Thursday, December 20, 2007

After the storm

At first I thought they were leaves from the nearby liquidambar tree, falling through the branches of the white birches. It had rained heavily last night, and the ivy-covered slope was littered with fallen red and brown leaves. Then I realized that the ‘leaves’ were really tiny birds, no more than three inches in length from beak to tail, flitting through the birch branches in the dozens, landing here and there, sometimes hanging upside down, feeding on the seed pods.

What a delight to watch them as they went about their business, against a backdrop of blue sky and scattered white clouds.

What kind of birds were they? I really have no idea. But they sure did give me a lift.


Wednesday, December 19, 2007

A Fable

In the years between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Korean conflict, good jobs in England were difficult to find. The country had survived the war, but it was still in its austerity phase under the Labor government, and its economy was a long way from full recovery. What could an able young officer, recently demobilized from the army, hope to find in the way of a promising career in the land of his birth.

India had by then won independence, and most career opportunities for young Englishmen in the subcontinent had evaporated, by and large. But there were still British Crown Colonies elsewhere in the once-proud Empire whose sun was just beginning to set, and none beckoned as brightly as Hong Kong.

A penniless man of decent education and clean habits could find his way there easily enough. The economic miracle that would turn Hong Kong from a colonial backwater into a powerhouse of manufacturing and finance was just about to be jumpstarted with the communist takeover of China, and the profiteering that accompanied the Korean War.

Our man came to Hong Kong with little more than good looks, a fine soldierly bearing, the right sort of accent, and an old cardboard suitcase. In short order he found employment with the newly-reconstituted colonial government, and working hard while befriending the right people, he soon rose to become an important personage in the administration, with an army of local employees reporting to him, a comfortable new apartment with servants in attendance, and even a chauffeured car to take him to work.

He joined the right clubs, worked the right connections, and to his credit, he took pains to master the difficult Cantonese dialect. He engaged in brief liaisons with his superiors’ wives as well as local women, and when things got a bit dicey now and then, took off on three or four months’ home leave to England.

The years went by. He was in his forties. It was time for him to settle down. Back in England, he proposed to the sister of a brother officer. They were married just weeks before he was reassigned to Hong Kong in a higher government position. While dancing with his new wife aboard the P. & O. ship sailing down the Red Sea, he met an elderly Scottish gentleman who happened to own rather choice pieces of Hong Kong property, and much more besides. He was a taipan. The man offered him a directorship in one of his companies. The Scot avowed that, as a good judge of men, he saw in our man the sort of fellow he needed to help advance his business interests in the colony.

Our man pondered the offer for the several days it took to cross the Indian Ocean, and by the time the ship reached Singapore, he had made up his mind. He took up the Scot’s offer, on the understanding that his benefactor would clear matters up with his current employers. In the end, all went smoothly, for that was how, in those times, taipans and colonial administrations dealt with one another.

Business boomed in Hong Kong. Our man’s knowledge of Chinese customs and language made him very much sought after as an expert. His wife learned the art of becoming the perfect Hong Kong hostess, and became much admired for her discernment and taste in things oriental. He was appointed to this council and that board, she to this committee and that charity. They had attained the uppermost reaches of colonial Hong Kong society.

Over the next decade, they had two children, a boy and a girl. Both were born back home in England, for it would not have done to have their birth certificates show Hong Kong as their birthplace. There would be home leave, boarding school, nannies, traveling by sea and later by air, extended business trips and separations, and then Nixon would visit China, and the whole thing would be, as the Americans called it, a whole new ballgame.

But for our man, now in his early fifties, life had become somewhat – how would he have put it? – humdrum, yes, decidedly humdrum. He had everything a man could want – wealth, recognition, a life of great comfort, even of luxury. His wife, never a beauty, had her own life, with her charities, her circle of friends, her bridge games.

At a Chinese New Year’s banquet, our man fell in love. She was a Chinese actress. He, for all his worldliness, had never known any human being of such exquisite loveliness. He was besotted. He fell utterly, completely, irresponsibly, in love.

His decline began from that moment. In time, there came a messy divorce, and his wife returned to England, taking the children and most of his assets back with her. The children wanted no further contact. He was left with his job, which meanwhile had suffered terribly from his neglect. His company went from one financial crisis to another, and, as soon as his old benefactor died, the new board kicked him out.

After a year or so, the actress parted company with him, having found a new, younger leading man. What few friends he had no longer greeted him at the club, and when his bar bill fell monstrously in arrears, his membership there ended.

Jobless, an outcast, our man went over to live in neighboring Macau, in a rooming house in a poor section of the city, above a noodle shop. A small government pension enabled him to survive.

On fine days he might be seen riding in one of these trishaws, or sitting with his watercolor-box and sketchbook on the seawall of the Praia Grande, making pretty pictures a long way from home.

Hope you liked the story.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Street sign - Macau


The Street of the Surprise. There has to be an interesting story behind the name of this street, which is located off the Rua Nova a Guia.

