I Want My LSD

I have previously written that one nice thing about hallucinogenic drug use is that it provides a nice, convenient coping mechanism: whenever life gets too weird, you can always tell yourself "I am obviously hallucinating this," and whatever is happening stops bugging you so much.

Trust me on that; no need to try it yourself.

Well, this was one of those days, except I was not, unfortunately, high as a giraffe ass.

On a recent afternoon, I found myself heading to Wanchai to be a judge in a milk tea making competition.

Read that again; doesn't it make the room spin?

I bet you're wondering why I was selected to be a judge.

Honestly, I don't know why I was selected either.

A friend had asked me to do it, and I guess I said yes. At least I am sure I didn't say no.

We made our way through a crowded Convention Center to the place we were supposed to be. Myself, my friend, and another person were to be judges in a milk-tea making contest. We sat 'backstage' (at little tea tables behind the raised tea-making area). Here's the view:Looking forwardLooking LeftLooking rightLooking upLooking downThe score sheetThe tea-making area;there were 4 places to make the tea.People wanted their picture taken.People took pictures of the tea.And of the signs.(And of people taking pictures of the signs...)

There was quite a crowd gathered

The emcee was someone of note, though I didn't know her. At first, I was beginning to feel pretty good about being there. This is what professors call 'community service;' you do things in the community in exchange for people (in this instance) being able to gain face by virtue of having professors at their event. Naturally, a lot of people wondered what the gweilowas doing there, and stared, but I amused myself by catching people staring and making faces.

Okay, catching girlsand making faces.

But any sense of self importance (or self-worth) was quickly b*tch-slapped by the appearance of the 'celebrity' guests.Short digression: At a recent similar event, a friend noticed that a company selling durian mooncake had a pair of bikini-clad leng mo on hand to do nothing other than draw attention.

"Is that durian I smell or are you just happy to see me?"I had joked with my friend about the possibility that any 'tea biscuits' would be there.

Tempt not the Lord with a loose tongue.

With great (okay, relative) fanfare, the celebrity guests for the event took the stage. They announced themselves in unison, which is understandable considering that they are known collectively.

I won't say who, but a dual linguistic (and oddly relevant) inversion of their name would be ' Dungcoffee!', an interesting concept in and of itself.

They were voted Biggest Waste of Space on last year's www.LoveHKFilm.com Movie Awards.

And I know why even more now.

The emcee called us all onstage for a[if gte mso 9]> Normal/w:View 0/w:Zoom /w:Compatibility MicrosoftInternetExplorer4/w:BrowserLevel /w:WordDocument <![endif]

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group photo . All of the judges, including me, were introduced to the crowd.

Over the PA system. Which was not loud, but impossible notto hear.The emcee told the crowd who we were and what we did. Why is this important? Because after we all filed off the stage, and 'Dungcoffee!' went to leave, one of them turned to me and said "Welcome to Hong Kong!"

Now, I understand that the average HKer will rarely assume gweilo live here. I can even concede that in the setting, a trade fair, the odds are even greater that the White Guy is just visiting.

But those odds are to some extent offset by THE WOMAN STANDING THREE FEET FROM YOU ANNOUNCING OVER A PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM THAT I AM A FACULTY MEMBER OF A LOCAL UNIVERSITY.

Then again, three minutes had gone by.I took a picture of their @sses and didn't get arrested.

Miss Forgetful is on the left.It would have been nice for them to be surprisingly unlikea vacuous, bland, faceless, manufactured trio of media-grubbing bobble heads.I just hate it when my prejudices and crassness get validated .I really would be happy to have my cynicism disproved once in a while. In fairness, the road of cynicism disproved would eventually lead to some womanwanting to have sex with me (without a financial transaction), so I can see why that road is closed.Not that I'mbitter .

Besides, what happened afterI left the tea fair is even more infuriating and bitterness inducing...