Me on the Kowloon side at Tsimshatsui, with Hong Kong's Central District in the background, 1991.

The airport limo drove down a deserted Bay Street through the morning fog, then westbound on the Gardener Expressway. With most of my money I had bought a ticket to Hong Kong. "Pearl of the Orient". "Gateway to China". "Home of Suzie Wong". I knew almost nothing about Hong Kong and I had no idea how I would survive once there. We swung under the CN Tower, which points straight down according to the gravity in Hong Kong. "It's going to be a hot summer." The driver was just trying to make conversation. I had no idea just how hot it was going to be. My good friend Tim Egan was travelling east from India and had planned to be in Hong Kong by the time I would arrive. Tim had gone east, I was going west, and if he had received my letter c/o the American Express office in Bangkok, we might meet on the other side. I had left any details to my childish faith in luck.

I remember my grandmother saying that at her end of the century you'd have to be on the right hand side of God to afford so much as a trip to England. But now the world is small, perhaps too small for any uncontrived adventure, and any Jet Trash can traverse the planet with little more than jet lag to suffer. I am generally slow to appreciate the value of money, except when I can exchange it for air fare. One of Buddha's disciples, Pin-to-lo-Po-lo-to-she, had a voice like a lion and was able to rise into the air like a bird. Compared with the richness of the experience, the tickets are cheap. It was noon by the time I was lifted from Toronto, and we got as far as Korea before sundown.

No pilot would deny that the one and only Hong Kong airstrip is a hazard. It was clear and dark when I approached, feeling like a piece of dirty polyester after some seventeen hours of being jet propelled half way around the world in winged aluminum cans. There were countless ships scattered below, lighting up the surface of the sea like a broken pixel board, and between them, the black mountainous islands were just silhouettes. So many anchored ships would imply a port, but no port was in view. We were flying very low but I saw nothing that resembled a city, let alone an airport. We descended yet more and I could clearly see a couple of apartment buildings beside us, next to a narrow highway on the hill side of an island. The rolling waves below were not big, but if the ships had been any bigger we would surely have struck, like a match. We banked sharply around the side of the island, still losing altitude, and WHAM! I was surrounded by a thick skyscraper metropolis, a wall of city ablaze with gigawatts of electricity. It was a blur of boats, cars, office towers, and enormous neon signs: SONY Coca-Cola SAMSUNG Carelsburg MINOLTA SHARP CANNON ROLEX NEC EPSON MOTOROLA. The skyline disappeared behind the jagged buildings in the foreground and we touched down to a thunderous applause. There is no airfield as such, only a strip not much wider than Park Avenue sandwiched between the Kowloon-side high rises and Victoria Harbour. My bag and suitcase had arrived as promised, and so had Tim. "Tim!" I was wide awake, "I want to see EVERYTHING!"

Tim passed an address, scrawled in Chinese, to the cab driver who like most Hong Kong Chinese could speak English; but neither Tim nor I could properly pronounce the Chinese street name, so the card was necessary. We were driven through the heat to a doorway recessed between two shops. The humid narrow street was drowning under suspended neon, and lined with dirty concrete buildings all sandwiched together with the plumbing tied to the outside. A small grocery store had a display of watermelon and cantaloupe, wrapped in large leaves and piled like cannonballs. It spilled over onto the narrow side walk where people pushed their way through one another and spilled, in turn, onto the road which they shared skilfully with the cars. The air was littered with Cantonese news and pop music, car engines, freon compressors, and the rumble of iron hand truck wheels.

We climbed the fluorescently lit concrete stairwell as far as the sixth landing and pushed the door button of the VICTORIA GUEST HOUSE. The windows in the stairwell were either open or broken and I wondered why glass was ever installed to begin with. On the floor by the door there was a tin can full of burning incense. Apparently it was a seasonal offering to some Earth God that can ward off evil spirits, not to be confused with the incense on the fridge for the Kitchen God or on the wall for the Sky Gods. The door opened and the cool of the aircon was most welcoming. Victoria herself let us in, a small Chinese woman who looked especially small next to Tim.

The common room was small but not without a television and cassette player, a messy desk with a broken telex terminal and electric typewriter, a stack of magazines, a coffee table and couch. A red wooden box shrine, in which offerings of fruit and incense are left for ancestors, was nailed high on a wall. Heaven was said to lack the pleasures that a dutiful son could supply by sacrificing to his departed ancestors, who, in their gratitude, conferred upon the dutiful son all sorts of blessings by way of repaying him. There were also pictures cut from calendars of Taoist, Christian, and Buddhist deities, tapped to the walls just to be on the safe side. The fake pine panelling, hastily tacked to the concrete walls, and the purple shag were obviously done in an effort to make guests feel more at home. There wasn't much room left for people - a situation which applied to most of Hong Kong.

Tim and I managed to squeeze around the furniture and into our double room. One bed was covered with his suitcase, and the 200 photographs from India which he had been indexing were spread about face down like tarot cards. The other took the weight of my suitcase. Between the beds was a strip of floor the width of the end table, and a television had somehow been wedged into the room as well. It is said that a Chinese family of three generations is able to live from a piece of ground no larger than that which an ordinary Canadian farmer uses to store farm implements. Room in Hong Kong is small, but no matter how small a room is, the Chinese almost always find space for an air conditioner, a television, and somewhere prominent to burn incense.

Tim led me outside and to the end of the street, then through a long narrow walkway between buildings. It was necessary to avoid both the pot holes below and the water dripping from the many aircons, jutting out from the fourteen story walls above. We reappeared on Nathan Road, a wide and busy boulevard lined with major hotels and duty free shops piled high with consumer junk. The never ending tangle of bright neon messages are mostly in Chinese, so to me they appeared more like civic adornment on a massive scale than individual advertisements.

A Brit in a tuxedo stood on the side walk by a sandwich board and welcomed us to Maddogs. Maddogs is in every way a British pub, furnished with a dartboard and framed litho-ads for Pears Transparent Soap and war efforts long past. An elaborate gilt bar commands the length of a wall, and an enormous pair of carved tigers dominate the centre of the floor. For me there was a gin & tonic and a cigarette. I had arrived.

Hong Kong is, I was told, a colony of Britain. While populated over 95% by Chinese immigrants, many British expats have made a home for themselves there too. In 1898 there had existed nothing more than a few fishing villages. Iron is an ancient Chinese symbol of strength, firmness, and determination; so when the first lamp-posts were erected, the press described them as "iron trees bursting into bloom." After VJ Day American sailors discovered tattoos, American homes discovered plastic fruit, and the "Gateway to China" became americanized. But this title was both ethnocentric and erroneous; in reality Hong Kong was China's Gateway to the West. The gate was slammed shut in 1960 because so many millions of mainland Chinese had come to set up shop that there simply wasn't room for any more. As little as 20 years ago, the "Pearl of the Orient" was still a pleasant place to live, less frantic and more sure of its direction. I have seen photographs of Hong Kong from that time but, due to the ceaseless redevelopment, I could recognize almost nothing in them.

Hong Kong can be described many ways now, but not as pleasant. Between the supertankers and high-tech industry, multinational corporations and factories, it has become a port of some importance with a ruthless brand of capitalism that, by comparison, would render New York communist. The Chinese coat-of-arms from the Han to the Ch'ing dynasty would be appropriate for Hong Kong today; it consisted of a pair of dragons fighting for a pearl. To aggravate things yet more, Britain's 99 year lease from China was to terminate in six years and the sober panic expressed itself surreptitiously.

Maddogs, and my welcoming reunion with Tim, made me imagine another Hong Kong, a far more romantic place which no longer existed. "Hong Kong," Tim told me, "means Fragrant Harbour because it was mostly spice they traded here." I was soon to discover that the Victoria Harbour, with no pollution control enforced or sewage treatment, now reeks with a fragrance of a different kind.

The Victoria Guest House was in the middle of Tsimshatsui, the area at the tip of the Kowloon peninsula. The morning revealed a maze of dusty narrow streets, duty free shops and big American hotels. People have to struggle just to walk around a corner because they must somehow push past the crowd gathered for their walk signal. Metal fences are built alongside the side walks to keep people from getting squashed out onto the road. A jungle of neon signs block the sky and fight for attention - each tries to reach higher or lower or further out over the street. No deity in China is more universally worshipped than T'sai Shen Yeah, the God of Affluence. Every available air space is filled with neon: Buy This! Take me Home! Posses and you'll be Happy! Work, work, work! Define yourself with objects. Rollex, BMW, Armani and Louis Vitton mean you've made it. Shop, shop, shop! It's a never ending cycle. Seiko sells, Timex ticks, but Cartier says Class. Go, go, go! It's Hong Kong's wheel of fortune.

Jade charms are most fortunate, and this most precious of all precious stones is the luck-stone of the Chinese. A piece of jade worn next to the body transfers to the wearer pure, just, humane, intelligent and brave qualities, and prevents harm or accidents. Jade is sacred. Its rarity and costliness has made it the acme of perfection. The jewelry stores themselves never trust the protective power of jade. They are guarded by men who stand by the door with semi-automatic rifles, and three major jewellers were held up and robbed during the summer.

I've never seen so much bumf in my life. I've read that "If you can't find it in Hong Kong, it doesn't exist." There is limited truth to this, but the truth falls short of the claims in a tourist brochure entitled, "HONG KONG: SHOPPERS PARADISE". Tim was unable to find size 13 brogues. He eventually had his sister send a pair from Canada because the Hong Kong salespeople would just point at his feet and laugh. There are duty free pens and lighters, yuppie clothes and watches, cameras and postcards, jewelry, VCRs and silk ties; but I could only see the same stuff I'd seen before in other shops. There is no Hong Kong market for "one offs" as we say in New York or Toronto. Style in Hong Kong is not a function of personality, it is a function of income. Fortunately I hate shopping anyway; what I consumed most in Hong Kong were the views.

Tim and I wanted to find someone named Herbie whom Tim had met two years before while travelling in Europe. Tim knew that Herbie managed a bar called "1998" in Lan Kwai Fong, a concentrated area of vogue bars and nightclubs near the heart of Central. That's when we discovered one of our favourite things to do in Hong Kong: to take the Star Ferry from Tsimshatsui at the tip of the Kowloon peninsula, across Victoria Harbour to the Central District on Hong Kong Island. The dockers wear cute little navy blue "STAR FERRY" sailor tops, and I pestered one until he told me how I could buy one for myself. The cost of a crossing is $1 HK, or $1.20 HK for those who want to splurge and take the upper deck which offers a no-smoking section with glass in the windows and aircon. I preferred the lower deck, and would sit on an iron bollard over the soupy water and bits of floating garbage. I'd watch the great variety of boats propel about like wind up bath tub toys, eclipsing and emerging from behind one another. There is rarely a crossing without a blast of horns and a narrow miss. The great wall of office towers capped with neon corporate logos would grow taller as Central neared, and after a few minutes of bobbing and droning, they would blot out the Peak of Hong Kong island behind them, and most of the sky. I don't know what they might drink at the helm but they usually miss the piers by a good twenty feet, then spend five minutes working their way in to land. The gangplanks finally drop, releasing the impatient herd who ascend the ramps and get swallowed whole by the tall buildings.

