(*) The title "Hong Kong: China Light" refers to skin color. I had previously traveled to China - Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Qingdao, and Huangshan - and my travels in Hong Kong, compared to previous chinese experiences, were remarkably different. First and foremost, the Chinese individuals residing / visiting in Hong Kong were visibly lighter and fairer in their skin's complexion. I suppose you could mark this up to the entire Great Britain colonizing Hong Kong and making it a special governmental province thing. It also seemed as if Hong Kong was the pseudo fashion capital of china. I'm again guessing this has its basis in the heavy western influence offered / forced upon the local population by great britain. i felt i was in hollywood, but on LSD. not that i've ever taken LSD. but it just is what i assume LSD would do to your mind - make it explode.
i truly felt i was back in the good ole us of a, even though i had just left it, and was merely in a portion of a city with a high degree of chinese individuals residing there. even the amount of chinese / asian individuals in hong kong was not up to what i expected. the population of hong kong consisted of a remarkable amount of muslims and africans. i would have to say there were about 1/2 light skinned asian individuals, 1/4 africans, 1/4 indians, with white travelers / ex-pats / business individuals peppered throughout. i had not expected this type of diversity, and that reality took a bit of getting used to.
the entire idea of the white and faired skin being that which represents true beauty in the asian culture, was extremely prevalent. excuse my fascination with this, but it goes against every social more i've existed under. in the US, we have tanning beds, the beaches, sun tan lotion, and other forms of latin american / african american skin coloring copyright infringement. white people want to look darker in america. thats why my ridiculous sister goes to a tanning booth in chicago during the winter prior to her heading to florida - she wants to get equally good doses of skin cancer and a "base for her suntan in florida". so when i come to asia and see advertisements for local products with either (a) skinny white american/european young anorexic girls/women, or (b) airbrushed white skinny white asian young anorexic girls/women, it tends to make me face the fact i am half way across the world and experiencing a different culture.
so the entire point of the above portion of this entry is that, although Hong Kong is usually depicted as a Chinese city in one way or another, it is almost nothing like any other chinese city i had personally ever visited. i also get this same type of feedback and comments from individuals who have traveled throughout asia. you can even tell from merely the restaurants, this is not your traditional chinese city. previously while traveling through china, it was somewhat difficult to find an authentic western restaurant of some sort, if not impossible. not the case in hong kong.
notice the "spaghetti restaurant" and the "irish pub". seriously, its amazing where the hell you can find an irish pub if you absolutely have to.
(*) As I get off the plane and swim my way through customs and other border non-sense, my head is still attempting to wrap itself around the fact i have flown 14 hours and change from chicago to a point nearly half way across our small little globe. I follow the english signs towards baggage claims. Ah yes, the english captions under local signs and symbols. there will be more entertaining instances of these amusing translations. but for now, i'll leave you with this small tidbit.
i am amused b/c, although i have been alive for 26 years and a bunch of days, i've yet to ever see a sign in america touting of a pharmaceutical office like walgreens welcoming their customers with merely a sign that reads "drugs".
i arrive at the luggage claim and recite the customary "please god don't let the good employees of United Airlines lose my bag" prayer. that would have made for an interesting beginning to the trip. no bag. eventually i see my black bag roll around the corner of the baggage conveyor. the bag slowly moves up from the hole that spit it out, whose origin is always unknown and mysterious, and towards me, but not first without causing me to fall in love for the first time during the trip. there will be others. the bag moved past, the closest thing i can say to describe this woman without sounding like an utter jackass, a gorgeous hipster (used endearingly this time around) of asian descent. a skirt that had no business being worn in anything but a night club of which a sample of our chicagoan population would describe as "classy" "ritzy" or "posh" or of which a sample of our chicagoan population would describe as "douchebaggy" "euro-trashy" or "i gave up on my life and now no longer care how society views me". the t-shirt was the first of many which would amuse me. this one was something along the lines of a t-shirt reproduced to look as if it were old, nostalgic, and original: it was reproduced to be viewed as a shirt she had purchased at the original concert, with all original cuts and tears, and fringes - back when the band last performed at their greatest concert ever in 1973 prior to the drug-induced suicide and eventual breaking up of the band. if that were true, i too would wear that shirt. but (1) she looked no older than myself and attendance at said concert would have been impossible, (2) she didn't seem to be extremely hardcore. maybe it was the gucci handbag that threw me off, or perhaps it was the dolce & gabbana luggage that made me call bullshit on her t-shirt.
