ビール瓶のおそろしさ。

January 3, 2011. Written in Hong Kong.

ビール瓶の恐ろしさ

香港の夜の街。友人のLくん（ノルゥエイ）とPくん（フランス）とMくん（フランス）とで歩いていた。みんなソウルで出会った仲間で、この香港で再会した。昼間は一緒に観光し、夜はお酒を飲んで話した。

 飲み屋で出会ったタイ人との写真。

香港の夜の街を彷徨っていると、急に近くで怒鳴り合いが！二グループに別れてケンカしているようだ。地元の人たち対外国人とのケンカみたいだ。Mくんと僕は間に入り、やめるようにと説教。ところが、そこでいきなり地元グループの一人が、手に持っていたビール瓶を相手の頭に思いっきり振り下ろした。
「俺をなめんなよ！」顔の表情からして、それらしいことを言ってから、地元グループは逃げていった。おっかけるなんてするもんじゃないと判断した。いくら武道をやっているとはいえ、相手はビール瓶を振り下ろすくらい頭がいかれている。何があるかわからない。

それはそうと、今はとにかく頭にビール瓶を振り下ろされた彼を心配するべきだ。顔は血だらけになっている。頭が切れてるし、右の頬にガラス片が刺さっているようだ。だが、まだ意識はあるし、痛いのかと聞くと痛くないと言う。きっとアドレナリンが働いてるだけで、あとで激痛が来るに違いない。

Mくんがポケットから手拭を取り出し、彼に渡した。取り出していると、一緒にアパートの鍵を落としてしまうが、大らかな彼は自分でそんなことには点で気がつかない。そして、鍵は見事にマンホールの下に落ちてしまう。彼にそれを知らせると、彼が罰の悪い顔をして「ごめん」と言ったのはいいが、取ろうともしない。
「どうせ取れないさ」と彼は言うわけだ。だが、僕はやってみようじゃないかという気になった。コンビニでれんげんをもらい、マンホールを空けて、れんげんで鍵を掬い上げようとし、すぐに成功！
「やるじゃないか」とMくん。やるじゃないかって、お前がやれよ！

一方で、血を出している彼のために救急車が呼ばれ、数分で現れた。警察も一緒に来て、われわれも訪問を受けることに。だが、犯人なんてもうとっくにいなくなってるし、ここに戻ってくるほどばかじゃないから見つかるわけなどない。まあ、みんな無事ならそれでいい、か。

A glimpse of Hong Kong at night.

January 3, 2012. Written in Hong Kong.

A glimpse of Hong Kong's nightlife.

It was probably around 2:30 or 3:00 in the night. We (The Seoul team) were hanging around in Hong Kong's nightlife district. On the streets, we saw a black woman passing by. She had big, fake breasts, a tight ass and long glamorous legs. She was wearing a very short skirt and a blouse that exposed at least 80 percent of her breasts. She had long, colored nails, thick lipstick and a face all covered in make-up. The expression on her face was almost as if she was looking in your eyes saying "I'm sexy, don't you think?"

"Look, a prostitute!" I said to my friends.
"Shut up, moron! That's rude. What if she's not?"
"She won't hear it from here. And of course she is, how could you even question the fact?"
"I'm not too sure about that."
"You know how to recognize a prostitute?  If you stare at her and she gives you a horny face back, then she is one"
But no one seemed in the mood to try this out.

We stopped talking and observed the woman.
She slowly walked the streets. You could easily notice that she also tried to look sexy in the way she walked. She stopped in front of a taxi. The door opened. Before going in, she dropped her bag and bent down to pick it up. She did this very slowly too, probably to show the curves of her body. You would almost think that she had dropped the bag on purpose just to bent down. She then went in the taxi, but kept the door open. She was sitting with her legs crossed, and her hand was leaning on the top of the couch. She was looking at the street. We followed her glance. She seemed to be staring at a bold, white male. The guy laughed at her. "I'm not interested in anything like that!" his laugh was saying.
 But the woman kept staring at him. She now waved at him too, trying to tell him to come to her.
While still laughing, the guy walked to the cab. The two talked for a while. The guy shook his head for a few times. The woman gently touched his hands. The guy now went to the other side of the cab and stepped in. The woman closed the door of her side of the cab. They drove away.

