Richard Peters -in the Sai Kung Country Park

The View From Afar – Why We Left Hong Kong

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.

An Epistle to Hong Kong – Chapter 1 'In the Beginning'

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 V^th 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.

From the Republic of Ireland to the Czech Republic

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.

Pak Sha O

It may be that you've visited a beautiful place or two on your holidays. It may be that you've had to struggle a little to get there, by road or by foot. It may be that you've spent a little time wandering and wondering -who lived here, when was it built, what was life like for them back then? It may be that these questions remain and re-emerge when your photos of this beautiful place are seen again. If this is so, then you've experienced what can only be termed a romantic association with a place and, as with all romances, it's something about which you fondly care –even if you're no longer together.

Such is the case with the hidden village Pak Sha O (白沙澳). Peacefully nestled in the bountiful and verdant hills of the Sai Kung Country Park under the watchful gaze of Mount Hallowes (柦柴山), the sleepy village is hidden from most eyes. Many visitors to the park head on down for a mooch upon the soft sandy beaches of Hoi Ha (海下), grab a quick ice cream and whiz back to fishy fleshpots of Sai Kung without even knowing they have passed an architectural jewel modestly nestling within an exquisite natural setting. They will not have heard the cacophony of frogs and crickets in the marshy fields, nor seen the abundance of butterflies in the flower gardens, the old tiled roofs, the watchtower and the reinforced wooden-barred courtyard door –for keeping bandits and pirates at bay!

It's not that Pak Sha O is a grand palace of the last Emperors or a cascading monumental Machu-Picchu citadel – there isn't a convenient shop to buy "I ♥ PSO" t-shirts or cups of speciality tea and the nearest public toilet is half-a mile away from the village beside the Hoi Ha Road. Instead, this village is a small, vulnerable and fragile remnant of a past era of simple, somewhat-unassuming Hakka folk that literally forged their lives from the environment. Its unambitious beauty really does mean for some, 'once bitten, forever smitten'!

For centuries the villagers of Pak Sha O deftly farmed their rice from a myriad of tiny fields -some the size of a large room- and ensured that their stream water irrigation was in good working order from year to year. They fished where they could and at low tide would gather at the rocky bays of the peninsula to collect shellfish and the fruits of the sea, returning to the village to feast on their catches.

Each festival was properly celebrated and civic duties undertaken with propriety, if not pride. Certainly the rich decorative motifs that adorn the buildings are symptomatic of residents that held themselves in check by form and convention. They were good Hakka people.

Round about them the rest of the world moved on so that by the latter quarter of the 20th century the tensions brought about by the conflicting aspirations and opportunities for many Hong Kong villagers were simply too much for their communities. The beginning of Timothy Mo's 1982 novel, Sour Sweet, encapsulates the dilemma of those times: the happy rural village life had become unsustainable and most of the younger people simply had to move away either elsewhere in Hong Kong or to cities in Europe and North America. Year-by-year, the older people also moved out to inhabit urban rest homes or died in-situ to be ceremonially buried up in the hills, sometimes in magnificent horseshoe-shaped graves. Those empty properties that they looked down upon eventually fell apart, collapsed and were buried under the ever-encroaching forest: lifeless and rotting midden mounds are all too often the sum total of the work of generations.

Some villages, however, have had a new life breathed into them by quite a different set heading in the opposite direction, purposefully removing themselves from the stress of the city to live a quieter life closer to nature. These settlers are predominantly westerners who have sought, along with creature comforts and air-conditioning, to incorporate their values into their revitalized abodes. For them the old has an intrinsic beauty, its value matched with age. For them simplicity has clarity and unecessary re-development remains unwelcome: what has simply been left by others is the first and best reason to live 'miles from anywhere' and has stirred in them a need for sympathetic (read expensive) maintenance and preservation of those unique remnants of the past.

It would be naive to suggest that the new tenants' motives are entirely selfless, but they would be in keeping with similar such projects undertaken in remote French or Italian villages -it's just what some westerners do! The fate, however, of other vulnerable and beautiful old Hong Kong buildings springs to mind, such a the King Yin Lei building on Stubbs Road (above) where demolition was reprieved in the nick of time by government intervention only after the press expressed outrage.

 
Pak Sha O today is under immanent threat – the village is set to be purchased piece-meal, evacuated, razed to the ground so that in its place will be new luxury developments. This overall aim, of course, has not been explicitly admitted by the purchaser, Lau Ming-shum of Xinhua Bookstore Xiang Jian Group, the company that has been buying up these recently un-zoned plots. It has put in an application to build two new houses in the village. If they get final approval it means the future of this astonishing village as it stands is uncertain.

The local and international press have investigated further (we attended the recent press briefing by Friends of Sai Kung that explained the plight of village and its environment), but so far the Hong Kong government remains unmoved or unable to move –the village enclave is technically not part of the Sai Kung Country Park and the new landowner is within his rights to do whatever he likes to his land, even if that means irrevocably destroying it! It therefore seems likely more damage will probably be done and bewailed before the security of the village, the residents and the surrounding wildlife can be guaranteed through government action.

To emphasize what has already been reported above, a third of all Hong Kong species are found in the valley; "75 species of butterflies, 11 types of freshwater fish, 38 types of birds, eight species of amphibians and 23 types of insects". One can imagine the devastating impact if the woodland was 'improved' into terraces of tarmac car spaces and concrete box dwellings. It's a story familiar to many in Hong Kong's environmentally-empoverished New Territories villages.

So, what's to do? Plenty – please feel free to share comments on this blog or copy this blog's link or links within. Drop a quick email to the reporters (through the highlighted links above) and let them know you read their stories. Better still, write to the Town Planning Board to remind them of their responsibilities to preserve one of Hong Kong's best-kept Hakka villages. Write an email to the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department's Sai Kung Country Park office to inform them of your interest in this matter. Ask the Antiquities and Monuments Office Heritage Conservation office what they are going to do about Pak Sha O.

Please don't let this beautiful and remote village disappear because it's too much bother to defend. It could be your next romantic association!

Hong Kong Ferry Disaster is Nothing New

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.

Easter Hols and Lethal Booze

'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)
• Strainnn off the gin
• Boill sugar in water to make a sryrup
• Add a glash (or two) of brnady
• Bottle -if theresss abny of the sthuff lefft

S'lufffffly!!

Letter From New York

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!

Cheers

P

 

 

 

Lovely Camellias, Lovely Tea

 

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.

All this talk of tea has made me need a cuppa.

A Night with Jules Verne up the Eiffel Tower

The Parisians may be accused of being a little proud, arrogant and even downright rude, but they are rightly proud of their city -it is magisterial in pomp, rich in history and brilliant in scintillement bourgeoise. That they think they have the best city in the world is obvious and is the sort of pride that would get right up a proletarian Anglo-Saxon's nose. Bloody posh frogs...

But as one wanders along the boulevards humming La Marseillaise one is drawn to the conclusion that they might actually have something. A bit of mis-spent tax-payer's money here, a conniving maire's vote-winning preferment there, et voilà -the city looks très attractif! In our close adherence to the principles of fair play and honesty of government we have overlooked the spectacular benefits of self-aggrandisement and our cities are a little more drab.

