a better place to do business and comfortably live without hindrance.
Change government philosophy regarding intervention in the marketplace – ensure the sale of land occurs using different priorities in order to take heat out of housing-based economy, encourage diversification and make housing fairer for all. In particular, it is vital to take matters in hand regarding the Small House Policy.
In fairness, the Hong Kong government does promote socially-aware policies through its social health and welfare departments, but they seem a little like diversions from the real business of making lots of money. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a Socialist revolution, but the current system favours none but the powerful and well connected. And a lifetime of acquisition means that they're not likely to share their wealth anytime soon and will use the government to defend their money, their lifestyle and their means of income. In the end it all comes down to power and who has it.
I am not proposing that the Hong Kong government leads the way. There's enough good people out there who work for and with charities, indeed it's big business now, and God-only knows how much tax avoidance is done through charitable donations from businesses great and small, but we live in the 21st century and the role of individuals is now greater than ever before. Just as the government surely encompasses more than merely lawmaking, citizens should be more than mere consumers and now be giving more thought to what happens in their city and beyond. The alternative is simply to ignore any and all problems and merely hope the government is competent and diligent enough to pick up the pieces and that's where we are now.
Unrestricted laissez-faire capitalism has given us the Hong Kong we see today, warts n' all. Perhaps it's time for something else, something better and something good. It won't be easy and it may be painful, but in the end the struggles for a better society make it worthwhile.
In this second of three epistles, inasmuch as a blog purports to be entertaining, I want to show that wealth acquisition is the overriding fixation of this culture which, when combined with aspirational education and a hands-off political culture, ensures focus is fixed on the self. I want to show how the city's success story is generally built on wealth acquisition and that this has only come about through hard work, good connections or education.
We settled in Hong Kong in 1998, one year
on from the handover of sovereignty from the British colonial government to the
Beijing authorities. This transfer of power, so feared by many of the
population that had only 20 years previously escaped across the border from the terror of Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution, meant that British, Canadian, American and Australian
passport holders had either already fled or had emergency plans to do so if things went tits-up! When the shiny People's Revolutionary Army tanks didn’t
thunder down Nathan Road to crush the dissenting cries of the capitalist running dogs between the cracks of the blood-strewn pavements, everyone
breathed a huge sigh of relief. But no-one really knew what would happen once the Chinese were through the border.
In fact, it made sense for Beijing to keep
things the way they were and keep their eyes firmly on other, more-lucrative-still future prizes, such as Taiwan. Besides, they had to slowly begin the process of sinicisation, the
fickle Chinese population of Hong Kong being both patriotic and
unpatriotic, depending on the topic of discussion: on reunification of Taiwan with China
everyone agrees, on autonomy for Tibet, everyone disagrees, or is it vice versa? As with any urban population, there have been divergent views and firmly entrenched positions to defend. I like to
believe that as teacher of Philosophy and Religious Studies, which I
will discuss a little later, my hand was one of many on the spoon that helped stir the pot.
In the intervening years when I've confessed to living in Hong Kong some have felt compelled to ask whether the place has changed much since Beijing swapped flags – of course not! 2nd July 1997 everyone got up and went to work, got paid, ate lunch, had
their babies, buried their grandmas and made money in the same old way. I can't help wonder if the British had extended the lease on the New Territories for
another 100 years the end result wouldn’t have been much the same...
The simplistic view,
and this thinking is still found a-plenty in newspapers of 2013, is that China is great – no, it’s
really great. The glorious handover meant
the enabling of the poor, downtrodden Hong Kong Chinese to cast off the maleficent hegemony of the nasty
British imperialists to join in the beneficent hegemony of the ever-loving
motherland.
You must remember that for the Special Administrative Region until 2047 things will, in theory, remain business as usual – a full 50 years of 'non-intervention’
from their chauffeur-driven Mercedes-owning mainland Chinese masters. By then all 426 square miles are expected to host a people as unbendingly patriotic as the rest, and by which
time anyone who was involved with the handover will be long dead. Thus, the
disturbing establishment of a form of democracy by that Whore of the East, the last
governor Chris Patten, was seen by the Communist Party's powerful elite as a deliberate unsettling process for Chinese
reintegration. Democracy has not, is not and never shall be popular in the People's Republic of China.
In truth, I thought the chippies* would take over. Over the years many companies were happy that the government would not "frustrate the operation of market forces" as the long-time financial secretary Sir Philip Haddon Cave put it and continue its policy of positive non-interventionism. Surely if a government did not intervene with the natural order of things then the market would be allowed to set the trends and to get on with generating wealth. With the return of Hong Kong to the PRC, perhaps one of the most planned economies of the planet, it was inevitable that it would seek to increase its involvement in the running of all things. Thus, when a measure was introduced to positively integrate more of its work force into the economy, supplanting the nearly 150,000 expats that departed in the years around handover, it was apparent by those doing business that setting artificial targets for the appointment of Chinese, either from Hong Kong or more frequently from mainland China, did not correspond with income generation. Businesses, operating on their strict adherence to a laissez-faire creed, simply went back to employing the right people for the right jobs, regardless of their origins. What was therefore identified by all of this was that the local population required an increase in skills for the market, clearly the responsibility of the underfunded education system and ultimately the responsibility of government. Some chippies may have got work, especially those educated overseas, but thus-far they have remained a fringe phenomena.
Some of the richest people on the planet live in this city where finances have never dipped into the red (indeed, last year many of us received cash because the government felt it needed to spend some of its vast reserves). Wealth creation, however, appears to have followed several well trodden routes. The first is the old style – hard, hard work, night and day. This has always been the bedrock of Hong Kong wealth generation. Although it is becoming harder to make ends meet by working thus, there are still a myriad of small shops that just about tick over, thousands of tired market stalls that are open all hours to ensure returning local customers get 'the usual' and unknown numbers of delivery companies, in the now-ubiquitous Toyota Hiace vans with ridiculous spoilers, that carry anything anywhere to anyone. It has always been in the Chinese psyche to carry out these mercantile tasks and without doubt they do it very well
The next route to riches is to club together: Grandma's lifetime savings combined with living at Mum & Dad's (or with in-laws) in their tiny flat with the addition of siblings putting a portion of their income into the pot helps to set up family businesses or fund property acquisition. It is a tried and tested method that has enabled families to expand their wealth opportunities in stocks, deals, property or business growth. Hong Kong families may not always be happy, but they are strong.
Another route is to be well-connected with 'older brothers' that may offer business assistance so closely akin to cronyism or nepotism as to be indistinguishable. These leg-ups need not necessarily be through legal means and they are never merely benevolent. The final route that seems to have taken hold now is really a secondary route that has only emerged as a result of combinations of any of the other means – property development at home and overseas, a topic for further discussion in the next blog.
The most interesting element to emerge from our time here is my new evangelical belief in accountancy. I used to wonder how so many local people could afford new Mercs and Beamers each year until I discovered that many of these vehicles are owned by their companies as good depreciable assets. All electronic goods are immediately written off! In fact, if we had to do it all again it would be on the back of a 'business' wherein all our assets were lumped together and through which all our income could be beautifully channeled. It's really only the salaried class (such as honest, humble teacher folk) that keep the tax system functioning; everyone else has a proxy adulterous relationship with the taxman through their accountant!
Coming to Hong Kong may have been
fortuitous for us and, as mentioned in the previous post, has allowed us to have a pretty amazing time here, but this great city has
allowed so many to do much better than us and to grow seemingly without limit. Wealth creation may have provided opportunities for good Hong Kong people, but it
has also caused waste, destruction, corruption and, conversely, poverty. More on this in the next post.
Not having worked in any other industry here I
can only really discuss Hong Kong education, and that provided by the English Schools Foundation in
particular. The ESF was set up in 1967 to provide "modern liberal
education" for (mostly-) British expatriates. Before that schooling was a
matter of choice – either one sent one’s sproggs across the seas back to one’s
native land and into a boarding school or one signed up to a local school. The
most prestigious of these were well established institutions such as the catholic
Grant Schools of St Paul’s (1851), of St Francis’ (1869), St Mary’s (1900) or
Sacred Heart Canossian (1860), the Anglican Diocesan Schools (1869) and King
George Vth School, established as the Kowloon British School in 1894.
The colonial government saw the sense of supporting its English-speaking movers
and shakers and provided money to support the education of these future
captains of South China's commerce and industry. The ESF, now dominated by expat Chinese, still receives a direct subsidy of HK$23,659
per secondary pupil on top of the substantial fees of HK$98,000 for students in
secondary and HK$102,000 for those in the 6th Form.
These substantial sums means that the
organisation receives quite a hefty sum from government and parents for the
17,000 students that pass through the doors. Much of this has been passed on to
attract and retain good quality teachers in this overseas ‘hardship posting'.
That parents are eager to cough up the readies so that their precious little
ones can be included in this system is testament to two things – the well-publicised stellar performance of many of its top pupils and the inherent prestige that the
institution has hitherto carried.
As a teacher coming into this system it was
abundantly clear that busy, heads-down, studious HK classes and muddling, fidgety, English kids at a comprehensive school calling everything they didn't understand 'gay' were miles
apart – perhaps even light years apart. I felt I was able to do something here, something I had great difficulty doing in the
UK – teaching! In fact, any pressure generating within an ESF classroom was not because of control or improvements in discipline or upping grades, it was caused by trying to meet the incessant demands of
these little academic sponges. I actually didn't quite like it to begin with!
It is an expectation of Hong Kong parents
that their children work hard. This is to ensure that they gain the best grades possible, an
indication of good investment and maintenance of family honour. Do not, however, confuse these amazing grades for personality or remarkable individual characteristics: that usually comes with a more worldly maturity in mid-20s, a necessarily delayed factor arrived at after University study and/or travel. A typical student's day may begin by rising before 6 a.m. to be ready for the school bus. Many do not eat before classes begin which, depending on the school, may be anytime from 7 until 8.30 . At the end of the day after-hours activities begin – sports or martial arts/music lessons or practice/cram school. Unless they are eating out with parents, these children often may not get home until early evening by which time they are expected to study again with homework. This may continue well into the wee small hours, depending on how diligent or distracted they are. And the whole process continues next day, except many children will suffer from sleep-deprivation, a self-inflicted torture. They are well-organised, highly-stressed and often overworked, a preparation for a well-organised, highly-stressful and overworked life they will inevitably lead where chasing the dollar will be the overriding objective. Existential angst be damned – few, if any, question all this because failure at any level brings shame and angry parental disappointment.
