Stanfords Finest

Sunday night fever proceeded my first day as an unemployed member of HK society. As Sunday turned into Monday I was determined to push on for the sake of my wife and my unborn son. Already with a child on the way my previous arrogance and pride has been replaced with the desperation of a Filipino cleaner. There’s a certain something that makes you do humiliating, degrading jobs and I now know what it is. Responsibility. Years ago I could have just fucked off to any part of the globe and began a new, crazy adventure maybe like Tom Cruise in Cocktail and opened a bar on a beach. That kind of thing. Now, wife and kid on board I’ll be more than happy cleaning toilets if it means my wife is happy and the baby has some food on his back.

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“fa ya mudda” What? The taxi driver again shouted at me “fa ya mudda” ahhh…’fuck your mother’. NOW I understand. And so my last day at the Handbag factory unfolded. Let’s rewind. July has been a shit month. Annus Horriblus as Her Madge may say. July started well enough with a nice summer holiday in Thailand but as soon as we landed in HK all of the drama unfolded. As soon as we got off the plane my wife went to the toilet. She, at the time 13 weeks pregnant, came out and uttered the words that went through me like a knife…’’I’m bleeding’’. We are in the airport and we don’t know where to go, or indeed, what to do. In a state of near hysteria we somehow manage catch a cab and wind up in Matilda Hospital where my wife is checked out. The diagnosis was a small hemorrhage of the placenta that was causing some bleeding but our little boy, oblivious to the panic, was floating around in the womb like small astronaut his tiny heart beating like a little drum BOOM BOOM BOOM. We stayed overnight and visited our regular doctor first thing the next morning, a Monday morning. (more…)

I have to use taxis in HK all the time and, seeing as I now work in the middle of nowhere, I now rely on them more then ever so, imagine my surprise when I found out they are death traps. Well, not death traps per se but getting in one is very much a case of Russian Roulette; some good, some bad. Yesterday, I had a combination of both. My day at the factory was typically dull, predictable and frustrating but the travelling to and from work was a riot. Yesterday morning I left my home and waited for a Taxi which eventually pulls up. I get in but I notice that there are some bits of glass on the floor and the passenger window is open. Seeing as it’s hot I attempt to wind up the window but, alas, there is no glass in the door. No sir, the window is smashed. Open mouthed I look at my taxi driver who is a mass of hair, anger and noise. As we pull off I attempt tell him my destination just as he sharply swerves to avoid a truck at some lights. Sweet mother of god, the guy is drunk. As he pulls up at some lights I leap out, dodging the traffic around me, and make it to the pavement and await his chasing of me for the 15 dollars on the clock. He doesn’t come and he instead drives off swearing. So let me get this straight, Hong Kong allows smashed up taxis and drunk drivers? Of course not but I’m now all eyes and ears as it seems some are falling through the net. I hailed down another cab which falls into the GOOD category and I get to work alive.

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So we must be at war then. Leaving for Ningbo last week I managed to catch a quick glimpse of everybody’s favourite soaraway TV station, Sky News. As well as being a rightwing propaganda machine and the UK’s very own Fox News, Sky News is also appallingly produced with a seemingly endless supply of Breaking News which on more than one occasion has proven to be false. I am particularly fond of the ticker tape that runs across the bottom of the screen with bite size news summaries for those high powered execs that are too busy to spend more than 36 seconds to gather important news facts before spending 23 hours in the office screwing down 3^rd world nations.

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1 year old today, well, two days ago to be precise. So there we have it; a year in the life of Hong Kongs favourite blogger before I even knew where Hong Kong was. Blogs, or electronic diaries as we call them in the trade, offer a record of the various and ultimately inconsequential lives we all lead with mine being far from the exception but, as irrelevant lives go, this year has marked a dramatic change. This time last year I was living in a Kensington bubble, ran a small handbag company. Forward on a year and I’m living in a Hong Kong bubble, been to more places than I could have wished to have, know China as well as can be expected and even speak a little of the language, earning and working as an alien in an alien environment, have a completely different view of the world, made lots of new friends and now, the big one, have a son or daughter on the way. That’s one hell of a year in my book. If you ask me to compare life in London to my life here I would say that I am much happier. I am less stressed and depressed for sure and things that used to bug me a year ago, estate agents and the Daily Mail, seem miles away from being of any interest. There are things in Asia that bug me but not many. You work hard here and you are rewarded although to work hard requires the patience of a saint and mental agility of somebody with a great mental agility. 10 months on and I don’t miss London for a second. Well, ok, some days I do wonder but then I look through my photographs and it all comes back to me and I look out the window at the mountains or the glowing skyscrapers and breath a sigh of relief. Hong Kong has its fair share of detractors, myself included from time to time, but it’s been good to us; it’s the land of opportunity if you have the inclination, and wisdom, to grasp it.

