there is something utterly wrong about paying a $70/mo. membership at California Fitness and then walking down the block only to see an old man crouched down begging for money. i gave him 5 hkd and didn't feel any better.

displacement

sometimes, i'll find myself fixated on my little kids' faces. they're so perfect and supple. i start trying to imagine them as older people...like adults. i know i shouldn't do this, they're whole beings as they are. this reminds me of lai, when she talked about people growing up - the kid that grows up into an adult is trapped in that time and space forever. that kid was a person, and the adult the kid turned into is a different person. i like that idea of being different people, but at the same time, i think it's tragic.

the other day, i was telling teresa about the mini c.v. reunion i had going to joellen's wedding. i told her that people acted the same, behavior-wise, while their thoughts and feelings were probably different. she observed that it's ironic i say that...since usually people think vice versa - that people inside never change while the outside does. maybe both are true for different people. i go back to looking at those kids...and i wonder if any part of that kid will stick with the adult...even if muddled through the years. i wonder if the 5-year-old mei is still in me or outside of me. if i act anything like her or think anything like her. i hope i do...because children are beautiful.

Top 10 Highlights

...of my life since i've been here

1. buying fake dvd's - i just got v for vendetta for $2.50
2. eating chocolate covered ice cream bars...my favorite dessert
3. reading at starbucks and being called a 'regular' - that means i'm a local right?!
4. working part-time at this amazing music/drama center - http://www.mymusikbox.com
5. meeting certain people - emma from england, yena/karen - vanessa's peeps, ivan from hk/cali, and calvin from high school, elven from hk who may possibly get me into glamour parties (fingers crossed)
6. going to the arcade and playing time crisis 4 and semi-kicking ass
7. eating sushi and all-you-can eat korean bbq
8. emails from my loved ones - marian, the divas, lai, and of course, jiiny
9. fatty sales at clothing stores
10. phone cards that last

What the...

I woke up at 3 today. It's because I slept at 6 in the morning. I'm officially suffering from insomnia. What is wrong with me? I also got my period today as well...only 2 weeks later than my last one. This is freaking me out. Stress? Changed sleeping patterns? The weather?! Went to starbucks and did some damage on my new book, Indecision. Almost done with it but its excessive language and slight tone of pretension is starting to get to me. Sometimes...you don't need to use big words! It's actually less effective sometimes. Nor do you need to dance around language, like it's impressive to twist and turn for some good 10's of words until you finally get to the point right before the period. I just want to know what's going on, yo!

Then a dood sits across from me. He doesn't bother me until after a mini-nap I unintentionally took for about 10 minutes. He asks me if I come there a lot, because he's seen me there a couple of times already. A starbucks guy comes around to clean my table and he says the same thing. So I'm a bonafide regular. I said I like coming here to read because of the view. He then tells me about this random article he was looking at for 10 minutes that showed different islands to visit around the world. He goes on...with his life and work..I don't care. I just want to sink back into my chair and read. But he has this delusion that somehow...this girl wants someone to talk to her and that his life is ultra-important. He goes on...asks to keep in touch. The reason being that his company goes on boat trips...and he always wastes a ticket. I say no. He asks why. I say because I'm not interested. Talking is fine but I have no interest in contacting him or going on trips. He asks why...whether I've had bad experiences.

YOU MOFO. Why do I have to explain myself?! AT ALL. Isn't it obvious what he is asking is out of line?! God...it just boggles my mind...to think that men (or women) can be that dense...to think it's a sure thing that if you ask some stranger to go with you somewhere or to give a number...that he/she'll consent, hands down. Aren't we taught when we're little never to even TALK to strangers?! I mean technically..I'm already being damn nice. And then you're taught even MORE when you're little not to give out your number to strangers, either. I mean, sure sure...we ain't kids anymore but goooooodness...there are limits here people! AH it just makes me mad thinking about it. I'm thinking...a straight up no and no explanation will fit me quite nicely the next time I meet these mofos.

