Cheap Flights To Tokyo - Out in Hong Kong down &

It was with both anticipation and apprehension that I recently crossed the southern border into Asia's wealthiest city, having spent over two-and-a-half straight years in the Chinese mainland without leave.

Two Systems" self for the tail end of my journey across the 32 Chinese provinces, i hence saved English-speaking Hong Kong and its "One Country, rather terrified of exacting reverse culture shock. I truly had no idea what to expect in the former crown colony that supposedly makes even rich men feel poor, despite its one-stop-shopping popularity with Mainland expats needing new clothes and a new visa.

" I've never felt more ugly than when I was in Hong Kong. . . "I've never felt more poor than when I was in Hong Kong, ) upon his brief sojourn in the legendary Chinese city. Carter (me! To quote the under-appreciated American writer Thomas A. True. . . And it is here I report that all my preconceptions and fears about Hong Kong were.

I feel just like a migrant worker back in Beijing, tripping in the crush of the crowds, peering up into the neon lights. Then hit Nathan Road, i check in to a claustrophobic dorm room (three times the price of a Mainland dorm and three times as small). And one of Hong Kong's only affordable accommodations, rust-stained concrete block, a towering. They point their gold-ringed fingers straight up. I have to ask a resplendent group of Indian women draped in saris where the Mirador Mansion is, blinded with excitement. Arrive in Kowloon's southern peninsula and emerge from the underground into the land of lights - Tsim Sha Tsui. Shoving or spitting, immediately impressed that nobody is staring, dAY 1: Cross the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border at Louhu and catch the immaculate KCR railway.

" So much for getting a date. I klick jor ass! She shouts "Hey, when I attempt to candidly photograph one attractive young Filipino! An afternoon stroll around Statue Square indeed reveals a literal blanket of thousands of picnicking South Asian women (Hong Kong's largest migrant communities) whose collective chatter sounds just like a large flock of seagulls. But sure enough his mobile rings continuously with calls from adoring cleaning ladies he met the Sunday before, " I'm a little dubious of Pat's generalizations. 000 Filipino nannies and maids on their only day off - and looking for boyfriends, 120, like, and there's gonna be, okay, "It's Sunday! Lose the beard") before launching into more useful information, the fast-talking but likeable Pat proffers some off-the-cuff advise ("Dude, " When I counter that I never had any such luck. Including scoring with the mythical "Asian girls who LOOOVE foreign guys, a young American backpacker with long red hair whose introduction is immediately followed by a long-winded narrative about his two-week romps in Hong Kong, his name is Pat. DAY 2: Awoken at 6am by one of my bunkmates stumbling in after a long night.

" We have one! . . Oh wait. "We have no tall buildings in Israel, remarks, an Israeli girl clearly in awe of the Hong Kong skyline, dafnit. Which appear to be constructed entirely out of lights, chase my fun in the sun with a tram ride up Victoria Peak for a breathtaking evening vista of skyscrapers. It's one of those moments when I enjoy being unemployed. No, but that's what weekdays are for, supposedly this place is packed out on the weekend? Savoring the soft sand and splashing in the subtropical South China Sea, dAY 3: Fieldtrip to Shek O beach on Hong Kong Island's south side.

" But so young, so cool, "Yes, one 15-year-old boy replies in perfect English, after commenting that they are the hippest students in China I've seen. Tongue piercings and smoke cigarettes, they have tattoos. Short skirts and a Louis Vuitton bag to carry their pencils and books, and made-up girls in little outfits out of a Japanese kogal/hentai fantasy: knee-high black stockings, the markets of Mong Kok are mobbed with uniformed students on lunch break: long-haired boys with untucked white shirts and loosened ties. The sun lost behind precipices of neon signs stretching horizontally over the streets, the fashion billboards of TST turning into seedy massage parlor billboards as I descend northwest down the Nathan Road side streets, dAY 4: Spend the day traversing Kowloon.

It's one of those moments when I regret being unemployed. But I don't, i want to belong. Nor have I shaved or cut my locks in the eight months I've been on the road; an eight year old t-shirt that I bought used, low-top fake Converse, i am wearing cutoff army pants, they are all smartly dressed and have well-groomed hair. I can't believe there are so many white people in China who aren't English teachers! Well-to-do westpats toasting yet another successful day of money -making, the steep streets are congested with young. A gentrified neighborhood of upscale restaurants and bars on the Island's northern escarpment, my insecurities are firmed up that evening in Lan Kwai Fong. Everyone in Central must be against me. Then almost again by a double-decker cable car, ). Damn Brits, i almost get rolled over by a Rolls (driving on the wrong side of the road, my head cast down in self-consciousness! Ade of the Bank of China tower. Then realize why as I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflective fa, i notice that they all clutch their purses as I walk by? Later observe as many women shopping in designer department stores - these must be the wives. S into their respective skyscrapers, briefcases and latté cross Victoria Harbor by the centuries-old Star Ferry through a morning miasma of pollution and follow white-collared crowds of businessmen contending with cell phones. Hong Kong Island's microcosm of capitalism, dAY 5: I want to see how the other half lives and spend the day in Central.

" The remaining girls give this poor writer a cursory glance then quickly cross the street away from me. Thinks I'm *HICCUP* at a conference, i mean my wife, "Wy mife, one of the men leans on me and confides, after making their arrangements. " Further down Lockhart I follow a couple of older Europeans primed with drink and flirting heavily with a lovely bouquet of girls looking for generous company. "Then go to Thailand, " the brown-skinned door girl in plastic go-go boots is quick to shout back, "In Thailand they take off ALL their clothes, when a group of obviously disappointed white boys emerge from one venue exclaiming! Cold, mercenary, these modern-day working girls are vicious, and unlike the kindly ladies of the Nam Kok Hotel. Wearing not elegant silk cheongsams but cheap miniskirts raised to immodest heights, not of Chinese but Thai dissent, but these are the illegitimate daughters of Suzie Wong, yum-yum girls luring passersby into their neon-lit dens, " The pick-up bars still line the road. " though a lot has changed since he wrote "take a minute's stroll from the center and you won't see a European, "The World Of Suzie Wong, recall it is where Richard Mason penned his 1950's tale of forbidden love. The infamous Wan Chai, dAY 6: I give the Island another chance and take the night ferry across the harbor to the north end's older and seedier nightspot.

' I am the 'nongmin, it is a peasant's epiphany - in Hong Kong. And I am one of them, the Chungking Mansions are the international haunt for anyone who is no one. And the Indians bat their eyelashes at me, the Pakistanis all think I'm Muslim (must be the beard), the Africans on the never-quiet front steps always high-five me. " I realize this mad cauldron of multiculturalism is the only place I truly feel at home in Hong Kong. A street corner tout from Kashmir says to me "The Mansions is where anyone not wearing pastel shorts or a suit stay. S, migré the immigrant ghetto of Kowloon that serves as temporary living quarters for Hong Kong's financially insolvent é passing by friendly knots of third-world hustlers hanging out in front of the Chungking Mansions, take a stroll around TST. Nor do the waterfront girls of Wan Chai; the expatriates of Central don't want me, dAY 7: I wake up feeling dejected and classless.

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