KARAOKE

When I say karaoke, what do you see in your mind?


A drunk in a pub singing Midnight Train To Georgia very badly? A hen party singing that song from Grease again? In England, the spectacle of karaoke is open to all. Everyone in the pub is subjected to it, and in turn, every karaoke singer is open to the criticism and praise of those standing at the bar.

Not so in Hong Kong. Karaoke is quite a different experience here. Rather than an individual turn, karaoke is a group experience - and for their entertainment only. There are no Greek choruses here.

When we descended upon the Karaoke place, we got a small private room with en suite bathroom to ourselves. There was a C-shaped sofa, a coffee table and a large screen for the music videos.

The group I was with were quite adept at this karaoke experience and wasted no time in picking up the microphones to warble out a K-pop classic or two. (K - pop is Korean Pop, a dire type of pop music where generic songs are mimed to by cloned teenagers).

The final ingredient of the Hong Kong karaoke experience is alcohol. And lots of it. My generous hosts ordered in several bottles of lager and a very large bottle of whiskey. The whiskey was gradually depleted as we played endless rounds of a dice game akin to poker.

And... I'm afraid I can't remember the rest of the night. Suffice to say that I've never had a hangover quite as Biblical as that before. I was just glad to have (somehow) woken up in my own bed.

As an innocent bystander said, "He woke up and went into the bathroom. Then he was sick. A LOT."

I've always been a bad singer. And even worse drinker.

The Interview

I had a shower and a shave. I put on a light coloured shirt and buttoned up the cuffs with lovely cuff links. I chose a nice tie to go with the shirt and my grey pinstripe trousers. My shoes were buffed until I could see a thin reflection of light in their black hides. Finally, I looked in the mirror. And I liked what I saw.

I took the bus to Heng Fa Chuen, then the MTR to North Point. So I wouldn't get lost, and therefore stressed just before arriving at my destination, I had previously dropped a pin on my maps app on my iphone and watched my progress in the form of the pulsating blue dot down the road.

Arriving early, I paused outside the shopping centre and took a swig of water. Light splatters of rain dotted my brow as I took a drag on my inhalator, thankful simultaneously for the shot of nicotine to calm me and for giving up smoking two weeks beforehand so I wouldn't stink of smoke.

At the entrance to the shopping centre, I paused to locate the education centre on the lit up map on the wall. My saunter turned into a light swagger as I approached the education centre.

I was about to knock them dead.

A smiling woman greeted me at the reception, shaking my hand with a gentle touch. Two teachers walked by and said Hello as I glanced at the children's drawings on display. I liked this place.

The teacher then showed me into one of the classrooms and asked me to wait until the woman from HR arrived. The traffic was bad, she said, but she wouldn't be long. 

The classroom was sparse. Funky cartoons of children and dogs adorned the walls, and the only furniture was a small table for kids and tiny chairs. I stood with my bag and waited for the woman to return, inspecting the artwork on display.


The teacher came back in with the HR lady and gestured for me to sit down. I looked at the tiny chair for a moment and did I was told. The chair was so small, I only managed to park one buttock on it at a time.

The main problem with my body is that I am mostly made up of leg. It's a difficulty that requires extra leg room seats on long haul flights and a deep aversion to sports cars. I'm only six foot one, so I'm hardly the tallest person in the world, but most of that six foot one is awkward lankiness.

I sat down opposite the two ladies in trendy trouser suits with a knee either side of my vision and felt like I was about to give birth in polite company. Neither of them had such qualms, being of a petite stature, and managed to traverse the limitations of the Lilliputian furniture with an elegance becoming of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen.

They began to question me on teaching methodology and how best to deal with difficult children as I tried to shift from one buttock to another in my egg cup on stilts without them noticing.

After half an hour of putting my meagre teaching knowledge to the test, they finally asked me about my previous experience in the role. I don't have any - when (if) I finally get a teaching job, it will be my first foray in promoting this fair language on impressionable young minds. I say so explicitly in my cover letter, but unfortunately, it's news to them. They were expecting - and really needed - a person with experience. Crestfallen polite smiles are never pretty.

To any who has ever sat in a meeting where the main point has been said and has time to fill, you will know the awkwardness that followed. I sat there and sweated, answering their questions and thanking God I hadn't gone commando should my trousers rip, until the HR lady called time.

I walked out of there, loosened my tie and swore like a sailor all the way back to the MTR station.

And the moral of the story? Do your research. Fully grown men have bigger arses than you think.

