Tag Archives: hong kong

11.05.07 [Saturday]
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australia, comics, travel

hostels and comics that are free and otherwise

I’ve secured a lease on an apartment for Madame Holly and myself. And because of that I think I’m going to be able to start enjoying Sydney again. I’m not the kind of person who can relax and have fun with a big unresolved issue looming. On Monday though, I’ll move in and that’ll be a lot of worrying off of me.

In preparation for moving in, and because I’m going to be spending more time hanging out at Prosentient (but not working), I switched hostels today. The place I’d been at was out in Potts Point, near the King’s Cross subway stop, which was a longer trip into Ultimo than I would have liked.

I stayed at the Blue Parrot on John’s recommendation and I have to follow up with him about why he thought it was so great. Not that it was bad. It just didn’t generate any great allegiance in me. Most likely that’s because I didn’t really participate in the hostel-bonding experiences of drinking at whatever local bar dressed up as a national stereotype or dressed as a lady for free drinks or whatever.

The Blue Parrot staff were more friendly there than at the Sydney Central YHA where I am now, which is a much more professionalized hotel-like hostel (that charges for WiFi – boofuckingurns). But they also had terrible radio stations blaring in the kitchen all day long.

Enough about hostels.

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and I went to a couple of places to see what was happening. Kings Comics had a 20% off sale (50% off back issues) plus the aforementioned free comic books. I picked up the paperback edition of Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid on Earth and managed to refrain from buying anything else. This was kind of a big deal for me. I learned I’m actually two trades behind on DMZ and it took so much not to complete that collection. But something like that would have to come back to Canada with me to be fully useful. Jimmy Corrigan I can read here and possibly get Holly to read because it’s awesome, and if we don’t have room to bring it back to Vancouver it would make an excellent gift.

I also went to a Kinokuniya Bookstore. I know I’ve read that name before but didn’t know what kind of bookstore to expect. It was quite large and had a bunch of artists there for Free Comic Book Day, including a couple of indie zine-type self publishers. I bought a really cool black ink on black paper thing about Leviathan and Moby Dick and other fish. Once I get a few more zines and things the plan is to send them over to Caitlin at the Schulz.

Tonight I went for a walk around Darling Harbour, which reminded me of the Kowloon boardwalk where you look at Hong Kong Island (I think I’ve got those geographical references correct, but since I’m not paying for WiFi they are being written without fact-checking and I might forget to check this before posting it). The climate and general appearance of Sydney reminds me more of Los Angeles if LA was a walkable size. Despite the city’s expense, I think I like it.

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05.12.10 [Saturday]
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中国

drawing a blank

I keep on forgetting that I’m going to Thailand at the end of January. And I might be the only [organization redacted]er (apart from Rod who’s been killing himself over getting tickets) who would have rather not gone there for our mid term conference.

What is Thailand to me? Nothing. I understand there are elephants. Yep. That’s all I’ve got. I don’t know shit about Thailand except that it’s warm at this time of year.

See, last year we went to Hong Kong. That was great. Hong Kong has a history and a present I care about. I spent time in Hong Kong. I went to museums in Hong Kong. I found game shops in Hong Kong. I loved Hong Kong immensely, and was sad that we didn’t get to go back this year. I’d like to head back when my term is served and Reyn and Aileen come out to head (emphasis on the second syllable) European westward.

And the fact that all I’m doing is worrying about what Mom and I are going to be doing the three weeks beforehand really saps any energy I have to think about Thailand being a fun vacation. Some people are excited about doing cool things on their way there or on their way back or what have you. I just want to go, be there and come back without having to think about it at all.

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05.03.30 [Wednesday]
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music, 中国

hooray for canadians

It’s not as bad as it seems at first glance, but it’s pretty funny. Avril Lavigne’s promotional pictures for a Hong Kong concert show her with the characters for “Japan is great” in marker up her arm. To be fair the picture was probably from a show in Japan.

