30.12.13 - Beachmas 3 - Turner Christmas Hash

One of the key things about Christmas, as my first two posts were at pains to say, is ritual. Habit. The “we’ve always done it this way” bit of Christmas that each family has.

As this was going to be our first Christmas without any of our sets of parents, we felt it was time to come up with some traditions of our own which, with luck, will last into all future Christmases stretching off into the unknowably far away future…

What we chose to do – I say we, the whole idea was actually Claire’s – was to found the Turner Christmas Hash.

We wanted to set it up properly, so it has all the features of the hashes we’ve so enjoyed since moving to Hong Kong. It has an abbreviation to be chalked on walls/pavement in future years – TCH3. It has a Grand Master or GM (Claire) and a Religious Adviser or RA (me, who gets blamed if the weather is pants and gets to name participants). It has a clear code of when it is held – Christmas eve, Christmas Day or Boxing Day, once a year, with the Turners present. It has clear membership – anyone we are spending the Christmas period with. The runs should be ‘live hared’ (where the person setting it with flour sets off 10 minutes before everyone else to set the route). And we’ll record the runs, number of times people have run, where they were etc.

A properly long-term project.

Only trouble is, it could be hard to top Hash #1 in Boracay.

Setting it was hilariously good fun. I bought up 3 kilos of flour from a bemused supermarket (entertainingly called ‘Wang Mart’), briefed our 3 participants on what to expect, and shot off with my 10 minutes head start. Boracay is a thin island, with few trails – just tiny paths around houses and a few crowded main roads. So to make it interesting, I practically had to charge through people’s courtyards at the beginning, and set ‘checks’ – pictured, a circle that means the real trail of flour could be anywhere within 50 metres – on sand, next to junctions and beside street vendors. Much gesticulating was required to ask people not to kick them over or sweep them away. Confused faces followed me wherever I went, especially when I found my route went through a live basketball game.

If it was fun for me, it was like that bit in Rocky where all the locals turn out to do training run with him for the others. As soon as they appeared, looking down at the flour marks as they jogged, the by now thousands of bewildered locals who had seen me pass 10 minutes realised what was happening. Cheering, waving, people offering directions of where the strange man went, and at one point the inhabitants of what we later found out was part of Boracay’s small red light district enthusiastically escorting our group like a bizarre honour guard towards the coast.

During the Circle – where Claire led a round of ‘fines’ for participants – I christened hashers #3 and #4 (Nicola and Cody). The fashion that seems to be most approved of in hashing circles is that names should be a) Smutty or have a double-entendre; and b) Spring from a long story or in-joke.

And so, Muffy Hiker and Anal Prolapse were born, christened as is tradition in a shower of San Miguel.

Want to find out what those names are about? Well, you’d better hope you’re around for TCH3 run no.2 next year, location and hare tbc…

29.12.13a - Beachmas 2 - Star(fish)struck? Chuck it on the barbie!

So what other activities would I usually be following if this were a normal Christmas? Probably a round of chilly golf or two, followed by an evening discussing how the match went in intricate detail…or maybe a pantomime, followed by an evening of repeating the terrible jokes or humming the catchy song Buttons had been belting out hours before.

Not during Beachmas. We spent all day hunting down and staring at the local aquatic wildlife. And the evening eating it*.

We hired out our own long, thin, bambooed boat and headed out to skim around the island for the day, with snorkels ad masks on hand. I’ve snorkelled before on many, many occasions; whilst Cody and Nic have done some diving. Claire had only done snorkelling the once.

And so when our first underwater view exploded into life, contrary to our expectations given the high winds and rocky boat as we plopped off the side for the first time, Claire was gobsmacked. The coral was very pretty and intricate, and hosted thousands of fish of all the colours of the rainbow, all of whom swarmed around us as bread was tossed into the water. What capped it off was the sighting of a perfectly proportioned, had-sized, fat starfish. Claire literally squealed with delight through her snorkel, creating on odd, discordant, trumpetty noise, which had our two local guides in stitches. Much to my proxy-queasiness, I think an introductory PADI course looms large on our next holiday for Claire…

 

We took some time out on Puka beach (see above) to sunbathe and recover, before sailing back home for leg two of our piscine day of fun. The wet market beckoned.

I had less fun as we entered the wet market. * My fish aversion continues. A tedious phobia to have in Asia. The experience was like an elaborate anxiety dream for me, as I also happened to be desperate for the loo. So whilst the other 3 were weighing up and slavering over the wares on offer, I reeled from stall to stall looking fruitlessly for a toilet fit to burst, as pincers, claws, slimy antennae and staring fish eyes thrust at me from all angles, with water sloshing and jetting about from the small tanks as the livelier specimens made the last desperate protests. Shudder. It had me craving the satisfying ping of a well-struck tee shot or a call of “It’s behind you!”

Anyway, everyone else had a grand time, as you can see. And the symmetry of the fishy supper on the BBQ did at least appeal to me. My personal favourite is the middle wrapped item – it’s like the presents you see in cartoons under the tree for the family cat. What could it be?!

29.12.13 - Beachmas 1 - The Journey

It was a couple of days in as Claire, Nicola, Cody and I heard Michael Buble croon through his Christmas album for the nth time [to Cody’s dismay] that we finally decided what to christen our adventure. Beachmas. It’s beginning to look a lot like Beachmas…I’m dreaming of a White Beachmas [literally – the beach on Baracay is called White Beach].

