Hopefully, it's never too late.

I looked around me: there were points of light in the darkness, as cigarettes punctuated meditation, the humble meditation of aging clerks....

I overheard their muttered exchanges of confidences, stories of illness, money, sad domestic worries that revealed the dismal person in which those men had immured themselves. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny....

You built peace for yourself by blocking up every chink of light, as termites do. You rolled yourself into your ball of bourgeois security, your routines, the stifling rituals of your provincial existence. You built your humble rampart against winds and tides and stars. You have no wish to ponder great questions, you had enough trouble suppressing awareness of your human condition. You do not dwell on a wandering planet, you ask yourself no unanswerable questions....

No man ever grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay that formed you has dried and hardened, and no man could now awaken in you the dormant musician, the poet or astronomer who perhaps dwelt within you.

-Antoine de St. Exupery
Terres de Homme

For Daffy

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.

-Joseph Campbell

Daffy, you'll never be alone.

A lesson.

This doesn't really have anything to do with me or East Asia or blogging. It's just something that strikes a chord in me and which I'd like to share. Enjoy.

The president in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every single pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are a part of the earth and it is a part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach our children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.

One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last Red Man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know: There is only one God. No man, be he Red Man or White Man can be apart. We are brothers after all.

-Chief Seattle

Hong Kong. Random lobby. Turtles. Yeah.

I think the title sums up my feelings about this photo quite nicely. But what fun is blogging so esoterically (yeah, I like that word too). So, in translation:

On one warm summer evening in TST, I happened to walk into the lobby of an office building and stumble upon this boon of all boons: bronze (lifesize!) statues of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As far as I could see, the building and the offices of said building had no relationship to turtles nor ninjas whatsoever. Which is what made it so cool and picture-worthy.

As it were... on a deeper level... and in the last analysis... I believe various powers were at work that night. The reason behind what drove me to choose this lobby and to take this photo is threefold: a primordial desire to seek out raw, untamed animal energy in an urban jungle, the subconscious will to become one with my inner child, and a feeble attempt to come to terms with my creator.

Or maybe simply because I am an idiot guy who likes taking photos of randomly stupid things.

Mushrooms, herbs, and eye candy

Hong Kong is unique among East Asian cities due to it's history of being a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures and socio-economics. Hmm, which reminds me....

Let's pause here for a moment so I can say "socio-economic strata." I love this term; after saying it to myself a few times, I feel all warm and pedantic inside. Moments afterwards, I often want to don a tweed coat and read about economic equilibriums, liquidity traps, and aggregate demand.

Okay, that's done. Back to blogging about pictures of naked women in drug store windows.

There are a variable emporium of drug stores that can be found in Hong Kong. This is due to the fact that Western style pharmacies and Chinese herbal medicine shops co-exist harmoniously with each other, each holding a respective share of the drug market. Each peddles it's respective wares: the Western shops push aspirin and vitamin B2 while the Chinese shops offer more exotic remedies such as deer penis, bear claws, and dried sea horse. Look long and carefully enough and you may find a sea horse penis as well.

Spanish Fly has been illegal in the US for years. Heaven knows if it's illegal in Hong Kong, but not that it matters. It is supposed to be dangerous, and even lethal, and this was the first time, in fact, that I had even come across it in any store. According to Wikipedia, Spanische Fliege is a version that can be found in Germany and which is safely watered-down to the point that it won't kill you. Which must mean it doesn't have the advertised effects either. What fun is that?

This box of Spanische Fliege (which, by the way, sounds too Wagnerian to be taken seriously as a herbal supplement. Maybe the lady on the cover should be wearing a viking helmet...) in the window of this particular shop looked like it had been on display for a few decades. It seemed out of place, being sold in a traditional Chinese herbal shop, and surrounded by ancient Chinese remedies for cancers, chi imbalance, skin ailments, etc. Of course, the Chinese themselves have herbal medicines for boosting one's libido, but one rarely expects to find an antiquated import from the West among them. At least not in this kind of shop.

The box was fairly dust-covered and faded. And the woman looked to be straight out of a 70's adult movie (where I imagine she would still be wearing the viking helmet). However, I have to admit that regardless of time and fashion, the box still does manage to catch the eye. But maybe that's just my odd marketing sense talking.

Sign Language, Part 64 and One-half

This is a sign posted near a small children's playground near my apartment. The words in red say "Beware of perverts." As I am nearly illiterate in reading Chinese characters, that's about all I can tell you about the sign. The words in black at the bottom say the city name plus some other words I don't recognize at the moment. Probably something like "Sign courtesy of The Municipal Council on the Activities of Perverts and other Quirky People of Tama Ward."

What I can tell you was that I was taken aback when I first noticed this sign. Has Japanese society become so... twisted... now that the public needs to be warned about perverts? Granted, it makes sense that this kind of warning is found where young children gather. Makes sense regardless of country or culture. But I don't remember ever encountering this kind of explicitness in the US, where I was raised. What is even more shocking is that Japan seems like a country that likes to deny it's faults (i.e. pick up any Japanese history textbook) and yet here is a warning to all mothers and lone women walking home from the train station at night to maintain an abnormal level of alertness.

