Having spent over 2-and-a-0.5 straight years within the Chinese mainland while not leave, it was with both anticipation and apprehension that I recently crossed the southern border into Asia's wealthiest city.
Despite its one-stop-shopping popularity with Mainland expats needing new garments and a new visa, I truly had no idea what to expect in the former crown colony that supposedly makes even wealthy men feel poor. Rather frightened of exacting reverse culture shock, I hence saved English-speaking Hong Kong and its “One Country, 2 Systems" self for the tail end of my journey across the 32 Chinese provinces.
And it's here I report that every one my preconceptions and fears concerning Hong Kong were... true. To quote the beneath-appreciated Yank author Thomas A. Carter (me!) upon his brief sojourn in the legendary Chinese city, “I've never felt a lot of poor than after I was in Hong Kong... I've never felt additional ugly than once I was in Hong Kong."
DAY 1: Cross the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border at Louhu and catch the immaculate KCR railway, immediately impressed that no-one is staring, shoving or spitting. Arrive in Kowloon's southern peninsula and emerge from the underground into the land of lights - Tsim Sha Tsui. Blinded with excitement, I have to ask a resplendent group of Indian girls draped in saris where the Mirador Mansion is. They point their gold-ringed fingers straight up. A towering, rust-stained concrete block, and one of Hong Kong's only cheap accommodations. I register to a claustrophobic dorm room (3 times the value of a Mainland dorm and three times as small), then hit Nathan Road. Peering up into the neon lights, tripping in the crush of the crowds, I feel simply sort of a migrant employee back in Beijing.
DAY two: Awoken at 6am by one amongst my bunkmates stumbling in once an extended night. His name is Pat, a young American backpacker with long red hair whose introduction is immediately followed by an extended-winded narrative concerning his 2-week romps in Hong Kong, as well as scoring with the mythical “Asian girls who LOOOVE foreign guys." Once I counter that I never had any such luck, the quick-talking however likeable Pat proffers some off-the-cuff advise (“Dude, lose the beard") before launching into additional useful information. “It's Sunday, okay, and there's gonna be, like, one hundred twenty,000 Filipino nannies and maids on their only time off - and wanting for boyfriends!" I am a very little dubious of Pat's generalizations, but positive enough his mobile rings continuously with calls from adoring cleaning girls he met the Sunday before. An afternoon stroll around Statue Square indeed reveals a literal blanket of thousands of picnicking South Asian women (Hong Kong's largest migrant communities) whose collective chatter sounds simply like a massive flock of seagulls. After I try to candidly photograph one attractive young Filipino, she shouts “Hey! I klick jor ass!" Therefore abundant for getting a date.
DAY three: Fieldtrip to Shek O beach on Hong Kong Island's south aspect, savoring the soft sand and splashing in the subtropical South China Sea. Supposedly this place is packed out on the weekend, however that is what weekdays are for, no? It's one of these moments once I enjoy being unemployed. Chase my fun in the sun with a tram ride up Victoria Peak for a panoramic evening vista of skyscrapers, that seem to be constructed entirely out of lights. Dafnit, an Israeli woman clearly in awe of the Hong Kong skyline, remarks, “We don't have any tall buildings in Israel. Oh wait... we have one!"
DAY 4: Pay the day traversing Kowloon, the style billboards of TST turning into seedy massage parlor billboards as I descend northwest down the Nathan Road aspect streets, the sun lost behind precipices of neon signs stretching horizontally over the streets. The markets of Mong Kok are mobbed with uniformed students on lunch break: long-haired boys with untucked white shirts and loosened ties, and made-up women in very little outfits out of a Japanese kogal/hentai fantasy: knee-high black stockings, short skirts and a Louis Vuitton bag to hold their pencils and books. They have tattoos, tongue piercings and smoke cigarettes. After commenting that they're the hippest students in China I've seen, one 15-year-previous boy replies in perfect English, “Yes, so cool, however thus young."
DAY five: I wish to work out how the other half lives and pay the day in Central, Hong Kong Island's microcosm of capitalism. Cross Victoria Harbor by the centuries-old Star Ferry through a morning miasma of pollution and follow white-collared crowds of businessmen contending with cell phones, briefcases and latt?s into their respective skyscrapers. Later observe as several girls shopping in designer department stores - these must be the wives. I notice that they all clutch their purses as I walk by, then understand why as I imagine of myself within the reflective fa?ade of the Bank of China tower. My head forged down in self-consciousness, I nearly get rolled over by a Rolls (driving on the incorrect facet of the road, damn Brits!), then virtually again by a double-decker cable car. Everyone in Central must be against me. My insecurities are firmed up that evening in Lan Kwai Fong, a gentrified neighborhood of upscale restaurants and bars on the Island's northern escarpment. The steep streets are congested with young, well-to-do westpats toasting nonetheless another successful day of money -making. I can not believe there are such a lot of white folks in China who aren't English academics! They're all smartly dressed and have well-groomed hair; I'm carrying cutoff army pants, low-prime pretend Converse, an eight year old t-shirt that I bought used, nor have I shaved or cut my locks in the eight months I've been on the road. I wish to belong, however I don't. It's one of those moments when I regret being unemployed.
Author Resource:-
submit article has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Girl Games
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Games For GirlsWhich reviews and lists the best
Doll games
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