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05.03.07 [Monday]
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games, 中国

geek sans chickens

When I was in Hong Kong I bought Exalted, my first RPG purchase in many months (not counting the things I got my mom to pick up for me but that I won’t see till I go back). Today I finally got down to reading it and I can see why there are so many screaming fanboys on RPG.net. It seems like a really quite excellent fantasy setting. I’d probably use a different system to simplify it a bunch, and it’ll never take Unknown Armies’ place as my game of choice but it looks fun.

Man do I wish I had people to play games with here.

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05.03.04 [Friday]
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中国

dear pot: a few words in response

Okay. I think it’s crappy that the US gets to name itself the human rights cop that gets to say who’s naughty and nice. Planks and specks and things. But when China is talking about the Human Rights Record of the US in 2004 there’s something wrong. I’m not saying that as a form of emphasis for how shitty the US is. Far from it. I’m just saying that when China publishes something like this you have to be careful in saying “Way to go China!” (as the intro to the story in the link says) since the hypocrisy is even more pungent and even fewer Chinese citizens are going to call bullshit on it.

That was one thing I loved in Hong Kong. At the ferry terminal to the island for a couple of days there were a bunch of Falun Dafa activists with their signs up saying how good it was and how their followers are tortured on the mainland. It felt so right to be there looking at these artists’ renderings of torture and angry posters denouncing Jiang Zemin. Yes it’s counter propaganda that is probably distorting the truth as well but it’s something that I would fall over in shock with if I saw it in Wanzhou. Or Chongqing. Or Beijing. I damn near did in Hong Kong. Then I remembered where I was.

People sometimes get too short sighted and forget that even with all the shittiness and hypocrisy that is part of US politics they get the chance to bitch about the media not covering it. Which is really good. Not that people don’t bitch about the media here. I’m sure some people do, but I’ve never had the chance to hang out with them.

Yeah, that “Way to go China!” really bugged me. Plus all the Chinese English phrases in the text itself, but that’s more of a teaching issue I think.

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05.02.25 [Friday]
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中国

invocations (assorted)

One thing about being back in Wanzhou after time in Hong Kong is that I’m back to being a laowai. This essentially means that people have to hit their friends to make sure they don’t miss witnessing me doing such fascinating things as walk down the same goddamned street where I’ve walked every fucking day for half a year.

This evening I had a woman chasing me with her toddler telling it to shout “Hallo!” but I politely ignored her and kept walking fast instead of getting stabby. I was grudgingly impressed with their stamina. I’ve been wearing my earphones all the time (often unplugged) as an excuse to ignore these people by looking like I really can’t hear them.

‘Cause I can’t turn around and tell every single person who stares and tries to intrude on me to fuck off and swallow bleach. The economic impact from bleach sales would have consequences on the city’s economy that I’m not comfortable being responsible for.

I hadn’t realized how much of this there was until being in HK where there’s none. Nobody cares about someone being white there, even though most people still are not. There I didn’t feel responsible for being a representative Canadian because if I was a jerk anyone’d be able to meet other Canadians who weren’t. Here I just have to be nice or relegate all foreigners to being fuckwits for a lot of the people I meet.

The tension is mounting.

And it doesn’t help that I’m also fighting an unrelated war of attrition against mercury vapour lighting. I hate its orangey-ness so much. So much.

Listening to: Sammy’s Bat from the album Music to Beat Bush By
by Dan Bern

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05.02.21 [Monday]
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中国

mong kok hall of fame


graf
Originally uploaded by
Hungry J.

I found this alley by wandering around near the Mong Kok KCR station. Right near the corner was a stenciled “Let’s Support Street Art” and all down the wall of this one building was graffiti. Good stuff. Some fading and whatever in the lettering, not just tags.

As you get further down the alley you see that on the other side, sort of under an overpass is where some people have their cardboard shelters. And their big dogs.