The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the book that describes the strict disciplinarian Chinese parenting, may have been slightly ironic in tone, but it has described a crystal clear reality for a great many Hong Kong students. The uncomfortable truth is that this hard, aspirational parenting is a global phenomena by no means limited to the Chinese.
I enjoyed teaching – most of the time. Many students came into school with no preconceived ideas, others with such confirmed opinions that it was a real sweat to oil the hinges on the gates of their perception. It's not that they didn't care, it's just that for many philosophical and psychological ideas were just not important. It is easy to see how this situation has come about. I remember meeting one troubled parent who, on showing me the book we used in class, complained that there were no answers at the back, nothing to confirm that the reader was on the right path to academic success. I had to explain that this book was all about forming the right questions: as she walked away shaking her head I could almost hear her thoughts of incredulity. The right subjects to choose are Business Studies, Economics and Chinese (Maths, English and Science are mandatory), the wrong ones are Art, Drama, Music, History, Design & Technology, Physical Education, Philosophy & Religious Studies. When asked why, students repeat a parental mantra that the chosen subjects will undoubtedly help them get on in life. No amount of discussion about interests outside education, about golf handicaps or backhand strokes in tennis can shake this belief until mid-way through their studies, by which time it would be too late and they are committed: and every year it would be the same.
With such an unfortunate, blind focus on the means to wealth creation, it has seemed inevitable that many Hong Kongers appear to see no further than the basic accumulation of worldly goods, the tangible assets of work and industry, even if that means being surround by them in their living space, all stacked up to the ceiling in neat PriceRite plastic boxes. Shopping is, after all, Hong Kong's best-loved sport: whole families will go out to spend the day in gargantuan shopping malls such as Pacific Place or Festival Walk. Orderly snaking queues form down whole streets for discounts or the acquisition of free gifts. Although many are too proud to beg, pensioners will nevertheless fight each other for free rice from temples – even if their fruit money has increased! The most frequent time for banks to be robbed is in the weeks before Chinese New Year when those desperate for cash to pay for all the expenses in that season turn to even-more desperate measures. And I fear to even mention horse racing and the Jockey Club, the biggest game in town!
Throughout much of my teaching time the students' heroes were often the
most financially successful, such as Bill Gates and Li Ka-shing. Wealth, even avarice, contentment through acquisition and one-upmanship is properly understood – they could almost be seen as sparkly aspects of the same golden virtue: wealth is good. Even Chinese New Year can be seen as legitimising and celebrating this in both real and symbolic forms; lai see packets full of money, the placement of decorative yuanbao gold ingots, the centrality of flower blossoms that symbolise prosperity. So if the most important yearly festival confirms these ideals, it is no wonder it has become a unquestioned tenet of life. This may be not, of course, be limited to Hong Kong society, but it certainly dominates the flavour of it.
In fairness, Chinese history has been nothing if not eventful. Natural and man-made disasters have swept countless millions away leaving those still alive to ponder the meaning of it all. Through the troubled lives of forbears who lived in interesting times a widely-held assumption has filtered down that the only one to look after number one is number one. That's not to say welfare associations have been unknown in Chinese history or that government agencies haven't done wonders over time, but pity belongs to the weak and unfortunate. A fall from financial grace brings social embarrassment – people stare.
So, to recount this fairly lengthy blog entry, Hong Kong is a politically stable and sometimes rich society with a populace that is generally left to do as it pleases – Ayn Rand would have been proud. Many people, however, have become severely stressed because culturally-inspired aspirations surrounding wealth can only be met through expensive education and/or fortuitous connections, things beyond the means and social orbits of the vast majority of the population. Wealth, therefore, may only be realised in the next or future generations after much hardship, through a lucky break or by consenting families pulling together. The Hong Kong Chinese, however, have established what is perhaps their best weapon in dealing with life's vagueries – a fantastic sense of humour.
I love the city of Hong Kong, the people and the countryside in which we have been lucky enough to have lived. Unfortunately, in our years here things have got tighter in terms of wallets and wages, tolerance has become less of a freely-available commodity, the environment has quickly worsened and the lifestyles to which many Hong Kongers have become inexorably committed are unsustainable. These are the troublesome topics I will waffle upon in my next blog entry and where I propose a solution.
This is the first of three open epistles
intended with the heart in mind. In these I make appeal to that
which moves a person, the inner stirrings of awareness, conscience and pity. The
intention is that my thoughts should strike a resonating chord and provoke discourse and
action.
The subject is Hong Kong, our experience here, our expectations and departure. Having thought on these things for a time and, knowing
my days in the city are numbered, I have decided to give them form and to cast
them, for good or ill, into the electronic ether. It begins with our entry to this far-eastern metropolis.
Our lives in Hong Kong began by fluke. Just
before Christmas 1996, on business I cannot recall, we visited the Royal Bank
of Scotland in Sandbach, Cheshire. Waiting for the Memsahib, I completed a
simple promotional flyer that required a few ticks and a sentence – the prize
being £3000 of Thomas Cook Travel Vouchers. The Mem saw this as a waste of
time: I shrugged. A few days into the New Year someone claiming to be with the
RBS phoned and congratulated me on winning the first prize in the bank’s
national competition. Assuming this to be an elaborate wind-up, I came close to
slamming the phone down after a few choice words, but hesitated. Days later, smiling
for the cameras, we received an enormous cheque and pondered what to do with all
that cash.
We concluded we should go to a place we were unlikely to visit again in
our lifetime, the place our dear friend Gethyn had recently emigrated and whose
concluding words to us was to be sure to come and see him. Our vouchers
became two Cathay flights to Hong Kong with cash to spend...
That Chinese New Year week of 1997 was an incredible
novelty.
Spectacularly flying in over the streets of Kowloon we arrived at the old Kai
Tak airport and filled the week doing the touristy things that all wide-eyed
visitors do, the Big Buddha on Lantau, the sweaty market in Stanley, the bouncy
Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui. Our gracious host took us to view the night city from
Stubbs Road and to view a misty China from the Robin’s Nest helipad. The first
trip to be taken without our little girls, we enjoyed the differences of
culture and the ease with which we could get around. It was all so very
exciting – a noisy and bright world away from the silent and dark streets of
Northwich.
We took time out to visit the special needs
Jockey Club Sarah Roe School where the Mem’s ex-colleague and friend, the late Jenny Doke,
had recently began working. Limbering out of the taxi I peered down the long drive next door to what
clearly appeared to be a long-established educational institution, the King George Vth
School, its grand Art Deco frontage with clock tower overseeing a green sports
field. As a trainee teacher, I thought at the time, if I could teach anywhere then it would ideally be here.
The night of our departure we spent in a
Mexican Restaurant in Times Square with a gaggle of English Schools Foundation
teachers – a birthday party. With one eye on the clock, we drank salty margaritas
and ate nothing but nachos all evening. The party continued and we politely made
excuses for our 11 pm plane. No, don’t
go! voices clamored. But we have our
kids… we replied. Bring ‘em over –
we’ll get you a job! This flippant remark was not without weight in the
days leading up to the handover of 1997.
At 10:45, and with a “Fi-dee! Fi-dee!”, our host bundled us into the back of a red taxi.
Sliding across the back seat, we sped at the highest of speeds through the Central
Harbour Tunnel to Kai Tak to the awaiting return flight, but it was all too
much and before immigration hot, orange, sticky nachoey sick splashed over my black
jeans. Such was my state, the Mem threatened to fly without me if I was refused
on board. I promise I'll never drink another!
Such a world had never existed for us:
teachers with money, regularly polishing off bottles of wine in a school staffroom after work,
regular international travel to hot, sunny destinations – it would surely
remain a sparkly dream, a nice idea, but something we would forever want.
Before the end of the year the Mem had applied for a post at the very same Sarah Roe School.
Deciding to move to Hong Kong was easy,
although saying our goodbyes to friends and family was painful, but the
opportunities that quickly arose in the Pearl of the Orient made our first few
months a joyful adaptation. Our apartment began to look like an IKEA showroom
and we watched DVDs during typhoon days. We began to go native – the English expat native –taking on a domestic helper and enjoying sausage, mash and a pint of Tetleys
at the Railway Tavern in Tai Wai (in those days you could get gravy and mushy peas with your pie and chips). We loved giving Chinese New Year red lai
see envelopes containing money to employees and children, but perhaps I over-reacted
to the slang term for westerners, gwailo–
was I really a foreign devil? On my way to work I could see down the entire
length of the MTR train: I was the tallest soul anywhere without westerners,
something that just ain’t so anymore.
Our landlady, undoubtedly mindful of her losses in the property price crash
that accompanied the Asian financial crisis, tried to keep us happy in our 600
square feet Tai Wai apartment (including lift lobby). With her we experienced our
first dim sum and hotpot, but the flat’s size and price was our rude awakening
to what may be the most over-heated property market in the world. Hong Kong
being such a perfectly placed travel hub, we took ourselves off for holidays in
Thailand and Bali, but a few weekends in choky Chinese cities made us think
twice about the mainland.
The many islands of the New Territories beckoned with gazetted beaches,
clean sand, lifeguards, butterflies and cold beers in the cafés. It proved such
a great attraction that we couldn’t help but call our poor friends Rachel and Bob to
tell them how wonderful it all was. Unfortunately, they failed to share our
enthusiasm on a dreary, dark British five o’clock in the bloody morning...
We frequently took to two or even three
nights out each week, clubbing, barhopping and dancing our way through the
crowds of Lan Kwai Fong. Competing bars would often give
away drinks to attract punters. We even took up Salsa! Regularly quaffing champagne on Wednesday
ladies’ nights at Carnegies in Wanchai often meant dancing on the bar until well
into the wee small hours... only to get up and go to work at 6 the next day. But we
thought nothing of it. We had the cash (and the energy), we lived a mere HK$100
taxi ride from Central and we loved it!
