Sickness

I'm sick of being sick.
My body has been violated and now it's time for a regime change...
Let the antibodies do their work again. Allow me to think clearly again, lift the dark shroud...bla bla bla.
I didn't let my Strepalacoccus infection dampen my birthday celebration, which consisted of eating "fusion thai" cuisine at a restaurant named fashionably after its street number (39a Gough)with friends and colleagues (which in HK seem hard to differentiate between) and then hitting clubs. It was a great night (as far as I could remember...).
After a month of being sick, the second dose of antibiotics finally kicked in and I was on the road to recovery. That was until I decided to eat the expired yoghurt in my 'fridge with some fresh pawpaw. So then I got Gastro and fate decided I should be sick for a little longer.
Now, after a weeklong bland diet imposed by the doc (a nice chinese lady who insists on wearing sparkling diamond jewellery with her surgery issue labcoat) I think I am finally ok again.
Hong Kong world is so small yet for the moment it feels self-contained-everything is here that I could want or need within an easy distance. The cinema is popular. Kev(my "work colleague") and me went to see "Election," a really gritty Hong Kong film about Triads. HK cinema is such an intimate experience somehow because it surrounds you every day. You run into a film crew shooting a film scene or a commercial at least once a week somewhere in the streets of Central. Yesterday I found myself surrounded by olde worlde coca cola pedal carts.
Since my TV gave up I go to the cinema quite often. When I told a girl I met a few weeks back that my TV in my apartment didn't work she was mortified. The TV seems to be king here. "What about books?" I asked this girl-"do you read?" Again she was mortified. Then she smiled knowingly and said: "Every guy has at least four porno magazines in their apartment, of course you read." Well, I don't know if "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad or James' tattered "Sherlock Holmes Colected Stories" stirs my carnal appetites but maybe this girl has a more active imagination...
Good news magazine readers who want to know what is going on in the world uncensored by TimeWarner and CNN: "Der Spiegel," formally a German language-only magazine, is now in English. It's a really good read and presents alternative positions on wots going on. I like it. I have their special edition on globalisation. I've been after something like this for years: a chronicle of the changes globalisation brings and its impact on our lives.
I got caught in the pro-democracy protest march yesterday as I exited the MTR station in Causeway bay. I came face to face with "Longhair," the pro-democracy, anti-Beijing Legistrative Council member who wears Che t-shirts (something of a figurehead for his resolute and unbudging political convictions), standing on a granny stool chanting through a megaphone. Aparrently he had been giving out bananas all day to passersby. Check him out in my photoalbum (link coming soon).
While I was still quivering from the antibiotics, Larry invited me to a massive hotpot dinner with some of his friends. He and his friends are great fun so this hotpot became the usual broiling chaos brouhaha. I think at one stage I tried the chicken testicles (I still refuse to believe they are chicken testicles). I love the superstitions that are enshrined in chinese culture, like if you eat an animals sexual parts you automatically become more virile and fertile. One guy, Alex, gorged himself on these "delicacies" while I'd decided that yes, the pigskin was quite nice and I could handle that thanks but just don't hassle the white guy with the plate of testicles. Alex, I hate to think what will happen to you if your superstitions are true.
Ok I'm 25 now and I only just discovered the Velvet Underground. Well, just how good they are. White Light White Heat-whoah! That is some album. I particularly like a song from their recently released "Fully Loaded" compilation "Train coming round the bend." Absolute filth in the best possible way. Now I want to wear a leather jacket...
The Big Buddha is supposedly an attraction of HK. It's on Lantau Island. I went there and it was ok. It was big. There was another ho hum meal served by monks. Nothing against them, I just don't like their grub...
They unveiled a Bruce Lee statue in Tsim Tsa Tsui's half arsed "avenue of stars" after 25 years of his being unacknowledged for being the man. Interestingly, a day earlier a Bruce Lee statue was unveiled in Mostar, Bosnia. The symbolic goodness of Brucey shines worldwide, even in battle scarred balkan countries.
I think that's lovely...
I will go away over Christmas somewhere I think. Maybe Macau and Zhuhei. I want to eat salted cod. And see their much touted colonial architecture. Larry says I should go to Taiwan with him and his crew. We'll see. I should decide soon. Christmas is not far away.
So now I will get some food in Wellington Street and then scat home. I will take the giant escalator which continues up the whole of the slope of HK island. Then I will start to design a piece of furniture for my 'partment.
So much to do. Who needs TV?