Glutter’s Hong Kong
One night I tried to explain why I was trying to help a friend I really liked but didn’t know well with his coke addiction. How I promised that I would be there to listen if he needed, and I will make time for him. And the reason being, that I knew he had no one else to go to, and he knew I was someone who understood, and we both knew I was not the kind of person who would judge him and most of all I had seen it all before and it wasn’t the first time I dealt with stuff like that. In fact, we grew up so alike, he in his private boarding school in the East Coast, and I in the private school up on the hills of Hong Kong. And we saw it all before we graduated and were 18, well I saw it all and he actually did it all. I know exactly how long this has been going on, as we are the same age. I just simply cast my mind back to my teen years, and I could practically see this man, his life because it was simply so close to mine.
Then I went on about Anthony who was killed, about the parties and people I grew up with. What happenned to some of them, how I know exactly what heroin does to people because I saw it with my own eyes. “You know my friend James? The one you met the other day? He was using at 15. Some guy just came up to him on the bus one day…. and offered him his friendship… if that guy didn’t end up in jail, maybe James wouldn’t be here anymore…Listen Less than Zero is not a piece of scary fiction to me. It’s how it was. Except no one in my school ended up being a prostitute for a coke habit… but I do know someone in college that it happenned to. Fun huh?”
“So you hear of all the rich kids who are screwed up, on drugs, on sex, on drinking and you think it’s just a story but it’s true then.”
“Yes. So true, exactly like that.”
“Why? What is it? I mean, what you’re bored and you have money? You have nothing to do? What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me why.”
“It’s hard to explain….”
“Try.”
I paused. I thought about it. I knew why, but i have never verbalized it in my life to anyone…. And I think sometimes, although none of us like to admit, the experience and life that you were brought up with, when it’s like that, it’s better not to talk about it because it just brings scorn from people who didn’t. We don’t talk about how that feels not even among ourselves. We just know that it was different and it makes us an easy target of other people, and the truth is that it was so long ago, and we have all since made a life for ourselves and maybe it’s not all so important anymore. But it’s true that sometimes when you know someone else grew up like that, it makes you all the more closer, not because its a snobby thing that other people are not good enough, but just that we all understand, we can talk about the past easily, not censoring and its not going to be an issue.
Yes, it’s true we’re all spoilt, yes its true we all had maids, nannies, some had drivers, and lived in houses in a city where everyone lives in apartments, and yes, its true we went away for the summers and spent our weekends in the clubs by the pool. Yes, that is how I lived as a kid, how I lived as a teenager, and probably how I lived until the day I graduated from college and sometimes I live different from other people… and yes, I am somewhat embarressed, maybe a little ashamed that I didn’t work as hard as everyone else and got a whole lot more out of life. I know… we know.. and sometimes we think or some of us think we don’t deserve it so we like to destroy ourselves just a little bit or even a lot just to see what happens. And yes, maybe I should just say it once out loud to see how it feels to admit to someone else what I know and who I am.
“Because we could.”
“What?”
“Because we could. We could do anything. We owned this city.”
He laughed. “You did not own the whole city.”
“But our parents did. They owned it. We could do whatever we wanted. So we did. That’s all.”
He paused. “Before 1997?”
“Yes, before 1997. When Hong Kong was a colony. It was fucked up. I knew it was wrong. We knew something was wrong, but it was going to end, so we took advantage I guess. It was like the last gasp of the party. Have as much fun before the communist came and we won’t know what happenned. Okay?”
He kept looking at me.
“I know. It’s how I grew up and now I am glad we’re back to China. Even if I hate the government. It was a good time but it was not a pretty time. And we live with it. I live with it.”
“It was your past.”
“And a great, glorious, fun past. One that we hold dear and feel nostalgic about, even if it wasn’t right.”
He remained silent as there isn’t much to say to something like that.
“You know what I know?” I finally said to break the silence.
“What?”
“Money doesn’t make you happy. Having things doesn’t make a perfect life. It just looks that way from the outside. I can promise you that.”
“Very true.”
“And sometimes I see these people chasing, chasing, buying things, bragging about all the things they brought and the places they have gone, and sometimes I think, one day you’re going to wake up and realize your kids are screwed up.”
He laughs.
“It’s true, just look at me.”
“You’re not screwed up.”
“Sometimes I am. Trust me.”
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 