So it is with the Eiffel Tower. Commissioned as nothing more than a spectacular gateway for the International Exhibition of 1889 to commemorate the Revolution's centenary, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel's design won over 700 others (one in the form of a giant watering can, another as a giant guillotine to honour the victims of the revolutionary terror). The design immediately ran into veciferous local opposition by the Committee of Three Hundred -one member for each metre: how, they asked, could anyone allow this iron monstrosity to emerge forever "over the city of Paris still vibrant with the genius of so many centuries... spreading out like a blot of ink, the shadow of this disgusting column of bolted tin"?

The Exhibition, like the three before it, was expected to lose money and the wily government would not put up more than a third of the cost -less so for the tower. Besides, it was not clear whether anyone would come to an event based around celebrating a violent revolution. In the end, it was an astonishing financial success and every major nation's manufacturing sector, irrespective of their government's political opinions, was presented. Monsieur Eiffel astutely acquired independent investment to finish the tower (agreeing to cover any losses) and recouped his money within the first year thereby aquiring boucoup des richesses. 

The 'giant spike', it was thought, would give the Exhibition something special -a signature feature. The design was exclusively bought by Eiffel who then persuaded the committee to accept his design. The exposed ironwork was considered too vulgar, too modern. Garnier, who designed the beautiful yet traditional Paris Palais Opera house, claimed even after the tower's completion, "They have only erected the framework of this monument. It has no skin." Eiffel the experienced builder of bridges was exact in his technical specifications and included these in the design's proposal. It seemed only natural, therefore, upon successful completion to attach his name to the tower's title. So there you have it, the Tower reflects la gloire d'un homme.

There are plenty of marvellous statistics about the ole Tower, but that's not the point of this entry. The Memsahib and meself had left off visiting the place all week. Eating at various wonderful Parisian cafés and other discoveries such as Le Soufflé, we had found cuisine in the French capital to be generally good but no better or expensive than elsewhere: quality of ingredients appeared to be the determining factor. I knew about the restaurants on the Eiffel Tower and had booked a table at Le Jules Verne before leaving Hong Kong. Back in 2007 Alain Ducasse took over the restaurant bringing with him the determination (and much of the menu) seen in Spoon at the Intercontinental Hong Kong.

Arriving by cab, we took ourselves to the entrance of the splendid restaurant named after the fine French futurist and author. Escorted in a private little elevator to the Tower's second stage, we smiled as we left the underprivileged hoi-poloi below in long snaky queues eagerly waiting to ascend the four big lifts. There must have been move than 10 people that meeted-and-greeted us somewhat tiresomely before we even got to sit down: it felt like a security detail. One maître d' (and this may have been the experienced Francis Coulon mentioned in the on-line blurb) was particularly pleased to greet us utilizing what can only be described as Parisian Cockney.

We settled down with our Manhattan cocktails to 'study' the menu and wine list -that's such a poncey term, particularly in this case when there are only 19 items à la carte (25 including the set menu). The sommelier, in our case Amar Chebrek, was keen to offer advice, but perhaps a little too ready to agree with our preference -a difficult line for anyone to walk. A friendly bloke, at least he wasn't as snooty as some of the bloody waiters. 

We began with slow cooked veg and snails for me (we're in France after all), both served with a pouring of little separate sauces. Exquisite: beautifully presented. I must also mention the bread which without doubt was the finest I have ever tasted -ever. A freshly-baked salted brioche swirl sounds so simple, yet a meal of this light bread alone would have been worthy of praise. It was a pity the Memsahib could not taste it, but the restaurant was happy to accommodate her wheat intolerance, at least to begin with.

Billecarte-Salmon rosé champagne, being our favourite, went very well with all our choices. The pigeon was, by the Memsahib's account, delicious and the steak was perhaps the best I've had -the knife literally fell through the meat. I'd been saying all week how I wanted to have steak-frites in Paris, it now being the national dish, and here it was in its' fully glammed grandeur. The accompanying pommes soufflés, thin slices of potato fried once and left to cool then fried again at a very high temperature so that the insides puff up, were parfait! 

Accompanied by a glass of sensuous Maury, the chocolat framboise and abricots rôtis were further examples of high quality this time under the direction of renowned pâtissier-chocolatier-glacier Christophe Devoille. Light and full of delicate nuances, each dessert had the right balance of sweetness and flavour, although I took so long eating mine it degenerated at the end into bowl of school canteen mush-up. The restaurant is run by teams, one for each of the three restaurant sections (the kitchens being on the fourth corner). Along with the few couples at table, there were a number of large parties eating at the restaurant, each with accompanying decorative femme fatales and their somewhat outshone opposite numbers, femme attrapées -of which there were more: clearly, one hosts at the Jules Verne to create the right impression.

Coffee and choccy petits four came on, but we were stuffed and there was obviously some wheatflour in the framboise and it was beginning to tell on the Memsahib. But it was past 10.30 and we'd been throroughly enjoying the food, wines and ambiance for three hours. The view, of course, is the reason for this particular restaurant surpassing in comparison practically any other eatery in the world. Our table overlooked Paris from the Champs-Élysées and Montmartre all the way to the Orly airport and bands of rain could be seen wafting across the cityscape and then clearing away to the south. 

 

Upon our leaving the waiters asked if we wanted to take in the city view of which they were rightly proud. The City of Lights spread before us did indeed glimmer with all the bourgeouisee it could muster. We descended the elevator with a little sadness: the Jules Verne experience had been, as Alain Ducasse wished on his website, "the most beautiful place in Paris to enjoy the pleasure of a contemporary and accessible French kitchen." He may be happy to hear that I have to concur.

'Oui!' to 1000 Years of Annoying the French

I have always loved France –close enough to home to be accessible, far enough away to be different, holidays there were fun and full of the nicest things possible; cheeses, wines, meats, restaurants, boulangeries, beaches, interesting and helpful locals –well, maybe not the last one. One year we were holidaying in Languedoc,went to la plage and set about frolicking in the sea, tanning on the sands and trying not to peer too long at the topless French ladies –fwoarr! With a keen eye for a quick franc, the local supermarket had set up a stall in the car park for waffeur-thin steak et frites and we happily queued. Grabbing my newly fried frites, I proceeded to cover them all in lovely French tomato ketchup only to summarily squirt the biggest massive splurge of said red sauce all over the poor seller’s crotch (much to his severe annoyance): the container having just been refilled, the nozzle pointed away from my lovely chips.

Such an unfortunate incident, I think, properly illustrates our trans-marche relationship. More often than not, les anglais have squirted their tomato ketchups (and worse) onto the noble Gallic crotches (and other tender parts) and this has led to war. And just as jobbing steak frites sellers have cursed the holidaying rosbifs, so the kings, emperors and presidents of the nation of franks have cursed their cousins across the water: the last 1000 years have been punctuated with at times incredibly violent international relations. But we are the best of friends now, n’est-ce pas?

Stephen Clarke has made this slightly weighty (517 pages) romp through history about as entertaining as a English-type who lives and works in France could. What’s catchy is the way in which each well-known Franco-British historical scene is set up with the usual accompanying myths and legends only to have them re-examined and re-explained from the perspective of our divergent yet mutual histories. Beginning with the wicked exploits of William the Conqueror (who was not French actually, but Norman –about as French as the next Dane) and concluding at the right royal diplomatic faux pas of 2008 meted out on Nicolas Sarkozy which involved showing him lots of pictures of Waterloo (the battle, not the station), the book is a joy to read. It’s obvious that he’s used up his two years compiling these stories in lots of reading. Each chapter, however, has that I’ve-just-read-a-few-books-about-this-topic-therefore-I-will-write-about-it feel to it and the book occasionally seems a little formulaic.

