Go Go July 1!

I love 1st July in Hong Kong. As you know, July 1st is always HUGE in our political life.

It's Suck-Ups Vs The People Day!

OK, let's not be partisan here. Being political neutral, it's the day of the always-enormous "We want Democracy" rally and march - when tens of thousands turn out to protest - and China's Communist Party countering "We Love Beijing" parade which is always winsy but takes place right outside our window, which is very nice of them.

In fact, the whole thing is very nice of them.  I saw something on the streets of Wan Chai 1st July about four years ago that made me ... ummm, strongly convinced that Beijing was viewing HK's Democracy Protests with a very jaundiced eye. I won't say what I saw, although I may bandy about the words "hidden red-shirted army" and "large numbers of cudgels" for no apparent reason. Needless to say, I made phone calls to everyone I knew was in Victoria Park telling them to skip the Wan Chai leg ... but then a bus went around and a lady speaking Mandarin called out through a mega-phone and everyone came out of hiding and got on the bus and ... well, let's just say I assumed from that I was actually witnessing Beijing's change of heart.

So now we have this wonderful colourful "We love you Beijing" parade (last year's, here) instead of red-shirted street violence and you must admit it's so much nicer.

And somewhere in between we have an impromptu little Pro-Beijing march, then the "we don't want to belong to any political affiliation but are as mad as hell" march ... followed by The March of the Hooligans, or so Maria calls the Pro-Democracy Patriots!

So that's what we'll be doing on our 2010 "Birth of Hong Kong" Memorial Public Holiday.  Always great fun.

STEP ONE

So, it's 11am 2010 and I'm hanging out my window anticipating ... and, yayy, here's the first beat in the drum:

The music is very pretty, and the jostling crowds are ... not jostling crowds at all.

OK, it's been about ten minutes since I took that photo.  Let's have another one:

Mmm, even less jostling there now.

But let's not see it that way.  Let's look at this lovely "I Love My Communist Overlords" rally with all the pretty music and lovely colours as a very nice thing for Beijing to do.

STEP TWO

Ah, it's 11.20 and here come the marching bands:

And here come the people:

And please tell me there'll be dragons.  I'll be most unimpressed if "here there be no dragons"!

Yayyy, dragons:

And look, how cute, la, this year they also have a Phoenix:

 And here come the umbrellas:

OK, something seems to have happened to my photo program and it's not uploading these dribs-and-drabs properly ... so why don't I just go hang out my window for a while and take a whole lot and get back to you later.

 Southorn Park at noon:

And here's my favourite photo of all:

So it's now 1pm ... and here's Southorn Park:

It's like it never happened!  You know, this is what I love about the Cantonese.  Everything is always done so quickly and efficiently! And the trains always run on time. It's like Hitler's wet dream only, you know, NOT!

Now all is quiet on HK's streets ... but only because everyone's gone down to Victoria Park to mass for this afternoon's big Democracy Rally.  And, since the Tienanmen Square Memorial Night was MASSIVE this year, I'm guessing that this afternoon's march will also be huge. Lots and lots to protest about. (Oops, posted a link to the wrong year, but ... can you really tell?)

We're joining friends half way.  I can't go into Victoria Park for the rally anymore, seeing as how ... no, I don't want to even think about it ... although great kudos to the CBC lassies of the Rainbow Alliance Soccer Team (at least that who I assumed they were from their calligraphy) for rescuing the hundred or so of us who were almost crushed by passive-aggressive police incompetence and stupid instructions.  Let's just say that +30,000 people trying to get out of a narrow gateway is NOT a place you want to be either.

STEP THREE

It's just after 3pm and the Pro-Beijing march is underway ...

... the real one! 

the previous one was 

just the parade ... 

Tee hee! It's winsy small too!
 
OK, now that's BIZARRE! Everyone is chanting what sounds exactly like "Na sa mate kai kai!"  which is Fijian for "The food is dead!" which really can't be right, can it?

What are they really chanting?  Can someone tell me?

 What do we want?

Dead food!

When do we want it?

Now!

Nah, doesn't work for me either.

