Friday, June 17, 2005

a harbour view

it's 0201am.
it's hot out here in hong kong.
it's cold in here in the room.

feet ache from overuse of 3" inch heels.
back aches from ascending hilly roads and steep stairs.
eyes hurt from lack of sleep and dry eyes.

when we first touched down in hong kong, i was horrified at how some of the mainland chinese behaved. we were in the train on the way to customs and this obviously mainland chinese lady (so says my chinese friend) pushed so hard when the carriage was obviously hard. she forced her way in, then shouted above the shuffling feet, toppling luggages and gasps of horror and disgust "just come in! come in! come in!". i almost fell over from the force. a little girl in front of me almost got squashed between the support pole and three luggage bags bigger than she. and this moronette kept on encouraging her fellow friends to just force their way in.

i.could.have.whacked.her.face.with.my.laptop.clutched.tightly.between.arm.and.body.

then immigration - reminded me too much of malaysian customs at KLIA.

on the airport express to the international finance centre in central hong kong, my colleague commented "you'd either love hong kong. or absolutely hate it. i hated it. now i don't really feel anything."

i love hong kong.

i dont care how ching it is. being a foreigner gave me a false feeling that i was an expat. and there are more expats here than in singapore. although hong kong is distinctly chinese, my subconscious could not help but register all the subtle (and not so subtle) british influences all around the islands.

and ships - so many of them.

and water - so much of it.

it's surreal. hong kong is just a maze. the roads are a challenge, the buildings are somehow connected by overhead links and the neon signboards calls for a camera with good battery standby.

i could stay here. for three to four years. but i could not live here. reality would set it too soon.

and the food - i'm not a chinese foodie. did not realise this till a colleague suggested chinese food and i didn't realise i was grimacing. it would, after all, be my 3rd chinese meal in two days. this is more than how much i'd usually take in a year.

the clubs here are promising, crowd is friendly, atmostphere electrifying.

and tomorrow, i mean today, i will visit a few more clients, hope to hop onto my company junk and suck in the sights on the water.

i hope, that it will not be as hot and humid as tonight was.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

ah...welcome to HK. already told u to be prepared for some "ching-chong" surprises. A & I had 1 lady who pushed us so hard, A nearly fell. We couldn't take it & #$%^& back in Mandarin. Nice. For once they kept quiet, looked sheepish & gave us 2 feet of space. Felt great after our lashing out. Don't underestimate a country of diff nationalities, we are bi if not multi-lingual. esp. fluent in $%^&* language.

Anonymous said...

dali take care. n go easy on
the hk-ers. when u msged me i
was in malacca.

Anonymous said...

YES! that's what i should have learnt! to curse in mandarin. fuck. the only thing i know is, hehe, "ch**bai." all i could do was shoot her a venomous look.