To be sure, there is, in English, a distinctly negative connotation and feeling that is attached to the word "pervert". (Hmm, can there be otherwise?) Perhaps that is not the case in Japanese. Japan has a history of eroticism, and paraphilia dating back hundreds of years: Hokusai made wood block prints about child love and Buddhist monks "kept themselves warm and happy" in the monasteries. It is plainly obvious to any foreigner that visits Japan these days that this aspect of their history maintains a strong grip on Japanese contemporary culture and it's perspective of social norms.

On a lighter note, here is a sign I found in a public restroom. The Japanese says "Sorry, but you seem to be lacking the proper equipment to adequately employ the use of this urinal. Please kindly step away and find the ladies room instead."

Public announcements like this are supposed to be objective and relatively impassive. I don't know about you, but the guy in the picture looks pretty pissed off to me. I mean, look at him. He's storming off in a huff. And to add insult to injury, the urinal is still talking to him! Probably saying something like "Don't let the door hit you on the way out... Tiny Tim. Heh heh."


In other countries, you can buy birth control and disposable razors from vending machines in public restrooms. In Hong Kong restrooms, vending machines are now being installed that offer low-priced rabbits. The vending machines are free, i.e., at no expense to the tax-payer. In fact, the government is subsidizing 100% of the installation and maintenance expenses in an effort to curb the alarmingly low numbers of rabbits inside public restrooms. Presumably, consumers would be allowed to use the rabbits in any and all ways as they please, just as they would for single packet aspirins, flavored condoms, and feminine sanitary napkins. Leftover rabbits, I am assuming, could be taken home for later use.

The Frog

When I was "doing research" at a university in Hong Kong, I had the pleasure of meeting a French intern who was visiting for 6 months to do some work for our project. His name was Damien but I liked to think of him as The Frog. Indeed, we often exchanged greetings using ribbits.

Some of my fondest memories of Hong Kong involved hanging out with Damien. We spent a good deal of time together in and out of the office. Smoking (me watching, Damien inhaling), debating over a coffee, walking around crowded city streets and narrow country roads, racing real go-karts in Macau and virtual ones in the arcade (I still am the champion, thanks to that V6), eating overly-priced American food, "fake" kababs, industrial bread and cheese, and passable sauccison.

Our topics of conversation ranged from politics to history to culture to music and movies to cars to women. We compared French and American cultures to each other as well as to Hong Kong and East Asian ones. He enlightened me on the virtues of Sebastien Loeb and F1. I taught him terrible North American English. He taught me, at my request, strange and uncommon French phrases. We equally lambasted McDonald's and praised Burger King. He pushed (and pushed and pushed and pushed) me to educate myself on the ridiculous "facts" of 9/11. I remember laughing at the various regional French accents that he imitated. Québécois is, in fact, dirty, and those posers have nothing to be arrogant about. Thanks to Damien, I now and will for the rest of my life, appreciate the Dude.

I could have easily believed that I could have nothing in common with a guy 7 years my junior, still a student and on his first foray out of his home country. But it startles me, even now, when I think about how much I learned from him, and how much fun I had talking to and arguing with him. I'd like to think that the ease with which we got along and the seemingly boundless conversation topics we had wasn't a function of our age difference, but rather of where we each came from. Take a relatively uneducated American, a well-informed and easy-going Frenchman, put them together in the same room with some coffee and cigarettes (in Damien's case, we'd have to sip our coffees al fresco if he were to roll one and light up; he was THAT kind of Frog) and see what transpires. Governments have toppled under simpler circumstances.

Nearly nine months after meeting him, I am finally blogging about him, as promised. But I suppose what I really want to say is... THANKS.

Oh, that, and "Fuck it, man. Let's go bowling."

Photos from Hong Kong: my tribute to a year in the SAR

I've posted some photos on my flickr page. They are a sampling of the people I met and the places I went while I lived there. I met more people than I did visit new places, but I have no regrets about this. Some of the titles may not seem too self-explanatory... but they bring back great memories for me. If you happen to have had the luck of meeting the people that are in the photos with me... you should consider yourself lucky. Enjoy.

Alive and well... just not blogging.

Hard to believe that my last blog was on 15 June. (Jess, you think 2 weeks without blogging is a long time? Ha.) And it wasn't even a real blog. Just a photo and a comment. Well, I certainly don't have a good excuse this time. I'd simply succombed to laziness. Oh, that, and I've moved to another country.

I'm back in the land in of the rising sun. This time living in... well, near... The City Waiting to Die. (Jess, this plug's for you.) For those of you that aren't aware, apparently Tokyo is sitting perfectly at the junction of not two, but three tectonic plates. Tokyoites are working as ridiculously hard as ever while waiting for the next big earthquake to come and wipe their bustling city right off the face of the planet. Ah ha. I should have made the connection sooner. No wonder I've noticed more and more perverted old men staring lustily at mini-skirted school girls and sararimen flipping through pornographic comics lately. If seismologists were telling me that I was going to meet my maker at any moment, I'd go for the gusto too: neck deep in nudey mags and spending weekday nights at hostess bars and strip clubs.

Or maybe it's just because that's how guys are here in Japan. Duh.