It became quickly obvious that Hong Kong
was all about money. Any Hong Konger becomes conspicuous only by his or her spending. There’s little else this town takes
seriously. Having disposable income can bring a level of transient happiness
only dreamed of by the rest: the power to walk into a shop and buy anything –
ANYTHING! (well, almost)
The vast majority of people are still
relatively poor by comparison, particularly older people and women and trends
indicate that the numbers of poor have increased. Only the very richest (and
very poorest) have had their lot improved.
But as for us, we spent it all. There couldn't be a better place to live than Hong Kong. Outside
work, our lives were almost entirely devoted to pleasures: electronic gadgetry,
cinema, clothes, holidays, restaurants and nights out. We must have helped
many-an entrepreneur on their way to their current fortunes, and lost ours in the process, but at the time we just didn't care.
And this is where I pause. The next epistle
is concerned with day-to-day life in Hong Kong and of Hong Kong people in
particular.
For years the Mem and meself, poor as we have been, have given generously to needy causes. We supported street children in Columbia, whales in the deep blue sea and a host of other pitiable vulnerables.
In donating to the street children in Bogota we felt we were making a real difference. The little boy we helped would scribble wibbly-wobbly Spanish sentences on thin brown paper letters and included happy pictures of suns and flowers and anything else his mind created in order to pleasantly decorate his thanks to us. These translated letters moved us as, no doubt, similar ones have done so to other cheerful benefactors. But after a while the letters became less frequent and eventually dried up altogether. The last sorry communication we had was with a sister at the children's home that he had recently left in order to join a street gang and take his machismo young man's chances in the untested and dangerous underworld. We instantly felt guilty. Should we have done more? Should we have written back with more earnest and caring sentences?
Whales cannot, as far as I can tell, write letters of any kind: a shameful trait they share with most animals. This voicelessness, I suppose, one of the reasons that encourages our support. But even though we have oft given to worthy environmental concerns, much to our disappointment, we have never recieved a cetacian, simian or ursidaean word of thanks back! Perhaps if Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund or Animals Asia taught these beasts basic grammar then our funds would not have been in vain. Alas, no – we give to those creatures as benificent angelic beings the generous habits of which they, as we, know very little indeed.
For the past two years or the milk of human kindness has flowed towards a certain local and international children's charity: I felt it was an absolute good and that no amount of squirming meanness or embarrasment on my part could overcome. Each month a newsletter appeared with pictures of smiling, dirty-faced kiddlies who have become much better off with my money than me (or so I have liked to believe). But then I received a phone call out of the blue from that particular charity by a lovely-sounding girl who charmingly asked if I could give generously to children in Angola who are suffering because of this useless war.
"Actually," I replied, somewhat uncomfortably, "I will shortly be leaving Hong Kong and would most likely close down my bank account here. Could I therefore stop the payments?
"Of course." she replied. "All you have to do is ring this number..."
I duly took down and immediately called. Ring-ring...
"Hello!" The very same charming voice answered.
"Ah! I'd like to cancel my donation to your charity."
"Oh! Mr Peters." She giggled, recognising my voice. "Thank you."
I thought to ask why she hadn't taken details of my cancellation in the previous telephone call, but felt this to be a somewhat unkind point to make, her sounding so nice and... charming. I'm going to miss Hong Kong.
Well, as far as the future is concerned, one thing is about as far in the bag as one can say with certainty – we leave Hong Kong in January 2013.
We've been in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (such a politically over-cautious term full of control-driven Chinese socialist idealism) since 1988. For good or ill, back then the territory still had its distinct Anglo flavour. This has diminished through design and disfavour and risen again through style and choice. A pivotal moment came when the MTR announcements were changed from a distinctly clipped British accent to the whiny quasi-Southern Californian that it remains today. On the barricades provocative political kids wave the old colonial flag in the faces of the Beijing masters as much to score a point as to pretend they love the life that probably ended before they were out of nappies.
I will write more about Hong Kong, about working here, the people and the politics on a later occasion. But to wrap up this intro, whether I like it or not Hong Kong is in the blood and unless I'm caught buggering the Chief Executive in LEGCO I'll undoubtedly turn up back here, bad penny-like, again... and again...
What precipitated our oncoming departure is the same thing that brought us here: work. The Memsahib's, to be precise. Back in 1998 she and I travelled by wheezy old British Rail to a job interview with Hong Kong's English Schools Foundation in the Big Stink. Nervous moments passed for me as behind the panelled doors of the St James Club the muffled conversation continued into the afternoon. What I was not to know for quite some time was that the Mem was demanding that her gorgeous, sweet-smelling husband (of Newly Qualified Teacher status) should also be found favourable employ with the ESF. To this firm request they duly and correctly complied and after some brief stints of supply at certain primary schools in the region I obtained a proper job teaching music at Kowloon Junior School.
The cause of our imminent departure is to work in the Czech Republic. But the choice was not simple – Ireland also beckoned with a juicy, fat, Guinness-soaked finger. The only way to make a decision was to visit both countries and this we duly did in mid-December.
Whichever way you cut it, Ireland is a special, not to say amazing, place. There's something beguiling about being at the edge of things – the Atlantic Ocean or Europe, depending on which way you're facing at the time. It was a terrifically important part of the world for the megalithic tomb builders thousands of years ago, the sun's daily death into the western sea had obvious religious and symbolic overtones. The enlightened religious houses of the early medieval period sent many successful missions into the darkened dark age Anglorium and even further afield into Europe. Today, Irish intellectualism (not a cheap gag) is a marvellous green-tinged twinkly thing long interconnected with a host of American, British and European movements. To be connected with it through Limerick University would be exciting, dynamic and future-oriented. With enough beautiful local Guinness in the blood, who knows where it could lead!
Despite driving from Rosslare 'Europort' -such an exciting sobriquet- into the rain-sodden landscape covered in low, misty cloud and puddles nearly as deep as the sea we'd just crossed, it was with happy hearts we stopped at lovely Wexford, a comfortable place of pretty shop fronts on the high street, grey seals in the harbour and fine culinary fayre in the exclusive (not to say expensive) fine-dine restaurants. It's a great little city.
Cork is also a magnificent but much bigger town. Feeling more like a regional capital than a provincial town, its shopping crowds testify to the presence of many Euro-weighted pockets, even if the country is said to be permanently on the verge of, if not beyond, bankruptcy. Limerick is its smaller cousin, a little more modest in size and scope. Perhaps it was down to the season of goodwill, but on every corner on every intersection could be heard the jangling of buckets of change, carolling children's choirs and good causes a-plenty fearlessly promoted. The Irish truly have the tenderest of hearts.
Having visited Blarney Castle, the Mem took to her interview whilst I took to finding a suitable place to live. I have mentioned on a previous occasion how much fun it is to sit staring at the sunset and consider living right there in the holiday destination. This was always on the cards as far as this trip was concerned and down by the River Shannon the little village of Killaloe shone out of the County Clare countryside like a beautiful bright new pin – dimmed somewhat with it being the middle of winter. The deserted St Flannan's Cathedral, hitherto completely unknown to me, had an ancient and ethereal attraction matched only by the nave's astonishing acoustics. The Irish countryside is full of old buildings going to rack and ruin: barns, farmhouses and townhouses, the mind raced with fantasies of converting these damp shells into fine, warm, liveable dwellings.
One worrying element to our trip was the tendency, to our eternal shame, to slip into a stereotypical Oirish accent at any given moment, begorrah, with the accompanying Father Ted-esque 'Drink', 'Feck', 'Arse' and 'Girls'! There are times when I needed to be reminded not to shout those expletives before elevated members of the clergy – unless they did it first.
We returned back over the water and hurried to overnight in Stroud, a place we once thought we would make home. Down to the Prince Albert for lovely pints of local ale, the whiff of woodsmoke, live jazz and good company... But the flight to Prague was on the morrow.
This must have been one of the least-planned trips we've ever mounted. Assuming, like expats everywhere, that everyone speaks English, we didn't even know the price of a common-or-garden cab into town! Each capital city is the most expensive element in a country. We were, however, quite pleasantly surprised by the cost of things, being equivalent or marginally less than Hong Kong, the UK & Ireland.
The quality of Czech food also seemed tip-top. But the best was the beer – the ubiquitous Pilsner Urquell as light as spring water and as flavoursome as any tap-poured micro-brewery output can be!
One could, however, happily travel around the Czech Republic on next-to-nothing, stay at very cheap hostels and pensions and merely drink in the architectural splendour of the place. To say it is a jewel is to cheapen it. Even the new central city building work is done in sympathy with its late medieval or baroque surroundings. We were frequently, and pleasantly, open-mouthed at the richness of even the meanest streets. Of course there are whole ghettos of bleak, graffiti-covered communist-era blocks just as in any city, but far removed from any touristy site worth seeing. The low house prices outside Prague are also breathtaking: we could buy a castle with the change in our pocket (well, nearly)!
The little town of Olomouc (pop. 102,000) is somewhere you've never heard of. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the medieval centre of town is chocolaty-box-cobbledy-street loveliness, or at least it was at Christmastime without the 24,000 student population.
Palacký University has been around since 1573 and has quite a reputation in Theology and Philosophy in addition to Education, Science and Law. The Special Education Department want to become better-known within the English speaking world outside the Czech Republic and have recently printed its first English bi-annual publication. This fits in quite nicely with the Mem's plans for world domination.
Although cold, the people felt warm and friendly. Many spoke English (I suppose that's a good thing). The country feels like it has one respectful and retrospective eye on the values of the past and another, exciting and positive, very much fixed on the future. It is a culturally rich and youthful place. It's got a bit of everything!
So, the deal's done. And it's a good'n! We may be earning less in terms of what can be cleared in London or Kowloon, but koruna-for-koruna (written acronymically Kč, by the way) you can buy more giant pretzels in Moravia -or so we're led to believe.
This is possibly the last (and probably the longest!) blog of the year. If you've kept up this far then you're either a fan, a friend or a masochist! In the new year I may put this blog to bed and begin another more keenly Česká republika-focused on our new doings!
So farewell to 2012 and wherever you are and however you see it in, I wish you all a very Happy New Year for 2013.
It's December and it's cold (for Hong Kong) – as low as 15° in the mornings! But whilst everyone in Hong Kong is dressed in hats, gloves, scarves, is going, "Brrrr!!!" and complaining like hell, there's another more sinister threat on the horizon: Typhoon Bopha.
