Posts in category "Random"

Government House

Going up the stairs to the Government House

Thumbnail: Garden path
Thumbnail: Side of garden
Thumbnail: People sitting by the fountain
Thumbnail: Chinese scouts
Thumbnail: Different levels in Government House
Thumbnail: People and flowers
Thumbnail: Photographing flowers
Thumbnail: Trees and buildings
Thumbnail: Sidewalk view
 

I went to vis­it Government House, which is the offi­cial res­i­dence of the Governor of Hong Kong1. The gov­er­nors were all Caucasian, aside from when the Japanese invad­ed, since they were appoint­ed by the British gov­ern­ment. Now they’re all Chinese, and they don’t live here any­more, as a sym­bol of China’s new pres­ence and to lessen the impact of old British lega­cy.

It was a chance oppor­tu­ni­ty, because it’s only open to the pub­lic twice a year. Which pret­ty much means that it’s packed, even by Hong Kong stan­dards. People seemed to real­ly enjoy see­ing the expan­sive gar­den and the din­ing rooms where offi­cial func­tions are held. For me, it was a good chance to pho­to­graph locals, and an impor­tant piece of Chinese his­to­ry.

  1. Now renamed the “Chief Official” after the China takeover in 1997. [↩]

Five Year Timestamp

People here say I’ve changed.

Me and grandma

It’s been five years, and my grand­ma used to describe me all the time as “seun”, a Cantonese word for “pure, clean, unmixed”. But when I arrived last week, she said she would­n’t rec­og­nize me if she saw me on the street.

They used to say I looked like Leon Lai.

Leon Lai

Yeah, this guy. Now they’ll con­cede that I’m bet­ter look­ing than my dad.

People notice the white hair and say I used to have a baby face. That I’m old­er. Or more mature.

It’s true that I feel com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent than the per­son I was five years ago. I tend to reflect and eval­u­ate on a dai­ly basis (which is far too often) so I nev­er get a sense of any long term changes.

But now that I’m in Hong Kong again, and I look back on the per­son I was the last time I was here, I see the changes much more dras­ti­cal­ly.

It’s reflect­ed in ways that I’m not accus­tomed to notic­ing. Not just in the way I see the world, but from the way I han­dle things. The way I speak with those old­er than me. My inter­ests in what they have to say. I did­n’t even start work­ing yet the last time I vis­it­ed.

But at the core, I’m still the same per­son. The same morals, the same log­ic, the same intel­lect. It seems like it’s only the way these core traits man­i­fest them­selves that has changed, most like­ly from the things I’ve been through.

Five years is a long time to be so blind to these changes.

It’s quite sur­pris­ing.

The Usual Comments And Questions

Pretty much every­one I’ve met so far has said one or more of the fol­low­ing things to me:

You have a lot of white hair. They see it main­ly in the sides of my head, where it’s short­er and more obvi­ous. It seems like most peo­ple in my fam­i­ly dye their hair black, so my grey stands out, even though I’m youngest.

Are you dat­ing any­one? This is usu­al­ly fol­lowed by, “Are there any girls are after you?”, which is a sort of way of fig­ur­ing out if you want to date, or just don’t have the option.

Is your Tai Chi teacher white? Except instead of white, it’s “guai” or “ghost”. This is the only ques­tion I resent, because I feel like I have to defend the fact that he’s a com­pe­tent teacher, even though he’s a “for­eign­er”.

You’re a hand­some boy. The word for hand­some in Chinese — “leng” — is the same word for pret­ty when applied to girls. This one is good. I like this one. More peo­ple need to say this to me.

Aren’t you cold? It’s get­ting very hot and some­what mug­gy, so I’m wear­ing as lit­tle cloth­ing as pos­si­ble. This is in con­trast to every­one else, who are still wear­ing scarves and coats.

Do your tat­toos come off? Although the lit­er­al trans­la­tion is more like “Do your tat­toos wipe off?”. Many peo­ple here don’t know how tat­toos work, which is under­stand­able, since they’re so uncom­mon. Related to this is, “Did you draw it your­self?”. This ques­tion sur­pris­es me, because the char­ac­ter was drawn by arguably the most famous Chinese cal­lig­ra­ph­er, Yan Zhenqing, and is so beau­ti­ful and per­fect and far beyond some­thing that I could have done myself.

Typical Of My Dad

(This hap­pened in Chinese.)

Around the din­ner table, my aunt men­tioned that it was her daugh­ter’s birth­day, and that it hap­pened to be Friday the 13th. My dad said to me, “Isn’t your birth­day on the 13th too?”

“I don’t know”, I said rather loud and sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

My dad was in trou­ble. All the fam­i­ly around us real­ized that he does­n’t know my birth­day. So he said a date (and year, as if recit­ing a his­tor­i­cal event) with a hint of uncer­tain­ty in his voice.

I don’t think he was ever more relieved than when I told him he was right. Not because he got the right date, but because he did­n’t seem like such a bad father to every­one else.

This City Lets Me Live

Boundary Street Balcony — Sunset

I think it was some point between hail­ing a taxi to meet my Uncle Joe, and the com­fort­ing famil­iar­i­ty of find­ing myself in one of the same malls I was in five years ago, that it real­ly sunk in.

I’m in HONG-FUCKING-KONG.

The con­stant din of traf­fic and peo­ple reminds me of the way New York nev­er sleeps. It pul­sates and breathes, as if it was a body. I won­der how there can be so much life in such a tiny city1. None of my words, pic­tures, or videos could ever do it jus­tice, because it’s the expe­ri­ence that makes it real. The things that can’t be said. Like the way peo­ple treat the elder­ly. The every day sig­nif­i­cance of food and eat­ing well. The mil­lion sub­tleties of the Chinese cul­ture.

The temp­ta­tion to move here is com­ing on me again, with every street, every sign, every per­son I pass, every day gone by. Maybe the tim­ing is right, where I find myself not only root­less in Ottawa, but with a sense of for­lorn­ness attached to the city as well. I’m begin­ning to won­der; what can I leave behind? What do I want to leave behind?

  1. Half the area of Ottawa, with over sev­en times the pop­u­la­tion. [↩]