Here’s a few of Clarke's important historical observations:

·      William the Conqueror died whilst fighting the French

·      Joan of Arc was tried and sentenced by the French

·      The Burghers of Calais were not executed by the English (or even at all)

·      Mary Queen of Scots was, to all intents and purposes, a French princess

·      France lost America because of a cow

·      The English invented champagne

·      The guillotine was invented in Halifax

·      The stormed Bastille contained only 7 prisoners –four forgers, two lunatics and one count accused of helping his sister run away from her husband

·      Napoleon nearly became an English mariner

·      The French did not invent croissants, baguettes or steaks grillés

·      The innocent sounding WWI song, ‘Parley-vouz’, is about patriotic French Mademoiselles who serviced British soldiers hundreds at a time

·      de Gaulle took part in the D-Day landings 8 days later with only 177 French soldiers

In short, the French view the past through Tricolore-tinted glasses, but then don’t we all with our histoires? The English love and admire French style and elegance and early morning hot chocolate croissants from le boulangerie du village, the French love and admire English pop culture, cool Britannia and decent packets of biscuits.

Stephen Clarke’s other book, A Year in the Merde, plods the well-worn track of The Innocents Abroad, a Mark Twain novel, has become an international best-seller, printed in France as God Save La France. He has said of living in Paris, "I love France because here you are working for a living and not vice versa". Ah, the wisdom of it.

We get on now because it’s in our interests. But, as Stephen Clarke says in a France 24 interview, our mutual past has a habit of rearing itself up and interrupting the best of intentions with troublesome recollections. So it is that each Frenchy that descends onto the platform of Waterloo Station is unhappily reminded of Napoleonic defeat and national chagrin.

Ah well –plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…

The Bombing of the Arjana Restaurant in Marrakech

Another outrage, another easy target. The Argana restaurant was a popular eatery with wonderful views over the Jemaa-el-Fnaa square. Brenda and I walked in and ate there last year. It was a fun place with excellent multi-lingual waiters. We ate whilst watching the late afternoon light cast long shadows over the busy stallholders and mysterious fortune tellers as they set up on their pitches for another night of noise and entertainment. 

Morocco is no stranger to terrorism. But the formula for much Islamic terrorism, wherever it appears, seems to follow a fairly tried-and-tested route that begins with desperation which, with a little admixture of poverty and a dash of politicised religious principles, leads some down the path that ends with the sort of scene at the Arjana restaurant in Djemaa el Fnaa square. So, we can blame religion. Or can we?

Each suicide bomber, however, has his reasons for their actions and it is very hard to profile what is 'typical'. In all cases it appears that zealotry by itself does not a terrorist make. That the bombers adhere to a puritanical religious motivation cannot be denied, but throughout the ages strictness in terms of faith and practice has not resulted in similar acts. Contrary to the simplistic finger-wagging of anti-religionist such as Dawkins, it is not the depth of experience that turns a faithful follower into a frothing fanatic. I would argue that religion, in many cases, may not be the poison, but is more likely to be the cure. 

Travelling around Morocco last year we were aware of the great impact made by international tourism. Along the roadside every few miles are little rickety tables selling something local whether that be prickly pears or lumps of impossibly coloured quartz or fossils. Setting down next to one of these is to invite instant attention -so desperate are the locals for some cash. Yet without these few pennies life would be even tougher and the kids' old shoes might just have to be fixed rather than replaced. In the cities the scene is slightly different and opportunities for the hard-working, the quick and the savvy are at hand. Tourists (such as muggins here) are easy prey and, often more than not, will have only fuzzy ideas about the value of something unless it has a neat price tag around it.  Add confusion over differences between currencies and they'll usually hand over more than they should. A life of crime may often begin with such simple exchanges with greed motivating the spiv to move onto more slippery scams.

Those without opportunity or connections may therefore resent the wealth and lifestyle of the rich. It is as well to dwell on the thoughts of our Marrakech taxi driver who whilst trundling his battered cinquecento through the impossibly narrow streets of the medina clearly expressed his usease at single European ladies that take advantage of handsome young Moroccan boys for sex (except he was too polite to use the term). This is nothing new of course, but that the morality of the exchange was still up for discussion illustrates that  Moroccan society still has a problem with the cultural values the tourists import.

For many Moroccans those opportunities for a quick buck might never arise. But even that will not inevitably lead people to blow themselves up in a touristy restaurant. Indeed people may live in relative poverty all their lives with a modicom of happiness and even self-respect. Perhaps this is the time for King Mohammad VI to show his true colours -he's already done a lot for Morocco and is widely respected.

In the recent past suicide bombing has been largely linked to perceived injustices, particularly in strife-torn regions such as Palestinian territories, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bombers may do what they do in response to invasions, corruption in power or politics. If one includes the perceived purity of religious sanctions for their actions and understand sizeable rewards for the families is forthcoming, then  it begins to look like a noble thing.

Some suicide bombers, however, are coerced into their activities. Vulnerable groups, the suicidal, and even children are sometimes given little option other than to do as their operational directors command. Their families lives may be as stake.

The difficulties with suicide bombing is knowing the motive of the backers. Some, such as the groups associated with al-Qaeda or Hamas, want to destabilize the region, polarize opinion and step in to fill the power. The murky world of these financial backers is linked to a simple but radicalized view of Islam (Salafism or Wahhabism), a retrospective glorification of the ideal early golden years of the religion when the religious warriors conquered large parts of the ancient near-east. In this regard blowing up mosques, particularly of those Muslims they regard as 'errant' such as Shi'as or Sufis, is an extension of the purification of the religion -God knows his own!

The attacks on non-Islamic or soft western targets (aka tourists) accomplishes many things such as raising fear or highlighting attention to issues that might otherwise not be covered in the western press. It's all about power.

So, if suicide bombing is so effective, why hasn't it been used extensively in the past? Suicide is banned in Islam. Interpreting the few passages of the Qur'an that mention it is an activity fraught with many difficulties (tenses and plurals, etc), but it is clear that this is not a route down which Muslims are supposed to go. So why do some do it? Effective jurisprudence: some scholars (with anti-western axes to grind) have interpreted the Qur'an in a way in which prejudices and half-truths are accepted and aggressive action justified (I'm afraid it was ever thus in all religions). Radical and reactionary these instructions may be, but they have led to a bit of a backlash amongst many in the ordinary Muslim majority. It's just not... respectable and people don't want it any more. There are even arabic TV ads that seek to change people's opinion of it.

Barring the hornets nest of 9/11 and the issues surrounding the Tamil Tigers, by far the most effective suicide bombs were used during World War II. A total of 2,800 Kamikaze attacks were waged against the allies in the War of the Pacific largely as a response to the decline of Japan's military capacity and the decision not to surrender. 'Death before dishonour' may have been the rallying cry that motivated the young pilots, but their efforts were ultimately futile.

Sitting in the Argana restaurant was a pleasant experience. I hope to do it again. I think, however, that a lot of Moroccan soul-searching will have to elapase before we are back in the square enjoying the madness of Marrakech. After all, the last thing Moroccans need is for their tourists to keep themselves (and their dollars) at home. 

To migrate or not-to-migrate: that is the question

A perennial and quite enjoyable conversation between meself and the Memsahib, and is probably also enjoyed by most of you, is often focused around the question, “Where shall we live?” This arises mostly as a response to our thorough enjoyment of the setting in which we currently find ourselves and the pensive idea arises that perhaps we should up sticks and move thither either at the end of the current contract or at glorious works’ end for our retirement (whatever the hell that is).

