moved
Being as I find myself home alone (more on that later) I have decided to be frivolous and carefree for the entire duration. Kind of like Lennon’s lost weekend I will do all those wild and wacky things that I could never do under the constant 24 hour observation of my wife. One of these things (and as rock and roll as I get these days) was to join Xbox live. I put it off as much as I could and, to be honest, I wasn’t in the slightest bit interested previously and still really wasn’t as I plugged the LAN cable in. I’m old school dun and I figure that games should be purchased from a shop, put into your console and then played. Multi-player? Go find some friends and sit on the sofa playing Mario Kart or something. Games were always self encapsulating experiences and had all you needed in the cart or disc. What other way was there? Well I seem to have missed the boat and now what is on the disc is only part of the package. So yesterday, kind of skeptical, I plugged my 360 into the internet just FOR THE HELL OF IT AND BECAUSE I CAN.
Found this in my hard drive written a while ago. I thought I’d post in case somebody is still interested in a review of a console that has been out nearly two years…
My 360 was purchased last month. It was a toss up between which of the next gen consoles (PS3, Wii and 360) to go for but the 360 won out. Firstly, an most importantly, the 360 has far superior games. It’s really that simple. Both the Wii and the PS3 simply do not have strength in gaming depth. Of course, it depends on your tastes but I’m too old to be waving things at the TV playing a tennis game on the Wii and if I got a PS3 i’d have no games to play such is the dearth of anything decent on it. It’s a no brainier as far as I’m concerned. Plus, I’m a big FPS fan and the 360 has billions of them. I had a look around Times Square at the consoles in the flesh and my opinion of the PS3 was reinforced – it’s ugly and rushed. Anyone want to bet me when the proper ’slim’ ( i.e. finished PS3) will be released? I’ll give it 2 years. Mind you, in sexiness terms, the 360 is no looker and the Wii wins this somewhat superficial contest.
So my son has reached 24 weeks in the womb. This is great because now it impossible that my wife can miscarry which was a huge fear after the airport incident. I’m relieved and now quite happy it’s all progressing as nature intended. If was born now he would have a chance of survival although those chances are greatly increased after 28 weeks. We have a picture of him in 4D and there he lies asleep in his rubber room. His face is kind of formed and he looks so peaceful and so innocent. This child has no idea how cruel this world will be to him and no comprehension as to man’s utter hatred to man. I feel guilty about bringing him into being and I’m not sure if this is normal but I do. I’ve said it. We purchased some baby clothes today, the first things we have bought. 0-3 months old. These clothes are so amazingly small and I could almost feel him in my arms when I unfolded them from the packets. Why I am telling you all this is hard to fathom. I feel I should document my feelings now so I remember how precious he is when he is screaming and shitting all over the shop. 3 months to go…
So I met the yanks. We are go, go, go. I’m in and I’m willing but there is just one catch – I have to wait until the end of October! Damn. I want to go now!!! So I have to again bide my time at the current place until I get the magic phone call. This is one of the downsides of having too much opportunity. This land (Hong Kong) is awash with loot and opportunity and when there is so much of it you feel like a dog with two dicks. Where should I jump? It’s all very well chasing the dollar right now but you have to project where all this will end. For me I am projecting ahead and I believe that China is calling me. If I want to succeed I need to be with a factory with bases around the world – these guys have that. My decision is final and I have wavered from time to time but I must stop messing everyone around. I’m going. I will know when this week.
On May 22nd of this year a miracle took place. A modern day resurrection occurred on that day but this time there was no Mary Magdalene’s to lap it up. There was no audience (myself included) to witness the re-birth of hip hop and so this release just came and went. The revolution will not be televised. To listen to Hip Hop Lives is to witness the dead being woken. Feelings that have long lain dormant within me were stirred and I again believed. This album on paper is enough to get the hip hop purist salivating and simultaneously scratching their heads – Marley and KRS on a record together? We all know about the beef between these crews but 20 years later, when grown men can have the balls to bury the hatchet and move on, we can all bask in the new found love. This album is a return to the days of one producer and one artist and this album is like a Kane record in so far as there are no guest producers just Marley. The man from the House of Hits that defined most of the golden era now breathes life into the flagging catalogue of a one Mr. Parker.
