Notes from the Political Scene (or lack thereof).

I must say – recent reviews have been less than edifying – which is good, I suppose, in their own peculiar way. It seems my companions have an eye for detail – nay – they read between the lines! Well read on, you Argonauts of the ideal…

An (admittedly quasi-Hegelian) friend said my reflections of late have lacked the enthusiastic world-conquering spirit – a cruel understatement if ever I’ve heard one, for they possess nothing of the sort. Have we grown old, weak and wayward in our geo-demographic dementia? I should think not. We’ve only just begun. Rather than overturn the goblet, one must kiddy-sip the first several rounds. Such are the dictates of Rome. No games when you’ve yet to erect the stadium: you must first content yourself with bread. So pace ahead we shall, à quatre pas du danger, and do as the Kongians do: sweet, submissive and unaffected, remorseless to a tee. I say we’re merely learning the ways of our hosts, imbibing in measured form...

……

Speaking of moderation, Hong Kong is the most politically pacified place I’ve ever stepped foot in. True, scoffs are a dime a dozen from laboring males, but a Hilton Boxer Rebellion we haven’t upon our hands (just yet). My Italian colleague – nephew of many an ageing Red Brigade – bemoans the number of revolutions that fail to envelop the city each day. “There could be thousands!” he cries in resignation, “ripping apart the city’s social fabric in scurrilous human waves!”

I exaggerate, of course, though he has a point. In a city of seven million, the great majority of whom seem content to peddle trinkets, scrub floors and waste away in shops, it is daunting how little sense of strife there is, considering the opulence thrown in one’s face each day. No graffiti, no posters, no scribbling, no chalk, no demonstrations,[1] no signs, no rallies, no forums – no unabashedly nothing. (Perhaps they’ve taken Mitch Daniels more seriously than we have: “America is not a nation of haves and have-nots, but a nation of haves and soon-to-haves”). One spots the occasional nod to Falun Gong, of course, though little addressing local conditions or manners of social organization. Perhaps that’s a good thing: they’ve gone to the root of pride, lust and envy and slayed the beast himself. There can be no banlieusards if we’re all in the banlieues.

That said, the city’s awash in commerce, grease and goons, each battling for hegemony in their own particular way. Glass, steel and gray pierce a teary-eyed atmosphere bursting with fumes and condensation, though not always unpleasantly so. Each day a hundred gleaming Corbusian Yales spring from the ruins of a steady, dank and crumbling New Haven. Erecting well into the starless night, there’s a 24-hour assault on the past, a post-Puritan affront with no remnant of historical decency. Alas, they haven’t the old Calvinist mores to figuratively call upon – merely a post-Maoist malaise they’re helping the mainland overcome.

The newspapers most doggedly reveal this trend. For ten days running, the intrigues of a Mr. Tang have graced the front page of the most renowned English-language daily. Said gentleman is running for Hong Kong chief executive (i.e. mayor, Grand Caudillo of Little Canton) – and his opponents, the press included, have been relentless in their attacks. Graft? Prostitutes? Pension-fund Ponzi schemes? Not quite – though he is part and parcel of the tycoon class.

Some months ago, Mr. Tang put an illegal 2,400 ft. addition into his basement – replete with Japanese tearoom and sauna – without obtaining the proper license. Since the story broke, the front page has consisted of nothing but public-opinion polls and various floor plans plastered across the headlines (“Could you trust a man who violates personal zoning codes to guide your children’s future?”). Then again, perhaps the media hype is but a front for deeper socio-economic dissatisfaction. After all, Tang’s father was a well-known textiles tycoon whose familial constituency has only grown more powerful since the 1997 handover. As a recent article points out, the indomitable property bubble that enriches their likes has only gained in luxe what it’s lost in luster: http://timeout.com.hk/feature-stories/features/48834/evil-overlords-or-lucky-devils.html (Thanks to Harry for pointing that out).

The other story to dominate local discussion since I’ve arrived is a little spat between Hong Kongers and Mainland Chinese that pretends to place a wedge between their fifteen-year Philadelphian hug-fest. In days of old, the latter were demonized as country-bumpkins, pre-modern peasants enthralled to hillside spirits and shuttered huts. In good Cuban fashion, they’d perennially storm the British pearl with dreams of depressing wages and defecating in the streets. Now the opposite has occurred. Flush with cash, they flock to Hong Kong’s gluttonous array of high-end shops to wave their Renminbis about in good post-imperial fashion. In search of political stability, mainlanders buy up the empty concrete slabs that dot the city’s horizon – the vast majority of which sit vacant, while relentlessly driving up the all-too-inflated price. (Read the aforementioned article for more).

