I can fly!

Last night was awesome. My friends here went out to Prince Edward in Kowloon with a buddy of ours from class. Wesker was a local Chinese fellow and he invited us to go out and try the local Hong Kong night life.

So of course we said yes.

Anyhow we started out by having some food at a little restaurant that according to Wesker was famous for wonton noodles. So the eight of us each ordered some and enjoyed dinner. It's always good to eat off campus because it is so easy to confuse campus food with Chinese food.

Here's a picture I snapped of Wesker outside the restaurant. Just to let you know, the baby blue car he is styling in front of ain't his. Ha ha ha ha...

Afterwards Wesker took us down the street to a bar he knew. Definitely not a place for over paid expats looking for booze and women.

The bar's name of all things was "Sober Street" and I am not sure why. But I kinda like the irony. Here's a shot of the interior where they had a bar, tables, and some lounging chairs. There was a big screen TV pumping out Cantonese Karaoke videos, and a couple of dart boards.

The bar was full of local chinese of various walks of life. Some were just out for a laugh and some seemed to be running away from their office since they were still wearing their suits.

We ordered three dozen beers that came in a giant bucket of ice! Then we learned the local drinking games where you use dice in a cup, or you use your hands to guess how many fingers will be help up by you and your adversary. It was a great night and good time.

Towards the end of the night I saddled up next to Wesker at the bar and asked him why his name is Wesker. Well, its the name of a character from his favorite video game. Wesker you are so cool, but you just don't know it. Cheers mate!

Nosing Around Yau Ma Tei

Last night I went to Yau Ma Tei to meet an appointment. As I was concerned about not getting into the local scene enough I called up a
Wing Chun Kung Fu school that was somewhat related to the family that I learned under.

So anyways I was invited to attend the class and so I went out to Yau Ma Tei. It had been five years since I last practiced Wing Chun and I was realy more interested in seeing the local version of it.

Just to give some background knowledge, this art was brought to Hong Kong in the 50's by a master named Yip Man. Here it flourished and then reached world wide fame as Bruce Lee was one of Yip Man's later students. The school I visited traced itself through Yip Man, to Chow Tse Chuen, to Donald Mak.

Mak Sifu is a management executive by day, but a Wing Chun Sifu by night. Very pleasant man who is extraordinarily enthusiastic about his art. He was very friendly and welcoming.

His school is a very nondescript shop located on the fifth floor above a pawn shop. The neighborhood itself is rather dodgy as it had a sort of seedy "Wan Chai" feel about it, but for locals instead of westerners.

We chatted and compared notes and I was impressed with how much Sifu Mak had researched other branches and styles of Wing Chun. Well I joined the class and saw just how rusty I was. My reflexes were still good, but my technique had become dull and sloppy.

I sparred a little with the master (chi sau) and I became very aware of everyone's eyes on us. I thought I was doing rather well and got a few shots in. Then I realized that this fellow who was half a foot shorter than me was just controlling the fight. I realized this when he launched a blinding torrent of traps and attacks that ended with a nice shot right up my nose. He held back of course because he should have broke my nose with that punch. But he is a sifu and sifu must take care of their students.

So today I have a slightly sore nose and a humble feeling. I never would have dreamed that I might taste authentic Hong Kong Wing Chun in the city of its birth. I hope I don't wind up getting a shnoz like Jackie Chan's though.

I tried some Candy

This week there is an Asian Film Festival happening in Hong Kong and so I went to check out some of the movies.

I went to the IFC in Central and went for a showing of some independant Hong Kong short films. I like independant film because it is the voice of the little guy and I like that it is the alternative to mainstream rubbish.

When I got to the theater there was this small crowd in front and all these fans and photographers were taking shots of some lady posing in front of the Asian Film Festival backdrop. I stopped to get in to the crowd to see who it was, but I couldn't tell. She had a nice figure but I could see that her best years were past her and she was really heavy on the make up. So I blew past her and got my ticket for the show.

Anyhow I sat through the first movie and realized that the lady out front was the star of this indie movie. It was a low budget film that looked like it was filmed with a camcorder. The acting really sucked and the story made no sense at all. Even the editing was tiresome. At least the actress was pretty.

By the end of the last movie, I had settled into a visibly bored posture and may have let out a groan or two. Folks it was really not great.

Anyways, when the lights went up, a guy with a microphone went up on stage and to my surprise the cast of the first movie was in the audience the whole time. I hope they didn't hear the sound of my boredom. Anyways they had a Q&A session in Cantonese so I didn't know what was going on. The actress was in the centre of her co-stars and I really wasn't impressed with the lot of them. Since the last train was pulling out of Central, I got up and left in the middle of the spectacle.

