I’m back from three weeks in Asia. Still battling jet lag. Waking mid-dream. Sleeping mid-step. I’m sifting through the photos. Alleys, bicycles, stray dogs, buildings. I back track.
Mid May, Hong Kong. It’s 80 degrees but it feels like 110 with the humidity. The air is fowled by stinky tofu and the salty smell of a thousand year old port water. That week I seemed to work endlessly. Less in Hong Kong than on the internet. If that makes sense. But Hong Kong is one of my favorite places in the world – including the internet. A tropical metropolis that looks like it survived the apocalypse where you can’t tell if you’re in the future or the past.
My family is from Kowloon. Single buildings that stretch for blocks into the horizon. The tenements are in ruin. Across the harbor are the cascading lights from new skyscrapers and condos. Everywhere the crowds are in motion, vendors serving curried fish balls and the sound of mah jong tiles clicking. On a bad night, some one crazy might throw bombs of acid down from a window onto the street, blinding people. On other nights when there’s a moon, in the mansions high up on the mountains rich folk can see the offshore isles where the triads dumped their bodies in the jungle.
Love Hong Kong. Love this post.