Hong Kong
1 Feb 2003
The Hong Kong Harbor and skyline as seen from The Peak of Central. Hong Kong is actually an island like Manhattan is to New York. This is circa 1994. Photo by Michael Seto
"And then one day you find,ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run,
you missed the starting gun"
- Pink Floyd, "Time"
I walked through the new Chek Lap Kok concourse, marveling at its shimmering floor and soaring roof above me. No lines awaited me at immigration. I recalled Hong Kong's old airport at Kai Tak, where one literally sprinter like OJ Simpson from the gate to immigration to avoid the inevitable long lines in that antiquated and cramped terminal.
Ten years ago I walked down the short ramp out into the greeting area at Kai Tak, mesmerized by the sea of faces and the cacophony of Cantonese with a smattering of English, Tagalog, Hindi, and Mandarin. Bewildered, I finally spied my aunt and her driver who took me out to their home in Repulse Bay, where I lived for three months.
My parents grew up in Hong Kong and I planned to spend six months here working at my uncle's bank while waiting to start law school in the fall, and perhaps reconnect with my withered Chinese roots. (I thank my Uncle Jimmy for his generous invitation ten years ago.)
I ended up remaining in Hong Kong for five years. My life changed completely. I stumbled into a career where I forged professional and material success. I fell in love, got married; then fell out of love and got divorced. I met a group of kindred spirits, the kind of people that thronged to Hong Kong in the early Nineties - and they remain lifelong friends.
I left Hong Kong in New York, accepting a transfer from my employer to work in the Big Apple at the end of 1997, shortly after the handover of HK to Chinese control.
Ten years pass and the prodigal son returns! Taking the the world's longest contiguous escalator to the Mid-Levels; I strolled past my first flat on Castle Road. The place barely fit a twin mattress into the each of two closet sized bedrooms. A kitchen, living room and bathroom filled the remainder of this 350 sq ft shoebox. Sitting on the couch, my feet reached the TV. I spent a few months here with my best friend Steve, where we killed many a brain cell drinking bottles of Tsingtao and watching Simpsons on tape.
Back then, my ex-pat friends and I clamored for tapes from family in the States, and we held TV parties to a packed house anytime a tape of Simpsons and Seinfeld arrived. Infatuated with the world of finance, I wanted more than anything to work for an American bulge bracket firm. Everyday, Morgan, Goldman and Merrill figured prominent in the financial headlines as the American investment expanded in Asia. Finally, hard work and luck landed me in Three Exchange Square, Morgan Stanley's offices.
I dedicated myself to work, arriving at 7am and leaving at 9pm, straight for beers at Yelt's Inn in nearby 'Lanky' Fong. We took perverse pride in being at our desks over the weekend and late into the night. At this age, we knew we had to make the most of these 'productive years' and max out our career trajectories.
In those days, my friends and I met at "Am'scam", the monthly Young Professionals Committee happy hour sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce. Every other person there seemed to hand over a card printed in the subway station announcing their recent arrival and job-searching status! I reigned among the supreme networkers (from what I am told) - handing out hundreds of business cards in my HK time.
Five nights a week we stumbled around Lan Kwai Fong (the main bar area) drunk most of the time, smoking Cuban cigars and locating friends on cellphones. Double drinks at Graffitis and jello shots at Al's dictated the evening's wanderings around bars that opened and closed every two years. 'Work hard, party harder' became everyone's mantra.
Brits, Canadians, Americans, Indians, assorted ambitious folks from everywhere came to Hong Kong seeking their fortune. They came and went in those days, staying either one year or five. Over five years seemed to take you straight to ten, do not pass Go. Many of my friends still reside here, pushing for the fifteen year mark.
Returning to my old office, I walked into the lobby of Three Exchange Square, the same elevator ride I took for years when I lived and slaved here. The office, filled with many familiar and many more unfamiliar faces looked just as I left it. Warm handshakes and smiles from old colleagues welcomed me.
On the way out, I walked by Haagen Daz where a young fresh faced twenty-something woman first interviewed me for Morgan Stanley in 1994 she looked barely old enough to drink and here she was asking grizzled war-vet ol' me about myself! I ended up getting a job, Linda (the young woman) and I are still friends, and we always joke about that interview.
A few days later at the American Club cafe, I joined five old friends for lunch. Instead of the bragging about our hangovers and the latest clubs in Wan Chai (my recollection of our past); now talk revolved around which schools their kids attended and ease of raising them with HK's affordable maid and driver lifestyle. They all have lived 10 years.
This week passed in a kaleidoscope of lunches, dinners and drinks with old friends, most of whom I met back in the heady Asian gold rush days, when China and HK were the 'internet' stocks of the emerging market universe. Their collective generosity embarrassed me as they hardly let me open my wallet to pay for anything. An old friend even let me crash at her pad for the week and drink up all her coffee.
Interestingly, the places frequented by my ex-wife and I triggered less nostalgia than those that I associate with people still prominent in my life. My ex remarried and lives in London, and we still pass one another cordial emails a couple times a year. I hold wonderful memories of married life and my very kind and generous and compassionate ex, but perhaps I feel that chapter is closed and thus more distant than the ongoing relationships with my still current friends. Maybe that bears further exploration some time.
The last weekend, I rode out to Repulse Bay on the #6 bus from Central. In 1993, the bus creaked along without air conditioning and in the sweltering summer months, I'd fight for a seat near the window. Now I sat shivering in the luxurious AC bus, emblematic of the improvement in quality of life in HK.
Lounging around a friend's balcony overlooking Repulse Bay, her two kids pull her from social duties every few minutes, either chasing her two year old son around, or breast feeding her infant every two hours. Another friend there and her husband await their first child due in nine weeks and the discussion dances from Iraq to sonograms. We drink coffee instead of beer and work through the who is doing what and where among our old 'gang' of HK friends.
In the past five years many have moved on but weddings seem to bring us together every year in exotic places ranging from Cape Town to Newfoundland, Bali to Tuscany. Each celebration brings news of births and birthdays, a few more gray hairs and wrinkles and talk of losing ten pounds. Is this as good as it gets? I hope so.
Returning to any old place that figures prominent in one's life provides a benchmark for one's "progress". Its like a before and after picture for Jenny Craig. Wow, we ask ourselves incredulously, "I wasn't like THAT was I?!" That silly, that dumb, that immature, that ignorant. The serendipity of it all becomes self-evident. At the time, decisions seemed fraught with confusion and my life felt arbitrary and capricious as I flailed about. Trivial seemed monumental, monumental now clearly trivial.
As I look back, I can now distinguish my path through the woods, the trail twists and turns, but never fails to move me forward toward some as yet unseen, but perhaps glimpsed destination. But any notion of control I try to relinquish, knowing its vanity and futility.
As I prepared to leave Hong Kong for New York, ready for a change of surroundings, especially after an amicable divorce I took a last scuba trip to the Maldives with 20 good friends from HK. There I stumbled upon a book that led me to seek out a personal transformation teacher in the US. (Read Michael Crichton's fabulous "Travels" for more inspiration. My most favorite book.)
New York served as a cauldron for me, mixing work and my own personal growth through meditation and yoga (and golf). As I stirred the mixed ingredients in the pot it became clear that the time for me to take to the road again had arrived. In 2001 I left work and NY and friends and possessions behind to start this journey around the world - as most readers of this Travelogue know.
Ten years from now, the retrospective on my four years in New York and this world journey hopefully will bring as much insight to me as this return to Hong Kong has.
Watch this space!
"I am grateful for every minute of my silly little life."
- Lester Burnham, "American Beauty"
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