Seeing as Hong Kong trades on being ‘international’ then it may be a good idea to have ‘international’ standards. I hope I don’t sound like the myriad of other tedious ‘’have you ever noticed…’’ observational style blogs when I write this BUT have you ever noticed that men get zero paternity leave in Hong Kong? That’s right, not one pitiful day off work when your child is born. You have to take it out of your annual leave. Your holiday, meaning the two weeks you spend with a sprog can result in no holiday for an entire 12 months. Other ‘international’ destinations have basic laws that allow men to spend, horror of horrors, two weeks with pay in the company of their new born. Some countries, the Swedes for example, throw a paid month at the man and the Aussies get two weeks unpaid which is a kind of a halfway house but none the less some acknowledgement that a man has needs. America, Europe, Japan and Australia show that major economies are developed enough to be ‘civilised’. Alas Hong Kong is just an economy but socially underdeveloped. How can Hong Kong be taken seriously if it continues to play hardball with basic human rights. This is a problem that Hong Kong needs to face up to and is a barometer of the way it is regressing back into a Chinese mindset. I doubt the concept of paternity leave has ever entered the Chinese psyche as a concept until very recently so it will take a while for any real changes to formulate. I estimate there will be some shift in laws around 2087 judging by my experience of this ‘dynamic’ society. So let us ponder why Hong Kong cannot attract experienced and desirable overseas leaders in other field apart from commerce.

The reasons are simple, money aside, there are more cons than pros in terms of rights, lifestyle and environment conditions when it comes to living on this rock. OK, OK, single or young couple? Hong Kong can tick all the right boxes, but try and move on from a mid-20′s nirvana and then things become a little more sticky. Past this daydream there are fights to get decent healthcare, clean air, education, space and out-the-box thinking. However if getting pissed, buying clothes and eating out everyday is your bag then this is a Mecca. There are pluses and minuses with every city but right now the idea of being poorer but with some semblance of a life rather than wealthy but with no rights or redress is very tempting. I’m even thinking of jacking it all in and moving back to the UK (it’ll never happen) or Singapore (tempting). If you take me as an example of an experienced expat who can knock out brilliant handbags and brought over here to do that very thing and now, month 9, I am thinking of throwing in the towel not because Hong Kong is shit per se but because the important things in life, things money cannot buy, are not available here. Yes, we are preggers by the way

I came to Hong Kong to escape the middle class buffon. Those wannabe Tim-Nice-But-Dim’s that clogged up the streets of our Kensington neighbourhood were really getting on my tits. Of course there were other reasons for our departure from the UK but the middle class yearning that ran rampant through the UK in latter part of the 80’s and right through the 90’s was really too much to bear. So imagine my surprise when a quick breeze through the ex-pat Hong Kong blogging community finds this festering mould alive and well here in dear old honkers. Shacked up in their Discovery Bay enclaves they churn out the same honky-orientated observational drivel. Why Tim do you think you are the first person to notice that the residents of Hong Kong walk slowly? Why Tim do you think you are the first person to notice the MTR is busy? Why Tim do you think nobody has ever noticed the fact that the language barrier is a real pain and the fact they think differently makes the Cantonese inferior? The problem with bloggers is that any Tom, Dick or Tim can put their meandering, tiresome and painfully unfunny ‘’observations’’ out there and, that my friends, is never a good thing. I feel a deep embarrassment when I read the nauseating and pointless daily entries by people that are nonentities in reality and hide smugly behind their laptops in Starbucks bashing out naff quips and quite frankly racist banter. I think we need to clear one thing up for these comedic geniuses; HONG KONG IS NOT LIKE THE UK. HONG KONG IS NOT LIKE AMERICA. IT’S A DIFFERENT PART OF THE WORLD. IF you accept this logic then please, Mr. Not Original, do attempt to refrain from pointing out the differences in a negative ‘’this is shit, that is shit’’ fashion. If is indeed shit then please, pretty please, take the first plane out of here. I myself have struggled over the last few months to understand the mindset of Asia and specifically the Cantonese but my rants are specific to me – they are not generalised clichéd puns and quips based around the fact wearesodifferentlikenobodyhasnoticedthatbefore.

