Friendster

Dust was collecting on my profile when someone sent me a request on Friendster today. So I logged on to my account for the third time since I had become a member about seven months ago.

And there it was, the equivalence of elementary school bullies chanting "loner loner" in your face, at the lower right-hand corner of the screen..."You have 2 friends."

I felt my heart skip a beat at that instance.

It wasn't until I went to my Nokia and scrolled through the 127 entries in my phone book that I felt reassured again.

Harbour Best

Air Supply was better than I expected. A lot better than I expected. Their hundred-minute performance was more than good enough to compensate for the 50 minutes before they stepped on the stage.

To everyone's surprise, the show started on time, but only because Eason Chan had a movie premiere to attend in Wan Chai at 9:30. He sang three of his latest billboard tops, then left the stage to Ronald Cheng to kill but another 15 minutes.

Because the audience wasn't told, what could have been called an intermission was just a really long wait. We thought the band would come out as soon as the equipment was set, who knew that meant 20 minutes of looking at the blacked out stage and two huge-ass TV panels showing nothing but the Harbour Fest logos while listening to "The Beatles Greatest Hits" play on the PA system.

Special lighting and sound effects plus the Air Supply's charisma made the performance of the previous two look like rehearsals for a highschool open day.

Unlike Eason Chan who decided it added a personal touch to perform in his pajamas, Graham and Russell went backstage midway into their show and changed into what looked like old ladies' pajamas, while Jonni Lightfoot carried out a phenomenal solo that could have been a show on its own.

I haven't seen Hong Kongers so hyper since July 1st. Most of us were on our feet, clapping or waving to the beat. I didn't know all the songs the band sang, but it was not hard to indulge myself in the music. Though at several instants the attention of my friends and me were direced to the waving asses of the fans in front of us.

And as I had expected, people do leave the show halfway, even though the tickets (as far as I know) were not free, and yet other people who stay till the end could still manage to not know what they had just seen. On the way out I overheard a guy asking his companion "I know that was Eason Chan who performed first, but who was that other guy?"

The ticket sales of last night's show were probably the best in Harbour Fest records so far. My guess is that they will remain the best throughout the rest of the fest. Sure, the Stones are big. But which Hong Konger wouldn't rather spend that budget on half an LV bag?!

But then, which government would spend a hundred mil on rock concerts?!

All Out of Bucks

I was on my way to work yesterday morning when I decided I was feeling too nauseated to get anything done, so I turned around and took the train back to Tai Koo. Back in City Plaza, a swarm of grandparents were already lining up in front of Tom Lee for the distribution of free tickets for tonight’s Harbourfest concert.

The disappointing ticket sales were blamed on Atomic Kitten for not showing up in Hong Kong on time. Left to perform tonight are tATu, a Russian girl dual known for their open lesbian groping on stage, and its local counterpart Twins, known for their lopsided cartwheels and off-key singing. As of this moment, it's still a mystery whether tATu will show up tonight as scheduled. But having distributed all the leftover tickets within 35 minutes yesterday, at least Twins won't have to perform in front of 6,000 empty seats like Prince and Craig David did.

I don't know what I was thinking when I said yes to paying $400 for the Sunday show. Air Supply and Eason Chan will be performing, if that makes a difference. I can't begin to imagine how little enthusiasm the performers must feel having to sing (or in Eason Chan's case, run around like a monkey high on hair dye) in front of an audience who is only there because they have nothing better to do than to use up the free tickets (and only lined up for the free tickets because they had nothing better to do), feel no appreciation / respect for their music or the city, falls asleep in under seven minutes into the show, thought they were there for the Moscow circus and free hotdogs.

When East Meets Quest

It's a day worth remembering. China has successfully sent off its first manned spacecraft at 9:00 this morning. The nation's first taikonaut, Yang Li Wei, should be just finishing his lunch now.

I'm having a hard time sitting through the rest of my day. With 90% of my colleagues at the electronics fair, the deserted office leaves me with buzzing ears and nothing to do. It makes me wonder how Yang Li Wei is killing his time in space, all alone yet with his every move being watched. It would've been nice to send at least one other person on the Shenzhou V to share the vacuum-sealed cha siu and the oh-my-god-I'm-in-space or oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die moments.

