Posts tagged with "Hong Kong"

The Hong Kong Packing List

Things I’m tak­ing on my trip to Hong Kong include:

HK Fullscreen, Revisited

I have a tick­et booked to Hong Kong at the end of November. I’ll be stay­ing there for a lit­tle under a month, dur­ing the Christmas sea­son when the entire island looks as if it’s one big orna­ment from the sky, a giant float­ing dec­o­ra­tion. The best weath­er of the year is in December, when the tem­per­a­tures drop to a rea­son­able warmth and one can actu­al­ly walk around with a coat on.

I’ll be try­ing to learn the sub­way sys­tem for the first few days so that I can get around on my own. I’m going alone so I’ll prob­a­bly be liv­ing with my uncle most of the time, and stay­ing at my grand­moth­er’s on the week­ends. I’ll be going home first and stay­ing there for a few days, then fly­ing to Hong Kong, then fly­ing back and stay­ing home for New Years. I’ll meet up with Ken the day before I depart from Hong Kong, since he’s fly­ing up from Ohio.

I can’t wait to get back to the busy mar­kets, taste the Chinese food, browse the end­less shops. I want to ask my grand­moth­er so much, and cel­e­brate Christmas with her. I wish there was some­thing I could give her that she could keep, sim­i­lar to the jade neck­lace she gave me that I’ve almost nev­er tak­en off ever since I received it. There’s an almost inef­fa­ble feel­ing that’s con­jured up in my mind when I think of the mod­ern sky­scrap­ers, the crowds of peo­ple, the very eth­nic faces. Some of my best mem­o­ries are from being in Hong Kong dur­ing Christmas, when there’s an almost mys­tic feel­ing in the air and every­one is in good spir­its.

I’ve been want­i­ng a vaca­tion, from both the good and bad in my life, for so long. Just to get away from absolute­ly every­thing going on right now would be ben­e­fi­cial, almost like a self-imposed exile. I’d be able to dis­tance myself from things and gain some per­spec­tive, some­thing I usu­al­ly believe I’m able to do until some­thing dras­tic hap­pens that changes the way I view things.

I’m not real­ly sure what to expect from my vis­it, although I think that I’ll be changed ever sub­tly, maybe sub­con­scious­ly. One can rarely walk away from such things with­out being affect­ed in some way, per­haps both Tina and Em would agree. I just don’t know how this may change me. I don’t have any ques­tions. I’m not look­ing for answers.

I’m just wait­ing to find out.

Days At Trolley's, Phases, Etc.

I woke up at 3:33 ante merid­i­an and, unable to sleep, decid­ed to write.

I’ve been busy. I spent the last three days at Trolley’s, sleep­ing on his couch, and gen­er­al­ly stay­ing up late play­ing Wind Waker. It’s been an amaz­ing game so far, and even though it seems to be too short, it’s been an unpar­al­leled expe­ri­ence. I met Adam and Matt on Friday, so we went out to Minglewoods and sat out on the patio, even though it was­n’t quite patio weath­er yet.

Dolly and Nala did­n’t get along togeth­er well. When they saw each oth­er, they tried to stare each oth­er down. Nala’s tail dou­bled in size as she made a low growl. Dolly just hissed back. Apparently, cats intro­duced to the same liv­ing envi­ron­ment are sup­posed to spend around the first two weeks with­out face-to-face con­tact. Dolly stayed for a few hours at Trolley’s any­way.

My trip to Hong Kong has been can­celed, due to the lung virus that’s been going around. Yet anoth­er time that my trip has been can­celed. Visiting Hong Kong at least once more has become one of my goals in life now, some­thing I feel the need to do before I die.

I am now offi­cial in one of my typ­i­cal “Jeff” phas­es, where I start to freak out near the end of the term. Progress on my final project has been dif­fi­cult, not some­thing which is not com­plete­ly (or at all) my fault. I found out that I was too late in request­ing a marks shift in my graph­ics course, so my 35% midterm now counts. This means that I will need rough­ly an 80% to pass the course. Since this is my final term, I may not be grad­u­at­ing until I can make up the three cred­its. I believe I have a back-up plan, which involves tak­ing a soft­warre engi­neer­ing course dur­ing the sum­mer that I can use towards my total cred­its. I think that means that I won’t be attend­ing the grad­u­a­tion in July. Things seem very fucked up for me aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly right now, and I’m wor­ried, one of the many rea­sons I can’t sleep.