But that’s not all. Mainland children also have the audacity to slurp noodles on the subway – a practice strictly reserved to any square foot in the Special Economic Zone sauf le train. Never mind that each station houses (at least one) 7-Eleven, Mrs. Field’s Cookies and Pret-a-Manger: all consumption in public transport is strictly prohibited. As the Mainland girl slurps away, all hell breaks lose. A Hong Konger berates the girl’s uncomely ways, warning her of the health hazards she tempts with her chopstickian wand. This would only bring mamma bear into the mix – who, despite her daughter’s recantations, urges her to slurp on ahead. “Interconnected” as always, another patron-of-both-the-Subway-and-the-Arts whips out his communicative device to detail the oncoming war. Security enters, to no avail. “This is Hong Kong!” screams the enraged local. “You don’t eat dried noodles on the train!” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEComrx76uY)

In the following days a prominent Beijing academic added fire to the (seemingly ideational) flame. Calling Hong Kongers ‘dogs’, ‘bastards’ and British lackeys, he finally gave the papers something else to talk of than Tang. The Hong Kong papers, for their part, responded that mainland women flocking to give birth in the S.A.R.[2] were ‘locusts’ feeding upon their precious maternity wards and forcing local women to give birth in the sea. (Ok, I may have fabricated that last detail for effect).

Sometime later that week the first locally led demonstrations broke out in Tism Sha Tsui, a vibrant shopping quarter on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. More than a thousand people took to the streets in mid-afternoon, demanding an end to discriminatory practices in the city. Just what rights were they re-vindicating - which solidarity did they invoke? At the recent grand opening of a flagship Dolce & Gabbana retailer, a local man was barred from taking smartphone snaps of the glittering storefront. When he demanded an explanation, he was told, “Only mainlanders are allowed to take pictures.”

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[1] Apart from Indonesian domestic workers outside their country’s consulate

[2] Special Administrative Region

A Sunday's Saunter.

Week one at work and play has come to a suitably enjoyable end. While there isn’t enough Jasmine in Jeddah to wrench the violet folds from under my eyes, it is seven pm and another evening beckons. Three more cups of tea, a pack of Ramen, peanuts and a pint of pilsner and we’re on our way.[1] And so it is, this sodium-enriched existence of the globalizing (non)elite.

General reflections are always taxing (most often upon my prose) so I’ll sketch a simple portrait of day one post-jet lag (bare with me). Sunday afternoon I took a bus southward to Stanley, a former fishing enclave now peopled by not-quite middle aged expats sporting utterly attractive multicultural children. What the Embarcadero market is to aspiring (and accomplished) San Francisco bobos Stanley is to sophisticated, family-oriented Hong Kong expats: the harmonious embodiment of all they hold dear. And it’s not too hard to see why. Whereas merchants at the Embarcadero can label their fare “Tasty Salted Pig Parts” (Boccalone) while simultaneously enjoying 50-foot lines of yogafide vegans, Stanley boasts the only bakery in Hong Kong equipped with both the Guardian and the London Review of Books. Never mind that’s the principal reason I went out there (advertising is more effective than we’re often willing to admit): all their patrons were offensively attractive French clans sipping flat whites and mulling over an English scone. In Hong Kong we’ve come full imperial swing.

That evening I head north to Kowloon to embark upon my first solo movie-going experience – something I’ve wanted to do for some time (disclosure: I saw A Dangerous Method alone three weeks ago as my parents watched The Artist next door; doesn't quite count). Known for its expansive parks, raucous shopping quarters and notorious Chungking Mansions,[2] Kowloon is the second most developed part of the city after Hong Kong island (and also geographically part of mainland China). In fact, the famous HK island only holds 1m of the Special Administrative Region’s 7.2m people. Kowloon, for its part, is also more properly ‘Chinese’ than anything on the island. Though home to a considerable chunk of the city’s hotel stock, it’s boom, grind and bustle are decidedly less Western than anything in expat-heavy Central, Sheung Wan or Causeway Bay. Why, I cannot yet properly define, though forthcoming excursions should clarify. But first, back to the movie.