So I feel like das fool. I’ve been at the new factory a few weeks. It seemed OK but the guy that interviewed me is never there and the verbal cheques that were written out in the interview are unable to be cashed. When I say he isn’t there I mean he is but not there for me. Actively avoided from the get go. Was it something I said? So I am kind of sat down in an arbitrary location on the shop floor but from there I can see how it stacks up and I don’t like what I see. Continue Reading »
I’ve neglected you. I’m sorry. The thing about a blog is that you cannot just leave it there to fester. No. Like dogs a blog is for life not just for Christmas. So it’s been an age since I last updated with a rather cruel cliff hanger to boot. So what gwan? Well, I decided to plump for the company that loved me, wanted me and believed in me. I think I have, thus far, been proven correct. I rejected the yanks. Again. Ha! I will never work for them I know it. It’s fate. It will always be. Anyway these smaller guys have been taken over by a big huge company so it looks like the old swings and roundabouts cliché would be appropriate here. I have been there a few weeks and so far it ace. The thing is my old factory was so bad that it warped me. It warped my perceptions of HK and my perceptions of the locals. My Cantonese friends that I know outside of work are mostly great people but then I contrast them with the beasts I worked with and found the two worlds difficult to balance. Looking back I was so naïve when I landed here and I had no idea what the subtle nuances are when working and living in Asia. Not a clue. I was awash with conflicting signals and isolation and it has taken me a year to adjust to the Hong Kong riddim. Now I get it. Just. Continue Reading »
Day four is surprisingly similar to days one, two, three and four in terms of how it begins. It begins at 10am. I awake and check my phone. Any missed calls? Have they rung me? What are they playing at its 10am for Christ’s sake. Are they messing with my mind? I check my emails. Sweet FA. Nothing. No other companies have sent me anything. No response. Yes, seemingly, it all hangs on yesterday. Mess this up and I’m dust as far as HK is concerned. Continue Reading »
The day starts like the last two. I get up late. Well, what’s to get up for? I’ve done all I can in terms of contacting every known Handbag factory in the SAR of HK and nothing has happened. I consider a job flipping burgers but I won’t get a visa for that. My brash swagger has now been replaced with a hopeless slouch. I sit on the sofa in my pants playing my Xbox. I am all at sea.
Ditto day one but without the Central bit. Just stayed at home waiting for the offers to flood in. Nobody contacted me. Where is everyone? I feel lost and pointless. The world passes me by today. The only hope is the interview tomorrow. It all hangs on that.
Sunday night fever proceeded my first day as an unemployed member of HK society. As Sunday turned into Monday I was determined to push on for the sake of my wife and my unborn son. Already with a child on the way my previous arrogance and pride has been replaced with the desperation of a Filipino cleaner. There’s a certain something that makes you do humiliating, degrading jobs and I now know what it is. Responsibility. Years ago I could have just fucked off to any part of the globe and began a new, crazy adventure maybe like Tom Cruise in Cocktail and opened a bar on a beach. That kind of thing. Now, wife and kid on board I’ll be more than happy cleaning toilets if it means my wife is happy and the baby has some food on his back.
