Violante, Chlorophyll and Treacle

Devil. Whale. Chlorophyll, Violante, Treacle -- you name it, Hong Kong probably has someone who goes by it. The former British colony is obsessed with weird English names.

Unusual appellations have been found on people of all kinds. The secretary for justice is Rimsky Yuen and the previous secretary for food and health was York Chow. Among celebrities, there is a Fanny Sit, Moses Chan, and Dodo Cheng. Models? We have a Vibeke, Bambi, Dada, and Vonnie. But lawyers take the prize. There is a Magnum, John Baptist, Ludwig, Ignatius, Bunny and four -- yes, four -- Benedicts.

Odd names make for odder situations. Last July, police arrested a woman named Ice Wong with 460 grams of ice -- the drug, not frozen water. Months earlier, the law caught up with Devil Law when he was brought before a judge for drug possession and crashing his car into a bus. In 2010, a woman called Cash Leung was jailed for paying cabbies with fake cash [...]

The practice goes back to colonial times. "There was a period when it seemed desirable or prestigious to have an English name," said Stephen Matthews, an associate professor of the linguistics department at the University of Hong Kong's school of humanities. "Businessmen would take on English names as a mark of sophistication or to show they did business with foreigners."

In school, it was easier for English-speaking teachers to remember students' English names than their Chinese ones, Matthews said. And, as Li notes in a 1997 paper, addressing students by their English names was one way to encourage their interest in the language.

Li writes that English first names served as a "lubricant" to speed up the process of getting acquainted. Chinese forms of address, which are either very formal or overly familiar, do not favor quick rapport-building between strangers [...]

Matthews estimates that 90 percent of the institution's female and 65 percent of its male students have English first names.

As for the unconventional names, he said they initially arose in part due to an "incomplete knowledge" of the English language. Hong Kongers might have not appreciated the connotation of the name Kinky, for example. Februar might have been a misspelling or the result of someone over-generalizing the use of the names of the months like April, May or June, or both.

Over time, however, people have stopped questioning whether such variations are real names and accepted them. "It started as an inadequate knowledge of English, but if you see an unusual name today, it's because [Hong Kongers] are taking charge of their own language, not because their language abilities are not good," Matthews said. "People feel they can do what they want with English. If you tell Decemb or Februar that theirs are not English names, they'll say, 'I don't care, it belongs to me.' In a way, they're asserting their Hong Kong identity... [The English language in Hong Kong] is no longer a symbol of British influence, but part of people's identity."

- Joyce Man, Hong Kong Loves Weird English Names, The Atlantic, 1 October 2012

See also:
Travel: A foreign devil in Macau

Travel: Anticipating the auspicious pig

A foreign devil in Macau

The American writer and journalist Ambrose Bierce once wrote that ‘the gambling known as business looks with austere disfavour upon the business known as gambling’.  In Macau, however, the chief business is gambling and business looks upon it with a particularly vigorous favour.  During my recent visit to Hong Kong, in which I stayed with the Wilsons on lovely Lamma Island, I paid a visit to Macau to see first hand its collection of Portuguese colonial architecture.  During my day spent in the territory I must have been one of the few visitors travelling for purposes other than gambling – Macau is a huge haven for legal gambling visited by thousands of mainland Chinese every day.

Macau (or, if you prefer, Macao) returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1999, and like neighbouring Hong Kong, it operates as a Special Autonomous Region, entitling it to a certain local leeway.  Hence the gambling, and the maintenance of a separate local currency, the pataca, that travellers are warned not to bother taking out of the city, because it’s next to useless as soon as you board the ferry.

The SAR status means visitors from Hong Kong have to go through border control both when leaving Hong Kong and upon arrival in Macau. This involves standing in a huge hall with several thousand mainland Chinese day-trippers for about 20 minutes each time. And if you’re me, it also involves the Chinese guy behind you slipping his snotty tissue into your bag when you’re not looking. Gosh thanks mister, you really know how to make a gweilo tourist feel welcome!

The swift catamaran journey from Hong Kong only takes an hour.  On the day I travelled the skies were murky grey and visibility was low. (Services had been significantly disrupted the day before by an impenetrable fog bank that blanketed the region).  After another border crossing I took a quick bus ride from the wharf to emerge into the heart of old Macau – a little corner of Portugal in the Far East.  The triangular Largo do Senado (Senate Square) is surrounded by pretty low-rise official buildings decked out in brightly-coloured paint, leading to a twisting pedestrian precinct that winds its way up the slope to the site of Macau’s most famous building. Or, to be precise, the remains of said building.

