HOM: Hong Kong Notes

Hong Kong was a shopper's paradise and the Vietnam war had really bumped the economy up, which frustrated some of the old hands as prices were higher than they were used to. The service they used to pay $5 for was now $20, which led to a lot of haggling with the girls in the bars. Bars and little shops lined every street hawking everything imaginable. Watches, jewelry, booze, stereos, electronics, clothes, tailored uniforms, knives, wood & ivory carvings, silk, food, books -- you name it, it was for sale. The only thing almost every shop had in common was a sour faced old man with a sawed off shotgun sitting on a high stool just inside the door or by the till. This beat the heck out of rent-a-cops and security cameras for keeping people honest! Hong Kong was a study in contrasts. Many of the commercial buildings had little villages of squatters living on the roofs -- and many of the sidewalks were roofed over to keep the garbage, waste water & body waste the squatters tossed over the side from hitting the pedestrians. Skyscrapers sprouting out of the hillsides were bordered by tiny shacks built of cast-offs and garbage. Silk suits and rags shared the sidewalks. East & West met and clashed everywhere. On store shelves, plastic Snow Whites sat side by side with carved jade pagodas. Fords vied with Holdens & rickshaws on the streets. Photos of Chairman Mao were all over the place, a not-so-subtle reminder that this was still a Chinese country. I visited the floating village of Aberdeen and took a water taxi out to the Tai Pak floating restaurant to eat. These are water taxis, and that is the Tai Pak. It was a fancy place for a country boy, the first place I had ever been where you could walk up to a glass tank and point to the fish or lobster you wanted to eat as it swam or crawled about. I had one eye-opening surprise. There was a tiny black miniature "dill pickle" thing on my plate, so I popped it into my mouth and bit down. And grabbed bread and water to put the fire out. Hottest spicy thing I EVER bit into. I can take straight Tabasco sauce, but whatever that was, it was far hotter. Sure tasted good, though! TBC (Me) (Home)