Walking in Wanchai

Here I am in Hong Kong, ostensibly to attend the Second Standard Chartered International Literary Festival, but actually to search for the perfect laptop sleeve and the sleekest external floppy drive you can get for US$50. Hong Kong may be bidding to become one of Asia’s new cultural capitals – if it isn’t, already – but for a geek like me, it will forever be the mecca of high-tech, gadget heaven, a cornucopia of cybernetic delights.

You don’t go to Hong Kong for the bookstores. Sure, there’s Dymock’s and a few other big book sellers, but the books cost a fortune and just might turn up at your local Book Sale bin one of these days, anyway, for a tenth of the price sticker. I suppose you do go to Hong Kong for the food (more on this later) – but heck, you can get great dim sum and fabulous egg-drop soup in any number of Chinatowns worldwide, Ongpin and Greenhills included. (It’s been suggested to me that you can also buy perfumes, clothes, and trinkets in Hong Kong, but how come I never seem to see them?)

No, sir (and ma’am), you go to Hong Kong for the hard-core hardware, the blinking and blooming digital stuff, the world in a micron of silicon. As far as electronic gizmos and gewgaws go, Hong Kong is the living end, proof positive of life beyond last year’s processor speed and data transfer rates. (But then I’ve never been to Taipei – an oversight that can be easily cured by the Taiwan Tourism Board, with no objections to be had from this roving reporter.)

And so, armed with the regulation tourist map of Hong Kong and Kowloon – with the street locations of no less than six computer malls encircled in black ink like the targets of some fiendish assault – I take to the streets of Wanchai, Central, Tsim Sha Tsui, and Sham Shui Po every hour I can spare from the likes of Hanif Kureishi and Pico Iyer, over at the festival proper. To reconcile my two missions, I resolve to be the Pico Iyer of cybertravel, and I pray to the Buddha in the store window for the gods of geekdom to bring a Macworld Expo or a Comdex to Manila or even Hong Kong within my lifetime. I’ve brought my thick-soled mall-walking shoes in anticipation of long mornings and afternoons treading vinyl floors under the fluorescent lights. Before stepping out on the street, I mutter the obligatory "I’m not going to buy anything, I’ll just look!," but I already have a list of things I’ll be just be "looking" at – the aforementioned sleeve and floppy drive, a spare battery, a spare adaptor, heck, why not a spare laptop, too? I keep my credit card right next to my passport and plane ticket.

The first thing I realize is how warm it is outside. The real businessmen I meet all look cool in their suits, but I’m sweltering in mine. I make a note that I should’ve worn just a T-shirt or a polo shirt, but you know how it is in these international conferences – you don’t want to be the one who brings lasting shame upon your flag and country by coming to the sessions in anything less than formal evening wear or your national costume. (I remember Brunei in 1994, when I attended an Asean conference for the first time and thought myself foolish for bringing a very Western black suit when everyone else, I was certain, would be in some kind of sarong or muu-muu. Well, lo and behold – when it came time for the official photo, everyone but everyone came out in a, uhrm, post-colonial black suit.) Walking in Wanchai, I begin to feel like the French Foreign Legion marching in the desert – and I start thinking about French fries and a Coke. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a snack. I survey the signboards for the familiar red-and-yellow logo of McDonald’s, but this is China, and everything is in red and yellow. I walk some more.

* * *

It’s the story of my life: wherever I go in this wide world, I’m fated to trudge miles and miles just to find the nearest McDonald’s or KFC – because, like a typical Pinoy male, I’m too proud, too shy, and too stupid to ask how much a bowl of steaming rice topped with slivers of roasted duck costs, and how to get one. Washington 1980, Osaka 1983, Macau 1987, Edinburgh 1994, Amsterdam 1999, and Hong Kong 2002. Boy, have I eaten a lot of burgers and chicken wings, enough to do a special Lonely Planet edition devoted to Global McNuggets.