As we knew that we’d not be home for Christmas, we decided that all we wanted for Christmas was to do something as different as possible. When I took this picture on night one, I could be pretty confident that we were going to manage that.

Day One of Christmas is usually all about the journey home; whilst this time, it was about the journey to the Philippines. I compared the stages of the journey in my mind. They oddly mirrored each other, but also could not have contrasted more.

Fighting across London on the tube, and muscling through Kings Cross crowds to a Grantham express, battling for a seat amongst heaped presents and returning families…Breezing to HKIA by taxi, and checking in to our Express international flight to Cebu in the Philippines.

Connecting at Grantham to the smaller, slower, local train that puffs its way across country…Connecting in a smallish airport to an old-fashioned, flimsy-looking prop plane for a slow hour-long island hop to Caticlan.

Getting picked up, with my many bags of clothes and presents, by dad at the tiny, ramshackle station at Spalding or by mum at the sleepy station if Sleaford…touching down at the frighteningly small airport at Caticlan [right on the sea, where you are only metres from the waves when land finally flashes below in the nick of time, as the wheels bump down], and being picked up by a motorized tricycle, whose owner piles our stuff precariously on the back.

Driving home, normally by night, along twisting unlit Lincolnshire roads…Hopping aboard a long thin boat, with struts made of bamboo springing from each side for balance, for the final jump over the sea to Boracay Island.

Coming home, having a general family catch up and getting in the festive spirit…arriving at our resort, bumping into Claire’s sister Nic and boyfriend Cody as they come to look for us, and having a chat/getting excited about Christmas abroad on the terrace of our holiday villa.

Muffling up against the cold, and trudging into the village for a pint and maybe a bite to eat…getting into cooler clothes [it’s 30 degrees] and meandering down to a restaurant on the beach for some chilled beers overlooking the sea.

Trudging home for a nightcap, Christmas tree twinkling in the background as we look out onto a [ideally] snow covered back garden…decamping to the beach for sunset, lit by bare bulbs strung up from palm trees, looking out to sea cocktail in hand.

If different was what we wanted, we’d certainly got it. There would be nostalgia that we were missing out on that familiar, warming routine. But we were all prepared to jump into something new with both feet.

20.12.13a - a (public information) sign of the times

When you reach the point where a sign suggests that an inanimate object is about to talk down to you…and you feel that’s probably only fair…you are probably in trouble. Here is what the patronizing stamps said in my head as I queued.

“Oh, so you want to post some Christmas cards, do you? Ah, how, nice. And I suppose you want my help with that, hm? Want to just nip into the Post Office, pick a few of me up, pop me on the envelopes and away you go of a lunch time?

“Oh deary me, you do have a lot to learn don’t you! No no, that’s not the way. They way it works here, you see, is that you need to go to a completely different section of the building to buy anything you may actually need to post an item – you know, envelopes, boxes, pens and such – before even thinking about finding me. Oh, how funny you thought you could buy all those things at the same counter! Though, you are of course only a silly gweilo, and maybe you weren’t to know…

“And then of course I imagine you went to, oh, at least two windows that seemingly inexplicably didn’t sell stamps, or at least not the right ones, before getting to this queue? Sure, sure you did. Nothing to worry your silly head about, just remember to come to this magic window next time, I’m sure the logic is too much for your addled British bonce.

“But then of course, *cough*, there is the slightly embarrassing matter of how well travelled these cards are, isn’t there? Don’t tell fibs now, be honest – you’ve already ferried them all the way to the UK once, haven’t you? On your work trip home? Just forgot to post any of them when you were there didn’t you? So now, you’ve come all sweaty palmed and worried to me to try to get some last minute help from your philatelic friends and wing those cards all the way back across the world to where you meant to put them last week, yes?

“What a silly sausage you are.

Now get licking and sticking, and let’s see if we can sort all of that out for you, eh?”

20.12.13 - Cold Weather Warning

Behold the frozen wastes of Hong Kong ! The terrible barren tundra in the depths of winter!

I've told you all on here about the perils of the Black Rain warning, and the scourge of the hoisting of the Typhoon 8. But now, we are undergoing another kind of weather event, even more terrible than those unforgiving foes.

THE COLD WEATHER WARNING!

Yes, that's right. Hong Kong has another set of protocols for when it gets cold. Care to guess how cold?

15 degrees.

In the UK, at certain times of year, this would pass as balmy. You would consider getting away with donning just a t-shirt. And so, it's very odd to watch what has happened here this week since the warning has been in force. To be fair, before I gently mock, it is genuinely a bit of a shock compared to how warm it usually is. I have had to resort to jumpers for the first time. And running in it isn't hugely pleasant. Nevertheless...

The Government issues a barrage of guidance that is played over and over on TV, radio, the newspapers and in lifts. Its strictures are pretty funny as a European, where we are used to spending months without it topping 15 degrees and not turning a hair.

Wear appropriate clothing at all times!

Don't go out unless you must!

Don't expose yourself to wintry winds for too long!

Check on elderly neighbours [NB, a nice thought, but can anyone really freeze at 15 degrees?]!

Don't light fires indoors to stay warm!

If it gets very bad the Government will open temporary shelters!