This typhoon is unusual for many reasons. It's late in the season (they usually stop by end of September), it's southerly (the last one to cross Mindanao, Tropical Cyclone Washi on 15th December last year, caused similar devastation) and it's a biggy (already a typhoon and set to increase to a severe typhoon as it crosses the South China sea!
Late season typhoons arriving in Hong Kong are not completely unknown: everyone knows it is more likely for typhoons to occur between May to October. Since 1963, however, there have been a total of 29 December typhoons. In 1993 there were 3 alone! Neither in this year have we had a glut of typhoons – a measly 11 in our area (see above pic) compared with the 24 of 1961!
The devastation that occurred in the Philippines is not just a testament to the ferocity of winds of over 100 mph and the accompanying rains that cause mudslides and floods (more than 200 deaths have so far been recorded), but is also a testament to improvements in typhoon management in that part of the world. On a much more dramatic scale last year's Typhoon Washi caused death of 1,300.
Is it the result of global warming? Of course, but on its own is probably not a significant indicator of it –phew! All typhoons are the result of solar radiation that warms the lovely tropical seas and causes massive evaporation and air movement.
Those picture postcard tropical blue skies and warm sandy beaches are the engines of so much of the world's wind, rain and weather cells. We get enough rain and humidity dumped here in southern China because we are at the edge of one of those naughty wettish cells.
So will Typhoon Bopha hit Hong Kong? It's a bit of a lottery, of course. You either love 'em or hate 'em (depending upon whether you are a teacher or student or an normal person). As can be seen in the picture above, we have had quite a few direct hits over the years and one category 10 this year –Typhoon Vicente which I described earlier on. Pretty certain I'm not looking forward to any major weather disruptions in the next few days because the Mem and meself is flying off to colder European climes on Sunday –much colder, in fact, than it will ever get in Hong Kong: "Brrrrr!!! -Bloody weather!"
The collision and sinking of the Lamma IV in Hong Kong's harbour is tragic, if that is the right word, because many of the people killed must have assumed they were safe and that this journey, like thousands of others taken daily, would be a fun, event-free way to see the fireworks on National Day. It seems Hong Kong can only make news if there's death, mayhem, disease, corruption, protest, scandals and dirty political intrigue.
If you know anything about Hong Kong, you at least know it is an island. The Kowloon peninsula and the New Territories add the majority of the landmass. The total territory of 1,100 square kilometers has 200 hundred islands, some very large like Lantau and some mere rocks above the water line. With all that territory surrounded by water it is no wonder that people who want to get about use, indeed have to use, ferries and water taxis.
The ferries in Hong Kong are a great way to get about. The most obvious is the Star Ferry, the historical land-/watermark of Victoria Harbour. Since the 1870s ordinary folks have crossed the narrow stretch of water in order to get to work or homes. Until 1972 it was the only means of getting across. Its importance could not be understated -when in 1966 the Star Ferry chose to increase their charges by 50-100% the infamous Star Ferry riots erupted causing one death injury and and thousands of arrests.
Other ferries from Central regularly connect islands and promontories. At present there are at least four major operators of passenger ferries in Hong Kong waters. Around the Pearl River others operate the lucrative Hong Kong-to-Macau or Hong Kong-to-China routes. Speedboats, many of them licensed, can be privately chartered to get you from point a to point b. Sadly silent, masted and batten-sailed junks in the harbour are no more, the one exception being a floating bar owned by the restaurant chain, Aqua. For most here, the word "junk" means motorised launches that act as glorified luxury cruisers when you want your party to have a constantly changing view or visit a bay for a swim). But along with hundreds of yachts and private launches, there are also thousands of little sampans or kaidos – tiny vessels privately operated by the Mrs Wongs and Mrs Chans who live and work close to the water or even on-board. Previously used for in-shore fishing, these keel-less boats can be found almost anywhere where land meets sea and, depending on your bartering skills and/or mastery of Cantonese numbers and times, can be incredibly cheap to hire.
Although there's many a scary taxi or minibus ride to be had in HK, the most interesting journeys happen when boating. Being a little slower than land transport, it's possible to see more of the world at a relaxed pace. There's also something to be said for being rocked by the motion of the waves. I've never suffered from motion sickness, even in the roughest swells, and so I welcome the rough and the smooth that put fun into nautical journeys.
Everyone must have their own scare stories with regards traveling at sea. I have two to hand:
The first involves the chartering of a junk for the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir end of season party. Leaving Victoria Harbour and setting out towards Sai Kung, the junk sailed into a bank a fog –an unusual occurence in these waters. This coincided with the tricky bit of navigation in Joss House Bay between the rocky island of Tung Lung Chau and the equally rocky end of the Clearwater Bay peninsula. When the captain was asked about his radar, his charts, his forward lights, he admitted he had none. The best he could do was pull out an A5-sized tourist map of Hong Kong. Shaking his head, Vince, our ex-marine policeman, stood at the front directing the ferry captain's course and speed. Most folks would probably have insisted we turn around, but such is the indomitable spirit of free Hong Kongers (read stupidity) that we'd had sufficient alcohol to feel inured to the danger of crag and wave and insisted we go on –into the dark, foggy night past the jagged, pitiless rocks to continue eating and drinking and partying. With the image of Géricault's Raft of the Medusa in mind, the Memsahib and Meself did not make the return journey and got off at Sai Kung.
The other spectacular journey involved getting to a party on Lamma Island. Arriving at Queens Pier, we found we had missed the boat! We quickly taxied to Aberdeen, the famous southern Hong Kong harbour where the floating Jumbo Restaurant is situated, and commissioned a tiny, wooden kaido, complete with pipe-smoking, coolie-hatted little old lady, to take us across the Lamma Channel to the restaurant where all our friends were now seated and on their second beers. Setting out into one of the busiest shipping channels in the world during the day is interesting enough, but at dusk it is terrifying! The biggest supercargo container ships constantly steam up and down this stretch of coastal water to drop off points near the port: they don't even see a vessel as small as ours. The fearless lady piloted the boat through their courses, bobbing like a cork over the massive washes caused by these intercontinental monsters, zipping here, stopping there, the massive bulk of these dark ships hulls towering above us like insensitive giants. I thought we'd all die. The wrinkled, sea-harden lady captain nonchalantly puffed away...
So, although I'm terribly saddened, I'm not surprised to hear that a Lamma ferry collided with a chartered boat approaching the harbour. Such accidents are narrowly avoided on a regular basis. Each year people die using ferries and boats in Hong Kong, either through accident or negligence (see Youtube clip of Star Ferry vs cruise ship near-thing). Feng Shui enthusiasts may point to another example of poor leadership at the top affecting the forces that govern the lives of ordinary mortals, others may question the professionalism of those that make their living ferrying people or piloting tugs. For the relatives of the 38 people killed and the other passengers that narrowly escaped this event will pose painful questions – I would imagine that over the coming weeks and months many of the answers will not satisfy their anger and sorrow. But until the harbour is totally reclaimed and is over 100 stories high, such events will, sadly, always occur.
There aren't many days I am genuinely inspired to visit a restaurant. Let's face it, we all want to be wowed by plates of the finest fayre, exotic combinations, dazzling culinary creations that prove the worth of the visionary creator, but the compelling feeling to get up and go to visit a restaurant is usually not one of inspiration. It is usually one of mere need for satiety, both of the stomach and posing variety, or of inquisitiveness –testing out the water, assessing for future visits, bragging rights, etc. But although I was inspired for different reasons to have dinner up the Eiffel Tower, I was inspired by wholesome and healthy vegetarian zeal to visit the Grassroots Pantry. I was not disappointed.
The Grassroots Pantry is tucked away in Sai Ying Pun -the old residential part of western Hong Kong that used to be called Victoria. It has a history going back to the original 1840s British settlement of the territory although nothing from that era remains apart from the street names. Located at the end of the teensy-tiny Fuk Sau Lane, blink and you'd miss it: remember it's on the corner of Third Street and the winding Pok Fu Lam Road and you'll be all right.
Until recently I didn't get into much of a quiver about a load of old vegetables on a plate, however it would be delivered, but over the past few months the Memsahib and meself have become a tad more vetable-ish. That's not to say that meat hath not crossed our lips, but to use an iTunes analogy, instead of it being in the Most Favoured Playlist, it's now relegated to the Country Music section -rarely if at all visited and more often than not deleted. Actually, just as a warblin' suth'n blue grass tune may appeal most when accompanied by copious amounts of Suth'n Comfort, so also does the cooked flesh of dead animals. This, of course, may also occur at the time of the day when one's culinary judgement may not necessarily be at its best and probably accounts for the prevelance of devilish, late-night, aromatic Kebabery throughout the city centres of the world.
Hence, we have taken a little more consideration regarding our food. To be precise, we have taken a little more consideration with regard to where our food has come from. As a teacher, I thought it my duty to encourage children to make informed decisions about the food they eat, particularly the meat many claimed not to able to live without -perhaps the most obvious philosophical decision they will make on a daily basis –thrice-daily, even. So I would start with the housing and slaughtering of chickens and ducks and the treatment of sows and their unfortunate 'suckling' piglets. Those being the most commonly eaten meats of the general Chinese population here, there was not time to mention lambs and cows, although a short description of the contents of most of the sausages they regularly consume was usually enough to end on a high (or low) point of popular revulsion. Chicken Nuggets? In most cases they simply had not given it any thought. They had almost no idea how the animals were raised, transported or slaughtered and knew even less about how their meat was processed. Check it out here.
In fairness, the Chinese have until recently had a pretty good idea about fresh ingredients, particularly meat. Resembling medieval faires, 'wet markets' display their wares for all to see, animal and vegetable, and it quickly becomes obvious what is safe and what is to be avoided. The first exposure to live chickens and squiggly fishies ready to be dispatched may arrest the casual camera-wielding observer, but in a city of high heat and humidity freshness and food safety has always been ensured. Well, nearly always. Unfortunately, the plague of Bird Flu put a stop to the Mrs Wongs of this fair city blowing on chicken's bums to gauge the health of the bird from the... response, and the plague of Swine Flu threatened to put an end to pork and humankind altogether! Not many now shop exclusively in wet markets: as enjoyable as it is, most people simply haven't got the time.
