Hong Kong | Day 1

It’s Christmas and I’m alone, eating corn soup with rice and vegetables in a greasy diner in Kowloon, not far from the Chungking Mansions where I’ll be staying for the next seven days with Abigail (who hasn’t arrived yet). Chungking is the notorious “tourist ghetto” of Kowloon, the dregs of the Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood, which, on its own, is a sort of hellish parade of both the money-laden big-spenders and the desperate and derelict. Arm-in-arm they shove their way up and down Nathan Road.

So far my impression of Hong Kong is one of pleasant surprise: It’s easy to get around here, it’s absolutely beautiful (the city’s inlaid with harbors and surrounded by mountains), and, best of all, Hong Kongers speak English (and that’s a vacation in itself). Everything about this city seems to be in opposition to Japan--especially in regard to people and culture. People here are noticeably more curt and straightforward. The intense formalities that are so commonplace in Japan (e.g. grocery store clerks in Nagahama offer 90-degree bows when simply handing me my change) aren’t so apparent--if around at all. The people in this neighborhood are boisterous and assertive, they haggle adamantly for lower prices in the shops, and businessmen (like hotel managers and tailors) are out on the street snatching passersby by the arm. It was a little jarring at first, but it’s actually totally refreshing coming from a country like Japan where not much seems real.

Right now, in the restaurant, one of the servers is lingering near my table after having set down a cup of hot water (just boiled clean) and bashfully wishing me a Merry Christmas. It feels awkward being away from my family in Michigan this time of year, but, in a sense, it’s afforded me (or forced me) to reflect on my current state of dislocation. Still, I don’t feel I have any concrete, steadfast reasoning for coming to or staying in Asia, but, wandering Tsim Sha Tsui today, I felt relieved by my navigational ineptitude. I ended up in Kowloon Park, where locals form cliques around ghettoblasters and dance haphazardly in the shadows of the spotlight flooding a massive fountain, the centerpiece for all this activity.




2 Comments for this Entry

kristin
I WISH I HAD BEEN THERE!
Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 04:35 PM

Val
Your photos are beautiful! And it's so fun to read your comments after I now have met you! Val
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 00:21 AM