Wow. And people have taken it to heart. Staff in my office have started coming in with 4 layers on (shirt, jumper, jacket, huge thick coat), gloves and hats. The most common Canto phrase I keep hearing over and over is 'Ho dong, ah!' (It's very cold!). I have heard no fewer than 3 separate people on public transport shivering

out loud. As in, audibly making 'Brrr' noises with cartoonish chattering teeth. When I waited at the bus stop this morning in just a shirt, I was asked by strangers if I was not very cold.

 
Meanwhile, any staff - like those in the hotel opposite - who work outdoors are togged up like they are about to launch a guerrilla campaign in the depths of a Russian winter - big liveried hats, thick gloves and heavy coats that reach their ankles.

Utterly bizarre to behold. But hey, I'm not complaining. For the first time since we got here, I can stride about wherever and whenever I like without immediately dissolving into a sweaty mess...

 

21.11.13 - Ho Ho Hong Kong

About a year ago, on our ‘orientation trip’, I was sitting in a café checking my emails accompanied by Kenneth, our friendly estate agent. We were waiting for Claire to come back from some errand. Indefatiguable, polite to a fault and unflappable, Kenneth had been amazingly patient and helpful, all day. But now, he seemed agitated and fidgety. He kept pushing his glasses up his nose and craning over his shoulder. Eventually he plucked up the courage and said to me, voice trembling a little with excitement.

“Er, excuse me sir? May I go see?”, pointing behind him, face aglow.

I peered past him. How it had escaped me I don’t know. There, in the middle of the atrium of the very average shopping centre we were perched in, was a winter scene straight out of a cartoon. A tree stretching several stories high, festooned with oversized baubles. Robotic elves and Santa figures, robotic, waving in unison. A grotto that people were milling in and out of. And huge, shiny presents, snugly buried, invitingly, in the very convincing fake snow.

Baffled both by this overbearing tableau; Kenneth's odd deference in feeling he needed my permission to do anything; and his childlike glee, I faintly nodded.

And off he went, mouth open and eyebrows raised, a picture of ecstatic joy (like the yet-to-be-conceived John Lewis bear, as he comes over that hill near the end of the advert. You know the bit I mean? Yeah, that bit). The phone emerged and he snapped away, a selfie here, a close up of a reindeer there, like everyone else in the crowd.

Welcome to Hong Kong any time from about mid-November on! It’s like Christmas in the bigger UK department stores or Oxford Street! But earlier in the year! In every shopping centre of any size! On crack!

And so begin 2 big themes of the run up to Yule. First, the ubiquity of not just these scenes, but of watching every person who passes snapping themselves, their friends, their colleagues, their dogs, their children next to, in and on these scenes. Hong Kongers go mad for these displays – as Kenneth showed me. Secondly, what I can only describe as a World War One style arms race between the shopping centres…but instead of bigger and better naval battle ships, it’s who can pull off the most ridiculous or outlandish displays.

So you’ve got an actual live band playing Christmas songs in the grotto at lunchtime? Well, I’ve got singing, waving penguins doing my music, like, all day.

Oh yeah? Well, check this – I’ve got a moving talking polar bear, and some singing penguins, and a tree whose lights flash in time whatever song is playing!

Hah, I’ve got animatronic reindeer, as well as a flashing tree!

So what, my tree has animatronic reindeer emerging from the top of the tree where the fairy should be and they’re singing!

I exaggerate. But honestly, not that much.

And here’s the thing, though. Yes, it’s kitschy. Yes, it’s garish. Yes, I do find it odd that it holds such a fascination in one of the top three most atheistic and not-particularly Christian places on earth. But. It is, somehow, really charming; and some of the engineering and design that has gone into these displays is bafflingly complex. It also fits very neatly at the very apex of Hong Kong’s hyper consumer culture, and the love of all things cutesy – so it works.

And hey, the whole blog is based on me taking a sodding picture of one of the scenes. And it won’t be the last I take, either I’m sure. Who knows, in the next one, I may even have to get a selfie, head-tilted, peace sign, next to a waving puppet Santa inexplicably singing “White Christmas”…

10.11 - Remembrance Sunday in HK - at once completely familiar, and totally alien

The Cenotaph. Marching bands. Military parades. The Last Post. Wreath laying. Religious readings. They do not grow old, as we that are left grow old…Rousing music and the national anthem.

All the standard ingredients for the Remembrance Day that we are all so familiar with from the TV broadcast of Remembrance Day in Whitehall. All present too in Hong Kong – right down to the fact that the Cenotaph is an exact replica to the one outside the Foreign Office.

But look even a little bit closer, and you’ll find a ceremony that is completely different here. Utterly unique to its post-colonial time and place. And entirely appropriate – odd to freshly minted expats like me perhaps, but a poignant and well-thought out occasion, that felt every bit as sombre as any gathering back in the UK is likely to be today.

The Cenotaph itself is flanked not by Government buildings, but the Hong Kong Club, HSBC and the Mandarin Oriental. And fluttering on it are the Hong Kong, HK Veterans’ Association and Chinese flags, rather than those of the wings of the UK military and Union Jack.

The marching bands, complete with bagpipers – looking immaculate in brilliant white with blue braid and shining black shoes – are not from some Scottish guards’ regiment or other, but the Hong Kong police marching band.

The military parading was performed not by veterans – though the ever diminishing and frail-looking  veterans of the fighting in Hong Kong in WWII were present – but by cadets of various types. Alarmingly, these included boys and girls who looked as young as 14, all of whom were armed with modern assault rifles, which in some cases were almost as tall as their bearer. The honour guards were older members of these groups, who all marched, much foot stamping and arm waving, to the corners of the Cenotaph plinth and then stood heads down and rifles pointed to the floor, stock still, for 45 minutes.

