Orginally Posted August 03 2003
The world is strange, it can be really a terrible dark place. There are places that a girl like me should not drink or eat anything given to me by someone I don’t know and should never leave a drink unattended. “These guys have a kind of medicine, they drop in your drink, like the stuff you see in martial art dramas, and you will remember nothing the next day. You understand? Nothing. You will remember nothing. Do not drink anything.”
I don’t drink anything because no one offers me one, and I am not allowed to go up to the table anyway. Not that I am told I am not allowed at the table, you get the vibe, you’re an unknown chick, and no one is going to talk to you.
There are about 12 to 13 people sitting around, all dressed in black and white. The men have thier haired colored and permed. They are chain smoking. Some of them look incredibly skinny. They seem to be staring into thier beers, slouching, chewing on straws. A few are talking to each other. They seem genuinely happy to see him. Old friend, you haven’t seen for a while type thing. They slap him on the back, and offer him a beer in the bucket. Some look my way, mostly in that uninterested fashion. One man nods at my direction, he shrugs.
I sit about five feet away on a stool, next to the wall. The other women sit about two feet away from the table, smoking their cigarettes staring into nothing. They look bored, but incredibly uninterested in life anymore and stuck up. These are the wifes. I suppose the girlfriends would be sitting at the table and sitting on the laps. No way these women will talk to me. Their first thought is that I might borrow a husband for two because I am younger.
I find myself staring at a beer ad with Che Rivera’s face staring back down at me. He was a bit of a gangsta play boy, into his motorcycles, so I suppose it’s fitting. Castro may have some problems with it, but he’s never going to see.
There is a green poster with “KETAMINE” glowing in big letters. For a moment I thought it was advertising the drug, thinking I truly have stepped into the nether world. Instead upon closer inspection it was a government poster warning against the use. Government designers need to check their posters in dark light environment. White letters glow, dark letter fades in the background.
I could see the humor in pasting a few of those in a club. A government sanctioned way to remind people they are partying. It would be great if they had a set. It can be pasted it in a glow light corridor before you enter the club. Ecstasy! Heroin! Marijuana! Acid! Molestation! Cocaine! Don’t litter! Smoking! My government no matter what they attempt is a bunch of doofuses.
I go for a walk around the club just to have a look. The whole place is painted black. Walls, Ceiling, maybe even the floor. It’s pretty imposing. The walls have neon signs for Blue Girl, Guinness, Carlsberg, a few girls with photoshop enhanced bodies wink down. There are a few framed picture of airplanes and vintage cars, all hung badly, knocked to the side. There is a sunken dance floor in the middle, chairs around the side. It¡¦s not very full because it¡¦s still early, and this is an after hours. I actually think it¡¦s has potential to be a really nice space. The music is the usual terrible hong kong fair of pretty good bass until one of the popstars start singing over it, with what I honestly think is out of tune, but no one seems to agree. The system is awful. The sound just bounces in the empty cavern. A few waitresses walk by in glowing green anoraks, they glance at me with that slight annoyance, and keep walking away. It looks like a club, just different people from those I usually go to.
The girls are in jeans, denim skirts, black tops, lots of dangly chains, bits of cloth, knots everywhere. That asymmetric eighties, punk retro style. All their hair is permed or colored light. I am wearing a white T-shirt with a girl in a bikini holding a gun that reads ¡§Put your Hands up Baby!¡¨ and I feel like a glowing billboard of 1990s fashion. I decide it might be time to go back.
When I walk back, there is a look of small relief, followed by the “Are you mad? Walking around without me,”warning. I just smile and sit back down and try to read the dangers of Ketamine, but I can’t because it blends into the poster and too small.
The people on another table pulls out a packet of what I assume is K. Obviously they couldn¡¦t read about the dangers of Ketamine either. They sniff it with an uncut light blue drinking straw, with the twisty bit at the bottom. I advert my eyes, and make sure I can’t be accused of staring. From the looks of it, I am probably “with” the table with the biggers Dai Lows (Big Brothers), just by their age (over 30) and a feel of nonchalance they have about anyone else there, but it’s still a very very loose connection at best, and I wouldn¡¦t want him to have to stand up for me, when I argued, cajoled, pouted for a good two hours to be allowed to tag along “one day”. Which turned out to be tonight.