After a 20-year programme of construction, the foundation stone of St Paul’s Cathedral was laid in 1602, during the 60-year Spanish rule over Portugal.  The cathedral marked a new bastion of the Catholic faith in the far-flung corners of the Iberian empire.  Following a destructive fire in 1835 St Paul’s suffered massive damage, and all that was saved for posterity was the ornately-carved façade that had been carved by exiled Japanese Christians in the 1620s.  Now this thin sliver of history is visited by a torrent of tourists, and it has become the most prominent landmark in a city that, aside from its downtown colonial core, does not boast an enviable architectural heritage.

This much is obvious when the city is viewed from on high in the Monte Fort adjacent to the cathedral.  Macau is crammed with crumbling apartment and office blocks, but one building stands out must win plaudits for its sheer bloody-minded oddness.  Dominating the Macau skyline, the Grand Lisboa casino can only be described as a gigantic flaming onion bestriding the city below.  It’s a monstrous size, 261 metres tall, but it’s so much taller than the surrounding buildings that its bulk is emphasised.  The outwards flare of its upper storeys gives the building a gravity-defying appearance.  Despite its theatrical levels of vulgar attention-seeking, I decided that I loved the Grand Lisboa, tacky gold mirror-glass and all.  After all, there’s no way you can come to Macau and fail to form an opinion on it – mine is that the architect must have been completely bonkers – and what better edifice to sum up the spirit of the modern city full of gamblers?

Walking back down from the fortress into the rabbit-warren of city streets I managed to get hopelessly disoriented, but this didn’t prove to be a nuisance as I had already seen the parts of Macau I’d intended to.  I walked back to the ferry wharf past the modern harbour-side developments of spectacularly peculiar tourist attractions.  First there was a scale model of the Coliseum with shops nestled around its circumference.  Alongside was some berserk Aztec-style theme park, which must have been aiming for an Indiana Jones vibe.  Further on there was an intricate replica of the sheer-walled towers of Lhasa and an imposing Chinese fortress surrounded by a moat heaving with well-fed koi carp.  Lastly, not to be out-done, there was a volcano.  A bloody volcano!  Imagine the planning permission application for that one.

Tower of power

Kowloon skyline
Originally uploaded by eT le snap

This vast construction site in West Kowloon sits atop the Airport Express rapid rail link to Hong Kong International Airport. There's a train station underneath from which passengers can be whisked to the airport in about 20 minutes. Each of these new towers is massive, but the leftmost is the biggest around. Known as the International Commerce Centre, when this 484m tower was completed in 2009 it secured the status of Hong Kong's tallest building, besting Hong Kong Island's spectacular IFC2 (415m). It's currently the fourth highest skyscraper in the world, behind Dubai's Burj Khalifa, Taipei 101 in Taiwan and the slightly taller Shanghai World Finance Centre. Once it's fully operational later in 2010 the 118-storey ICC tower will feature a public viewing platform on the 100th floor and the highest hotel in the world, with the Ritz-Carlton taking the top 15 floors.

The odd-shaped skyscraper in the centre of the picture is the Arch Tower, which at 81 storeys and 231m high is the third highest residential building in Hong Kong.

The cleanest lift in China

Having failed to walk my feet off yesterday, I elected to do yet more footslogging around downtown, but with no real purpose in mind.  There was the first real hint of Asian winter in the air, with grey skies, drops of rain here and there, and an occasional chill breeze, but it was still shorts-wearing weather for me, if not for most other Hong Kongites.  Patrolling Queen's Road and Des Voeux Road in the main shopping district, I quickly tired of air-conditioned marble-floored malls decked out with luxury stores.  However, I did pay a quick visit to a Chinese-owned department store, Wing On, to explore the menswear section.  This was followed by a scouting run through the smallish Western Markets building, where the only item of interest was a peculiar shop devoted to selling model buses.  I accidentally took the escalator to the top floor restaurant, only to find that there wasn't one back down; if a customer is foolish enough to decline the opportunity to eat there, they obviously aren't worthy of a speedy exit.

Passing by the window of a little McDonalds on Queen's Road West, I noticed an advertising tableaux for a local film.  It provided an example of how a crowded city advertises its movies – the poster crammed 15 characters into a tiny space, all gurning heroically for the camera.  There was Our Grinning Hero With A Sparkly Gold Magic Thing, Our Hero's Geeky Mate, Spunky Pirate Girl With A Big Brain, Sinister Villain With Bad Facial Hair, Goofy Witch Lady With Big Teeth, et cetera.  It must've been challenging for the actors to find 15 different poses for the promo shots.  Not to be topped by this iconography, a poster for a pork burger combo featured a comic actor wearing a giant pig head booting another version of himself wearing a giant dog head up the bum, to symbolise the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new.