So, with inspirational, high-minded quasi-Buddhisty thoughts of animal welfare, we visited the lovely Grassroots Pantry for our daughter's birthday lunch. It is exactly how a restaurant of this kind should be with the focus on good food and on about as much of a bohemian experience of thoughtful veggy life money can buy. And I must say, it ain't that bad. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was one of the best vegetabalist lunches I've had. It even smelt right!
Vegetarian food is often of a folksy, home-made quality, where the chef has obviously undertaken a course in macrobiotics and left the paying customer with chunky soups, unadventurous salads and not much more. Unfortunately, it sometimes looks like a pile of vegetably vomit. At the very least, the chefs at Grassroots Pantry have thought not only about the ethics of eating, but also of the taste, texture and even the presentation of their dishes. It's not cheap, but neither should it be.
The hand-made menu is hand-written with cute hand-drawn illustrations of each hand-made dish. The starters were tasty, if a little small, and the mains were rich, if similarly portioned. The smoothies were delicious and filling and the deserts a little heavy and in need of the excellent Ethiopian coffee to make its way stomach-side. I had good reports from Alys and Victor of the Blueberry Cheesecake.
Utilizing their philosophy of local, sustainable and mostly organic foodstuffs, they aim to serve 'nutritious, homemade, plant-based world dishes'. And Peggy Chan (far right in photo), their chief chef, clearly knows her stuff having served in many excellent locations in Canada, Switzerland, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Her love of vegetarian food and of how good it can be is evident in each dish. They also host culinary schools of various hues –I might just take advantage of their next wine dinner. As well as a lovely shop-front patio area, they also have a larger room for hosting parties around a long table upstairs.
I knew it would be an excellent restaurant lunch –even without any sort of alcoholic nuances. We left full but not bloated, thoroughly sated but not soporific. If this is healthy eating, then I'll be coming back for more. And it's not only me that's inspired -check out this lovely girly review. Inspirational!
I met a charming lady at a party the other day: we talked about where we lived. She extolled the virtues of living close to the city with access to amenites and services. I extolled the virtues of the life to be had out in the sticks with all the flowers and trees and that... Her face changed and she exclaimed how living in the Sai Kung Country Park would be intolerable. To justify her perspective she invoked the 'Insect Clause'.
I've come across the Insect Clause many times. It is a statement stoked with fear and usually accompanied by misunderstanding and goes along the lines of, 'Oh there are simply too many bugs and other things that bite: life would be intolerable!' But this ain't necessarily so. Allow me to explain.
In both the tropics (Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Southern India, Northern Australia, Thailand and Singapore) and sub-tropics (Northern India, Southern United States, Hong Kong and southern China) the lushious greenery, at least for part of the year, is due to something called rain –in fact, round some parts 'rain' may even constitute a season. This wonderful and varied plant growth then becomes the feed-stuff of all creatures great (cows, monkeys and wild boar) and small (the birds and bugs). Some of these smaller organisms are obviously beautiful –humming birds, for example, feed off flower nectar, as do butterflies who also go for fruit, dung and mud!
Other herbivorous insects, such as cicadas with their massive buggy eyes, may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I love them. Living for years undergound sucking on root sap, they only emerge, make lots of very loud cicadery noises and then mate –once! There are about 2500 species of cicada alone, so they must be quite successful in this... behaviour.
Insects have been around on the planet for quite a long time and have notched up a few able predators. These adept specialists have generally been able to keep the numbers of the more annoying insects down. Geckos should be welcomed as they race about the ceilings taking errant mosquitoes. Amongst the most common of the insectivorous birds here are the lovely Red-whiskered Bulbuls. There are so many of these pretty birds around, they clear up pretty much any insect that comes their way. (They themselves are also a handy lunch for many of the larger predators.)
Other more obvious insectivores are the arachnids –the spiders! Whilst there are plenty of them in the trees, their scary presence belies their role as the good guys. I'm sure that if you have lived in these parts, either in the city or countryside, you have at one time been caught under prepared to meet the huntsman spider: but if it's in your house then it's hunting only one thing –cockroaches! The large yellowy-spotted Woodland Spider that builds spectacular large orb webs, hence their more common name of the Golden Orb-web Spider (Nephila Pilipes, to be precise). They're clearly successful insectivores round these parts and grow into truly large, beautiful creatures but they also tire easily, so if they are in your path, please don't knock them about too much.
Insects themselves are great predators. One only has to think of a praying matis, or a dragonfly to get the picture. In fact, many dragonflies like the slighty fuzzy Russet Percher below) are adept at catching the much-hated mosquitoes on the wing –they are, in fact, at their most active during high humidity which is when their prey also choose to emerge.
The best insect insectivores are, however, wasps and hornets. These are the only things I am wary of, having come a cropper from an encounter with Yellow Paper Wasps building a nest on our rooftop. They put any European wasp in the shade: the venom felt like I had been stabbed with a red hot stiletto blade! Someone obviously loves them, however, as I recently came across a wonderful Youtube channel of a local chap who has bothered to take the time to get to know these amazing insects and their cousins the hornets. I'm usually far too scared to approach these stripey devils because, as my daughter painfully found out on a walk last summer, the only time it is clear whether these animals are on the hunt, have found prey or are defending a food supply is when they've attacked you! And that really hurts. So, I suppose there is a case for invoking the Insect Clause on this occasion, but one seldom meets these hunters because they spend most of their time clearing out bees nests. And they were so successful last year, there are no bees to be found in the park at all this summer.
One cannot not forget the larger predators; boar, civet cats, shrews and monkeys –especially during termite swarming season. Most bats specialise in catching and eating insects and have even modified their noses to echo-locate whilst on the wing. One of the most pleasant early evening spectacles to be witnessed from our balconies here in the park, glass of wine in had, of course, are our lovely bats emerging from their roosts under our roof tiles in order to go a-hunting. Go get 'em, chaps!
Do we get bitten by mosquitoes out here? Sometimes. Are we bothered by other things like wasps? No, not really, but we are aware of them from time-to-time. If anything, barring the night-time scuttling of the cockroach across the kitchen floor, our interaction with insects is generally pleasant, if not delightful. I really don't know which of these wonderful creatures we will meet on my journeys in the park. Actually, the Insect Clause is probably one of the main reasons we live out here in the sticks with all the flowers and trees and that…
It's that time of year again –when the body instincitively searches for the cool and the shade.
Here in sunny old Hong Kong, the temperature rarely tops 36° C/96° F –the high humidity rapidly creates thunderstorms and the rain drains the heat from the air. Nevertheless, there are patches of the city, the concrete canyons and street-level sun-traps, that fair cook any poor soul trapped within. In this regard Hong Kong is no different to Bangkok, Manila, Ho Chi Minh and a whole host of other conurbations. Combined with the air-con exhaust blown from passing traffic, there appears to be no limit to the maximum temperature in these heat wells.
There are, of course, oases of cool, if not downright cold places to be found. Hong Kong Cinemas are positively arctic and a sweater should always be brought – one time I even wrapped meself up in newspaper to stop the poor teeth & knackers a-knockin'!
Shoppers in the region are well-aware of these magnificent palaces of pleasure and domains of the dollar and it may be the most likely reason why shopping is Hong Kong's most popular waking past-time.
The heat may, of course, also account for its overall most popular past-time, that of sleeping. If you wish to understand this ever-pervasive inactivity, it is owed partly to the time of day many Hong Kongers are chiefly active and also owed partly to the crowded home life of many Hong Kongers. Commentators have long-argued that late-night eating/mahjong activities are the main reasons the morning buses and MTR trains are full of sleeping souls. Coupled with the cramped conditions of shared apartments whereby sleeping is sometimes a shared experience, and you've got conditions where many choose to kip less at home and make it up elsewhere –on the way to work, lunchtimes under the newspaper, in just about any convenient location.
One enterprising entrepreneur has even seen the profitability of this necessary niche at Shanghai airport by making a sleeping box for flyers to have a kip in between check-in and their flight.
It is no accident that there are no seats at bus stops and train stations and few in parks and public spaces. There's even a loverly little book on the subject that may contain enough photographic evidence to convince you.
But it could also be the case that Hong Kong's effective smothering in heat between July-September means that those without the chance to cool off may naturally experience soporific inclinations. It feels bloody hot and it's best not to go out with your head uncovered, so why not stay in and take advantage of the shady protection.
Well, that's my explanation, being a northern-european whose instinctual inclinations are to 'get on with it' during daylight hours. And that, perhaps, is my problem in all this unending heat: after all, 'when in Rome', and all that...
If life has taught me anything over the years, it is that I should have more than one string to my bow – that is, I should have more than one way to make a living. Teachers have regular incomes that, on the whole, do not vary week-in, week-out. This is a blessing when accounting for outgoings that require regular fixed payments like mortgages, but naturally acts as a disincentive to working extra-hours in the way that 'overtime' or bonus pay might support.
Many teachers seek ways to supplement their income. Some even seek to leave their jobs and start again doing something else. Their financially-focused drinking partners may typically brag about fat bonuses, but for teachers these 6-figure sums remain the elusive fairytale fantasy of the education-free netherworld.
Some of my ex-colleagues from King George Vth school dug their tunnels out of the classroom through interesting means made possible by the very exciting possibilities available in a city at the mouth of the Pearl River. Mike Jackman and the late Peter Hindes took to Midas in order to design and make t-shirts for the local market. Angus Hardern set up Angus International and took to supplying silk by the mile for wedding banquets. The most recent of these top quality ideas has been Celeste Fashion set up by my colleague Jane Angwin.
Like many women in Hong Kong, Jane was not happy with what's in the shops (or perhaps more precisely, with what's not in the shops). Catering for the larger sizes has always been a task too difficult for most high street retailers. The Memsahib remembers being in one shop and not being able to find anything that would fit – she was told to her face by the assistant, "No elephant size!"
With culturally-established stereotypes fimly fixed in the fashion industry from drawing board to outlet, larger-size women have been on a hiding to nothing if they wanted to go shopping in Hong Kong. Jane therefore decided to start from the ground-up, to learn dressmaking skills at night school, to see what worked and what didn't. Then she thought about meeting that need by selling what she knew people would want to wear. And instead of constantly braving the condescending negativity of stick insect adolescent shop assistants, she thought about setting it up on-line to offer clothes direct by mail-order: one-stop on-line shopping where a few simple clicks would enable pain-free purchasing.