Dining alone is easily justifiable: you’re working late, on the go, in a hurry, etc. After all, we must (calorically) sate ourselves with some regularity. However for some reason solo film going is categorically different. Though essentially an individual experience – or better, one substantiated by an anonymous crowd – there’s an understated taboo against indulging such a subversive desire. Even if “you’ll never see these people again,” you’ve signaled to your fellow cultural consumers that you’re essentially companion-less. Or worse, your crew doesn’t share your cultural inclinations (Not that movie-going cannot be ironic or self-serving: it can and often is). The real reason that solo film going is frowned upon, I’d wager, is the backdoor power of perception it allows its shameless practitioner. Unshackled by muffled pre-show conversation, you can skim the paper through the previews, (unwittingly) eavesdrop on your neighbors (it’s that or deciphering Cantonese mint commercials) or even indulge the odd peripheral glance to see just who is always laughing at precisely the wrong moment. L’enfer, c’est les autres. (N’est-ce pas?)

That said, there’s complete and utter silence once the show’s begun. Not so much as a Skittle pierces the airwaves as the Japanese rape and pillage their way through Nanking for 2:24 hours.[3] Thirty-five minutes into the epic I had an itch on my lower back. Unfolding my left from right leg to readjust, I quickly realize that’s the first movement anyone’s made since the film began. And so it was an hour later when my thigh had a similar favor to ask. Whilst I'm practicing 11^th row acrobatics – shielding my eyes from the screen as my father did during The Titanic – the rest of a practically sold-out venue remain undauntedly stoic as the Nipponese ravage the bodies and buildings of all things China.

As we, or rather I, leave the cinema I’m both flabbergasted and fuming. Would one’s reaction be different having seen the film in Harlem? Perhaps. All the same, it's difficult to stymie one's indignation. Citing that AA Gill piece[4] over and over again while vowing to never forget, you’re even more curious to see the reaction of the Chinese upon leaving the cinema. Everyone's aware of the deep regional mistrust toward the Land of the Rising Sun, but this was far worse than anything I'd seen regarding the German menace over many a Memorial Day morning marathon growing up. What visceral rage awaits me in the bathroom chatter down the hall? Will they be uttering old Nationalist hymns of revenge? Or cursing the skies as they pass the Japanese life-style boutiques and sushi restaurants that line the exit of the theatre? Not quite. (Remember it’s not as though we keyed every Mercedes outside Plaza Frontenac after seeing The Pianist).

Civilized and subdued as ever, they whisper amongst themselves and head for the back exit into the mall. Some go for ice cream, others head straight to the escalator. A super-fly couple gets into the elevator with me. I’m dying to know what they think, but they utter not a word. He gets out his smartphone and peruses the screen. She glances at the faded mirror of the elevator door, a motion neither of us admit to noticing.

Six floors southward I leave the mall and rejoin the madness of Nathan Road where giant neon fixtures pierce the only virgin sliver of sky. A parting sea of glass, steel and concrete quadrilaterals compete for breath along the boulevard. The air is cool, if humid, the crowds as careless as when the sun went down – Nanking but a figment of our imagination.

[1] Bear in mind this first paragraph was written Saturday evening, i.e. I’m not raging this peaceful Tuesday morn as I complete this.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions. Thanks to Ned and Thayer for pointing that out.

[3] Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t like it though I did: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1410063/

[4] “Mad in Japan,” http://spillly.com/mad-in-japan-an-entertaining-read-via-brodieg

Some Preliminary Observations

There is a fine line between culture shock and cultural chauvinism that I have every intention of straddling: I only ask that the reader give one the benefit of the doubt. After all, no one’s interested in smooth or effortless transition. Seen from afar, (cultural) friction begets fascination. From up close, however, suspicion and bewilderment launch a lethargic insurgency. Combined with travel fatigue, the enormity of the outside world – that callous and monolithic beast – sets one asunder. You burrow into your room, light a cigarette and watch the news go by. The markets this, the markets that. But who will deter the scions of steel from grinding stone outside my window? The clock is well past three.

The East is thrusting itself down a star-glazed tunnel and all I can do is watch. Slumber looms, if only half-earnestly so.

The first morning I awake, I step out of my front door and am met with the guileless indifference of a human tsunami. Alas, one has little choice but hopelessly paddle forth. Despite advice to the contrary, you’ll spare yourself much grief by focusing on the ground fifteen feet ahead. Find your forty-five degree angle, locate a fleeting shimmer of pavement, and pounce from crack to curb, dodging young and old alike as they careen at you from every direction. Eye contact is only for those swollen with the arrogance and cultural ineptitude born of continually casting oneself apart from the ‘locals.’ (“When they come gunning for you on the sidewalk,” says one expat banker, “Look them straight in the eye, plant your shoulder and charge. Reciprocal force is the only language they understand.”)