The Seoul team in Hong Kong!

January 3, 2012. Written in Hong Kong

The Seoul team in Hong Kong!

The day after the arrival of Lars and Michael, my other good friend Paul was also supposed to arrive from Seoul. I was going to pick him up from the airport together with Nicolas in the evening. Nicolas said that he would take a nap, and when he would wake up we would go to the airport. Nicolas however, did not wake up even when I thought it was more than time to hurry up to the airport. I knocked on his door to ask him if it was not about time to go.
"Paul missed his plane too." I heard a half sleeping Nicolas speak from the other side from the door.
Perfect! First I miss my train, next Lars and Michael miss their plane, and now Paul also manages to miss his plane.
"He will arrive tomorrow afternoon"

The next day, Paul arrived without problems and told us what had happened the day before.  With all his luggage (he will move back to France after his visit to Hong Kong) he entered a taxi to bring him to his local station to catch the train to the airport. The road however, turned out to be completely full of cars, and it took him nearly half of an hour to reach the local train station, which made him miss the airplane by just a few minutes.
And that while he was making fun of Michael and Lars missing their plane just one day before.

On Paul's first real day, we woke up at around 2PM because of too much drinking the night before. There were no real plans, so I decided to show them the Man Mo temple, a nice temple I had visited myself a view days earlier.

 

Michael calls me an egg. White from the outside, yellow from the inside. Well, I call the romantic French kid a banana if you don't mind.

Nearby, there is this famous local eating house with lots of people. You share your seats with other customers, which is a nice way to observe the locals. The eating house has simple but tasty dishes such as fried noodles with chicken and egg, macaroni in soup and even maple sirup toast.

                          The macaroni soup! It is much better than it looks and sounds.

After having had lunch and viewing the temple, we decided to go to the "Victoria peak", a famous spot to look down on the city. We decided to take the taxi there, but it turned out to be hard to catch one. Even empty taxi's would pass by without even looking at us. When I sat on my knees in front of one of them praying with my hands, it finally stopped and we were ready to go to the peak.

Sometimes, there are postcards of famous spots in a city that really look amazing, but if this spot is really as spectacular as it shows on the postcard, this is really a rare thing.The Victoria peak is one of those rare places.

It was really an amazing view on the city, and we were lucky because there was no fog at all on the day. We walked a circle around the peak, and took some nice group pictures. The Seoul team reunited in Hong Kong! Too bad Nicolas was at work and he couldn't join us on the picture.

香港の小さな日本たち

January 3, 2012. Written in Hong Kong.

香港の小さな日本たち

香港の街を歩いていると、とにかくたくさんの日本ものが目に入る。どこの国の都会にでもある日本料理屋さんや漫画や生け花教室などのことを言っているのではない。日本に実際にあるチェーン店とか、スナック菓子とか、洗面用具とか。そんな地味な、そして本当の日本がこの街にあるのだ。スーパーやコンビニに入ると、日本商品の多さにびっくりしてしまうほどで、現地の商品よりも多いくらいだ。ものすごくたくさんあるので、ここで全部紹介仕切れないが、その一部だけでもぜひご覧ください。

 これはもうわかりきったことですね。中国内地でも定番のチェーン店、吉野家。

                     香港吉野屋の牛丼。味は文句なしだが、紅生姜が置いてないのは痛い！

                                「大戸屋」に「和民」に「笑笑」、香港には日本のチェーン店が健在！

                 しかし、日本料理のチェーン店ならともかく、日本のイタリアンがあるのはなぜだろうか？

                         それに日本の千円カットまで！さすがにやりすぎだろ！いらないだろ！

                                                          地元の人たちにわかるのかな？

おおい！やりすぎだってば！

 

子どもたちの教育もしっかりと。

おもちゃにも困ることはない！

 

どら焼き食べたい？

そこらへんのコンビニでも日本ものばっかり。

                                                                こいつまであったぞ！

                         文法具屋の品揃いにしても、香港にいるとはちょっと信じられない。

                         シャンプーなんかも、もちろん日本製品じゃないと生きていけない。

                   「日本城」という名のホームセンター。「日本」がつくと、とにかく何でも売れるらしい。

Aberdeen?