And so today Celeste Fashion's wharehouse showroom opened its doors for the first time. Hong Kong fashion for normal women UK size 12-20 is now available through the website. At first sight the collection instantly strikes as a seemless range of ideas utilizing fabrics from all over the world, including some striking Korean prints. What is detected on closer inspection is the quality of manufacturing. The commonest heard complaint of poor quality certainly does not factor with these clothes: each garment is beautifully produced, largley under the auspices of their colleague Joseph Wong. Jane is also selling an exciting selection of jewellery from Indonesia.
So, now Jane really does not have all her eggs in one basket. Her young team of distributors and marketeers, including her daughter Helena (who with her husband Joe has her own business, Hell Models & Champion Entertainment) are set to establish their presence here during Hong Kong Fashion Week where they have a stall. Their next target is the Chinese mainland where it is estimated there are more plus-sized women than there are people in the ole US of A! Because of the prejudice and ineptness of the usual providers of women's clothes, it appears theirs is the Kingdom.
So bon chance, mon bon ami, and if you need someone to help the catwalk girls change in the dressing room, you've got my number...
I thought I'd show some of the wonderful things of the park. So, without too much preamble, here are a few of the recent additions within the Sai Kung Country Park that astonish me. At the risk of over-egging the park pudding, I can honestly say that each day I see something new and on each occasion I am filled with a sense of genuine wonder. They're nearly all (sometimes shakily) taken with my iPhone 4.
Red leaves and snail-marks
A great big Mormon Caterpillar trying to hide his snakey head outside out house
Cape Jasmine growing by the stream
Amanita Muscaria boldly standing in the leaf litter
The beautiful Mountain Tallow about to flower
An amazing lost caterpillar rescued from the road to Wong Shek
The fluffy fireworks that are Scolopia flowers
Another rescued beetle -lovely, mustardy-yellow little chap
The massive flowers of the riverside Hainan Galangal
Taiwan Acacia grows everywhere round these here parts
Leaf-nosed Bats resting up in an abandoned house at To Kwa Peng
Flowering Sumac (is a-comin' in?)
Curl Grub beetle larva -quite a few of these this time of year
Cheeky little red fungus popping up beside the paths
It's the time for the first wave of Spotted Black Cicadas
You don't have to look far to find the ubiquitous Camellia
'Tis but one day away until the school holidays -yippee!!
We of the chalk-dusted teaching profession, like everyone else, cannot help but count down the days -the release of tension on the last day of term is clearly palpable! Bye-bye kids (at least for two weeks).
As a kid, the Easter holidays was always a bit of a strange fruit -obviously a welcome relief from teachers, times-tables and sums, but it always seemed a 'reasonless' holiday. Yes, we'd all feel sad when listening to the story of 'pore Geesis hoo died... nailded on the cros... four are sins...' but I could never quite work out the necessity of these two weeks off school.
I mean, the summer holidays were made for you to go away to Margate, Weston-super-Mare or Hastings, and Christmas holidays were so that you had enough time to play with your toys. Easter, however, remained a bit of a mystery. It was always too muddy in the garden to do an easter egg hunt, so was it made for us to shed tears watching Robert Powell playing a poor, suffering Jesus of Nazareth? Was it for scoffing Easter eggs or roast legs of lamb? Was it for going to church -a whole holiday so we could go to church even more? Blimey -a grim prospect! I'd rather be back at school...
Whatever the real reason, we blissfully entertained two fun-filled weeks with the Six Million Dollar Man without early get-ups, much as we as adults do now. Given the chance, I'd like to have the option of remaining in bed a few more hours. In truth, even if I have the option to stay in bed I rarely do so beyond 6.30, unless a taxing evening's enjoyment preceded and therefore precludes it. I think you call that ageing.
Easter remains a sweet time of year, especially here in Hong Kong. By now many of the trees have flowered and even a short walk will fill the nose with a blend of really delicate perfumes. I simply adore it!
Back in the UK it was about this time each year I used to make Beech Leaf Noyau -an astonishingly strong alcoholic concoction from the pages of Richard Mabey's excellent Food for Free. This old French recipe is so easy:
Pick very young beech leaves (so young that they are practically transparent)
Place in sweety jar with a lot of good gin
Steep for a few weekx (three is best, or untiil it turns a luvley green)
The 40th Hong Kong Arts Festival is, as many such festivals must be, a many-headed beast. Some of the greatest current superstar performers in music, such as Nigel Kennedy and Karita Mattila, suddenly appear on a stage before you, do their bit, bow a lot and then bugger off to their snug hotel rooms in order to be up and ready to catch the next-day’s flight to another gig in Shanghai, Seattle or Sydney. Some wonderful surprises have popped up, such as the renaissanced renaissance L’Arpeggiata (previously mentioned) and the Malian performers Tinariwen (who the Memsahib saw and very much enjoyed whilst I was away in Bangkok with an august body of singing gentlemen). And then there’s all the ballet, theatre, quartets, soloists, opera, Chinese opera and choralyness... phew!
Anyway, enough preamble. Last night’s concert dubiously entitled The Piano Wizard Hamelin was itself a chimerical beast. What I had assumed to be a piano concert was instead made up of piano concerto, piano solo and orchestra all on its own. [Incidentally, I’m not sure the epithet ‘wizard’ is entirely accurate in that a wizard is a conjurer of primal forces not of his own (e.g. of nature), whereas the 51-year old French Canadian Marc-André Hamelin appears to be quite the product of his own hard work –whether through concerts, recordings or compositions.]
Whoever produced this one (which may not have been part of the actual Arts Fest) had as many hats on, but I was somewhat befuddled by the staging arrangements:
Fully blacked-tailed massed ranks of the Hong Kong Phil Orchestra, under mystical wavy direction of Shao-Chia Lü, plays Ravel’s La Valse (reasonably well, if a little reserved –see this YouTube of Bernstein getting carried away)
Warm applause
Stage hands emerge to move about the 1st violin stations and wheel in grand piano
Warm applause as Hamelin sits down to play with the Phil the uninspiring César Franck Symphonic Variations –see this YouTube of said work performed in China
Warm applause (my Mum's favourite composer, but I nearly fell asleep)
Hamelin exits and audience, shruggingly supposing it’s the end of the 1st half, exit to nonchalantly mingle holding weak G&Ts and potter about the impersonal, vacuous and intolerably boring atrium at the Cultural Centre (who did commission that awful, massive scupture in the atrium?)
Orwellian ‘bing-bong’ sounds to command audience to return to the auditorium
Warm applause
Hamelin re-enters through orchestra to play Richard Strauss’ amazing Burleske, full of invigorating and playful orchestral and piano constructions –wow! One of the best things I’ve hear in this venue by the HK Phil, nobly and masterfully accompanied by Hamelin and worth the entrance fee alone. Someone pay their timpanist James Bonos a few more dollars or leave him an open tab at the bar –each stroke and note of this difficult piece brilliantly performed! Here's more YouTube to give you some idea
Very warm applause
Hamelin re-enters and announces that his encore is a short prelude by Leonid Sabaneyev which he completes with effortless finesse. Here's YouTube of Hamelin's performance (with notation)
Warm applause as Hamelin finally bows and exits (presumably back to foyer bar to finish)
Stage hands re-emerge to shuffle the piano about, add celeste and re-arrange the strings for the grand finale…
Shao-Chia Lü conducts the HK Phil through Lutosławski’s astonishing Concerto for Orchestra. Just the best and grandest thing they’ve ever performed –ever! (crossed-fingers, quibbs, no come-back) 5 -yes, that's 5 percussionists, 2 harpists, at least three rows of double basses... Here's a nice YouTube example of the spooky 3rd movement.
Four curtain calls –except there’s no curtain
Exit audience, some, it must be said, a bit sharpish –if not rudely so!
Could someone please help make sense of all that movement? Don’t get me wrong, this was an excellent concert, but, surely, Hamelin could have made better use of the 1st half by necking a few pints in the foyer and then rolling onto the stage for the 2nd –after all, the biggest superstars always appear last on the bill.
Could someone also explain why so many fidgety little children were in the concert hall? What on earth they made of it all, I'm not sure. Perhaps they were the fruit of the HK Philharmonic's mighty loins come to see whether they really do play in an orchestra? Or maybe it was too-good a discount for kindergarten and primary school parents to ignore? Or maybe the HK public thought the word wizard in the title meant that through a puff of smoke a man in a funny long black robe and a sorting hat would materialise and make a succession of furry creatures disappear whilst hammering out Yankee Doodle Dandy?
We arrived in good time before the concert and decided to wander tourist-like around the ole Star Ferry environs. Ee, by-‘eck! The eternal view; ships in the harbour silently slipping past the backdrop of the eternal day that is neon Hong Kong Island, hundreds of visitors taking thousands of photos –it is the Hong Kong experience, the joyful memories that confirm happiness and fulfilment for millions.
Set back from the harbour frontage, however, was a candlelit vigil for Tibet in remembrance of 53 years of resistance to totalitarianism. A quiet, moving and quite sobering collection of images of people that have immolated themselves to protest the Han occupation of Tibetan lands, it served to show me that young Hong Kong people are not all self-serving rich kids intent on stocking up on quick-return shares or buying their next polished growling Mercedes. That a small bunch of well-meaning people should consider the fate of 26 Tibetan martyrs is testament to the growing conscience in Asia’s World City. Perhaps chanting Buddhist prayers and scripture may seem a futile, even insignificant gesture to you, but it carries a fearless idea –that some here believe that other people matter and are willing to be counted doing so.
Indeed, as if to unwittingly prove the point, plainly visible on the fringes of this small event were plain-clothed security, three from People's Republic of China and on the other side one from the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong (the bored Chinese were clearly not that bothered by the whole thing and were more keen on having a quick ciggy, the lone HK operative just looked a little confused and angry, probably because of them!). Presumably, no-one from the Tibetan Autonomous Region was able to be present.
In some concerts it is immediately obvious from the first note that you are in the hands of professionals; that you are about to hear musical precision, understand intellectual excellence, fine artistic nuances. Such was Karita Mattila's recital in the lied tradition last night at the Cultural Centre.