So when I got home, on a lark, I googled the actresses' name; "Candy Lo". To my surprise she is actually a well known actress in Hong Kong and has done some movies that even I have heard of. What's more she is a successful singer in HK too.

Candy if you are reading this, email me and I'll make it up to you.

ADDENDUM: Off the smokes

Dennis is officially off the cigarettes. It's fun once in awhile but I can't take it in Hong Kong.

"SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy."

I don't want to risk complicating pregnancy either...

A Peek from the Peak

I had been in Hong Kong for about three weeks now and still had not gone to Victoria Peak. So last night I changed that.

I grabbed my camera and my laptop and went on a solo mission to visit the Peak and get lost in the city. After three trains and the tram, I finally arrived at the top of Hong Kong.

It's beautiful there. You really get a sense of the splendour of Hong Kong and the lights and beauty is really not describable. So I won't try to. All I can do is offer a few shots I took last night:

The pictures are a mere description friends. Being at the Peak, surrounded by the light and the grand scale of the vista is a near religious experience. You must go at some point in your life. This was my second time, and much better than my first as the first time was just for 10 minutes as part of an awful tour. Being at the Peak last night was like one of those rare moments when you know you have realized a dream and are in the midst of living out a great episode of your life.

I took out my laptop and started to write for awhile until I killed my battery. Walked about a bit and snapped some pictures. Good times.

Well I got hungry and decided to head back. Along the way I stopped in a local Shanghainese restaurant in Mong Kok and had Xiao Long Bao and Ko Ruo Mian. Xiao Long Bao is a specialty from Shanghai where the steamed pastry encompasses a delicious soup and savoury meat filling. The noodle soup wasn't bad and the pork had a nice slow cooked flavour.


The food was delicious, but let me tell you something. I have had better Shanghai food back in Vancouver. Isn't that a kick in the pants?

China is Raw

I got my entry visa for China a few days ago so on a free day I decided I was going to go to ShenZhen.

ShenZhen is beyond the border of the Hong Kong SAR and is a special economic zone set up in China. I went there to see what life was like in China and to see how different it was from Hong Kong. Actually I also had a healthy dose of boredom too as I was getting tired of reading about Business Strategies in a Chinese Context.
So I made my escape into China.

I took the KCR train to Lo Wu and made my way through the border. There wasn't any hiccups except when I got to the border officer. Right behind him was what appeared to be a doctor with a surgical mask, doing spot checks of people coming into China. Now I am as healthy as a horse, but I did pick up a bit of a cough from that bout of smoking I did. The thought occurred to me that I could possibly be detained on suspicion of the bird flu or SARS. Anyhow I made it through ok.

It was a rainy day and so everything was extra dramatic. ShenZhen was bustling metropolis not too different from Hong Kong. But my advice to travellers is to get the hell away from the train station as fast as possible. The locals know you have cash and want it badly. I went into the malls around the station as I was advised to and hated the experience.

Lot's of desperate shopkeepers and kids lined the narrow halls which were cramped with shops selling all kinds of wares. I could imagine the developers purposefully congesting the blue prints with shops the size of closets to try to maximize the rental revenues. Just pray that no one ever shouts "Fire!" in there or you will certainly be trampled and your carcass used as foot ladder.


So I got the hell out of there. I made my way through the streets and crowds. I didn't know where I was going, but I didn't care either. ShenZhen was the perfect place to get lost for awhile and get a sense of the people.

Along the way I kept getting accosted by these women who euphamisticly offered me "Ah mo" which translates as massages. In the truest sense of the word it is a therapeutic massage that is as innocent as mother to child or patient to doctor. On the street it is something I'd rather not imagine. These women looked hard and pestered me for blocks.

Let me tell you that in desperate circles, the idea of wearing you down until you say yes is the official mode of advertising here. It borders on abuse.

But the further away I got from the station, the better things got. I ducked into a mall or two to see how different the prices might be. They had the usual assortment of swanky shops, but I felt like I was in Winnipeg, Toronto, Hong Kong, or any other place where you might find the sterile environment of mall culture. I checked out of there.

Eventually I found myself in this swirling mass of streets where the real people go to shop and play in ShenZhen. Dozens of stores and compressed hyper malls a plenty. Exotic food stalls and restaurants everywhere. At last I was in the heart of the city and could start to see what life was like here.

I have to say was that life in ShenZhen is very different than in Hong Kong. China is currently favouring development of its coastal cities like Shanghai, ShenZhen, and GuangZhou. Consequently the western areas of China are dirt poor and dependant on agriculture as a way of life. In essence it is a third world on the left side of the map.