How much more would it cost to send two astronauts rather than one anyway? We could've raised more than enough funds by charging admission to the launch. SOME of the 1.2 billion people in the country must be willing to pay a good amount to witness the Kodak moment firsthand.

And if we're going to spend an astronomical figure on an astronomical task, shouldn't we at least make it a "task"? If you're going to climb up a stepladder, at least fix the light. But we just wanted to see if we could do it. And so Yang continues his way on the fifth out of 14 orbits of merry-go-around.

With the success of this human space mission, China can be the first to offer space traveling. I'm definitely thrilled to know that I may just be able to spend Christmas 2004 on a space cruise, it's gotta be safer than traveling on tour buses in China.

Tipping is Not a City in China

While stupidity has been widely associated with blondes and Bush, I've been coming across all kinds of evidence that it is an innate gene in waiters/waitresses. It seems to me that a lot of restaurants in Hong Kong (those I've been visiting anyway) either do not bother to provide proper training to their staff or support creativity as the way of life and let their employees run wild with their imagination as to what quality service (or decent service for that matter) entails.

Here's a condensed list of my personal experience to support this point of view:

(Some time during a meal at a Shanghainese restaurant)
Friend: Can we get a spoon please?
Waitress: What do you need a spoon for?

(While ordering at another Shanghainese restaurant)
Me: How big is a serving of this dish?
Waitress: It's served in a large bowl, like those you use at home.
Me (pointing to friends): My home or her home or his home?
Waitress (embarrassed, scans around the room. Facing the direction of several occupied tables, not pointing at any): Like that one at table 15.

(While ordering at a Japanese restaurant)
Friend: We'd also like two orders of uni sushi.
Waitress: What is uni?

(At an Irish pub, after a waitress messes up our orders twice, a waiter offers to clear things up)
Waiter: What did this lady order?
Friend: Whiskey and coke.
Waiter: Ok, so rum and coke it is.
All of us: WHIS-KEY and coke.
Waiter: Yes. Yes.
(Waiter picks up an empty plate from our table)
Waiter: Ok, so it's a vodka and coke.
All of us: Vodka and coke???
Friend: Whiskey and coke.
Waiter: I see. Sorry, because the waitress wrote down the letter "V" here.

You'd think things would be better at pricier places.

Just yesterday, I had yum cha with my mother and grandmother at supposedly one of the most prestigious Chinese restaurants in my neighborhood. At the end of the meal, I gestured a waitress for the bill. While waiting, I laid out my big wallet on the table in front of myself. The waitress came back with the bill, walked to the other side of the table and gave it to my mom. I gestured her to come over to my side then paid cash for the bill.

For those of you not familiar with the idea, a 10-15% service charge is included in the bill at all restaurants in Hong Kong where tipping is "required" and as such no additional tipping is expected on top of the grand total printed on the bill. And tipping would be considered peculiar at places where that service charge is not billed to you. As harsh as I sound in this article I often feel I should tip even when it's not expected and have been a generous tipper most of the time. But when the waitress came back with the change and handed it to my mom again, I picked up each and every dollar and gave her a better-luck-next-time shrug.

Full M(ons)oon

Three days to Mid-autumn festival and I don't feel the littlest bit of enthusiasm except for the anticipation for a BBQ my friends are planning on the day following. I can't even recall the last occasion I have looked up in the skies in search of the moon.

The weather hasn't been at its best lately. If it doesn't improve by Thursday evening we'll just have to stare at a lamppost while eating mooncakes that contain neither lotus paste nor salted egg yokes and playing with Hello Kitty battery-operated plastic lanterns.

The only Mid-autumn tradition that remains for my family is the fact that our relatives will make a point to get together for a feast of chicken, fish, and Chinese mushrooms. Though the thought of 15 people digging with their chopsticks as if gold coins were hidden in every dish is enough for me to lose what little appetite I had for those chicken, fish, and Chinese mushrooms.