Feeling footsore, I decided to ride up to the viewing level halfway up the Bank of China building.  As the day was overcast, the views from the 43rd floor weren't legendary, but the shiny lift was probably the cleanest elevator in China: a small plaque informed occupants that 'this lift car will be wiped with disinfectant every hour'.  I tried not to think why it needed to be.

After a break at the apartment to recover, I went for a stroll through the peculiar Hong Kong Park, which is remarkably artificial, like a Disneyland version of a park.  Fake rocks jut into the concrete lake, sporting signs saying "walking on rocks is prohibited".  In the conservatory, a fake rockface is punctured by a rectangular circuitboard, and the footpaths are bordered by faux wood railings.  Despite the element of unnatural weirdness, it's a refreshing open space in the middle of Hong Kong.

In the evening Reuben and Alex hired a babysitter for the boys and we headed out for dinner at Stanley on the other side of Hong Kong island, 15km south of Central Station.  We dined in a restaurant located in the historic Murray House (1846), a genteel collonaded structure moved from the central city to make way for the Bank of China building that I'd ascended earlier in the morning.  After a quick stroll on the waterfront promenade to round out the evening, we cabbed it back to Old Peak Road for a quick game of Nintendo Wii tennis and bowling.

Tomorrow, London!

Sausage croissants are the new black

Reuben, Alex and the boys (Zach, Hugo and Angus) live on the 13th floor of a 36-storey tower in Hong Kong's Midlevels.  Their apartment is spacious and airy, with views north and south of soaring apartment buildings forming a chequerboard pattern of windows all around.  Old Peak Road is a precipitous and narrow thoroughfare, buzzing with taxis and minivans straining to cart Hong Kongers up the slope to their homes.  Zach and Hugo attend school nearby, and Reuben only has to walk five or ten minutes downhill to work.

Keen to take in the views, I stocked up on drinking water to combat the mid-20s winter temperature and pressed onwards up Old Peak Road, which became even steeper before turning into a pedestrian path to the summit.  I followed Alex's good advice and didn't rush it!  Here and there locals passed by exercising their dogs or taking the airs, but soon the path grew quiet and I continued the long haul to the top, step by step.  At the summit the Peak Tram centre has a swish shopping mall, including a Delifrance cafe selling 'sausage croissants', otherwise known as sausage rolls.  But the main reason to visit is the spectacular vista from the roof, with views of the entire downtown area of Hong Kong.  Broad-winged birds of prey soar below, riding thermals and keeping an eye out for tasty rodents in the hillside foliage. 

The air is cooler up at the peak, and several nature trails wend their way around the summit's parklands.  I took a clockwise route with excellent, if vertiginous, views down leafy slopes and onto the clustered roofs of high-rise buildings far below.  Every 50 metres the fenceline was plastered with posters reminding walkers of the severe punishments faced by owners of defecating dogs – something about being stretched on a rack while being forced to listen to Wing CDs, presumably.

After a break back at the apartment, I wandered down into the city proper, through the little zoological gardens with its lone jaguar in solitary confinement because its mate died a few years ago and a replacement has yet to be found.  I wandered around the clinical precision of the downtown malls and arcades for a while, and then headed west along Queen's Road Central to the more rambunctious and chaotic Cat Street markets, full of disposable tourist tat and 'interesting' smells.  The return to Midlevels was via the world's longest covered escalator, which takes about 20 minutes to ascend the steep slope.

After dinner I headed back down to Reuben's office building; he buzzed down in the lift from the 42nd floor and we hopped on a train to go one stop under the harbour to Kowloon, where we watched the spectacular nightly light and laser show flickering across the buildings of Hong Kong, which was set to cheesy synth music.  Then we legged it up hectic Nathan Road, full of garish lights and pushy street vendors, but with scarcely any space for tactical deployment of Asian phlegm-hoicking, and took a brief look at the Temple Street night markets before taking one of the famous lozenge-shaped double-decker Star Ferries back to Hong Kong and a well-earned rest.

Rumble at the docks

After accompanying Alex down to the pier for his morning ferry ride to work, and bidding him thanks and farewell, I took a detour past some ramshackle fishing huts on wooden stilts in a small bay hidden behind the headland.  The owners of the old shacks were offered land by the authorities to encourage them to move out of their decrepit accommodation, but being enterprising sorts, instead of moving out they built rental properties on the offered land and stayed put in their hovels.  Their fishing dinghies are parked alongside on the mudflats, and fish-hungry cats lurk on nearby rooftops hoping for a free meal.  The shacks are built so close together that the public path narrows drastically, and the way is almost obstructed by aging lean-to walls daubed with old magazine advertisements and lucky charms.  
 
