Wednesday 19 January 2011

Hong Kong and that time what I gambled

The mid-Autumn festival occurred a week after I touched down at Hong Kong airport and went straight into teaching. It's a traditional festival whereby, in the past, those who celebrate it are honouring the moon; however, today it's an excuse for a beach party with lots of lanterns and cake. There were lanterns adorning the entrance to the kindergarten and equally the town centre was festooned with novelty cartoon characters. My block of flats had lights all around also and the shopping centre I lived above was joining in with the festivities. I had quite a simple lantern in my room but my flatmate, Louise, was given a great robot shaped one.


The kindergarten I was teaching at was fully involved and the English book I read with my classes was called "The Funny Lantern". They are written by somebody known by the school, especially for the school but I will voice my thoughts on the stories - bad grammar aside - later. When I first talked about going to Hong Kong people would ask me "but how will you teach the kids, can you speak Cantonese?" but that day I realised it wasn't too bad at all.

I pointed at the moon in the book's illustration. I said "moon". They said "mooooon".
I pointed at the mooncake in the book's illustration. I said "mooncake". They said "mooooonceeeh".
I said "mmm yum yum". They said "mmm yum yum".
Piece of piss.

Mooncake comes in different forms and the traditional one has egg yolk in the middle and a marzipan-like pastry surrounding it. You can also get red bean ones made with lotus pastry which I much prefer.

The Sunday of that weekend was the day of the festival so we had Monday off school and I had been told that the rest of the gap years on my scheme were meeting up in Central on Sunday to enjoy it. I hadn't met the rest of the bunch yet as I hadn't flown out until later than everybody else so was quite excited to meet my "family" for the rest of the year.

We got the MTR down to Central - on Hong Kong island - and was introduced to Zoe, Tommy, Tara, Craig, Corinne, Jo, Kerry and Piers who was Kerry's brother and "original gap". Quite a mismatched group, but all seemed very welcomming. We headed down to Victoria Park and had a few pictures taken of us and our lanterns amongst the many and varied structures and giant lanterns strewn across the park. There was, incidentally, some Chinese opera going on in one corner. After we'd exhausted the park and all it had to offer we went over to MacDonalds and got some food and later various gaps peeled off to go home until only Piers, Kerry, Corinne, Craig, Louise and I were left.



"I'm pretty sure one of Yennie's friends owns a bar round here" said Piers. I'd learned previously that Yennie was his wife. He had met her out here on his gap year and now they had two children together.
"Yeah, sounds good" was the general admission.
"Yeah I'll give her a call and see where it is and if we can get in for free." He laughed "I can't remember if this is the former Triad member or not though."

I was walking around in a daze and trying to take everything in. It was only my first week and I couldn't believe I was here. We approached a high-rise building and entered. We took the lift up a few levels and stepped out into a dimly lit, low-ceilinged room with tables, squashy benches and pouffe's lining it. We set about ordering a bucket of beer a divvying it up when I noticed a bunch of die and some cups in the middle of the table. I looked around and saw huddled groups of hip young things chatting away and shaking die in the cups.

"Does anybody know what these are for?" I asked
"It's a gambling game" replied Piers "sort of like the one they play on The Pirates of Carribean when they're gambling for the life service against Davy Jones. Want to play?"
We all picked up some die and a cup and Piers set about explaining the rules. It was also a drinking game so instead of gambling our life service away to a fictional ship, the loser just drank. The shaking lessened and the drinking increased  until we descended into a game of "Never have I ever." I do not use the adjective "descended" flippantly. I hate this game.

After discovering who had had threesomes, anal and class A drugs everybody was a bit tired and partied out so at about 2.30am we left the bar and set about our journey back to our respective homes. Me and Louise were on the tram and she was asking me what I thought. I replied that everybody seemed nice so far but if there was to be any drama - which there inevitably would be - I would just keep my head out of it.
"That bar was nice though" I said "learnt quite a lot about everybody, I think the tone of our friendships has been set."
"Yeah, I noticed the dodgyness though."
"Dodgyness? Craig?"
"No the bar, Piers said it was run by a Triad member, or former Triad member or Triad affiliate or something something."
"Oh, right. What are the 'Triad'?"
"Like the Chinese mafia"
"Oh."

Friday 31 December 2010

An introduction

From September 2008 until July 2009 I lived and worked in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong. It was the most rewarding, wonderful but equally strange experiences of my life and I would not change any of it. This blog is to give a little taster of what happened whilst I was out there and hopefully entertain all who read it.