The Last post was played not from a balcony of a Whitehall department, but from the balcony of the Hong Kong Club.

The wreath laying was a complex affair, and included a much more diverse range of groups than you would expect at home. For starters, wreaths were laid from all 4 sides of the Cenotaph, with the groups broadly divided into – commercial/pillars of HK life (Jardines led that group); Government and overseas representatives; veterans’ associations; voluntary/community groups. And the layers were led not by Royalty, but a representative of the HK Government.

And whilst the religious readings were led and concluded by the CofE bishop of St.Paul’s, complete with billowing robes and stereotypically sonorous voice, he was joined in prayer by a Catholic bishop, a Muslim cleric, a Rabbi, a Hindu priest, a Taoist monk, a Buddhist monk and a Confucian priest.

The reading proclaiming that at the going down of the sun, and in the morning, We will remember them was read solemnly by a retired brigadier of a UK tank regiment; and a good portion of the crowd murmured the last line in response. So far, so normal. But I have never heard it said in Chinese before, nor heard the final line also repeated by the Cantonese section of the crowd.

Rousing music yes, but none of what you’d expect. Religious songs avoided, no marching songs that are linked to the British Army. But that did mean some other unexpected tear jerkers came out instead – Nimrod (which for me now, after the Opening Ceremony, will always equate with the Olympics) provided a particularly unexpected emotional journey.

And most notably, the sensitivities that make this ceremony such an intricate balancing act were clearest in who was not there. UK and foreign military personnel did lay wreaths, but either for veterans’ societies or in a diplomatic or even private capacity – no-one directly on behalf of any armed forces. Equally, not one person there was a direct representative of the Chinese Mainland government, nor from the People’s Liberation Army.

And so, as a result of these deliberate omissions, the bizarre denouement of what is usually a quintessentially British event was a rendition of the national anthem. The Chinese national anthem. Which was saluted by Hong Kongers, veterans of many ethnicities and the UK military personnel present in other capacities mentioned above. Without a single Chinese government or army representative in site.

As many of my posts keep saying – only in Hong Kong.

 

04.11 - Woh, yao tcheen ah! Embracing the expat stereotype in Island Crest

The flat was almost empty of our possessions. I stood hands on hips looking around at the echoey front room, wracking my brain to try to think of what we might have forgotten to do, and looking at evidence of our failed experiment of living in a ‘local’ block.

The terrace that looked like a plus on paper, but had twice bought water into our flat and been impossible to maintain given the crap our neighbours poured onto it daily. The massive bamboo edifice constructed outside our window that had heralded the start of disruptive and dusty works on the building. The aircon unit that had been broken for 4 weeks during the summer, and poured water more than once onto an electrical socket. The second bedroom visible through the adjoining door that had had a leak since we arrived, and a gaping hole in the floor. The mess behind our book case where a formidably sized family of cockroaches had recently take up residence.

Sigh. Quite the failure. Time to go and try again somewhere else.

Then behind me I heard some mutterings, whispers and gasps, and turned to see my neighbour Isabel and two other elderly ladies standing on the threshold of the open front door, leaning in, heads rubbernecking frantically, staring with ill-concealed curiosity. One lady said, breathless with excitement:

“You leaving?”

“Yes, I am”

“Wah, too many problem, ah?”

“Yes, lots of problems”

“Ah, ah, yes…May we take a look?!”

“Er…[the flat is clearly empty, what do they want to see?]…sure.”

They rushed in like children flocking to the base of a Christmas tree filled with presents, clucking and exclaiming. They opened cupboards, squinted into the fridge, scuttled into the spare room at a run. Quite extraordinary – who knew my empty flat could be so interesting?

As they were about to go, inspection done, one asked where I was going to. After a few false starts in English, I dredged the name of our new block in Cantonese: jun seng fung.

This caused open-mouthed astonishment. As one, they exclaimed “Woooh, yao tcheen ah!”, then gabbled at one another in rapid fire Canto, with much head shakings in my direction. Loosely translated, that means “Wow, so rich!!”

The big joke is we are paying perhaps £30 more a week for our new place. But their reaction says it all. The block we have moved into is wonderful, and looks more like a sleek hotel inhabited by the rich and famous from the outside and in the communal areas.

Spotlessly clean, nicely decorated. Compact but well-put together apartments. Plentiful, friendly, incredibly helpful staff. We know from friends who live here that they can organise any manner of handyman to fix any ill you might have at the drop of a hat. Unbelievable facilities after our manky stairway in 143 Second Street – a pool, a gym, onsite dry cleaning, a supermarket in the building.

Basically, a wealthy-looking, expat-drenched enclave, with all the attendant facilities you might imagine. Fulfilling every stereotype of what expats might want. I mean, the supermarket sells things from, swoon, Waitrose (!) and they even have recycling facilities, don’t you know dahling, where you throw your bins out? It’s like, almost unheard of in HK, so that sort of detail is what makes it just par-fect, you know?*

And so, my first reaction when my erstwhile neighbours were clearly judging me for my choice of move and for seeming to have unimaginable amounts of cash was to feel offended. But then, I thought – so what if it fits the stereotype they have in their minds? Stereotypes exist for a reason. The new flat, despite having been in it for less than 24 hours, feels more like home that the last one ever did. And if wanting a gym and a pool and a flat that fundamentally works and does not have its own creepy ecosystem makes me a dreadful expat, then sign me up to the Dreadful Expat Club right now.

