Nancy showed me around Hong Kong for two days, even though she was leaving herself for Australia right after that. She took me to eat local food, led me around the sights, listened patiently to my jokes, taught me two words of Cantonese, and took pictures of me standing around awkwardly in front of monuments.
On Lantau, we went up to see the Big (Tian Tan) Buddha. The bus drove through a surprising landscape of forested hills, hiking trails, cows, and beautiful, empty beaches. After Nancy had gotten a picture of me standing around awkwardly, we went and burned incense at the adjacent Po Lin monastery. Burning incense is meritorious, and we agreed it was probably time I did something meritorious. I wasn't sure that burning incense for a lark was an appropriate thing for me to be doing, but Nancy thought it was, so I went along.
We went out for dim sum, to the Seafood Superstar Restaurant, and then looked around the shopping malls and street markets of Kowloon. The restaurant was in a shopping mall; on the ground floor, there was a Santa's Village, a pretty elaborate one. The next mall along had Hello Kitty London: Miniatures of famous London landmarks with a few person-sized Hello Kitty dolls posed around them. I stood around awkwardly with Hello Kitty, which was a thrill. But then I was moved on by security for sitting down to rest on a bench that was actually part of the display, and which was strictly for posing on. Of all the places I've been kicked out of, I think Hello Kitty London hurts the most.
The rattly tram by the hotel ran across the island, through what Nancy called 'the real Hong Kong' -- the Hong Kong of towering, flyblown apartment blocks, dried food stores, and busy street markets. It passes local landmarks like the Prosperous Building, the Prudent Building, and the Effectual Building -- the Chinese having a way of assigning qualities to buildings that buildings can't really have in English. The trams themselves are tall and skinny, maybe seven feet wide and thirteen high. They have two levels, each with a ceiling about 5'9" off the floor.
You get one or two mainland TV stations in Hong Kong hotel rooms. Two days before North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire, I caught a documentary on the North on Hunan Television. I couldn't understand the narration, but it was solidly pro-DPRK. It dealt with four main themes: The attractiveness of North Korea's traffic police, who were all heavily made-up young women; the prosperity of its ostrich farms; the precision of its precision marching; and the grandeur of its baffling mass choreography. There were also many shots of the Great Leader, the Dear Leader, and the Dear Leader's chubby son (the heir apparent, whose defining quality as a leader has yet to be identified) waving and looking statesmanlike.
People were polite in Hong Kong. They rarely talked on cell phones in public places, and if they did, they were often quiet. In Vietnam, if you had something to say over the phone, you took a deep breath, got a good mouthful of noodles, and then bellowed. (Obviously, not every conversation was like this, because you can't always have a bowl of noodles at hand, but that was the effect that was aimed at.) I didn't see a single tout for two days, and thought for a while that there weren't any. But when Nancy had gone and I went back to Kowloon alone, they emerged to offer me guesthouses, watches, hash, and things that seemed to need too much explaining for me to hear them out on. The hash dealer was by far the best-dressed person to try to sell me drugs on this trip. He was wearing a suit. He looked like he traded on the hash futures market.
Around the legislature, there were always several small protests. Some concerned Falun Gong, some were about city planning, and some people were angry at Citigroup. At the first Citi branch I passed on the tram, red protest banners were rolled up on the ground outside. On top of them was a loudspeaker that squawked a single sentence over and over again. There were no actual protestors around; they'd successfully automated the process. There were half a dozen security people in berets and military-style uniforms standing around looking exasperated. Further downtown, the branches were staked out by real protestors. Inevitably, I had to use an ATM in one of these branches, because HSBC machines wouldn't work for me, and the only other possibility was to walk several blocks to try the Chinese Construction Bank.
Yesterday morning, I flew down to Bali.
On Lantau, we went up to see the Big (Tian Tan) Buddha. The bus drove through a surprising landscape of forested hills, hiking trails, cows, and beautiful, empty beaches. After Nancy had gotten a picture of me standing around awkwardly, we went and burned incense at the adjacent Po Lin monastery. Burning incense is meritorious, and we agreed it was probably time I did something meritorious. I wasn't sure that burning incense for a lark was an appropriate thing for me to be doing, but Nancy thought it was, so I went along.
We went out for dim sum, to the Seafood Superstar Restaurant, and then looked around the shopping malls and street markets of Kowloon. The restaurant was in a shopping mall; on the ground floor, there was a Santa's Village, a pretty elaborate one. The next mall along had Hello Kitty London: Miniatures of famous London landmarks with a few person-sized Hello Kitty dolls posed around them. I stood around awkwardly with Hello Kitty, which was a thrill. But then I was moved on by security for sitting down to rest on a bench that was actually part of the display, and which was strictly for posing on. Of all the places I've been kicked out of, I think Hello Kitty London hurts the most.
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| Three stages of sharing a ferry ride with me (not pictured: Acceptance) |
The tram passed several street markets, and once or twice I got off and had a look. Walking through a food market in Hong Kong is like visiting a desperately underfunded zoo. Big fish asphyxiate in little bowls, crabs scuttle around in tanks, turtles try to climb out of tupperware containers, frogs sit quietly in glass boxes, and shrimp in big bowls make desperate leaps, occasionally clearing the rim and landing on the pavement. Nancy also showed me Goldfish Street (Tung Choi Street), which is lined with shops selling aquarium fish, mostly pinned up outside in little baggies. Luggage and clothes were for sale everywhere. As with all the red star tat in Vietnam, there was plenty of stuff with Mao Zedong on it, for tourists who reckon the chubby-cheeked architect of some of history's greatest tragedies is an adorable bit of kitsch.
Yesterday morning, I flew down to Bali.
