Tag: China

Hong Kong hustle

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment
Bustling, blinding Kowloon, Hong Kong (the only photo here I didn’t take)

The last time I was in Hong Kong it was the early aughts, swamp-butt sweltering in May and as crowded and jostling as Times Square on a swarming summer night.

Laptop open, I write this on my return to the sprawling urban archipelago, propped on my hotel bed, gazing out at floor-to-ceiling views of striking Victoria Harbor and about ten thousand skyscrapers, a glass and steel thicket that plays exuberantly off the verdant, low-slung mountains that make Hong Kong’s terrain so famously picturesque — columns of concrete hugged by lavish foliage. 

On one side of the narrow harbor is the at once lush and deliriously vertical Hong Kong Island; on the other side is Kowloon, all crackling neon bustle, where I’m staying. It’s January and a merciful 65 degrees and the colorful crowds are maddening and unbudging and beautiful. It’s a blast, really.

Politically, Hong Kong is of course a complicated place, a “special administration region” of mainland China, operating with the constitutional principle of “one country, two systems.” If you follow the news you know how that’s working out, bumpy at best. I vow not to write anything here that will rankle the tetchy government and get me deported or worse. I’m not a big fan of prison meals.

I’m on day four of six, and so far I’ve taken a six-hour walking tour of city highlights; watched the popular Wednesday night horse races at the fabled Happy Valley track; did a day trip to the island of Macau, a Portuguese territory until 1999 and, thanks to its glitzy-kitschy casinos, known as the Las Vegas of Asia; visited two exceptional art galleries and the impressively sleek Hong Kong Museum of Art; relished a private three-hour food tour with the sweet, dynamic and aptly named guide Angel who offered everything from dim sum to donuts as well as cultural and historical appetizers; and strolled the renown Temple Street Night Market, where heaps of cheap souvenirs, name-brand knock-offs, geriatric karaoke, fortune tellers, and grilled octopus and other exotic street vittles conspire for an electric buzz.

Hong Kong is curious. Its population of 7.5 million — unfailingly polite and helpful are these folks — skews palpably young; every other person looks to be between 15 and 35, though officially the median age is 46, which is young, but still. As a former British colony, English is pervasive. I haven’t spoken a word of Chinese, not even a “hello” or “thank you,” which is about the extent of my local vocabulary when abroad. 

In many ways, from the sheer human density to the boisterous food culture, HK reminds me of Tokyo. Excitement reigns. Weaving among bodies on the skinny sidewalks — many of those bodies staring at their phones — you pass shops hawking chunky beef offal, luxury bags and watches, shark fins and sea cucumbers, medicinal herbs and incense. And scads of busy 7-Eleven stores, like two per block. It’s a carnival of smells, sights, lights and humanity — especially as it’s the Lunar New Year, year of the snake — a heady, bracing brew that fuels my love of travel, my intemperate wanderlust that makes my heart pound and my feet ache with throbbing delight.

Some Hong Kong visuals so far:   

Nan Lian Garden
Dim sum beef balls
Macau island
Famed Ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral, 17th century, on Macau
View from Victoria Peak on HK Island. Kowloon is on the other side of the water.

Lighting prayer incense in Litt Shing Kung Taoist temple on Hollywood Road
Hong Kong Island’s nightly light show, viewed from Kowloon

Talking to myself

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

When traveling alone, my inner mind buzzes so feverishly with thoughts, words and soliloquies that I often forget myself and think I’m making a racket that everyone can hear.

But no one can hear me, I realize, and I fall back into the hermetic hum. The brain rattles in verbal commotion, synapses chatting away, echoing through cranial canyons. It’s the classic internal monologue, an incontinent loop. (Do I ever get tired listening to myself? And how.)

In countries where I don’t speak the language — most of them — I can go hours, even whole days without uttering a word. Transactions are reduced to semaphore and sign language. There’s lots of pointing. The lingua franca of a candid smile goes a long way.