Some thank yous. Cathy and Trevor used their final full day here helping us to move in, and their help and advice shaved hours off how long it would have taken us alone. And a big thanks to Ruth, Michelle, Louise and Rachel for coming to an impromptu house warming last night…I’d never understood what the term really meant before, but having friends and family over within hours of hauling the boxes in through the door seemed to bring the flat to life.

Ghastly typical expats in Island Crest, we may now be. But I think we are going to be very happy here.

*That bit was a parody…I think…

29.10.13 - Ultramarathon man. With more falling over than recommended

I was thrilled, as I sat aching and wincing on Sunday night while shovelling celebratory pizza into my mouth, to discover that 50km – despite being just 8km longer than a normal marathon – officially counts as an ultramarathon. Which quite simply sounds much more exciting.

And so, around 3 hours before, I had become an ultramarathoneer.

All the running that gets referenced in this blog has actually been building up to something. Sometime in July, I read through the fug of a hangover and stifling morning heat in the Sunday paper about the vogue for 50km+ races in HK. Feeling disgusted with how gross I felt, I immediately found the first one I could see and signed up without thinking too hard about it. But since then, the early mornings and hours of pounding trail had been building up to Sunday.

I knew, as I limbered up with my bleary eyed band of supporters (thanks to Cathy, Trevor and Claire for trogging all the way to the Peak at 630am) near the start that I was fit enough to finish; bit I had zero idea how I’d actually react on the day, when the trail was clogged with 900 other runners, ad I’d need to scale 8000 feet in total. The longest proper run I’d done in training was about 40km, but with much less hill than that, on usually deserted routes.

I won’t run (haha) you through a blow by blow account…but here are a few morsels:

Piece of advice – if you ever do such a thing, try to keep your footing. It tends to help. I fell no less than 5 times on trail, the first just 6km in, with almost disastrous consequences. I actually managed to trip so hard I fell off the side of the trail head first and began plummeting down a slope. I caught onto a tree with arm and clung on until an incredibly strong fellow runner bodily dragged me back up. This cut both my legs and my arms, broke one of my shoes and wrenched my thigh. The next 4 were less dramatic but hurt a great deal…and by the end my shoe was audibly flap-flap-flapping with every step as the sole started to come away. Something to avoid for the aspiring long distance runner.

Podcasts on trail are a treat. But can lead to odd moments. One of my favourite bits of training was saving up some juicy comedy, news, documentary and history podcasts to entertain myself with while out for hours on end. For this run, I hoped these would help keep me sane and distracted from the pain. Instead, it led to several runners asking if I was OK around 25km mark, as I looked in great distress…whereas in fact I was hiding behind my sunglasses trying not to shed a tear at a very affecting radio play. And I had a bit of an out of body moment as I leant on a tree at 37km in, breath ragged, halfway up a steep mountain scrambling path, looking out towards China, while listening to Melvyn Bragg explain the evolution of the Book of Common Prayer. Not sure those things have ever come together before.

No matter your achievement, there’s always someone else to admire much more. As I came off the last hill at 45km, dog tired and almost done in, I knew I was on the home stretch. But only got the will up to run those last 5km when a man who must have been in his 60s saw me coming, and began to run to stay out of my way. I had to run and tuck in behind him to save face, but in the last 200m, he accelerated away as if he hadn’t a care in the world. That, and the fact that the over 50s winner beat me by an hour and a half; and the overall winner beat me by almost three; put things in relief.

Nonetheless, 7hrs 58 and 119^th place is fine for me thank you very much. And even as I winced in the arm chair, pepperoni slice in hand, I found myself googling when the next one might be. 50km in Sai Kung in March, you say? 3 big mountains on the way? Interesting…

28.10.13 – what do you get when you combine a jockey club, philanthropy and a government land monopoly?

A public golf course!

No, that’s not a joke because a) If that were the punchline, it simply wouldn’t be funny and so count as a joke and b) Because it’s true.

With Claire’s parents in town, it was time for me at last to try out the Kau Sai Chau public golf course, something I’d been dying to do for ages. Wait, non-golf lovers! This is still pretty interesting, even if you don’t like golf…

When you think ‘public golf course’, i.e. one with no members, in the UK, you imagine a municipal course. I’ve played some good ones at home, but they cannot compete with the higher end members’ clubs, and some can be downright tatty. But that certainly does not apply to Kau Sai Chau.

Here’s how it happened. The Hong Kong Jockey Club is a strange, but rather likeable, beast. It has a monopoly on legal gambling in HK, and as such is the largest single taxpayer in HK; but it is also the largest single philanthropic organisation too. Its speciality is to build or restore buildings or massive infrastructure the government is not inclined to take on…which usually means hospitals, schools, sheltered housing, that sort of thing.

But in the 70s, it was persuaded to right another social imbalance of sorts that doesn’t feel quite so urgent…but I am pleased they did. They pressed the Government to allow them to build a non-members, public golf course, because the very few members clubs could not cater for everyone (and did not want to).

What has that to do with the Government? Well, in HK it technically owns all the land aside from a small patch on which the Anglican cathedral stands. So to build this venture, they had to give up some land.