In these last few months, I've seen some things, gone a few places, noticed a lot of funny and not so funny things, and have thought many times, "Damn, Eugene, you need to write about this." So, for the next few blogs, I'm going to be sort of all-over-the-place. Recalling many fond memories of Hong Kong, talking about my observations working (not teaching English... yay!) in Japan for a Japanese company, and musings about life in general.

I think that's about all I can muster for now. Before I go, just a few thoughts that have been keeping the gray cells busy lately...

Pacific Coffee's espresso is rather watered down. Not sure why; maybe they use a lighter roast, maybe their baristas just don't have a clue. Fortunately, they've not penetrated the Japan coffee market yet. For now, and with all due respect to Sacred Grounds, Starbucks still gets my loyalty. Hmm, but may have to start giving Tully's a fair go whenever I'm in Tokyo.

9/11 is a conspiracy. I couldn't have given a solitary hair off a cancerous rat's ass up until this year, when I met Damien. Sad but true... it took a Frenchman to turn my attention to the events and stories that made/make the headlines in my own country.

I will NEVER... EVER... EVER... eat at the Golden Arches again. Kudos to Damien (again) for giving me the chance to see Supersize Me. F***ing disgusting. Hell, I always thought Ray Kroc was a stupid name anyway.

I haven't blacklisted Wendy's yet. I just don't have the heart to neglect the restaurant that gave me the heavenly combination of french fries dipped in Frosties.

Saucisson. A good baguette. Sniff. Probably will never find either in Japan.

The Chinese government has and still is being a %$#*!*@#& when it comes to Tibet. It's not about the people or the culture, I know. But sometimes... I hate where my roots come from.

You've seen the websites for the photos of mullets? I want to start one for photos of squarish, mushroom-shaped, Mao-style crew cuts. There was no better reminder that Hong Kong is back in the hands of China than the sight of a Mao-cut on a Mainlander in TST.

Never would have imagined that I'd ever experience the railway life of a sarariman. But, alas, I've sold my soul for a few measly yen. I sleep on the train. Sitting or standing. Hanging by the straps when I can't beat an old lady to an empty seat. During my morning commute, when I have to change trains, I plan which cars to ride in to ensure I can dash across the station platform to the end of a car of the waiting train (the ends of the cars have corners and thus better seats for sleeping or resting one's head.) Pathetic, I know.

I miss my friends. In the US. In Hong Kong.

Pride is the greatest sin. In Christianity. In Buddhism. Maybe the other religions as well. It certainly is my downfall.

Pico Iyer is one of the greatest travel writers that has ever laid pen to paper. Just wish he didn't tell me the key to my success as a writer lay in me being an engineer.

If there is one thing I will do before I leave Japan for the last time... no, it's not to develop a keen insight into the Japanese culture, that's easy; I'm going to invent a machine that will make eating natto clean and headache and slime-trail free.

A picture is worth eight words

Even the cartoon world's cutest dog has no tolerance for bloodsuckers. My kind of dog. But what exactly is a "mosquito catching machine?"

Exchange

This morning, I caught a minibus to the train station as part of my normal commute to the office. Today's driver was a fairly young, red-haired guy in sunglasses whose driving was Formula 1 inspired. A few minutes after I got on, he stopped for an old lady, who carefully and slowly ambled onto the bus. She swiped her Octapus card (basically, an add-value commuter card) in front of the fare scanner. It made the "Something's screwed up, better break out the wallet and deposit exact change and sit your ass down in the nearest seat before the driver slams his foot on the gas pedal and sends you, your socks, and whatever you're carrying in your hands flying into the rear windows of the bus" beep. Fortunately for her, she had already sat down before the ghost of Aryton Senna once more possessed the driver.

Safely braced in the seat directly behind the driver, she scans her card again. Same beep. The driver breaks his cool, shaded demeanor and says to her in Cantonese between slaps on the shifter, "Your card has no money left on it."

"That doesn't make sense" she replies, and scans her card yet a third time. The same (now annoying) beep graces the eardrums of the rest of us enjoying the race... er, ride.

"You can scan it 10 times, it'll still be out of money."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

*************

Now, as a Westerner, one would read this exchange and think "Golly ("Bloody 'ell" if you're a Brit, "F*ck" if you're from either coast of the US), that driver is rude!" But, in fact, he registered almost no emotion as he spoke to this lady, and for her part, neither her face nor her tone indicated the least bit of annoyance at his "snide" remark. It was so matter-of-fact, so neutral that you could have thought they were talking about the weather or the virtues of double-sided tape.

Cantonese is remarkable, linguistically speaking, in that you think sometimes the person talking to you is annoyed or mad when in reality, they are just offering you some pickled duck tongue to eat.

Tales from the frontal lobe, Part 3

Lately I've been caught up in all sorts of random affairs that, for a normal person with moderate levels of seratonin and a minimal daily percentage of Vitamin D, wouldn't have much of an effect on. But, for me, it leads to disastrous consequences.

One dire result of this neural lapse is my lack of ability to maintain a constant state of concentration on one person and/or thing at any given moment. Thus, my inability to post anything here other than random thoughts and otherwise not-so-random bullsh*t.