Later in the morning I met Sarah at the pier returning from dropping Lily at pre-school, and we wandered amongst the bayfront shops of Yung Shue Wan, along to a bazaar being held at a concrete pier behind the village football pitch.  Sarah had been told about the market the day before by local Chinese retailer Doris, who could conceivably be someone who might have a sharp tongue if crossed.  At the venue, dozens of kumquat and tangelo bushes in plastic pots sat ready for deployment in homes across the island in honour of the Chinese New Year.  (pic); But as fevered shopping ravaged the stock, the supply of plants dwindled and a crazed tinge crept into the eyes of the local shoppers.  Sarah was elbowed away from one plant by a woman exclaiming, "Get away, get away!  It's mine!".  The melee was almost too much for Doris, who was racing back and forth to keep an eye on all the primal do-or-die commerce being undertaken.  But in the end Sarah secured some suitable vegetation for the Wilson balconies, and we loaded up the smaller ones into the pram, while the larger ones would be delivered later by one of the island's quad-bike delivery vehicles. 

After Sarah set off to town to see Alex for their 8th wedding anniversary, I strolled back into Yung Shue Wan for lunch, and then walked southwards to explore a little more of the island.  I ventured up the hill to see Lamma's 800kw wind turbine, which has 50m diameter rotors and makes an impressively ominous swooping noise as it cuts the air.  The view from the site was impressive too, with most of the southern coast of Hong Kong Island to the northeast.  In the opposite direction the mammoth Lamma coal-fired power station also thrummed menacingly, and its three smoke-stacks dominated the island's skyline.  Luckily the station itself is hidden from sight if you live in Yung Shue Wan or Tai Ping, and only the stacks are visible, lurking over the hill crest like a trio of industrial giants. 

Heading back down the hill, I followed the trail further to pretty Hung Shing Yeh beach, which was being tended by rake-wielding beach groomers wearing broad-brimmed basket hats to keep the sun off.  Deciding that the heat was getting to me, I paused for a cool drink in the shade, before turning back to Tai Ping. 

As I said farewell to Sarah and the kids, poor little Charlotte expressed her grief at my departure in the time-honoured method of all little ones: she let forth a veritable torrent of vomit onto one of the sofas and burst into tears.  Surprising how much one tiny stomach can - or, more precisely, can't - hold. 

After an arm-stretching baggage haul down to the pier, I bade farewell to pretty Lamma and headed for the bustle and grime of Hong Kong proper.  A short NZ$8 taxi ride took me up the hill to the Midlevels, and I disembarked at 8 Old Peak Road to begin the second phase of my Hong Kong visit - staying with Reuben and Alex and the boys in their fab Hong Kong apartment. 

Anticipating the auspicious pig

It's nearly Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong, and the Year of the Dog is shuffling off, to be replaced by the sparkling new Year of the Pig. Lively cartoon pigs juggling stacks of pretty gold coins are on posters everywhere, and the entire city is planning to pay close attention to the prohibition on setting off celebratory fireworks. And then completely ignore it, in order to set off loads of fireworks.

Atop the hill on Lamma, the my cousin Alex and his family live in Tai Ping Village – a jamboree of old and new low-rise apartment buildings, nothing more than three storeys. Alex & Sarah have bought a great apartment with plenty of space plus a roof area that currently serves as an open-air play area for their little girls, decked out with toys, plastic slides and a mini-trampoline with a safety net. The family needs a bit of space, as the house must accommodate Alex, Sarah, Lily (4), Charlotte (14 months), Jasmine their household helper from the Philippines, Bella the shadow-chasing dog and two fluffy pug-faced felines. (And a guest from New Zealand). It's a lovely lively place.

On my first full day in the Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region (to give it its formal title), Alex had the morning off from work, so we strolled down the hill to Yung Shue Wan near the ferry dock and had a tasty breakfast and coffee at Green Planet, an organic vegetarian place on the main thoroughfare. Plenty of people stopped by to say hello to the Wilsons, particularly ex-pat families with small kids; Lamma has that small-town feel about it, where everyone seems to know everyone else.

After breakfast we loaded Charlotte in the stroller and walked to Pak Kok Pier on the northern tip of Lamma to catch the ferry to high-rise Aberdeen. As the ferry neared the city pier it had to negotiate a narrow channel full of dozens of tied-up fishing boats, with the odd puttering sampan thrown into the mix. Giant apartment blocks loomed over the bay on all sides, with fluttering laundry hung out to dry a hundred metres up, secured by pincer-sharp pegs.