He comes up and asks if I am okay, I say “Yeah.” He says are you bored? I just look at him for a little, and he goes, “Let’s go.” We walk out and everyone at the cloak room stares at me. I am not sure if they stare at everyone, but this place is tucked in the corner of Kowloon near the old airport, and I would figure, obviously “Juk Sing Muis” (Kids who are born or lived in other western countries) don’t usually find their way there. I try to hide it, but I can¡¦t. It¡¦s my height, the way I carry myself, my clothes. Sometimes I joke about my goal in life is to be completely “hongkongified” but I have learnt it’s impossible. It is something in my eyes, it is the way I view the world, it just comes through the way I carry myself.
We walk down the stairs and he says goodbye to the bouncer, and I see the way the bouncer looks at me. Up and down and then, a knowing nod. I want to roll my eyes at both of them, but I know better than give attitude to a guy who just let me in a club for free.
He drives me around a little more in Mongkok, shows me a few places I have never noticed. Giant discos that fit two thousand people. I would like to go in, but the cover charge is HK$250 for girls and $300 for guys, with one drink which I find extortionate. I tell him partying in Lan Kwai Fong or Soho is waaay cheaper. He says that¡¦s impossible, a drink is $65 a pop. It is, but admission is free. It shocked me how much it costs to go out in what I would assume would be the less expensive area.
We park for a while and I watch the kids off their heads, drunk, running around outside, drinking water in sunglasses, talking on the phone, sitting on the curb. They look far more cleaner cut than the last place we were at. A good few years younger. I think I could blend in here a lot more with a little effort. I think I might even have a good time.
He starts talking about the other place. “Now you see, I told you there was nothing to look at. That place is a pit. The music isn’t that great. I rather take you somewhere nicer. Next time, I take you here.”
“I know what you mean, but I wanted to have a look. I just wanted to see, if it was really like the movies. I mean all those guys, sitting around. The hair styles, the clothes¡K I guess you really can tell a Dai Low from the way they dress.”
“What is there to look at?” He says again,
“Something different. No one I know would have ever set foot in that place in their lives. And anyway they didn’t treat me like a hooker did they?”
“I would be so angry if they thought you were a hooker.”
I tell him I wouldn’t care if they did. It doesn’t concern me. But he tells me I don’t understand. ¡§But you are my friend. I don not want people to think of you like that. A prostitute. One of those girls!!”
“Thank you, but I don’t care what people think. That’s their own problem. It’s more about how you feel about it then me. Unless it is more about you not wanting to be seen with a hooker.”
He groans again, coz I do not get it. “It is just fundamentally wrong for me to cause people to think you were a pro, just by taking you somewhere.”
“It is impossible to live while making sure everyone thinks the same thing of you!”
This time he grabs the wheel of the car in frustration. I begin to think this is a serious cultural issue we are facing, and why people can tell I did not spend my whole life in this city. He did not either. He spent quite a few years else where too, which is partly why we get along best of all my subjects, and why he is actually my friend. But this one I know I cannot win. But I am going to revisit for sure and grill him on the details until I understand. Right now, I am trying to prove my point which does not facilitate comprehension.
“You’re right. I don’t understand.” This time I keep to myself, what it is that I don’t.
The phone rings and he’s chatting away. On the other line is a woman, talking in that high octave, helium induced little girl voice, which sounds something like, “eeeee, ooooo, deeeeerrrr, mggggmm..” He hangs up and says, “Got to take you home.”
“Em.. just curious, but why is someone calling this early in the morning?” I have a good idea, but acting dumb gives lots of answers.
“It’s the girlfriend of my brother” All I can do is look. “He is dead.”
“Oh.”
“She is lonely, wants someone to talk with. And needs a ride home, so she called to see if I can do it.”
“What if you’re at home?”
“I won’t answer it of course! You think I am crazy!”
“Okay.”
He drops me off and says, :If she asks, we were just out for ciggies you understand?”
“Yeah, for two hours! but what time are you going to go home? I don’t want her thinking I was out with you til six in the morning while she was home in bed.”
“It’s only Wan Chai to North Point. It won’t take any longer than an hour.”
“Right. But I won’t cover for you. Don’t make me do that. You shouldn’t even let me know this stuff.”
I turn to open the door, and he grabs my knee. “Yan I trust you. Please don’t tell anyone what I have told you.”
“I don’t talk to the rest of the guys like I talk to you. You know that.”
“True.”
“I promise never to tell them. But I don’t promise not to write about it.”
“Only in English.”
“Yes, only in English.”
He waits until I get into the gate of my apartment, and watch it close, so he knows I am home safe and drives off.
I bump into one of my crotchety neighbor, who yells at her son for hours every so often, on her way to work. She gives me a look like I am a prostitute and sort of hisses. She hates me.
I wonder what he would think about that. I don’t need to go to a triad club to be thought to be a ho. I just need to go home.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 