Thank goodness for headings like "Tales from the frontal lobe." Indeed, knowing that I'd experience days (or weeks, or months) wandering lost in a cognitive blur, it's the whole reason I started these posts. So, until I think of something better to write about or until Taiwan is officially besieged by the Red Navy (or whatever the hell China calls its sea-going military), on with the show....

The modern, rather art deco building to the left is Peking One is Tsim Sha Tsui. There are quite a few restaurants on the upper floors of this rather cool looking, sail-shaped affair. I'd stay away from San Fransisco Steak House though. Their waitstaff and cooks wouldn't know a properly grilled medium-rare ribeye if one jumped up their collective asses and began eating a watercress and mayonaisse sandwich. The Hard Rock Cafe (as cliche'd as they are these days) offers a much better steak, and is cheaper to boot. And you can watch videos of a nearly sextogenaric Brian Johnson prancing up and down a stage, eyes crossed and sweat pouring down from under his beret, as AC DC plays somewhere "live" in concert. Better yet, if you've got money to burn, a stomach and appetite the size of Indonesia, and a craving for fresh, impecably prepared food, head over to Morton's of Chicago inside the Sheraton. Just a hop, skip, and jump away from Peking One, it's well worth the price and nuisance of wearing slacks.

The two buildings to the right of Peking One comprise the Peninsula Hotel, the shorter one being the original building. If you can pull your eyes away from the array of Rolls Royces, Bentleys, and various Italian supercars parked around it's signature water fountain, allow yourself to be swept into the lobby by the gentle swing of the doorman's welcome. You'll be instantly transported back six decades to a Hong Kong untouched by McDonald's or Starbucks.

I remember standing on the rooftop terrace on a sweltering October night of last year, sipping freshly squeezed orange juice (warm after two minutes and sweating less than me) while waiting for the harbourside fireworks show to begin. Funny, to be standing on the roof of perhaps the ultimate symbol of Hong Kong's colonial period, to watch a show commemorating the day Mao proclaimed the PRC. I remember feeling both extremely cosmopolitan (on one side of me stood a British couple... God save the Queen, and on the other, a rich husband-wife team from Japan) and upper crust. If only the world knew the truth... that my meager monthly salary barely covers one night in the Peninsula's cheapest room. Good thing my relatives are retired and generous.

On the eve of the possibility of a return to Japan, I am already beginning to miss Hong Kong. The wet markets. The streetside vendors selling fish balls and cold intestines. The crazy mini-bus drivers. The signature green and white Star ferries that transport you across the harbour and leave you disembarking on the other side covered in a fine mist of sea spray (read: chemicals). I'll even miss the pollution: the attack on the senses of Europe, Asia, and Africa coming together in one big explosion. Turbans, saris, noodles with lung and pork melt (what the hell, exactly, is pork melt?), rugby, Thai massage for Japanese tourists, and the cackling of five different Mainland dialects (excluding Mandarin and Cantonese) of the old ladies, permanently clad in black silk pants and matching flower-patterned, traditional, silk tops (I swear, they ALL wear these. Every single, gold-toothed one of them. It's amazing) lined up in front of the free clinic. After nearly (and sadly, only) one year here in Hong Kong, it's become my kind of zoo. If indeed I pack my bags for the land of the rising sun, I'll miss this place for sure.

That said... man, you gotta love those nice, clean, quiet Japanese trains.

**Afterword**

"Home is where your credit is good at the corner store." -- Suketu Mehta

To PL: thanks to you, never has the question of "Where is home?" lingered so permanently in my mind. I've never cared so much, I think, to find my home. The feeling of coming home has always come to me, if only fleetingly. Hopefully, you stay somewhere long enough to comfortably accept that it's become home to you, or else you realize the place you came from last was indeed home, and you just failed to realize it, and you go back. Then again... it just could be that I have no idea what I'm talking about. Given that possibility... home just might be where you find the XTC gelato shop where the lady behind the counter knows you when you walk in the door.

Welcome Back

Blog: Eugene, where have you been?

Me: Out. In and out. In Hong Kong.

Blog: You haven't blogged in months.

Me: I know. I've wanted to. Really. But Hong Kong has a way of swallowing you whole. Especially people like me, who get so easily caught up in the riptides of life.

Blog: Welcome back, you lazy bastard. You've been both living life and letting life slip past. It's time again to write about it.

Me: Thanks. Nice seeing you again too.

----------------------------------------------

I'm back from a night of light (read: heavy) drinking in TST with a friend from Japan who is really from Vancouver. My head is thick from the martinis and merlot. It's both wonderfully contrived, strange, and fun to meet up with friends from another continent that you originally met in a third country. A globetrotter I am not, and yet it doesn't take too many countries to meet people you don't want to forget. One minute we're sharing the snow on the cliffs of western Japan. The next in Hong Kong sharing the drink and sweat of Hong Kong.

There is a girl that I know. She is from Malaysia, grew up in Hong Kong, and speaks perfect American English. That vexes me beyond words. She has large, dark eyes that enveloped me. Took me in, made me feel wanted. She is seven years my junior, and yet may be more awake and mature than me. Or maybe not. Maybe she is naive, but maybe I'm naive in believing so. It was my first experience not chasing a possibility with a woman. The first time that I can really say, "What could have it been like? What if...?"