Accompanied by fellow Fin, Ville Matvejeff, the much celebrated opera star poured out the delicacies and exigencies of lieder from Brahms, Debussy, Richard Strauss and Alban Berg from within a sparkly shimmer of an silvery evening gown. Each piece performed with such mastery, the audience instantly responded with great admiration and warmth. Indeed, no-one clapped between the pieces in the cycles (unusual for an HK audience) and only one phone went off during the entire performance -must be something of a record!
I thought the opening songs from Alban Berg, taken from the Jugendlieder (such as this one), were challenging -the Shoenberg-esque atonal influences forming an incredible, meandering, early 20th-century landscape through which I thought the Hong Kong audience might not have easily travelled thereby becoming alienated. They were, instead, enraptured by Karita's scandinavian hand upon the tiller and Matvejeff's fearless support.
The Debussy, Brahms and Strauss were, perhaps, a little more to the liking of the mixed audience -I was sat next to two well-behaved school chaps who had obviously been given tickets as part of the 40th Hong Kong Arts Fest's outreach to the next generation. Not sure what they made of it, but they were back in the 2nd half for more from the Finnish soprano. Perhaps they were waiting for her to get her gear off as she did portraying Salome in New York in 2004 (now available on DVD!).
If I had one criticism, it would not have been with the artist, the choice of lieder, the accompaniment or even the eye-blinding showy one-piece dresses, but rather with the venue. The Cultural Centre is best-suited for big orchestral and choral events -there's even a dirty great organ at the back of the hall! But I would have preferred to hear these songs in the intimacy of a much smaller room, as lieder is wont. One can only suppose that such is Mattila's international operatic fame she must always be brought to such a large hall in order to meet demand.
As wonderful as this evening had been, it ended on very high notes indeed with Strauss's Frühlingsfeier (utilizing Heine's poem The Rite of Spring), where Karita's enthralling near-hysterical full throttle finale of "Adonis! Adonis!" teetered on the edge of insanity and could so easily have descended into bizarre spectacle.
Our evening's entertainment, however, began a little earlier with a little light dinner at The Parlour restaurant at Hullett House. Found within 1881 Heritage, the ex-marine police headquarters, first constructed in 1884 and now turned (at no small expense by those cheeky chappies Cheung Kong Holdings) into Tsim Sha Tsui's finest entertainment complex, the meal, ambiance, music, service and even the website were all excellent. And that got us to finking...
The Memsahib and meself've bin togevva naah for nigh-on a quarter sentry, cor-blimey! This might just be the place to host a do to celebrate such an event. Keep your eyes open and your ears peeled for more news nearer the time.
Well, as weeks go this one is pretty good. Pop, renaissance music and a star-bejewelled film premiere. I'll try to be brief...
Thursday 2nd February
Pop!
It's been a long time since I went to see a pop star (whatever one of those is). I don't know if Kylie the Minogue or a Madonna are real pop stars or whether the title 'King of Pop' should have ever been applied to the late Michael 'I-just-wish-I-could-understand-my-father' Jackson. For me, 'pop' denotes etherial childhood memories of such musical luminaries as the Bay City Rollers and Gary Glitter, but any search through a catalogue of such artistes talentueux now sees them listed under the headings 'Glam' or 'Pervert' (quelle est la différence?). Maybe the identification of 'pop' back in thum days lay more with bizarre titles and lyrics –can someone tell me what Suzi Quattro meant by Can the Can or the point Noddy Holder was on about when he sang the following,
Gudbuy T'Jane, gudbuy T'Jane,
She's a dark horse see if she can.
Gudbuy T'Jane, gudbuy T'Jane,
Painted up like a fancy young man.
'Pop', therefore...surely, must refer to POP-ular –meaning that someone actually likes the stuff (note my powers of deduction). The title of 'Supreme Pop Group', however, must eventually be applied to those Norsk-Dansk types who formed Aqua and famously got rich on Barbie Girl proving along the way that there's no such thing as a bad multi-platinum record!
Blush are a relatively new all-girl 'pop' outfit from this part of Asia. With eye-catching token Filippina, Chinese, Korean, Indian and Japanese, they've been wowing the crowds hither and thither and are promoted well enough to be hitting the big time supporting more established acts such as B.o.B, Far*East Movement, Black Eyed Peas and Justin Bieber –whoever they are.
The girls and their entourage turned up in front of the un-cool educational edifice of KGV School to serenade da kids during lunchtime –no, that's wrong: to 'whoop' them into a pop-fuelled, teenage frenzy! And this they duly did judging from the numbers of rubbery day-glow wrist bangles and signed posters greedily grasped by the sweaty and impressionable 11- and 12-year olds after the show. I think the industry term for this sort of activity is, 'establishing a fan base'
No matter who you are, a KGV School audience is fickle –even Mozart himself would have to compete with Pokemon card tournaments, boys football on the field, Minecraft computer worlds and nonchalantly half-nibbled chicken legs. They got through... eventually... when the man on the mixing desk pumped up the volume.
Watching them strutting their funky stuff in the full light of day, I warmed to their act –actually, they were quite good, even if I am slightly positively-prejudiced: I taught the delightful Alisha Bushrani a few times over the years and it was really enjoyable to see her doing well (all teachers say that sort of drivel, but it's true). We had a brief chat later on that day: their recent push onto the bigger stages of the world means there's now a chance for them to do even greater things –which I am not at liberty to divulge. You heard it (that is, nothing at all) here first, folks...
Renaissance Classical!
You might image that all that teeny-bopping perspiration was enough for one day, but I was bored during a holiday afternoon last week and bought a load of concert tickets for the 40th Hong Kong Arts Festival. I wasn't too sure about this particular concert, but it was promoted well and, after all, it's hard to go wrong with music from the renaissance. So in the evening, off me and the Memsahib did trot to the City Hall.
Music from the Renaissance this may well have been, but not like wot I has hearded before. I have listened to Monteverdi's Toccata from Orfeo oh I don't know how many times, often performed with a prim, over-inflated pomposity that would have stretched the corn of cornyness even during the renaissance, but this concert held an improvised and exciting novelty which at times made me wonder whether I was listening to completely new music. L'Arpeggiata brought the renaissance alive –not as museum-pieces, but as the excited breath of a dancer holding your hands as you both speedily twirl around the dancefloor: I could scarcely stay in my seat! The marked difference between the rather polite unflappable concertyness of most classical music performances and these Neopolitan and Italian emotion-filled expressions of life could not be more marked.
The wonderful Lucilla Galeazzi had us all eating out of her hands, such was her capacity to engage –just listen to this Youtube clip. It wasn't all jiggery-pokery and some of the more reflective pieces were mournful and truly Italianate, such as can be demonstrated here.
But you can't win 'em all, as the sleepy soul in the seat in front of us ably demonstrated, awakening only at the conclusion of each piece to join the chorus of clapping. I guess when you're tired then you're tired, but unnerving thoughts about the state of my sanity would enter my mind if I'd paid good money to sit in a room with hundreds of other people to leave two hours later with only the barest recollection about what I was doing there and why everyone around me was applauding...
Friday 3rd February
Film!
We all like being the first one to see a movie. I responded lightning-quick to an email from Amnesty International inviting me to see the Asian premiere of The Lady, Luc Besson's new film about the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi from Oxford Academic's wife to famous stateswoman promoting Burmese democracy upon the world stage. As such, we received Wonka-like Golden Tickets in the mail to the screening at the Grand Cinema in the vast, meandering Elements mall that overlooks Hong Kong harbour.
This is primarily a love story about a married couple, perhaps an unfashionable topic for some –no seedy sex, no devastating dénouements, no unfaithful connivances or earthquake-like betrayals, no Hugh Grant, just the tenderness of a marriage that is threatened and finally overwhelmed by power-hungry generals, the painful needs of a poor country and, eventually, terminal illness. I cried.
Quite simply, Michelle Yeohis Aung San Suu Kyi, long speeches in Burmese language notwithstanding. A tough role for anybody, particularly when the actress must portray vulnerability and strength, assailability and determination, she crafted a believable character who's endearing morality is miles above that of her opponents. That Suu, as she is tenderly called, survived at all is testament to the work of many others as well as to her resilience. But survive she does receiving a Nobel Peace Prize along the way largely because her husband, played by the great David Thewlis, tirelessly fought for her submission to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Michelle Yeoh is perhaps best known for her nature role in martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and as the feisty Chinese Bond Girl in Tomorrow Never Dies. She arrived with Luc Besson and his beautiful current (and third) wife Virginie Silla –a good producer in her own right: there then took place a photographic orgasm, the flash and video lights of every camera in the room erupting to capture the moment without knowing quite what it was they were trying to capture. The usual speeches over, all Golden Ticket holders (the unbearably stylish, the duffel coated worthies and the mundane) poured past the barriers and A.I. yellow t-shirted ushers into each of the cinema houses. As we sat waiting, the same celebrated trio arrived to deliver another pep-talk. Michelle looked the most nervous and inclined the audience to go with the emotions of the film –excellent advice! Go and see this film. I promise you won't be disappointed.
Film over, the stars once again popped in to each cinema to wave and receive warm applause. Miss Yeoh knew several audience members and stopped for kisses and kind words. On our way out a nicely dressed couple stood near the exit –Luc and Virginie. With a handshake I congratulated him on the film and asked whether it was shot in Thailand. He said that the first few minutes and the forested footage and landscape were shot in Myanmar within about a week –that was all the time they were given to get essential footage. (Some of that, such as the massive, iconic, golden Schwedagon Pagoda, must have also been digitized for backgrounds.) He went on to add that most of it was filmed in Thailand. I added that I was moved by the film which he was quite glad to hear: another fan was still crying next to them.
A good end to the week hob-nobbing with the stars (sorry I wasn't brief at all). I should, of course, now conclude with a quippy sign-off such as, I suppose even stars are real people, but I just can't. The point to be made now is that this Amnesty event highlighted the plight of an entire people under brutal dictatorship (what other kind is there?). Although things may seem to be improving, there's still a question mark about what will happen next –it could all go tits-up with recent positive gains all reversed. Please take a look at the Amnesty site. Why not drop them a bob or two: Myanmar Amnesty International.
This blog article is for me a shameful departure into criminal activity: the seedy world of publishing without permission, license, legal release or consent.