*sigh*

guilty murder

That lizard actually came back (I didn't seal him off after all) and darted towards my bathroom at about 5 that morning. I sprung up, got a plastic container in hand, and my clobex spray in the other (it's a potent spray you use on rashes...it burns like hell). Turned on the bathroom light and sprayed that sucker. It spazzed out like CRAZY, I screamed, it squirmed down the wall, I trapped it. And here's the fast mofo:

Isn't he so disgusting-looking! Then I sat on my toilet...looking at this thing, and then was come over with a feeling of guilt. I wrote a poem:

You can stay frozen for so long It's because you know the end is near You have the sudden realization You're trapped, you can't escape, You search for everything, anything to free you But all you can do is look out through false freedom of plastic. I've trapped you. I'm your master now. I have control over your life.

That made me feel a little better. The next day it was dead...in the exact same position.

my loserly life

I have spent more time in Starbucks than in any other place in Hong Kong. I hate myself. But it's just TOO convenient and freakin' comfy in there. I've tried going to different cafes but I end up in Starbucks...because of its cushy chairs and tasteful music.
Bookstores, like art stores and stationery stores, make my world look a little bigger. full of possibilities and all in the form of paper/whatever else. My initial plan was to find one good book, buy it, finish it, then go back for the next one. A systematic thing in which I reward myself for every book I read. Because I love bookstores so much. But what can you do when there are too many to choose from? Now that I have time and interest to read...intensely...I can't seem to choose. Today, I picked up Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel (it looks funny and reminds me of my sister because she's damn indecisive), Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami (jim loves this author so i decided to give it a go) and The Complete Stories by Kafka (people kept comparing murakami to kafka so i said "alright already!" and got this). Ah I can't wait! God I'm a nerd. A nerd with too much time on her hands.

I think i'm gonna puke

I FOUND A LIZARD IN MY ROOM! holy mother of crap...this yellow lizard the size of my whole middle finger (and that's big!) was crawling up my wall hyperspeed then crawled back down out of sight. I froze there like an idiot doing nothing...scared out of my wits. I couldn't do anything but stand on my bed and just look at the wall where I had seen it...AHHHH I felt helpless! Okay...I can do spiders...maybe even cockroaches...but not fast mofo's like lizards! They can do ANYTHING. Well I knew I wouldn't get a wink of sleep knowing a dirty ol' lizard could crawl up my face at night. so I got a bowl and a chopstick (the only things I could think of) and hoped to god that maybe it'd crawl up the wall again and I could trap it. Nope..nowhere. It could be in my shoes for all I knew. Then I moved my suitcase and there was the sucker..but it just darted its ass off into the darkness..a corner of my room. How does a lizard get into your room?!??! And I'm on the 11th floor mind you! AHK. I looked all around the walls and then I found it, next to my bed. I was thinking of all these unrealistic things - maybe I could catch it with my chopstick...maybe I could jab it with a needle. Then I got the brilliant idea of spraying it with my hairspray...maybe it'd go blind and dart in every which way UP the wall and then voila, I catch it with the bowl. No that smart little sucker just went further into the darkness. I kept spraying it and it just crawled in between where the cabinet and the floor meet...I didn't even think there was any SPACE under there. My paranoid ass taped all three sides of it...trapped it. OH MY GOODNESS...the madness is over...but where did it even come from?! dun dun dunnnnn. I want to die now.

I'm a Freak

Oh goodness...why do I get sucked in so easily by those mini-series or whatever you call them? Sex and the City, the OC...shows I vow never to allow a minute of my time, yet once my eye hits the screen...I'm done for! The name of the game is Grey's Anatomy. Holy crap...it's Yena's fault for letting me borrow this masterful piece of work. The characters are lovable, the drama at its finest, and the relationship between the two main characters make me squeal like a pig. I can't help it! I have watched 4 episodes today....straight. With some KFC. On my bed. Am I a loser? Or a winner?!

Also...am I a freak? Cuz both yesterday and today, I woke up at 1:55 p.m.....on the dot. Okay, yes I realize that's really disgustingly late in the day. But...how can it be that I wake up at exactly the same time...two days in a row?! What does that mean??

One more thing...that cab driver is calling me. I don't pick up. If I die tomorrow because I coincidentally had a conversation with a maniacal killer...tell Mom and Dad I love them very much.