So I didn’t get all the way down the alley the first time I went exploring.

The next time I was out in that area (we were looking for a working Slurpee machine at a 7Eleven) I showed the alley to my friend Deb. We walked in for a while until about the spot where I took this picture. That was when the dog was out and came up to us.

I could have sworn it had been chained up the last time, but it wasn’t barking, so we made nice doggie sounds at it and didn’t go any further.

It didn’t seem to take much more notice of us and pissed on the wall (too quickly for me to get a picture) while we slowly left the alley.

So then we’re on the street out a round the corner, deciding whether to go back or continue the Slurpee quest when the dog came running out of the alley and bit Deb on the thigh. Not hard, but still. Then it ran back to its alley.

I kind of felt bad for bringing her out there to get attacked by a mean old dog, but then later on Lantau Island someone else got sort of bit like that and I realized it was Hong Kong leading people into the hound’s maw, not me.

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05.02.15 [Tuesday]
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中国

big balls

Well, Chinese New Year is long over and the libraries are open for free net access again. Yay blog.

I never have to see fireworks ever again. It’s very good that fireworks have never been too huge a focus for my life because I’d now have performed cunnilingus on the virgin Mary far too prematurely. Hong Kong’s New Year fireworks were amazing. There was no wimpy warning shot; it started with a cloud of light and noise. The choreography actually worked, there was a variety of exploding balls, but no giant soaring cock ducking and weaving between buildings in the skyline.

I saw them with the people from this Danish guesthouse I stayed at where I met an Aussie guy named Grant who is studying Chau Gar Praying Mantis Kung Fu from the Grand Master here in Hong Kong. The idea is that he’ll train for a year here and then go back to Brisbane to open a school there. This school will be in direct competition with the school run by the only other Aussie to study with the Grand Master. That other teacher “did the master wrong” in some murkily indeterminate way and so he wants Grant to go down there and steal all his students.

The retreat here in Lantau is boring but it’s great to hang out with my friends. We’ve been eating well outside of the retreat centre itself. The Indian food at Chungking Mansions was really good, and there’s stuff like nachos at the bars around here. Also, if you’re in Hong Kong, go to Ned Kelly’s Last Stand. It made me realize how much I miss live music. It felt like a speakeasy and there were people from all these marching bands who were joining in with the house band. Beer was stupid expensive, but whatever.

That’s it, can’t dump too much out there at once.

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05.02.03 [Thursday]
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movies, music, 中国

cultural days

Someday I will go somewhere that has beautiful weather when I am actually there. Today is not some day. Clouds are hanging well below Victoria Peak and it’s spitting rain and wind. So I’m on my way to a museum.

Yesterday I had an amazing afternoon hanging out at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. It was Free Admission Wednesday and they’ve got some neat stuff. But the best was undoubtedly the Huang Hongyu exhibit. I love how Chinese art has writing on it. So it’s a bit like having a built in commentary. Example: A Painting of an angry cat and a sad skinny old guy with a broken stringed instrument. The writing (translated of course):

Spring time. Mating time. Hear the pussy call.

The monk may share the pussy mind but dare not show it off to all.

And in the exhibit I learned that this guy’s a smart funny 80 year old, and I’m sure he knew all the connotations of those word choices.

I also went to a movie at a wicked little theatre. I saw Closer, which while it’s true it’s not very HK, it was good. And as Suzanne told me months ago, Julia Roberts did not ruin the movie.

This city is a great place to be listening to music as you walk down the street. The soundtrack element to it just works so well. You feel like you’re somewhere not unimportant to some story.

I ate a really decent sandwich yesterday, but forgot to get Indian food. Tonight.

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05.01.29 [Saturday]
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中国

out again

I’m up too early and I’m on my way out the door. I’ve got a boat to catch. And then a train and a bus and some more trains to finally get to Hong Kong. Hopefully by Tuesday. We’ll see.

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