I don't get drunk often. But when I do, I'm always... drunk. Life passes by quickly and unnoticed, in the form of footsteps, moving walls and signs, and people passing by like wraiths. I need to concentrate on not walking into them. Before I know it, I'm home. But not before waking up several times to make sure I didn't miss my stop on the train and bus and end up in China. If I breath hard enough, I imagine that I instantly sober up. Walking in a straight line is no problem for me. It's thinking in a straight line that kicks my ass.

After the rains, the frogs and toads come out. I nudge one with a stick, and it moves blithely along, annoyed by my prodding and poking. I have to remind myself not to step on it. Besides, it's fat, and would have made a mess of my shoes. My friends, the geckos, have been out of sight lately. Usually I catch them by my mailbox or on my kitchen walls. They like to shit in my apartment, maybe to remind me that I'm not alone. Thanks, gecko, for the parting gift.

In TST, there is a place called Chungking Mansion. It's a haven for all things African, Pakistani, Indian, Nepali, etc. Food, movies, phone cards, guest houses, and handbags. The moment you walk in, you're surrounded by men offering you discounts for curry and biryani. You instantly become a VIP, with a card to prove it.

A couple nights ago I shared a Vietnamese dinner with some Japanese, a Beijing person, a Hong Kong person, and a Frenchman and his wife. Six languages were spoken. Spring rolls and noodles with raw beef were eaten. Hong Kong is a place where all things come together. Not in a kaleidoscope, but in a mish-mash. Pakistanis selling you fake Rolexes and speaking to you in Japanese. Australians talking about Thai hookers in a California-themed bar.

It's 2am. With the right amount of alcohol comes clarity, fogginess, and regret. Guard your heart, she said. We're all wrecking balls, you know. We sweep through, by, and past hearts and minds. There is no stopping it, no avoiding, unless you choose to live in a bubble. The risk you take is... that you have an effect on those you encounter. Hope that you leave a good impression; pray that you don't leave too much damage in your wake.

Guard your heart, she said. Impossible. Better yet... to freeze it. Make it numb, inactive. If you don't allow yourself to live... why bother even breathing?

Long time, no blog

I've been distracted of late and thus have been neglecting my blog. So... as a sort of warm-up exercise... here's a little something that not only do I find inspiring but also reflects my current mood.

From one of my favorite American painters, Edward Hopper, perhaps his most famous work.


And from one of my favorite Counting Crow songs:

"If you've never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame."

Whether looking outward or inward... always looking for something and never finding. I had once thought I found what I was looking for, this in the form of a lovely woman. Yesterday I bid my final farewell to her. In the imagined permanence of my life, I'm reminded, rather unkindly, that love is ephemeral, and I'm left looking inward again... maybe to find my own debt of willingness to loneliness?

In a city of nearly seven million people, with an endless pulse that throbs with life and various degrees of fire and light, I can still find my nighthawks.

Life and the Village Banana

I live in a village. It is and is not what you might imagine. Villages in Hong Kong (and China, I'm sure) are small micro-communities. Essentially, a small bunch of village houses built on a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. Houses, apartments, and larger "apartments" that could be considered condos are all called "village houses" when they are located in villages. Regardless of what kind, they almost always have their own individual courtyards. These can be either enclosed with a short fence and gated door or a low cement "wall" (rarely over a few feet tall) with an opening through which to walk. If it were not for these walls, you wouldn't be able to tell where one neighbor's courtyard ends and another neighbor's begins. Thanks to over population and development, most villages now are fairly accessible; they're located near major roads, have their own bus stops, and even have parking spaces for those villagers that have cars. It is a scant 10 minute bike ride from my village to the nearest McDonald's.

Having grown up in modern, middle-class, suburban America, I find myself quite out-of-sorts even just saying the words "I live in a village." For me, the word "village" conjures up images of chickens running about (with their necks wagging to and fro in that strange way that chickens walk), straw thatched roofs, dried meats hung up to cure, and bare-footed children fetching water from the well with wooden buckets. At least, this is what I imagine people think when I tell them where I live. Often, I expect them to compliment me on having discovered the sun blocking advantages of Oakleys over wide-brimmed straw hats.

For me, village life is an amusing juxtaposition of old vs. new. Some of my neighbors don't have front doors. At least, it seems that way. They almost never shut their doors except on the coldest winter days or during the heaviest rains. So I get a short glimpse into their lives whenever I walk past. An old man watches a DVD on a big screen television. His living room floor is cement, and looks just as dirty as a busy sidewalk. His wife, an old granny with skin as brown and dry as parchment, washes dishes outside at a spigot. Her peppered gray hair, streaked black with strands of hair that refuse to give in to age, reminds me of the white bristles of an old Chinese calligraphy brush, stiff and ink-stained from pages and pages of brushed strokes. She places the cleanly washed (or dirty?) rice bowls and chopsticks on the cement just as naturally as we'd stack them in our kitchen cupboards. Moments later, she might be chatting away on a cell phone in some strange dialect that I can't understand.