Second-Hand Smoke

Can you die of smelling cigarettes from your next door neighbor? It seeps into my room and stays locked in here. That's what I smell the second I open my door - cigarettes. Possibly the smell I most detest. And I can hear him lighting it up and sure enough, a couple seconds later, more of it wafts into my room. Technically, it's second-hand smoke and people have died from that, right?! AH what do I do?!

Incredible...Cringy

Wish I had pictures to show but maybe later. Took a tram up that steep steep mountain called the Peak. INCREDIBLE. You see the length of Hong Kong plus Kowloon. It spans forever, it seems. Tonight was a little foggy actually, so it added this nice, mystical touch to the view. The buildings seemed to push up against each other, like there almost wasn't enough space for all of them.

Emma, the English girl, looked out and asked me, "Wow...how do you feel knowing that this is your new home?" I told her I'm happy, it's exactly what I had hoped for and more. That this was what I needed at this time in my life. To be in the middle of this energy that only an overpopulated, tight little city can muster up. She said she felt the same when she moved to London. And that her eyes would well up when she'd walk along the Thames, overwhelmed that little ol' her was in the middle of such old and new beautiful things. That you never get used to that. It's breathtaking every time. I believe her...I don't ever think I could get used to the magnitude of the Central buildings or that view from The Peak. At least I hope I don't.

Before that, I had hopped on the MTR over to Kowloon to check out a hip hop dance studio. I've decided to pass a crapload of time with hip hop...a perfect plan to me. The studio looks great and I've already plunked over $1100 HKD for 12 classes...which is about $12 or $13 each class...not too bad considering a good class over in S.F. is $15. When I got there, I was just in time for this one class taught by "Eg"...the girls there literally call him egg in Chinese. The class starts and we do stretches. Good. Isolation. Good. And then more isolation. And then more?! Wait a minute there mister...what is going on?! We literally bobbed our heads to "feel the beat" for 5 minutes. Then swung hips. Thrusted pelvi. AHHHK. What was I doing in there?! I signed up for some routines man, not exercise for my goods! So...I got up and left which was a faux pas because the instructors know you pay a hefty amount and he stopped me, asking what the heck i was doing, and I told him "I thought we were going to learn some routines" and he said "This is the first class and I have to break it down". Ok yeah so I went into a beginner's class...the VERY beginner's and only realized it 45 minutes in, which is 44 minutes TOO long. I left feeling jipped like crazy...but thank god there are REAL classes later on in the week.

I met a cab driver and had a drink with him at a local hotspot for youngsters a couple blocks down from my place. We had good conversation and he seemed nice enough, just a humble and honest young man of 26 who doesn't get out much...just a decent looking kind of guy. We meet and the first thing I notice is the bags under his eyes. He reminded me of my dad...and his name is Sing...which is ALSO my dad's name. It was interesting hearing him tell me about his life - he's always loved driving (vehicles of every kind) and so went to Hong Kong for job opportunities. He dropped out of school because he was never good at it and the only things he's ever passed with flying colors were his driving licenses. He works 12 hours a day ...mostly at night...and sleeps in the daytime. He gives a ton of money to his mother. Leaving him no room for that much time to go out and socialize. I looked at him...and thought about some of the 26 year-olds I know...or at least the ones around that age. Lai travels the world and is currently doing human rights bidness in Uganda. Erin is at med school. Emma is taking a 6-month break to teach and travel and will soon go back home to do some PR jig. It goes on and on... exactly the way 26 (or around there) -year -olds should be living, in my eyes. Not working hours and hours, leaving no room for anything else at all but a conversation with some random girl from California. Well anyway...it was going really well, chattin' it up in Cantonese and learning some new vocab...until that fool soured it all at the end of the night by asking some INAPPROPRIATE questions. No signs whatsoever before that...just great story exchanges and even a few wholesome little jokes here and there. Then he steers it away and asks "Do you have a boyfriend?" "You should dump him" "Can I see your room?" WHAT THE F-- S--M--F---!! Can somebody PLEASE explain to me this ridiculous behavior? Yes, I'm a girl and he's a boy...but there IS such a thing as a 'nice chat', plain and simple. Why are there underlying motives...that taints a perfectly lovely experience by needing to go more and more and more? Is friendship possible between male and female who have just met? Why does it have to be uglied up with those kinds of questions? Of course, with the first sign of anything, I shut him out and treated him like a stupid child "No, and if you ask me again, I won't be your friend" "The more you say those things, the more I won't trust you" "No, and no". Welp, I was successful at the end...it was all safe. I have become paranoid of this from past experiences - the greasy men in Paris and southern Italy, horror movies, Ted Bundy, and Jiin's advice. But in my mind, I was so let down. It was going so well and then he had to go and turn it all ugly. What a disappointment. The way things go...and ALWAYS seem to go. cringe.