plus the t-shirt was a Sex Pistols t-shirt, and as i would soon come to realize, those things are a dime a dozen in china / asia. despite the vast majority of these individuals having trouble with the english language. and if they are having a difficult time understanding my english over the background drone of motorbikes and street vendors, i'm uncertain as to their ability to lock into what exactly johnny rotten was yelling about. perhaps i'm just being naive.
(*) Pizza Hut & KFC are deemed to be fine dining in asia. and i curse zee germans, especially sabine, for forcing me to eat at a KFC in Hanoi, Vietnam. Yes, she put a gun to my head. we will get to this later. if it troubles you so much to see the photographic proof that KFC is a fine dining establishment, fast forward to Hanoi, Vietnam. Maybe the 2nd day.
(*) After falling in love and getting my bag, which i also love, i took the train from the airport to Kowloon. Even within the airport, after stepping out of the luggage claim area, i was immediately hit square in the cheek with the type of ultra-modern looking architecture that is somewhat symbolic of hong kong. i feel absolutely uneducated speaking of architecture after traveling in the arhcitectural auspices of sarge, but i simply felt at times that i was existing in a city that was from the future. hong kong offers you a vision and representation of what the year 2068 will look like.
then again, i could just believe that in the future, the color of orange will take over.
at kowloon, i transferred from a free shuttle (the stop was labeled as K2), in order to get to Hong Hum Train station. at the moment i had believed Hong Hum train station was somewhere in the middle of all the action. later on i would find this to be true. somewhat. although i disagree with aspects of the Lonely Planet and those who use the Lonely Planet as a bible from which one must not depart, it definitely saved my ass in Hong Kong.
the train from the airport to Kowloon was ultramodern. it had a television for those of you sitting on it to watch. picture the chicago el train, and then, in order to turn this into the train i was on - gut the entire train, install soft comfortable benches on both sides of the train running perpendicular to the walls of the train, with each bench allowing seats for 2. then put a tv, clean carpet, and remove all smell of urine. BAM. you have a kowloon train.
there was a common area for people to places their luggage. but as aesop reminds us backpackers while traveling - must not sleep, must warn others. so, don't trust others. don't trust locals. its a difficult way to live, especially for someone who is politely disdained at times for my inherent and foolish wish to trust people. but it is necessary.
i got off this ultra sleek train, jumped onto a free bus shuttle, and took it to the 4th stop - Hong Hum train station.
(*) fucking shit this place is hot & humid.
(*) seriously, i'm constantly sweating.
(*) Made way to Nathan Road with the help of the shite Lonely Planet map. by the way, would it kill Lonely Planet to insert some maps that aren't at times utterly and completely useless? I was on the march to find "Chungking mansion".
(*) I walked west from the train station and found my way to 40 to 60 Nathan Road - the area of Hong Kong which is most affordable for backpackers to find a place to stay for the night. and as i reached 40 to 60 Nathan Road, i got my first chance to reenter the world of bargaining. its odd how capitalism cuts you out from that world. think of 2 buildings in chicago. then imagine never having lived or visit chicago. then imagine not being able to speak the language or read the signs. then land at o'hare. then make it 9pm at night.
now, go & find that hotel.
looking back, i'm amazed things tended to work out. especially with regards to the navigational chip that so often shorts out in my head. magellan i am not.
