A Chinese Story

Having fled Vietnam just in time I found myself in Hong Kong with a few days to kill. Since I didn't know anybody I headed over to the local Jewish organization. When they turned out to be arrogant and unhelpful I realized I was going to have to take care of things myself.

Out of necessity I ended up staying in Chungking Mansion, where a tiny little room with a fan could be had for the bargain price of only 80 Hong Kong dollars a night. Imagine if Phamn Ngu Lao, De Tham and Bui Vien streets were crammed into a single shabby high-rise and the Vietnamese replaced with Indians and Africans, and you have a pretty good idea of what Chungking Mansions is like. Decent curry though.

Hong Kong isn't much of a city to look at - just endless skyscrapers housing offices, apartments and shopping malls, with elevated walkways between them to avoid the drudgery of having to descend to the lowly earth. On street level, Hong Kong resembles nothing so much as simply a Chinese New York with British street names.

It is notoriously short on sights. There's the harbor and the Big Buddha and some decent parks and even a Disneyland but didn't appreciate them.

You see, I was in a lather because NOT ONLY did the French people decide to go to Paris without telling me or leaving a forwarding address, leaving me stranded, but my backup plan - teahcing summer camp in Zhuhai, China - was canceled due to swine flu. At my wit's end I stormed into the office of the Education Company (I'd rather storm into Jean-Marc Merlin's office, but he's out of reach) and demanded they give me money or, failing that, employment. Eventually the agreed to give me a do-nothing job in Huizhou, a city near Canton.

So now I'm in Huizhou, which I suspect was devised by some clever Ministry of Tourism initiative to make every other place in China - maybe every other place on earth - look fun and exciting. My teaching starts next week but it looks like my classes will have less than 5 students each.

China is strange. It pretends to be Western with it's high-rises and straight streets and Macdonald's, but just under the surface it is far more bewildering than anything I encountered in Vietnam. Also the censorship si really bad; i can't get on Youtube or Facebook, and I can only update my blog now because I got a 'proxy server' to get past the firewall.

Wish I were in gay Paris, but that'll have to wait. I'll still be back in Vietnam come September.

Tam Biet, Vietnam

So Now I'm in Hong Kong awaiting the next leg of my journey...and a good thing, since it turned out my Vietnam visa expires on Tuesday. I got the day/month thing mixed up.

So, since I'm not in the spirit for a lengthy introspection, I'd just like to say that I appreciate all the people I met in the last year and I'll miss you...at least until September.

More Like 'Singariche'

The best way I can describe Singapore is basically as a very luxurious retirement community. It's warm. It's clean. It's well-organized. There are plenty of laws to keep the young'uns from getting out of hand, cheap and cautiously spicy Asian food, and non-threatening English-speaking minorities.

Also there are shopping malls everywhere. If there's a global recession on, you wouldn't know it from Singapore. The shopping, dining, and construction is blazing ahead at a rate that makes HCMC look quiet and indecisive.

Setnoas: A kitschy little island to the south of Singapore proper, with theme rides and beaches and aquariums and other stuff for children and their grandparents.

The Esplanade: A durian-shaped performing arts center (and shopping mall, of course) right on the bay.

Singapore Art Museum: A charming modern-art museum with some rather bizarre exhibits, such as a video of a Vietnamese artist cutting up dozens of pieces of pork, putting them into glass boxes and placing said boxes on the subway escalators.

Sir Raffles believed that ethnic groups should each have their own little enclaves, and so:

Little India
Chinatown
The Colonial District
The Arab Quarter

All pretty much what you'd imagine them to be, with the appropriate restaurants, shops and temples.

Then I was late for my flight and had to spend all day in the airport. I suppose you could argue most of Singapore is basically an airport mall, but it still wasn't fun...

Oh, and the Merlion! Half fish, half lion, it's the national symbol of the city-state which in an odd way manages to represent the dual East-West nature of Singapore itself, or so I just made up.