Hong Kong Fragments

I am sitting at a restaurant in Mong Kok, the crowded heart of Kowloon, I am the only gweilo in the place, the old woman sitting next to me is very unhappy, upset by my presence, I can only say Please and Thank You in Cantonese, none of the waiters speak a word of English, the woman next to me stops eating and stares at me when I pick up my chopsticks, convinced that I am going to commit some outrage, I point at a plate of dumplings, take a bite and find them disgusting. But I am determined that I will not leave food uneaten. I force them down, reach for my tea, the woman watching me snatches the pot away, I am given to understand that that is her teapot and not mine. I have never eaten so self-consciously in my life. I finish my meal and I realise that I do not even know how to ask for the check.
      I think for a bit, and then simply stand up. As I expected, the waiters rush over, happy to calculate my tab, happy to have me gone.

At the turn of the century, the British Empire, on which the sun famously never set, was in full flower. They were victims of their own successes in Hong Kong, however, the place was wildly overcrowded and had no room to grow. Just to the north China loomed, land rich and cash poor. So a mutually beneficial arrangement was begun - the southern part of the Guangdong province would be handed over to the British in exchange for cash, by the terms of a 99-year lease. Britain thinks in decades, China in centuries - from the Crown's point of view, 99 years must have seemed like forever, but it is not forever. The lease runs out at midnight, June 30, 1997.

I notice that I am obsessed with 1997, with the different reactions to the looming change, I ask cab drivers and people I meet in casual conversation about it, always trying to frame some particular question to get around "Oh, China won't change things, because that will be better for everyone" response. It is the answer to "What do you think will happen?" in the same way that "Fine" is the answer to "How are you?"
      I am also obsessed with the way that the future in Hong Kong is to some people, some organizations, a thing with an end point, not a road but a wall.

I think that one of the reasons that I love Hong Kong so, that I feel right here even when I am unhappy, is that its existence is contingent, it is a city with a wildly uncertain future, I sympathize.

A hacker buddy finds out I am going to Hong Kong. He asks me to do him a favor: can I go to the "Golden Centre" and look for a Windows 95 CD-ROM, which he believes is selling for about $10 American.
      The Golden Centre, in Shim Shou Po just south of the New Territories, is essentially a factory outlet for pirated code. Though I do have some reservations about theft of intellectual property, I am glad enough for an excuse to check the place out.
      I hop on the subway going north, get out at the Shim Shou Po stop, and walk out onto the street and almost directly into a crowd of 30 or 40 people standing in the street. At the center of the crowd are two men wearing wading boots and baggy pants, standing next to 15 or 20 cages of snakes. One of the men takes a snake out of the cage and stands on its tail. It turns, wavers a bit, then strikes ineffectively at his boot.
      The man laughs, delighted at his imperviousness, and the crowd laughs with him, delighted at his confidence. After the snake strikes a few more times, he grabs it behind the head, lifts it up and begins to straighten it out like a pipe cleaner. When he gets to its middle, he twists his hand slightly, and begins to squeeze. Suddenly, a blossom of snake guts bursts forth, the size of a plum and the color and consistency of chewed bubble gum. He then begins to probe around with a razor blade, removing the gall bladder and handing it to his assistant, who then extracts the green bile into a cup of rice wine and sells it on the spot to a waiting customer who drinks it in one gulp.
     A wave of nausea overcomes me. I go into the Golden Center, directly behind the snake market.
     Once I am at the door, a well-dressed young man stops me, he has something important he wants to tell me: did I know that I can now shop from home using my personal computer, via something called the World Wide Web?

Next Page

© Copyright 1996 Urban Desires