(*) For those of you who have not been to asia, first, i suggest you go. second, you must barter for everything & anything. i've bartered at restaurants, hotels, and obviously the street. when bartering, your goal is not to screw these people over. after all, the individual with whom you are bartering and attempting to secure goods from, may always say no. you are not placing a gun up to their head. there is still a sense of capitalism in that the holder of the good may refuse to give up his or her control over the property if the individual wishing to receive the goods is not exchanging something of fair value.
when bartering, your goal, as a white backpacker in a foreign asian country, is not to get uber hosed. as you travel throughout asia, you learn there is a 3-tiered pricing system of goods. the first is the local price. you as a backpacker will never get this. we found a few small exceptions to this (.12 cent beer and free fruit), and we'll get to those later, but for the most part, this rule is the golden rule. the second tier represents "a good deal". the local individual is still making a handsome price of you (since you are not a local and presumably when they sell the product tolocals they are still making a profit) and you as the traveler are not paying the 3rd tier. the third tier represents "screw the traveler". here the seller is making a killing, and the traveler is getting screwed. the traveler may be getting screwed for several reasons. first, the traveler may be so rich and old (your grandparents who travel the world), they could care less what they pay for these things. surprisingly most of the time, this tier of pricing is still cheaper than what you would pay in america. second, the traveler may be so naive and fresh to the scene (the traveler who first steps off the plane in say hong kong), they don't know any better.
after some getting used to, you can reach the lowest level, which is the 2nd tier good price, directly at the border of local first tier pricing. i'm happy and proud to say by the end of my trip, i reached this level. i even have a certificate saying so which i display proudly on my refrigerator via magnet.
my first offer for a room was 150 hong kong dollars. this is nearly $20. no thank you. the second offer was 180 hong kong dollars. with 8 hong kong dollars equaling $1 us dollar, the price of $22.50 was not appealing to me. i'd rather stay up all night, scared out of my mind on the main street, and then sleep on the train the next day, then do that. hey, i was on a budget. the 180 hong dollar offer came from a larger bigger taller (not tall and bigger in fat tall american terms, but from an asian perspective), and as i attempted to bargain, it was easy to see she wanted me to die. she wouldn't budge from 180. i smiled, and attempted to bargain. after speaking with her friend, she shot me an evil, hey whitey go crawl off and die look, i smiled back at her and said in english, "you wouldn't look like an evil Fred Thompson if you smiled". her facial expression yielded no response.
The third offer was 100 hong kong dollars. all right. after a bleak attempt at bartering, it was obvious this was the set price. and the documented "accountant books" of the "hotel" in "chungking mansion" proved this. these are all in quotes because they are all misnomers.
The "hotel room with single bed" that the guy told me i could get for $8.50 u.s. dollars was smaller than a prison. I could not extend my legs fully across the bed. the air conditioning unit was nasty with a dirty wall fan to accompany it and a ceiling fan which had accumulated dust since adam first ate some fruit from some tree. this "hotel" was on the 4th floor and it did not have a window. the "chungking mansion" is 17 stories tall. the first floor of the chungking "mansion" was a strip mall. there were small stores selling various small pieces of tourist crap, small food vendors, bootlegged DVDs, bootlegged CDs, bootlegged jeans, bootlegged t-shirts, bootlegged water, and bootlegged trinkets. floors 2 through 17 were filled with hotel rooms and small restaurants.
as you would get off the elevator (which took 15 minutes of standing in line to get onto), you could go left, or you could go right. on my floor, a step to the right lead you towards a very small and very dirty indian restaurant. a step to the left lead you towards my "hotel". the hotel was nothing more than the "lobby", a "bathroom", 4 "hotel rooms" and a "kitchen".
the "lobby" was maybe, MAYBE 8 feet by 10 feet. there was a tv in the corner and when i entered, an old woman, presumably the mother, staring at the television. she said nothing to me. didn't even look at me. so much for customer service. when i left the next morning at 8am, there were 2 men / boys (the children i'm guessing), sleeping on the tile of the "lobby", with a fan blowing air over them. it literally took me 5 minutes to tip toe over these two bodies in the morning, with my huge bag and my other oversized bag, trying desperately not to step on their backs. i succeeded. but not without some hesitation, some nervousness, and a dose of good luck.
the "kitchen" was only a sink and some type of oven that was run by being hooked up to a propane tank. i'm sure that met all local fire code standards.
the "bathroom" was 3 feet wide by 6 feet deep. there was a sink that was about 8 inches by 8 inches to your left as you stepped in. then on the left hand side, to the immediate left of the sink, was the "shower". and by "shower", i mean a faucet that poked out of the wall that rained water down upon you. ironically enough, hot water too. then to the immediate right of the shower, was the toilet. a good old western toilet. as opposed to the eastern "toilet" which is nothing more than a hole in the ground.