Being in a beautiful place, for me at least, is always a pretty good stimulus for a kind of self-questioning in this regard. It allows for a mental checklist of wants and needs, a wholesome review of the current happiness index and a checking of all life's proposals and directions and gateways. Some of the doors, of course, will forever remain firmly shut; a solo climbing of Everest, training to be a spaceman, concentrating on developing premiership footballer skills or acquiring the kudos of a brilliant and disciplined entrepreneur (all of which I thought possible or even probable as a child). Ah, what could have been achieved had I'd only been talent spotted…

Spending time somewhere like southern Thailand inevitably nudges the self a little. The people are fun and generally welcoming, a charming mix of wide-eyed innocence and wideboys, delicate respect and brutal, sun-boiled realism. The weather is generally benign, unless the heavy rains are a-fallin' and you’re caught out in them. The environment appears verdantly luxurious (at the resorts) or the very semblance of bucolic bliss (where munching buffalo mindlessly stand in empty rice fields). There are few sensations more enjoyable than the brush of cool morning winds gently blowing the delicate fronds of coconut trees, that is floating the puffy white clouds nonchalantly over the emerald green bay, that carries a perfume of soft frangipani in the air and brings in the sound of the farting longtail boats slowly crossing the warm waves.

Of course, the reality is that by 9 a.m. the mosquitoes have bitten your feet to pieces, the Russian neighbour’s beeping alarm clock has beeped non-stop for the last two hours (and every morning for two hours -and once he's got up to switch the damn thing it off he'll vomit up the cancerous catarrh from smoking high tar Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes all the previous evening), the satellite reception is crap and bloody difficult to hear at the best of times because of the bloody noisy farting longtail boats slowly crossing the bloody bay...

It must, however, be in most people’s minds to retire somewhere warm and friendly without it being too hot or too familiar. The massive retirement populations of Southern California and Florida testify to the need for the former, the somewhat more scant Gringo peopling of Mexico to the latter: none of us would wish to be in the kind of paradise where we wake to the sound of unhappy people shooting their neighbours (no matter how long their beeping alarm sounds). By the way, the population of Orange County FL alone is more than those number of Americans living in the whole of Mexico and nearly twice as many than those that live in Canada!

This wintry Christmas, the Memsahib and meself enjoyed a few days in the Christmas card City of Wells, the snowy paths and roofs of the medievalness of it all made us want to live there, to reconnect that link with the past, that integrity and honesty that blessed the candle-lit carol service in the magnificent Cathedral, those un-ergonomic low black beams in ye olde pub, harder than nails and 800 years old, the outdoor market selling brussel sprouts by the stalk. But once the snow had melted and the festive season had passed it seemed a little less welcoming and a little more… dreary!

The deep, long rolling barrels that break on Balinese beaches are beautiful, no matter which way you cut it. Sitting in the rose-tinted shade of a Moroccan riad has a deep stillness and spiritual calm hard to find anywhere else. Turning a corner in a happily overcrowded jeepney in the Mindoro region of the Philippines allows for one spectacular view after another where deep green jungle slopes meet empty blue bays. Northern Spain has some of the best craggy mountainous landscapes Europe has to offer –and all pretty much secluded from the rest of the screaming sun-worshipping hordes. The southern Languedoc region of France is a seductive, largely unspoilt region where many an Englishman (and Dutchman) has made his castle. Mai le forêts de France, le vins, fromage and fin jambons, le châteaux et le joi de vivre of it all is then tempered by the bloody French themselves...

And that, perhaps, is the rub: these places are full of 'natives' who spoil it for the rest of us. France would be a fantastic place –without the French! It could be said that the Spanish drunkard who on arriving back home at 3 in the morning to relieve himself outside the door of your apartamento might have just unnecessarily spoilt the rest of your stay. Excitable Philippine feast days mean blocked roads and work-shy delivery men or construction workers. Let’s face it, many an English town could be pepped up with a certain je ne c’est quoi if the miserable natives would only pull their collective fingers out. Do you think we could swap countries with the French?

The truth of it is that many of those we see around us in sunnier climes would gladly swap places: the hotter places in the world are often the poorest. And our unhappy days are spent dreaming about getting off the plane in some sleepy fragrant harbour. Children sleeping on Manila pavements certainly couldn’t make me feel ‘at home’, but then neither does seeing adults doing likewise in rain-soaked Oxford Street shop doorways.

So, I propose a new idea: a job and lifestyle exchange. This would require a few months living the lifestyle of locals that do the same sort of work as yourselves and they doing yours. A bit one-sided, I know, but can you imagine trying out the hell of their sun-kissed shores and hearing their enjoyment of the monotony of commuting, of broken central heating and cars that won’t start. We could swap sales figures for sea fishing, modernity for simplicity, overly-menacing armed forces for overly-observant CCTV, Bruce Forsyth for Dingdong Dantes. Even the poor in our countries could swap –the Manila orphans would certainly fare better on the streets of Coventry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I jest, of course, and at the end of the day most of us make our homes where our feet lead us. And perhaps the future not lies in migration, retirement, or settling down, but in acceptance of our lot, the inevitable compromise of the things we have with the aspirations we cannot and never will reach.

Or we could just go on holidays.

Christmas in the UK

I confess all my remembrances of the United Kingdom in the depths of winter have somewhat mellowed in the 12 sunny Hong Kong years since the last visit; mellowed from the glum reality of welly-boots that tramped down untidy muddy paths to muddier fields, of sweating in jumpers and coats, of seeing the poor fearful hares hiding miserably in the longer grass, of dirty dogs’ feet that never dried, of icy driving rains and biting Siberian winds, of the darkest and emptiest skies at 4.30 in the afternoon and of an unhealthy, pathological dependency on television. So this return visit was a bit of an unknown. It was quite a change to descend like Santa onto a black and white world –a frozen picturesque landscape and veritable winter wonderland!

I actually quite like cold weather, wrapping up and long walks. On Saturday morning (still exshtreehmly drhunk fhrom the hend of tehrm luhnch and dhancing the night away –hic!), I left a chilled Hong Kong at 6 degrees, but the cold weather there just isn’t pleasant. This is primarily because none of the buildings have insulation (from the heat or the cold) nor any fixed heating units (like central heating). It’s just not even considered. And visiting public buildings or shopping malls will not help: air conditioning, even in the very coldest of snaps, is unconscionably ubiquitous.

The first indicator that all was not going to plan was the flight plan that showed Manchester and not Heathrow as our destination. Barely a minute later whilst peering down over the wintry east Yorkshire coast and the whitened-out town of Hull, the Captain informed all that Heathrow was in danger of immanent closure and that because fuel was on the low side we couldn’t hang about and should make for Manchester. We seemed to instantly touch down at a very busy airport, so busy that we awaited nearly five hours on the tarmac. Without Ray next to me, I think my mood may have turned. Thanks, Ray, you and about 10 Bloody Marys saved my sanity!

Once through immigration there arose a chilly choice of continuing directly to Heathrow by bus through the night (courtesy of the fantastic Air NZ) or making one’s own way. Ray continued by rail to Daventry and I, along with an excitable tour group of Deutsche teenagers, took the former option that got us all down England’s slushy A-roads as far as the snowy Hilton at Watford. The Air NZ staff there did us right with 20 quid per room for personal use (needing nothing but contentment in a steaming hot bath). Not once did I hear complaints. As ‘arrivees’ our needs were few and easily satisfied: the news for the next few days highlighted the suffering  of those ‘departees’ eager to reach foreign climes or just get home in the other direction and the world pitied the Heathrow refugees.