When the Star Ferry spewed us out at Central we marched over the moving gangplank and up to the pier, then up the stairs and into the network of pedestrian flyovers which traverse the busy streets. The roofed flyovers connect the second levels shops to each other and to the Post Office, stock exchange, gold plated bank towers and corporate skyscrapers. In many sections of China there is a superstitious prejudice regarding two-story buildings, or any building that overshadows its neighbours; the taller building is thought to deprive the smaller one of Heaven's guardianship. The sun suggests to officials a pure and just administration, for, "as the sun shines upon the high and low alike, so should they be similarly and impartially treated." While this might be true for many parts of China, such is not the case in Hong Kong.

Honda dealership, presumably with good Feng Shui

The megalographic architecture is very different from any I've seen. The impetus for the fantastic structures is not merely aesthetic, or even functional; people in Hong Kong are big on something called "Feng Shui" which literally translates to "wind water". It is an age old belief which has absolutely nothing to do with preserving the environment, but rather aims to harmonize the relationship between the dead and the living. Bad Feng Shui brings bad luck and good Feng Shui brings good luck. If you can't see water from your building you have to bring it inside. Water fountains are in all the expensive plazas, but exposed water pipes are thought to be sufficient. Round windows are a Feng Shui bonus. Front doors have to be higher than back doors and buildings have to face the water. The new Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Tower had to take major adaptations from the original design because triangles that point down are bad, as are equilateral triangles. If you bury your grandmother at a site with good Feng Shui, generations to come will have good luck. The rules become very complex, Feng Shui affects how you arrange your furniture, where you hang your hat, which way water flows should it be spilt on your floor, and is affected by surrounding buildings, wind direction, and geography. If your building is too wide, you must have an open hole in it to let the dragon from the mountain through in the event that he might want to get to the sea. All this is taken very seriously. Feng Shui consultants are hired by architects and developers, and buildings with bad Feng Shui must go through extensive renovations or the real estate value is greatly reduced.

Tim and I found Lan Kwai Fong, 1998 and Herbert inside. He stood with a solid and composed six foot build, smart shirt and tie, and his sleeves rolled only half way up his forearms. He was an exotic mix of Japanese and German; solid jaw and straight black hair, full lips and Japanese eyes. He was twenty-three, a year younger than myself, and clean shaven apart from a traditional oriental beard at the end of his chin. His eyebrows were so severely black and angled that they made him appear somehow etherial. Because he was neither Guilo nor Japanese, he was free to be either. He could speak Cantonese with the Hong Kong Chinese, and spoke German with his father, but he was by far most comfortable with English, which he spoke well with a mid-Atlantic accent. He spoke carefully in his low voice, never allowing words to simply spill out, "You have to in Hong Kong," he said to me, "you have to be very careful, or you will get ripped off." He asked us to return around midnight, when he finished work, so we could have a drink together. He also suggested that we take the tram to the Peak, which we did.

The Peak Tram departs from the top of Central, where the hill becomes too steep to easily build on, and rumbles almost vertically past the tropical shrubs to the top of Hong Kong Island where the very rich have their mansions and the tourists take photographs. I have a weakness for powerful views. The views from the Peak are among the most photographed views of all history, and among the most potent I have encountered.

The air is cooler at the Peak, and the fluffy clouds there travel fast overhead because they are so near. Occasionally a small cloud cuts short the microwave antennae at the summit, or floats between the hill tops at eye level. Hawks drift through the air below, in and out between the angles of the deep green precipice. The Phoenix is said to live in the far-away Vermilion Hills, waiting for the time when peace shall come to China.

Tim and I walked the Peak Trail which winds around the top of the mountain, and tunnels through the dense vegetation. Occasionally the semi-tropical jungle thins then clears, exposing a panoramic view over the entire harbour city on the north side of the island - Sheung Wan, Central, Wan Chai, and Causeway Bay. The skyscrapers under construction are surrounded by bamboo scaffolding, fastened together by duct tape. Workers climb freely through the bamboo matrix, thirty floors up, finishing exteriors with granite, stucco, paint and calking. Beyond Hong Kong city is Victoria Harbour, busy with ferries and tankers, junks and pleasure-craft all churning up white frothy trails and crossing paths. On the far side of the harbour is the Kowloon peninsula where most of the population live and work. A steady procession of Boing 747s skim the tops of the Kowloon high rises and land on the airstrip, or take off over the harbour and disappear behind the far side of the island. Beyond Kowloon are the blue green mountains that roll like the back of a dragon against the sky. Kowloon actually means nine dragons, and refers to these nine mountain hills.

Peak View

The south side of the island commands a view of some neighbouring islands, and beyond these the South China Sea. The horizon looms high and is usually obscured by haze, so outward bound ships appear to be cruising up into the sky.

When the British first took possession of Hong Kong, the Peak was a rocky moonscape. But after the tram and a grand hotel was built, a paradise was cultivated and strictly reserved for whites. Today there are large bilingual NO HAWKING signs posted; and I imagined a party of ambitious Chinese out with their guns and dogs for some sport, but the signs were actually directed at vendors. I'd wonder why more people weren't enjoying the Peak when I was there. Perhaps they were too busy making money and shopping, or perhaps they're unable to appreciate anything that doesn't cost and have a label. I have a theory that there is and may always be a mental barrier between proletariat and lofty places, akin to the fact that most Americans with so much access to literature and art, read an average of two books per year and rarely visit a gallery. When I asked a man who had lived his life in Hong Kong I was told that it was "too far away"; he had only been to the Peak twice. "During day I have work and after work is no time."

We descended into the crowded city, and especially after our sublime walk in the sky the city felt as congested as Manhattan put through a hydraulic garbage compacter. It is impossible to stand in one spot for more than a few seconds without being in somebody's way. I found myself standing in the tiny space between a garbage can and a concrete pillar, just so that I could look up and around at the jack built high rises and the colourful laundry that hangs over the street from protruding lengths of bamboo. Within fifteen seconds somebody had a perfectly valid reason for needing the space. Nobody could procrastinate in Hong Kong even if they had time, or have room to fall over even if they had a heart attack.

Tim and I bought some Tsing Tao beer from the 7-11 and ate outdoors, along the harbour front of Central between the ferry terminals. Wrinkled old men set up their portable stands on the piers, to vend shishkabobed squid tentacles and deep fried fish balls, hot from the gas flames and pepper sauce. The still humid air trapped all the heat from the day, and transported all the heavy sound from the droning boats, clip clop of semi- high heels, and conversing voices. From somewhere beyond the traffic cavorted, a construction crew clanged, and jet engines screamed over Kowloon. My spicy fish balls on rice overcame my mouth and nose like an unexpected wave, overpowering the rank air and water. It felt good to be somewhere so intense and strange.

The vast majority of Hong Kong appeared to be employed, healthy and relatively wealthy. Pi Kan, a minister of the Emperor Chou of the Yin Dynasty, who, having incurred the displeasure of the king, was executed and his heart cut out. He was later immortalized as a god of wealth, who, without any heart, could more dispassionately distribute the world's riches. Most people carried a pager or cellphone; except for the badly deformed beggars who sit on the floor of the pedestrian flyovers, missing limbs... and the old people, even too old to work at McDonald's, who have no family to support them. Then there are the Filipino maids, the shoe shine and news stand people, the boat people who waited in refugee shanty camps to be shipped back to Vietnam, and the wayward kids who got run over by Triads and/or heroin. But "generally speaking" everyone is well dressed in "labels", busy, and secretly anxious as hell to get out of Hong Kong before China's takeover in 1997.

The Triads are a bunch of boys, some of whom have elaborate tattoos on their arms and backs, who run around their turf threatening people and making good on their threats. They're gainfully employed with selling drugs, extortion, prostitution, gambling, and everything else that's bad. There are large government posters and a dramatic television campaign entreating citizens to REPORT TRIADS. A few Triads were arrested while I was there for extorting money from bus drivers, and attempting to extort cash from an American film crew who were doing a documentary on Triads. They're kindred to our skinheads, but they're meaner and smarter, organized internationally, and they all carry pagers.

I looked down from the concrete promenade and saw four ropes extending from iron rings on the sea wall. Three held three junks to shore, the fourth disappeared into the briny soup. A lost livelihood, another forgotten casualty. Hong Kong is a place where anyone can lose everything at any time without notice. There is no unemployment insurance or social assistance, just good and bad Feng Shui. Tim and I drank to the lost junk as the sun set over the end of the harbour.

With the power luck holds over most people's heads like an axe, it is no mystery that so many superstitious flourish. $1,000,000 "HELL BANK NOTE"s are printed and people burn them as, from what I gather, extortion money for the Triads of the spirit world. Many are lottery mad, and follow "significant" numbers avidly. Popular numbers include the number of people who died in the latest plane crash, killed by the latest volcanic explosion, the number of bullet holes in some Triad victim, licence plate numbers from expensive cars, and 1997 is an all time favourite. As a standard feature, all pagers in Hong Kong beep and display the most recent winning lottery numbers as they come up.

We met Herbie at midnight as arranged, left the air-con of Cafe '98 at one o'clock, and walked up through the steaming heat of the Hong Kong summer night. He guided us through the cobbled streets of Lan Kwai Fong, an overcrowded maze of neon, dripping air-cons, bamboo scaffolding, and thick air reverberating with conversation, acid house, and jazz. He took us to "Yin Yang" on Ice House street. "YYs" was the only gay disco in Hong Kong; homosexuality had only just been decriminalized two weeks before I had arrived, and was legalized while I was there. I would like to think it was Hong Kong gays and lesbians who accomplished this, but the Chinese have scant tradition of demanding freedom or individual rights [later edit: I turned out to be wrong about that, it's complicated]. There is a very ancient belief in a Supreme Power, a Ruler of Heaven and Earth; but, as this Power was so far away, the Emperor was chosen as the Son of Heaven to rule over earth. The amnesty actually came with the new human rights package benevolently bestowed on Hong Kong from London, no doubt the heterosexist laws had become something of an embarrassment for the UK. Herbs got us in for free and bought us rounds of drinks, which I later learned are pricy at YYs, even though there is no sales tax in Hong Kong. The three of us talked about Hong Kong, Toronto, New York and London, until late.

Tim liked Hong Kong very much, and loudly expressed how happy he was that, unlike India, there weren't any cows on the streets. He wanted to realize his dream of being settled down before turning thirty, and he wanted to settle with a career and a home in Hong Kong. Tim held a British passport, so his goal wouldn't have been so absurd, except that he had only two and a half weeks left. Herbie and I were going to help him and the three of us made plans to find an apartment together, perhaps in Wan Chai. Tim had already rented his own pager, and was preparing to look for work in his field as a fourth generation computer systems analyst/programmer. The hardships of becoming a settler in a British colony aren't what they used to be.

