Sensual Hong Kong - The Sounds and Smells of a City

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Hong Kong, like all cities, is an accumulation of sounds and odors, many of them unique to that place.  Unlike vision, sound and smell are much more visceral senses, tied into more primitive parts of the brain than vision.  Vision requires interpretation by the higher centers of the brain to extract meaning, sound and smell do not.

Within the first 24 hours in Hong Kong, I was able to distinguish three distinct and pervasive aromas.  The most noticeable was a salty, extremely h...Read more

Hong Kong Blog Day 2

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Day 2 – Exploring on My Own

 Woke up after only 4 hours sleep, but at least it was the first fully horizontal sleep in over 48 hours.  I was groggy as hell and wondered if I was going to be jet-lagged.  To be on the safe side, I decided on a day of sightseeing that would be easy on the feet.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day—clear, sunny and cool, with low humidity and highs in the upper sixties.  (It was only later that I realized how rare this type of day was in Hong Kong, especially the good visibility a...Read more

Hong Kong Blog Day 1

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Day 1.  The Eagle Has Landed:  Oh Wait--Houston, I Think We Have a Problem

The packing was done, documents were sorted and resorted, the schedule was packed tight with meetings and events.  All that was left was the flight to Hong Kong.  Left home at 4:30 a.m. for the airport.  The first flight was from Raleigh-Durham airport to Chicago’s O’Hare.  Luckily, I didn’t have to change terminals, only move a few gates down the line.  The waiting room at O’Hare for the flight was packed—with Chinese.  The adventure...Read more

8 days was not enough time in Hong Kong!

I got back home last night and had the time of my life in Hong Kong.  I met so many wonderful people while I was in Hong Kong--some people I knew from AnD or Facebook, others totally new friends--and each one was a special encounter.  I saw many things, did some special things and basically had a grand time from morning until night every day I was there.  I packed in as much as I could, but clearly eight days was not sufficient.  There were some people I hoped to meet, but didn't, and quite a few "can't m...Read more

"Flee By Night" - Danny Yung Experimental Theater, Hong Kong, 3-27-10

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An open letter to Danny Yung, Director, Scriptwriter, Set Designer“Flee By Night”:  reflections nine days after attending a performance

Since these remarks are generated via reflection and memory, always an act of recreation and interpretation, they should be seen not so much as a commentary on the actual performa...Read more

For Leslie 4-1-10

Seven years, and still you live in our hearts A presence deeper than memoryA love, both bittersweet and pure,We are filled with you,The sad and the sweet,Our hearts shaken by your beauty,Only now with the passing yearsAre we truly aware of how much we have lost,How much we have gainedIn loving you

Hong Kong--So Close, Yet So Far

I leave for Hong Kong next Wednesday, so I'm now spending every waking minute that isn't spent doing things for the paying job putting the Hong Kong trip together.  I am amazed at how many people would like to meet me while I'm in Hong Kong.  My calendar for the trip is filling up fast.  What ever made me think 8 days on the ground in Hong Kong would be enough?  With all of the Leslie Cheung events?  For all of the AnD folks I am hoping to meet?  Sadly, it begins to look like I will barely have time to see the city...Read more

Drafted

As anyone who has been reading my blogs of late knows, I'm going to Hong Kong and, while there, will participate in commemoration activities for Leslie Cheung.  I have met a number of fans through Alive Not Dead, an English-language Leslie Cheung fan site and Facebook.  The local group, Red Mission, is organizing a number of public activities for this year's fan commemoration, including a public showing of Leslie's last concert tour, the marvelous Passion Tour.As part of this public showing, I was drafted to edit a letter Red Mission want...Read more

Learning to Read (Menu) Chinese

The one thing that traditionally casts fear into the hearts of foreigner learns of Chinese is, not surprisingly, the writing system with its thousands of complex-seeming characters (well, that, and the tones :-)).  The conventional wisdom for students of Cantonese is to concentrate on gaining fluency in the spoken language and to worry about becoming literate later, much later, preferably w...Read more

What's been happening

So, not much to share in recent days.  The weather has been bad to awful for the past 10 days, and this has kept me housebound a lot more than usual.  I even missed 3 days of work last week because of the weather.  It stopped being fun after day 2.I have been spending a lot of time getting ready for the trip to Hong Kong in late March.  I realized that I was going to be traveling from one climate, very early spring, to a totally different climate, what would pass for late spring-early summer when I arrive in HK.  So, I've been s...Read more