PART OF THE CROWD

This is not a place for the paranoid.

If you're different, many will look at you and won't be ashamed of it either. Far from being rude, it's a reaction born from curiosity. The majority of people I've met so far are very polite and welcoming. They will come half way towards you should you need them to - for most that comes with the sense of personal pride I've talked about before. And yet, particularly for the older generation it seems, if one is obviously from another country, you're the object of curiosity. The population of Hong Kong is 98% Chinese, so as a lanky Caucasian, I'm in the minority.

I'm no stranger to being in the minority. Being gay, I can easily take an outsider's point of view on subjects that a lot of my peers - until recent years - couldn't. The war between Church and State in the UK over the subject of Gay Marriage has been a contentious issue of late, but for those of us who remember when being homosexual in the UK was less open and understood, the general positive reaction to the idea serves as a telling barometer of how much attitudes to gay people in England has changed, even the last ten years.

Being gay, by it's very nature, is an internal thing. It's to do with genetic make up, thoughts and attitudes and lifestyle. I've been on the receiving end of homophobia in my time. A swift punch from a chav and an old landlady telling me I was going to Hell on Judgement Day to name but two examples. And that's not even touching on the homophobia within the gay community.

If anything, I've been on the receiving end of more anti-Semitism than anti-Gay behaviour. Being called a "Jewish bastard" or being referred to using an Arab derogatory term is, at the very least, shocking. The irony is, I'm not even Jewish. I just have a passing resemblance to a younger David Badiell circa The Mary Whitehouse Experience, albeit without the 1990s curtains hairstyle. I've never begrudged people's curiosity - it's natural to wonder about people not like you - but the exercising of ignorance through abuse has always seemed incongruous.

The breeding of race hate in the UK, not least through the insipid tabloid press, is a cause for concern. There is racism here too, but I've been told - like England - it's origins are through ignorance and misinformation, possibly the symptoms of an insular society.

If you stick out in a crowd, it's a humbling experience, and one that I wonder if more people should go through. Perhaps a way to fight the insecurities of race relations is a touch of humility and fostering the ability to step outside of one's own castle once in a while.

Like a man who goes abroad but will only eat egg 'n' chips, you have to ask - what's the point?

MILESTONES

There are two very important things in Hong Kong – family and food – and they are inextricably linked.

Family is everything here – showing love and respect to your parents and peers is rooted deeply in the culture. Milestones such as birthdays and weddings – and even your first hundred days of being alive – is cause for a celebration. And celebrations call for either mountains of gifts or mountains of food. Or both.

A couple of days after arriving here, we took the bus to Causeway Bay for my sister-in-law's father's birthday meal in a restaurant. It's an honour to be included in such things and it means, in turn, that they respect you and see you as part of the family.

There is a great emphasis placed on the importance of family here, and it is drummed into children from a very young age. Whereas in the West, where we have leaned more to the individualistic approach, in the East, life seems to be a much more collaborative effort. Kudos is placed in familial connections, as it is in education, but we'll return to that in the near future.

It is no surprise then that family occasions are often a good time to indulge in the other great love of eating out. There are hundreds and hundreds of eateries in Hong Kong, and it's for a very good reason.

Forget the Westernised idea of a Chinese meal. It's like calling a McDonald's Happy Meal distinctly British just because there are thousands of outlets across the land. (They're here as well, along with KFC and Starbucks). The quality is far superior and infinetly more varied than the ersatz sugar bombs we get in the West. There's also a big difference in how they're eaten.

Eating is a communal affair, be it with family or friends. Everything ordered is placed in the middle of the table (sometimes on a large lazy Susan) and everyone is encouraged to help themselves from a bit of each dish. However, there are separate chopsticks and spoons for the food in the centre that must remain with their dishes so you're not using the ones you've put in your mouth.

Each person has their own bowl or little plate to eat from, in which to put the rice or noodles and whatever takes your fancy – the fresh veg, the local fish, pork, beef, salmon, sweet and savoury dumplings... and even sweet bean soup.

If it's a special occasion, meals can go on for some time, so if you're visiting and you have been invited out, skip lunch. The birthday meal lasted for thirteen courses. A meal can be an event in itself.

Hospitality and social obligation knows no bounds here. Tonight was the event of my niece's 100^th day celebrations, combined with my nephew's early 2^nd birthday party. It was held in the Regal Ballroom of an opulent hotel in Tin Hau. The walls and ceilings were mirrored and three giant chandeliers sparkled above the proceedings. If the venue glittered any more, it would make Joan Collins blush.

