Hong Kong Ham

Just over two years ago, I sat in my basement bedroom in London, Ontario, and presented a case to my flatmate and journalism classmate, Steve, as to why he should move to Hong Kong. Basically, I was already decided on the matter and I wanted a friend to come with me. In a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Steve and Hong Kong: An enticing combination,” I laid out in vividly illustrated detail Hong Kong’s key advantages, which included:

• Its booming economy
• Its journalistic interest, because of its proximity to China and relatively free press
• Its sense of adventure
• Its hot “womens” of multiple ethnicities

The strength of my argument was compelling, and Steve was clearly tempted. In the end, he opted to work at a small weekly newspaper in a ski resort town in British Columbia (see this post for an earlier account of his life at the paper). He’d come to Hong Kong later, he reckoned.

Well, blow me down, but here we are not 15 months down the track and he’s in my living room, sleeping on the couch. He has the same boofy hair, the same Green sensibilities, and same good-natured slow-talk for which Canadians are renowned.

He’s looking for work, and a place to live, here in Hong Kong, so if you can help him out on either of those fronts, it’d be much appreciated. In the meantime, it’s great to have Steve around again. But don’t tell him that.

(Oh, by the way — his move probably has something to do with his girlfriend’s impending move to Beijing.)

In the meantime, so the title of this post makes sense, please enjoy the following video.

Heavy Load is a UK punk band made up of members who have learning disabilities. Even Kylie Minogue loves them.

Got a message from a good friend who I haven’t seen in too long the other day, saying he’d eaten a sandwich with my parents in my home town, Alexandra. He’s recently returned from a year teaching in English in Korea. He’s done a lot with his life — including being swept up in a tsunami — since I last saw him during my university years in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Aside from travelling round the world at random, he’s embarked on a number of creative pursuits, including folk-songwriting and photography. I hope he won’t mind me posting the two photos below that he took on his recent trip back to Alexandra (see more at his blog), which was under snow and frost.

Snow. Fancy that.

Shitty news from Moscow. Renegade expat tabloid The eXile is shutting down.

Known for its searing and salacious journalism ranging from voyeuristic coverage of grisly murders to accounts of nights with cheap Russian hookers to incisive diatribes against Middle America, finally, after 11 years of pushing the boundaries of taste, The eXile is being put to sleep.

Editor Mark Ames explains that the shadowy figures of Russian government, under new president Dmitry Medvedev, seem to have taken offence to something and, via an ‘unplanned audit’, scared off the paper’s investors.

Though I haven’t been a regular reader of late, I have a special affection for The eXile, because it was once co-edited by John Dolan (still a contributor, I believe), who long-time readers may recall was one of my most inspirational writing teachers. (Enjoy his review of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces here.)

Perhaps we can convince Ames to move to Hong Kong and bring his paper with him?

Mum sent me an email pointing out that my blog has been quieter than usual, so I figured that, rather than do the sensible thing and reply to her email, I’d get around to updating. (I’ll do the former soon, promise.)

Also, my job these days is sucking up all my opinion-writing energy, so all I have left to offer are waffling inanities, such as this.

Oh, I just remembered something I like doing when I’ve got nothing of import to say: share new music. Wootlashes!

The following links are provided in order to ascertain that I have unassailably awesome taste and am thus irresistible to members of the opposite sex, small radishes, and mosquitoes.

If you don’t love Dan Deacon already, start doing it!

Bon Iver’s new album, For Emma, Forever Ago, is my current favourite. Go get yourself some ‘Skinny Love’.

You like Brian Wilson, and Animal Collective makes you good dizzy, so you’re also going to be massively into Miracle Fortress. That’s the stuff.

Don’t forget to dig some cool electronica shit without lyrics, just to prove you don’t need choruses to live. Dosh is your new master.

The Whip play ‘Trash’. It is, really, fucking excellent. I am sick of you not getting into it. Do better with your life.

Okay, that’s it. Consider yourself five music videos cooler. I have to log off — I’m getting eaten by mosquitoes.

Today I went to a mini press conference for the Ed Banger crew, who are playing tomorrow night in Kowloon Bay. It’s about the most awesome electro line-up Hong Kong could hope to see — though we were lucky enough to have Justice (the most famous Ed Banger act) last year.