Tim Egan, the day we explored the infamous and now demolished "Kowloon City"

I was strictly visiting with my camera and wouldn't have been so eager to settle in Hong Kong. The virtual absence of contemporary art, or art of any kind, bothered me more the longer I stayed. The ruthlessly efficient economic system, the hypocritical Chinese notion of "respect" and their widespread homophobic taboos had already made me sceptical of the place. I also couldn't shoulder the institution of Filipino maids who are cheaper to own than a dishwasher, but whom everyone is careful not to call slaves. The quasi-democratic system in Hong Kong, imposed by Britain, is as thin as Saran Wrap, and could be as easily discarded. When China was founded in 2852 BC it was, without doubt, the first democratic government in the world; though the succeeding Emperor was not elected, but appointed by his predecessor. I had only just arrived and felt wise to keep my negative opinions to myself.

The MTR and Star Ferry had stopped running for the day, so we walked down to the heart of Central where we watched for a Kowloon taxi. A Hong Kong Island taxi would have been more expensive because they can and would demand that we pay their Harbour Tunnel toll back to the island. As we waited, we watched the nightly settlement of busy people who sat on the side walks, madly collating, stacking, binding, and loading the daily newspapers by hand. It seemed odd to me that a modern industrialized city wouldn't have machines for this work, but the machines are expensive, and life can be very cheap in Hong Kong. I am an art addict and go to great lengths to secure my fix, but even I had trouble finding any art in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, Hong Kong is as uninterested in art as I am as uninterested in shopping malls. The white concrete walls of a typical Hong Kong Chinese apartment (above the Sony multisync monitor and JVC lazerdisk/ CD/ karaoke machine) are left bare. Very few people appreciate art, though the rich do entrust money to "priceless" Oriental artifacts which they can sell after they move to California. Only a tiny fraction of the students who apply to HKU or CU can be accommodated, and those who are accepted tend to prefer fields which guarantee money. Chase Manhattan and American Express have to import the art for their lobbies from the U.S.

Serious artists are virtually non-existent, but there are a handful who, with majestic determination, sacrifice, and day jobs, manage to do their work against all odds. There is a God of Porcelain, who, as a potter, sacrificed himself by placing himself in one of the furnaces because of his inability to accomplish the Emperor's orders to produce vases of the quality required. After he had been burned, all the vases that came out of the furnace so delighted the Emperor that the unhappy potter was deified.

Tim and I went to see the Central Gallery in Wan Chi, the area just east of Central, but it was run down from lack of funds and the work we saw was mostly disappointing. Apparently they had organized a small gay film festival, but we had just missed it by two years. There were some landscape paintings done in the traditional Chinese perspective, with land and water painted as though seen from the side, but spatially organized as from above, like a map. I decided to think about how I might incorporate that into my urban landscape collages. One exhibition of small black and white photographs was particularly bad, and I told Tim that I thought his snapshots were much more interesting. "I should hope so!" he laughed, and we left.

Nevertheless, every city has an exception that proves the rule, and the Fringe Club is Hong Kong's. It is on Ice House street, and is in what was the Ice House before the days of refrigeration. They were given the space to further the arts in Hong Kong and do as much as they can to that end. The walls are a foot thick and the tiled interior is magically cool without air conditioning. They sell drinks and snacks, and the gallery is spacious and more or less empty except for a few tables, the art on the walls, and a rack of current art magazines and publications. Tim and I loved the place and met there whenever we could, but I later had to work whenever it was open.

It was at the Fringe Club where I saw the only work by a Hong Kong artist that I was really impressed with. They could be described as landscapes with life. Mak Wing creates vertically arranged diptychs and triptychs on wood panels with lacquer. He discovered the technique while working as a designer at an antique furniture company. He has the power to transform a simple pattern into a swarm of dragonflies, more alive than any I've seen, and create a great depth in his work completely free of the western tricks of perspective. I went to see the show again, wrote two pages of comments in the Book, and grabbed a bunch of the printed invitations. I'm sorry that I never met the artist, be he did write me to let me know that my comments had made his day.

Tim and I moved from our room in the Victoria Guest house to bunks at the Victoria Hostel. It is situated on the third and fourth floor of another jack built concrete high rise, sandwiched between and built into others such that it is impossible to guess where one building ends and the next begins. A man had set up a watch shop in the street entrance, and there was a business that offered private Karaoke rooms on the floor above us. Two floors above was the Lucky Guest House, and above that was eight floors of apartments with an extended family living in each.

The Victoria Hostel was run by Douglas, Victoria's hyper active Sri Lankan husband; the kind of man who might be able to do everything if he didn't always try to do it all at once. He had "done" both decorific interiors in a single fit of spontaneous inspiration. He had a beautiful and shy Sri Lankan manservant named Areef who, amongst other duties, washed and ironed the sheets. Douglas would always yell at Areef and eventually fired him because "somebody had to take the blame" for a couple of bad apples who had left without paying their account.

Our move had two advantages. The first was that renting two bunks in a room full of bunks was cheaper than renting a room. The second was that the hostel was full of backpackers who had flown in from the far corners of the earth and were valuable "connections". There were actually five Canadian "Tim"s in our little dorm. This made it confusing for the British gal who worked the desk when anyone phoned for "Tim... the one from Canada." We "Jet Trash" as we called ourselves, were a kind of temporary family, providing good company and helping each another find work to pay for more travel, an extended stay, or as in my case so that I could resume school in the fall without having to borrow too much money.

Most Jet Trash were working as fashion models, English teachers, bar staff, or as extras in movies. Bruce was a Canadian Kung Fu stunt man and would play the parts of guilo bad guy fighters. Tim Carson was an Australian jazz keyboardist who played at any club that paid, often at the Jazz Club in Lan Kwai Fong. One of the Canadian Tims was working for a legal scam called "4X"; he would solicit people to gamble on the foreign currency exchange. Of course, no currencies were actually traded; they just used the fluctuating daily exchange rates as dice. A scam, yes, but the man made the money that makes the man. Karen, the gal from London, worked nights at the desk of the hostel, answering the phone and receiving fresh Jet Trash who appeared from the stairwell. David was a little man from London with an East End accent. He was seeking work as a graphic illustrator and would often be working on his portfolio in the little common room, despite all the noisy people, television, and a festering burn on his thumb. Many other Jet Trash came and left, some staying for only a few nights, and each had stories to tell.

I desperately wished that I had brought my computer, I yearned for it. My brain was full to bursting with things to write, but I had long forgotten how to draw letters by hand. I had failed to realize the true importance of the symbionic relationship I have with my PC. I attempted to write, but managed little more than to practice my handwriting. I worked in a narrow room that ran alongside the front windows, the only windows. Douglas had plans to turn the room into an office where he could play travel agent, but at the time it was a dump for a broken fan, extra 2" foam "mattresses", dead files, kitsch wall "art", and a lost and found corner. He had reclaimed the blue acrylic carpet from the garbage of the Holiday Inn.

Douglas, like many people in Hong Kong, was very superstitious; he had taped a large sign on the room's door: "NO SHOES, NO TV, NO AIRCON". I looked in and saw that indeed there were no shoes, then walked in and proved the sign wrong. I would sit at the ledge by the open windows and scrawl, visually confronted by a disco's worth of electric signs and a granite and glass office building. Tim would join me there, clipping career ads from the South China Morning Post. David came for the relative peace, to draw beside us, and Karen occasionally came to share a candy bar and gossip. Douglas stuck his head through the doorway and reprimanded us all for treading on his "holy" ground with our shoes, which from then on we left respectfully in the hall.

I fought with a giant water bug cockroach thing from hell in the No Shoes Room. I chased it back and forth along the window ledge with a couple of disposable cigarette flame throwers. He almost ate me when I gave the lighter another shake, flick, and singed one of his giant antenna off. He scuttled the other way but I wasn't going to let him off so easily. I cornered him with my two flame throwers, one in each hand, and forced him to leap out the open window and onto the street to terrorize the rest of Hong Kong. I swear he must have been twelve feet long, but he never came back to mess with me again.

Once I had acclimatized to the heat and humidity, aircons became the enemy. Give me heat, humidity, cockroaches, even carbon monoxide, but spare me the aircon. Hong Kong is the most air conditioned city in the world. The machines manifest themselves in different forms, many complete with robotic levers and infra red remote. On the street aircon drip is an incessant nuisance, despite the televised "FIX YOUR AIRCON. DRIPPING AIRCONS ARE AN OFFENCE" ads. I am sure that there are terrible things living inside them; a thriving zoo of ferocious microorganisms. In our dorm we had a filthy old machine that drooled through a tube to an overflowing barrel in the "NO SHOES" room, turning the carpet there into carpet soup. Upon waking I would feel as though spiders had crawled into my lungs to spin webs during the night. I was alone with my "paranoia"; everyone else would cough and insist in the same breath that the aircon be left at full blast. My worst fear in Hong Kong was premature death from aircon exposure. Martha Graham the renowned New York choreographer had just died of aircon in Hong Kong. I didn't want to be next.

"Fragrant Harbour"
Leif Harmsen, mixed media on scrap metal 1992

I took to rising at six with my camera and tripod in order to beat the daytime veil of haze. The streets are relatively free of people and traffic early in the morning, though I'm sure the MTR trains winding under the harbour toward Central were as tightly packed as the new bundles of newspaper. Tai Chi is popular in the morning by the water, where I would photograph Hong Kong Island from across the harbour. There is no kind of matching uniform or any formalities. They are ordinary people starting their day, as free as the fish in the sea who choose to swim in beautiful schools. Tai Chi is highly contagious and so I found myself drawn into the synchronized movement until I was consumed, like I was by Hong Kong, becoming part of the spectacle that at first I had only been watching.

Tim and I became regulars for breakfast at a small Chinese bun shop. Tim would lead me there because I could never have found it on my own; all the streets of Tsimshatsui run at strange angles and looked the same to me. Every street endures the same throngs of traffic and people, the same shops selling the same perfumes and watches, the same thick air, dripping aircons, and canopy of electrified chinese symbols overhead. Every little enterprise vies in the same garish way to stick out, so none of them do. The bun shop was a narrow business with bare white walls and fluorescent lighting; tubes were normally preferred over bulbs in Hong Kong because they generate less heat. The one table by the window was often free because it was right by the door and cash register. It was also the only table with natural light, so Tim and I always claimed it. A pretty little pot of Chinese tea would appear the moment we sat, and we would stare blankly at it while waiting for our coffee. We placed our orders by pointing at the menu or reading the corresponding numbers. The locals have an expression which states that "there's nothing funnier than a guilo who tries to pronounce Cantonese." We'd have our fried eggs and an assortment of buns, ham and egg, vegetable, coconut... being careful to remember to peel the waxed paper off the bottoms before shoving them into our mouths.