This is really strange stuff, these Cantonese chants. You may recall how creepy I found it at my first Pro-Democracy March - in 2004 I think? - when everyone around me was chanting "Waltzing Matilda" ... and I asked and a lovely fellow said it was Cantonese for "Power to the People!" which is really very interesting, don't you agree, because I never understood why everyone in Australia thinks a song about stealing sheep or whatever, is really a song about creating a republic ...

... however hearing nearly half a million people chanting "Wal-tzing-Ma-til-da" all those years ago I remember thinking to myself that there was once a property out there in Winton in Outback Queensland - where they once had a party that turned into an uproarious night stomping around to the chant of "Wal-tzing-Ma-til-da" - which lead, the next day, to the creation of that Great Australian Theme Song - which must have had a Chinese cook.

Ah, it's 3.20pm and all is quiet again.  

Won't it be interesting to read in tomorrow's newspapers just how many zillions were supposed to be in that particular March.

STEP FOUR

It's 3.40 and here comes the "I don't belong to either camp but I'm mad as hell!" march, although can you call it a march when there's only him and his police escort?

 Whatever he's protesting,

I'm on his side!

The rally will be leaving Victoria Park around now, so no more until then ...

Oh wow, it's only 4pm and here it comes, one hour earlier than usual. Guess it's because the other two marches were so short this year.

STEP FIVE

Well, here goes.  After an entire day of out-the-window and at-the-computer, I'm so up for the 5000 plus steps to Government House, thus I'm off now.

Nice day for it:

I'll show you last year's rally and only post tomorrow if this year's is very, very different.

Sunshine on my Shoulder!

You would not believe the weather we're having.  I mean, this is HK and just look!

It was up there all the time, 

hiding behind the smog!

The sky is blue, the air is clean, the sun is sparkling. Everything feels crisp and new and fresh!

However, it won't last for long. Yesterday I went up to The Peak to get photographs of HK for Beccy, who missed out when she was here because of mist. And when I arrived it looked like this:

 And when I left two hours later, it looked like this:

And, yup, I saw the transition with my own eyes.

Look at the left of this photo and then look at the right.  Can you see it?  Totally different air quality. And it's clear what's causing it. It's the smog pumping on down into our fair city from someplace to the left.  And you know what's there on the left?

It's the Pearl River Delta.

I've been saying all along that it's ridiculous for HK to blame the smog on smoking.  It's all those unregulated mega-factories up in Mainland China along the Pearl River that are funneling their filth down to us.

This reminds me of when I was teaching, many years ago, when we had a particularly cravenly, repulsive and slimy principal who was not-so-secretly terrified of The Bad Boys and so got his "I'm tough!" jollies tormenting The Good Kids.  Violent gangs roamed the High School unhindered, pulling knives on teachers and inculcating a culture of fear, but heaven help you if you were a nice kid sitting six feet away from a rubbish bin that didn't have the lid on straight, or a scholarship boy who accidentally brushed against the principal's ficus!

Blaming smokers for causing HK's smog is exactly along those lines, with Legco playing Cravenly, Repulsive and Slimy Principal, Mainland China playing The Bad Boys, and we poor humble little smokers being The Good Kids!

But this is such lovely weather, let's not grumble.  Here's another photo of HK under blue skies to cheer us up:

Random Photo AGAIN

The sky is blue today.  You have no idea how nice this is.  Over a week of torrential rain and it seems to have washed away even our usual smog.  

Let me show you a shot I took just now, when I went down to get newspapers:

I want to be out in this, so today I'll just Random Up a Photograph.  As you know, this is where I choose a photo from my program with my eyes shut, and if it's interesting I'll talk about it and if it isn't I'll go off and do something to honour our blue sky.  

Maybe I should go up to The Peak and take a photo of the view for Beccy. No doubt you remember what happened the day I took her up there:

If not it's HERE!

Anyway, the photo:  Here goes:

Ah, so cute, la! That's our Canadian friend Jason.  I met him recently on Lockhart Road on his way home from the gym. Innocent enough, sure, but the chance encounter was right outside a stripclub ... so I took a blackmail photo, threatening to show his wife, and as you can see he isn't even the least bit worried! That's undoubtedly because 'Tuna belongs to the same gym and knows the way home!

It's a colourful life we lead, we folk who live in Wan Chai, aka The World of Susie Wong!

