August 14, 2009

Some experiences are seemingly unremarkable when we live them and prove to be significant only afterwards, glittering like gems hidden under layers of cortical detritus and beckoning us to unearth them through reflection. Other experiences are not latent and are immediately meaningful.

Looking back on my time in Hong Kong, I realize it’s one of those wondrously unusual and amazingly free times, often becoming preciously rare as age increases, responsibilities accumulate, bills pile up, and life accelerates.

This summer was a space delineated and differentiated from the usual humdrum routine, a magical space of possibility, a blank canvas, a vast field of immaculate fresh-fallen snow just waiting to be sculpted into various forms.

I look back on my shared experiences with exceptionally generous Columbia alumni, affable co-interns, and hospitable Hong Kongers with fondness. Ivy Ball, squid fishing, hiking, regular weekday lunches with Alex and Aileen in Central at our favorite cha chaan teng where a Henan lady welcomed us with warm smiles and kind words.

The memories, no longer fresh and vivid, become sweet and fuzzy, glowing like the remaining embers of a crackling campfire by which smores have been roasted and ghost stories traded under a glittering, star-studded sky.

If you like what you read here, please check out my real blog, Easily Amused. Yes, I own my own domain. I am that cool.

 

There’s a digging machine at a construction site near my workplace in Hong Kong Central. Enormous, cylindrical, and piston-shaped, it prepares the foundation of a new building on Pedder Street by driving a sheer metal shaft at least two feet in diameter into hard, raw concrete. When steel collides with stone, the ground shakes and an ear-splitting clangor pulsates through the air as the threatening piston trembles and rises to strike again. An auditory manifestation of the city's pace of development, the piston slams into the ground again and again – a metronome beating out the urban tempo.

Presto

The monotonous impacts can be heard from several city blocks away. They create a frenetic rhythm. Legions of business people, coolies, and restaurant workers dash to and fro. Swarm this way and that. Point A to point B. They shield their ears. But they can still feel the machine pounding away. It's under their feet. Reverberating through their legs. Vibrating up their spines. It resonates beneath their scalps. Within their joints. Deep into the ventricles of their hearts.

Allegro

Victoria Peak can be reached by taking the Peak Tram railcar, but the rewarding route is taken by those who offer their sweat and energy for a communion with nature instead of exchanging money for air-conditioned comfort in yet another real estate developer’s creation.

View of Pok Fu Lam Reservoir en route to Victoria Peak

A gazebo on Governor's Walk atop the Peak

"At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only, - when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days to come." - Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"

HK at night from the Peak

Moderato

The Dragon’s Back trail is so named because the undulating ups and downs of this path through hills and valleys makes you think you’re treading on the spine of a prostrated beast. The trail is gentle and gives marvelous views of beaches teeming with sun-seeking leisure goers, yachts making their way through the South China Sea, and far-flung uninhabited islands.

Dragon's Back trail

Shek O Peak

I went to Shek O beach on the anniversary of HK's SAR establishment day (July 1). Apparently, so did the rest of HK.

Andante

The weather on mountaintops is extremely unpredictable. One moment, it’s completely sunny with vistas of towering mountain ranges and vast tracts of sprawling urban centers; the next moment, you’ll find yourself engulfed in rolling plumes of mist and unable to see anything more than several meters away. As the winds push super humid air up the mountains, temperatures drop and clouds materialize, hanging mysteriously in fragile formations as the air sweats out its latent water. It’s a wondrously otherworldly experience to walk in these clouds. You feel like you’re venturing through some alternate dimension suspended between heaven and Earth. Look up and all you see is clouds; look down and even the ground seems to fade from view as the mist swarms around your legs. Suddenly, a slit opens in the clouds above unleashing a flood of sunlight, and all the mist around you evaporates just as quickly as it appeared.

Golden Orb Spider (Nephila pilipes) can grow to 50mm in length and spin webs three feet wide that have yellow orbs on some strands and are strong enough to capture small birds.

Adagio

After an entire week of crowds, fumes, and fluorescent lights, I retreat to the beaches of Shek O, the woods of Sai Kung Country Park, or the peaks of Ma On Shan. Here, there’s no trace of the daily grind, urban throngs, or artificial amenities. The mountains are a sanctuary where I get my weekly fix of solitude, wholesome air, and Mother Nature.

I ran out of stuff to say. Shocking, I know. So here's a bunch of photos for your mindless viewing pleasure.

Lantau Island

268 steps lead to the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island

We're so proud of Eugene. He finished all 268 steps.

The Wisdom Path features calligraphy from the Heart Sutra carved into thick, upright tree trunks.

Landslides? Screw that. We're going.

"Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest-trees." – Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"

Looking up towards Lantau Peak, second highest peak in HK, its summit shrouded in mist. (photo courtesy of Yipeng Huang)

South side of Lantau (photo courtesy of Yipeng Huang)

Ma On Shan

Ngong Ping mountains in Sai Kung catching the sunlight.