A bouncy castle and ball pool sat in the corner to entertain the children as the one hundred or so guests tucked into the generous buffet and mingled. The names of my little relatives were emblazoned in gold lettering against the red backdrop of the stage, wishing them a Happy 100^th Day and a Happy Birthday.

Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, parents and children drifted from group to group, catching up with each other's lives and the latest gossip as the ever – present Mah Jong tables were set up in the corner for those who fancied a play. The flashes of cameras bounced off the shiny surfaces as surely every second was captured somehow in a digital frame.

It seems not only to be about love and respect and obligation, but to be seen to be doing the right thing too, and preserving the moment somehow. It is as though there's a collective conciousness about the fleeting nature of life so deeply ingrained in custom that it's never been forgotten – or gone uncelebrated.

And that's no bad thing, surely?

STANDING ROOM ONLY

The thing to remember about Hong Kong is to look up.

We think that England - as an island - is too small for sixty million people to call home. The tabloids cry “We’re full! Immigrants go home!” while others battle the expansion of cities gobbling up the green belt.

Hong Kong - at the last count - is home to over seven million people on a meagre eighty square kilometres. There really is no more room here. So much so, they’re busy reclaiming land around the fringes like a dress being let out for a girl who tried and failed to slim for her turn as a bridesmaid. England, by comparison, is that tedious skinny friend you want to slap. “I only have to look at food and I put on weight!” she cries as she slips into a size eight with a whimsical whimper. England - once you’ve reclaimed Dartmoor, the Yorkshire wolds and half of Wales, come back to us and get measured again. I want to see Barratt homes on all your green bits.

When buildings are constructed here, they’re built upwards - not outwards. It’s something easy to forget when you’re on street level, but if you take a bus, say from Island Resort to Causeway Bay, you can see that Hong Kong is like an island of giant’s fingers, prodding the sky through the haze. They look like behemoths jostling for position on the smallest patch of land they could possibly find. Standing room only.

As I stared out of the bus window on the way to a birthday party, I watched the bleeding orange sun sinking behind a mountain, making silhouettes of the skyscrapers, each layer varying in a smoggy brown matte in an impossibly endless forest of concrete. I had a vision of two hundred years hence then - this would be the future of the human race. Busy, crowded and beautiful at the same time.

In each tower, there can be thousands of apartments and offices, malls, cinemas, restaurants and cafes, shops and bars and meeting places. The complex I’m in at the moment consists of six towers - each containing thousands of people. For the benefit of those living here, it also boasts a huge terrace, a shopping mall, a gym, two swimming pools (the outdoor one is closed because it’s a positively freezing 30c), a band room, piano rooms, study rooms, a bowling alley and a kid’s playroom. It’s entirely possible for someone to live their entire life out inside their own complex and never have to leave its boundaries.

Of course, people don’t do that in real life. On any given night, Causeway Bay (to use an example) is a scrum of people, jostling to get where they want to be beneath flashing neon signs and advertisements - a plethora of beacons guiding you this way and that. It is Blade Runner’s metropolis given flesh.

On one particular corner, as you wait at the curb edge for the ticking clock of the pedestrian crossing to allow you to cross the road, one comes face to face with a cast of hundreds - all random, all with their minds elsewhere. They’re chatting on their iphones, carrying stuff, holding the hands of their kids... and in a moment - once the little green man shows - they’re going to come towards you all at once. And it’s a little bit terrifying. 

Space, as you’ve probably guessed, is at a premium here. Apartments are tiny and expensive - and this has knock-on effects. For example, what would you do about your washing? The solution is to hang it out of the window on a rack. Look up at any apartment block and ten, twenty, thirty floors up, trousers, shirts and pants are hanging out of the windows drying on their pegs. It makes me wonder if Hong Kong is particularly known for its strong line in pegs - and missing items of clothing. The sea breeze is quite strong here - and there’s a lot of coast line for it to blow in from. What would it take for a pair of trousers to go sailing through the air and land on someone else’s rack or wrap themselves around some bamboo scaffolding?

Yes, you read that correctly. The scaffolding here is entirely bamboo. Men in hard hats climb hundreds of feet in the air up seemingly flimsy structures of wood that sway and groan in the wind. Looking down out of your flat window can be a dizzying affair, but looking up from the street can be much worse.

It’s all a matter of perspective.