Or so it would seem. Within a matter of days the hue of things begins to change. Not that the Hindenburg of sodden overhead grey would dream of receding – that seems here to stay (at least for the season). But the acerbity of human interaction caves to a new master. The malaise of sensory overdose starts to fade, revealing suppler sentiments. Belligerence gives way to buoyancy, confusion to curiosity. A watering hole emerges on the Gujarati plain.

What on Friday morning was a mindless horde of magpies is by Sunday afternoon an intricate web of beavers weaving fashionably to and fro. The outline of their faces begins to emerge, dispelling the cruel monotony of ignorance in which they were first perceived. And yes, my friend, they’re much flyer than you’ve imagined. Squarely bespectacled and draped in swooping blacks and greys, the quirkily coiffed locals expose the expats for the paunchy aesthetic bores they are. Superficial, perhaps a many, though never blindly so: no two cats rock the same maddening kicks. Bowler hats, suits, Varsity sweaters, puffy-Seinfeld blouses and sear-sucker lined khakis abound. They’re an aesthetic breed apart. Of course, what lurks behind the meticulousness of their façade is far more difficult to disclose – but that remains the case with any tactfully displayed human specimen. Bereft of primitive human insignia – that of need, trespass or desire – the signs are always harder to decipher. But amply there they are, and not without their own touch of bravado.

That’s not to say they haven’t their share of downright foolish fare. As in any respectable consumer-society with a hint of OCD, they most certainly do. To mention but a few: Auntie Anne’s, that doyen of American delicacies, secured a booth in one of the most upscale shopping malls in Hong Kong, a nine-story affair that boasts car dealerships and three-star restaurants, among others. Whilst in the basement, alongside the gourmet grocery store (which stocks Colman’s English Mustard, among other international goodies), it still caters to the young and (fashionably) ambitious multitudes. Hence reads the advertisement for their freshly made sausage rolls, handcrafted “For Epicureans on the Go.”

As you mount the endless escalators, the joyous birth pangs of discovery scarcely abate. For starters, you will be sweetly surprised to see that Lane Bryant caters to (categorically) slender Asian women, in striking contrast to its American counterpart. The same pleasantly bland Bebel Gilberto ditty rings forth from every shop, cosmetics to jeans and sushi-bar alike. Samba aside, for all the Chinese antipathy toward the Japanese, the latter exert a formidable cultural sway over all things gastronomically, commercially and cinematographically minded in Hong Kong. A subject I shall invariably touch upon in later submissions.

As we near the upper and decreasingly frequented echelons of Babel, the pleasant surprises show no sign of abating. On one floor is a flashy new French boulangerie, replete with leather armchairs and ‘atmospheric’ music to boot. It sits between a luxury watch retailer on one side and a wine merchant on the other. Neither have any patrons. The eighth floor hosts a sprawling new Starbucks, which boasts considerably more patrons than its French counterpart a level below. Most surprising, however, is a vast bookstore, Page One (motto: “Every book starts with Page One), which emerges as an oasis in a desert of monotonous glitz. I peruse the aisles out of curiosity and stumble upon the first four English language sections: General Psychology; Self-Enlightenment; Self-Enrichment and Metaphysics. The latter boasted titles such as The Power of Now; Reading People; What Everybody is Saying and Feng Shui for Dummies. That said, their history and politics sections were quite good, if rather expensive ($30 and upwards per title).

Indeed, the delights of Asian consumerism have literally no bound. While more than several of the previously mentioned titles are invariably imported from the US, the marketing illuminati appear to be homegrown to a large degree. Or they’re Brits having far too much fun. Take, for example, the major watch retailer who’s plastered billboards in every metro stop across town reading, “Time is Love”; or the swanky ‘lifestyles’ store called Homeless (http://www.ilovesoho.hk/shops/homeless-flagship); or the Japanese sketchbook called “Jotter Pad”; or the “Pick Your Nose Party Cups” that come replete with a Gallic nose and rouged lips painted on the side to give the momentary impression you’re a seven-foot white woman as your drink your spiked cool-aid. The list could go on and on and on.

Conclude, however, we must, though not without a final word. As in all great capitalist enclaves, the real innovation begins with the t-shirt and slowly makes its way to the hoodie. As the great Kenneth Wilkinson once said, the rest is just details. Hence my joy as I ambled about the streets of Wan Chai and saw the following t-shirts draping the breast of man and woman alike:

YES!

WHAT IS THIS?

JUST SMILE!

Or

Hello, I’m Mr. Right Now

Or

TRUTH HURTS

Or (my personal favorite, across the bill of a young man’s trucker’s cap)

Hegemony

Yes, the latter was in cursive script.

Departures.

Upon the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses.

