Hat (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Are caps hats? I'm thinking technically not. And because I think this, I've had to resort to putting up a picture of a hat-wearing statue -- to be precise, one of the hundreds (if not thousands) of different-looking life-size religious figures (including the wrinkled sage I featured in a previous Photo Hunt) one encounters going up to, on and down from the hill which is home to Shatin's interesting 10,000 Buddhas Monastery.

For the fact of the matter is that there aren't too many hat-wearers in Hong Kong. Indeed, the distinct impression one gets is that the days of hats being considered an essential, or even fashionable, adornment are long gone. (Though I'd grant that in winter, a few wooly hats can be seen adorning folks' head every once in a while!)

If, on the other hand, there were a cap-themed Photo Hunt, I'd not lack for subjects... heck, even I have a collection of those about (whereas the one hat I myself own is gathering dust back in my room in the family abode in Malaysia, having last been worn when I was on safari in Tanzania more than a decade ago now)! ;)

Only in Hong Kong movieland...

A message to Wong Kar Wai wannabes
over on the Central-Midlevels escalator
that figures prominently in Chungking Express

This post is partially a direct retort to Glenn's lament about the lack of Chinese New Year movie offerings to look forward to this year and partly an account of how surreal it is to be living in the movieland that is Hong Kong.

To wit: Early on Sunday morning, as two friends and I walked out of a bar post-watching Arsenal play, we literally crossed paths with a tall man dressed all in black who gave us a smile as we passed by (or he passed by us). A moment or two after, one of my friends gave an exclamation and asked, "Isn't that Wong Kar Wai?" As we turned and looked at the man's back as he mounted a nearby building's stairs, I realized that that building housed the Jet Tone office -- and that yes, that really was Wong Kar Wai that we had seen (and seen give us a smile). Even though -- and it made sense, considering that this was about 1:15am -- he wasn't wearing his trademark sunglasses!

Fast forward to this evening (i.e., less than a week later). This time around, while I was at the bar in a bar in Central with a friend, I happened to turn to my left (my friend was sitting on my right) and found that none other than Chin Kar Lok was sitting right on my left. So... two celebrity spottings in less than a week. Oh, and to add to the surreal-ness of it all, here's pointing out that the bar I was at today is owned by Joe Ma's sister and located just a stone's throw away from a real life herbal tea shop that featured in Herman Yau's Herbal Tea. Also, that one previous time I had been to that bar, Herman Yau had been in it...

Now to the retort part of the post: instead of going to dinner and then drinks at the bar with my friend this evening, I could have tried to get a ticket for Red Cliff 2 which opened today and definitely should still be in cinemas come Chinese New Year. Another film that's opening this week but still should be around for Chinese New Year movie-goers to enjoy is Hayao Miyazaki's latest, Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea. (And yes, I know Ponyo's a Japanese rather than Chinese work but...!)

Also, curently in cinemas: Ip Man, Parking, Tactical Unit - Comrades in Arms, Forever Enthralled and Lady Cop and Papa Crook. And while a few of these undoubtedly will lose their places in the cinemas next week to Chinese New Year movies All's Well Ends Well 2009 and Look for a Star, this plethora of movies showing this January truly represents a feast -- rather than famine -- for Hong Kong film fans.

Winter in Hong Kong!

Down jackets and coats are a common sight
in Hong Kong these days (BTW, if I'm not mistaken,
this is the Chinese pharmacy in Dry Wood, Fierce Fire!)

Another local method of warding off the cold:
scarily spicy hot pots!

Say the word 'tropical' and images of a warm (even hot) place come to mind. Ditto, I'd wager, with the word 'sub-tropical' which is used to describe the climatic zone which Hong Kong is -- and such as Savannah, Georgia, and California but also Auckland and parts of Russia are -- in.

Nonetheless, Hong Kong winters can feel pretty cold. This especially since the buildings here tend to be built to be cool in summer (rather than warm in winter!). And this even before this winter during which Hong Kong is (currently) experiencing its coldest spell for sixteen years!

Of course, it's all relative though -- in that there's no chance of snow falling on the ground and Hong Kong probably would only freeze over around the same time as hell itself! Still, believe you me when I say that I've actually reached the point where I'm donning thermal underwear again (for the first time since I left Philadelphia) and have taken to sleeping under four layers of admittedly thin blankets on my bed at night.

At the same time, however, I don't think I'll be donning any down jackets, never mind lengthy down coats, any time soon. Or eating hot pots filled with more red chillies than surely can be healthy for anyone!!! (For the record, when a fellow foodie friend and I went to eat hot pot one cold evening, we got the 'yin and yang' version which allowed me to dip my slices of mutton -- considered 'warming' by Hong Kongers and consequently a popular meat to eat in winter -- and such into a clear soup while she went for the super spiced-up soup option shown in one of the photos above!)

Aftermath (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Before anything else: This is not a joke. Also, this Photo Hunt entry is neither meant to offend nor upset. Rather, it's intended to make a few salient points; including it being in so that in the aftermath of the events in 2001 that has come to be known as 9/11, it's hard for people to see or hear the words World Trade Center (or -- in British English -- Centre) without thinking of the twin towers that no longer exist in New York along with the shocking events that took place on American soil on September 11, 2001.