“fa ya mudda” What? The taxi driver again shouted at me “fa ya mudda” ahhh…’fuck your mother’. NOW I understand. And so my last day at the Handbag factory unfolded. Let’s rewind. July has been a shit month. Annus Horriblus as Her Madge may say. July started well enough with a nice summer holiday in Thailand but as soon as we landed in HK all of the drama unfolded. As soon as we got off the plane my wife went to the toilet. She, at the time 13 weeks pregnant, came out and uttered the words that went through me like a knife…’’I’m bleeding’’. We are in the airport and we don’t know where to go, or indeed, what to do. In a state of near hysteria we somehow manage catch a cab and wind up in Matilda Hospital where my wife is checked out. The diagnosis was a small hemorrhage of the placenta that was causing some bleeding but our little boy, oblivious to the panic, was floating around in the womb like small astronaut his tiny heart beating like a little drum BOOM BOOM BOOM. We stayed overnight and visited our regular doctor first thing the next morning, a Monday morning. Continue Reading »
I have to use taxis in HK all the time and, seeing as I now work in the middle of nowhere, I now rely on them more then ever so, imagine my surprise when I found out they are death traps. Well, not death traps per se but getting in one is very much a case of Russian Roulette; some good, some bad. Yesterday, I had a combination of both. My day at the factory was typically dull, predictable and frustrating but the travelling to and from work was a riot. Yesterday morning I left my home and waited for a Taxi which eventually pulls up. I get in but I notice that there are some bits of glass on the floor and the passenger window is open. Seeing as it’s hot I attempt to wind up the window but, alas, there is no glass in the door. No sir, the window is smashed. Open mouthed I look at my taxi driver who is a mass of hair, anger and noise. As we pull off I attempt tell him my destination just as he sharply swerves to avoid a truck at some lights. Sweet mother of god, the guy is drunk. As he pulls up at some lights I leap out, dodging the traffic around me, and make it to the pavement and await his chasing of me for the 15 dollars on the clock. He doesn’t come and he instead drives off swearing. So let me get this straight, Hong Kong allows smashed up taxis and drunk drivers? Of course not but I’m now all eyes and ears as it seems some are falling through the net. I hailed down another cab which falls into the GOOD category and I get to work alive.
So we must be at war then. Leaving for Ningbo last week I managed to catch a quick glimpse of everybody’s favourite soaraway TV station, Sky News. As well as being a rightwing propaganda machine and the UK’s very own Fox News, Sky News is also appallingly produced with a seemingly endless supply of Breaking News which on more than one occasion has proven to be false. I am particularly fond of the ticker tape that runs across the bottom of the screen with bite size news summaries for those high powered execs that are too busy to spend more than 36 seconds to gather important news facts before spending 23 hours in the office screwing down 3rd world nations.
1 year old today, well, two days ago to be precise. So there we have it; a year in the life of Hong Kongs favourite blogger before I even knew where Hong Kong was. Blogs, or electronic diaries as we call them in the trade, offer a record of the various and ultimately inconsequential lives we all lead with mine being far from the exception but, as irrelevant lives go, this year has marked a dramatic change. This time last year I was living in a Kensington bubble, ran a small handbag company. Forward on a year and I’m living in a Hong Kong bubble, been to more places than I could have wished to have, know China as well as can be expected and even speak a little of the language, earning and working as an alien in an alien environment, have a completely different view of the world, made lots of new friends and now, the big one, have a son or daughter on the way. That’s one hell of a year in my book. If you ask me to compare life in London to my life here I would say that I am much happier. I am less stressed and depressed for sure and things that used to bug me a year ago, estate agents and the Daily Mail, seem miles away from being of any interest. There are things in Asia that bug me but not many. You work hard here and you are rewarded although to work hard requires the patience of a saint and mental agility of somebody with a great mental agility. 10 months on and I don’t miss London for a second. Well, ok, some days I do wonder but then I look through my photographs and it all comes back to me and I look out the window at the mountains or the glowing skyscrapers and breath a sigh of relief. Hong Kong has its fair share of detractors, myself included from time to time, but it’s been good to us; it’s the land of opportunity if you have the inclination, and wisdom, to grasp it.