It was cool. I met Busy P (aka Pedro Winter), founder of the label and former manager of Daft Punk, as well as DJ Mehdi, Uffie, Feadz, Krazy Baldhead, and So Me. Though they were not long off a flight from Paris, they were in relaxed spirits and conducted the group interview with humility and humour.

Among other things, I asked them about what they thought of new French president Sarkozy (no public opinion — though it was clear they’re not fans), the controversy over Justice’s mad-cool new ‘Stress’ video (they think it’s just a great video that suits the track, and that the brouhaha would have both damaged and helped the label — mainly the latter), and I tried to squeeze a few words out of Uffie by asking what her favourite Cantonese slang is (she lived in Hong Kong for six years in childhood but misunderstood my question) and what the ride has been like for her over the last couple of years, considering she basically had nothing to do with music before she arrived in Paris and has since gone on to worldwide (sorta) fame. She gave the usual “aw shucks” answer and left it at that. Perhaps she was tired, and possibly shitty that I had dissed her lyrics in an earlier story.

Mehdi was the liveliest, constantly cracking jokes (Uffie was in the gymnastics team at the Moscow Olympics, apparently) and also answering the political questions thoughtfully and diplomatically. It was a more intellectual continuation of email responses he sent to questions I sent him a couple of weeks ago. Then, when I asked him how the Paris electro scene compared to other cities, he replied: “It smells so much better”.

Here’s a crappy photo I took of the crew. From left to right, that’s Uffie, Mehdi, Busy P, So Me, and Feadz (Krazy Baldhead was on a toilet break, I think).

Perspective is an easy thing to talk about and an elusive thing to grasp. From what I can tell, it occurs chiefly in hindsight, or from the safety of a disaffected third-party position. At best, it is the accessible healer that salves all qualms, or a mitigator of the detrimental effects of unsavoury circumstance. At worst, it is an impossible illusion, concocted by the idealists who seek to alleviate themselves of other people’s problems by insisting on this unattainable construct.

In any case, to strive for it is still important, at the right time. The alternative would be to deal with what could otherwise be cosmetic issues under the lens of a vile microscope that only serves to magnify warts. Wouldn’t it?

These past few weeks have visited upon me several instances in which perspective is called for (as if it isn’t anyway called for in everyday life). Many of those situations affected — or continue to affect — me directly. The most important, however, affect my friends. When, faced with these challenges, your friends turn to you for advice or opinions or comfort, there seems to be no better strategic line than to extol the virtues of perspective.

“In years to come, you’ll look back on these events and be glad for the experience.”

“At least you’re not sleeping on a flattened cardboard box by a public walkway.”

“You’re young, educated, and you have a great family behind you — this will wash off.”

My favourite is a little-known Cantonese saying: “Complain about being hungry, but not about being full.” Okay, that square peg doesn’t quite fit this round hole, but it is a useful reminder to some of us about our place in the world.

But there are times when to proffer the ‘perspective’ line is inadequate. The thing is, it can sometimes be better to put perspective away on a high shelf for a while, out of the reach of rationality. Some problems are best grieved over, panicked about, dwelled upon — as long as there is a recovery period that follows soon after.

According to a philosopher I know by the name of Wiki Pedia, there are five stages of grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

If you ask me, that process is actually rather useful. And perspective can sometimes spoil it.

An hour into my trip to Manila, I stop on a street corner and shell out eight pesos for a copy of the esteemed Peoples Journal Tonight.

Under the subtle headline, “MALL SEX SCANDAL”, I read the following teaser:

The Daewoo rocked suspiciously at the parking lot of the Tiendesitas strip mall at dawn, hinting of a couple having animal sex in the back seat. True enough, Rhea Justin Bastre, 19, and her boyfriend, Gian Paolo Mandoza, 24, were found pumping and stroking each other’s sweat-filled, sizzling nakedness.

I love this city already.

Mind you, I’ve been walking around a lot in this 31-degree heat and I must say my body is getting sweat-filled. I think I shall retire to a hostel, where I can shower in my sizzling nakedness.

… but some friends and I have been busy making something.