The family that lives in the house next to me has three generations sharing its roof. They eat dinner outside at a table in their courtyard through which I have to walk to get to my building. No matter how often I do this, no matter how comfortable my neighbors are with it, I never fail to feel both like a voyeur and an uninvited guest. The children sit at the table in the early evenings studying English. After dinner, the adults sit around and chat and play mahjong if the mood strikes them (which, for Cantonese people, occurs just about as often as the urge to eat and sleep). Sometimes, when I come home from work late, the older sister is out in the courtyard spinning a hula hoop around her waist while playing a Game Boy.

This dichotomy, this perpetual dance of notions old and new occurs from both within my own home and the outside world of the village. I have a Timex alarm clock that has a bluish Indiglo nightlight. Very high-tech for something so simple, although I've been using it since 1998. Even though I set it every morning, I rarely need it, as I wake up to the sounds of the village and the countryside coming to life. A distant rooster sounds his daily revely. My neighbors next door (the family of three generations) owns a small flock of geese. They are usually squawking away at each other (often, the geese and the children) only moments, it seems, after sunrise.

From my kitchen window, I can look down into the courtyard of another neighbor who runs a small catering business from his home. He specializes in box lunches. Three other chaps, probably his brothers and/or cousins, are there to help him out. Two take care of kitchen duties while the third delivers the food. I often see him ride off on his rickety bike with four or more orders in plastic bags dangling from his handle bars and another bunch stacked in a basket at the back. They're up well before the sun, chopping away at meat and vegetables and cooking up a storm. I have the distinct pleasure (a bit of sarcasm here) of waking up to the rap of a knife tapping away at a chopping block and the fantastic aroma of sauted ginger and scallions wafting through my open windows. They're so busy (must be decent cooks; I should give them a ring sometime) that I've grown accustomed to the din of their morning routine and can even tell what they're cooking. A crisp staccato means chopping vegetables. A slower, more controlled rhythm means meat. They're gone now; their door and windows are shut tight, the bicycles parked and locked up in their courtyard. The big Styrofoam boxes that they use to wash meat, huge bunches of vegetables and whole fish haven't seen any water in weeks and sit stacked, upside-down, by the front door. Must be on holiday, perhaps back in China visiting relatives and regaling them with stories about life in fast-paced Hong Kong.

Villages tend to have lots of dogs. Some are probably feral but most are people's pets. There are a few German Shepherds, some Golden Retrievers, and even a couple Lhasa Apsos but generally they're of an unidentifiable breed and of the large, wolfish utility or hunting-dog kind of build. I imagine they look much like their ancestors did back when they roamed the wilder parts of South China, hunting rats and shitting in rice paddies. More often than not, they're neither leashed nor confined to yards but rather left out to run free and leave turds anywhere they please. Sort of like Paris but without the cheese and cafes.

I think the Chinese have different standards with which they determine whether a dog is properly trained. In the West, we consider a properly trained dog one that sits and fetches balls on command, and only barks at appropriate times, those being either when given the command to "Speak" or when a burglar tries to break into the house. Here in Hong Kong, the standards are much, much lower. The only requirement for a dog to be "properly trained" is that it doesn't eat your small children. As it were, the dogs bark ALL bloody hours of the day. Incessantly. At anything. At nothing at all. Even the supposed "good-natured" dogs such as the Retrievers. One of my neighbors has two large ones (yes, I'm still talking dogs here). I've lived here for months already; they see/smell me walk back and forth from the parking lot to my apartment building on a daily basis and yet they still bark at me as if I was a complete stranger or a stray cat. The more viscous ones bark and growl at me as if they want to dip me in soy sauce and eat me (no doubt, some of them are probably waiting for that one perfect night when I come stumbling home drunk off my ass.)

What's worse is that if there isn't anything going on in my village to set the dogs off, then the dogs from neighboring villages set them off. These other villages might be miles away. It's as if they're talking to each other; an inter-village canine network. If only I could understand dog-speak, I'd imagine a conversation at around 2 AM to sound something like this:


Dogs in Village A:

"Hey, guess what? When the wind blows, the leaves on the trees rustle like mad! It sounds just like the mating call of a large hoofed animal. And for some reason, now we've got this uncontrollable, visceral desire to bark our heads off and go kill something! Isn't that some crazy shit?!"

Reply from Dogs in Village B:

"Get the fuck outta here! Dude, that's whacked. But strangely enough now we've got the same urge too! Let's all bark together! And let's not stop for the next hour or so, at least! Just to make sure it's all out of our systems!"


Another perk that comes with living in the country (read: jungle) is the wildlife. For instance, I have geckos. One in particular likes to hang out near my mailbox and scare the living bejeezus out of me when I walk up to check my mail. There are also legions of stray cats and kittens roaming about. Every once in a while, I see tropical birds flitting in and out of the trees on the mountain behind the village. I can hear their musical calls in the mornings. And, although I've yet to see one, I'm sure that there are monkeys living on that mountain as well. Throw in the rooster, the chickens, those damn geese, and the never-ending cacophony of raucous dogs, and you have a regular zoo. Orwell must have lived in a Hong Kong village when he got the idea for Animal Farm.