Seeing as Hong Kong trades on being ‘international’ then it may be a good idea to have ‘international’ standards. I hope I don’t sound like the myriad of other tedious ‘’have you ever noticed…’’ observational style blogs when I write this BUT have you ever noticed that men get zero paternity leave in Hong Kong? That’s right, not one pitiful day off work when your child is born. You have to take it out of your annual leave. Your holiday, meaning the two weeks you spend with a sprog can result in no holiday for an entire 12 months. Other ‘international’ destinations have basic laws that allow men to spend, horror of horrors, two weeks with pay in the company of their new born. Some countries, the Swedes for example, throw a paid month at the man and the Aussies get two weeks unpaid which is a kind of a halfway house but none the less some acknowledgement that a man has needs. America, Europe, Japan and Australia show that major economies are developed enough to be ‘civilised’. Alas Hong Kong is just an economy but socially underdeveloped. How can Hong Kong be taken seriously if it continues to play hardball with basic human rights. This is a problem that Hong Kong needs to face up to and is a barometer of the way it is regressing back into a Chinese mindset. I doubt the concept of paternity leave has ever entered the Chinese psyche as a concept until very recently so it will take a while for any real changes to formulate. I estimate there will be some shift in laws around 2087 judging by my experience of this ‘dynamic’ society. So let us ponder why Hong Kong cannot attract experienced and desirable overseas leaders in other field apart from commerce.
The reasons are simple, money aside, there are more cons than pros in terms of rights, lifestyle and environment conditions when it comes to living on this rock. OK, OK, single or young couple? Hong Kong can tick all the right boxes, but try and move on from a mid-20’s nirvana and then things become a little more sticky. Past this daydream there are fights to get decent healthcare, clean air, education, space and out-the-box thinking. However if getting pissed, buying clothes and eating out everyday is your bag then this is a Mecca. There are pluses and minuses with every city but right now the idea of being poorer but with some semblance of a life rather than wealthy but with no rights or redress is very tempting. I’m even thinking of jacking it all in and moving back to the UK (it’ll never happen) or Singapore (tempting). If you take me as an example of an experienced expat who can knock out brilliant handbags and brought over here to do that very thing and now, month 9, I am thinking of throwing in the towel not because Hong Kong is shit per se but because the important things in life, things money cannot buy, are not available here. Yes, we are preggers by the way
I came to Hong Kong to escape the middle class buffon. Those wannabe Tim-Nice-But-Dim’s that clogged up the streets of our Kensington neighbourhood were really getting on my tits. Of course there were other reasons for our departure from the UK but the middle class yearning that ran rampant through the UK in latter part of the 80’s and right through the 90’s was really too much to bear. So imagine my surprise when a quick breeze through the ex-pat Hong Kong blogging community finds this festering mould alive and well here in dear old honkers. Shacked up in their Discovery Bay enclaves they churn out the same honky-orientated observational drivel. Why Tim do you think you are the first person to notice that the residents of Hong Kong walk slowly? Why Tim do you think you are the first person to notice the MTR is busy? Why Tim do you think nobody has ever noticed the fact that the language barrier is a real pain and the fact they think differently makes the Cantonese inferior? The problem with bloggers is that any Tom, Dick or Tim can put their meandering, tiresome and painfully unfunny ‘’observations’’ out there and, that my friends, is never a good thing. I feel a deep embarrassment when I read the nauseating and pointless daily entries by people that are nonentities in reality and hide smugly behind their laptops in Starbucks bashing out naff quips and quite frankly racist banter. I think we need to clear one thing up for these comedic geniuses; HONG KONG IS NOT LIKE THE UK. HONG KONG IS NOT LIKE AMERICA. IT’S A DIFFERENT PART OF THE WORLD. IF you accept this logic then please, Mr. Not Original, do attempt to refrain from pointing out the differences in a negative ‘’this is shit, that is shit’’ fashion. If is indeed shit then please, pretty please, take the first plane out of here. I myself have struggled over the last few months to understand the mindset of Asia and specifically the Cantonese but my rants are specific to me – they are not generalised clichéd puns and quips based around the fact wearesodifferentlikenobodyhasnoticedthatbefore.