So what happens is that a flood of peasants from the West permeate cities like ShenZhen and look for whatever money they can. Whether it is from prostitution, selling vegetables on the curb, getting crappy jobs for almost no pay, begging, or simply stealing what they want. The Chinese government in their infinite wisdom has set up a social divide among its own people that creates social havoc and what I see as a degredation of culture. Why bother to be polite when you are busy trying to eat?

I ducked into a restaurant and had some lunch. Spicy szechuan beef noodles, and pork/chive dumplings with an ice coffee chaser. No I couldn't finish it all. But the whole meal deal cost me 24 RMB so in Canadian dollars its about $3 bucks and change.

Then I headed into the streets again, still mulling over what I had seen today. Interestingly enough I turned the corner and found a small mob of people surrounding what seemed to be a TV personality doing the "Man on the street" routine.

Variety shows are a plague across Asia. They are tacky, slap stick, and staffed by manufactured celebrities. What I mean is that they are all cutsey, meagerly talented, and barely competant. But the audience loves to see them pout and dress well. Wait. Am I still in China or did I transport myself back to America?

Anyhow my verdict on ShenZhen is that it is interesting and fun in small doses. It's got glitz and sensation, until the ugly side of it jumps out at you. Unlike in Hong Kong, you'll see a lot of disfigured and injured people squatting about for money. It's hard to walk past it while you are on the search for that cheap knock-off bag you don't really need.

Lastly, one of my professors predicts that in the near future, China will combine Hong Kong and ShenZhen into one area. When that happens, all that was Hong Kong will dissappear under a torrent of desperate people. Visit Hong Kong while you can, before that happens. May be in twenty years, the Hong Kong you think you know will just be a memory. It's charm and nostalgia is up for sale.

Turkish Delights in Knutsford

Just got back from a place in Kowloon called Knutsford Terrace. It's waaaaaayy nicer than Wan Chai. This is a part of Tsim Sha Tsui where the locals and the expats go to hang out and relax. Lot's of swanky bars and restaurant lounges.

We happened in on a Turkish one that served Turkish food and a wide variety of drinks.

Best of all they offer the Argilie. Also known as the hookah pipe. Here's a shot of my buddy Frederick rocking the bong.

If you've never had it before, its kinda like breathing scented air since the thick smoke is some how unnoticable to you. It's not at all like a cigarette where a puff or two gives you a high. Rather you just sit there, fill your lungs with this cool temperature smoke and then exhale. Ours was apple flavour. Yum!

Gotta give some advice though. When I saw a row of these pipes on the bar behind us, I pointed to them just past a lady sitting behind our table and I yelled, "Hey look! They got Hookahs here!"

Man I still remember the awful look that woman and her man shot me.

Anyways, we will definitely be back soon. The prices are way better than any other place and the food was delicious. And they got Hookahs for everyone!

God I hate Wan Chai

I just came back from a birthday trip out to Wan Chai. It was this German dude's b day so we all piled off to party in Wan Chai.

I hate Wan Chai.

I felt so sick and disgusted there. In all the bars you would see old, fat, nerdy losers from the West picking up desperate Asian girls. These girls were fast and loose and the guys were running around snapping them up. Do you know how sick it was to see some old grandpa feeling all proud and smug as he smooched a little 20 year old filly? Sick.

I spent most of my night outside the bar dragging cigs and shooting dirty looks at these old bastards.

That was my last trip out to Wan Chai. Last.

Adendum: I can breathe again!

Just had my first work out on campus. Was feeling quite crappy throughout, but by the middle of my routine, my lungs opened up again. I could feel the cigarette funk being expelled from my airways. Yay for me!

The five lakes, four seas

It's a free day today here at CUHK so I am catching up on laundry and junk. So while I am at it, I thought I'd reflect on the topic of campus.

It's strange really. Maybe it is because I am new here, but in the most mundane places I can find beauty....or at least my interpretation of it....and I don't mean the kind that comes with a purse.

Here is a shot of the nearby canteen. They serve an ecelctic mix of low priced chinese fare as well as Western food with an HK twist. Ever have ham and eggs with macaroni in a clear soup? That's what I get when I order "ham and eggs".

I love to steal shots of people when they aren't looking. So here we have a couple of guys having a typical breakfast in the canteen. Usually people here are conservative and conscious about how others might regard their behaviour. But at meals it seems like they can literally take a bit of a break from being who they are supposed to be, and just be who they are. So these guys were slurping away, chattering about. I like to imagine that the guy on the left is talking about his woman troubles, and his buddy on the right is pretending to not be alarmed as he casually eats. It's a guy thing.

