The Archive

There's the rub

Wednesday 4th January
Thoughts about Hong Kong
It’s a funny old place, Hong Kong. On the one hand, it’s terribly exotic and foreign (and I’m taller than everyone else, which is a nice change from life in my flat aka Land of the Giants). On the other hand, the British influence is everywhere, so loads of things are strangely familiar – double decker buses, the road markings, bollards in the same colours, but a slightly different shape to at home, binge drinkinging (although that might just be me).

So overall it’s a lovely blend of the familiar and the foreign. And most people speak English, which is good for me as my ‘speaking to Johnny Foreigner’ skills are so rusty, nobody in Thailand could understand a word I was saying.

I think the same may apply when I get to Wisconsin actually.

So today, after a delicious dim sum lunch with Maneesh, I wandered East until I hit Victoria Park, where they were apparently holding a ‘Products and Brands Expo’. So I went in.

Minutes later, I seemed to have grown even taller as I towered above an enormous crowd of very, very old people. It was like the biggest post office in the world on pension day.

Had I wandered into and Expo for old people? Not quite. It turned out that I had wandered into the ‘medicines and remedies’ section of the show, where every granny in Hong Kong had gathered to exchange symptoms and complain about the youth of today.

The rest of the show had a more normal demographic, but one thing I noticed was the companies’ names. It seems that in order to be taken seriously as a business, a grand title was the order of the day, much like Trotters Independent Traders, regardless of what you might be selling.

So what do you think Wang Li Industries does, for example? Mining? Engineering projects? Car manufacture?

Nope, they sell hair rollers.

There was also a stage for performances in the middle of the expo. Whilst I was there, I saw the oldest man I have ever clapped eyes on playing an instrument that looked like a one-stringed cello. The man was so frail, he literally had to be helped up out of his chair and off the stage after his performance.

Whether the wild applause he received was for his musical skill, or just for having made it to the end of the tune without dropping dead is not entirely clear.

Nor am I sure whether the noise I was hearing was the instrument, or the creak and groan of the old man’s joints. Perhaps it was the instrument playing the old man. It wouldn’t have surprised me.

After the expo, I discovered The Noonday Gun. Sounds good eh?

Apparently, Jardines (think East India Company kind of deal) used to have a gun with which they would salute the top managers as they sailed out of the harbour.

Allegedly, a British Naval officer visiting the colony heard this and, incensed that private individuals were taking what is normally a military honour (I think that’s why anyway, but I’m not 100% sure), he ordered them to shoot a gun at noon every day to keep time for the island, a tradition that continues to this day.

Or at least that’s what the plaque said. I haven’t heard it so far.

Anyway, expecting to see an enormous cannon standing proudly over the harbour, I walked to the gun. When I got there, I was terribly disappointed to find

a) The gun itself was about the size of a rifle standing on a camera tripod.
b) It was covered with a tarpaulin anyway, so you couldn’t see anything.


Bastards. Still, I guess the tarp means the gun is actually being used after all.

Finally it was off to dinner and then I found myself a decent bar. This bar was a real find – not only was it a rooftop bar (I am a real sucker for a rooftop bar), but it was about half the price of all the other bars I’d visited so far. Result!

Sadly, there was a private function going on so I went home.

Did I bollocks. I went in, discovered that it was a school reunion for the Hong Kong International School and joined in.

“Oh hi, I haven’t seen you, er, before.”

OK, it wasn’t that bad. By chance I started talking to the girl who organized it and after confessing that I was not technically supposed to be there, she let me stay anyway.

So after a few drinks, I hooked up with Maneesh again and we headed off to Wan Chai, the Hong Kong equivalent of Soho, where a lot of the nightlife takes place.

A couple of bars later, we were dancing away in a nightclub. Suddenly a bunch of very attractive young girls starts dancing with us. Looking good. We danced, we flirted, we danced some more.

Then, Maneesh decides it’s time to leave as he has to work in the morning. And you know what his parting words were to me, as I tell him I’m going to ‘stay a while and see what happens’?

“Dude. Just so you know, they’re in high school”

Oh.

I left very shortly after that, but on my way home through the now-traditional gauntlet of old ladies outside strip clubs, found my resistance weakened by a fatal mix of booze and lust.

Oh.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Thursday 5th
Imagine a beautiful wooden sculpture of a crane fighting a snake. The craftsmanship is exquisite and the detail incredibly precise. The wood is, of course, very high quality, so the sculpture is very heavy.

Now imagine bashing yourself several times in the head with this sculpture and you’ve got some idea of the headache I woke up with this morning.

So, being a seasoned international traveler who drinks in every moment of his unforgettable, exotic experience and blends seamlessly with local habits and customs, I spent the day today in bed watching American Pie 2.

I finally got up for dinner at what Maneesh refers to as his ‘dirty Chinese place’. It’s an incredibly cheap little café-style place where the food was priced so competitively I think we may actually have made money on the deal.

Then he took me to his local massage parlour where a Chinese girl with the strongest fingers I have ever encountered, rubbed and pounded the remaining hangover out of my body.

Side note: Apparently this massage place used to do ‘happy endings’. But when the WTO were in town, the police came round and told them to stop it for the duration.

No wonder there were riots.

That was it. That was the whole day. I really need to do something about my time management skills don't I?

posted by Peter The Great @ 6:15 AM