Historically, I believe villages were originally comprised of family members and relatives. Essentially, no matter how distant or close, you could say you were related to everyone in your village. You probably knew everyone as well. Of course, these days, outside of one's home, few people if any are actually related, but everyone (or most everyone) knows everyone else. Such is the charm of my village. You are friends with your neighbor, your neighbor's neighbor, your neighbor's neighbor's neighbor, etc, etc.

I didn't realize it, but it was big news when I moved into my apartment. It seemed that my landlord took it upon herself to notify the other tenants in my building that a foreigner had come into their midst. Apparently, she also felt it her civic duty to notify the neighbors as well. Thus the word spread. There's a guy living in our village that looks Chinese but speaks only English, dresses funny, rides a fancy mountain bike, rollerblades to and from work instead of taking the bus, and doesn't hang his laundry out on clotheslines to dry. Needless to say, when I met my neighbors for the first time, they all knew I was from America. Whenever I speak Cantonese to my neighbors, they speak (or try to speak) English back to me. They laugh when they see me riding to and from the office in tights (hey, it does get cold in Hong Kong in the winter) and a helmet, or coming back from town with grocery bags tied to my back pack.

Unfortunately, just when I started to feel like a celebrity, I discovered that, in fact, there is another foreigner living in my village. Just two buildings away from mine. And he's Caucasian, to boot. I've never met him nor have I even seen him outside. But I have to pass his building every time I walk out of the village to the bus stop and I see him in there every night, eyes glued to his laptop. Probably watching South Park Season Three on DVD or blogging about how cool village life is in Hong Kong. It's both strange and yet not surprising that the only person that I either haven't seen face to face or that I know, is another expat. Well, despite having lost the novelty and title of being the sole foreigner in my village, I can safely say that I am the only "banana" in my village.

Chinese marketing strategy at its best

I'm rather fond of Chinese snacks. I couldn't resist taking a picture of the English description for this particular bag of snacks:

"Chongqing Strange-Taste Horsebeans."

Chongqing is a port city in central China along which runs the Yangtze River. The name means "double celebration" in Chinese. Among it's sister cities include Seattle, Hiroshima, and Toulouse.

I've never been there, but I'd like to go someday. Not only to sample some more strange-tasting horsebeans, but to also see the monstrosity and affront to nature that is called the Three Gorges Dam.

Now that I think about it, I think if I were to ever take the nap that needs no blanket, and the cause of death was from choking on strange-tasting horsebeans due to being too big while my mouth was eaten (Thanks!), I'd like my epitaph to say:

Here lies Eugene. He was a kind man. He kicked the bucket one day whilst eating some strange-tasting horsebeans. May he rest in peace.

Better yet, if whomever wrote it were to mix up the words a bit:

Here lies Eugene. He was a kind man. He kicked the bucket one day whilst eating some horse-tasting strangebeans. May he rest in peace.

The fun that can be had with Chinese snacks... "and hijinks ensued."

Suggestion: don't choke to death. Thanks!

The warning found on the back of a bag of Chinese snacks:

"Suggest consumer: children are while eating, please don't be big the mouth is eaten, so as not to choke, thanks!"

Although I am a big fan of Engrish, the thing that I really loved about this warning is the show of gratitude at the end. The "thanks!" seems so casual, so non-chalant, so matter-of-fact, so... instant messenger chat-like. The feeling I get when I read this is not at all the tinge of fear at the mere thought of a child's potential death by asphyxiation (a crappy way to go for anyone), but rather an "Oh, I see." The same feeling I get just as if I read a sign in a park that said "Please keep of the grass, thanks!"

Tales from the frontal lobe, Part 2

Some randomness....

On McDonald's in Hong Kong:

Red bean pies. Not bad. They have apple pies too. Delicious, as they still deep fry them over here.

Can hear Tom Jones whilst dining on your fish sandwich.

Motto: "Food safety and quality - our first priority." Quality. Okay, no problems with that. But food safety? Shouldn't this be implied and not necessary to be explicitly stated for the consumer? Sort of akin to the police saying "We'll try our best not to let you get killed."

On scars:

I have a round one on my left elbow from when I fell off my bike as a kid. I was on my way to 8th grade orientation during the final week of summer before school started up again. I hit a large rock with my front tire and flew ass over teakettle (I don't know what that means, but I like the way it sounds) over my handlebars.

I once was completely sure about the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I asked her to marry me. She said no, and I didn't know what to do after that. I still think about her. A lot.

Some things never fade.

On ATM machines:

In the US, we have drive-up ATM machines. The buttons have braille on them. How exactly do blind people use drive-up cash machines?

In Hong Kong, the ATM machines have signs warning you of hidden cameras and devices used to copy your PIN or steal your card. (I think I prefer braille). They also tell you to beware of people peering over your shoulder as you enter your PIN.

In the US and in Japan, people stand a respectful distance behind you in the queue while you conduct your transaction.

In Hong Kong, they stand so close they are practically inside you. Guess one needs to pay attention to those warnings.

On Hong Kong mini-buses:

Some of the most fun I've had since moving to Hong Kong.