We collected Lily from her pre-school in Aberdeen and took a bus into the middle of Hong Kong, where we bade farewell to Alex, who went off to work. I accompanied Sarah on some city errands, acting as a spare pair of hands and chief pram-minder and bottle-washer. Then we loaded everything onto the 3.15pm ferry back to Lamma, which was chock full of excited squeakers just out of school.

After some reviving down-time back at Casa Wilson, we met Alex and went for a nice curry at an Indian place down by the water. The food was excellent, and even more importantly, the sound-system was playing a stylish mix of Manchester and Britpop sounds (Loose Fit by the Happy Mondays, Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode, There She Goes by the La's, and Connected by the Stereo MCs). Tune!

As a nightcap we started to watch the French free-running movie, Yamakazi ('Les samourais des temps modernes'). The opening scenes of the seven chaps free-climbing a 20-storey apartment block ( i.e. no ropes) was very impressive, but the storyline itself was rather pants. I half expected the irascible police chief character to fume, "Bah! I'll catch those pesky kids if it's the last thing I do!". And then bite a piece out of the police-station doorframe. Despite their nifty stunts, we gave up on the limber Parisians and called it a day.

Seven league boots

It takes only 11 hours to cross the Pacific from Auckland to Hong Kong these days. As long as you can get to the plane, that is. The snakey queue to get past Auckland Customs takes an age, and could've taken even longer if any official-type people had noticed the unattended cabin bag that had been left in the queue by a long-gone traveller. Most of the queue occupants glanced at it and then ignored it; one portly German with a handlebar moustache shifted it closer to the front of the queue each time he passed it in the S-shaped waiting line. When I pointed the bag out to him, the Customs dude at the counter cracked a minor 'bomb joke' under his breath, which was quite a relief as I'd had to stifle the exact same joke a moment earlier, for fear of starting my journey in the penitentiary.

Cathay's A340 swooped me away from Mangere and over the city for one last view of the Harbour Bridge. Flying north-northwest, we crossed the coast over the Kaipara Heads (pic) and headed for Australia. The economy section was full of young Asian students returning from New Zealand. The one I was sitting next to, a young chap from Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. He called himself Hank (a Taiwanese cowboy?) and was just returning home from a 3-week English course at Waikato University.

As the jet swept towards the Queensland coast, I took in The World's Fastest Indian, which proved to be an entertaining and likeable local feel-good story. Tim Shadbolt got three lines! This was followed by Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which was fizzy but slightly superficial. Ending a movie about Marie Antoinette at the point she leaves Versailles in captivity rather misses the most important bit of the story, I would've thought. But for music fans, there's a nice bit when Bow Wow Wow's cover of I Want Candy soundtracks a montage of conspicuous royal consumption and giddy regal excess.

After buzzing over Whitsunday Island and crossing northern Queensland north of Cairns, we clipped the south coast of Papua and then crossed Philippine islands galore. A boiling golden sunset (pic) enlivened the evening, and justified my window seat decision. Cathay's flight service was okay, but their seatbelt policy was over-zealous, with really long periods of seat confinement in conditions that are typical in most flights around New Zealand. Turbulence? That's not real turbulence!

Arrival at Hong Kong's space-age airport was straightforward, and I was soon slicing through the big city evening on the rapid train to Central Station for only $20. The night sky was tinged orange from all the city lights, and a smoky murk limited visibility. Kindly cousin Alex Wilson met me (and more importantly, my four bags totalling nearly 40kg plus my full-length coat) and helped me board the ferry at the nearby pier, and we chugged off on the 30 minute trip to Lamma Island, where the Wilson family lives. We pushed my luggage through the empty alleys of quiet little Lamma (pic), as there are no cars (or, more importantly, taxis) on the island. Getting up the steep slope to Tai Ping Village on the crest of the hill required a fair bit of sweating but we made it in the end, Alex being used to the strenuous climb, and having very sensibly brought the family trolley along to ease the load.

I settled into the spare bed for the night at about 3.30am NZ time, happy to have got the first day of my new travels under my belt.

p.s. I did manage to sell my trusty Mitsubishi before I left. I took it to a carfair in town on Saturday morning and had it sold within 10 minutes of getting there. Later that evening I had the pleasure of attending a farewell BBQ at Jennifer & Andrew's place in One Tree Hill, and catching up with some groovy Auckland pals before I left (pic).