Tim would haul out his "File-a-fax" organizer and start manufacturing plans for the day. He would have to get his resume and cover letters from Victoria who had typed them, and the obligatory mug shots that all companies demanded from their applicants. He would get his suit from the cleaners and wonder if it was humanly possible to go to the interview at Chase Manhattan Bank in Causeway Bay without getting drenched in sweat en route. All this, and he didn't even know if he would get the job. While Tim organized getting, I would think about doing. There were views to photograph, a city to explore... life to spend.

Tim was spending less time in his cut off shorts and more time wearing the snazzy silk business suit which he had had tailored in Bangkok. He was determined to get a hot career and began to "network". He explained "networking" to me. The idea is to hang out with as many of the "right" people as possible, make a good impression, and exchange business cards. Apparently one stands a much better chance of getting the right job through networking than if one merely reads the career column and applies. "We can let each other know about opportunities, put in good words for one another, find out what's really going on in this town and let this town know we're here." Tim already had his own set of business cards printed by a 24 hour computerized machine. He was all geared up to hit the select bars again and "network" with a crude bunch of corporate guilos, "They're all boring but I have to get to know them. It's really important who you know." I wished him luck with his "networking", but suggested that he might save time by simply staying in the hostel and memorizing the Hong Kong telephone directory.

Sometimes I would read the South China Morning Post. The classified section contains a long list of available jobs, and the descriptions all specify sex and age: "FEMALE SHIPPING CLERK, between 24 and 27 (incl. photo), Cantonese and level 5 English, WordPerfect 5.1." I innocently wondered why and where they were shipping females. The latest big news item was that China will not respect the new human rights code that the citizens of Hong Kong now enjoy. This has folks worried, although they would never admit it, let alone speak out or try to do something about it. In Buddhism there is an attractive picture of an after-life state of bliss and happiness which all will eventually attain in the "Pure Land of the West." In the minds of many Hong Kong Chinese, there is a similarly attractive picture of the UK, Canada, Australia and the U.S.

Money is the key to getting out, and is made in every way possible. Financial success is most often placed ahead of ethics. If person A manages to rip off person B, person A is the clever winner and person B is the stupid loser; and that's where the buck ends. Many lost their life savings when the BCC (Bank of Commerce and Credit) collapsed and the scandal was exposed. The elderly were hit particularly hard because there is no government pension in Hong Kong. Fair play is generally thought of as an absurdly naive and idealistic notion, and is therefore expected of no one. The wealth god controls the wealth of the world, and distributes it to each family on the last night of the year according to their luck. So every family worships him, asking him to give it a great part of the world's wealth. There is tremendous pressure to be upwardly mobile, and this pressure is very hard on people. Most of the "fun" spots target tourists, American sailors, or British ex-pats who have the luxury of flying back home to Heathrow when the thugs who oppress Mainland China take over.

Lan Kwai Fong, outside "1998" when I worked there as a waiter in 1991

Film processing costs very little in Hong Kong, but I spent much money on it. Japanese tourists are known the world over for being shutter happy; but even they were amazed at me, setting up my tripod on the Peak Trail and shooting off three rolls of 36 bang bang bang from the same spot. I realized that I would be out of money soon but would still need film and food, so I went to 1998 to order a beer and ask Herbie if he could help me find a job.

Before my beer had time to pour, the contract of conditions was signed and I was in my apron and 1998 HOFFBRAÜ T-shirt, amazed at my own ability to balance glasses and bottles on a tray for $30.HK/hour + tips. Lucy, the most pretentious of the three Chinese owners, had me serving free cans of Hoffbraü to her friends. 1998 was the sole importer of Hoffbraü beer in Hong Kong, and it was promoted by Lucy as the best beer in the world. I had never heard of it before, and thought it tasted a bit off.

"1998" is a number which pronounced in Cantonese sounds like "make a fortune", and pronounced in Japanese sounds like "delicious food". The logo is the Chinese symbols for 1 9 9 8 presented in a Chinese cash-shaped seal, a symbol of wealth which indicates that "its possession is as good as all knowledge". The exterior facade resembles a Swiss Chalet restaurant stuck to the typical raw concrete of Hong Kong, but the interior is more difficult to describe. The furniture, made of crooked wood and wagon wheels, might be what the Flintstones would choose for a western restaurant. Some of the track lighting is screwed to the walls such that they shine in the eyes of the people sitting at the bar. There are also the kind of kitsch "carriage style" lights that Americans bolt onto their double car garages to irradiate their driveways. Everything that could possibly be wooden is made out of hardwood bought cheap from the Star Ferry Co. when the old ferry was demolished. I was often asked, "What's the theme of this place?" but I don't think anyone knows. It appears to be a non-conscious concoction of German brewhaus post industrial sushi karaoke & swanky American hotel singles bar.

One of the owners had decided to play interior designer. The windows leak, the air-con breaks regularly, the drain in the floor behind the bar is at the high end. It has three floors but no dumb waiter, one women's washroom, two men's, and no kitchen except for a tiny fridge and hot plate. On a "good" day I actually enjoyed running up and down the ceramic tile stairs. On a bad day would feel like tossing my tray at the top, just so I could watch the waterfall of breaking glass; this accidentally happened a couple of times, and the customers loved it. In short, 1998 is somewhat of a design disaster. There are two redeeming features, the larger than life antique wooden Buddha from Indonesia and the wall size Chinese watercolour narrative (which nobody could explain to me); whenever I worked I lit them well, and would gladly balance on a 2X4 twenty feet up so I could place flowers on either side of the Buddha's head.

Lan Kwai Fong in 1991

The steep little street, Lan Kwai Fong, and the area of adjacent streets so named is infamous. An "important" businessman who interviewed Tim for a career at Chase Manhattan said he "wouldn't go near it because of all the queers". The cobbled street isn't wide enough for a dump truck, and is lined high on either side with multi-level bars and night clubs. Because of the aircon drip, the narrow side walks are used only for sandwich boards and potted plants. At the top of the street is the other Maddogs, "Maddogs, Central". "HK Baguette" is a fast food joint that bakes it's own baguettes. "Scotties" is like an undergrade pub for ex-pats and "California" properly belongs in Miami Airport. There's also the "Jazz Club", "The Cactus Club" and some Japanese Disco/Karaoke bar. Above the facades of the clubs are their neon signs which turn the night sky into a prismo-electric day. Above the signs are the remainder of the 14 storey concrete buildings, with white flaking paint and algae, plumbing and bamboo scaffolding. Next door to 1998 is the infamous Post 97 Bar where Hong Kong's rich guilo trendies hang out. "97"s has expanded to a Mexican bead and mosaic style "Mecca 97", and an acid house club called "Nation" which has since closed because there were altogether too many fights.

"Post 97", in 1991

Saturday night after work, Herbert and I went to Nation. The furniture had all been designed in eccentric shapes and fluorescent colours by a local ex-pat. The walls were covered with colour swirls and broken mirror mosaics. I got hot dancing and took my shirt off, and a couple of other boys did the same. The bouncer asked us to put our shirts back on, "This IS a dance club you know!"

"Jeez." I said. "Where I come from that's exactly where we're supposed to dance, get hot, and take our shirts off."

"This is Hong Kong." I couldn't argue with that. The streets are littered with kiosks that sell cigarettes and wank mags for straight men, bare boobs for their bliss, and Wan Chai slithers with female burlesque. Male skin remains a strict taboo despite the heat; far too degrading to be accepted even in an acid house dance club. Only male construction workers and female table dancers in Wan Chai are licensed to go topless.

Herbert introduced me to his friend Debbie, a lively young woman with long black hair and bright red lipstick. I thought she was from New Zealand by her accent, but she's actually from Germany. Apparently when she first arrived in Hong Kong in '83, she couldn't speak a word of English. Herbert had befriended her, and they used to hang out together. Apparently Herbert, just 16 then, had a girlfriend who got very jealous of Debbie. Herbs had put some bright red lipstick in his car so his girlfriend would find it and think that he was having an affair. Later, Debbie had been candid with Herbs and told him she suspected that what he really needed was some dick. Herbert had been petrified by this statement and didn't talk with Debbie for two weeks. Then he tried it, liked it, and realized that Debbie was right.

It was already getting light but the Star Ferry and MTR would not be running for another hour, so Debbie and her flatmate Iris invited me to stay with them in Wan Chai. I accepted the offer, but Debbie took off down Lan Kwai Fong with some young chap who turned her crank, they turned a corner and vanished. I walked to Ice House Street with Iris and her friend Amy who was visiting from New York's Lower East Side. We perched ourselves on the rail which held the pedestrians off the road, and waited for a cab. The first car to drive our way was a brand new black SAAB convertible. I stuck out my thumb like a hitchhiker, out of silliness, and the car stopped. It was being driven by one of the lads who had had their shirts off, one of Hong Kong's rich kids with rich British business parents. The rich in Hong Kong are absurdly rich, because the income tax only goes as high as 14% and there is no other tax. He raced us over the ramps and between the glass skyscrapers of Central, the tops of which were already glistening in the morning sun. We drove fast because the road was as clear as the morning air. For a moment I felt like I owned Hong Kong, and it felt wonderful.

To stay in Debbie and Iris' apartment, as a welcome guest in someone's private space, felt good too. They had found a little red plywood shrine in the garbage, but had housed their stereo in it rather than leaving offerings of fruit and incense for their ancestors. What reverberations that might have left in the spirit world I don't know. Iris and Amy couldn't sleep because they were still tripping on LSD, so they went to the waterfront to watch the Tai Chi and come down. It had been a long time since I'd been in a private space of any kind and I slept very well on a comfortable king sized mattress. I especially enjoyed taking a long warm shower, unlike the hostel where I'd have to hurry out of a cold shower so the next Jet Trash could have their turn. Iris and Amy returned before I left. They were polite, but I sensed that they didn't trust me. I was bothered by their suspicion, but in retrospect I understand. Hong Kong, like the Lower East Side, is not the kind of place where you trust people you don't really know. They also knew something about Herbert that I didn't. Herbert had mentioned that he had had a brief flirtation with heroin when he was studying in Switzerland, but in truth it was more of a painful and reoccurring affair, so in connection to him I was justifiably suspect.

I walked through the winding part of Wan Chi Road from Debbie and Iris' to Wan Chai station. People plugged the narrow market street, inspecting the aquariums full of edible marine life, plastic broomsticks, carts of fruits and vegetables, and card tables set up on the side walk next to a skyscraper construction site, served from portable gas vendors. Fish, rice, and MonoSodium Glutamate are Hong Kong's principal staples. Among the delicacies of the table are crabs, lobsters, shrimps, oysters, sharks' fins and also many varieties of the finny tribe. The squid may have been identical to those which swam hundreds of millions of years ago and the Chinese have eaten them for thousands, but the electronic scales were brand new. The aftermath of the 20th century's tidal wave of cultures which swept over the entire surface of this planet is nowhere more obvious than on Wan Chi Road.