So, now I'm off.  The Peak, I think, to finally get a shot of HK under a blue, blue sky.

What Kills Us This Week?

Now that I've pulled my head out of the waterfall and am back on planet earth, I discover I've missed an entirely new panic.

What's happened is that last week a fellow got scratched on the back of his leg by a bamboo basket:

One of these things.

It was such a small scratch he didn't do anything about it ... and five days later he had the leg amputated to save his life.

And the newspaper account of the incident mentioned that eight other folks have already died this year from similarly untreated small cuts, along with a casual mention of something called a necrotizing fasciitis.

I think, in English, that means we have some big flesh eating bacteria doing the rounds of HK.

It's really creepy and we all talked about it last night, but I ended up having a good laugh over national characteristics, because, whereas Chinese take this seriously, the Australians were cheerfully saying things like "Hey, remember the Great Flesh Eating Bacteria Epidemic of 1902." and "Don't forget the necrotising spider bite epidemic in Brisbane back in wheneveritwas!" and seeing the lunacy in panicking about it.

The latter remark, however, gave me a bit of a jolt because I was actually in Brisbane during the Big Necrotising Spider Epidemic of 1984 and, yes, I got bitten by a spider. At least I think it was a spider.  In the midst of an epidemic like that, you only ever think it's a spider.

So let's just assume it was a spider!

What happened was that the story was HUGE in the papers and there I was, working in the garden, pruning dead branches out of a large shrub, when I suddenly got bitten on the cheek.

Naturally, I'm instantly imagining my flesh turning black and raging fever and ambulances dashing to hospitals and doctors cutting out more and more of my face until it's down to the bone; and then I'm seeing myself faceless and alienated from the world, hiding away in some lonely garret with only cats for company, writing intense little novels about loss and loneliness, angst and anguish, which are found years after my lonely death, with my body lying there alone for months and eaten by my cats. But my books are published and instantly beloved of lost and lonely Goth girls everywhere, discussed in tutorials and book clubs the world over ...

... but unfortunately my face was swollen for over an hour and then it subsided.  And, although I monitored myself for days afterwards, nothing turned black and, to my surprise, I realised that I was almost but not quite disappointed.

However, here we are, Hong Kong 2010, with a strong warning doing the rounds of taking every little scratch seriously.  So that would have to be my choice for this week:

THREATDOWN

See how not even the 

street cleaner would touch it!

Photomancy # something else!

"Tabu" is winging off on its long journey to who-knows-where, so let's see if a quick game of photomancy will give us a clue.

You know this game. I choose three photos from my program with my eyes shut and see if there's some sort of theme:

Ah, that's the street in Guangzhou that they've decided to restore and keep forever in memory of what Guangzhou once looked like.  It's the sweetest little street and I think I've already blogged on it.  Here it is, although that was written back when they planned to tear it down.

That's the North Queensland cyclad I spotted in Dafen, in Shenzhen in Mainland China.

And those two guys are the famous Australian Rules rugby players who I didn't recognise - not knowing the first thing about Aussie Rules - and who I met at Coyotes Mexican restaurant and bar on Lockhart Road.

Overall theme?  Things that aren't where you expect them to be?  Or maybe their theme is so obscure it's gone right over my head.

Will the REAL Carrie Chau Please Stand Up!

There is a certain person - unnamed - but you know who you are, little one! - who did a certain painting for a University art assignment, which made me say, in all innocence, "Oh, that's very Carrie Chau of you!"

Little One reacted large, adamant that it was an original idea, but I was mean and insistent because the theme - a lone girl seeing a single large bird in a big city - was indeed one that I knew I'd seen HK artist Carrie Chau tackle many times in the past.

The little one was horrifed at any hint of plagarism, went on-line to find a Carrie Chau painting along those same lines and couldn't, so challenged me to indeed find a Carrie Chau painting that worked that same theme.

Well, that's the backstory to the hideously embarrassing incident yesterday at Page One Bookshop. 

What happened was that, by a curious coincidence, I passed a large coffee table book called "Work in Progress" on the paintings Carrie Chau did for the exhibition of the same name ... and that's when I remembered exactly where I'd seen the Carrie Chau paintings that worked Little One's theme: that she did literally dozens of the suckers for her exhibition "Work in Progress": an entire exhibition of nearly 40 paintings of Girls Seeing Birds in the City.