Goodness, is it really Monday? I'm losing track of the days...

Pink Shoe in Brixton

We also talked about the ghettoness of Brixton. And they all, with a resounding "ohhh" agreed that is was quite ghetto. Emma told us about how she was literally chased down all the way from Brixton to her hometown which is two neighborhoods away, having to run up to her door, lock it, and slam it shut with the person knocking hard for a good while afterwards. Then I told them about my "pink shoe in Brixton"...(my blog name). That it was late at night when we were trying to find this so-called famous club in Brixton and couldn't for the life of us find it. Jim was persistent and ended up in some part of Brixton. At this point, I was pissed off because I didn't want to be out there in the first place. And Alex, I think was still buzzed. I had to pee really badly so we walked down this obscure alleyway-looking place and I went behind a dumpster. Yeah, not a very pretty picture. I take two steps and my left foot steps in a pile of warm mush. POO POO. AH! As if my night hadn't already been crap. So Jim, without hesitation, takes my left shoe, tells Alex to help me find a place to pee, and Jim goes off to some gutter trying to clean, literally, the poo off the bottom of my shoe. I succeed in peeing and these two ladies, old haggy prostitutes I might add (and probably from the area), said "What are you girls doing here? You shouldn't be here so late night! You'll get molested, robbed, raped...you better get yourselves out of here". Yup..our sign to go. I hobble on back to where Jim is and he's still at it..holding my pink shoe trying endlessly with what little he had (probably newspaper bits and gutter water and I dont know what) to clean off the poo poo. That's Love.

Later on...about a couple months later..Jim said it was human poo.

Memorable Night

I spent an unforgettable night with three English people. Emma, Adam, and Louise. It was the first time I wasn't wearing my age on my face and gestures and words around people who were older than me. We go to Lan Kwai Fong, a hip and happenin' place filled up to the brim with bars, clubs, and restaurants. That's the thing about Hong Kong, if there's one bar in the area...there's a lot of them. If there's one flower shop, the whole rest of the street is flower shops. Shim Shui Po is full of electronics. A place a little off of Prince Edward is concentrated in just flowers. Tsim Sha Tsui, at the tip, is all about museums and culture. And Lan Kwai Fong is nightlife. We stop by a chill joint for some meat, clams, noodles, and veggies. And the bunch I'm with is incredibly open and seem to love anything they put into their mouths. I was surprised at how into it they were because a lot of people I know aren't as adventurous as they were. Pig intestines, cow stomach, and chicken feet...oh my! There's always this moment of hesitation usually...maybe even refusal to eat anything unfamiliar. But they were nothing like that. We were talking about the limitations of that kind of lifestyle, how small people's worlds are in that way...even IF it's just the world of food. Then I spoke to the waitress in cantonese and the English bunch was all into that...saying "wow that's so cool" and how cantonese is such a beautiful language. beautiful?! unheard of. All I've ever heard of was "Cantonese is too harsh" or "Cantonese sounds like cats fighting" and I started to believe that. But they had mentioned how much harsher Mandarin was actually. We all agreed by the end it depended on the person who spoke it. (My mom, for example, is not all that...let's say...gentle with it).
We also talked about the bombings of the London Tube a year ago. I didn't know the magnitude of it but they exchanged stories back and forth...Emma being one of the people in London and near those stations at the time. Then Adam tells us his story about being in one of the corporate buildings right near the towers on 9/11. We all perked up our ears and he described the experience little by little. The first plane crashes...but nobody says anything. nobody even notices..they go about doing their work. He says...when you're that close to something, you're sometimes the last one to know it's happened. Of course, he was on the other side of the tower...seeing only smoke and papers flying out. As he continues looking out the window (he being one of the few while others are going about normal business), he notices a plane flying really low and says, "that plane's not going to make it!" (thinking, for one irrational second, that maybe the plane was going to try to squeeze in between the towers or maybe try to just make it over the top of them). It crashes. This time, people notice and watch. The evacuation alarm goes off immediately and everyone scrambles to leave the buildings. Adam was the last one to leave....and sees even more paper flying out of the building and even dead weights...which disgusted him. Then the least expected thing...the towers start to collapse. So he jets on out of there and runs through the dust...he's covered in a full layer of it...but not the way a lot of other people were who couldn't even see out of their own eyes. He somehow finds his boss who lives in upper Manhattan and stays there for the night, unable to go back to his apartment which is in the apartment building only two blocks off of the towers. Anyway...my mouth was open the whole time...in disbelief that I heard this story from a person who truly experienced it. It never truly struck home for me...it was big and people talked about it but they were all regurgitations ...and not the real thing like Adam's story was. So I just sat and let it sink.
Later on that night, us girls go to a club called "California Tower" which was the only club playing hip hop music (what is it with these countries and techno?!) and danced the night away. Then we notice this Indian dood...who was by far...the greatest of us all. He stole the show for sure - a little of a healthy man....ok....thick...and wore glasses and smiled really big, dancing his BIG moves and looking all goofy but loving every bit of it. Then all of us girls went big too and all of us looked so ridiculous...to the point where we didn't notice we looked ridiculous anymore. He didn't give one rat's ass that anyone was watching him....I loved that. At one point, I was doing some crazy Indian dance move with him and was mucho satisfied enough to call it a night.