This even though there actually are numerous World Trade Centers/Centres in other parts of the world, including Dubai, London (whose original building, more than incidentally, was heavily damaged by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb in 1996), Mumbai and Hong Kong (which recently has been having renovations done to it -- hence the erection of the sign in the photo -- and on a lower floor of which is located a favorite sushi restaurant of mine).

I think this is particularly true of Americans but also those of us non-Americans who were living in the USA at that time. (As a reminder, 235 non-Americans -- excluding the perpetuators of the international crime -- died as a result of the events of 9/11.) Alternatively put: They are tragedies we will never forget and that have most definitely impacted -- changed in irrevocable ways -- our lives. And whose aftermath and welter of psychological scars it inflicted on individuals along with governments and whole communities of people we still are having to deal and come to terms with more than seven years on.

The Bowen Road Path (Photo-essay)

The secret is really out! That is, that hiking in Hong Kong is not an oxymoron! And while there definitely are truly rugged, difficult hiking trails in the territory, gentler souls should rest assured that there also are routes that are easy yet still scenic... and really not that far away from the city center. In particular, the one I'd recommend for those who don't want to work too much of a sweat yet be able to say that they had at least a bit of outdoor exercise while in Hong Kong is the Bowen Road Path located in the Mid-Levels which I first ventured on a few years back (with two friends cum visitors to this blog, sbk and 'eliza bennet') and went walking on again one hot (but beautifully clear air -- hence my wanting to be out and about) day this past summer:-

Near the start of the Bowen Road Path
is one of seven boundary stones erected in 1903 for
the City of Victoria (AKA Hong Kong's Central District)

The view that day near the eastern end of the path
-- of part of Happy Valley, Jardine's Lookout
and the surrounding green environs

The Bowen Road Path is one of those
Hong Kong walking/hiking paths
where shrines are to be found along the way

...including this big phallic looking whopper
of a fertility shrine known as Lover's Rock! ;D

View of Causeway Bay and beyond
from near Lover's Rock

Further west along the walk -- a view of Wan Chai

When I worked in Wan Chai, I'd often gaze up into the hills
and see this grand old building and wonder whether
it had been abandoned (but looking down at it from
the Bowen Road Path, I'm inclined to think it's still inhabited)

It may be a modest waterfall but it still goes to show
that one does get to see more than concrete jungle
along this walk above the city :)

10 highlights of my 2008

Best Thrill Ride in the foreground --
and, in the background, Best Natural Sight

In 2006 and 2007, I wrote up "10 highlights of the year" entries. Although I had intended to write my 10 highlights of 2008 before 2009 came along, certain circumstances (including my having to work on the first day of 2009 and that day falling in the middle of the week) have led to my only doing so over the first weekend of the new year. Still, better late than never, right? Well, at least I think so! Hence my going ahead and submitting my "best of" list for 2008 in this here blog post:-

1) Best Book: Once upon a time, I was an Africanist. Although that is no longer the case (along with my thinking that I'd devote my life to being an anthropologist), I actually continue to have strong, emotion-laden memories of -- and interest in -- those parts of that continent that I've spent time in. As far as Zimbabwe is concerned, I also have wondered for years now how it went from being quite a bit better off than Tanzania (where I lived for some two years) when I visited it in December 1995 to the heartbreakingly and nightmarishly benighted place that it now has been for some time. Peter Godwin's When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa (Back Bay Books, 2008) clearly explains as well as describes how the situation deterioriated while also being a very affecting history and story of himself and his family. Tragic but also not entirely without hope, this book really is a very enthralling, highly recommended read.

2) Best Concert: I feel very lucky to have been able to attend -- in a single year -- concerts headlined by such as Joanna MacGregor, Midori, her brother Ryu Goto and Trey Lee. For all of the considerable prowess of the afore-mentioned talents, however, there really is no question for me as to what was the best concert I attended in 2008; not after being witness to Yo-Yo Ma and the HKCO performing. Suffice to say that Ma is a musician who deserves his exalted reputation; with the icing on the cake being how, when performing, he seemed able to enjoy himself, the music that he was producing and the very process of collaborating with fellow musicians.

3) Best Filmophile Facility: Its theatre's screen is not the biggest in Hong Kong and there are movie fans who will scoff at its restrictions against eating or drinking when taking in a movie but the Hong Kong Film Archive is one of the greatest things in the Big Lychee as far as this film geek is considered. This not least because its programmers have allowed for me to view Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1928), Ivan the Terrible Parts I (1944) and II (1958), Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929), Zhu Shilin's Sorrows of the Forbidden City (1948), The Dividing Wall (1951) and Festival Moon (1953), and so much more there in 2008 alone!

