Super Long Post: Part II

I wrote this post as part of the last super long post, but thought it was too long and too boring...so I decided to cut it into pieces and bore you twice...I'm not gonna bother editing it, because it was like 3 weeks ago, but I thought I should post it.

Reflections

This whole experience has been quite absurd. I remember, quite distinctly, that for my entire childhood and even up through some of college, I always thought that my family was quite wealthy. Or at least solidly “upper middle class.” (If I’m not mistaken, we are actually upper middle class.) And by all measures of being and economic welfare, I do still believe that my family is very well-off and that I could never ask for more than I was given…but I no longer harbor any sort of delusion that we are considered, at least in this world, to be wealthy. Which, of course, I also view to be a positive thing. I couldn’t have grown up in a better environment. Anyhow…

…suddenly here’s this strange life I’ve taken on over the past 2 months. Where I actually consider getting my shoes polished. Where I must engage in conversations about "the market." Where people are used to having certain luxuries and accommodations “expensed.” Where instant gratification is the expectation. And where self-reliance exists in an alien form – because while you may be self-reliant in the professional world, your basic needs of laundry, food preparation, grooming, and transportation are all packaged not as necessity, but as luxury. I think maybe that is, in some small sense, part of what constitutes conspicuous wealth. Turning the everyday moments into pleasure. From a desire for comfort to a satiation of the need for constant pleasure. It’s hedonism, really. Luxury is little but the conversion of the everyday into something extraordinary. (I mean, sure, I like it. But what the fuck?)

Loving Hong Kong

I will say, though, that I am increasingly coming to love Hong Kong. (see above.) The city itself is not nearly as Asian as you might expect. It is sometimes actually difficult to find a nice Chinese restaurant, because there are so many hundreds of Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Indian, American, Greek, Japanese, Lebanese, or whatever other types of restaurants around the city. It also lacks the dirtiness and cheapness of China. The restaurants don’t have a faux sense of decor and elegance. The elegance is real. This truly is a world class city in many respects. It’s not like China where “French Onion Soup” is a watery onion broth, or where an enchilada will be a horribly compromised mishmash of flavors stuffed into a gummy bready tortilla and served with a package of ketchup. French onion soup is actually French onion soup here. White wine seafood risotto is actually a white wine seafood risotto. It may not strike you as that odd, but after spending time in India and China, it’s very strange to stumble into a foreign restaurant in the city and actually eat food that hasn’t been bastardized into a weird Chinese form.

Of course such a “westernized” style of living has its drawbacks. Hong Kong is fucking expensive. In a city of investment bankers and businessmen, I guess I was naive to believe it could be otherwise…but I am paying out the nose for so many things. Another is that there are white people everywhere (which might be ok if you like such things). A third drawback is simply that Hong Kong doesn’t have any particular culture. It exists somewhere between the US, China, the UK, and the ideal of a capitalistic society. It is its own melting pot, and lacks the richness of a native soul. (Of course, I’m very very new here…but that’s just what I thought.)

It is wonderful though. On the south side of the Island there are gorgeous white sand beaches surrounded by emerald green waters and lush green mountains. There are jungle-like mountain paths to go hiking on the weekends, and lots of little islands surrounding Hong Kong island with hikes ranging from 1 to 12 hours. And it’s tropical, which means that some of the plants leaves are so thick, so juicy, and so prehistorically large that they almost seem like animals. There are quaint villages and skyscrapers. Concrete and wilderness. Mountain biking and dragon boats. The Four Seasons and the shack by the sea. Clearly I’ve been converted.

Speaking of the tropical plants, I’d like to go back to these leaves for just a moment. Do any of you know what I’m talking about? The plants with the leaves the size of a pizza. The type that stegosaurus probably loved. The ones you look at and say “holy crap, did I just take mushrooms? or did I just step into Super Mario Bros.?” I love those huge plants. They just seem so other worldly. Only in these tropical areas could produce plants with such enormous leaves. I bet these things produce a bucket of chlorophyll per day. They just look so healthy. So thick and organic. And enormous.

Anyhow, that must have been, by far, the worst passage I’ve ever posted on this thing. A rambling talk about large leaves. Well too bad. It continues. I talk about them only because I took an amazing run last night on the side of a mountain. This is more or less the view from the path on the left. I began at 8 o’clock, when the night had already gone dark and the primarily illumination came from the forest of skyscrapers and their Hong Kong neon lights…and after I somehow, painfully, but persistently managed to pound out a 6K…it began raining…and I heard the sound of a thousand raindrops hitting a thousand (giant) leaves. The thing is, this was not the sizzling sound of drizzle on maple leaves. This was something much more substantial. Something corporeal. The sound of fat, heavy drops of cool tropical rains pounding into fleshy enormo-above-ground-lily-pads. The sort of satisfaction you can get out of a bass amp when it’s tweaked just right, or when a bass drum has been properly mic’d up and sends a thump through your chest. Just awesome. It’s a sure sign of being away from home when I see leaves like this. But it always carries its own sense of home as I flash on memories of India and my awe the first time I ever saw one of these large plants. (I am quite possibly the most boring motherfucker who has ever walked the earth.)

...and that's the end of the post. I'll be back soon with something more interesting.

Here's some pictures and commentary:

This is a picture from Thailand, which I had nothing to do with. But I thought it would give you all the flavor you would need to understand Bangkok.
This is a beachfront public barbecue...
This is the haircut I adopted for our "let's be absurd" night. (Notice how fucking lame her "absurd" hairstyle is. And look how pissed I am that she did that.)
And as a symbolic demonstration of how transformative my influence and the influence of Hong Kong were on those around us...we managed to turn THIS Kid....

Into THIS at 5am Karaoke. (Bow.)