I must say I am looking forward to the semi-exotic fruits though. It's a shame my stomach can't tolerate any combination of more than three fruits at once.

And then there's the mooncake, of which I live under the horror to this day since gaining 13lbs three years ago after spending a Mid-autumn in Hong Kong.

I'm glad that the government has officially made "burning wax" illegal. It's kind of a relief to know that I won't be walking through the podium for the week following suspecting Clifford was tortured and crucified by kids in my neighborhood.

On the other hand, I wish that I had tried "burning wax" once before it was banned. Damn.

Whatnot Lite

A problem I find with the major Chinese entertainment magazines in Hong Kong is that they either put too much coverage on love/hate buzz between semi-celebs I find as hard to believe as to develop curiosity in, or they waste manpower reporting on our city's "social issues", most of which, apparently, have to do with teenage prostitution, sexual activities in public places, Internet porn, and the like.

With that said, I still have the habit of flipping through one or two of those magazines from time to time.

Recently, I've noticed in these magazines a flood of weight loss articles and ads. Dieting and exercising are regarded as the dinosaur era in the evolution of weight loss. To keep up with the trend, consider something along the lines of oil-absorbing pills with dosages larger than the meal that contains the oil and at prices higher than what that meal costs you, or vanilla / chocolate / strawberry milkshake-flavored meal supplements derived from 100% natural herbs to free yourself from the guilt of having a vanilla / chocolate / strawberry milkshake as the supplement of your subsequent meal, or beauty center packages that offer treatments from a line of lean mean slimming machines that look as though made to teleport all people weighing more than 100lbs into intergalactic space and replace their existence on earth with fat-free versions of their look-alikes from Mars.

Signs of this Physical Revolution are not limited to printed matter. Evidence can be found on flyers, subway billboards, late night infomercials, and road shows. All as the effort of beauty centers to downsize the city's population. The city's mid-upper class population, that is. A typical treatment at one of these beauty centers would cost a typical worker two to three times his/her typical monthly salary.

I've been amazed, a couple of times, by the results these treatments had generated on a certain few celebrity spokespersons of these beauty centers. Some of the before and after pictures are really to wow for. The thing I don't understand though, is when already skinny (some obviously anorexic) celebs are chosen as spokespersons. I guess it's logical when you consider that it's much harder for a 90 pounder to go down one or two ounces than for a 200 pounder to lose 30+ pounds.

In real life, however, I've never seen anyone lose any decent amount of weight through pills, powdered drinks, or beauty center treatments. If I had that kind of spending power, there is a long list of things I'd want to do before I'd consider blowing it on something that requires me to eat less as an aftermath, for one I'd rather invest in an enjoyable, scrumptious, and altogether fattening feast.

But while I'm still making a below typical income, I shall have my super-sized extra value meal and eat it too.

The Organic White Banana

"Banana girl" is what some ex-colleagues decided to nickname me when I took up a summer job in Hong Kong three years ago.
Definition: yellow on the outside, white on the inside.
Meaning: Oriental-looking, westernized thinking.

First of all, the only "culture" with yellow skin lives under the works of Matt Groening.

As if equating me to America's favorite fruit was a compliment, those ex-colleagues of mine went on with their creativity and renamed me "White banana".
Explanation: I have indescribably fair skin. Hence, white on the outside, white on the inside.

And it's the same fair skin, plus the small eyes, plus the height, plus the big build, that raises presumptions that I'm Shanghainese, or at least have ancestors from somewhere in Northern China.

Then again, for pretty much the same attributes, I've had Japanese people mistaken me for Japanese. A few times in Japanese restaurants when using my very limited spoken Japanese to thank the waitress for pouring tea for me. Though I'd love to believe that it was my accent-free "arigatou" that threw them. And one time in a Japanese supermarket in Hong Kong, the guy tried to sell me sashimi, in Japanese. Put aside, for a second, the fact that I was "just looking". I backed away while telling him I'm not Japanese in broken Japanese, bowing and all.

If identity crises were fatal, I would've probably died of all the complications long ago.