Our second Christmas Day in Hong Kong was spent on South Bay where, apart from Gethyn Clothier, we were the only souls on the beach. The winter water was warmer than even the sandiest, most sun-kissed any British August sea could contrive. AND the beaches had cafes, lifeguards and astonishing views. As far as we were concerned, you could keep your jingle bells! In those early HK years everything was new, better, sunnier and more exciting. I recall ecstatically phoning our good friends Rachel and Bob in the UK from an empty beach on Lamma gushingly describing warm waters, cold beers, butterflies and the bliss it was to be alive in this demi-paradise. Their terse response was a reminder that it was bloody five a.m., still dark and they had to go to work in a couple of hours! Ho-hum…

Christmas trees, carols and fake snow also seemed anachronous to Asia’s World City where for a time I became a strict Confucian and viewed anything extra-Sino as a contaminant. I loftily and earnestly sought the very soul of The Chinese. I’m still looking, but now realise it might take a while...

Getting to Heathrow the next morning was eventless, but some considerable care was exercised manoeuvring the snow-covered hire car out of the skating rink that was the Thrifty car park. My exciting Top Gear report on Saabs is that they may be finely-engineered Swedish friends of fearless ice-bound motorists, but only when fitted with snow tyres.

I concede that the UK in snow, as everywhere I’m sure, gives every landscape a novelty and beauty. Back in the Winter of Discontent of '78 I was astonished to see someone ski down Oxford Street and wondered if I’d ever see the like again. This winter is certainly more severe than usual, but the snowy landscape has a bucolic, Brueghel-esque charm (that is until the salting snow ploughs turn the roads into dirty brown slush). Indeed, emerging from the candlelit carol service at Wells Cathedral into the snow covered cathedral green and passing under the Penniless Porch gave the feeling of being attuned to our medieval ancestry –had shivering folks not done the same for hundreds of years?

Christmas Day looks like it will be cold, possibly the coldest day thus far, and more snow is predicted for next week. My only earnest hope is that we are not marooned in the Mendips at the little centrally-heated cottage we have rented, that we will not be forced to frequent the Redan Inn public house next door and that I will be able to get back to work on the 3^rd January.

A very merry Christmas, everybody, and a peaceful and prosperous 2011!

 

A little walk in the hills

There's little better than to excape from work a little early and take off into the hills round the village.

This trip involved a short haul up a much-overgrown path I last took with Buster some two or three years ago, poor old fella. He didn't quite make it that time. I doubt anyone has been up this path since. I may take a machete to it over the winter to open it up again -my shins are ripped to shreds!

I love the solitude of the park. Today, not a soul seen but for the cadet squaddies carrying what looked like toy rifles. That spooked Ronnie (the puppy) and she took off home faster than I could catch her. That left me with Squid and Barka. This kind of walk is new for Barka, but he kept up.

The climb is always worth the reward. The Sai Kung Country Park has so much to offer. The weekends are very busy with the walkers hiking off to Hoi Ha, but just off the beaten path is, to my mind, some of the best the park has to offer.

The great Tang poet Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773-819) in his wonderfully evocative poem River Snow, perfectly relates some of the feelings of solitude,

錢沙蔦飛珏.

三重萬宗景仁

A thousand peaks: no more birds in flight.
Ten thousand paths: all trace of people gone.

Tap Mun Island and China beyond: there's just so much more out there than our daily domestic experience will allow. This link is a little vid of the wonderful Long Harbour:

Here's a little vid of the view (takes a little while to download)

Not so very long ago a Hong Kong policeman disappeared up in these hills. His remains were never found. It always astonishes me that people can get into trouble up here: there are very few places that are truly tricky and may cause one to come a cropper.

This is better than work!

Finally we come back to the snakey ribbon of the Hoi Ha Road. The descent is easy and we're back for tea. Very satisfying.

Ah well, back to work...

Fireflies and Moonlight

This is the season for fireflies. Now is the time to get out there into the cooler night air of autumn, find some bamboo or a dark clump of trees and wait for the little green insects to make themselves known to you. One of the nicest sensations I have experienced is to be surrounded by the incessant serenade of crickets, the moon rising ever-higher above the still landscape and then to be suddenly aware of these incandescent beauties gliding between the leaves. Tonight one of these wonders rested in the palm of my hand, giving it an eerily green Hallowe’en-esque glow.

These luminous beetles are not the only nocturnal things that can be seen at the moment. The Hong Kong autumn brings out some of the best the country has to offer and the lower temperatures make for pleasant evening walks. Some of the broader-leaved trees have finished for the year and are dropping their mustard sienna leaves: the dry weather helps them crackle underfoot. Fungi abound (after a bit of rain) and add a musty tang to the usually resinous odours of the forest. Near streams the frogs have only a few more weeks to add their creaky chorus before the cold finally silences them.

Owls are active all year round and one near our village, a very philosophical Scops Owl, goes through a thoughtful session of single hoots most nights. Big blackish-blue or brown Koels, usually more active in spring, may add their shrieks –the monotonous ‘brain fever’ sound.

If you are lucky, you will meet a porcupine or two. They sometimes travel in family groups. If you manage to find a quill or two then sniff the rounded end: distinctively musky and not unlike notes in strong perfumes. I think they smell like hamsters! The sleepy cows in the country park are soporifically docile and are even-more so at night. A family group chewing the cud is actually quite a comforting sight in the twilight. Barking Deer you will probably hear and not see, but you’ll think them dogs anyway. Monkeys are quiet at night unless you go near them in which case they will gently coo to each other.

If you are really lucky then you will bump into a wild boar. These big beasts’ eyes beam intelligence and their keen nose means they will probably smell you long before you know they are on your path. They have a wonderful porky-bacony scent, will grunt a lion-like roar and thrash aimlessly through the brush into the dark. If you are unlucky then you will meet a wild boar sow and, if she has piglets (particularly in spring), might decide to take you on. In that case get up the nearest tree: this is something you needn’t worry about because it will be terrifyingly instinctual –believe me, it’s like having the devil himself after you!

One thing for which we can be grateful is that the wretched mosquitoes are gradually fading away. The snakes, not that they’ve ever bothered me, have also found holes within which to rest up for the winter.

Fireflies (or glow worms as I always called them) are such tirelessly exciting things to spot. At first, you think you are seeing things. Then you think you are going mad and then you think, ‘wait, can they be…’ and there they are! Then you spend the rest of the walk standing still staring into the darkness hoping one will zoom past.

So what are you waiting for? Get thee to a darkened Hong Kong thicket and start your search. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

 

Morocco Atlas Adventure 2010

Morocco Atlas Adventure Diary

Day 1 Flights, Flights, Flights…

This is my entry on the KGV School trip blog -mostly for the benefit of the students involved (and their parents).

 

I tried to transfer it directly, but it didn't work – GoogleSites is not the best tool for this sort of thing.

 

Consequently, some of the pics don't work too well or are a little misplaced. 

 

To see it in its full glory (and if the link still works), check out: 

https://sites.google.com/a/kgv.hk/morocco-atlas-adventure/Home-Page/blog

EK381 HKG–Dubai – good.

EK751 Dubai–Casablanca – good.

8-hr wait at Casablanca for connecting flight of 45 minutes to Marrakech – not good.

