You England Man?

I was in my considerably cramped old lift today and found myself standing next to a veryold and small Chinese woman. My lift is so tiny that you can't stand side by side with someone else, so I was slightly in front of her and to the right.


On the journey from the tenth floor I suddenly felt a finger jab me (quite hard) in my back. If I was in England, I would have ignored the attack and hope that it does not escalate to a full stabbing before reaching the ground floor. I knew though that this old lady was just trying to get my attention so I turned and peered down at her.


"You are very..." She then made hand gestures above her head. "Tall?" I guessed. She nodded "Yes, you are tall". "I am!" I replied, "and you are very small!" She found this hugely funny and started laughing so hard that the lift began to sway (yes my lift sways). After another few seconds she peered up again, jabbing me with deceptive force "You are England man?" I nodded "Yes I am! Are you are China woman?" That was a mistake. She then started chuckling so much that the lift started to swing like a pendulum still going down.


We reached the ground floor eventually and I left my new friend to talk to my often assumed dead/sleepy security guard. I heard her explain to him that I am "A very tall England man", just as I exited onto the street. I have now decided to speak to every little old lady that I encounter in my lifts, with the aim to befriend one who is a good cook. Although lift swingers need not apply.

................................................

I leave you with two random photographs of me, just in case you forgot what I looked like.

Me licking Nikki



Dancing on a bar with some Newbies Holly (who is falling off) and Maxine on the right.

bx

Halloween Preparations

Today about 15 of us went to a rather posh bar called 'Red' in the Central district. Whilst there we discussed a very serious issue. Halloween fancy dress costumes.

We have decided that we want to do a group costume with two main ideas.

1) Sperm and an egg: One of us is a giant egg and the rest are all giant sperm. Sperm chase the egg around Hong Kong for the entire night out. (my idea)

Good point: It will look brilliant
Bad point: A few people are not keen on being sperm. They are now known as spermicide.

2) Smurfs: All dress up in blue!!

Good point: It is easy to be a blue thing!
Bad point: Having grown up in the desert, my cultural knowledge of the Smurf is limited to having never actually seen one except in a picture once at boarding school. I'm not as excited about it as everyone else...

Please give me your ideas!!!

bx

When it seems funny at the time...

With everyone arriving and moving into new flats in Hong Kong, there are many flat parties.

One flat party on the weekend belonged to a friend called Nick. His flat was slightly cramped though so he positioned his new mini sofa thing outside in the public corridor.

What happened next can be best explained in Nicks words online the following morning.

""So its coming to the end of the night, i'm a bit drunk but its been a good flat warming and looks like everyone enjoyed themselves. Pretty much everyone has gone and I decide its time to retrieve my foot stool from the hall way. To my surprise its not there. I look around the corridor and it's nowhere to be seen. I check some of the other floors in case someone had, for a joke, decided to hide it. Again, nowhere to be seen.

At this point I make a few phone calls to some of the people from the party. No one knows where it has gone. I start to realise that it must have been a disgruntled neighbour who had taken or moved the stool. What to do next? I'm slightly baffled and starting to get angry that my property has been stolen.

I reason to myself 'If someone was angry about the noise they should have just asked us to turn the music down, not take my foot stool'. After searching the corridors and stairwells of all 22 floors, a tiring task indeed!, I realise that it must have been removed from the building.I go down stairs, along with a Chinese speaking friend, and ask the security guard if he has seen anything. This particular security guard is a very nice chap but is nearly always asleep when I see him after about midnight. He says that he saw lots of people leave but can't recall seeing anyone with a large piece of furniture. Me and my friend decide to have a quick jog around the block to see if it has been dumped on the street somewhere. We have no luck. I'm getting very frustrated by now.

My nice foot stool has been stolen by someone in the building and I want it back.""

Well....

I know what happened to the foot stool...

bx

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bx

Mr Dicks

Before you jump to conclusions, the title of this post is due to my Godfather, Terry.

Hold on though, first I have to explain why.

I got an email around a week ago from a fantastic lady who helps run the Oxford Uni Careers service. I went to Oxford for my February recruitment trip and happened to say on my way out of her office "if you ever find yourself in Hong Kong, let us know and we (the company) will take you out for lunch". Never expecting anyone to actually take up the offer, I was quite surprised to recieve an email from the lady in question letting me know that she was indeed coming to Hong Kong on holiday, and it would be good to meet.

I met her at our nearest MTR station and she had her partner with her too, a really nice guy called Keith who was Sri Lankan/British. We hit it off really well, it was obviously a networking opportunity for the company and myself, but both her and the partner were easy to get along with and it was not an 'effort', to entertain them.

So we had dim sum, then I took the afternoon off to show them around Hong Kong a bit. We did the Avenue of Stars, Star Ferry, tram journey to Central, bar vsiting, and the Man Mo Temple. Then that was the action packed day nearly over. Now this is where my godfather comes in.

I was walking next to Keith and we were discussing Hong Kong politics and the colonial era. I happened to mention that my Godfather once told me that he had visitied Hong Kong for work related reasons when he was a member of parliment, before the 1997 handover.

"Is your Godfather an MP now?" he asked. "No, retired" I replied. "What was his constituancy?" he inquired, "Hayes and Harlington", came my reply. Then there was quite a large pause.
"What was his name?"
"Terry ..." (Surname) I replied.

Then there was an even larger pause.

Now, Keith was polite, but could not hide his clear distaste for my Godfather, or help mention that he campaigned for 'the other side'. He also mentioned that he met him once and that he was not a particular fan. Recognizing the need to drop the subject quite quickly, I decided to comment that we were currently walking through the red light district of Wan Chai. That did the trick nicely, ending tense attention on my Godfather and directing it towards scantily clad ladies outside brothels. Which actually made things less awkward, believe it or not.

My knowledge of my Godfather is pretty limited in terms of the things he said and his stand on issues. I think he made a speech at my Christening and said something which caught the attention of the Sun Newspaper and got him in a bit of bother. Other than that, he is just my Godfather!

I now have a new bit of knowledge though, unless I'm around Conservatives, best to keep the Godfather quiet in case I come head to head with another opposing activist. Especially if i'm trying to keep them happy! Thankfully I never mentioned that the Godmother works for Hertz, otherwise my luck would have been that Hertz screwed up his rental car booking recently or something...

bx

From the Archives

Robyn and myself had many a bizzare moments last year.

One example being when we taught lots of girls to dance at her school.

It was never a regular 9-5 job........

bx

That is so Hong Kong

So now, from the earlier post, you should have learnt what I mean when I say "That is so Hong Kong."

So I have a test for you.

I wish I could say I was joking, but this is a picture of the inside of a flat which belongs to two new members of staff.

The flat came like this, they added the pot plants though.

Is it 'Hong Kong'???
Yes my students, it is a prime example of 'Hong Kong'

bx
(PHD in Hong Kong weirdness)