The book was horrifically expensive and I certainly wasn't going to pay that much just to prove a point ...

... so I snuck it into a dark corner and began to photograph pages ...

... AND I GOT CAUGHT!!!

Cringe!  Shudder! And more cringing!!! More shuddering!

Anyway, great big embarrassing trouble so I told them what it was about, and the lovely manager totally understood and let me keep a single photograph:

... although I was very naughty and kept a second:

... although I obviously didn't keep the right photos because none of them are actually of Lone Girls and Large Cities, although you can see the Large Bird and you can see how, obviously, paintings with that exact theme would have been among them.

So, Little One, there you go!  Only three of the about 40 examples of how Carrie Chau worked around your same theme!  The things I do for you!

And the indignities I suffer!  Oh, la!

Actually, to be honest, it's more like "the indignities I suffer just to say 'told you so!'"

Done! Done! Done!

The treatment for the script "Tabu" is finished and is winging its way on its appointed journey as we speak.

Enormously stupid horror movie, yes, but what the hell!  Writing is writing!  Selling is selling! Hoping is hoping!  And the opportunity was too good to let pass.

In the meantime, for today's post, let me be a brain-dead toadfish and just post a random photo - as usual selected with my eyes shut - that I don't have to think about ... unless of course it's very interesting and you'd love hearing about it:

Wow, look at that!  It's last year's "We Love Beijing" rally and march; the Mainland's usual answer to the HK's annual June 4th Commemoration of the Tienanmen Square "Incident".  I think I've already told you about this, so - yaayyyy! - I get to skip talking about it again. If you're interested, here's the cache of my previous posts about all this.

I'm off now to ... I don't know ... do something that involves nothing even resembling writing. 

I've earned it!

Degei!

I've just been sent something so incredible I have to share it.

Apparently some fellow was digging a trench in Fiji and came across this:

And they took it home to keep as a pet:

 Thank you for sending me this, Kiara.  It's amazing.  In fact, it challenges everything I believe about Fiji.

As far as I've always thought, Fiji doesn't have land snakes.  Sea snakes up the whazoo, sure, and more poisonous than cobras too, only not vicious ... oh, and a poisonous worm too, only again not vicious. Let me see if I can find image.

Can't find anything on youtube on our giant killer-worm, but I did get this image of our lovely seasnake called a dadakalavi:



 Dadakalavis don't ever attack.  They will do anything to avoid confrontation and so naturally everyone is forever teasing them.  Yup, we used to do it as children, horrible vicious little tykes that we were!  There was something very compelling about teasing something with the power to kill you in nano-seconds that WON'T!

However, there is one very famous Fiji story about the American tourist on an Oolooloo Cruise to Nukulau Island catching one to show his wife, and sticking his finger down the snake's throat saying "Look honey, it isn't poi ....!"

Later:

I'm now hearing about an anaconda found in Fiji, on the incredibly beautiful island of Taveuni.  Let me see if I can find image of that too.

I'm thinking this can't possibly be Fiji ... although man # 1 is very definitely and distinctively Fijian.  And I have heard that ever since the price of kava rose skyhigh, Taveuni kava-growers have been importing in red roof tiles, and those are very definitely red roof tiles.

I'm not sure what to think!  Let me search further:

Oh, look.  This one is on youtube too:




Later:

Kiara just wrote to say she asked her dad about where he got the five-headed snake pictures from, and he said "India!"  Apparently the whole thing was a practical joke!  Well, thank heavens for that!  It's strange enough to have a five-headed snake, but to have one turn up in Fiji where they don't have land snakes ... now THAT would be too strange for words!

And now we just need to disprove the anaconda story and I've restored my comfortable and cosy world-view ... so can safely return to my horror film script about the Fijian snake god, Degei, killing off a pile of tabu-breaking teenagers!

Photomancy # something

Still writing the big climatic scene - and cheating by getting rid of a whole pile of dread-locked teenagers with a spray of machine gun fire because it's getting too difficult to find new ways to kill them off individually and spectacularly - so I don't want to think much about anything else today, thus let's just have a quick game of the very addictive photomancy instead.

