From the Files! September 27th 2004

There is so much nothing-happening in HK at the moment, I've decided instead to choose an old letter at random from the "Sent" box. This one is dated 2004. Amazing how much has changed since!

Well, it's a big week in sino-world this week! Happy, happy, joy, joy, we all celebrate the Moon for the next seven days.

Of course, here in Capitalist Hong Kong life goes on as kinda-normal - only with gifting each other mooncakes and children running around with red lanterns and "Hello Kitty" glowing plastic light-sabres - but kindly China shuts itself down for the entirety. It's a Communist thing, you know, taking a week off each year to celebrate the moon.

But it does means filthy factories in Shenzhen aren't shunting out filthy pollution (has reached well over health-safety levels for us in HK we were informed last week) and, yup, we can now actually see the moon for a few days. Thank you, China!

Celebrating the moon means it is also the Bi-Annual Pissing-off-Denise Festival. I know very well they're up there now, somewhere in deepest Mainland, plotting, selecting the 10,000 people who are to spend the entire week standing in front of me. Oh, and don't worry, if you were here they'd be selecting 10,000 to stand in front of you too! Big place, China. Many, many people. Plenty path-blockers to go around!!!.

Yup, over 6 million Mainlanders are expected to visit us this week. God bless The China Shuffle! Where would we be without it?

Already the tour buses are hitting town and the bullying and heckling shouts of mean-faced Cadres-with-the-Green-Flags are being enjoyed by all. And within a day each mean-faced Cadre will have fulfilled his life-long ambition and will be wearing his very own slick new Italian black leather jacket. Don't you love seeing people's dreams come true? Communism is good that way, ensuring everyone in the Party gets the chance to swing by HK to shop for Italian leather goods. Of course there is the problem that you have to take a busload of little old sino-farmers with you but if you scream at them enough you can keep them cowering in their hotel rooms and you can then go out and SHOP the entire week without seeing hide-nor-hair of 'em. (Ooooh, I am sssooo pleased I am no longer living at the hotel and thus all this can mean nothing to me.) (Touch wood!)

And speaking of outside my window, which we're not, I know, but are now ... what we see today is ... Chinese Opera!!! Don't know what this has to do with the moon, but Southorn Park is doing a homage to Chinese Opera this week.

From what I can see, they've set up a bouncy rubber blue castle-thingy which has a stage in the middle I notice - although Chinese Opera could be a lot of fun with a trampoline element - and they're planning to nightly perform opera in it. Interesting stuff. Know it well. The music travels up and we can hear every word. We've seen these things happen before. Sadly, most of the carefully laid-out seats are empty. Guess there isn't a lot of call for highlights of Beijing Opera Academy here in China's World City.

Also down from my window are colourful little fair-booths and each night you can see hundreds of little sino-tykes all buying their red paper lanterns, their "Hello Kitty" light-sabres, and their mooncakes, all doing their bit to add to HK's Annual Moon-Festival Body Count.

So, cute, you know, all the little Alberts, Henrys and Marys, all in traditional sino-costume carrying their candle-lit red lanterns, a wonderful memorable photo-op for proud mums and dads and endless grandparents ... until the screaming starts. No one thinks to teach little Henry beforehand to Stop, Drop and Roll!!! And the "Hello Kitty" light-sabres regularly explode. And those moon-cakes are famous for being the only food on earth that comes with an actual written Government Health Warning, but ... traditional you know, eating moon-cakes on Moon Festival.

Lovely things, made out of lotus paste. Very tasty! Too bad that the "hundred-year-old" egg in the middle is often toxic! These last few years Taiwan has begun making the centres out of virtual "hundred-year-old" eggs - also made of lotus paste - and the Yanks have begun making the whole thing out of ice-cream. Sorry to say, traditional practises ARE being modified and these have been out-selling the traditional moon-cakes this year.

Sad to see these old practises go; who can ever forget their Annual-Trip-to-Hospital-to-have-Stomach-Pumped Ritual! Intrinsic part of the whole ceremony, really! Good stuff, this old stuff!

So there's Hong Kong for this week. Streets are full, hospitals are busy, good fun is being had by all. Am off now to TST to practise my China Shuffle and my Dodge-the-Paki-Hustlers Sidestep and hopefully will be able to book for one of the "Love Hong Kong Goodwill Free-to-Tourists" junk rides. Will need to take my passport to prove I'm not one of these dodgy HK permanent residents who is only PRETENDING to be a tourist.

Ah, HK!!! China's World City! You gotta love the place!