Talking aloud is good and healthy. Being a mime all day can be suffocating while alone on the road. You need to air out. I’m always relieved to hear my voice stir to sonic life at the end of the day when, say, I order dinner at a nice restaurant and converse with a waiter, or, if lucky, when gabbing with patrons at the local pub.

I blush to admit I’m terrible about learning languages of places I visit. It’s pitiful, really. I’ve never used a phrase book and only bother to learn terms for “hello,” “goodbye,” “please” and “thank you.” (In French and Spanish, I also know “Do you speak English?”)

And that’s always been enough (except with cab drivers, who invariably need written directions). English is so uniformly familiar around the world that I find getting by something of a breeze. 

Still, those basic words — spasiba (“thank you” in Russia); proszę (“please” in Poland); bro! (“hello” in Las Vegas) — are invaluable social tools that make life easier amid the exoticism of a new land. 

But there I am, tramping across jungle villages and cluttered cityscapes, locked in my own head, mostly mute but open to vocal interaction, the human touch. I can tell you there’s nothing like laughing with a local during a far-flung voyage. 

When you’re going solo, getting out of your head takes an effort, as does anything worthwhile. It’s easier than you think. And the rewards are rich. Just watch as the elderly shop lady goes from mirthless money taker, pensive her in her task, to beaming with gratitude all because you simply said xiè xiè (“thank you” in Chinese ) with a smile. It’ll make your day, and possibly hers, too. Nothing is lost in translation. Everything is gained.

Travel travails: trying to jettison on-the-road angst

~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

Just before I embark on my vacations people reflexively ask if I’m excited and looking forward to it, assuring me I’ll have a wonderful time and wads of other tinkly bromides. Invariably I grimace and nod, “Yeah. I think so … Sure. OK, thanks.”

But I’m never sure, and it’s not OK. As I pack and prepare I’m a minor wreck, wracked, withdrawn — enthused, yes, but freighted with the cargo of myriad far-off what-ifs and other terrifying variables.

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I have no qualms about flying; I like flight. My innate angst resides in about, well, pretty much everything else: Flight on time! Make my connection! Will it rain at my destination! Will my Airbnb be as cool as the photos! Will I be able to communicate with the locals! Will I get robbed! Will I contract a food-borne illness! Is that baby-jar museum as rocking as it looks!

I had a small stroke applying for my Russian visa recently. As I’ve noted earlier, it was a multi-tentacled task and very pricey. With the stroke, I developed a bleeding ulcer. For some reason this trip — much more than my jaunts to China, Vietnam, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria — has me more angsty than ever.

I write this today attempting to relax in United Airlines Terminal C at the airport, from which I’ll depart to St. Petersburg, Russia, with a brief stopover in Zurich, Switzerland. I have mere minutes to catch my connecting flight. The layover is impossibly miniscule.

It is not promising. I have four stomach-twisting inklings: 1) I will miss my connection. 2) I will be spending the night in Switzerland, on my dime. 3) My luggage will be in Russia. 4) I will lose a day in St. Petersburg. (Bonus inkling: I will sob.)

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Besides that eventuality, I am also worried about the fact that you can’t drink the water in Russia — it will do a number on you. That’s barely a concern. Bottled water is a cinch and I’ve done the don’t-drink-the-water routine in several countries. But will the hair dryer work sufficiently? Will I fumble financial transactions, not knowing well the rubles/dollars exchange? Will my accommodations’ TV have satellite or simple local cable (I kinda need my CNN)?

These are obscenely, stupidly first-world worries, of course. I do swimmingly out of my comfort zone while traveling and I revel in the developing-country experience. I’ve proven it repeatedly. But I’m weirding out a little this time.

Relax, you’ll have a great time, they say. And I believe them, shakily. I’m conjuring my own anxieties via my own dark thoughts. These are fictions. I’m in the airport, through security, decompressing, with hours till my flight. I have a glass of wine. The journey has begun, and it’s not half bad.

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The Himalayas, out the window, above Nepal.