You'll recall that, in this game, I select three photos with my eyes shut from my photo program, and see if they together make a meaning:

1) An old broken lamp shade from Dragon Lee Gardens in the process of being fixed.

2) The re-opening of a newly renovated bar down in Lockhart Road.

This stuff is amazing, isn't it?  That's two images of regeneration.  And now it all depends on the final card.

3) Ah, Emue's little brother at Marcus' first month 'meet everyone' gathering, with David and Michael in the background.  And is Little Brother filling in his university application?

Mmmm, I think what the combination means is that this is the start of something new. 

Yes?

Solving the Great Wan Chai Mystery!

In the midst of writing the climax and don't want to break my concentration by writing anything else, so I've simply grabbed another old letter, this one from 2004, I think.

Isn't it interesting that when something really intrigues you, 

you get a single piece of additional information, you go "Duh! 

Of course. So simple." and immediately the subject stops being so 

interesting. 

That's what has just happened with my latest Wan Chai Mystery: 

why our suburb, for a single day, yesterday, was suddenly full 

of solitary and sartorially-challenged Africans with lean and 

hungry bodies, far-horizon-staring eyes and the sense that 

they'd more normally be herding wilderbeast out on some 

far-flung and obscure African savannah in one of the smaller, 

poorer and lesser-known African states. 

Single piece of information and the whole thing is Instant 

Duhs-ville! 

Today is the start of the pan-China Ultra-Marathon right here

in HK. 

Need I say more?
 

Of course, there's the new mystery in why they'd ALL visit 

Wan Chai on their day off. Individually too.  Surely Mong Kok 

has a higher profile if you're after that-sort-of-thing AND it 

also has much better shopping? 

I guess Hong Kong and "The World of Suzie Wong" must still hang 

together in meaningful ways in Heartland Africa. 

You know, you can't BUY that sort of brand-recognition. Richard 

Mason's book is obviously still the best thing that ever 

happened to Wan Chai and they really should build a shrine to 

his memory somewhere down there in Lockhart Street.

Paganini's Gut

Went to a concert by the HK City Chamber Orchestra on the weekend where they played excerpts from Paganini's opera "Tancredi" ... except, instead of the usual violin strings, they used ... cat gut!

Apparently it was how Paganini was meant to sound. Yup, the way his music would have sounded back in the early 19th century when he composed his operas.

What happened, apparently, was some smarty pants recently found an envelope of Paganini's original violin strings and took them to Italy's greatest cat gut fabricator (yup, they still have 'em) and had them duplicated ... and HK got to hear the result.

Mmmmmmph!

It was indeed a beautiful concert. The HK City Chamber Orchestra is always worth listening to, the "I Palpiti" was extraordinary, the guest artiste Andrea Zanchetta was amazing, and Paganini's music is always stunning, and yet there are things folk do that make you ask yourself WHY?   Like, why folks imagine things were done better in the past?

And also ... why did cats have to die for this?

Yes, I know I'm a musical philistine, however I do have a piece of wise advice: Do NOT use cat gut for violin strings, people! Yes, I know they say it's a more "organic" sound, a more whole sound, but that organic-whole-esques-nessity makes for an icky after-sound. Like, when the violinists hit the side of the strings, it makes an odd kinda screech that makes you think of nothing more than cats crying.

Too Hot to Think!

Killer hot today, so I'm gonna cheat.  Rather than think of something to write about, I'll just show you a photo of the World's Most Stupid Ad Placement:

Yup, tuna, eel, all sorts of seafood SUSHI on the cover of this issue of Time Out! ! And for a restaurant called The Intelligent Touch!

Love?

Another Random Photo!

HK is hot today.  Oh man, have we hit summer!

And it's so hot, I don't want to stay in this room.  Thusly and therefore, let's do a random photo.

You know the rules: photo chosen with shut eyes and if it's interesting I'll tell you about it, and if it isn't, I get to escape this room and into the air-conditioning.

Ah, that's me and Bonat at Preah Khan in Siem Reap in Cambodia.  And I think I've shown you this photo before.  Yes, here it is: in  my post about which temples out of the hundreds you should try to see.