the bathroom was so small that as you showered, the water would splash into the sink, onto you the bather, and then onto / into the toilet. it was kind of fun and a lesson in efficient use of bathroom space. take that martha stewart, you psychotic thing you.
my personal favorite, the bedroom. ch-ch-ch-check it out. wha-wha-what's it all about.
notice the walls coming apart. the room was 3 feet by 5 feet 9 inches. i say 5 feet 9 inches because i couldn't extend my legs the entire length of the bed. i also had to keep the tv turned on all night with a towel over it, so that the opaque light of the tv kept the roaches away. and no. i didn't get much sleep. that was one of the longer nights in my life.
forgot to talk about a detail of the elevators. the elevators were the slowest things in the world. what made them even more entertaining, and which offers a microcosm into china, is that there was an attendnat there who worked the elevator, who made sure everyone stood in line. see, the chinese have a problem with lines. i don't know if they simply don't like them, or there is something in their culture which labels lines as bad. but they just simply do not believe in lines. at first i was offended that people were cutting line. but with me being bigger than most (which is pathetic) people there, i decided that when in rome, do as the romans do. local asians must have thought i was a mob god with my ability to push, plunder, and absolutely annihilate lines by getting to the front with the greatest of ease. i also think they revered me b/c i made an excellent lead blocker in getting to the front of the line. i simply find it ridiculous that someone's job in hong kong was to make sure people stand in line for an elevator, and ensure too many people do not enter the elevator at once. i imagine the elevator-line-checker's evening out to go something like this.
"hey gorgeous, what are you doing here?"
female bats eyelashes.
"oh, me? nothing. just got off work, came here to relax".
"me too. just got off work."
female becomes interested.
"oh really? where do you work at".
male elevator-line-checker proudly,
"i work over at the chungking mansions. i make sure people are in line for the elevator - i run some of the tightest, most orderly lines in all of hong kong".
female swoons and is in love.
(*) surprised by number of non-asians in hong kong. especially indians and africans.
(*) everything is white / pale skin. it is interesting the ratio of white models & asian models used in advertisements.
(*) after checking in to my hole, i walked to Victoria Harbor. gorgeous. hong kong loves neon. the architectural style of hong kong could best be described as highly influenced by crank & neon. there were some buildings whose entire colors would change due to LED lights or neon. and by "some", i mean a good 25% of skyscrapers near the harbor. I walked by the hong kong culture center & movie star path. I walked to the end end of Victoria Harbor and back into an ultra modern ballermall. the store of tommy hilfiger, with an extremely large american flag, was the most nauseating store to walk by. here are some pictures from my walk. by the way, 7-11 is huge in asia.
(*) Hong Kong fashion. as an expert people watcher, hong kong's sense of fashion blew me away. everywhere i looked, there were hardcore american hipsters: Nike, Adidas, Tommy, v-necks, striped v-necks, ridiculous trucker hats, ridiculous belt buckles, ridiculous mullets - ridiculous ridiculousness. for the next person that goes over there - do me a favor. print out some fake business cards that say something like "Vogue Street Team", and take pictures of locals. tell them you are doing an expose on hong kong street fashion. i can't even talk about this anymore because it frustrates me to no end that i failed to do that.
(*) Hong Kong is a delightful recipe made up of 1/2 Britain, 1/2 China, sprinkled with crack.
(*) Wandered into an arcade with electronic horse gambling arcade game. two things to notice from this. first, arcades are very much a large portion of asian lifestyles - whether the arcades be in the form of either a gambling casino or a true arcade with whack-a-mole and crazy japanimation street fighter type games. and they are all filled with an overpowering cloud of bootlegged chemical filled cigarettes. i don't think the cigarettes are bootlegged, i just think the chemicals used in the cigarettes are bootlegged.
the second aspect of the chinese arcade to extrapolate from this visit was that the chinese were so occupied with gambling, they cannot even gamble on real live horseraces. these gamblers had sunk so low into their lifestyle, that they would watch a computer animated, computer generated horse race on basically a large plasma tv screen. the animation looked like the cut-scenes you would get to after beating 3 characters in a row in Mike Tyson's punch out. we're talking shite graphics. and yet there would be 4 or 5 men sitting there, chain smoking, gambling. wow. if you're going to be a degenerate gambler, the least you can do is get out socially and bet on real live things. i wanted to grab these men by their non-popped members only jackets and tell them, "my god man, be a desolate gambler in a social place where there are other gamblers who have given up on their lives and families and friends". but i don't think they would have understood me.
