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?