Backpacking addict.
Arriving to london has a different sensation. It’s like I am catching a bus and getting of nowhere. I have no emotional response to the landing, there isn’t a blip of excitment that acompanies most landing. Sydney makes me smile because I will hang out with my mom and dad in the patio and smoke cigarettes when I try to work out dad’s cross words getting a few right but most wrong, I know I will reaquaint myself with my cousins and then still alive grandma. I look forward to seeing my sister’s dogs, and Tenzin in particular. He’s really quite stupid and extremely happy and I like that trait in a dog as well as many humans. Arriving in LA gives me a sense of return. I wonder if it has changed and what adventures i will encounter once that miraculous transformation of my pysche and me that comes with arriving to the stomping grounds of university. By default of knowing I will see my brother, my dad, my buddies brings a sense of completetion. Hong Kong is always met with relief I am home and trepidation of what faces me both professionally and personally plus the sudden spike in intensity. Then there is the arrival to New York where I feel a heady spin of visiting a city that really is the best, a place where I always hoped hong kong could be but didn’t know it actually existed. I once likened New York City, Manhatten in particular to my Atlantis, a place where so many of my dreams could come true. Where the hip and cool, the different and edgy has a veneer of perfection that when you scratch the surface only proves that is it as good as it seemed maybe better than you first imagined.
And here I am in London.
I feel nothing. It’s not just because I will be heading out of here in a few hours it’s just i am not too keen on this place. There is a sense of cynicsm that permeates the people and the place, a search for cool that isn’t always so self confident but bravado and lots of really drunk people prone to violent outbursts for no particular reason I could ever find. But I promise that one day I will give it another chance, but as i arrive, I see no smiles, just a general deadness but I have to admit it’s currently 6am in the morning. But London just exists in my mind with not much emotion, for me Londong sits in my brain simply as an acknowledgement of existence. Although on a personal front London is a city filled with love in my life and memories, as there are many a people I love in London, and i feel such affection for the time we spent elsewhere. But for me, it’s just a shell that they exist in while other places the city, the space speaks to me more. I don’t know why, but it might just come down to the weather although with it raining so much it allows me the excuse to watch endless TV which is great and read red tops which is trashy and the broadsheets which I always feel are impressive. So maybe London is more a non-object for me, existing as a concept -solid only in its media and thus cannot elicit an emotional response.
But I do have one observation about London I found most interesting and more than a slight relief.
It regards airport security. They are rather thourough, serching the people they have picked with utmost care. The person before me had a literally ass-grabbing pat down and a opening of bags, at the same time letting me through without a bat of the eye. Which leads me to the (rather superficial) conclusion unlike the US, the British don’t have to make a huge spectacle of non-racial profiling, and therefore makes far more specifc searches on potential terroists. To say it badly they simply pics dark skin men to throughly search, leaving me and other tourists and business travellers to go quickly through security. I know it’s wrong and selfish, especially when taken to the most extreme means shooting at the wrong people, but I always wondered how effective the "random" checks of the US when I found myself, an old lady and a woman with a three years old. standing in the High security line only to watch men of a certain age and culture who are far more likely to be terroists than us pass through because they did not come up in the numbers game. It’s not that I think all muslim men are terroist and I understand why they would be angry with that kind of checks but sometimes maybe we all have to give a little for the safetly for all.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
“We” all have to give? You mean, “they” should have to give. “They” have to give their civil liberties, dignities, and sometimes lives for you to feel a little safer.
It surprises me how you can strongly petition for the human and civil rights of the people of Hong Kong, but express relief that liberties are denied to others elsewhere.
….At least you acknowledge that it’s wrong and selfish.
Have a pleasant trip.
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There are no cynics in London, only realists. The UK is becoming a darker and more authoritarian state day by day, and the British version of “democracy” isn’t going to help – the Labour party is probably the most liberal-minded of the lot. As for selective profiling (which doesn’t exist officially, of course), the Metropolitan police have never been too concerned about keeping their racist policies under control.
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boo hoo hoo. former british subject isn’t too ”keen” on England.
Come on, glutter. Let’s put some life back in this blog.
Let’s do better than post colonial lethargy and the mock sarcasm against the imperialistic former elite.
bleh.
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Yan, I know what you mean about London. I think of it as my own burmuda triangle. I was there in March and within twenty-four hours my luggage was lost, I lost my sunglasses, and I lost my lunch after having upscale Italian that was apparently rotten. I wanted to get the hell out of there, I tell you!