And so, some leases signed for next to nothing, a gargantuan infrastructure project and billions of HKD later, and the Kau Sai Chau Golf course appeared on an idyllic island just off the picturesque coast of Sai Kung, that is only accessible by special ferry. And boy, what a course – 3 18 hole courses plonked onto rugged and hilly terrain, with views that look so jaw-dropping it’s as if they are a painted backdrop or a picture on Chinese porcelain.

It could only happen quite like that in HK.

It was well worth the two hour slog there by taxi-tube-tube-bus-ferry-bus, and we had a belting time…

For the non-golfers – the course was really good; Trevor played well; I played very inconsistently; we had a nice time. If you don’t care about golf, stop reading now.

For the golfers – we were on what is meant to be the poorer cousin ‘South Course’…but from my mandatory buggy seat, it looked pretty impressive. Every hole seemed to have a great view of the scenery. The tees were placed very imaginatively. The rough was frighteningly unplayable, which added to the fun. Plenty of fiendishly placed bunkers and water traps that seemed to suck your ball in. Incredibly well kept, lightning fast greens. And on form – Trevor shot 36 stapleford points, which as a golfer will know is impressive with borrowed clubs on an unfamiliar course. I shot 33…but in two of the most divergent 9 holes I’ve ever played, with a pitiful 7 points on the front, and an impossible 26 on the back, including 3 birdies. Almost as weird and inexplicable as this most unlikely of course’s itself.

20.10 - In a World of Pure Imagination

I attended the Mandarin Oriental hotel’s 50^th ‘birthday’ party this week. Well, to say I attended is stretching it. I was there because of work (which I shan’t go into  due to my self-imposed rules for the blog). So it’s more appropriate to say I was present.

Nonetheless, it did mean I got to witness one of the biggest parties in the HK social calendar all year, if not for several years. A place to see and be seen for the rich and famous, from tycoons to film stars to star-dust-sprinkled ‘friends of Hong Kong’ who flew in especially. And conversely a chance for the Mandarin - with its location comparable if it were in London to flanking one side of Trafalgar Square – to re-stake its claim to being the most exclusive place to stay in HK.

How to describe, I thought, how the Mandarin went about doing just that? I could talk about the actual red carpet they rolled out, complete with snapping paparazzi pack. The limitless champagne, whose price per bottle when it was whispered to me made my head spin. The gourmet food laid on in miniaturised style. The stars they got to attend – Helen Mirren was a highlight. Or perhaps the performers they managed to recruit to play – the headliner (oddly, but brilliantly) being Brian Ferry.

All of those things were candidates. But the thing that really hit the high-note for a statement of opulence was actually just a sideshow, and many people did not even notice it. The fact that is the case only goes to show how the Mandarin pulled out all the stops. It was a mocked up garden composed entirely of sweets and desserts [a photo filched from a friend, as my own was pretty grainy…thanks to Ruth!].

I had passed it a couple of times while going to and fro in line with my obligations at the do. It was not until later, when the crowd thinned, that I took in that the display was more than just a quirky arty garden scene put on for decoration.

Trees made of macaroons, whose trunks and the body of the tree the macaroons stuck to were edible. Elegant plants complete with dainty flowers (with macaroons at their centre) – all edible. Piles of what looked at first glance to be rocks, but on closer inspection were made to look like a gold-encrusted rockery. Those too, entirely edible.

I stood agog in front of this scene for some time, stupidly asking a member of staff if I could eat this part of this display over and over again, when clearly the whole point was that everything was up for grabs. And so, I had brief burst of Willy Wonka-ish childlike joy, where I started picking up anything from the display and recklessly throwing it into my mouth. I doubted myself, though, when I plunged my hand into the pots of rocky ‘soil’ and plucked up what felt like small black stones. Even these turned out to be jet black chocolate with a slither of almond tucked in the middle.

By that point, if a troop of Mandarin-liveried oompah-loompahs had turned up to provide the next round of entertainment, I would not have batted an eyelid.

15.10 - Shing Mun - not so redoubtable after all...

 

Our guests Jo and Adam sadly left yesterday, and the fun they brought with them will be missed. Months ago, I had been looking forward very much to their visit because I knew that, in Adam, I would finally have a hopeless history geek companion.

Shortly before we left the UK, the four of us had a ridiculous weekend away to Luxembourg – 500+ miles driven all by Adam – to go look at the Maginot Line. So enthused had we been by this trip, I was very excited to learn when reading up on HK history that buried in the New Territories there lurked a “Maginot line like structure”.

What on earth is the Maginot line, the majority of normal people cry? It was a line of formidable concrete semi-underground forts built by the French before World War Two to keep the Germans out. One of the largest such systems ever built, it failed totally – the Germans simply went around the side. Oops.

The structure in HK was, rather wonderfully for a British colony where the drink it was named after was quaffed almost as a national duty, called the Gin Drinker’s Line and designed to keep out the marauding Japanese. And I’d heard for a history boffin it was a treat.

A hard-earned treat, mind. We travelled for almost an hour and a half by taxi, train and taxi again to reach a trail that wound up into the mountains to find it. After a couple of thousand foot climb, we were rewarded with signs of what we’d come to look for. Helpful signs pointed out corners of pillboxes and bunkers poking out of the thick undergrowth, entrances to tiny long abandoned tunnels and the odd gaping jagged hole leading into concreted blackness. We explored with boyish enthusiasm.