And here is a small teahouse pond and bridge just outside of the canteen. It is usually hot, sticky, or rainy so when this shot opened itself up to me, I had to snap it quickly.

Seems rather peaceful, and is a bit of a respite against busy school life.

Now this shot is really interesting to me. This is actually the window in my room. From what I guess I believe these marks on the glass came from a suction cup. Maybe a wall mounted block or some Hello Kitty junk (Asif is the expert on that). Anyhow when the morning brings condensation on the window the marks appear and reminds me of some zen calligraphy I've seen before. The fog and mountains really add to the feel. Of course, it is just a dirty window, but if you look past it, there is more.

I better stop here before I get too flakey.

What a great life!

Last night I went to a glam bar in Central called "Red". It was at the top of the IFC building and the outdoor lounge overlooked the city and ocean. Couches and tables a plenty with ex-pats everywhere tossing drinks and dragging smokes. It was like being at play in the neon heart of Hong Kong.

So I met this lady almost a year ago while I was in Vancouver studying at UBC. She came to campus with her company doing a recruitment tour. Well, we hit it off quite well way back then and so I kept in touch with her via email ever since.

Well as life turned out, I find myself in the city she was living in, so I got in touch with her and she recommened we get together at Red.

We laughed and chatted about life in Hong Kong, working here, the people, ex-pats, travel, and most any subject under the sun (moon). Although this would have been only the second time we ever hung out together, it was such a great time we felt like old friends. Good thing too since I think we each had about 8 drinks and decimated a carton of smokes (I wondered how she could have such stamina until I found out that she was Irish/Spanish. Now it makes perfect sense).

At one point I realized that the lights were dim and the drone of lounge noise was gone so I turned my head back to the bar and saw that Red was in fact closed, lights were off, and staff already buggered off. So we literally closed Red down. Not bad for 5 hour stay.

It was a great evening and a bloody cab ride home for me. So here I am thinking that I've met an awesome friend based on a short evening in UBC. One beer back in Vancouver was the cause of one night in Hong Kong. What a great life.....too bad the hangovers come with it like luggage.

The Legends Are True...beer on campus!

Today was all about keeping it real. I went to my mandarin class today, bought some textbooks, checked in at International Centre, and went home for a shower and some rest. Then grabbed a late meal at 3 with some friends at Sha Tin.

Well, we then went as a group for dinner around 8 at one of the campus canteens, when I decided that I needed beer. It was then that one of our friends said that there actually is a pub on campus.

What? Everyone I've been asking has said there isn't but, I felt that can't be true. Now we had a pretty good rumour that there indeed was one.

So we piled on a bus and headed for parts unknown on campus, and eventually found it. A pub!

Once inside we milled around and found it was loaded with fellow expats looking for a little fun and comeraderie. Best of all, they were selling these giant glasses of Hoegarrden beer. I mean these beers were like KFC buckets of suds. It was like the Colonel made beer!

So here I am now, slightly tanked, my cell phone is hemoraghing with phone numbers, and I am drunk on beer and conversation. Cool. Too bad Hoegarrden translates as "sh*tty wheat beer"

See-Food, Eat-Food

On the spur of the moment, Robin and I went to Lama Island today. It's just a short trip by ferry from Central to Lama and it is definitely worth the trip. However a word of advice would be to avoid the upper deck of the ferry. Up there the waves are much more pronounced and so you can get pretty sick. Stay in the lower level. It may not be so grand, but neither is feeling nauseas on the high seas.

Lama is essentially a fishing village on an island where tourists commonly go to hike, see the sights, and then splurge on exotic live seafood. It's the best of both sight ans taste.


Check it out. This old time house was apparently built in 1956 and people are still living in it. In fact they sell cold drinks to tourists while this old ah pek was snoozing in his deck chair outside.

The cave that you see was apparently supposed to be used by the Japanese to conceal boats during the war. But however the cave never was used.

After our jaunt around the beach, we made or way back to the restaurant strip to look for our meal.

After walking the strip we decided on a restaurant that overlooked the ocean and seemed to be the largest and cleanest. Best of all it's washroom was 4 star! So it was a definite thumbs up!

We sat ourselves down and browsed the menue. The good thing was that there were so many great dishes to try. The bad thing was that we could only order four dishes since we didn't think we could eat more than that. So we got some beer (in this part of the world, beer comes in liter bottles. I love this place!) and ordered lai niu prawns, clams, squid, and scallops in tofu. I should tell you that it was delicious and everything was achingly fresh. It made me smile to think that we literally travelled around the world to eat this meal at this place, far from the world we were used to. It was magnificent.

I can't wait to go back again. Next time I'd like to stay for the evening and sample some of the other beauties there. The adventure continues...