I stopped for an almond cookie and tea at a little tea shop which was dominated by five enormous and elaborately painted china urns, each brimming with a different hot tea. According to Chinese mythology, Ta Mo once fell asleep while meditating, and upon awakening he chopped off his eyelids so that it would never happen again. The lids fell to the ground and sprouted, producing the first tea plants, which have since been emblems of ever lasting wakefulness. The best tea is grown high in mountains where the fogs and snow are believed to give a better flavour to the leaves. I was then transported via Central and under the harbour to Tsimshatsui by a stainless steel air conditioned train.

Peak view at night

Herbert and I enjoyed one another's company. He had grown up in Hong Kong and had studied hotel management in Switzerland. He lived with his father, stepmother, younger stepbrother, and a number of big dogs in a mansion on the south side of the island. He had the sixth floor to himself. The whitewashed concrete house was built twenty-five years ago, old by Hong Kong standards, and very large.

Herbie and I kindled a romance whenever we could find enough time and a place to make it burn. His father knew of his preference for men, had given strict instructions not to bring any "boys" to the house. I, being mere Jet Trash, had only an exposed bunk at a hostel on the Kowloon side of the harbour to my name, so we found alternate locations. Once, late at night, we went to a deserted public beach during a lightning storm. Another time we went up to the Peak Trail and intentionally missed the last tram back down. At night the Peak views are equally spectacular because, despite all its problems with three standards for sockets and plugs which never fit, Hong Kong loves to waste electricity. Hong Kong gets its juice from oil generators, disgusting, but a big improvement over coal which was all they had before. We had to take the #15 bus to get down. The bus is half the price of the tram, twice as exciting, and takes ten times as long. We sat at the front of the top deck and slid the windscreen wide open. The trees just missed our heads, and when the bus neared Central, the fluorescent and neon monsters cleared the roof by inches. It is a turbulent ride around the steep electrocardiographic bends, and for all their seasoning the drivers still slow when a bus comes the other way.

A few times Herbs and I were "bad" and slept together at his parents mansion. Herbert and I had to be very quiet until we got to his floor, and in the morning I'd have to get smuggled out unnoticed. It was like a James Bond movie. We'd got past all 6 floors and landings then Herbs let me out the main entrance. If Mr. Busch had caught me I'm sure I would have had a heart attack. I stood flat against the outside of the door where I couldn't be seen from any of the windows, as Herbie went though the kitchen and out into the courtyard. He pacified the doggies, opened the main gate with his cardkey, checked the windows and gave me the "all clear" sign. I made a dash for it. Once behind the garden wall, I was safe. We really needed a place of our own. I've never had to have a secret relationship before or since and, now that the novelty has tarnished, I hope I'll never feel obliged to have one again.

Once, we slept in until after his family had left. Herbie prepared eggs and toast for me, but he himself drank only coffee. Apartment adds were placed conspicuously on the breakfast table. Herbert's father had clipped them from the South China Morning Post for Herbert to consider. The family returned too soon and I was introduced to them. His father, a real estate tycoon, was reluctant to shake my hand. His stepmother exclaimed, "I felt like a Filipino having to clean out my own boat this morning". And the Filipino housekeepers made themselves scarce.

Herbert's father is as curt as a bulldog, and isn't a happy man. I suspected that Herbie isn't all his father hoped he'd be. I thought Herbie was a good deal more than his father could imagine. I thought Mr. Busch had a mind as closed as the lid of a buried coffin. He's lived in Hong Kong for over 20 years, is now married to a Chinese woman, but can't speak a single word of Cantonese. I rest my case.

At work you would never know that Herbie and I had a thing going unless you caught a glimpse of a good-bye kiss. It was no secret; I was just too busy being a waiter, and he a manager, to have time squeeze words in edgewise let alone flirt. The bar tender and assistant manager, Jackson, was a perpetually frightened little Chinese man who warned us that the owners might "find out" if we weren't more careful. But the owners knew. I think old Mr. Kung was gay himself; I worked with my sleaves rolled up past the elbows and Kung sometimes reached out and ran his paw over my guilo arm hair, saying something, no doubt crude, in Mandarin.

Debbie came to work at 1998 and her dynamic presence did something to liven the place up. She was a good person to work with; with her I could laugh at the shortcomings of the joint rather than getting frustrated with them. One night she discovered that the Hoffbraü was a year past the expiry date stamped on the bottles and cans, and we nearly died laughing on the floor behind the bar. Herbert seemed to be suffering from the long hours he put in, and rarely mustered a laugh or smile to trade.

1998 was closed on Sundays. I had been working fourteen hour shifts for two weeks and Herbie had been in very little, so I gave him a call and we agreed to meet by the Star Ferry terminal on the Hong Kong side. The day was clear and less humid than most, and while crossing the Harbour I thought how lucky I was to have met him.

The area surrounding the Star Ferry terminal, the other piers and promenades, were far more crowded than on weekdays. The Filipino maids had Sundays off and thousands would converge by the water at Central, like a giant settlement, to sit and talk. For lack of park benches, they had brought pieces of cardboard with them and made circular camps on the ground. They brought food to share, magazines to trade, and a few brought radios to entertain. They were all young women and they all wore their best clothes for the occasion. They left neat paths between them so that pedestrians could pass unhindered, and left no trash behind at the end of the afternoon when they all returned to their respective employers to meet their curfews.

Herbert arrived in his cool french shirt that buttons down the back and his red and gold deco tie. Great beads of sweat had formed on his face, and although it was common to perspire in Hong Kong, I'd never seen Herbert so wet. We walked to the end of the pier and I asked him what he would like to do.

"I don't know. What do you want to do?" He did not look well, his eyebrows had drooped. Some clouds were blowing over from the Peak. If the clouds were yellow there would be prosperity, if black, floods, and when they were red, a calamity could be expected.

"I don't know, do you want to get something to eat?"

"No. No, thank you." We sat near the water. Boats: enormous tankers to tiny junks, were puttering hither and thither across the harbour, only just missing one another, business as usual.

"Do you want to walk around the Peak?"

"No."

"Well let's think. Boredom is only a lack of imagination. We could go to Kowloon and take photographs... hike along Bowen's trail... see a lousy Chinese movie... take a ferry to Lantau or Cheung Chau and make sand castles... explore and photograph Kowloon City before they tear it down, buy chalk and draw pictures on the side walk... visit a Buddhist temple... raise money for the flood victims in China... interview people about the takeover in '97..."

Herbert was crying. He dropped his cigarette.

"...apply for jobs somewhere else..."

He looked up and tried to force a smile.

I know, we could find a cool apartment in Lan Kwai Fong or Wan Chi... What do you want to do?... There must be something."

His tears were the tears of a grown man in pain. "I have to tell you something."

"What?" People were walking around us with their Armani suits and semi- highs, rags and push carts.

"I do want something. All I need is some heroin."

I noticed that the clouds were getting a bit pink on the edges. "I thought you'd quit over a year ago."

"I lied, I'm back on it."

"When did you start again?"

"Since before I met you. That is why I can't get a place with you and Tim. I don't have any money... You will keep it a secret, won't you? If Mr. Kung ever found out I would lose my job." He had been injecting himself three times daily. One in the morning to get him going, one at lunch, and one in the evening. His evening fix was the only one he could relax and enjoy at all. The other two barely held him together.

"You need to go to hospital."

"I can't afford to."

"You can't afford not to."

"I need methadone. It's pointless to try without methadone. I know a doctor I can see first thing in the morning. I want you to meet my analyst too, I have an appointment thursday, he wants to meet you. I know it is a lot to ask. I understand if you don't want to get involved."

"No it isn't. Whatever you do, don't blame yourself."

"Can you lend me some money?"

I flatly refused.

"I just need a couple of hits to tie me over until morning. Then I can get the treatment I need."

"Heroin is the cause, not the cure." But my words, however true, couldn't help. Herbert stood and stumbled to the railing. His sweat, bile and tears fell into Victoria Harbour and mixed with the petrochemical soup water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and wiped his hand on his trousers. "I just need to make it through to the morning, it's too dangerous to quit cold turkey with no methadone." He was in severe pain. "All I need is one hit, I can take half now and half around midnight. It will be hard, but I think I can make it through with only that."

I was suffering the pain of watching a friend in pain. The public passed by, oblivious. The struggle in my conscience was on. Even in the face of great sadness and trouble I harbour a happiness that perseveres and more often than not overcomes, but Herbert had lost his. We spent hours at the end of the pier as pink and grey clouds rolled in from the South China Sea. We were talking in pathetic circles, helpless. I couldn't leave him, there was nowhere he could go, and nowhere I could take him. I could feel the misery he was in, and when I couldn't suffer it any longer I agreed to go with him to Wan Chi and spot him $200-HK.

It was dusk when we got to the Seven-Eleven in Wan Chi, just outside the metro station. I handed Herbie the bills and waited. He was back in ninety seconds with a small segment of a McDonald's straw melted shut at both ends. He was shaking. We walked across Hennessy road to a shopping plaza. He pinched a couple of paper serviettes from the sushi restaurant and disappeared just off the service stairs into a public toilet. I waited for some time, then went in after him. He was sitting on a toilet with a needle in his arm, making his long scar a little longer. He wanted me to watch, but I closed the cubicle door, and leaned against it. He said it felt like a warm wave enveloping him. The "cure" was instant, and he became the same cheerful Herbie I had first met.

We walked to a place he wanted to show me, a graveyard beside the highway that runs alongside Happy Valley. We sat there and let it get dark. He promised he would quit. "It sounds stupid, but you're the first person I ever promised." I hoped more than anything that everything was going to be alright.

After a long while he said there was still another problem, his job was at stake. He had "borrowed" money from petty cash, and the accountant was going to look at it the next day. He needed to borrow $1,200-HK just for a few hours, just so she could see it, then he could give it back to me when I came in to work. I had to decide how much credit to give his soul. At ten o'clock Monday morning we met by the fountain in the Landmark Place plaza. I loaned him the money and walked with him to '98.

When I came in to work that night Herbs was a mess, sweating and shivering. He had been drinking and popping Rohipnols. He slurred that it dulled the pain, that the Methadone wasn't enough, then spilt his drink. I told him he had to go home, to say he had a fever, or Mr. Kung would start asking questions. "I just need to add these figures up." He tried to add them up for an hour but couldn't, I did it for him in a minute.