Actually, that's an interesting shot: Bonat had just had his appendix out but couldn't afford not to work so his boss kindly assigned him to us: a two-some rather than a large group. Yup, the poor guy was forced to take us around the ruins for the princely price of $20.00 for the day.  He was in such pain but being so stoic about it I felt sorry for him so everyplace he took us I told him to sit and wait and if there was anything we wanted to know about and couldn't find in our guide book, we'd come back and ask him about it.

Most places were very sane and logical and thus we didn't have to bother him often.

But not at Preah Khan. This temple was so different and interestingly WRONG I had to keep running out every few minutes to ask him about something: mostly about how Hindu and how Roman the whole place looked; like the architect - who'd definitely and unquestionably traveled all over India - had once seen Ancient Rome too.  Borat said it was strange I mentioned Rome because archeologists had once found a leather purse full of Roman coins buried in there.

Yes, I know the time frame is all wrong and this was built centuries after the Fall of Rome, but nonetheless Preah Khan has a different basic structure to the other Siem Reap Temples. In fact, it's so much more Hellenic than any of the others, it makes me go "Mmmm!" - and so I'm thinking that, deep in the past,  there was an unknown someone jaunting around the globe, taking in the sights, and maybe, maybe, maybe going a lot further afield than we think possible today.

Anyway, Preah Khan!  Fascinating place.  Do check it out for yourself and then get back to me if you too see the hand of someone who had seen Ancient Rome - as well jaunted across India - in this extremely interesting cultural fusion temple?

Wally and Me

Mentioned yesterday I had an amazing encounter with a chimp at Taronga Park Zoo back in 2001, so today I'll tell you what happened.

Wandering around the Zoo that day was a real pain because every time I lit a cigarette, all our snotty little brood would claxton their chorus of disapproval.  It was like having a herd of midgets for a mother, so naturally I took to sneaking off exactly like I was back in High School again.

So, while we were having lunch at the cafe, I snuck off for a quick one.

Nearby was a small tunnel. Inside the tunnel was a large glass window looking straight into the chimpanzee pen.  I lit a ciggy and a large chimp, sitting away from the others, sulking, saw me and instantly charged over, knocked politely on the glass then gave me the international sign language for "I want a cigarette."

Unable to believe I was doing it, thinking "I can't believe I'm about to communicate with an animal", I signed back "No!" and then mimed that I couldn't give him one because there was a pane of glass between us.  And then, because I was on a roll, I threw in Marcel Marceau's mime piece about that invisible barrier between us, hoping he'd mirror me.  Nope! Not an appreciative audience.  The chimp instead gave me the well-known sign of middle finger erect and huffed off to again sit away from the other chimps and sulk.

It was electrifying. We really communicated! No barrier at all!  We both understood each other perfectly. When I returned to the cafe I told the others and they simply wouldn't believe it - although I believe Baby Jane had her own interesting Doctor Doolittle experience shortly after - so the instant I saw the chimps' keeper I raced over and told him that one of his chimps had just "talked" with me.

The fellow shrugged indifferently and said "That'd be Wally Walpamur! He does things like that!"

If you don't already know, Wally Walpamur is a famous Australian TV star.  Let me see if I can find him for you:



Anyway, back to the story!
 
"What on earth is he doing in a zoo?" I had to know.

"Because it's wrong to anthropomorphise animals! He was saved and put in here with his own kind!" I was told.

 "But he doesn't like his own kind."

"He'll get used to it!" the horrible man said and stalked away!

Poor, poor Wally Walpamur, huh!  Looking at him, sitting so far away from the others, deeply unhappy with life, it was obvious he didn't want to be with his own kind; that he wanted to be on TV, dressed in silly clothes and wigs, playing lots of different characters, and having all sorts of vices, like smoking cigarettes and doing whatever else chimp celebrities get up to.

There's a whole argument in there about ethical treatment of animals that I really don't want to get into, although I know from that encounter with Wally which side I'm on.  

And that's the story of the only Doctor Doolittle experience I've had in my life.  Taronga Park Zoo. May 11th, 2001.

Douglas Adams and Me!

Have been remiss and not blogging so today I will briefly ignore the third act of my script and make an effort.  A story!  A good one!

Ah ha! Got one!