Our 15k wander saved the best till last. Perfectly preserved tunnels of the Shing Mun redoubt, the lynchpin of the line. The tunnels snaked and burrowed under this hulking hill, linking pillboxes, protecting its defenders and dominating the surrounding countryside. And most charmingly, all were named after London streets, and still accessible on foot.

Here’s the actual history bit, for those who are interested (you’ve been warned!). So what became of the line? Records showed the Japanese were very worried about attacking it, expecting to suffer heavy losses and take weeks to break through. The British hoped it would last 6 months, or more, with little resources.

It lasted one day. Why?

Certainly not a lack of valour. The day after it fell, the numerically superior Japanese were almost thrown off the hill by a bayonet charge. Imperialist drum-banging, but harrowing, stories abound on the island of bloody last stands where Canadians, marines and local volunteers fought desperate battles to the last bullet. So why did that happen? Depressingly, it seems, the answer is incompetence…from what I read it was because:

a)      Lots of armed men garrisoned HK, but the forts weren’t manned properly. Shing Mun was meant to hold 120, but had 30 men in it.

b)      The soldiers in HK had never been trained to man fortifications at all.

c)       Prejudices. The Brits appeared simply not to quite believe the Japanese would be up to the task. Myths existed like the idea that the Japanese did not fight at night because they couldn’t see at all when it was dark. The fatal attack came at night.

d)      And on trail, we were astounded to find big concrete blocks set into the path on the hill itself that gave directions to where the bunkers were.

For us though, we didn't have the most redoubtable of days either. We were scared out of our skin by the packs of monkeys 30-40 strong that lined the road just shy of Shing Mun, and had to resist the urge to run away screaming…and later we failed to resist that urge. When traversing a pitch black tunnel with a phone to light the way, feeling intrepid, we shouted aloud and bounded back to the daylight bouncing off the dark walls when we convinced ourselves there were snakes in the puddles on the floor. Turns out we had no fight in the dark either.

13.10 - Moktoberfest. With a side of Fatboy.

Moktoberfest, with a side of Fatboy.

A joke for which the whole of this post is the punchline…Some Chinese, a bunch of white westerners and a genuine German oompah band walked into a mock beerhall constructed on top of a swimming pool a couple of kilometres from communist China…

Everything about Macau’s casinos and the hotels/entertainment industry attached to them is breathtakingly ridiculous. You sometimes feel like you’ve stepped onto the set of a post-apocalyptic movie, where the society that has emerged is obsesses with hyperconsumption and hedonism. If you’ve not read my posts on our trip to Macau, I would (clearly!) recommend them…

So we did have some idea what we might be experiencing when we booked into the Sheraton Macau Oktoberfest party as a warm up to seeing Fatboy Slim live next door. And so, I was not that surprised to see that they had constructed a mock-rustic wooden stage and a faux beer hall, complete with sturdy stomp-proof long benches and tables, and shipped in a 7-piece Bavarian band complete with four German ‘Beer wenches’. What we were not prepared for was how hilarious this unlikely clash of cultures would be.

Some quick caveats…the revelries of Oktoberfest beer parties are unusual. There is no reason everyone should know how they work. Imagine a ceilidh, but the dances are all based around staying at your tables, and involve (benignly enforced) beer quaffing. The key is – everyone participates. However, there is no reason mainland, HK and Macanese Chinese should know this; and there were zero explanations or translations for them.

BUT. The band - its banter and silliness well-honed, their musical skills excellent – and supporting wenches could have done no more to get across that everyone needs to copy what they do, and join in. Until the very last hour, when the beer finally broke the dam, the only table out of 900 people to dance, shout responses to the band, raise glasses etc was our small enclave of 8…see video.

The baffled Chinese tucked with relish into the German food on hand, and clapped politely when the songs ended. This caused us endless merriment, and made us friends for life in the desperate beer wenches, who kept joining our table when their efforts failed. Some particularly good lost in translation moments:

-          Beer wenches jump on a table full of Chinese and gesture them to copy. They respectfully back off to one end of the table, thinking this is a show, not an invite to dance, and take photos.

-          Beer wenches approach another table, and its inhabitants get up en masse, and flee.

-          In response to pleas for everyone to stand and raise their glass when a certain word is shouted, the only table bar ours to respond remains seated and raises their knives in unison, like some weird salute.

-          A small Chinese lady joins our table, as it’s close to the stage, to take photos; and when we all stand and start to dance as one, she visibly flinches, clutching her camera to her chest, before half-falling off the bench in an effort to get away.

On the flipside, we were hilarious to everyone else in the room. As they had no reason to know how this was meant to work, they – understandably – thought we were the crazy ones. Openly pointing and belly laughing, small groups gathered to take photos of us (from a safe distance). You could fully understand why. We looked preposterous wiggling and shouting on our own. Look at the crazy gweilos – why are they standing and swaying about like that? All this stamping, shouting, jumping on benches…don’t they see how embarrassing they are? Why aren’t they just watching the show like everyone else? Must be drunk already, look at their huge beer glasses [few tables got the 2-litre steins bars us]! And why is that one ripping up the table cloth? Oh no, that one’s seen me watching and is coming over gesturing for me to dance, quick run away!