January, 2, 2011. Written in Hong Kong

Aberdeen?

At the end of my first week in Hong Kong, two old (old?) friends of mine arrived from Seoul. They missed their first plane, because Michael (France) thought that it would be enough to leave his home 2 hours before the departure, while it takes 2 hours to get to the airport. This relaxed (to put it in a good way) attitude towards things, is very defining to what kind of guy the French romanticist is. Luckily, they were able to get the next plane, and to represent "Youth Hostel Nicolas" I was there to give them a free pickup from the airport.
 In Seoul, I spent my last week at Lars's place, and was happy to see him arrive together with Michael. It was already after midnight when they arrived, and we went back with the last train. In the area of Nicolas's home, we had some Chinese food while catching up with eachother.

The next day was a saturday, which means Nicolas and his girlfriend Kat could join us on an excursion. After having lunch at a local dumpling restaurant, without any good reasons, we decided to go to Aberdeen which is the harbor of Hong Kong, famous for having many people living on wooden boats until the 80's.

It took us quite some time to take the bus, because no one had ever been to Aberdeen before, even Kat (whom is native to Hong Kong).
Finally, we found a bus that was supposed to take us there, but it didn't really say so on the bus itself. After about 30 minutes, we did find something similar, and decided to get off at the next stop. The stop we got off, turned out to be an area where tourists usually don't have any reason to come. We asked the way to Aberdeen to some road workers. It seemed it was on the other side of the mountain in front of us. We tried to walk around it, but on our way we found a ladder to climb up to a mountain path.

From the top of the mountain, we could now look out at something that definitely looked like a harbor. But was it really Aberdeen?

We took the path down and ended up at a big bus stop.
"For Aberdeen" said one of the boards at the stop. Which means that we supposedly were not at Aberdeen yet.
I mentioned this to my friends, but everyone seemed to have no disbelief in the harbor we had seen being Aberdeen.
"What does it matter. We all want to see a  harbor, and there is obviously a harbor here." Lars answered.
That was indeed true, but to be honest, I wanted to be sure it was Aberdeen. Why, you ask? Because Aberdeen makes an appearance in my beloved video-game Shenmue. Yes, I know, I am predictable.
But this time, I decided it would be better to just keep my mouth shut and follow the group.

It was a short walk to the harbor from the bus stop. We asked a lady that seemed to be from mainland China to take a picture of us.

Me and Lars tried to have a conversation with her using our Mandarin skills, but it didn't really work well. It must have been a funny sight to see a Norwegian and a Dutch trying to speak Mandarin in Hong Kong.

We walked around some, and found ourselves something that looked like a ferry pier. At the pier, there was a fishing couple. They had caught a strange fish I have never seen before in my life.

A ferry to take us somewhere never arrived. After a while, a boat came to pick up some oil, but when we asked them to take us with them, we were totally ignored.

We gave up on catching a boat and decided on going back by bus. On the way to the bus stop, Michael told me his impression on the harbor.
"There are many boats here" he said with that beautiful French accent of him. Another phrase that perfectly defines his great character.

Back in the vibrant city at night.

1日3縁 その３ Three coincidences on one day. Nr.3

December 30, 2011. Written in Hong Kong.

1日3縁　その３　Three coincidences on one day. Nr.3

「南スタジアム」　"Southern Stadium"

Na op straat een oude bekende tegen gekomen te hebben, wandelde ik richting huis met mijn vriend Nicolas.Op misschien een afstand van 500 meter van zijn huis, vond ik opeens een groot stadion.
"Southern Stadium" stond er op dit gebouw. Voor de ingang stonden borden van Muay Thai vechters, en toen we daar naar stonden te kijken viel er opeens 1 van om.We probeerde het bord weer rechtop te zetten, maar het bleef omvallen. Een man die binnen achter een tafel zat te telefoneren, knikte naar ons. Laat maar liggen, ik doe het later wel, leek hij te willen zeggen. We stonden nu voor de ingang, en konden luidruchtig gejuig van het publiek horen. Ik raakte nu wel geinteresseerd. We vroegen aan de man die net klaar was met zijn telefoontje wat er bezig was. Het wereldkampioenschap Muay Thai., vertelde hij ons. Natuurlijk wist ik dat de sport Muay Thai een zooitje is en dat er 10-tallen organisaties zijn die allemaal hun eigen wereldkampioenschappen hebben, maar dat maakte het niet minder interessant. We vroegen of het geld koste om naar binnen te gaan. Eigenlijk wel, maar omdat het nu toch al bezig was, mochten we wel even een kijkje gaan nemen.