Recently a woman said to me "What an extraordinary co-incidence!  You have seen the exhibition from the wreck of the Pandora and I used to work at a nightclub called Pandora's Box!"

Tragic, isn't it!  Some people must live lives of such extraordinary ordinariness to make such a loose connection and see it as anyway meaningful.  I live a life that seems to be, gosh, I don't know? An illustration of Chaos Theory in action maybe, with patterns lining themselves up willynilly among the most random events? Thus I expect my co-incidences to work a lot harder than that before they get my attention. And for something to be called 'an extraordinary co-incidence'? Truly, I'd need to see the hand of god in it.

My Douglas Adam's story is indeed the most extraordinary co-incidence!

What happened?

Well, 11th May, 2001, I was on holiday in Sydney with several friends and their kids when we all went to Taronga Park Zoo for the day.  On the way, Ella, an 8 year old space-cadet, asked me what I was reading.

I showed her: Douglas Adam's book on endangered species "Last Chance to See".  She asked me what it was about so I showed her the photos, hoping to get rid of her fast so I could go back to the hilarious stories about the New Zealand kakopo.  But then she saw the picture of the Komodo Dragon and was instantly thrilled and agog.  "What is that?"

Sighing, I turned back to the first chapter and, skipping all the stories about Douglas and Lizard Guy, the hilarious Australian conservationist who turned him on to the struggles to save the Komodo Dragons in the first place, dragging him off to Komodo Island to see them in the wild, and went straight into the descriptions of this extraordinary creature.

Douglas Adams is a most hilarious and entertaining writer and he knew to tell all the best and most gruesome stories and Ella was thrilled and shuddering and going "Ewww!" and wanting me to read more and more and more, so I did.

Then, much later in the day, when we're all wandering around the Zoo (where I had the most amazing encounter with a chimpanzee - but that's another story.),  Ella sees a sign that reads "Komodo Dragon" and shrieks with delight, grabs the other kids and shouting "You must see this.  You must see this." races them up the hill in the direction the sign indicated.

We adults sauntered up the hill more slowly and reached the Komodo Dragon pen when Ella was in full flight, leaning over the side of the pen, pointing at the Dragons and talking non-stop, repeating what I'd been reading to her almost word-for-word!  I was shocked because Space Cadet lives entirely in the present and never ever remembers anything five minutes after it happens.

Just along from the huddle of our kids, all excited and going "Wow!" at Ella's account, there was a young man standing at the pen also looking over at the Komodo Dragon. When we arrived he was very still and pensive, in what seemed like a strange little pool of sadness, but I noticed him register Ella's chatter and then, with a start, RECOGNISE Ella's chatter!  His eyes widened in astonishment.

Then he looked from the kids to we adults and looked at all our faces in turn, came to mine and I saw him think "It's her!".

I was very taken aback "What's wrong?" I asked him.

"Do you know he died today?"  the man said.

"Who died today?" I reply.

"Douglas Adams!"

"No. No. No.  He can't have! He was a young man! What happened?"

"Heart attack, apparently."

"That's awful."

"Yes it is!" the man said.

Suddenly I got it!  Everything made sense.  "You're Lizard Guy!" I said.

"Yeah, I'm Lizard Guy!"

So we talked for a while about Douglas Adams and their adventures on Komodo Island, and their adventures with Indonesian authorities, until the kids were ready to move on.

"I'm very sorry for your loss." I said to him in parting.

"No. No. Don't be."  he replied, tears in the corners of his eyes.  "What you have given me here was the most beautiful gift I could ever imagine.  I was standing here thinking that it was all a stupid waste of time, that everything Douglas and I did back then trying to save the Dragon from extinction was meaningless and mattered nothing in the wider scheme of things.  But then that beautiful child came along and she knew everything Douglas had written ... and it was just right. Exactly what I need right now to make it OK within myself!"

And then, as I walked away, he shouted after me "You know, I think this all was Douglas's parting gift to me."

"Yeah, I do too. Wonder if he's still an atheist now?" I shouted back. And we both laughed, waved to each other and that was it.

Now THAT'S what I call an extraordinary co-incidence! Ella is probably the world's most unlikely angelic messenger, and Douglas Adam's the most unlikely post-passing sender of messages, but you too can see the Hand of God in this, yes?