Side street in Macau


I took this photograph to show how some of the streets and byways in Macau resemble their counterparts in certain Mediterranean cities. In Athens, for example, I have been on a street leading up to Lykavittos Hill that looks a lot like this one, down to the flowerpots on the balconies.

The balconies are interesting in themselves, because of their various shapes. The need for space as well as security dictates the design of the balcony railings and guards. Only the green-painted one on the third floor to the right is unconfined.

Note the doggie WC on the left just in front of the parked scooter.


Apartments in Macau


This is a picture of an apartment building in Macau. It was probably built in the 1970s, judging from the style of its windows, and is located in a more affluent part of the city. Macau’s subtropical climate is not kind to exterior paint, and this building shows the effect of years of exposure to tropical rain and humid heat in the stained walls.

Of the two apartments shown, the upper one is the better maintained. Its owner/occupant has at least recently painted the areas around the kitchen door that can easily be reached by a long-handled paint roller. The windows appear newer than the ones in the apartment below, and they may even be the plastic-clad double-paned ones that are more common nowadays among those homeowners concerned with energy-saving.

Air-conditioners are a must for the steamy summers of Macau, and as you can see, there are four mounted on the walls. Unusual for Macau, where the building codes, at least in some areas, are not strongly enforced, the electrical wiring seems to all be contained in metal conduits. But then, this, as I mentioned, is in a better neighborhood.

In the upper apartment, the kitchen door is open. The stainless steel guardrail encloses a small concrete balcony, which appears to serve no purpose other than to allow the occupants to step outside the kitchen for some fresh air. Through the open kitchen door may be seen a small part of the kitchen’s interior, dominated by what appears to be a refrigerator, an appliance that is large by Macau standards, which bears an odd sign in English: “Coffee Break 9:00 – 5:00 Daily”. What does the sign mean, and for whom is it intended?

The windows on the right, half obscured by a blind drawn two-thirds of the way down, offer no clue as to the occupancy of the apartment. A plastic jug in the left corner, and to the right, the back of a platter in the shape of a fish, which appears to be mounted on a wooden stand, and beyond it, what looks like a microwave, or a TV, or a chair back. In between are some amorphous shapes that could be objets d’art, glassware, or small appliances. Hard to tell.

On the balconies of both apartments are red-handled brooms or mops which appear to be of identical style or manufacture. There is one in the upper apartment, and three in the lower. Did they all come from the same source? One can only wonder.

On the floor just inside the kitchen door of the upper apartment is a plastic hamper full of laundry. A small clothesline, blue, with a blue clothespin, hangs between the middle and the far corner of the balcony rail. Have the clothes in the hamper just been taken down from the line? Or are they just washed and ready to be hung out to dry? And what is the block resting so precariously on the top rail.

Questions to which I do not have an answer.

Friday, December 14, 2007

A Day in Hong Kong II

Street in Hung Hom, Kowloon

Five o'clock traffic heading towards Tsimshatsui

Pawn-shop sign and apartment blocks, Matauwei Road

Woman news vendor listening to her radio

Properties to let and for sale, Austin Road, Kowloon

Here's where my 'air quality' images begin, and so did my persistent cough, which endures. Taken from the Avenue of the Stars promenade on the southern tip of Kowloon peninsula looking over Hong Kong harbor toward the Island and its frontage of skyscrapers.


Possible subject for a Chinese watercolor painting.

Tourists with a bronze sculpture of Bruce Lee.

Young Hong Kong enjoying the coolth of the evening.
They tell me that the particulate matter covers the entire Pearl River estuary in the wintertime, when the wind blows south from the vast industrial powerhouse of Guangdong Province. This, plus the vehicular discharge of thousands of buses and cars, makes breathing the air in Hong Kong a risky business for many.

But the tourists don't seem to mind.


The watcher on watch watching his watches

Two young women with a blue mickey mouse cutout. Or is it?

The Avenue of the Stars with live people and bronze sculptures.

Tourists stroll against the skyline of Causeway Bay.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Macau Sã Assim III

Tourists on the steps of São Paulo's façade


The Holy House of Mercy

Vasco da Gama

Taipa Bridge and the Forbidden City

The old and the new





Macau Sã Assim II

Here are more pictures of Macau. You can click on them to enlarge.

Leal Senado is now 'Instituto Para Os Assuntos Civicos e Municipais'

Fast and furious come the new casinos

Guia Lighthouse

The Grand Lisboa Casino Hotel seen from Rua Nova a Guia

The Grand Lisboa Casino seen from the front

Macau Sã Assim

For starters, I’m posting some photos taken on our recent trip to Macau and Hong Kong. As time permits, there’ll be other posts forthcoming, but this being the start of the holiday season, and with much to catch up on before we leave again on another trip, we may have to postpone uploading the bigger album of photos.


Blue Bicycle

Casa de Portugal em Macau

Graffitti Art

Edificio Hang On

Modas Indigo

Green Balconies

Architecture worth preserving

Avenida Dr Rodrigo Rodrigues

Casino Hotel Row

More casinos a-building