Passing through
Aberdeen, now, a second time. There is
something charming about buildings from forty years ago that still stand. Grotty, past their prime. In the mainland they didn’t build buildings
like this at that time. And if they did,
they’d be largely gone, by now. But here
they belong to someone and they are protected
Look at the guys on the side of the road. They’re working on the highway and there are
cones out to announce their presence, announce their life. In China we’d just have people out there,
picking up trash from the bushes and they wouldn’t be afforded any cones, let
alone a sign saying “men working, fines doubled.” Civil servants are all relatively
well paid, and are provided with benefits and there is a dignity among people
who enjoy a good standard of living no matter what their work. The one glaring exception here is domestic
helpers, who should be hired from the local population but are not. And Filipinas are imported at rates that are
nearly unliveable.
My driver this morning is a bit edgy. Young, smart, A.D.D. perhaps as he fiddles
with his phone and the radio and whatever else is within reach. Disconcerting to look over and see the car
next to you driven from what should be the passenger seat. A ghost car.
But they all are. Relax. Going off across from the west of the island
to the eastern crossing on to Kowloon for a 10:00AM meeting. I need to double check my breath. Cold trout
on my salad for breakfast. I’d better get some breath mints.
Our driver is making funny noises. I hear Cantonese and think you and
understand. What I think he said was
“Pai, Pai” as we come into a line of traffic.
That might mean “line, line” in Mandarin, as in “paidui.” But it might be something
completely different in Cantonese. Then
he repeated the phrase “yu san” twice.
Now, that could mean umbrella in Mandarin. But it
is an absolutely beautiful sunny day, so why would anyone be yelling that into
their phone? He may be buying one for
his uncle. What do I know?
The traffic is remarkably efficient, once again. We’re moving through dense congestion
without pause. Will the mainland ever be
able to drive this way? Oh, I’d say it
is unlikely in my life time. This is the
legacy, as much as any, of British rule. Literally. These are the rules. Obey them.
Or there will be a penalty. It’s
been that way since every person can remember.
And as a result, it works. Perhaps
technology will create a “rule” of law that ultimately causes Chinese people to
self correct.
It is wonderful to see the other traffic, the maritime
traffic, in the harbor. I’m looking over
now from North Point and there is a long new structure that looks like a
futuristic racetrack about a mile long, up beside the waterfront. I bet home boy will know. “The government has taken the old airport”,
my driver tells me and “turned it now into a cruise pier”. OK.
Cool. Now I know. Every modern harbor should have a cruise pier,
I suppose. I pause to imagine what the marketing brochures would say, to render
this majestic.
Now we’re heading down and through the Eastern Harbor Tunnel. You seen one Harbor tunnel you seen them
all. That must be a universal law of
tunnels that they don’t allow for advertisements, right? All this remarkable wall space that thousands
of people every day, have no choice but to look at, is blank and black. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad for the
darkness. How long will it be though,
till our tunnels are invaded like the back taxi cabs and every other
advertiseable space in the world. As in
the MTR, or most subways, one could imagine one long LCD screen, covering all
the black space, that would broadcast remarkable imagery to vulnerable eyeballs. Presumably people would actually pay
attention to these seductive ads and accidents would multiply. If there is a
place where this will happen first it isn’t Hong Kong, but across the border in
the mainland where everything is for sale if you know the right person.
Now we’ve popped out. The other side and the sign welcomes
us to Kwun Tong I’m five minutes from my
meeting, but I’m not too worried. I’ll have
to put this my lap top down and get ready to dash off soon. I need a breath mint after my fish and salad
breakfast. It lingers. I fear for the
people I meet. Rubbing my chin I realize
I forgot to shave in my haste. Look over
there. The entrance to a temple “Tian Hou Fo” “Heaven after Buddha?” There is a walk way that heads up around a
corner to a little temple beneath four crisscrossing highway overpasses. I thought it was tough to meditate and find
repose on the MTR yesterday. What if
your temple was beneath three or four highways.
I can’t see actual site. But I
know what it looks like already. I tried
to get a picture of the entrance, the walkway up to the flags, but it was too
many touches of he screen and there’s a bus beside me now. Like the monkey said when he had is tail cut
off by the train. “Can’t be long now.”
Meeting done. This
time, I’ll take the MTR. Riding along
now to North Point. Instead I’ll change
for the next line at Quarry Bay. And
immediately I’ll regret it because the adjoining line is 400 meters away,
instead of across the track. Now we’re
heading under the Harbor, once again. No
ads in this tunnel either. Perhaps we
should have advertising here. I’m not the first idiot to have had this
though. For now, it’s just dark
outside. How merciful. No smiling faces or ripped abs to
consider. Just the walls of the harbor
tunnel. No ads. They’ll come someday,
when there is an easy way to update them remotely. Some day we’ll harken back to when you could
proceed through a tunnel and just see black.
