I am tired and not exactly in the mood to write but I've been meaning to do a post about Hong Kong all week and I think if I don't do it soon I will forget! So this past weekend Cheikh and I went to Hong Kong because we had a three-day weekend and because Dad notified me of a harp concert happening on Sunday. Actually originally I was going to go with my friends Sandy and Steph, but then Cheikh decided he could come, so we were all four going to go and I was thinking it would be really good that way so that it wasn't just me and him alone trying to figure shit out. Also, Steph has a friend that lives in Hong Kong so he was going to find us a place to stay and show us around and stuff. So I did not do any preparation or planning, because I was expecting I would be a passive traveler. But then we got there and the guy had not booked us rooms in the same place, and then Steph and Sandy went out drinking and slept all morning, and the same the next night, so me and Cheikh never actually met up with them. At first this pissed me off, as the whole idea of going was that we would all be together, and the boys could go do something while us girls shopped, etc. But then C and I were doing really well, so I forgot about it and ended up being glad it was just me and him.
So, Friday when we got there the friend took us to a restaurant in a really busy, lively area full of night markets and prostitutes. I have gotten used to seemingly dirty, scary restaurants but this was the dirtiest, smokiest, loudest, most chaotic one yet. Like the kind of place where garbage (bones and shells and napkins and things) go straight on the table, and there may as well not be plates or bowls or cups at all. This doesn't bother me anymore, of course, but while we were eating I was thinking, "If Mom comes to China, I think I should take her to a place like this right away without easing her into it and see what happens." It would be sheer panic and disgust. Hehehehe. Anyway we ate really well and by the time we were done it was close to 11PM, and C and I being the good clean fun loving folks that we are, generally, wanted to just go to our room and sleep.
So the friend and the girls took us to the place that the friend had booked for us, and when we got there, it was like....uh uh. This ain't gonna work. But we didn't really have a choice because it was late and we didn't want to offend the friend, so I sucked it up and dealt. I mean, the place wasn't that bad when I think about it now, but for some reason stuff always seems sketchier when you first get there. Like, dirty places always seem a lot scarier when you first arrive than they actually are. The place was just this apartment owned by an older couple who lived down the hall, and there were a bunch of chopped up rooms with bunk beds and a dirty bathroom. The couple seemed creepy at first but I think they were just wary of us non-Cantonese speaking mixed race couple, and the second night C stayed up and chatted with them for a while and made friends. So they were actually cute. And the room itself wasn't dirty, and it was a good size. The beds were uncomfortable but there weren't any other guests in the other rooms, so we didn't actually have to share the bathroom with anyone. And it was loud at all hours, but the location was great, right in the center of town, and the energy outside felt sort of neat, like we were sleeping in a cocoon with all kinds of crazy stuff happening outside. And I mean I might have felt less comfortable if I had been staying there with another girl, but it's not like some little Chinese dude or the 70-year old innkeeper is going to try to mess with a tall African-looking guy. So in the morning I felt OK about the place and then by Saturday night, I was happy to be there. And it was really cheap considering the size of the room and the location of the place - everybody complains about the price of staying in HK, and a bunch of the other American teachers that went stayed in the famous Chungking mansions and paid more for smaller rooms that they had to walk through crack dens to get to. so...I think we did alright.
By the way, Mom, you remember that book you bought me about the two girls who go backpacking after college and start in China? I read it this summer and it was just about these girls having a terrible terrible time. Well the first place they go is Hong Kong and they stay in the Chungking mansions because their guide book said it was the best deal, but they are horrified by the condition of the rooms and end up paying a lot for a nicer hotel. My friends who stayed there were not horrified, because I think they were expecting it to be nasty, but how crazy that I had read about it. C and I didn't venture up into any of the guesthouses in the building but we went there and I tried to explain to him that I had read about it, and we walked through the bottom level which was all these Indian people with shops and restaurants. This was actually one of the scariest parts of the trip, because you know what? Indian men, and Italian men, and Mexican men, look at women differently than Chinese or American or Northern European men do. This is a generalization obviously but it is mostly true, I think. I have never, not once, felt like a Chinese man was looking at me with any sort of sexual curiosity. Maybe they are but they don't show it. I even smile at Chinese men and receive innocent smiles in return. But walking through Hong Kong, there would be sections of town with certain ethnicities of people and when we walked through a group of Indian guys, I immediately felt uncomfortable and like I should put a scarf over my hair. Like even walking with my arm linked with another man's, I felt the intensity of those guys' stares, and was suddenly conscious of how covered my breasts were. The same thing happened last night at the bakery - I was going to meet C for an English/Arabic lesson and when I walked in, he was sitting with his friend Mohammed, from Saudi Arabia, who I met once and who has that dark swarthy thing about him. C didn't see me at first but his friend did, and without him doing or saying anything crude, I felt offended by how he was looking at me as I walked toward the table. And I almost didn't want to sit down with them because I felt like he might as well have slapped me on the ass, with how he was looking at me. What is it about those kind of men? What are they doing to make them seem so crude? It's kind of like the difference between the Chinese girls and the Korean exchange students here. One time I was talking to Sandy and I mentioned that I saw this group of girls who looked Chinese but...didn't look Chinese. I said they had sort of...shorter skirts and more makeup. And she said, Oh, they must be the Korean students. The Koreans carry themselves differently than the Chinese do. And that was exactly what it was. It's like that with creepy guys. Without really doing or saying anything differently, they just make you feel differently by how they are carrying themselves, or something. Because the Chinese stare at me constantly, obviously. I mean I am always always being stared at, by everyone. And while it's obnoxious, it doesn't feel intrusive, like it does when some big darkish Turkish-speaking guy does it. My C is big and darkish and Arabic speaking but he does not have this skeezy thing about him. I think this is good.
Men. Creepsters.
This adventure will have to be told in two parts, as I am desperate to nap because I had to be at the teaching building at 7:15 AM this morning to lead "Morning Campus," the cultish activity in which students gather to read English loudly together. Hehehehehee.
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