Mart-deBlog

This is my last post post about Hong Kong. "This is my last post about Hong Kong" will be the most clear-cut note about the end of my exchange; without a list of favorites, what I miss most or the way Hong Kong has changed my character. Luckily I have not been forced to tell tiring strings of anecdotes, which is sort of enlightening at the moment of storytelling but depressing afterwards. Nothing but politeness would force me to tell my experiences as if they were the scene selection on a dvd. It's like this nasty corruption of telling a dream. For now I like the past experiences to be continuous with the present and have them vividly outside the polished frames of stories. And that is it.
Ps: This blog continues with more a sense of personalities and fictions instead of the subjective documentaries coloured by the other-worldyness of Hong Kong, I hope you still find it worthy to have an occasional look.

I finished my papers and had one open week planned before leaving, to do those last things worth redoing. Bas returned from his trip through South-East Asia and was there to check out Hong Kong. Besides the retakes, there were also room for things I still hadn't done and Tai O, a tiny fishersvillage on Lantau, was one of these new places allowed in the supposed week of nostalgia. So up we went, boat and bus to where the Hakka people of Hong Kong originate from and still refuse to leave their cool mansions on wooden stakes. Tai O had exactly that surreal streak I needed. There are villagers looking a little off when you pass by, there are orderly straight tracks but also chaotic alleys that lead along the houses above the water, houses that are sometimes made of wood and at other times completely of pale metals. We walked up this hill passed a 'no trespassing' sign. Dogs started to bark somewhere, invisible until they jumped out of the surrounding green and started their bare teethed chase. We ran. We survived and ate fish and hired a little boat to search for pink dolphins. They weren't there although we did find an amazingly red house. And Snowhite, caged. And the sun set while fisher's boats returned to their harbour and I read a Deleuze text about the lasting of the past. It was a day in my last week but also a day containing that whole week in it's surreality, a day cut from all other days in being momentary but simultaneously lost in the continuity of being away from home, a day when the world spins as fast as my head and experiences can become the over-symbolic still life of a white bird flying away.

Friendwise, being on exchange can be rather frustrating as everyone knows there is too little time to dig and too much time for just mutual smiles. You don't want to care too much because you will leave, but you can't care too little either with all the experiences craving for social context. There is the constant temptation to settle in a web of fellow exchange-students and create this pathetic island of internationality cut from surrounding nationality. In my case, I don't know whether it should be 'I managed to find the right people' or 'the right people managed to endure me', anyway I am very grateful for how it was. Just some blinkers:
The spontaneous 'lets meet-up'-email of Kathy (2nd pic) and chilling in Starbucks; the get-outs with Tesse (3rd, far left), the clubbing with her friends, the hot hotpotting and the bitching 'bout Dr. Lau; the long conversations with Tennia (1st pic), her admirable ideals of changing cultural wrongs, all her wonderful uniqueness contrasting with the common Chinese student and her like-mindedness making me feel so at home; the long-forgotten gaming with namesake and roommate Martin (bottom pics), eating kooky delicacies together, his tolerating of my messy quirks and all his veteran tips that helped me survice the crazy jungle of HKU.
XieXie / M Goi!

an ode and a woe
to roads' flat sorrow
so slow its moving
in the urban meadow
behooving its go
only the longing
for tongueing a fly
and a cry for more
the roar of an orgy
and tadpole galore
sad lore of its wishing
butt cheeks squishing
instead of that dread
the down-swishing axes
chopping the hopping
ending reflexes
of plumb bumpy legs
tea, eggs and congee
see how I scoop
and plea, why o why me
a group of them flocking
in my fucking soup.

If there is one thing that truly identifies China and Hong Kong it is the mass of people. Ask a random person what is the biggest problem of China and likely the answer will be "there too many people." I don't agree. The biggest problem here, is that the mass is a unified determining force of character. Identifying with the mass, thats the people's vice. Here, it is all about involving yourself in the masses, complying to the masses and agreeing with the masses; "they" are all caught up in the masses. Now, there is some socio-historical background as always, and naturally the communistic background and nationalistic present supposedly play their parts. There is just frustratingly little resistance. It is the sole reason why I couldn't live here.
For example, in my courses there is such a lack of voiced opinion, everyone must write essays on the same topics, my floormates dislike me because I don't participate in hall cheering (everyone sings and claps the same tunes) and formal dinners (everyone wears same black suit), there are practically no punkers, alternatives, gothics, or any other groups of adolescent rebels, there is just so little appreciation of differences, of the odd, the expression of anomaly. All these rules and all this willfully dancing to the rules.
Of course, I don't like to have a negative attitude. I think, well its not "their" fault, really it is only because the government smacks down opposing flies, or even swarms of them if necessary. There is literally no room for individuation while living in these recursive apartments. There is no time for individuation, surviving requires the "go with the flow." Differences are relative to culture, I don't recognize their differences. Every country has its swamps. They are just as individual as I am, they just express it less. I try hard, kicking my mind under his negative butt. But in the end, why do they make the mass even bigger, stronger, why do they themselves suppress the alternative, why is popularity equal to participation, why complain about the masses if they create it themselves and fiercefully join in?
For the sake of my own exclusion, I judge the mass.

Always been a person of Martial Arts.
I still remember all the fights, movies, and knocking games.
The endless stories with my brother, in which we created
worlds of battles and morals, heroism and superpowers.
Together we fought father's skilled PrikVinger, and he
gave us our training, made us ready for the rough world
by showing us our Icons: Bruce Lee, Van Damme and Conan.
Fifteen years of Judo classes, from the crying weakling
to the brown belt and the approving smile of my sensei.
And now, all so easily interpreted as expressing the struggle
against prenatal demons of low self-esteem and sadness,
and oversensitivity and insecurity and dark depressions.

How stupid to forget the battle when the war is won,
settle steady in conquered lands. The horrible moving of
age from the simple lessons and words of clarity:
to fight is what you must!

But here in Hong Kong, where nobody watches me,
I watch them: the Kung Fu classics of slicing and wise riddles,
not as pulp, not as camp but with a serious smile
and the slow rejuvenation of tempered drives to demolish and kill.
And with this reawakening of the raging urge to conquer
comes expression, egographed appearance,
and the beating Wardrums of vitality.

M.A.L.
Martial Arts for Life.