As for the security, I have to say that you were lucky. On my way into London and on my way out I was chosen for the experimental “all body x-ray” scan, a three-pose x-ray session to check for weapons, etc. I’m not dark-skinned and I’m not muslim, yet I was chosen twice. So no, it’s pretty much the same in London as in the states (at least before the tube bombings…maybe it’s changed): one “security” degradation after another, made worse since you know it won’t stop someone dead-set on commiting a crime. In the states the taking-off-the-shoes racket is the worst, really, along with the confiscation of toe-nail clippers and matches. I just can’t believe how silly it all is.
I received the gorgeous tee and I love it!! I will try to post a picture of me wearing it this weekend and I’ll make sure you send a copy to you. The design is fantastic.
Have a safe, fun trip.
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I arrived in London and passed through almost without noticing security, not suprising though I don’t exactly look like terrorist material. Mind you, how long will it be before we get a nutty white bomber? But yeah I noticed that they don’t go and search just anyone, no one checked my hand luggage in the departure lounge, I had a small backpack, also they can’t possibly check everyone on the flight so I guess even though it does suck for those targetd, the authorities have to prioritise who they are searching. To be honest though, the biggest threat I felt on the flight was sitting directly in front of the toilets at the back of the plane, damn you british airways, damn you! :p
Hope you’re having a good time on your trip.
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Timothy McVeigh was a nutty white bomber, and there are plenty more where that come from in the states.
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Baswizzle, I totally agree with you.
The worst of it is that confiscating toe-nail clippers won’t stop any killer, regardless of their race or ethnicity. It’s such a complete joke. The 9/11 suicide pilots used plastic knives and box cutters to take control of the planes. A pen can be used as a weapon, just as a belt can or steel-toed shoes, or hell even hands. I think we ought to try to prevent what we can — screening luggage and bags is a good idea — but some of what they do now is just silliness. I feel like telling the TSA folks that they can feel me up all they want if it will make them feel better and feel like they’re “making a difference,” even if I know it doesn’t matter at all.
My husband is a stop-lossed national guard soldier in Afghanistan. When he came home for his two week break last month he was frisked and hassled at every stop here and back. On the way back I was allowed to go with him to the gate. At the security check point they rubbed his hands to check for bombmaking residue, confiscated his beard clipping scissors, and sent his shoes through the machine twice. And he was in uniform, heading back to fight our supposed war on terror! It was ludicrous, frankly.
I don’t know if they are racially profiling passengers in London or not. I don’t fit the profile, and I was chosen, but maybe my experience was unique. Clearly London’s gun-toting bobbies are profiling. The same is true of police here in the states for sure. Every year black men and women (sometimes kids) are killed by trigger-happy police. It’s infuriating.
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does this mean you’ll be visiting us in edinburgh any time soon?
(this is a serious proposal, providing you’re not too fussy about bad sofa-beds!)
ps. got your package – and i absolutely adored it. thank you so much! and i loved the big-eyed fish too 🙂
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call me when you get back hun!
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Sure, we’ve all got our horror stories. Every time I travel to the US I get hassled by the security guys. Never immigration or customs, always the security check. Usually it’s either some guy who is his job, or some old guy who’s just doing his job. Earlier this year, in the midwest somewhere, I had an old guy frisk me who looked like he must’ve been around when Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. Last month I flew back from Spain to the UK and was served full metal cutlery on board in business. The cockpit door was three meters away. Fact is it’s a percentage game. No security is total, it’s just there as a deterrent.
And with the xray machine, you can just do what I did and politely refuse and have a pat down. Those machines are pretty revealing…
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I’m a bearded brown man….no one has horror stories that compare.
At least in the states they make everyone take their shoes off. I flew back to HK from Toronto last week, this was the latest experience. I was the only one asked to 1) remove my computer for chemical tests?? 2) remove my shoes. 3) remove my belt. 4) have his carry on examined 5) patted down (twice, once before and after I took my shoes off by the same person??). I did it all with a smile. But the woman behind me asked if this happens often because it was so obvious I was being profiled. How come no one remember McVeigh, the Uni Bomber, the (would-be) shoe bomber or the entire american south?
Oh well, I get my revenge; Nasty, crunchy, stinky socks at the bottom of the bag. First you warn them not to check there because of the stank-funk, then they have to dig right in because you told them not to.
😀
J
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I can top that. I flew out of Moscow a month after Chechen suicide bombers brought down two planes. We all had to take everything off except for trousers, socks and shirt, everything else went into blue plastic bins, laptops swabbed for residue, and a good number of the bulkier passengers were patted down. Lots of drinks being sunk in the exec lounge before take off.
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