Note to self: always check connecting flights/times! One of the things one does not realise when booking using an agent is exactly how thorough their preparation has been: we could have taken at least one flight to Marrakech in the time spent waiting for the one booked. Or got the train or bus.

Once in Marrakech quickly to the Hotel Foucauld, just off the madness that is the Jemaa el Fnaa square: centrally located, friendly and functional.  The electrics, however, are suspect, the showers sometimes cold and the noise from the street constant. Hmmm…  Straight to bed.

Day 2 Marrakech

A Saturday of looking around the great city of Marrakech with our guide, Hajj.

A quick tour of; the outside of the Koutoubia Mosque with its’ 70 metre minaret, the magnificent Bab Agnaou stone gateway entrance to the medina, the Saadian Tombs, the Jewish quarter, the Berber Pharmacy and the souks. Marrakech has an unpretentious feel to it and the Moroccans are keen on welcoming their cash-carrying quarry. If they don’t speak your language, you need to come more often! 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch at rooftop café overlooking the city.

 

 

Afternoon trip by horse-drawn calash to the Jardins Majorelle, the exquisitely designed gardens of Yves Saint Laurent. An excellent blend of cacti and succulents with palms and bamboo, of shape and forms and the fusion of bold colours, these gardens are a beautiful restful must-do for any visitor to Marrakech.

Dinner at the hotel and early evening shopping in the souks: clearly not enough time given over to this activity for the inveterate Hong Kong shopper!

Day 3 Road Trip

 From Marrakech by minibus into the mountains.

The rainclouds parted after the summit of the Tichka pass (2,260m) to reveal a spectacular landscape of rock and ravine. After the turn-off to Telouet the road deteriorated with each mile and our bones began to shake.

Lunch at Mohamad’s restaurant at Telhouet which included the magnificent local dish, pastilla –nuts, minced lamb and fruits in a pastry case: delicieux! 

 

Stopped the minibus at Anmiter to take the final few kilometres walk up the valley to Tighza through lush valleys, beneath staggering rocky mountains and to meeting gorgeous Berber people.

Dinner at the Kasbah. We will all get fat.

Day 4 The Rain, the Cold and the Howling Wind

A difficult night with difficult mountain weather, but awoke to double rainbows! The tree-planting was called off, so took a trip in the rickety local minibus to the local Anmiter Salt Mine, an astonishing twinkling, hand-dug cave that reminds us all exam results do matter.

 

 

Later travelled to Telouet to visit Mohamad’s carpet showroom where he craftily weaved the stories of the Berber traditions and symbols found in the warp and weft.

Lunch back at Tighza. Paid a visit to the local primary school to play football in the playground, teach English and kept the excited children entertained for nearly 2 hours.

  

 

Dinner back at the Kasbah, the decision was taken to take advantage of the lull in the weather to hike up to the lake next morning. This will involve camping… at night… in the dark… in tents. I suppose we find out the hard way. 

Day 5 Into the Mountains

A (relatively) early start and a walk up to the lake. Sounded simple enough –up to the lake and be back at the camp ground for dinner. What few had taken into consideration was the sheer effort required. It took its’ toll on some, and the plod-plod-plodding up and up through the brilliantly verdant river valley and the wide expanse of the high meadows and even higher pasture left many weary, if not exhausted.

 

We found Lake Tamda to be a high alpine lake in a natural amphitheatre of even higher mountains. It is bright blue, full of trout which occasionally splash out of the surface and a perfect backdrop for our lunch!

 

 

    

Then began our lengthy descent across the spectacular biblical landscape, this time with the aid of mules, to the camp ground by the ford of the river.  After our evening’s food around the fireside emerged the stars which, even with firelight, astounded through their intensity.  And with cloudless night skies the temperature plummeted. By the freezing early light of day the romance of open mountain living, of twinkly stars and of long wilderness treks had completely evaporated, only to slowly condense again through the warming rays of the sun.

 

 
Day 6 Back to Tighza

A beautiful, restful place where even the sound of a passing aeroplane is unusual, the Tighza valley has an unhurried feel to it. Finished our hike down the river valley, past the little fields, the fruit trees and homesteads.

Lunch at the Kasbah. Then rest time. Lots of rest time.

Just before dinner we were shown the lamb ready for our meshwe dinner, and the veg prepared for tagine. Our hosts also show us the Kasbah which will be our eco-friendly home on future visits.

  

After our Meshwe and tagine dinner on the star-lit balcony, we retired to one of the salons for our night’s ‘entertainment’; quite the weirdest magic trick any of us have ever seen involving a man, a blue waistband and a marble and, of course, our own ‘spontaneous performances’. A night we shall never forget!

 

Day 7 Farewell Tighza, Hello Marrakech

A beautiful sunlit morning. Breakfast arrived along with a clear view of the ochre sandstone mountains set against a sky the colour of the deepest blue Berber jallaba (the full-length one-piece hooded clothing worn by many here). After our goodbyes to our host Carolyn, we set off to Telouet to see the magnificent Kasbah, the seat of the once-powerful Glaoui Lords of the High Atlas. This astonishing palace/castle is being slowly restored and contains wonderful tessellated tiling, detailed painted woodwork and intricate stucco doorways. It truly is a showpiece for Moroccan and Berber heritage and design.

 

Then came a welcome lunch stop at a local restaurant by the river at Taddart on our way down to Marrakech. For a distance of just over 126 km the journey is nearly 6 hours!

 

 

Once in the city the souks beckoned once again and the night welcomed those dedicated to its’ gastronomic pleasures –in this case it was Jemaa el Fna square, incessant gnawa music from the region, freshly-squeezed orange juice, and escargot and sheep’s head (for those with the stomach for it). Some did, some didn’t, and some had second-helpings!

 

Day 8 Getting home

Another sunny morning in Marrakech and a fond farewell to Mohammad our excellent host (or should that have been an au revoir?)  After our last bread-filled breakfast and bus it to the airport, we finally took leave of Morocco.

 

 

AT800 Marrakech–Casablanca

EK752 Casablanca–Dubai

EK384 Dubai–Bangkok–Hong Kong – this last one being on the enormous A380. It don’t matter which way you cut it, Marrakech is a long way from Hong Kong.

What a great Challenge Week. I want to give out a big thank you to all you Moroccan travellers –you made it so special. I know you are all a little weary now and personally challenged by the trip, but also I’m glad you had a good time. And a specially grand merci to Mrs Tranter and her hard work (especially in the mornings) and without whom the week would clearly not have been possible.

Bessehha!

!تحيا مراكش

Belfast Ale (and past Belfast Ails)

August 7^th Day something

Belfast Ale

Beatrice Kennedy restaurant, Botanic Avenue, Belfast

Having eaten lots… and I mean lots… over the past few days, the thought of going out to eat more would have seemed greedy, if we did not have some flimsy excuse to justify our piggishness: so to Beatrice Kennedy’s, a mere amble down the road from the Ibis Hotel, for an “exciting range of dishes”.

This standard Victorian house has been traditionally decorated in period dark greens and reds, landscape pictures hung and the odd ornament here and there, all of which conveys that established semi-antiquarian feel. The publicity write-ups were good and the menu, although short (six starters and six mains listed), covered all bases: certainly the steak and salmon were well prepared and, although not spectacular, certainly hit a mark (burp!).