One of the things I always do in Hong Kong is buy my kids
books. I still believe that 开卷有益[1] Books stores are one of the final
frontiers for foreign enterprise penetration into China. Books, like the Internet are the purview of
the propaganda ministry and unlike clothing or hardware, you can’t sell just
any information. All written material
must be approved ahead of time. In
Beijing we’ve always had the marvelous Bookworm bookstore that miraculously
existed and was able to sell a remarkable selection of books. But chain stores were never allowed in to
compete with Xinhua, the state sanctioned book store. Xinhua bookstores are characteristically anachronistic
and useless for English titles. How we
have the Singapore chain Page One that has managed to open a huge store in San
Li Tun. And while many sensitive titles
may not be available, a range of classics are which is better than nothing.
Regular readers will know that I read the first of the
Narnia books “The Magicians Nephew” to my daughter recently and now she read
“The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” by her self, after having seen the movie
about 23 times when she was younger. I
bought the seven-book set just now. (for a cool US $70 or so, which is
obscene) “The Horse and His Boy” the
third book then, is now on deck. I’d
read it when I was twelve or so and I can only imagine it would all come back
to me, but for now I can’t remember anything that happens in this book. Blissful ignorance may prevail if she reads
it herself, as I’m hoping. Meanwhile I
got my older daughter Karen Blixen’s (a.k.a.
Isak Dinesen) “Out of Africa.”
I read the first chapter on the ride to the airport, this
afternoon, out past the docks and past the inlet where the pink dolphins still,
for now, swim. Let’s just say she’s
easier to read than her contemporary, Edith Wharton. What’s
my agenda? I want my daughter to imagine
a smart, empowered European woman of 80 years prior making a living for herself
in East Africa and writing about it. It’s
not the first foray we’ve had into that demographic. I bought her Beryl Markham’s book “West With
Night,” which I always adored. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl_Markham
Somehow, my older daughter didn’t like it. “Yeah, yawn.
The so the lion almost eats her. Yawn.
So what?” This, to me, seems impossible. Stories of having the king of the jungle roar
over your head and nearly devour you, stories of flying over the Odyssian sea
and nearly plummeting into the brine all somehow didn’t move my daughter. “It’s not Percy Jackson.” Oh dear. Well, I’m not sure if Isak Dinesen’s
depiction of Somali women’s laughter will impact differently. But I will try.
"The Somali women themselves, had
dignified, gentle ways, and were hospitable and gay, with a laughter like
silver bells. I was much at home in the
Somali village through my Somali servant Farah Aden, who was with me all the
time that I was in Africa, and I went to many of their feasts. A big Somali wedding is a magnificent
traditional festivity. As a guest of
honor I was taken into the bridal chamber, where the walls and the bridal bed
were hung were hung with old, gently glowing weavings and embroideries and dark-eyed, young bride herself was stiff,
like a marshal’s baton, with heavy silks, gold and amber.”
I’ve never been to East Africa. An aching deficit. My ears enjoy the music from the part of the
continent I have traveled to, where the fauna is less diverse and profound but
the human civlilizational majesty is perhaps unsurpassed. It is the Nigerian, Yoruban maestro Tunji Oyelana,
who’s collection “A Nigerian Retrospective from 1966 to 1979” is divine. Tunji does not appear to have a Wiki page,
but I did find an interesting review of the collection on line: http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2012/11/graded-on-a-curve-tunji-oyelana-a-nigerian-retrospective-1966-79/
Now I know that he was not only a musician but also a comedian. OK. what’s does that mean? Is he laughing at his own jokes on the disc? If you’re a tremendous musician but also,
apparently a comedian, what was it precisely you used to do that was
funny? If you listen to this disc there
are many times, such as in the phatter than
fat song “Ifa” where he laughs and laughs again way out loud.
http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2012/11/graded-on-a-curve-tunji-oyelana-a-nigerian-retrospective-1966-79/ Perhaps there is something ribald to the
Yoruban lyrics that I’m not getting.
The article only offers a tease. But a wonderful one:
Where to place Tunji Oyelana,
whose work has recently been corralled by the Soundway label into the expansive
2CD/3LP/digital compilation? A Nigerian Retrospective 1966-79, into all of
this? Well for starters, he doesn’t necessarily fit the mode of the musician
whose creativity was incorrectly assessed as being of a mainly commercial nature.
Early in his career he established a long relationship with the
writer-playwright and future Nobel Prize winner Wolf (sic) Soyinka, joining the theatre troop 1960 Masks. This
connection with Soyinka, a stridently political artist who was jailed in the ‘60s,
evolved over the years and eventually produced Unlimited Liability Company.
“Unlimited Liability Company” . . . I wish Id’ thought of
that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wole_Soyinka What precisely remains of the work that, while
preforming abroad, got them black listed?
I’m listening now to the song “Panbolanbola” which is like trigonometry
made danceable. The backing vocals
alluring, his voice utterly convincing. Head
on off to England, I suppose if the Hausa minority don’t like the jokes you
make or the music you play.
OK. It’s late now, up
in Beijing. Back home. Time for bed.
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