| Hong Kong - Day 5 & 6
As I recently discovered, daily blogging is actually quite difficult
to maintain. It's not that I have nothing to write about (because
we all know how exciting my life can be -- note
the outright sarcasm here), but as with
anything blogging requires a sufficient amount of time. Maybe
I'm just a xanga amateur. Or maybe I'm just plain lazy.
On Sunday I hit up Shenzhen with pops for a day of
indulgence and vanity, which includes in three hours of
snooker, hair cuts, eating, massages, drinking, shopping, and
well.. more drinking. Shenzhen is an animal of its own; quite unique
from other parts of China. In many respects Shenzhen has
become the epitomy of the New China where talk and labour is
cheap, and everything and anything can be found and bought as long as
you have the coin.
My father has weekly ping pong practice in Shenzhen, so the
morning journey begins there. Not an avid ping
pong practictioner myself, I opt out of China's most prized sport and I choose
to play snooker instead. I was introduced to my snooker "sifu", who
funny enough was only a few years my elder. I must admit that I
have a newfound respect for snooker; I ended up spending three hours
just learning how to hold the cue properly so that I could hit
the ball straight. Even after three hours I was still struggling. On the real,
that shit is hard.
My pops enlightens me with another
China story (they're always bad, I have yet to hear a positive story
about China), and without going into details the main point he was
getting at was that it's illegal in China to have sexual
relations with someone other than your wife. I was totally caught
off guard because of all places you would think that China
wouldn't give a shit about fidelity. But with HIV and other sexual
diseases plaguing developing countries (China included), it makes sense.
Anyway, after snooker I get a quick haircut from a local barber
(don't worry I didn't get the classic China box cut), and we grab a
bite. We then proceeded to one of those large scale massage
boutiques. Although this boutique was clean, I always feel a
little uncomfortable going to one. Maybe it's the seedy environment, or
perhaps it's because the people giving the massages were paid
close to nothing for touching old, sweaty, smelly old men, and...
me. My
masseuse was a very nice lady in her late twenties, but I couldn't help
but feel bad because she had a cold and still had to perform her
massaging services. At one point I even offered her a tissue,
and she was slightly stunned that someone would be as generous as
to let her take a break and blow her nose. So me and massage lady chat
it up and I learn that she's from Wo Lan, which my knowledge is close
to Guangzhou. As we get deeper into the conversation, I begin to
realize (as I did last time I came to China) how different
our worlds actually are. There's me, a new graduate fresh out of
the University of Toronto, with a good
job up ahead, and possessing worldly dreams and
ambitions. And then there's her, who has been working 2 1/2 years
at the this massage boutique, working 15 hour days, 364
days a year (she tells me the only day she gets off is her birthday),
and has absolutely no future ambitions and no concept of what's
outside of China.
What I'll be making in a week is probably what she'll
be making in a year, even that forecast is probably a
stretch. The
magnitude of the disparity between the well-off and
the less-well off become strikingly apparent. There was a point
when she began talking about her 9 year old son (some quick math tells
me that she conceived him when she was about 21), and how it
was so difficult for her because she couldn't see him growing up.
At this point we caught each others glances, and I think she could
tell that she had popped the sheltered bubble I was living in. I'll
admit that some of my feelings were of pity,
but I realize how fortunate I am, and by some sheer luck I
was born into my family and not hers or others even worse off
in other parts of China. With great friends, a loving family,
a career up ahead, and endless opportunities available, I
count myself the luckiest man in the world.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Tosh and I met up at JP Plaza in Causeway Bay for drinks, and I was
introduced his buddy Kwan. On first glance, I thought Kwan was in his
early 20s but in fact this guy was an Oxford graduate and a seasoned
veteran in the investment banking industry with 5 years of experience
under his belt. So the first stop off was at a quiet, classy chinese bar
with live music from the 50s and 60s. The atmosphere was really mellow,
and we order two bottles of some fantastic wine. Throughout the night
the three of us chat it up on every topic under the sun, but mostly
about business, particularly business in China. It's quite interesting
to hear various perspectives about the opportunities opening up in
China, but the real question of the night was whether any of us wanted
to actually work there, jeopardizing our own values and playing by Chinese rules (which, by the way
there are none). The name of the game is trust no one, and we all agree
that the first ally you need in China is a lawyer or a government
official. When shit goes down, at least you'll have someone who
understands the game. Tosh also enlightens us about new oil ventures in
Alberta, interestingly coined "Land Banking".
After a few hours of wining, we hit up a lounge that strikingly
reminds me of Panoroma. The view wasn't as nice, but nonetheless the
place was chills. Too bad they were playing hard core rap like 50 cent,
it ruined some of the mood. After a round of mohitos, we bar hopped to
The Barn, which I recall visiting with Tosh last time I came back to
HK. We have an Ameretto Sour (which had loads of ameretto and very
little sour), and a Kamikaze (which was also very strong on the hard
liqueur). At least we got our monies worth. We call it a night at 4am.
 (L-R) Tosh, Me & Kwan @ Causeway Bay Random picture in Causeway Bay
 Shenzhen
I'm finally putting my new digital camera to work.
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