They have large digital displays mounted for all the passengers to see. The displays show the speed that the driver is going. When the driver exceeds the speed limit, the display starts beeping and a red light comes on to alert the passengers. Some drivers stay over the speed limit, and the passengers are forced to listen to the beeping until they get off at their stop.

They swerve in and out of traffic, run red lights, and take corners at high speeds. People and the government say they are dangerous. I say they are exciting but not for the timid or those suffering from heart conditions. Plus, you rarely hear about accidents involving mini-buses. If they were so dangerous, the media would be crawling all over even the most minor incident involving a mini-bus.

Some of the drivers are the rudest people I have met in my entire life. Some are polite, a rare few even cheerful and will smile at you or give you directions or advise you when to alight if you're not sure. Almost all have faces that tell some story. You can see it when you watch them drive, when you know they're not paying much attention to anything except the road and what's on their mind at the moment.

To be continued in Part 3....

Beef jerky? What's that?

Perusing the aisles of my local grocery store results in some interesting finds.

In the box on the left are dried snake skins. To the right are dried lizards, which apparently were sliced open down the middle and splayed open after their fateful demise.

These are boiled in various herbal soups and other concoctions used in traditional Chinese medicine.

But I'd much rather imagine little kids running around on playgrounds, waving their miniature lizard kites about, and laughing hysterically. Or perhaps old women fanning themselves on a hot day; they had better hope the tail doesn't come off.

There was also this box of dried ducks. Not only were the ducks completely whole (minus the feet, which are eaten separately as snacks) but they were also completely flattened. I took this photo with my mobile phone camera so the quality isn't great. However, look closely enough and you can make out the legs, wings, neck, head, and bill.

I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of eating flattened duck so I can't honestly say how it's used in Chinese cooking. I will say that, when I saw this, I suddenly had an irresistable urge to play ping-pong.

Is that SARS on your tie, or a just a bread crumb?

I wasn't in Hong Kong during SARS, but I had heard that people were afraid to touch doorknobs and elevator buttons for fear of contracting some deadly disease. Like SARS. To minimize the chances of contamination, people used keys, pens, or whatever they had on hand to push the buttons instead. (The really lucky ones used either telekinesis or paid their housekeepers to push the buttons for them).

I suppose that wearing surgical gloves everywhere you went might have been a bit too drastic, although if you were already knocking about in public, you were probably already wearing a surgeon's mask as well, so why not complete the look?

Living in post-SARS Hong Kong, and with avian bird flu the current pandemic in Asian news and on people's minds, I often see signs that Hong Kong people have turned to a culture of fear. Specifically, this fear of the unseen. I took this picture of the elevator in the Consular Visa Office when I went to apply for a visa to travel to China. (A word about Chinese bureaucracy: it is less devastating and far less nerve-wracking to contract a deadly disease than it is to apply for a visa to enter China.)

Of course, I'm a cynical guy. So I highly doubt that someone actually cleans the elevator buttons every single hour in every single day. That's just too difficult for me to believe, knowing how lazy people can be. I imagine, at best, that some cleaning lady gets in the elevator every 4 hours or so and arbitrarily wipes the buttons for some floors, and ignores the buttons for the rest. To be honest, I can't blame her. If I had such a mundane task as that to look forward to every morning I rolled out of bed, I'd try to make it as interesting as possible too. I'd sterilize my phone number, followed by all the phone numbers of my friends and family, followed perhaps by the GDP of all the countries beginning with the letter "U" between 1965 to 1988.

What is strange is that I didn't really feel better at all after seeing this in the elevator. I mean, after all, heaven knows what lurks on door handles to public bathrooms, payphones, and restaurants.

Restaurants. I need a whole new blogsite devoted just to talking about Hong Kong restaurants. It is an experience in and of itself to sup in a Hong Kong eatery (in this case, I'm referring to the shadier dumps... uh, I mean establishments... where you get cheap and fast food). In Cantonese, they're called "Tea Cafes" or "Tea Restaurants." I remember when I was a little kid, I used to eat lunch with my uncle at one particular tea cafe near his office. We shared our daily gastronomic enchantment with old men who sat with barefeet propped up on the chairs, picking away at rotted or dead toenails, coolies in filthy uniforms, lit cigarettes, with an inch of ash threatening to fall into their rice, permanently affixed to their lower lips, brass spittoons that were more often than not, overflowing, and... cockroaches. Everywhere. On the floor. On the walls. Dangling precariously from the ceilings (if I had paid more attention, I probably would have seen them drop like silent ninjas into the soup of some unsuspecting lunch-goer).

Nowadays, restaurant health codes are a bit stricter. (You can still find some roaches here and there if you look carefully enough. Which is to say, so long as you have at least one working cornea, you're bound to see one). What you do find now in most tea cafes is a large bowl of hot water to "wash" your chopsticks, spoon, rice bowl, etc, before you eat. I would highly doubt that water at well below boiling point makes for an effective sanitizer of eating utensils, but I could be wrong. But, I suppose, more important than the actual sterilization, is the notion that you are cleaning something before you put it in your mouth. The Placebo effect, as it were.

Sorry. I'm just not fooled. Besides, regardless of how clean and bacteria-free my chopsticks might be, doesn't it all kind of just go to hell anyway when I have to use them to pick a dead roach out of my soup?