I struggle here but not from a remote point of view but as somebody trying to integrate. I have Cantonese friends, I am learning the lingua and most of my life is a million times better for not meeting a thousand Tim’s every fucking day. Alas, via the magic of the interweb these characters again thrust their cyber Ford Focuses into my lane and chat foolishness. This is Hong Kong and it is 2007 and I understand why our Cantonese brothers hate the white man. By some fortune of birth these Tim’s have had privilege and opportunity scattered at their feet and the best they can do is be posted in some mid management role in HSBC in the fragrant harbor. The bad news for us is that we have to put it with them clogging up the streets and now the internet. If you must post your dirge Tim please make original. You are an embarrassment.
Another week draws to an end in the Handbag factory. I told the Americans, in a very crude manner despite my best intentions to let them down gently, that I won’t be joining them. Again. There is no good way to reject their offer so it was best just to come out with it. On top of this I have a ‘headhunter’ who keeps calling me and wishes to meet for a ‘çhat’. I keep putting him off but I will have to meet just to satisfy my curiosity as to whom he is and the amazing jobs he has lined up. They will have to be good jobs as I now like life at the factory. After the initial freak out, as witnessed in some of my more abrasive posts down the page, I have found a new higher state of consciousness where I am more live and let live. My Cantonese co-workers are now, very very slowly, warming to me. It’s kind of like Elliot tempting ET out of the shed with M&M’s; I leave my knowledge and experience sweets dotted around the shop floor and one by one they pick them up and end up in my bedroom seeking further pearls of wisdom. But I must be careful not to shout or make sudden gestures that may shake the very fragile trust I have built up with them over the last few weeks. Any hint of non-conformist thinking and/or questioning of authority may send them running back so I must tread carefully. As I already explained, previous attempts to change the system through sheer force nearly got me the sack so I’ll do things their way but adding my own flashes of brilliance. Once they get a taste they won’t want to look back. I also like the air on the south side of the island. Yesterday, despite the heat, the weather was very gray and overcast but, via the taxi to work from my Central home, the skies turned blue and summer was again in the air. I had lunch and a nap in the park under the blue sky and listened to the birds tweet and the world pass by. You cannot do that in Central.
After a hard week, and despite my best intentions to save money I decided to buy a Rolex. Not sure why I did so but for me it was a symbolic gesture. It marks a certain part of my life and if all ends tomorrow then I’ll have something as a tribute to these heady days. It’s a vanity purchase of course but not a pointless one like buying a TV or a computer as it will hold its value. I can always sell it for food when times get hard. With it though brings an extra headache and I have to care about it unlike my Swatch which I could lose without caring. I just hope I can keep hold of it forever without losing it. I am an idiot.
Peoples Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm dropped in 1990, that’s 17 years ago pop pickers. Around this time De La Soul had just re-invented hip hop with 3ft High which featured various guest appearances from, among others, members of the Native Tongues family whose members included ATCQ. Save for a stunning verse on a track called In Time, tucked away on the B-Side of I’ll House You, not much of Q-Tip we knew. Q-Tip looked like a hippy, as did all of ATCQ at this time, and, because of the luxury of being a Native Tongue, was allowed a certain creative license basking in the De La glow that was all consuming. Feted by the press an expectant crowd gathered and Peoples Instinctive Travels was released. The great thing about this era was the expectation that a group was to be experimental, different and groundbreaking. Nothing less would have sufficed and it was seen as passé to be state of the art, artists had to push the envelope now De La had thrown down the gauntlet of a musical revolution. Was it a surprise that ATQC sampled Lou Reed’s ode to transvestites Walk on the Wild Side? No, rap was a creative tool and minds were open to anything as long as it was able to chopped, shaped and squeezed into the Hip Hop template.