A little while ago our good Scots-Italian friend, Peter Gallo (not the famous New York artist, Italian photographer or Albuquerquean beekeeper) erstwhile of Hong Kong, arrived in NYC to lend an investigative hand to the United Nations. Since then he has sent missives to politely enquire, send regards and deny paternity suits/culpable responsibility, etc. This last entertaining epistle tickled me wotsits and I, knowing his inability to shrink as violets do when it comes to matters of head-turning self-aggrandisement, decided to put it to the electronic ether for benefit of popular consumption and entirely royalty-free! I hope he doesn't mind.
I should now add that a kinder, more gentle and generous soul than Peter Gallo is impossible to find and that I would dearly wish to have his babies.
Dear Richard & Brenda
First off, I should apologise for the fact that this has actually taken me so long, but I am using the excuse that I thought you would appreciate it more if I waited til Chinese New Year... Honest!
Anyway, I do hope life is treating you well, and indeed (perversely enough) that you don't actually GET this message for a while, having excused yourself from the (former colony) in search of more amenable climes for the Chinese New Year holiday.
Life in New York (although a tad chilly of late) is good and agrees with me very much. The temperature has dropped to minus 12 on a number of occasions. I saw a brass monkey this morning, desperately trying to find a welder.
The chill notwithstanding, the sun is shining, the air is cold but it has not really snowed. Still, the coffee is hot and the bagels are good. God is in his Heaven, I am here and I have come to the Earth-shattering conclusion that all is well with the world –at least the bits that impact on me!
More out of a sense of adventure than any fear of the weather, I bought a pair of (Army Surplus) snow shoes last week. These are not unlike an enormous pair of aluminium handball rackets – fully 48 inches in length – and I understand one simply straps them on to ones boots (or even perchance ones bedroom slippers) and goes off for a walk in (or even ON) the deep snow. This should be a giggle, though it may get me thrown off the local golf course.
I am also considering compounding the lunacy by buying a pair of cross-country skis. I might as well enjoy life, snow and all. With all of that, plus the wellies, the down jacket and the new scarf as well I shall be a bit disappointed if it DOESN'T snow!
Work is good. The investigation part is easy, learning to deal with the bureaucracy is more of a strain but I continue in the endeavour. We are running a pilot project on something called a Compressed Working Arrangement. Basically, this requires me to finish work at 6pm rather than 5 for nine days and then get the tenth day off. It doesn't take the brains of an archbishop to see that this is not a bad deal.
I also drive a Jeep. This is a typical piece of impractical Americana: it cost a fortune. It is noisy. It is slow. It is not comfortable. There is NO room in the back for anything at all and, to cap it all, the damn thing drinks like an alcoholic worried about closing time. Still, on the other hand, it's probably the best fun one can have on four wheels...
American women are slightly eccentric, I must tell you. For reasons I cannot comprehend, they are not impressed with any of the above. They have something in this country called "dating" which is some sort of wierd ritual surrounded by rules and conventions that are so patently obvious that nobody needs to enquire as to what they might be. Unfortunately, it would not occur to anyone that someone from a far and distant land might not have the faintest clue as to what all (or ANY) of these patently obvious rules and conventions might actually be either!
The trick, apparently, is that you have to claim to be interested in museums, art galleries and Broadway shows, when – as you and I both well know – absolutely f•••ing NOTHING could be further from the truth. 'Honesty' it seems, is very important in these things they call a "relationship" provided you lie through your back teeth about being interested in museums, art galleries and Broadway shows and conceal any mild affiliations you may feel towards malt whisky, Sophia Loren movies, the Jaguar SS100, licensed premises or such really good testosterone-fuelled stuff as alcohol, tobacco and firearms... or fly-fishing.
Do NOT waste your time trying to tell American women about fly-fishing. For reasons I cannot fathom, fly fishing – even on the most idyllic English chalk stream on the most glorious day of the summer – is not as good as standing about in some art gallery on the Upper East Side looking at some out-of-focus artists impression of... a chap fly-fishing on a mediocre river on a fairly average day.
There is also some significant stage in American relationships which one enters by giving a woman your tie-pin, apparently. I was told this by a Scottish woman (a nurse, and apparently an amateur anthropologist) explained that she had, and I quote, "absolutely nae f•••ing clue whit it's all aboot" either! Everybody in HER office, however, somehow did know and the woman who got the tie-pin seemed to busy herself with redesigning the blokes apartment. In the furtherance of academic enquiry, I raised the possibility this might be some American equivalent of when a woman starts keeping a change of knickers in a guys flat but she seemed to think it may be more legally significant than that. We remain blithely ignorant of what this is all about and are reluctant to ask.
For this reason, and curious though I may be, I am scared to ask any woman to hold on to a pair of my cufflinks. While this could well be a coded invitation to come away for a dirty weekend in a cheap hotel under assumed names, it might just as easily be an admission of paternity. This is a very litigious society, one does not like to take unnecessary chances.
People are, however, all very polite. New York seems to have something of a reputation for rudeness but I have found the opposite to be almost universally true, particularly the people where I live. I went into one of the local supermarkets once, to be greeted by a smiling shop assistant who greeted me cheerily and and made me feel welcome.
“Lovely to see you again, Sir, how are you today?”
I assured her I was well, and exchanged pleasantries, as is only polite.
“And how was the paper, Sir?” she asked. Paper? She had me on that one. What paper? I had no clue, and clearly looked unsure.
“Last time you were in, Sir? About tho weeks ago.”
She was quite correct. I had in fact been in about two weeks earlier. I had been buying toilet paper, and this particular young lady had kindly pointed out that there was a special offer on an alternative brand of said product; equally soft, equally strong, padded, luxurious, etc, etc, but on special offer so it was half the price of the stuff I was about to buy. This young lady very kindly redirected me towards this particular bargain.
Now she was asking how I had got on with it! I did, I admit, have just the tiniest degree of answering the young lady's question, and having used the product for the purpose for which it was intended, I remain unsure of how I was supposed to answer or, indeed, why she was asking in the first place. Still, it was terribly nice of her to ask, and show such interest in my welfare...
People have asked if I miss Hong Kong, and of course there are some people there and some places that one does miss –like the old ladies on Ladder Street who, for HK$10, would sew in a button or a new zip or stitch up bits of your clothes that are parting company. They don't do that here: everyone is too busy separating their cardboard rubbish from their glass rubbish and talking about their carbon footprint, but to actually RE-CYCLE something yourself, and actually keep using last years model rather than buying a new one –well, that's just plain nuts!
New York city has more than its share of the same shallow consumption-driven people as are to be found in Hong Kong. I have come to realise that idiots play a very important role in society: if it were not for them, there is a real danger that the entire business world would come to a grinding halt, bringing everything else down with it. The whole economy depends on people who cannot think, spending money they haven't got, buying crap they don't need, to impress people that don't matter, in order to look like something they are not.
I was passing a shop the other day and in the window I saw they had a snowball maker. For only US$10, you can buy this big red plastic thing which looks like a pair of over-sized salad tongs with two hemi-spherical ends. Brilliant. This allows you to scoop up snow and mold it into a perfect ball –without getting your hands cold by actually touching the snow! Now all I need to figure out is how you are supposed to THROW the f•••ing snowball without using your hands; but I am very confident there will be an assortment of mechanical contrivances available for the purpose; some of them no doubt meeting the legal definition of a firearm!
Still, the great American public seems to be happy to pay money for plastic snowball throwers and I have little doubt there is a factory in China somewhere happy to supply them, and everyone in the middle makes a profit on the way through and why else did God create the credit card? I think I shall set myself the challenge of trying to find the most useless product for sale in America.
At least the Christmas lights have now come down, which must reduce electricity demand significantly. A lot of people put up so much illumination that their houses must be visible from space. What scares me is that we are now on that short hiatus period, the Christmas lights and decorations have been taken down and the Valentines Day tat has not been put up yet.
Why anyone would want to decorate the outside of their house in the manner of a cheap 'Hello Kitty' themed whorehouse is a bit of a mystery to me, but I am assured that there are people who do. In the name of decency I hope none of them live in my town!
Is it any wonder the women in this country have so much trouble with the dating concept?
So, stay tuned to this channel for more news, and and when it happens, but in the meantime, as it is Chinese New Year, I suppose this is probably the best time to wish you Kung Hei Fat Choi!
If you go down to the woods today you're sure of bumping into some camellia sinensis. This is the famous ancient chinese tea bush from which all kinds of lovely chinesey tea is made. There are, of course, a myriad of naturally-occuring camellias in Hong Kong and we even have our very own purply-flowered hongkongensis varietal, but I've yet to spot it here.
I suppose I ought now to blog on about tea and all its marvellous benefits, the growing and oxidation and extraction procedures that enable an unpromising 'erb to discolour perfectly good hot water with the addition of copious bitteryness, but I'll spare you. That is, after all, why Wikipedia is so popular, but you don't need all that: just get walking -it's out there in thum thar hills.
The best tea ever to pass my lips was Sri Lankan. It was more than 10 years ago and I can't remember the name of the plantation, but the tasting occurred using freshly fermented black tea, pure mountain water and no milk -absolute stunning bliss! It needed nowt else (sugar/lemon/milk) and I swore that if I could have that every day I'd need little else in life. Well, It was a nice thought...
Hong Kong has its fair share of tea vendors. If you're passing through, then pop in to one of these venerable institutions for a quick cuppa, but don't expect anything more than a mere sip of the stuff.
If you like your tea strong -and I mean STRONG- then you need to visit your local dai pai dong (that's a local café to you, 'squire) and ask for Hong Kong-style milk tea: it'll cement a few millimetres of plaquey stain onto your teeth enamel and you'll be awake for days (it will also take that long to get the evaporated milky flavour out of your mouth).
The Hong Kong Tea Museum (Museum of Tea Ware) is actually more interesting than it sounds. Those stuck for a half-hour or so or who cannot bear being inside Pacific Place a moment longer may pop up the escalators into Hong Kong park where the delicate late regency Flagstaff House awaits.
Tea used to be grown all over Hong Kong and abandoned tea terraces can be found on some of the higher mountainsides. It is, apparently, still grown on Lantau Island. Just down the road from the Big Buddha is a little shack called the Tea Garden Restaurant where it is served to those wot know. Strange things happen when you drink the brew, as this YouTube link demonstrates, but if you like it enough you may then pick up a packet of the local variety and then rub the strangest tea urn in the world.
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