I tried rock climb­ing on Tuesday, and even though my left fore­arm was dead from hit­ting the L trig­ger too much, I was still able to scale a few walls. It was a great time, some­thing that I could def­i­nite­ly see myself get­ting into. Even the act of belay­ing is fun, in the sense of a trust exer­cise. It’s just not some­thing that I can get into right now with­out a job, or any con­ve­nient way of get­ting to the rock climb­ing stu­dio.

HK, Fullscreen

I’ve been watch­ing a lot of Chinese movies late­ly. I always find the scenery to be sub­tly poignant, from the den­si­ty of the hous­es, to the con­fine­ment of the liv­ing arrange­ments, to the hom­li­ness of the shops. It makes me miss Hong Kong. It makes me miss see­ing my grand­par­ents. It makes me miss the quaint lifestyle, the diver­si­ty of food, the entire cul­ture.

If I end up going to Hong Kong this year, I hope to be able to tell my grand­moth­er how strong a per­son I see her to be, but I detest my lim­it­ed knowl­edge of the Chinese lan­guage. I wish that I could express to her in English how much I look up to her. If I had a chance with English, I would feel like I could do the feel­ing jus­tice. I hope she does­n’t hurt my feel­ings. I hope she does­n’t die before I see her next. I won­der who would cry.

I still remem­ber liv­ing with Kenny, hav­ing a great time at his place, play­ing with all sorts of inter­est­ing gad­gets. His par­ents were always good peo­ple, one of the few sets of rel­a­tives I care about.

The feel­ing is almost tange­able. I can close my eyes, and see myself there again, a lost, emo­tion­less, igno­rant boy. I miss the street ven­dors. I miss the smell of my grand­moth­ers house. I miss the bliss.

I real­ize that my feel­ings are prob­a­bly a result of my absolute con­tent­ment when­ev­er I was in Hong Kong. I’ve had some of the best times of my life there, and I remem­ber noth­ing but hap­pi­ness. It seems like I’ve been taint­ed with matu­ri­ty, and I’m try­ing to regain a lost part of my child­hood, the care­free being that is so char­ac­ter­is­tic of young peo­ple.

Tainted.

I like that.

You Never Know Until It Happens

I believe my grand­moth­er is dying. I don’t have many details, as I haven’t been well informed (though I’m not sure that I want to be). I tried to vis­it about three months ago, but my work and cir­cum­stances pre­vent­ed me from going. I’m going to Hong Kong this Christmas, which should be amaz­ing, and hope­ful­ly I’ll be able to see my grand­moth­er one last time. When I spoke to her on the phone, which is always as awk­ward as ever, she sound­ed very light-head­ed. My moth­er told me that she sound­ed more healthy than before.

I once talked to Ms. Patricia ______ (I can’t believe I for­get her last name) about my grand­par­ents. I told her that I always felt like I loved my grand­par­ents, and that I was always wor­ried about their well-being, even though I nev­er real­ly had a life with them. They briefly raised me when I was too young to remem­ber much. I have always won­dered whether I would cry if they should die. One can always say that one won’t cry, but when the sit­u­a­tion aris­es, things can be quite dif­fer­ent.

I also told her that I hoped that they would die at a time that was con­ve­nient for me. This wor­ried her. I asked myself, “Is this real­ly what I wish? Will I feel dif­fer­ent­ly when the time comes? Have I tru­ly become so cere­bral, so engulfed in a Lermontovian nihilism, that I can say such a thing?”. I’m not even sure if this is some­thing I should be ashamed of. I mean, these are peo­ple that I’m not close to. Is it pos­si­ble to love some­one sim­ply by blood? I believe it is; I know peo­ple who only know how to love by blood. However, it is not pos­si­ble for me. In fact, blood has no bear­ing on what I feel for a per­son. I wish I could even begin to under­stand this. I believe that my grand­par­ents love me. I feel it in the way that they look at me, the way they treat me. I always won­der if any­one else has the same con­fu­sion. Do I love them as they love me?

I can’t tell.