I have to admit that my first impressions weren’t good. It’s cold, it’s expensive, it’s busy.
Admittedly, it’s only because I’m coming from Thailand that it seems cold. Any stray Brit who ended up here now, unexpectedly, transported straight from frozen Blighty, would be cheering abundantly and doing a dance of joy while shedding layers faster than Lewis Hamilton drives. I on the other hand went straight out and invested in a full set of thermal undies and the kind of all-encompasing scarf that well-to-do ladies of the midlands wear to draughty church functions, which looks like a cross between a poncho and a dead cat.
The first evening saw me huddled in my hostel bed under two duvets, one of which I had to guiltily give back when my Eurotrash bunkmate was about to throw a wobbly to the hostel staff. The second night I slept in a hat, scarf and two pairs of gloves: is there is no such thing as heating in this city?!
I admit it’s also only really expensive because I’ve come from Thailand, I have really been spoiled in South East Asia. The last place I stayed in Prachuap Khiri Khan gave me my own room with two double beds, bathroom, TV and furniture for £4. Here it’s £15 for a single bunk bed with a mattress so thin your arse goes numb the second it settles.
Still, who am I to complain, right? It will do me some good to feel poor in Asia, when I’ve been smugly cossetted by the cheap prices and soft beds for too long.
Seems apt that I should have to use the old stiff upper lip in a former colony, and one whose British identity is still so close to the surface too. It was only returned to China in ’97 and most people here speak English, although in many cases it’s English with approximated sense and syntax.
It’s the kind of English that the makers of the slogan t-shirts much beloved of teens across Asia have. (It’s normal to see sentences like “YOU CAME if you see to my bedroom straight is” or LOVE YoU like life in the smoking gun is”). I’m pretty sure the person who came up with this shop name had little practical English language or they might have thought twice:
["WANKO PICTURE HERE"]
I have noticed that the modern stuff here is very Asian, and it’s only the slightly shabby or outmoded stuff with an English tint. Things I haven’t been seen in the UK proper since about 1989, like: ads for Sealy mattresses (remember them?), litres of Ribena, Mister Softee ice cream vans, Bloke on the metro with a big moustache and an argyle sweater berating his rather chinless wife. A real Sloane Ranger – woman in jodphurs, riding boots, pearls and an ACTUAL scrunchie (I thought they were all ritually burned in the 90s). I will bring in more sightings of Ol’ Britainnia if and when I see them.
In the meantime…I have digressed. The only thing I wanted to say really was that despite the fact that my hands have gone blue writing this and I can’t really afford a third pair of gloves (boo hoo), I am very glad to be in Hong Kong. It may be cold, expensive and busy, but it has already amused, interested and tested me and I am looking forward to spending more time here.
*photos to follow*
