the right words ...

There's something about Hong Kong that makes it really difficult for me to write. I'm not quite sure what it is. But, for some reason, despite all of the ridiculous, culturally different and bizarre things that I have witnessed, I can't communicate them to all of you. It's not that I don't want to share my experiences with you, it's just that I can't really find the words.

I walk around and find myself mentally comparing everything to New York, and, even though I know that HK is much more technologically advanced, there just seems to be something missing here that I KNOW New York has. Maybe I'm just biased. Maybe I'm just homesick. But I think that it's something else.

I got to hear a lot of things about Hong Kong before I came here, from people who know the city really well. I learned about how up until very recently it was a British colony, and that the service culture here is excellent. Actually, the service culture here is too good. I asked for the address of a laundromat, so that, you know, I could do my laundry, and I was looked at as though I was crazy. I was just told to send it out for someone else to do. People are supposed to stick to their core competency here and NOTHING ELSE. I guess that includes laundry. For some reason, I can't get something that Kirk said to me a long time ago out of my head: "Asians have no creativity. They're brilliant mathematicians, engineers, businessmen, but they just can't think out of the box." And that strikes me as right. There's no real creativity here.

Actually, that's a little bit of an over-generalization. The architecture in HK is supposed to be the most interesting in the world. And it is. If I can ever figure out how to, I'll post up a couple of the pictures that I took of HK's skyline. It's amazing. Most of the buildings light up at night, many different colors. Everything is glass and beautiful. But, when I put it alongside New York, it still seems to come up short. There's no sense of history to them. There's no stone or brick. Everything is cold steel and glass. It's a bit unwelcoming. I know that brick and stone isn't nearly as aesthetically pleasing, but there's a certain sort of warmth to them. Also, HK, up until extremely recently, didn't protect it's historical buildings. Things would get knocked down to build something bigger, better, newer, with no respect for the history of the places being destroyed. Just the other day, I was told about a mall on Kowloon side were a group of old buildings were all renovated and reconstructed into a shopping mall, with the facades of the building and a few choice walls left standing. Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned, but it just strikes me as wrong.

The Hong Kongese LOVE their shopping. The IFC is the mall that I've been to the most. It's got hundreds of designer stores, gourmet restaurants, coffee shops, jewelry stores, a supermarket, chocolatiers, and a luxury gym that I'm actually a member of. The culture of label-worship drives me insane. Maybe it's because of this odd belief that I was raised with; that you should be ashamed if someone DOES recognize where you got your clothes, whether they're designer or not, and therefore knows exactly how much you spent on them. It makes me uncomfortable. In New York, I know so many people who are ashamed of their money, whether they have any or not. But it apparently doesn't register here. Maybe that's why I get a lot of strange looks from people at the IFC as I wander around in my rummage sale cut offs and black leather boots.

The place that I've felt most comfortable is actually on Kowloon side, everytime. It strikes me as so much more homey, even though it's much less Westernized than HK Island. Maybe because it's much more obviously foreign to me. Taking the Star Ferry over to Kowloon side and walking around in the park area there made me feel a bit like wandering around Dumbo, standing by the water and looking at the city, even though the skyline was much different. T he best part of Hong Kong for me so far is Mong Kok Ladie's Market, where you can buy fakes of ANYTHING. Most of the time they're not actually fakes, just Hugo Boss shirts and Coach keychains that fell off the back of a truck somewhere in China. Haggling with the people that run these stalls is refreshing. Even when you're trying to talk them into charging you less, they're laughing. They don't take themselves seriously. HK Island, EVERYONE takes themselves seriously. It drives me kind of nuts. Hong Kong Island is kind of the Manhattan of HK, and Kowloon is kind of like the Brooklyn or Queens. It's cheaper to live there, and it's dirtier. I love it.

HK is much too clean for me. When I think of Subways, I think of New York's loveably filthy underground system. Here, the MTR is so sterile that I feel like I'm in an airport. The platforms are all accessed by escalators that no one ever climbs on. The people that ride them just stand there, waiting to reach the top. The tracks are guarded by glass so that no one can deliberately throw trash onto them or accidentally fall onto them. No subway heroes here. No one waits for the passengers to disembark before getting on the train [alright, I know that we don't do this so often in New York, but we don't shove nearly as much. For people so docile on escalators, they sure are agressive on train platforms.]

I know that the tone of this post is mostly negative, and I apologize for that. It's not that I don't like it here. On the contrary, I think that it's really cool. But I think a month will be more than enough time for me here. The Hong Kongese are really quite nice (when you're not trying to take the train with them) and the city itself is really quite beautiful. There's a hell of a lot more greenery here than in New York, mostly because HK is built on a series of mountainsides. But it still always gets to me, that lack of creativity. Finding a place that sells manual camera parts has been nearly impossible. Everything is so high-tech, and yet you see all of these people using these intensely expensive digital SLRs to take snapshots. The bookstores here that I've encountered are few and far between, and are generally pretty mainstream. Flower arrangements are something that you can get a degree in. The biggest thing going on in theater here is a tour of CATS! that's in town right now (and, let's face it, it was staged over 20 years ago. It's more than a little dated. And what the fuck is a Jellicle Cat anyway?). The city is colorful, full of street signs in a language that I don't understand. I have yet to find an art supply store, or even a stationary store. Hong Kong is a city stuck between two worlds; that of the Western and of China. It's similar enough to home that I feel comfortable, until I get hit with one of those intensely Chinese things that throws me back on my guard. And I don't realy have any friends here, except for Kirk. It's lonely, because he grew up here. He understands it. And I don't think that I'll ever feel entirely at home here.