We stormden de trappen op. Het gejuig kwam steeds dichterbij, en op het moment dat we de zaal binnenstormden, werdt het gejuig nog luider. Er was net iemand knock out geslagen. In de ring lag 1 vechter bewusteloos, en de andere hield lachend zijn hand omhoog. Het was een gigantische zaal, en de ring was mooi verlicht. Het was voor mij de eerste keer om live een Muay Thai gevecht te zien, en we stonden vlak bij de ring!

Na een paar gevechten gezien te hebben liet Nicolaas mij alleen omdat hij de volgende ochtend weer vroeg op moest. Ik nam plaats in de tribune en bekeek de rest van de gevechten. Naast mij zat een fanatieke jongen met het programmaboek op zijn schoot waar ik soms mee mocht kijken. Toen het laatste gevecht aanbrak verlat ik de tribune weer, en bekeek het gevecht van zo dichtbij mogelijk. Het was een gevecht tussen een Hong Kong Chinees en een Thai. De Thai lachte vreemd veel, vooral als hij een klap kreeg maakte hij een brede lach en knikte zijn tegenstander toe. Dit deed mij denken dat hij een erg sterke veteraan moest zijn, maar hij bleef tot het laatst alleen maar lachen en vocht nooit terug. Het was daarom niet erg verbazend dat hij het gevecht verloor.

Na het stadium weer te verlaten kreeg ik een enorme zin om te vechten. Ik verheug me nu al op Thailand!

1日3縁 その２ Three coincidences on one day. Nr.2.

December 30, 2011. Written in Hong Kong.

1日3縁　その２　Three coincidences on one day. Nr.2.

「遠い外国の都会で」　"In a far away foreign city."　　

If you have ever wandered through a far away foreign city, I am sure that you must have at least once asked yourself this question: "Do I even know someone in this place?"

You might remember a guy you met a long time ago on vacation, or this girl that was an exchange student at your university. It would be funny to just coincidentally bump into this person on the streets, you will think, but of course, it hardly ever actually happens.

For me, there was only one person from Hong Kong that I could recall knowing. 6, 7 years ago, we went to cram school together (a school where you study for the entrance exam for the university). I remember her as a friendly and cheerful girl. Her Japanese was very good for a Chinese, and I recall having a conversation with her about delicious fruits in Hong Kong. At the time, she was seeing a Korean guy, whom she met at the same cram school, too. I remember once bumping into them in the cinemas of Shinjuku a long time ago. But actually, while having fond memories of her, there is not a great quantity of them. This is because after the first few months, she started to show up less and less at school. Sometimes, you wouldn't see her for weeks, and when she one day finally showed up, the teacher would say: "Had enough of hibernating, madam?"

And here I was, strolling around in the streets of her hometown, more than 6 years later.  As mentioned before, she was the only person from Hong Kong I could recall. It would be funny to just bump into her, I thought. But would I even be able to recognize her? Especially in a city crowded like Hong Kong, the chance is pretty big that I wouldn't even notice her walking by. Sometimes, I looked around, trying to spot her, just as a joke, just for fun, and of course she was never there.

On my second evening in Hong Kong, I strolled around with my friend Nicolas, through his neighborhood. I bought an "octupus card" , which is used for transport in the city. Nicolas wasn't feeling very well, so we didn't go out for dinner, but he showed me some famous spots located in the neighborhood. After maybe half an hour, we decided to go home again, and on the way back, I suddenly saw someone familiar. I had to stop, and look at her carefully. My friend looked at me confused. Why wasn't I moving?
She was talking with some business men. I walked a bit closer to hear her speak.
She was speaking Japanese, and with that same accent of hers I remembered. There was no question about it anymore, it was her! On my second day, I met the only person (except from Nicolas, of course) I know in this gigantic city.
I approached her, and asked her if she remembered me. She did.