Random Photo # who knows!

Busy, and so will do two random photos, one to make up for not dropping by yesterday:

Usual rules apply.  Photos chosen with my eyes shut and if they're interesting I'll tell you about them.  If they're not, I'll go back to wiping out teenagers ... which is very nearly finished, by the way!

Photo One:

Ah, Dragon Gardens.  Already blogged this story in here.

Photo Two:

Students from James Cook University in Cairns and I was so amused that EVERYONE on campus that day was wearing black. All trying to look sinister and Goth but all too young and sweet so definitely NOT pulling it off! 

Mmmm, Goth is a look that I'd wear at a tropical university too!  Heat. Humidity. GOTH!!! Nah, doesn't quite work, does it!

So, there you go.  Back to my murderous massacre!  You have no idea how much fun it is, writing horror scripts.  And there's me, all these years, trying to be a SERIOUS writer!

Thank You Beijing!

Look what's happening right now, right outside our window:

Beautifully colour co-ordinated marching bands making the most beautiful soothing music.

And look, we've got ethnic groups from right across China. And Beauty Queens too.

And now they're all setting off to march through the streets of Hong Kong.  Hope those Beauty Queens are wearing comfy shoes.

Ah, it's all so pretty I've immediately surrendered my heart and mind!  Isn't it so kind of Beijing to send us this parade.  So much prettier than that pesky Tiananmen Square Memorial Vigil earlier this week that was so packed - 150,000 people - we couldn't even get in.

In fact, we couldn't even get into the place where they were putting the people who couldn't get in and so were a block away from Victoria Park trapped among the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds who were trying to get somewhere closer to the place where the people were trying to get into the place where they were waiting to put the people who couldn't get into the place they were putting the people who couldn't get in.

In the end, we snuck off to look at bookshops.

In fact, why don't I see if there's something yet on youtube so you too can see how much nicer and how much prettier this one is:



That short also shows why this Vigil was so exceptionally packed this year.  Students at Hong Kong's Chinese University made a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue that student protesters put up at Tiananmen Square 21 years ago, and, when they tried to put her up on campus and then at Victoria Park, there was a huge and stupid reaction from Beijing and police were sent in and things got very nasty and ... well, Hong Kong went All-Feisty and used the June 4th Vigil to show their anger at Beijing's interference.

Let me see if I can find a news story:



So that's what I've being ignoring writing this script; fictional horror versus real life horror. Kinda!

And now - ah, so sweet -  Beijing has sent us a very pretty march with beautiful people, wonderful choreography and such lovely soothing music to stroke us nicely and calm things down again.

Let me show you again:

Quite astonishing, isn't it, that I can sit here at my computer, writing, killing off dread-locked teenagers in myriad interesting and spectacular ways, yet still be on the forefront of political events.

Ah look!  It's started to rain.  And those Beauty Queens have paper umbrellas too!

No, no, no.  That's not me you hear laughing!

What Kills Us This Week!

This is shaping up to be the new panic ... perhaps ... but I'm refusing to laugh.

Seems children are bringing back some new endovirus from Mainland China and it's very unpleasant and they are all getting really sick from it.

However, the other day a boy diagnosed with this virus died and when they examined him, post-mortem, it turned out NOT to be this endovirus.  In fact, it was something they had never seen before.

So I guess there's something new up there in China!  Something else that Hong Kong will no doubt get the blame for!

So that's my choice for this week:

THREATDOWN

Peaceful Markets up there in Guangzhou.

10,000 years is too long to keep 

killing animals in the same spot.

Photomancy! # 9

You may recall I stopped playing my newly invented game of Photomancy - selecting three random photos with my eyes shut to see if together they'd make a predictive meaning - because it became so addictive.  However, it's been a few months now so let's risk it again:

# 1: A guardian lion in Zhuhai, the SEZ city in China.

#2:  The Christian cemetery in Happy Valley, Hong Kong.

OK, it's a little sinister so far!  Reading could be "Transgress and DIE!!" So now it all depends on the final image.

#3: An authenticity certificate for a print I was considering buying.

Mmmmm, all I can get from this is that I'm being told not to buy this piece of art.

OK, I can do that!