The accountant hadn't finished with the petty cash yet, but would be "tomorrow". Tuesday he paid back $400-HK, but the balance was forthcoming "tomorrow". The story was "tomorrow" for a full week. "I'll make it up to you" was broken promise on a junkie's lips. By friday he had completely deteriorated and was taken to hospital. I telephoned and asked when I could visit, but the nurse said he didn't want to see anyone. The lie was that he had some rare and possibly contagious tropical infection. The following Monday all was out. Herbert was fired and Jackson was delighted because it meant that he could play manager. Sunday night Herbs had sneaked out of the hospital and had attempted to break into 1998, but someone had seen him and called the police. Mr. Kung had gone to the police station paid his bail. Apparently Kung had known about Herbert's drug problem, but had promised to keep it secret so long as Herbs promised to keep working and keep getting help. Herbert was no more than a sunk junk.

I found out about the accountant; she didn't even exist. All the staff had secretly loaned Herbert money in response to various convincing lies, including Helena, Mr. Kung's Daughter. Everyone who knew of his addiction had promised to keep it secret from everyone else. Herbert always gave us our pay on time and in cash, so we thought him trustworthy. The God of the Kitchen, or Stove King, watches and remembers the movements of every member of the household. Once a year he ascends to heaven to make his report, but if a sweet chunk of fat is left for him, his mouth will be too full to speak.

To say heroin is dangerous is an understatement akin to calling a nuclear blast a nuisance, yet in Hong Kong the junk is as common as tap water. "They say you can't get hooked if you just try it once." Then they snort more because they obviously didn't get hooked the first time - and again because they've fallen in love with the instant euphoria which short circuits every remaining nerve and fibre that makes them human. Ch'ang O, who stole the Elixir of Life, was transformed into a three-legged toad. The toad was then captured by a string of cash. There is nothing so unbelievably tragic. I deliberated the case of Herbert The Living Disaster until my head throbbed, but in the emptiness between a noble hope and a wretched reality there was no answer.

With the express purpose to get drunk and forget everything, Tim and I went to the supermarket and bought an enormous bottle of Gordon's Gin, a shelf's worth of Canada Dry Tonic, a jumbo bag of ice and another of limes. We went up to the roof of the Victoria Hostel where we normally hung our laundry, and some old man lived with his potted flowers under a few scraps of sheet metal. We found a corner of the roof and a couple of broken chairs which we claimed for ourselves and I proceeded to chop the limes. That was the last of the night I can remember myself.

According to Tim I went on a wild rampage, running through the fountain by the Tsimshatsui clock tower with almost nothing on, and making a game of jumping up and hitting as many overhead electric signs as I could with my fist. Tim thought I would surely be arrested, but I don't think even the police would have wanted to get near me. Eventually Tim lost me altogether, but according to the accounts of others, I had somehow got to Central where I had slurred at everyone at 1998. At Nation '97 I had recklessly taken it upon myself to help break up a fight between a stupid or suicidal Guilo and a half dozen drunk Chinese boys who must have watched too many Kung Fu movies. At Post '97 I was seen awarding a feather boa (?!) to Greg, "for being man enough to be the only man to do drag shows in Hong Kong." I also named his cabaret "Cabaret Casati" after the Marchesa Casati who was equally outrageous in her time, and the name stuck. Eventually I must have sneaked into YYs from the back alley, because I vaguely remember entering the club from the DJ booth. Apparently the DJ was instrumental in getting me into a cab and back to the Hostel where Karen tucked me in, but I don't remember a thing myself; all this was pieced together later like a puzzle. Tim said he was sorry that I had gone berserk because he had been looking looked forward to a chummy drunken evening together. I was sorry too; for the same reason - but I suppose a man can't do everything in one night.

Hennessy Road, Wan Chai.  Tim with groceries.

There are more than a hundred tiny islands but only a few are inhabited. On less than a thousand Km3 more than 5 million people are fighting busses fighting Mercadies fighting trams fighting more people fighting cars fighting taxis fighting the small men who's job it is to slowly push large garbage carts up the steep cobbled inclines of Lan Kwai Fong, or frantically run backwards in front of the laden carts of garbage so as to break their downward momentum. Imagine if you can the window displays of gold and jade - guarded by men with semi-automatic rifles - beds on the street made of dirty cardboard and newspapers - superstitions, supertankers, chop sticks, construction cranes, and microwaves all thrown into a blender and left on "liquify". But all that was outside, because Tim rented a room with a door we could shut.

A small collection of Jet Trash were looking for someone to take a vacant room in the flat they were renting on the top floor of "Central Mansions" on Jaffe Road, and we jumped at the opportunity. Apart from having some private space, we were also on Hong Kong Island proper and so spent much less time and money crossing the harbour. The flat was suitable enough, with dilapidated furniture, three air-cons, a television, and wall paintings of fluorescent little stick men from a stencil. Tim and I dubbed it the acid house flat, and no doubt it is still there and full of some new combination of Jet Trash. A long forgotten tower of bamboo scaffolding rotted just outside our three foot square window in the three food square air well. The air-con gurgled in the background and the sounds of construction and domestic life filtered through the walls.

Jaffe Road

The door led out to an exposed walkway around a central courtyard/dump ten floors below. There were twelve metal doors along the walkway on our floor, each with a hinged set of heavy metal bars, but ours was the only without a corresponding tin can for incense. Wires filled the central space like spaghetti fills a bowl, en route from 240 apartments to an aluminum forest of TV antennae on the roof. Dripping laundry and dripping air-cons hung out from the apartments, and green slime clung to the walls and crept into the many cracks of the concrete. Opportunistic plants had taken root in some of the cracks, flowers and weeds both. One of the three walls that defined the central courtyard was actually a side of the World Trade Centre. If I craned my neck back I could look up past the fifty floors of offices to one of the modern Gods which preside over Hong Kong. The red neon letters spanned the width of the top three floors and spelled "SHARP" for all of the harbour, Kowloon side, and incoming aircraft to read. The roof was hot, hotter than the Sahara, but two families had resourcefully erected shacks up there out of concrete blocks and sheet metal. At its best Hong Kong is not a place suitable for children, and our roof seemed like an awful place for small children to grow up, but they played up there as well as any children play; even those who fall between the cracks have to take root.

It occurred to me that, had the tenants been better organized, they could have collectively purchased a single satellite dish. They'd be receiving 40 channels instead of 4, for less than they had spent on their aluminum forest. But such a plan requires a corporate tradition which is still foreign to the Chinese. Within the family unit the Chinese share everything, hence the great number of family businesses; but they are not familiar with sharing much outside. In this way the Chinese are like the Chow-Chow, which adores every member of his household but has not the slightest use for strangers. According to the gossip Tim heard while networking, this Chow-Chow characteristic is causing chaos in corporate structures. As westerners return home in anticipation of the 1997 takeover, corporate training is grinding to a halt. Apparently the Chinese refuse to train people below them on the corporate ladder, for fear of losing their privilege. Nobody wants the fate of the Kung-Fu master who teaches one too many lessons, and so ceases to be the master. The Chinese are as reluctant to share information vital to their corporations, as they are to share their television signal.

We, like everyone else, received the four channels broadcast in Hong Kong. Two were English, and two Cantonese. Tim and I would watch the Hong Kong news which never failed to entertain. In one item, an old lady had hobbled out her door to light incense for the earth god, when a 40Kg bag of cement fell on her head. With so many high rises, open windows, construction sites and pedestrians, falling objects are the number one cause of premature death in Hong Kong. A man was eating at a card table on the side walk, at one of Hong Kong's many transient outdoor "restaurants", when a huge ceramic flower pot full of earth landed squarely on his head. Only rarely can the police positively identify which apartment the trash, bottles, gas cylinders, or refrigerators fell from. A televised public message with a predictable end, cuts back and forth between a playground of children and a big red television free-falling from the top of a building. There's even a Hong Kong video game, in which a little man has to avoid falling objects, but always gets squashed in the end.

One old lady went for her regular morning swim like many people in Hong Kong do. She had swum every morning for 73 years but one morning she was eaten by a shark, and so all the beaches were closed for the summer. It was the pollution and floating garbage that kept me out of the water, not the shark. The shark was Hong Kong's second biggest news story while I was there. The incident was followed by numerous shark sightings, until the BCC scandal struck and the poor shark was preempted.

We shared the Acid House Flat with three young British men who proved to be both upstanding and easy-going. One was an apprentice to a lawyer, another inspected workmanship on construction sites, and a third sold jam jars full of Thai hashish oil to dealers. The common room was always sticky with hash oil and the smell of it was imbedded in the carpet and apholstery. Tim and I had an open invitation to smoke up as much as we wanted but neither of us were interested, and we still had the better part of our bottle of Gin besides. The five of us actually saw very little of one another because we all had exhausting lives outside of the flat.

For Tim and I it was the first time either of us had been able to unpack our bags. There was no telephone and the bathroom sink was missing, but our room had a door and when shut it defined our space. This small feature seemed wonderful to us. We had somewhere to hang our clothes and somewhere to hide. I believe we even got so bold as to call it "home" once or twice.

At 1998, Jackson was picking on the staff like a nervous and confused secretary might pick at the keys of a computer. He hired every female who asked for a job, initiated elaborate and impractical systems for controlling stock, and none of his totals would balance at the end of the night. His accusing finger pointed at each of us until Debbie pointed out that he had forgotten to add in the credit card sales. As the Chinese say, "The bat flies with its head down because its brain is so heavy". Losing face is difficult for the best of us, but for the Chinese it is especially perplexing. Chinese etiquette relieves people from having to admit that they are wrong or do not know something; Chinese "respect" demands that you make elaborate excuses, if necessary, to spare your seniors or whoever is above you on whatever god forsaken ladder you might find yourself on, from losing face. The lamb is the symbol of piety because it always kneels respectfully when taking its mother's milk. I am neither pious nor do I kneel for anyone - milk or no milk. At first I would argue with Jackson, but found that I could get my job done better if he were simply ignored. Debbie had a word with Mr. Kung and Mr.Kung spoke with the rest of us about Jackson, using his daughter Helena as an interpreter. Eventually Debbie became more of a manager than Jackson, much to Jackson's chagrin.

Mr. Kung hired Letah, a Filipino maid, to help with the cleaning and dishes. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Filipino means "domestic helper". Letah was good at doing dishes, but was less useful than she could have made herself because she was far too timid to take any kind of initiative. The whole concept of an underclass gives me the heebie geebies. I'm all for appliances, but not human appliances. I'm all for domestic help, but Letah would think she had done something terribly wrong when I said good-morning to her. Her case was typical, she had family at home that needed support but she was on her six week "trial period" during which she received food and a bed but no pay. Despite Debbie's and my attempts to cheer her, she felt very lonely and knew that she wasn't working out. After a month she was sent, probably penniless, back to the Philippines.

On thursday July 13th I served a top floor table of three young Chinese women, two Chinese businessmen, and one guilo. I know the exact date because I still have their bill. All six were dressed a la yuppie and played loud party games which required round after round of frozen margaritas. I raced down and up the six flights with their melting margaritas; I even did Pee Wee Herman's Tequila dance for them. They had a fabulous time running up a $2000 bill, then while I was downstairs adding it up, they ran off without paying.