imbalance

the push-and-pull of emotions exhausts me
inability to articulate what seems so simple
things closest to your soul but far away from logic
and all you can do is release...

I have this fascination with contrast - contrast in foods, in colors, in textures, in settings. Like St. Paul's Cathedral. It's a typical enough Catholic church...but BAM it's in the middle of the financial/business-y district of Hong Kong. It's the only one of its kind around here but for some reason, it works for me. Contrast baby.













I went up to the 43rd floor of the Bank of China Tower and this is what I saw.

For some reason, I needed another museum and decided to go to the Hong Kong Museum of History. And although I'm not all that interested in history (Jim, don't be disgusted), it seemed like a good day for it. I wanted to know contextually at what point I was at in Hong Kong's timeline. How it got to be so...circus-y (in a good way, of course). Here are some things that stuck out after I left: Hong Kong is 400 million years old, the first four notable Chinese peoples living in Hong Kong were called Hoklo, Punti, Hakku (?), and the 'boat dwellers'...I don't know why but those names are freakin' funny to me. The Punti for many centuries and still in the present engage in a birth ritual every year to celebrate all newborn sons, to celebrate the continuation of clan lineage. Only sons....poy! I spit on this and all other rituals excluding girls! Funeral ceremonies involve burning paper goods as an offering for the deceased in his/her afterlife. I already knew this but what I didn't know is they're making ovens and mobile phones people! I mean seriously...do you REALLY need a cell phone when you dead?! And finally, Hong Kong has been whipped and battered, the British colonization, the Japanese occupation...so no wonder. You look centuries back and see that it's just like any other part of mainland China...Hong Kong partook in all of China's main traditions and even looked geographically like it. But after years and years of people immigrating, settling, trading, colonizing, de-colonizing, developing...Hong Kong has turned out to be the rebellious bastard child of China. It's AWESOME. They call it One Country, Two systems....uhhhh yeah...I don't know how that's quite possible but um, yeah Hong Kong's schizo I guess.

Since what I love most about Hong Kong are the buildings...I decided to take some pictures of my favorite ones:






















So I'm getting to the end of Ender's Game. What an adolescent boy's dream. But then again...it could be an adolescent girl's dream too. I don't understand why we live in a society where Babysitter's Club is a 'girly' book while Ender's Game is a 'boy' book. I wish I read this when I was little, I would have been able to escape then too. Lai told me it's going to be made into a movie...with the kid from sixth sense. I think he'd be the perfect choice. In fact, ever since she told me that, I've been imagining him as Ender and how he would act out certain parts. Julia Roberts in Closer, on the other hand....not so much. She's a type - the smile really big and act the same bubbliness type. Other than that...Closer was good in that it revealed all these things about ourselves that are sometimes true and that we don't necessarily want to and ever want to admit.