(*) the evening flea market = insane. and humid. have i mentioned how f-bombing humid this place is? the market allowed for one stream of two way traffic. there was literally (stall)(shoulder of person going one way)(shoulder of other person going other way)(stall). it was hard enough to take my camera out & take this amateur photograph.
(*) I walked past Kowloon park which had a soccer field & a huge city swimming pool in the middle of nowhere. i am particularly proud of this self-portrait i created with my best friend at the time - my tripod. additionally, i took this picture as 6 shady looking pack of hong kong hooligans walked by me & eyed my camera.
(*) as i was on a budget, hong kong was the beginning of utilizing some of the most important information i learned during my undergraduate studies: chain smoking helps kill your appetite / stomach's appeal to please be fed as it is starving.
(*) there are just so many shops & people on top of each other. continuous sensory overload.
(*) while walking around aimlessly, i was actually given a compliment. yep. in english. which shocked me even more. the more surprising part? it was uttered to me concerning my physical features. yep. i kind of looked around, just to make sure the person was talking to me. what's even more - the person who uttered it was female. oh hell yeah. a female commented on my physical features in a positive way. i must admit, i too was slightly shocked. the statement?
"come see beautiful girls here, handsome".
you got that right. never mind the fact it was uttered by a 55 year old woman who only wanted me to spend money at her whore house. she thought i was beautiful. and the thing is, she doesn't even know about my inner beauty.
(*) travelers in countries such as asia, where your chances of western toilet versus eastern hole in the ground toilet is about 20/80, know that Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds are not to be referenced in regards to their food. No, they are the public water closet. that's because since i'm white, i can walk into any mcdonald's or kfc, and use the water closet free of charge. and as these are western restaurants, their bathrooms 75% of the time will have western toilets and 95% of the time will be clean. the KFC in hong kong was no different. good work hong kong KFC bathroom attendants.
(*) in hong kong, as it was once ruled by the british, the cars are on the opposite side of the road. its a good thing i hadn't started drinking.
(*) plethora of double decker buses. its as if every other bus you would see hustling through downtown chicago was a double decker.
(*) not only do the cars drive on the opposite side of the road, the drivers are on the passenger side of the car. its like hong kong does this on purpose, just to add to the mountain of other things that are constantly sending off seismic charges in your brain; preventing it from putting together a rational thought.
(*) More cell phone stores than anything. There were 3 cell phone stores in a row on a relatively main and busy street. i wonder if the managers of each store talk shit about the other stores to their customers.
(*) My feet began killing me in hong kong already. which was odd b/c i brought one pair of new balance shoes that i had previously had for several months. unfortunately, this would not get any better, and for the following 3 weeks i would battle approximately 10 blisters: one of which is still healing today. a big thank you to sabine, one part of zee germans, who had some foot bandages. or else i may have had to have my right foot amputated.
(*) I was exhausted at the end of my first night in hong kong. i had walked several miles that night, and being that i hadn't done much of any physical exertion in america, my lungs & legs & entire cardiovascular system really didn't understand how to deal with this entire notion of "physical effort".
(*) I eventually found my way back to the hostel. i took the wrong set of elevators at first, but finally got to the right floor and into the right hostel. i tried to sleep at 11pm on a saturday night in hong kong. i didn't go to the irish pub, spaghetti house, italian restaurant, or burrito loco. i didn't have money, and quite honestly, i was fucking tired. i knew there would be other nights for drunken debauchery and the like. i put on the television to keep the bugs out and put a towel over the television as a dimmer. as i napped on and off as my body was still good & fucked up from jet-lag, i continuously found myself checking my ipod to see what time it was.
here is a picture of the outside of the chungking "mansion" on nathaniel road / backpackers road.
a typical view from a typical hong kong street.
and remember, joy and peace.