Someone had overheard them saying that they were going to "JJ's" at the Regency in Wan Chi, so Jackson and I took a cab there. The Regency was a colossal American Hotel, and JJ's was a never ending warren of crowded rooms and stairwells, dance floors and elevators. I searched the faces of all 2,387 yuppies, but couldn't find any of the serpentine six. I phoned 1998, but as expected, nobody had returned with apologies to pay. Jackson and I had to wait for a taxi and return empty handed. At the top of Lan Kwai Fong I spotted the guilo in front of Maddogs and yelled "STOP THE CAB!" I leapt out and Jackson paid the driver. "Excuse me sir, could you please pay your bill, NOW."

"This isn't my bill."

"Perhaps you'd like to explain that to the cop over there?" I pointed to the officer on the corner.

"No, no, it's the other guy you want, Paul Pheebe. That's who should pay. I'll give you his number at work."

"Oh no no no no. You order, you drink, you pay. You pay now or you go to prison now... you get to choose."

One of the Chinese girls was staggering beside him, and glaring at him as hard as a person who is blind drunk can glare. "Of cose we have to pay! Its owe billah... hic... I thought you say you pay it aleadyah?"

"Well I'm not paying it. Tough." He was being a real asshole.

"Well then you go to prison."

"But... we got to hic pay..." I wonder if she can remember anything from that night.

"Why don't you pay then," he said to her, "com'on... be my guest..." He was a real sleaze.

"I don't, hic, know about that..." She was moving further away.

"Here comes the guy you want!"

Paul Pheebe, one of the two Chinese businessmen, came staggering up Lan Kwai Fong, too drunk to see me. They began to argue, "I thought you paid" la la la, and Paul Pheebe was fumbling nervously with his stunning collection of plastic charge cards in a leather case. There is a legend of the money tree, which has branches of strings of cash and fruit of ingots of gold, which may be had simply by shaking the tree. I reached into Mr. Pheebe's case and took the gold card. Jackson couldn't know why I was walking away from them so happily, and he certainly didn't understand why they were so faithfully following me. I felt like the Pied Piper walking down Lan Kwai Fong, pushing though the groups of people and past the thumping clubs. At 1998 I made my victorious entrance with Paul Pheebe's Gold AmEx Card in hand. I approved the number through the modem and checked the expiry date, savouring the slow ritual. Paul Pheebe signed but didn't leave a penny tip, not even out of embarrassment. I didn't care because I was the hero, and got to yell at them as they left with their tails between their legs, "Don't you ever EVER come back in here!" Then I yelled at them up the street, at the top of my lungs and for everyone to hear, "AND IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU, DON'T EVER SHOW YOUR FACES ON LAN KWAI FONG AGAIN!" They lost face.

The next night I came in to find that Debbie posted the hours for the following week, she had given herself good hours but had given me less than half of my usual forty-five... This after she had promised me as many as I wanted. At first I gave 1998 the benefit of the doubt and said, "If Jackson hadn't hired so many waitresses we wouldn't be so badly over staffed." But Debbie refused to admit that we were overstaffed. "We're either overstaffed or under houred," I said, "It's one or the other. You get to choose." Apparently Mr. Kung wanted the waitresses to have my hours because, to be blunt, they have tits and I guess tits is supposed to attract more customers. My hours had been long but my meagre wage added up. I couldn't afford to work for only 20 hours a week, and it was too late in the summer for me to find another job. It just goes to show, and it showed me once again, that business as usual in Hong Kong is usually crooked business.

After that initial shock the night only got worse. I should have been congratulated for arresting the scamsters and getting them back to pay their bill, but Lucy chewed me out for not keeping my eyes more firmly glued to my tables. Then Debbie refused to pour a couple of pints of Carlsburg for me because the bar ran out of the special "Carlsburg" pint glasses, "Bring some down from upstairs and I can pour them."

"Just use the other pint glasses, Debbie."

"I can't. That would be very unprofessional."

"What?! Who cares if it doesn't say "Carlsburg" on the glass. It's even more unprofessional to make my customers wait."

"I bet I can find some empty glasses upstairs." She ducked under the end of the bar to "go look." And so my customers had to wait, complained, and didn't leave a tip.

Everyone was on my case. I put on a favourite tape to help me keep my nerve, then Phil the bar tender took it off before the end of the first song and put on grating elevator music. Jackson mixed up the captain orders on my floor and both tables wanted their bills at the same time. What's worse, I had foreseen the problem and had asked Jackson to come up and sort his mess out himself, which he didn't. I really think he might have done it on purpose to make me look bad.

Eventually we got a new manager, his name was Ben. With him came Mandy who worked as a waitress. They were just married two weeks ago. Ben was very competent, hard working, and knew exactly what the situation was at all times. Mandy was quiet and adept. He was in complete control of all of his actions. She told me that being married was fine, but their first two weeks living together had been difficult. He always knew the right thing to do, but unfortunately only did it when it was convenient for him; and when he was caught doing something wrong on purpose, he showed no remorse. The wolf, of which there are two varieties in China, is an emblem of cupidity and greed.

On saturday August 3rd I began my split shift at 11:00 am. I had only an hour off after lunch to have my hair cut outdoors by a barber with little more than a chair, a mirror, and an outlet to his name. We were short staffed that evening and I had the top floor to look after, dishes to wash from a dinner party on the mid floor, as well as having to run up and down to the ground floor for every order and bill, peanuts and ice. I was doing the job of more than two people.

My work was shabby because I had so much of it to do, and my tips were therefore even more meagre than usual. It is usual for bars and restaurants in Hong Kong to automatically add a "10% Service Charge" at the end of the bill. Naive customers therefore believe the drinks are 10% cheaper than they really are, and that their waiter's tip is tastelessly included in the bill. In reality the service staff never sees a penny of the 10% Fraud. To this day I have not received my tips from the credit card slips, and I doubt that many Hong Kong service staff ever do. In all the time I worked at 1998 only three of the more aware customers, two Americans and one Canadian, payed their bills with AmEx but left a cash tip; to them I was grateful not so much for the coin but for the reassurance that civility, however rare, was something more than just a concept.

I single handedly broke all sales records that night. Such mundane feats never make the news but are feats nonetheless. At 2:30 am the ground and mid floor had died down to a few customers, while my top floor remained rife. There is a legend of a man, Wo Kang, who was banished to the moon and condemned to the task of cutting down the cassia-tree which grows there; but as fast as he hews out a chip, another grows in its place, and Wu Kang remains there, working away at his endless task. I told Ben that I really couldn't take any more, that I couldn't physically continue. I suggested that I help clean up downstairs if he could find someone to relieve me. At 3:00 am I could barely see or hear. At 3:25 I made out the last two bills and took the credit cards, but on my way down the six flights my legs gave out from under me, and I collapsed from exhaustion on a landing. I picked myself up and got to the ground floor where Mandy was having her staff drink, Jackson was figuring out the mountain of bills, and Phil was engaged in a peanut war with his friends. I asked Phil if he could please run the cards through and take the slips back upstairs for the customers to sign. Phil objected, not realizing how severely exhausted I was. I told him that he had to because I could not.

I signed out at 3:30 and passed out on the curb for a few minutes. I might have been there until morning if it weren't for the aircon drip that soaked my shirt with dirty water. I had not claimed my share of the tip pool that had been given to me by the customers in good faith, and found out later that Ben couldn't resist the smallness of pocketing it himself. Not having enough for cab fare, I had to stumble down to the all night bus stop on Queens Road Central.

There was a young blond Danish couple also waiting for the bus, but they were happy. Apparently they had been broke, but she pan handled by the Star Ferry terminal and made $2,500 HK in less than two hours... a pretty blond guilo chick in need. The Chinese must think that "Tipping" is a city in China, unless of course you beg on the street and have pretty blond hair and tits. I told them I really felt like throwing empty wine bottles over pavement so I could hear them smash. They didn't want to talk with me after I said that.

To walk back to the acid house flat I had to get off near Jaffe Rd., at the last stop before the Harbour Tunnel, but I missed my stop. I got off at the first stop on the Kowloon side and had to cross the eight lane highway to catch a bus in the other direction. Between the fourth and fifth lane it began to rain, and I let out an angry primal yell that made my own hair stand on end. I was angry with those uncivilized bastards who add up together to constitute Hong Kong. I swear, you can't believe a single word you hear in that city, its cornerstones are lies and cheating, luck and coinage. The yell was loud, long and it didn't come from my lungs, it tore its way out of my heart and shocked my brain, and when it was over it "took the edge off". It began to rain and I waited for half an hour before a bus came the other way to take me back to the Hong Kong side. When the bus stopped I was waiting 100 meters from the mark, but I would never have predicted what ensued. The bus driver, who is probably working another late night shift for little thanks while I write this and had no doubt endured his share of Triad threats that night, actually waited patiently for me to run up and get in. It was the nicest thing anyone had done for me all night.

Wan Chai at night, busses.

When Tim woke me It was still raining, and initially I didn't want to get out of bed. Then Tim reminded me that it was Sunday. SUNDAY! My day off! Tim and I went to Lantau island as we had planned. We took the street tram to Central and caught the Lantau Ferry. We cruised out into the harbour and moved steadily away from Hong Kong Island, away from the stinking city... away until it couldn't be seen through the silver screen of rain. I read the course pros of Henry Miller very loudly for Tim to hear, and anyone else within earshot, until the rain stopped and Lantau came into view.

We hiked past the long curved beach and washed up garbage, past the hotels, swimmers, vendors, and up to the bare green hills. We hiked and sat on rocks, talked and watched a lazy storm blow past. We saw some graves that were set into the side of the hill, and no more than three concrete huts each nestled in their own pockets of greenery. A simple private life, compared to the hell of living in Central Mansions at Causeway Bay, where the most pleasant thing is the ice cold Coca Cola at the Seven Eleven.

We hiked around a circuitous route and on the way back came up against a ravine with a good deal of wet vegetation. Tim walked up and around it all but I decided that I'd like to try to whack my way through. Half way I realized my idea was not a good one, but I was damned if I was going to give up. I was lost in a sea of wet grass that grew much higher than my head but I parted, pushed over and pulled my way through. I shouted at Tim to shout back so I could follow his voice until I came out the other side. I was a mess, cut by the sharp blades of vegetation and bits of it stuck to me, but I was happy.

Once back at the beach I stripped to my undies and made use of the cold freshwater shower set up for swimmers. We then sat at a picnic table and split a can of San Maguil beer between us while the sun dried my skin. I was truly unwound. The terror of Hong Kong Island, Herbert and 1998, money and greed, all seemed so remote. Then Tim's pager beeped, it was Chase Manhattan asking him to call. I've never seen him run fast. He found a phone, but only to find out that the position he had applied for was being eliminated. I thought he would be disappointed, but he told me that he was relieved. He missed Toronto, and this news just made a decision to pack it all in and return home easier.