Snapping a photo of a butterfly at a fire watch tower overlooking Kau Sai Chau

Sharp Island off the coast of Sai Kung town

Ascending Ma On Shan aka Horse Saddle Mountain

"For I believe that climate does thus react on man, - as there is something in the mountain-air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these influences?...I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky, - our understanding more comprehensive and broader, like our plains, - our intellect generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains and forests, - and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas." - Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"

Preparing for the final ascent up the cliff

"...the natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, thought to experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience." - Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"

Sun's rays filtering through the clouds onto Sha Tin

"But there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied...The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff." - Annie Dillard, "Seeing"

Sha Tin at dusk

Evening clouds over Sai Kung

July 12, 2009

HK's Central district is the analogue of NYC's Wall Street.  is here that multi-billion dollar banking giants like Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) and Standard Chartered Bank stake out their territories. Garden Road and Cotton Tree Drive are mere slivers of pavement wedged between the towering high-rises of Bank of China and Citibank. Between these two buildings lies the oldest Anglican church in the Far East. Even though St. John's Cathedral has been here since 1849, it's dwarfed by the neighboring financial skyscrapers and looks strangely out of place. Its stone frame, rose window, lancet arches, and trifoils contrast jarringly with the surrounding urban jungle made of glass and steel.

 

Exchange Square

St. John's Cathedral

Bank of China Tower

My workplace is right in the very thick of this jungle on the eighth floor of Exchange Square Two. I'm interning at a German strategy consulting firm called Roland Berger. Right now I'm preparing pages in a report to the German Federal Ministry of Economics on the business attractiveness of China's western provinces. My boss is great. She's down to Earth, understanding, and receptive to suggestions. At the same time, she's firm, exacting, and generally just on top of her stuff. My internship is of the hit the ground running, no hand holding, lots of latitude type.  

I have no idea what the other floors of Exchange Square Two look like (perhaps an adventure for another time), but the eighth floor, besides being auspicious to Chinese people, is managed by The Executive Center, a company that rents out and services offices. The floor is excellently furnished and has dark earthy colors. There are bookshelves with books ranging from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to The Droll Stories of Honoré de Balzac. A giant silver colored trophy to the Jones Lang LaSalle company for winning the Young Executives Network's 5-A-side Corporate Football Tournament sits on another shelf. My favorite spaces are the kitchens which have espresso machines. You can make yourself a cup of ristretto, espresso forte, decaffeinato, or coffé forte by inserting a UFO-shaped packet into the machine's mouth.

Workplace kitchen

June 25, 2009 

A day spent experiencing HK's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is enough to put any urban-dwelling American to shame.

HK subway stations are massive. Unlike NYC Metro stations that usually only take up one city block with four exits, HK's subway stations occupy the space of three to four blocks with as many as ten exits. Inside, they are brightly lit, extremely clean, outfitted with dozens of escalators, and don't smell like urine. Little stores selling snacks ranging from individually-plastic-wrapped pigs in a blanket to HK-style milk tea (奶茶), a beverage made of tea and condensed milk, line MTR subway stations. It's impossible to fall onto the tracks since a wall of glass extends from the edge of the platform to the station's ceiling along the entire length of the docking area. Each time a train stops at a station, the doors of its trolleys align almost perfectly with the outer glass doors - which is quite a feat of precision since these trains go pretty darn fast.

Morning and evening rush hours are sights at which to marvel. Torrents of businessmen, working women, students, children, and the occasional tourists pour into subway stations like water bursting forth from a blown dam. Immense masses of jostling flesh occupy almost every square inch of pavement and swarm down every available escalator. But the whole bi-daily affair has its own sense of order and organization. It is a massive, harmonious madness. Controlled chaos on the magnitude of hundreds of thousands. Stationary escalator passengers stand on the right of the stairs to allow a path for those wishing to actively climb or descend. At bus stops, people arrange themselves into near perfectly straight, single-file lines on the side walk. Pedestrians never jaywalk, even when no cars are in sight, but instead always patiently wait for the appearnce of a light, in the form of an ambulating, green stick figure, and the emission of an annoying, hollow, clicking noise from every walk signal's speakers.

The 25M minibus has a stop right in front of NTT International House (my pad) and delivers me conveniently to the Kowloon Tong MTR station. Wikipedia tells me most of the minibuses are Toyota Coasters running on liquified petroleum gas (LPG), which is cheaper and relatively environmentally friendly. I suspect minibus drivers are paid based on how many passengers they transport. So more passengers and faster driving equals more money. Fewer passengers and lots of red lights means less moola. Today, my 25M driver got delayed behind traffic at a red light for nearly five minutes. I had nowhere to be, and even I was frustrated by the entire ordeal. When the light turned green and a space between a double-decker and a sedan opened up, the driver pounced on it. I got to experience the awesome acceleratory capabilities of this automobile in pedal-to-the-metal mode. The minibus wove in and out of narrow lanes and through moving cars while under the driver's deft control.

Passing around tight corners, I swear I could feel the wheels of the bus on one side slightly lift off the asphalt, going round and round all through the town. Other passengers didn't seem to think anything was out of the ordinary, but I grabbed the handle bar in front of me. I kept thinking, "This ride was so worth HK$4.70!" An adrenaline-boosting ride like this was perfect for waking me up after a full day's work. (But in the back of my mind, I'm also reminded of the recent news story of recklessly fast minibus drivers killing two women in Mong Kok.)

Minibus drivers will not stop at bus stations unless there are people waiting there or passengers yell out to them en route. I don't know the Cantonese words for "stop the bus" (it's at the top of my list of Cantonese phrases to learn, along with "What are you doing later tonight" and "Are you a Triad member?"), and it didn't look like anybody was waiting for the NTT stop. Luckily, a lady called for the driver to stop at Baptist University. Even though this stop is several minutes away from NTT, I decided it was better to get off and walk instead of taking my chances with such a frenzied driver. Half-expecting the driver to prematurely close the door, I rushed towards the exit. The ceiling is lower than I thought it was, and my head made a loud thud against the underside of the door as I stumble out.