Hey, how you been? Oh that's nice. A few of you may have noticed that my postings have dwindled dramatically in the last few months. Truth is I am now back in Hong Kong and moving all the things out of my flat after 10 years so it has been quite time consuming. Should have everything done by end of May at which time I am going to update this frigging thing because why do it if you don't do it? Know what I mean? Course you do.
It can get so damn stale in here and one of the complaints I have heard from the few people that read this thing is that there are far too many pictures of Sweet Loo (come on Mac, I only count three pics of Loo) and his head of red. So we will attempt to recitfy that shortly and spread the love. Trust me.
And speaking of red, I just wanted to quickly mention that me and my trusty camera had a brush with the flame today. The ultra-contentious, and ultra absurd, Olympic flame finally returned to Chinese soil when it toured the far from hostile pungent environs of its bitch state Hong Kong. Yes, it was beautiful. Every mainland sycophant worth their weight in RMB was out and about sporting their finest communist blood red colors today in what amounted to the greatest outpouring of affection yet to HK's surrogate papa in Beijing.
But please, please, don't ask Hong Kong: "whose your daddy?" Because everybody around here knows Beijing is a mother. That's right, Beijing's a real mother - as in THE MOTHERLAND, MUTHAF*%#AS!
It was all kind of nice and civilized and the type of Hong Kong civility that has long endeared me to this place. I mean, sure I got stampeded in Central by a lusting jingoistic mob. But it was a well behaved mob, at least as well behaved as a lusting mob could be. No harm, no foul. And why shouldn't the people of Hong Kong been wearing red today? Makes perfect sense to me. I should also mention that any hostility from the crowd, and there was some semblance of it right in front me directed at a group that unfurled a Tibet flag, clearly appeared to NOT be from Hong Kong elements. This crew was speaking Mandarian and as close as I could get I could smell stale tobacco on their breath (it was pretty damn crowded, don't you know).
No, they were definitely mainlanders shipped in to bully any dissenting elements, which they sucessfully did in a way that belies the inherent civilities of Hong Kongers. Get all that? Good because it's some times hard to remember that Hong Kongers are inherently civil, particularly when they are butting in front of you at a 7-11 or cutting you off without looking on the highways and byways that surrond this pungent harbour. But trust me, they are civil in matters that matter.
It was a strange, well actually not that strange, grouping of people chosen to run the torch relay in Hong Kong. While other locales predominantly feautered athletes, Hong Kong's version of the relay was heavy on politicians and corporate mainland sycophants. And while a couple of cute actresses ran some of the legs, we were treated to a paunchy politico (above), who looked like his next step would be his last, hauling the flame in front of us. What a f*&^ing joke. Unbridled hilarity. And hey, I am always up to a good laugh.
A few blocks away, Mia Farrow took time out from raising her 14 children (I said 14!) to hold court at a luncheon at the FCC (the Foreign Correspondents Club and a group I was once loosely aligned with). Ms Farrow is upset, and rightfully so, that China is doing tons of business with the genocidal mob running Darfur. She intends to use the upcoming Games as a platform to shame China into dumping their pariah alliances.
But Mia - Mama Mia - come on. China is the cat-daddy of pariah pals. Darfur, Burma, North Korea, the list goes on and on. You can't shame the shameless, they don't care what you think and on this day, in Hong Kong at least, Mama Mia was totally marginalized by mainland love. I'll give her an "e" for effort though. At least she knows where Darfur is. I figure most of the radical element out protesting China's handling of Tibet couldn't find that country on a map if they had a National Geographic tour-guide in their back pocket.