4) Best Hike: The hike from Wu Kau Tang to Sam A minimally covers a distance of 10.5 kilometers but I'm not sure whether that measurement includes the return leg back and doubt that it includes the walk to take in the Bride's Pool that my two hiking companions on the day and I decided to apend to our hike. Still, it wasn't its length alone that caused this Northeast Hong Kong hike to yield material for not one but three separate photo-essays but, rather, the number of interesting sights (like abandoned villages as well as different geographical and geological situations) that we got to view along the way!

5) Best National Cuisine: There's no denying my love of Penang food and Klang bak kut teh. Nevertheless, my favorite national cuisine in the world actually is not that of my native Malaysia but, rather, Japan. And while good Japanese food can be found in many parts of the world (including Hong Kong, as can be seen by my favorite restaurant in the territory being a yakitori-ya), my latest visit to the Land of the Rising Sun in the summer 2008 -- in particular, the experiences of partaking of such as the Genghis Khan barbecue lunch and ramen dinner in Sapporo and the evening eating marathon in the centre of the kuidaore no machi -- i.e., the city where you eat ‘til you drop that is Osaka -- that is Dotonbori Street -- served to reconfirm that Japanese food really is unparalleled in its native land.

6) Best Natural Sight: I knew things were bad but it's still pretty disconcerting to get statistical confirmation that in 2008, Hong Kong air pollution was the worst since records started being kept. Besides fears of what the air pollution will do to one's physical health, something else I've definitely noticed is how polluted air days are so gray and depressing. On a related note, I also notice how much I psychologically perk up at the sight of bright blue skies. No longer something to be granted, they now are things I truly treasure. Let's just hope that they will not be rare sights a la rainbows (or, even rarer, starry skies) in Hong Kong in 2009... :S

7) Best Sporting Event: No, not something Arsenal-related because 2008 has not been a particularly great year to be a Gooner. (Indeed, I'll state for the record here that the current Arsenal side is the worst under Arsene Wenger ever!) Instead, and even though I was one of those slow to catch the fever, count me as one of those eventually won over by the hype and drama of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. So much so that not only did I watch more of the Olympic Games on TV than I thought I would but also ended up doing such as giving people -- and taking lots photos of -- more fuwa than I ever thought I would! ;b

8) Best Television Series: It's true enough that since moving to Hong Kong, I rarely spend time in front of the TV. Indeed, I'll go so far as to admit that I tend to only turn to the TV when I come down with a cold or the flu; and then only after I feel I've spent too many hours resting and/or reading in bed. In short, it's the rare TV show that I'll watch for its own sake. In 2008, that TV show was The Wire (in particularly, Season 5 of the series). So, now that it's wrapped up for good, would recommend suggestions as to what I should turn to next should the TV viewing bug bites once more...

9) Best Theatrical Production: There's no question that the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre's production of De Ling and Empress Dowager Ci Xi is on the old side. After all, the 2008 edition was the fourth revival of a play that was first performed back in 1998. In addition, many of its cast members -- notably its 81-year-old leading lady -- are on the... mature side. But, post catching a performance of this historical drama, can but conclude that old is gold re the production but also its wonderful star, Lisa Lu. (And yes, meeting and interviewing her most definitely was one of the highlights of my time at bc magazine -- heck, my still not too lengthy journalistic career!)

10) Best Thrill Ride: This category has more candidates than usual this year, including the world's largest ferris wheel over in Osaka and rollercoasters over in Ocean Park. But the award has to go to that which I'd also consider to be the best cable car ride I've ever gone on: Hong Kong's Ngong Ping 360 which takes passengers from Tung Chung all the way up to the Ngong Ping Plateau whose residents include that impressive statue popularly known as the Big Buddha. :)

Hope (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Say "Hong Kong" to many people and their immediate visions are of an urban jungle where shopping is the main activity and attraction, followed by eating. Without it having been consciously aimed for though, it has turned out that -- in tandem with chronicling my activities and interests while living in Asia's World City -- one of this blog's results has been to show that the Fragrant Harbour offers far more than that.

This I think I've done for the most part thus far through my copious Hong Kong hiking photo-essays and a sprinkling of photo hunt entries (like those for Wide and Blue). But Hong Kong also is far from a cultural along with natural desert. And although its cinematic and performing arts offerings tend to overshadow its fine arts sector, there are exponents and exhibitions that are worthy too of people's attention.

Take, as an example, the self-taught ceramicist and sculptor named Johnson Tsang, an exhibition of whose works I caught a little more than a month ago at the exhibition area of the Central Library. Of the many fine art in the exhibition, I found myself particularly drawn to two works that both are expressions of hope -- and therefore eminently suitable for exhibiting in this week's Photo Hunt entry.

The first of these is entitled Conversion (Dedicated ToThose Striking for Peace). And in case you can't make it out immediately, here's urging you to click on the photo to see an enlarged shot of this sculpture in which a melting gun held by a pair of hands is transformed below into the makings of a peaceful head of Gautama Buddha. The second's meaning along with shapes should be more immediately obvious. And yes, Heal the World is indeed the title of the work that looks cute as well as couched with hope.

(More than by the way, thanks, tnchick, for the great start to what I hope will be yet another fun and wonderful year of Photo Hunting. And happy 2009 to this blog's visitors, readers and appreciators!)