-Montaigne

It was not without a heavy heart that I left home last Friday. I had to chew upon my cheek to suppress the tears as I bid my parents good bye. Such is life, they will say. As all good idle days must eventually come to an end, I finally set upon my first post-academic path with a one-way ticket from Saint Louis to San Francisco, and another henceforth to Hong Kong. A foolish and even reckless decision, I thought and now certainly know, though one that must see itself to fruition all the same.

I shall not bore you with tales of Californian connivance: you've been there before, in spirit if not in body. That is not, however, to show ingratitude to my lovely hosts: you know who you are. If it were up to me, I would retire to Napa tomorrow to fish, frolic and fete the passing of time. Alas, we are still young, poor and restless - and shall be for quite some time (the latter if not the former). As sensory neophytes, there's much we've yet to endure.

It is presently six in the morning, standard People's Republic time, though I've been up since four. A bout of insomnia? Not quite. I dozed off round 8pm last night and am now left to pick up the pieces. Thanks to the World Wide Web and some lovely speakers from my sister I can listen to Sam Cooke's 'Change is Gonna Come' and Shostakovich's 'Waltz No. 2' over and over again. I doubt the neighbors will mind, if there are any: I live in a five-floor walk-up through the back door of a hair salon in the shopping district. Like my grandfather used to say, it could be worse. And that's some solace in a strange and, dare I say, uninviting land, is it not?

Where to begin? I'll skip the marvelous ride from Thayer's place in the Lower Haight to San Francisco International and go straight to the flight. Boarding's to begin at 2:40pm - 1.5 hours after the scheduled time of departure - and the mass of tepid humanity waiting to cross the Pacific begins to grow impatient, if not weary. Without any prodding, they begin to form a single-file queue from the check-in desk to the furthest reaches of the Olympian waiting room. Not everyone, of course, but easily over half amass their belongings and make that quintessentially British leap of faith. (Good to know someone still does: Lord knows they don't in India). In the meantime I took the opportunity to occupy one of two computer-friendly desks that had just freed up. I would need a proper desk if I was to make any progress with this tiresome translation of Montaigne's Essays (The perils of consumerist indecision: I had to buy something at City Lights - though I also thought of dear Rimoch in doing so).

Anyway, their collective praxis began to take a life of its own: the more they lined up, the more excited the crowd became. If we build it, they will come. Godot is just around the corner. The earlier we board the plane, the less of a 12-hour flight this will be. The pilot is bound to finish his bloody mary any minute now. Or sext-message. (Whatever it is they do pre-flight). Finally, as if to pop their elusive balloon of aggregate optimism, the overhead speaker awakened. "Flight CH975 shall not board until we say it does. Might you kindly return to your seats." Dejected, they do so without a murmur. At least we tried.

I often marvel at how despicably spoiled some of us have become. One can traverse the globe in less than 36-hours for the equivalent of less than a month's wages (I realize that's a very, very relative figure), yet we rarely know how to grin and bear it. We look for endless diversion, the miracle time-and-distance-disappearing mechanisms we have back on the mainland. Of course, when I say "we", I mean me and my fellow first-world-first-worlders and first-in-third-world-worlders, most of whom I suspect of being as base and fickle as myself. Not content with contemplating the prospect of crossing the ocean in a flying bird, we look to film and media to get us over the hump, without which we're often as clueless as an Amazonian in the Beltway. Which is why this particular flight was so refreshing, if such a thing can be said of elevated, enclosed spaces in the company of 500 cross-oceanic strangers.

As we boarded the flight, the Mandarin crew offered each patron from a selection of newspapers: the Chinese accepted, the Indians (most of whom were Sikh) kindly declined. The former ambled through the news for 30-45m and dozed off. The Indians, for their part, hit the sack upon settling into their seats. I, dreary eyed and somewhat nauseous, took meaningless stabs at Montaigne. When that didn't work, I switched to Hobsbawm, another pigheaded idea. Whether it was fear or trembling that finally put me to sleep, I shall never know. I did, however, wake up in time for the first of two on-flight dinners, a motley of roast pork and noodles.

It was with some surprise, then, when we effortlessly landed in Beijing. Thoughts adrift had done their part (along with a chemical inducement at some point), and here we were, in the beast of Middle Belly. Though an angry lad took my matches at customs, central planning more than compensated: the awe-inducing facilities of Peking's landing ground was replete with a Costa Cafe and ventilated smoking room. 30 seconds later I was joined by a paunchy little man in a baseball cap with an electric flashing green bill. He would keet it on for the duration of the flight to Hong Kong.