Sometimes, I walk down the street and ask myself, "Why is that girl wearing diapers?" No seriously...I have seen about 1 out of 3 girls here wearing shorts that scrunch up at the bottom which end up looking like diapers. And they prance around thinking they're hot...but they're not. And why are boys here so pretty? Like...not in a good way? Their arms are lean but as skinny as girls' arms...so they really just have sexy girl arms. And they even have more beautiful hair than most of the girls I see around here. Why is that? And why do I feel drops of I-don't-know-what whenever I walk around on the streets...when it's not raining? I wonder what's dropping on me...I know it's not bird poo and I know it's not water...what is it?! It happens when I walk under buildings. Beats me.


I ended my night with the Temple Street Night Market..just a bunch of vendors selling stuff - from converters to old chinese propaganda posters to sex toys. WIDE range. Halfway through it, it dawned on me that I had been here before. My cousin took me here 6 years ago, the first time I came to Hong Kong. I couldn't believe it. It had looked so different then. Cleaner, I suppose. I don't remember what the streets looked like, just the stuff they were selling and the lightbulbs. It was more beautiful then. Not that this wasn't great the second time - I call it dirty and happenin' with a load of charm. But how does your mind pick out certain things to remember and certain things to block out? Based on emotions? Based on level of importance? Based on novelty? Psycho-geography....you never go to the same place twice based on all these things. As you change, everything else changes too. Even if you've already been there.

Avenue of Stars

it's funny...i have to practically drag myself hard to write in this blog but somehow, when i finally do, i realize i've been needing to all this time. that's what happens when you're alone - your thoughts run wild, so wild you don't ever feel you have a real chance to put them down on paper (or on screen) because there are too many of them, most of them unexplainable.

when you're alone, many things you take for granted become readily apparent. like restaurants or shows those damn guide books ...lonely planet or eyewitness...fill their pages up with, that cater towards people traveling with people. but then, being alone also reveals many things you take for granted because you're always with people. like watching movies in theaters or looking out at a view or going to museums. all those places hush up for your thoughts and you have no choice but to absorb every sight, sound, and scent around you.

today i went to the avenue of stars. i read about it in my guide book and decided to sit out there. it's awe-inspiring. it's weird calling a city awe-inspiring. usually you call natural things...like the grand canyon...awe-inspiring. but a city can be grand in its own right. it's so undeniably man-made, screaming of human. there's something amazing about seeing how many big things people can make.

there it is...and there's so much more where that came from..it's just my camera couldn't fit it all in. i must have sat looking at this for 2 hours, watching the sun go down, then watching the buildings go pink with the clouds, and then this. and all of a sudden, at 8....these buildings become this brilliant light show coordinated perfectly with this music blaring from nearby speakers. it sounds like amusement park-y music...corny and ultimately tourist...but incredibly entertaining. these buildings WERE the light show - changing their exterior lights to different patterns and colors. that's exactly what hong kong is - a largescale amusement park.

and just because i haven't posted this up yet...here's a picture of my street. i literally live down that street, on the left.

looking at pictures like these make me shake my head and think i'm living a dream life..or guide book..or commercial..or just something NOT normal. it's really too much to take but i realize most of that might be internal.

a little poem i wrote while i was at the hong kong museum of art and looking out at the view:

waiting two images coming towards each other but never collide floor by floor slowly descending into the depths of human life digitally remastered an evolution of the metropolitan in a matter of seconds and mere pixels delicate with just the right amount of pressure the tip of balance. what are we connected by but just memory, history, emotions and what now? i guess that should be enough the sound of settling is unbearable the sun is setting and it's creating a mystical gold sheen smeared against the faces of tall, humanless structures made by humans sitting heavily on weightless water up up rises the buildings, the tall fallic building scrapes my heart every so gently with as much finesse as a paintbrush against your face. i will never understand this place but i can try immobile tires ride along the waves people crisscross each other but never collide. sometimes i wish they did.