Hong Kong Suu Kyi .... by Adam (2002)

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I sit alone and friendless, eating pasta out of a tin can on the eve of my birthday. I guess I will pass the time analyzing and shredding another ancient culture. Recently I was the lucky guest of the gracious and refined Cantonese Chinese peoples of Hong Kong and Macau.

Physically, Hong Kong is impressive in many ways. The skyline opens up like the gaping mouth of a giant whale. Except that instead of rows of teeth, the whale has lots of skyscrapers in its mouth. (I couldn't think of any good metaphors). Global trade reaches its apex here. On the drive from the airport, thousands upon thousands of bus-sized shipping containers loom over every meter of shoreline.

Once downtown, I thought to myself: "Hey, neat, all those things I hate about the West are right here in the east too!" Even amidst its current economic and political sag, Hong Kong stands as a gluttonous monster, the filth of consumption dripping from its knotted beard. Tossing low quality
goods across the Pacific, it plunges its mucky chin in and out of the global investment trough. I was happy to jump on its back for a ride. Anywhere they bulldoze ancient pagodas to make room for Baskin Robbins is ok by me.

Cantonese culture is quite different from my own. For example, after they sell you something, they shove you to the ground and spit in your face. Then they go in the back room, count their gold and beat the Filipina nanny for not cleaning behind the refrigerator.

Hong Kong residents seem to be at their happiest after completing a sale. Their lips roll into a tight, anal-shaped loop, nearly revealing the teeth and gums inside. In some cultures we call this reluctant contortion a  "smile" but in Hong Kong it is referred to as "xiang chiaung" or "a brief moment not devoted to a sales transaction".

Smiling doesn't come as naturally to them as to the Thais. But neither do orderly rows of healthy, white teeth. I might not walk around flashing a maw full of jagged brown golf tees either. At first, these scalpel-sharp fangs appear as weapons - precursors to the savage retail aggression bubbling inside. However, they have no military use, per se, but serve as visual deterrents to protect the elderly.  The Hong Kong resident will flare them at an old woman, just prior to thwacking an elbow to the side of her skull as she tries to board a public bus.

But some Cantonese will bend over backwards to help a foreigner. Unfortunately they stay like that until you go away. I stopped asking for help after experiences like this: After purchasing a $25 can of juice, I asked the vendor directions to my bus stop. "There," she answered as she threw my change on the ground and tossed her neck quickly to the left. Not sure which bus "there" was supposed to refer to, I asked for clarification. "THERE! THERE!" was the response, this time accompanied by a flinging of her limp arm in the general direction of "not here".

But it was nice to be in a city with a cultural fabric, intellectual discourse and political activism. I love Thais to death, but it is tough to get conversations that go beyond skin care or describing what category of deliciousness the food belongs to. But Hong Kong was full of interesting,
engaged people as well as cultural variety: symphonies, protests, stage shows, film festivals. You can find these things in Bangkok, but they are rare - and the language barrier stands taller in Thailand.

I was a bit shocked with the lack of street spitting in Hong Kong. In Vancouver, I seem to remember Chinese spittin' like a rainstorm. But in HK, my own throat-clearing and hoarking seemed to set the pace as far as mucous discharge went. A bit disappointed with that, I admit.

HK toilets are among the worlds best. Less gadgets and functions than in Japan, but friendlier designs. Friends have reported that on mainland China the bathrooms are horrific. Some are no more than troughs over which you hang your backside in a line with the other patrons. No divider exists to deter a relationship with your poo-neighbour.

This makes me not want to go to China. There are some things I don't want to see other people do. Ever. The main one is ass-wiping. It seems the most private of moments. Perhaps this represents my own deep, inner anxiety - a fear of catching myself actively looking for a glimpse of someone else's brown. But it just seems amiss to me. Sure, we all scrutinize our own toilet paper - its part of monitoring your output. Anyone proud of their machinery would do the same. But I definitely don't care to see what other people are producing or what methods they are using to clean it up. I barely like going to movies with other people, let alone cleaning my anus in a line-up. It sounds bad enough in Canada, but in China!?! You take elderly Chinese men, a diet full of oyster sauce and a deficiency of toilet paper and you've got nothing but a recipe for something I don't want to be a part of.

Hong Kong's prices forced me into breakfasting at McDonald's. In this way, my friend and I could fleece the system by sharing one bottomless cup of coffee. That's right, I went as a statement of how we should be fighting back against the global supremacy of corporations. I spit on you McDonalds, icon of all that is wrong with American cultural domination! Plus I hadn't had a set of hotcakes in years. (They don't have McDonalds breakfast food in Thailand. er. not that I would know)

Western fast food meals are stressful for me. Self doubt makes me think other foreigners are looking down at me, thinking "Eat like the locals, you disengaged yob!"  I want to scream back at them "Hey - I live in Asia! Where do you live, bucko? This isn't even real Asia anyway - this is Hong Kong. I'm just having one American meal, so mind your own business. Besides, they don't have Egg Mcmuffins in Thailand." This conversation never occurs, of course. But I rehearsed it with my inner demons as I smeared edible oil product over the top of my morning hotcake. (Which they don't have in Thailand.)

So that's Hong Kong in a non-biodegradable Styrofoam nutshell.

I have been working on Burma for two years now. You may have noticed recently that Aung San Suu Kyi was released by the wicked soldiers who rule Burma. I know the first thing you said was, "Wow - that's great news. I wonder who he or she is?"  People should realise that this is nothing but the first timid move by a group of military thugs who really just want us to start running the taps of international aid again. Surely they would rather have the lady chained to a post in the basement, eating bugs out of a jar. But you don't get yourselves a CNN pat-on-the-back for that. Anyway, people around here are still cautiously hopeful that it just might be the beginning of something.

A backgrounder for those not versed in recent Burmese history: Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the opposition party that won the elections in 1990, with 82% of the vote. The ruling generals decided they weren't quite ready to honour those results so they locked ASSK in her house, sallied on with their national rape and murder campaign and pretended to work on a new constitution. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 but continued under house arrest for most of the last decade.

For years, the junta went by the mellifluous moniker, "the SLORC" (the State Law and Order Restoration Council). It didn't scare off international oil companies who were happy to benefit from the SLORC's forced labour and village relocation policies. But after consulting with an American PR firm, the SLORC decided they would benefit from a name change. The SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) was born. Other possible name considerations were "PUPPY" and "TICKLE". "Canadian Alliance" was already taken.

So now ASSK is free to travel. The human rights abuses continue unabated, the ethnic groups continue to be sidelined and the generals continue to drive the country into the ground with economic, health and education policies that make George W. look practically Swedish in comparison. But hey, we made the news for a week.

That's all for now. A little politics, a little poo. A little gift from me to you.