We considered a wine to accompany, but were, as said earlier, just not hungry enough. The Belfast Ale was therefore a welcome diversion. A short head on a weak cola-coloured clear ale, the presence was initially understated, but in tasting filled a full and pleasant palate. The lasting effect was of a strong hoppity-hop accent and extremely maltyness –almost to the point of malt extract. It went down quite well and, if I had chosen a lighter course I think I would felt contented, but like a fool I ordered another and, on top of the steak and truffle mash, suffered for it: So much for my pursuit of Epicureanism through wanton noshing at the trough –perhaps a simple salad would have sufficed (and then a jog home and yoga and meditation and…)

Staying in Belfast has been interesting (and a wee bit chilly). Ostensibly we have been here so that Brenda could attend the Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress conference held at Queens University. But what has been of nearly as much interest has been exposure to Northern Irish culture, and perhaps working class NI culture at that, with the attendant outwards displays of ire and identity, tribal tattoos and inflexible invective. “Fair do’s to ‘em!”

I think it’s fair to say that most English-types (and many expats in HK for that matter) have created distance from our religious and tribal origins. There are few of us willing to lay down our lives to defend our identity as Wessex men and women, or East Anglians, Mercians or Northumbrians. Perhaps only those whose national identities have been threatened, such as the Irish, Welsh or Scots, have defended them as ferociously (although there are undoubtedly similar thoughts held by some Cornish, Cumbrians and the inveterate Yorkshiremen). Let’s not kid ourselves; English history is one of conquest. But despite the embarrassing World Cup St George’s bunting fluttering from Astras and Escorts throughout the land (as a kid the flag was always the Union Jack), few English would take to the streets to protest anything and none but those on the maddest radical racialist fringe would get fired up against their Irish Catholic or Scottish Protestant neighbours. Few would raise anything more than an eyebrow (at most a frosty few lines to The Times) in order to defend the Church of England, the established religious institution of the land with the Queen as head. Some might find time in the pub to voice disapproval of the prevalence of Mosques, but they wouldn’t dream of burning them down or knee-capping their Muslim neighbour’s teenagers. We have our freedom of speech and our tolerance for others, our love for eccentricities and delight in exotica. We had an Empire and direct threats of obliteration, barring the menace of Hitler, did not occur since the times of Napoleon. Perhaps, if the few extremists amongst the Muslim minority would get fired up, take direct action and cause a bit of mayhem, at most we’d call for greater police protection, but for now English sectarianism is wholly unpalatable.

This hasn't, however, always been the case. Popular English violent protests against anything Papish took place during the 16-18^th centuries, but perhaps took on more racist overtones following the large immigration of Irish Catholics at the onset of the industrial revolution. They came to work in the new factories, they helped build canals, roads and then railways. Their wave of immigration, of course, was one of many: such a regular occurrence since these Islands were first detached from mainland Europe, there is about as much chance of finding an 'indigenous Brit' as there is the Loch Ness Monster. For many it is a matter of interest alone, and perhaps not a little pride, that some may have Catholic Irish or Scottish Presbyterianism or even Jewish blood coursing through their veins. The last great wave of Irish immigrants, however, that arrived during the catastrophic peaceful decades that following the Napoleonic wars heralded a great change in British demographics, but to no more effect than shuffling cards. The Irish, Scots, Welsh and the English are a common people with different histories, accents, literature and power. And it is, as far as I’m concerned, the last point which holds most true.

That power is held in London is accidental. Had the Romans been defeated, or the Saxons or Normans for that matter, then perhaps the British capital might be Oxford, Winchester or even Slough: imagine that and be grateful!

I have great sympathy with those who have been denied power or the access to it: the world is full of such as these. And perhaps that is why the tenuous Belfast Agreement has held since 1998: it finally addressed the genuine grievances of a sizeable section of the community that had little satisfaction through the instruments of established British government.

It may have taken a thousand years to bring about union of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish, and this has undoubtedly come partly through economic pressure and partly through the sword. As much as an Independent Scotland and a United Ireland may bring out the William Wallace or the Michael Collins in many, the truth is that cash walks when bullets fly. Belfast is clearly prospering and long may it continue to do so. The defensive working class agendas proudly on display may hark back to a strong siege mentality, but growth can only occur with freedom. Perhaps the freedom from the demons of the past can be summed up in two lines I saw on the side of the Garrick Bar in the city centre:

 

“A nation that keeps one eye on the past is wise.

A nation that keeps two eyes on the past is blind.”

 

 

Three Countries, Three Hotels, Three Stars

Sometimes strange patterns emerge from seemingly random occurrences; I get the feeling you’ve had déjà vu, and we've all had thoughts about people only to have them immediately phone you, and autistic people know all about the obvious causal links between three red cars in a row and ‘Bad Days’! But I think I’ve spied a nice little pattern which, of course –according to the Law of Sod (and perhaps more pertinently because I’ve mentioned it), will now probably never happen again. This is checking into a hotel and seeing a superb and unplanned concert that night. Let me explain by listing these occasions in order.

1) About five years ago I thought I’d treat Brenda to a dirty Birthday weekend at the Mandarin Oriental in Macau. To top it all, I knew that a lovely New Joysey jazz singer, Stacey Kent, was also singing that night at the ski-jump designed Macau Cultural Centre. So, after a long day’s pampering in the overpriced spa and a superb dinner in the hotel, we tottered over the road to the wintry wind-swept concert hall complex and took in a wonderful jazz evening. (This one I had planned so perhaps for those stickers for detail amongst you the spontaneous nature of the trend is automatically negated, but Brenda didn’t know anything about it, so for me it counts as 50%.)

2) Last year Bren and I took the kids (and their boyfriends) to the beautiful mountainous region of the Picos de Europos in northern Spain for our last family holiday (where we pay for bloody everything). We drove to the beautiful old Galician city of Santiago de Compostella and stayed in a rustic converted mill house beside a rushing stream a mere stone’s throw from the centre of town. (For those stickler’s for detail amongst you I concede that it was not strictly a hotel, but we paid hotel prices so that’s also a 50%.) On the first evening we wandered up to the main Praza do Obradoiro (lit. Workshop Square) outside the enormous baroque cathedral and saw a concert stage being erected. At the other end of the magnificent  square a ticket booth advertised, ‘Lou Reed in Concert’ and indeed he, along with Laurie Anderson, played in the square under a cloudy Galician night sky. An expensive evening for me (buying six tickets!), the performance was nevertheless a greatest fusion of Lou Reed’s romantic poeticism and Laurie Anderson’s astounding intellectual exercises.

3) This week Brenda is attending a conference in Belfast and we have arrived early to spend a couple of days exploring the city. Booking the hotel over the phone, the receptionist told me that I’d be lucky to get a room “because of Rod Stewart”. Now, I have always assumed him a bit of a lothario, but wondered how even he would get around to performing in all those rooms! We got in early in the day at The Hilton, wandered over to the Odyssey Arena and purchased our tickets. It was pissing down so we took in Toy Story 3 before the show –what a great little movie and perhaps worthy of its’ own weight in blog entries. From 8 until 10.15 a sterling Rod and the excellent band wowed the 20,000 Ulstermen and women in the packed arena with a top show, the consummate showman clearly enjoying doing what he does best –singing a career’s-worth of the last 40 years with an accomplished and infectious enthusiasm. Such were the number of hits, he inevitably had to leave out, more's the pity, but it was certainly worth the £65. (And for those stickler's for detail amongst you this one meets all categories.)

So there you have it, three shows and three hotels. Anyone else have a pattern as good as that?

 

First of the summer wine...