I struggle here but not from a remote point of view but as somebody trying to integrate. I have Cantonese friends, I am learning the lingua and most of my life is a million times better for not meeting a thousand Tim’s every fucking day. Alas, via the magic of the interweb these characters again thrust their cyber Ford Focuses into my lane and chat foolishness. This is Hong Kong and it is 2007 and I understand why our Cantonese brothers hate the white man. By some fortune of birth these Tim’s have had privilege and opportunity scattered at their feet and the best they can do is be posted in some mid management role in HSBC in the fragrant harbor. The bad news for us is that we have to put it with them clogging up the streets and now the internet. If you must post your dirge Tim please make original. You are an embarrassment.

Another week draws to an end in the Handbag factory. I told the Americans, in a very crude manner despite my best intentions to let them down gently, that I won’t be joining them. Again. There is no good way to reject their offer so it was best just to come out with it. On top of this I have a ‘headhunter’ who keeps calling me and wishes to meet for a ‘çhat’. I keep putting him off but I will have to meet just to satisfy my curiosity as to whom he is and the amazing jobs he has lined up. They will have to be good jobs as I now like life at the factory. After the initial freak out, as witnessed in some of my more abrasive posts down the page, I have found a new higher state of consciousness where I am more live and let live. My Cantonese co-workers are now, very very slowly, warming to me. It’s kind of like Elliot tempting ET out of the shed with M&M’s; I leave my knowledge and experience sweets dotted around the shop floor and one by one they pick them up and end up in my bedroom seeking further pearls of wisdom. But I must be careful not to shout or make sudden gestures that may shake the very fragile trust I have built up with them over the last few weeks. Any hint of non-conformist thinking and/or questioning of authority may send them running back so I must tread carefully. As I already explained, previous attempts to change the system through sheer force nearly got me the sack so I’ll do things their way but adding my own flashes of brilliance. Once they get a taste they won’t want to look back. I also like the air on the south side of the island. Yesterday, despite the heat, the weather was very gray and overcast but, via the taxi to work from my Central home, the skies turned blue and summer was again in the air. I had lunch and a nap in the park under the blue sky and listened to the birds tweet and the world pass by. You cannot do that in Central.

After a hard week, and despite my best intentions to save money I decided to buy a Rolex. Not sure why I did so but for me it was a symbolic gesture. It marks a certain part of my life and if all ends tomorrow then I’ll have something as a tribute to these heady days. It’s a vanity purchase of course but not a pointless one like buying a TV or a computer as it will hold its value. I can always sell it for food when times get hard. With it though brings an extra headache and I have to care about it unlike my Swatch which I could lose without caring. I just hope I can keep hold of it forever without losing it. I am an idiot.

The Americans have just called me offering me a job. Better company than my current Cantonese Handbag Factory employer. Let me explain, a few months ago my current employers started acting the fool after I had stamped my authority too hard on the slack jawed work force. I was fresh from London and had no idea how the Cantonese did things, indeed how poor they were at making handbags. In Europe we have a rare and much sought after commodity called CREATIVE THINKING where we make handbags from scratch. In fact, we invent the CONCEPT of handbags and then refine the use and consider things such as the quality of manufacture, the image it projects, the form and the function and WHY does it need to exist in the first place. All good Handbag manufacturers should be able to answer any constructive criticisms of their handbag design as a test to the durability and integrity of the creation. I started this dialogue when I on my first day as it’s par for the course in Londres but it didn’t go down a storm here simply because my company has NO IDEA why they make handbags THEY JUST DO. And the Handbags my company churns out are made the way they are because they just COPY COPY COPY successful handbags. That’s all they, and now I, do all day, knock out imitation handbags. My colleagues remonstrate ” but this is a classical style handbag” or ” this is an Art Deco” handbag without knowing ANYTHING about classical traditions or the Art Deco movement. What is classical? Well there are all these funny looking columns and some statues of David. But why have a column and why does it look like that? They haven’t a clue. My co-workers brains don’t go further than the superficial layer. Questioning their designs brings forth giggles and/or embarrassment.

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