I see something I think I recognize – a big fat bee smiling at me above a rack of Chinese characters – yegads, it’s Jollibee! Hunger and elation carry me on their shoulders into the outlet on Johnston Rd., in a corner of the second floor. Inside is about half of the 150,000-strong Pinoy community in Hong Kong, laughing and weeping over their Chickenjoy. Only the counter crew look Chinese. I order "No. 3" – two pieces of fried chicken, a soft drink, and a large, suitably Chinese-sized cup of rice. It costs me HK$26 – about P175, which is a lot, but no one seems to mind. I take the only empty table left, near the window, and soon I’m joined by two later arrivals, on whom my Chinese?-Malaysian?-Thai?-Singaporean? disguise is completely wasted. "May kasama ba kayo?" says a thirtyish Filipina, out for a Sunday jaunt with a friend. I want to interview them, but dare not ask if they are DHs; they wear gold rings and gold necklaces.

I munch on my Chickenjoy like I haven’t had it for 20 years. It’ll be a couple more days until I meet the Azadas for lunch – my only real hope for a real Chinese meal, the festival dinner having opted for riceless steak. (Engineer Ben and writer Mida Azada, themselves newly moved to Hong Kong, would come through swimmingly, treating me out to seafood noodles at a swanky restaurant called Zen at the hyper-impressive Pacific Place, a mall-cum-hotel complex in Central that made my neck ache.)

* * *

It’s Sunday and I’m headed out for the Fringe Club in Central, where I’m going to be part of a panel discussion on "Asian Englishes." There are scores of Filipinos walking in the same direction, but I don’t think they’re planning on listening to me.

The Filipino maids spend their Sundays hanging out in the neighborhood of Statue Square. Despite ubiquitous warning signs ("Bawal ang magtinda at magkalat dito. Ang mahuhuli ay madedemanda"), some kind of trading is always going on in one nook or other: pedicure jobs, San Miguel Beer, tins of Ligo sardines in the bottom of plastic bags. Pairs of Mormon missionaries plow through the crowds; "Jesus Is Lord" circles sing hymns of praise in the lobby of Mammon, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank.

After my presentation ("One Hundred Years of Solitude: Filipino Writing in English") and lunch with the Azadas, I walk some more. All in all, I visit and revisit five major computer malls at Sham Shui Po, Wanchai, Windsor House, 298 Hennessy, and Star House. Flat-screen LCDs, CD-writers, wireless networking, and color hand-helds are big in Hong Kong, as well as Motorola cell phones. ("Why do all Filipinos use Nokias?" a camera-store salesman asks me, befuddled. I assure him it’s the keypad.) I find my laptop sleeve (a Case Logic neoprene suit) and floppy drive (a Sony). I can go home.

For four days, I walk 20 minutes out and 20 minutes in to anything. The Wesley is a nice hotel but it has the singular distinction of sitting smack in the middle of two Metro stations, Admiralty and Wanchai, both of them a 15-minute walk away. I reason that all the walking is good for my heart, but my legs disagree vehemently.

It’s a $2 tram ride and trams blithely pass me by, coming and going, but I don’t ask, I never ask.

* * *

I’m watching the TV news from Brunei on cable TV and I very quickly realize that there’s nothing the Bruneian royalty ever do or just do; they have to consent to do anything and everything, as in "His Royal Highness consented to receive the greetings of the chairman of the Football Association" and "Her Royal Highness consented to view a presentation by the recipients of her charity." In this case, Her Royal Highness – one of that country’s many princesses – sat down and consented to watch a performance highlighted by – voila! – "two dwarves from the Philippines," who presumably consented to perform acrobatic tricks for Her Royal Highness’s consenting amusement.

* * *

My old friend Bibsy Carballo writes in to say that, following a highly successful undertaking in April, the SNACK (Summer Nature and Arts Camp for Kids) camp which she directs is holding a second outdoor camp for kids ages 7-13 at Taal Lake Yacht Club, Talisay, Batangas from May 6 to 11.

Supported by Coleman, PureFoods, Standard Insurance, Conquer, and Konica, SNACK 2002 offers sailing (under Olympian Nestor Soriano), mountaineering at Mt. Talamitam in Nasugbu (with mountaineer Banny Hermanos), LUBID teambuilding, ceramics painting (with Lanelle Abueva), tie-dyeing (with Arri Herrera), taekwondo (with Monsour del Rosario), Taebo-aerobics (with Jackielou Blanco), gymnastics (under the Philippine Gymnastics Institute), a volleyball competition, and a pet care clinic with senior VetMed student Sharmaine Arnaiz.

SNACK is now in its fourth year and eighth camp. To register, call Ayi Hicap or Gennie Dalit at 721-08-01 or 726-71-64.

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Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@yahoo.com..