And to cap off the surreality of the evening, we promptly decamped to a huge club next door, and at around 2am found ourselves watching Fatboy Slim live, from about 10 yards distant, with only marginally more people than were at the Oktoberfest party…

 

06.10.13 - Board of the standard Saturday routine? This one leaves the others tailing in its wake...

Claire and I don’t give our guests an easy intro to their times in HK. We had Jen and Ed with a cocktail in their hands on a party junk within four hours of landing. Sandie was quaffing an expatty gin in a rain storm under a sagging Central bar’s awning before her feet had touched the floor.

Jo and Adam were no exception. They found themselves being dragged behind a motor boat at speed in the South China Sea less than 24 hours after their tyres hit the tarmac.

We had heard some time ago that wake boarding – imagine waterskiing, but with a snowboard – was available on the south side of the island. It’s not at all difficult to book into, and is doled out (for what ultimately looks and sounds at least a tad technical and dangerous) with no checks for experience. The four of us, along with our friend Rachel, simply grabbed a taxi to the tiny village of Tai Tam, met our boatman Brian, jumped on his little boat, strapped the boards with bungee ropes to the back, and chugged into the bay.

As most of you will know, I am Mr Risk Averse. HK has beaten quite a bit of that out of me – who would have predicted I would be happy to run through bamboo groves, along ridges with sheer drops or through streams at night before I came out here? But I drew the line at trying to ride a wave on a snowboard-type device in the middle of the sea behind a boat. I settled for marvelling at the backdrop (so picturesque and repetitive as we circled the bay, that it reminded me of the repeating 2D cityscapes that you used to get as background in early 90s platform computer games…anyone remember what I mean?!).

My companions were much more intrepid.

Rachel, pictured in the top photo, only ever fell when her arms got too tired or when trying to perform jumps and tricks. She stayed up so long we almost ended up on the several miles distant Stanley beach several times.

Adam struggled a little to get into a standing position – apparently there is a knack that, when you’ve done it once, is easy to replicate – so sadly we saw quite a bit of the below off the back of the boat as he battled the waves.

 

Jo, with a distant memory of waterskiing back in the day, took to this like a duck to water, and by her last run she was almost as hard to shake off as Rachel. And this is how thrilled she was about it.

 

Claire – with her excellent balance and the dancers’ strength in her legs – really got the hang of it in the end. Though not without some spectacular falls – this photo is the frame before we catapaulted face first into the sea. She can’t wait to try it again…so a future standard Saturday plan might be a taxi to Tai Tam, Claire goes out in a boat, and I run around the beautiful hills ad reservoir for 2 hours, and lunch in Stanley. Perfect.

 

21.9.13 - Close quarters with the Fire Dragon of Tai Hang

 

On Thursday night, when the moon was at its fullest and brightest all year, it was mid-Autumn Festival time. And we had a date with the Fire Dragon of Tai Hang.

We were expecting the dragon of western imagination - red-cloth, complete with big figure head whose mouth open and shuts, that dances and reels through the streets…though we did wonder what the (dangerous?!) twist on this would be when ‘fire’ is added into the mix.

Claire, our newest guest Sandie and I all headed out to Tai hang – no longer the tiny fishing village in which the tradition of Fire Dragon dancing stems – to find out, along with thousands of others. The myth runs that the villagers killed a serpent one night, but awoke to find its body mysteriously disappeared. Soon after, everyone began to fall ill – until a villager had a vision on the Buddha, who told him to hold a fire dragon dance. The story goes that the noise, fire, sulphur and firecrackers drove the disease out.

The tiny, twisting streets were packed with excited families, the children toting animal-shaped lanterns and festooned with glow stick hats, necklaces and bracelets. We arrived just before the show was due to start, but the launch place for the dance was crammed full. We muscled down the street, took a short-cut led by a local tourist guide and bagged ourselves a spot right up against the crowd barrier.

The crowds swelled, the lanterns proliferated, and a drummer on a mobile platform appeared, thumping out a frantic rhythm that echoed off the looming high rise buildings all around. And with almost no warning, there was a loud cheer near our vantage point. The attending police snatched back some tape that had been strung across a side street off to our right, through which the dragon careered at top speed, all aflame, swift-moving figures and drama.

The dragon was made up entirely of huge incense sticks stuck into a wooden body, held up at metre intervals by bamboo poles. The head was the same, bug curls of wood and incense sticks making out a snarling maw and crazed eyes. It was terrific, and looked alive as its body snaked back and forth across the road ahead of the bopping, tilting head. The beast was a jaw-dropping 67 metres long, and had 300 people holding it up. The burliest of these was saved for the enormous tail, that bristled like a flaming mace in the creature’s wake; and its bearer would run full pelt at the crowd, shaking the tail and roaring, causing squeals of fear and delight as the fire came within inches of startled faces. It came so close to us as we chased the tail at one point that a stick fell out and hit the deck in a shower of sparks at Sandie’s feet.

After a while, we headed off to avoid the crush – but on leaving got an unexpected treat. As we left, the dragon was let loose, and spilt out into all the warrens of tiny back streets, pursued by the cheering crowd. So as we walked away, we heard the drums fade and roll over us at intervals, and got the occasional glimpse of a burning body jogging by down a distant alley, or once the tail shaking around a corner from our vantage point on a road bridge.

The event ends, we hear, as this and 6 other dragons converge near the sea, and all are ‘drowned’ in the waves. If anything could beat our experience this Thursday, that would be it. Next year, next year…