I put my cotton trousers on and we went for dinner on a concrete slab terrace by the sea. I copied the chinese symbols from the menu onto the order book. I had become handy at recognizing food symbols, but I can neither understand nor pronounce a single word. The waitress corrected my "fried" symbol and was back with our fried rice, shrimp and beer. We ate under the plastic canopy and strings of bare light bulbs until it got dark and began to rain. I told Tim that a good meal was my opiate, then he told me about something in yesterdays paper: Apparently a restaurant in Hong Kong had been caught spiking their food with opium poppy heads. Clients kept coming back and would pay any price, the innocent diners had no way of knowing why any other food failed to satisfy.

We bought ice cream cones from a Seven Eleven that had been manufactured and packaged Tokyo, and they weren't bad considering how far they had come, only to be eaten. The rain let up so we sat on the bollards by the water and speculated as to the adversities fish must face in the South China Sea. Then it came again... cats and dogs this time... so we took cover at the ferry dock and listened to the thunder of rain from under a tin roof. We caught the nine o'clock ferry back to Central, and the narrow street tram back to Causeway Bay.

* * * *

Tim went directly to the acid house flat, but I went to the Seven Eleven to pick up some milk and use the public phone to call Herbert. Herbert's father answered and said that Herbs was on sleeping pills. I told him that I hoped the best for Herbert at which he roared, "HERBERT NEEDS SUPPORT" and hung up. I don't know what Herbert might have told him about me, but I doubt it was true. I can't think about it or I just get angry. A girl wearing a bright red dress and fake smile stood beside an elaborate display of Du Maurier cigarettes, she held out a sample pack with five of the tempting cigs jutting out like fingers. I took one and stared into her eyes, but as she raised her high-class lighter I crushed the little white stick in my fist and let it drop to the floor by her feet.

Addiction is Hong Kong's theme; Hong Kong people are as addicted to money as Herbert is to heroin. They'll lie, cheat, gamble, steal, defraud, pollute, extort, enslave, and neglect - just to get and hoard a bigger money fix. The pervasive insincerity expresses itself in many subtle ways. What is sold in the supermarkets as "Mr. Jucy's Real Orange Juice" is a case in point: it consists of water, sugar, citric acid, and artificial colour. People sell seafood dinners on their little sampans anchored at the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, use the sewage poisoned water to wash their dishes and dump their trash over the stern. The ticket machines in the subway don't make change, the same bag of plums cost twice as much for those who can't haggle in Cantonese, and the saleswoman in a shoe store swore that the plastic shoes were made of leather.

I did find a small fruit store run by two skinny old men who make freshly squeezed juice. Their nameless "store" is no more than the converted mouth of an alley behind Jaffe Road, an old refrigerator, a light bulb, and a well worn electric orange squeezer. To make ends meet, they keep it open day and night. I would buy $10 HK worth of juice when I got home from work, and never failed to appreciate it as a fine taste of both the best and worst of pure free enterprise, squeezed into a single paper cup.

On wednesday August 7th I confronted Ben after my lunch shift, presenting an assumption that he had merely forgotten to give me my share of the tips. Ben's response was simple, "Too bad, you weren't here." I then confronted him with a matter of much greater importance, the fact that my pay cheque was a week late and getting later all the time. Again he did not apologise but merely made an excuse, "I'm sure that you can appreciate the situation that we are having difficulty...." The serpent is emblematic of evil and cunning, and it is said to by very unlucky to injure a snake that has made its home beneath the floor of one's house. I told him that we were both adults and that I knew exactly what the situation was; that the company was holding money that properly belonged to me because of his backward priorities. I told him I would be glad to accept the antique Buddha, which was rumoured to be worth $250,000.00 US, in lieu of my pay.

That same afternoon Mr. Kung's daughter, Helena, personally lent me $1000.00 HK out of the goodness of her heart, "To tie you over, Loveie, until you're better paid." We barely knew each other and she had no substantial reason to trust me with such a sum except, perhaps, for an extraordinary intuition with which a few lucky people are gifted. She also told me that I deserved better work, and that she was sorry I would be returning to Canada so soon.

Tim took photos to try to help me find better work as a model.
 

I had tried to find better work. A common saying is "better to flatter a rich man than to worship the god of wealth." While still at the Hostel I had with Tim's help produced a set of vogue mug shots, complete with my shortest resume ever: Height 6' Waist 30" Weight 150 lbs Green Eyes Age 24 312-0621. I had interviews with a dozen modelling and film extra agencies recommended to me by Jet Trash and guide books, but by the time they called for assignments I had moved to Causeway Bay and didn't have a phone. I had also applied to teach at three English schools. All three were eager to hire me, but they required a standard three month contract and I wasn't going to be in town for that long.

I was explaining this to Helena when Tim Carson, the Jazz keyboardist from the hostel, walked into 1998. He was playing at the Jazz Club across the street, and asked me if I could come and help them figure out their blasted computer. Mario, the Jazz Club manager, hired me as their computer consultant on contract to set their crazy IBM386-sx straight and train their staff. I was also invited to partake in unlimited gin & tonic.

I told Ben that I wouldn't be in for the night shift, and with the money Helena had lent me I went to the Golden Computer Centre to by the required software and manuals. The Golden Computer Centre is a four floor shopping fun house by the Sham Shui Po subway station. It featured a labyrinth of the cheapest IBM compatible computers and accessories on the planet. You can get a 486 with 4 Megs of memory, super VGA, keypad, scanner, sound blaster, and fax modem, all no name Made in Hong Kong for almost nothing. Manuals in Chinese, Japanese, and English are piled high on trestle tables along with diskettes, mouse pads, printer paper, ink cartridges, and every other newfangled gizmo for computer junkies. Copyright-shmopyright: nobody does research or development in Hong Kong, so nobody pays royalties. All the latest commercial programs are pirated on the premises and sold for little more than the price the disks. The building is always buzzing with machines and shoppers comparing prices. I was one of them. I bought everything I needed for the contract and a brand new 286 for myself as a treat.

Kirsten, who would be responsible for the computer and database, was impossible to train because she figured everything out for herself faster than I could explain it. We drank Gin and Tonics and cracked jokes while she worked her way through the new programs. Mario was thrilled that I could get the computer working so fast, and I was thrilled with all the money I made - more than I made in a month as a waiter.

At the bar I met a Dutch man who turned out to be a good friend of the Dutch wing of my family in Holland. Francis was in Hong Kong to close a sale to Chase Manhattan Bank of a Rembrandt he had inherited. I asked him why he didn't keep it for himself, and he said that he would have done so but couldn't afford the insurance.

Kirsten's boyfriend was a crazy black Jazz pianist/singer from New York named Roger. He could play with his hands and feet, belt words out with delicate sensitivity and bowl his audience over with a whisper. He had played in the States but had got himself in trouble in every major city, probably because of the inane jokes and stories he insists on telling between sets. "Cousin" Francis, Kirsten and I watched Roger play. We sat with a couple of gorgeous Cathay Pacific stewardesses who were having a great time strutting around in their uniforms, and having straight men buy them drinks. We stayed until Roger was very drunk and the Club closed.

At the Jazz Club I had laser-printed a nasty invoice for 1998 to pay, and was tanked up with the reckless confidence that gin inspires. The White Tiger, who presides over the Western quadrant of the uranosphere, is the emblem of magisterial dignity, with the courage and fierceness of a soldier. I walked through the air-wall of 1998, and ordered another G & T from Phil. At first Mr. Kung waved me away and told his daughter Helena to tell me to come back "later", so I made a big fuss and got Mr. Kung so angry that he began to bark like a dog. Helena had to stand up and play referee between us. Ben tried to smooth talk me into accepting $25 HK/hour instead of $30. It was time to injure the snake; I called him a petty bourgeois pig and yelled across the bar to Mindy that she should really get a divorce as soon as possible. That got Ben barking too. Helena went upstairs to look for the contract that Jackson said didn't exist and I knew did. I told Ben and Mr. Kung to either pay me what they owed me or suck my dick. That kept them both barking until Helena came back downstairs with the contract which stated clearly that I was to be paid $30+ HK/per hour. Mr. Kung lost face and stomped upstairs. Ben still didn't want to pay me, "None of the other wait staff make that much! I don't care what deals you made with Herbert, you get the standard twenty-five when you're a waiter here!"

"So what." I said. "I can have this joint shut down with ONE PHONE CALL, and you know it!" I was drunk and had no idea what I was talking about. But it worked. My six weeks of outstanding wages were handed to me in full and in cash. Since then I've kicked myself for not trying for the Buddha too. I repaid Helena, shoved the remainder deep into my wallet, spat on Ben, and walked out of 1998 for the last time.

On my way up to Ice House street to catch a cab, I saw Roger at the top of Lan Kwai Fong, surrounded by a large audience. He was stopping all the cars, shouting nonsense at everyone, and pounding on the hoods. Kristin, ran into the scene and tried to calm him. I helped her get him to the side walk, but he was a big man, and still very agitated. Kristin later told me that Roger had just begun to do a little bit of heroin again, but he had nobly told Mario to give her his pay so that it, and he, would be safe. Mario later told me that Roger wanted everyone to know not to lend him money for anything, and had asked to have his bar tab permanently cut off. It is said that Lu-Tung-pin, who is worshipped by the sick, was tempted ten times but overcame each temptation, and with his sword rid the earth of evil monsters for more than four hundred years. His favourite pupil, Han Hsiang-tzu, was the patron saint of musicians who never recognized value in money.

Herbert's father arranged for Herbert to be sent to a clinic in London, but the day before his flight he came to see me. He was a terrible sight. Herbert was shaking, he apologised, always shaking, he shook like a very old man but in the body of a youth.

Tim never found his dream career in Hong Kong. His skills are mostly with fourth generation machines. Only four places used such advanced machines in Hong Kong, and none of the four were hiring. In fact, they were preparing to pull out before '97. Tim decided that it was time for him to pull out of Hong Kong too.  I had my return ticket.  So we invited everyone to a goodbye party.

We hosted the party on the roof below the SHARP god. It was hot up there, even at night, but we had plenty of ice. Tim Carson came with his girlfriend, Karen came with her boyfriend Eddie, our three jolly roommates came up with friends of theirs, and "cousin" Francis came with his boyfriend. Kirsten came, but Roger wasn't well enough yet to go out. There was plenty of wine and cheese, gin and tonic, good humour and best wishes. I could imagine that that Tim and I were already back home in Toronto; it would be backyard and rooftop barbecue season when we returned. I am glad we had that party; it allowed me to leave Hong Kong with some good feelings intact. Taoism teaches that all human beings can live happily if they become as little children, "if we do not enjoy ourselves now, the days and months will have gone." I don't think happiness is as simple as "becoming like little children". We have to grow and we have to be strong. I survived Hong Kong and arrived home stronger.