Excepting the Vins de Pays d’Oc acidic swill served on most airplanes (cattle class) these days, and anything else that I may have inadvertently sipped and supped whilst either or in wildly exciting grocery shopping, I will endeavour to add from time-to-time the notable tastes that have come my way in the next 6 weeks.

June 29^thDay No2

Oeno, Kendrick St., Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Valdamor Cosecha 100% Albariño 2006 Pontevedra, Spain

Store Hype: An award winning, fabulous fresh white from the trendy Albariño grape variety in Galicia, Spain. The best Albarino we've ever tasted. Clean, crisp. green apple flavour with a rich intensity. The wine to drink with seafood in North West Spain.

I asked at the store about any local wines, knowing a little bit about the growing and improving English Wines, some of the best of which are locally produced. She cocked her head and answered that she had some Nyetimber English Fizz from East Sussex at 25 quid. I’ve never heard of this stuff, but she claimed it was on a par with some of the best Reims stuff. Maybe another time.

Ah well, I know of some good Gloucestershire offerings and will pursue this theme on another occasion.

Last year the Memsahib and meself took the kids (with their boyfriends) on the last all-expenses family hol to jolly Spain; Cantabria –where there one can drink up some great and astonishingly cheap ciders, and Galicia –where the famous Rias Baixas wines grow. This region’s wonderful young green vinos had already made an impact on me in Hong Kong as each one I tried seemed a breath of fresh Atlantic air. In Santiago de Compostella they unashamedly serve 1-year old bottles of this beautiful green liquid that I believe knock the stuffing out of any Beaujolais Nouveax.

I chilled the attractively slim brown bottle for about 15 minutes before serving outside in the evening summer sunlight of Rodborough Hill overlooking the Bowbridge valley entering Stroud town, here to consume a chicken-ricey- chilli broad beany thing my nephew Alden had prepared (that weren’t half-bad!) The Valdamor was everything vaunted on the label with only perhaps the apple not quite so prominent. The intensity was smooth and even right to the last drop and although mildly aged at 2006 left a light enticing finish, the characteristic delicacy of these young un-acidic beauties.

This is the first time I have come across this particular Albariño and I liked it: not bad for watching the sun go down at the start of me hols!

 

La Comparaison Française Passionnante de Café

'Sacred Blue' et 'Mon Dieu' all 'ta Mere est Belge' all rolled into one: What a Gallic week!

First I had my first meeting with my Morocco Atlas Adventure team: Crazy French speaking snail scoffers, one-and-all. I think I'm going to have to brush up on the old parlez a bit or this school trip will consist of me barking l'instructions en Anglais to a bunch of quizzical shrugging Gauloise-smoking non-commitals.

Perhaps I'd better explain. I have foolishly volunteered to organize a school trip in October to my niece's High Atlas homestay some distance from Marrakech, Morocco. She married a Berber, ya know! Me not being fluent in Arabic or the local ancient Berber languages, Tachelhiyt or Tamazigt, I thus thought it prudent to bring une bande de Française parlez-ing henchmen to corral the sweetest of sweet Hong Kong children there and back again and chat amicably with the locals in the ex-colonial patois. We'll see in October if my trans-marche judgement was misplaced.

I must say that research into the local Moroccan tongues has been fascinating. The Berber folk have had a separate identity that pre-dates Arab, Christian and Roman invasions and possibly even the ancient Egyptians. They have had their script since the grand old Punic times of ancient Carthage and Hannibal. Theirs is a proud culture which appears to centre around sweeping down from the hills, setting fire to things and then carrying slaves back up into thum thar hills. I've looked around, but it appears local bookshops are out of stock of Cantonese-Tamazight dictionaries, so if anyone knows how to say, "Stop kidnapping me, I'm an ESF teacher!" in any Hamito-semitic dialects, please let me know.

*

Yesterday I did a foolish thing. Actually, it began a while ago when Brenda (quite rightly) complained that I had been away with the choir to concerts in Bangkok and Manila and had a jolly good time, whereas we have not been away together (without the girls) for as long as we could remember. That will, of course, change and we'll go away somewhere exciting soon. So, despite keen invites to dinners and friendly cajolings to see bands and other social events, I decided to stick with Plan A and take Bren to the pictures last night - in lieu of future outings! I turned to the Broadway Cinematheque webpages to book something. And I duly did, rushed out with Brenda from school at 5-ish, got angry being lost behind slow moving vehicles in Yau Ma Tei (not so difficult -have you tried the one-way system lately?), finally parked at the cinema and ran upstairs to quickly present my credit card -no tickets! It appears I had booked the right film at the right time, but in all my haste had booked the wrong bloody cinema. (By the way, there's a season of French Cinema coming up in June -see link below)

The choix du jour, then, was between "I Love You Phillip Morris", a humourous gay film starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor or some French award-winning filme, Le Refuge. Not feeling particularly humourous (not particularly gay for that matter) I plumped for the latter. Hmmm...

I have a cool-headed admiration for French cinema. Some of the best cinematic moments I can recall have emerged from the froggies; They seem to be able to take matters very seriously indeed with not a smile in sight (a very mature attitude set quite apart from the English schoolboy sniggering when, for example, we see exposed lady parts) and also seem to be very amicable again and again (in joyous romps like Taxi, Taxi 2, Taxi 3, etc). But I digress...

The Refuge, or Le Refuge, concerns a Parisienne addict called 'Mousse' who, after her lover takes an overdose, awakens to find herself pregnant. The rest of the film concerns her trying to come to terms (or not) with this overwhelming fact whilst accompanied by her dead lover's gay adopted brother and his boyfiend who is also her housekeeper. Are you with me still?

I'm not a big sympathiser of smack-heads. I'm sure there are desperate reasons for their plight and better ones for their re-integration and re-introduction into societé, but the portrayal of this vache égoïste left me cold. I realise the point of the film was to let me in on her world, the life from death, the escape from addiction, the building of something new, etc, etc, but her self-obsession angered me. Maybe, as I'm sure the Director François Ozon would be only too keen to point out, that's the point: her life is turned around. Both Brenda and I left feeling a bit empty. We didn't much enjoy (even with les popcorn et dogs chaud) watching the protagonists shoot up. From then on it went from bad to worse. The holiday home in Normandy, on the other hand, was to die for. But that got me thinking more about me holidays than Mousse's upcoming delivery. The denoument was a bit of a disappointment, réalisme notwithstanding, and left me caring even less for her character. I know, I know, Monsieur Hulot's Holiday this certainly was not, but could he not have had a positive message, any kind of hint that it was a story worth telling and which might arouse some sort of interest. Ah well, back to my Gauloise (puff, puff...)

The Broadway has a fantastic DVD shop, unlike any other in HK. I picked up another couple of titles, including one in the second category I earlier mentioned. L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la Lune, or A Slightly Pregnant Man, by Jacques Demy, is a gentle comedic outing from a simpler era. This 1973 film co-starring Catherine Deneuve concerns a Parisian driving instructor who manages to become pregnant. Following the surprise, fame and fortune beckons much to his bewilderment. It is a charming window on a France I grew up knowing was on the other side of the Channel -Renaults and tabacs, magasins et moustaches. This is no great masterpiece, but it makes you smile. C'est un film heureux!

One thing struck me. In both films the breakfasting French did not use les demitasses for their morning coffees. Instead, they used bloody great cornflake bowls! This is something I've not seen before. Tell me, please, is this a 'normal' activity over there? Do all of our Gallic cousins take their early caffeine hits thus?