Having spent half my life in Hong Kong and half in Canada, I often find myself pausing and pondering at the question of my identity. The question "where are you from" works mystery for me. If I were situated in Toronto, my answer would be "Hong Kong". But if I were in Hong Kong, my answer would be "Canada". Though, if I were elsewhere in Asia, I'd say I'm from Hong Kong, and if I weren't in Toronto but anywhere in North America, I'd say I'm from Toronto.

Thank God I haven't had a chance to visit Europe just yet.

And that's not all. I've been told repeatedly that I'm not able to express myself properly in words.

And I'm a writer, yes.

Well, let's just say if, one day, English and Chinese are merged to form a new dialect, I'd be everyone's language therapist. To this day, I only know of one person who speaks the same tongue as me. (C, we're two of a kind.)

M~mmm...

On the program Human Instincts an experiment was conducted to show that we are drawn to those members of the opposite sex who are most different from ourselves in order to ensure that our offspring carry the widest range of genes for better chance of survival. Six women were asked to sleep in a T-shirt for two consecutive nights. The tees then were vacuum-sealed in individual glass jars. A man was then to smell the tees and rank them in order of his fondness of their odor. DNA was extracted from each of the six women and the man prior to all this, and for the purpose of the experiment a set of six genes was picked out from each set of DNA for comparison. As it turns out, the woman whose odor the man found most pleasant is the one with the least number of genes matching to his. And the man ranked the other five tees in perfect order and found the odor of the woman who had most similar genes to him unbearable.

Now here's my problem. Being a regular subway rider, I come across a large number of "odorful” members of the opposite sex everyday. On average, I’d find myself in the presence of a different scent at every other stop of the subway train (a mixture of several different new scents every stop during rush hour traffic). From dead fish to burnt curry, the range of aroma is comparable to that in a fusion buffet. (Or, on a rainy day, the rotten leftovers of that same feast).

I know this is a phenomenon most severe under humid climates like in Hong Kong. The thing I don’t understand is how people can manage to start smelling like a bum on the street early in the morning not being a bum on the street. Are showers really that tedious a task for certain individuals?

Here's a pointer. With the aim to achieve standards of international culinary, a touch of Old Spice wouldn’t hurt.

Obviously I do not find any of these men letting out suffocating odor attractive. But if the theory in Human Instincts holds, doesn’t that mean these men whose odor I deem unbearable have genes much similar to mine?

The next time I find myself in the company of Pepe la Peu, I shall take a big sniff and try to indulge in what I hope to be dissimilarities between him and me.

Person Power

Victory to the people! Kind of.

Mr. Tung finally announced yesterday that the second reading of Article 23 would be deferred, claiming that the decision was the government's response after hearing the voice of the public in the form of the 7/1 protest. Obviously Tung suffered from impaired hearing before James Tien, chairperson of the Liberal Party, resigned from the Executive Council. Reminded me of Jesus healing that deaf man by sticking His saliva-coated finger in his ears and hollering, "Be opened."

Somebody had ought to benefit out of the whole Article 23 craze, apparently Tien was the only one with that insight. His resignation came as a kick in the teeth for Tung. It's certain that Hong Kongers will regard Tien as the icon du jour for kicking Tung anywhere. You know what they say. Heroes are born in difficult times. Nobody else claimed the status, so Tien happily raised his hand. In the end he's still going to support Tung with the implementation of the Bill on national security, but no other Tung supporters could ever dream of the spotlight Tien is getting now.

The deferral of the reading is supposed to allow society more time to absorb the so very complicated Article 23 and realize what its implementation entails, and our government time to make efforts to justify, if that's at all possible, the Bill and its amendments to the community. I am somewhat eager to find out to what extent the article can be sugarcoated and force-fed to the people of Hong Kong. For the last way out Tung will ever settle for is professional consultation.

My guess is that second reading will resume in no time; details of the article then will be no different from those now; and the law will be passed whether we like it or not. Triumph of the people is temporary. Victory can only be sustained once and for all when people have the right to elect those in the government.