Hongkey Kong

Recently, a friend of mine complained about this encounter he had with a trio of rude plainclothes policemen. It was mid-day and he was walking back home when the trio (Hong Kong Police usually go around in threes. Must be feng shui...) accosted him and rudely demanded to see his ID card. They asked him who he was and what he was doing. My friend replied that he was on his way home. One of the coppers asked, "Why are you walking?", with a facial expression that my friend could only describe as the incarnation of hate, or hate incarnate as I poetically suggested.

Why are you walking?

Is it even possible to answer that intelligently without getting shot?

In my early naive and innocent days (basically just the first week) here in the land that is not quite China , I would have tried to interpret that as "Why are you walking home when you can take the bus or ride a cab?" I used to believe that something just got lost in the translation somehow.

Policemen in Hong Kong, a self-styled international city and under British rule till 1997, patrolling in the predominantly ex-patriot community of the Midlevels, are not at fault if they cannot speak intelligible English; but that was before--I have long learned not to ascribe coherent thought to certain people.

I have my own encounters with policemen, too. It's not that uncommon. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to wonder if I fit the racial profile of an al Quaeda[Yes, I misspelled it before! But all is right again in the world] suicide bomber.

My favorite, so far, happened just early this month. I was out for lunch one lazy Sunday, looking at the menus outside restaurants and trying to decide where to eat. Then this middle-aged man comes up to me and identifies himself as "Police" and asks for my ID card. He wasn't in uniform so I asked to see HIS identification. He was kind of surprised, but eventually his synapses must have started firing and he showed me his Police ID card.

I was expecting a cool star-shaped badge but there was none of that, and for the life of me I had no idea what an authentic Police ID was supposed to look like, so I just pretended to scrutinise it. Acting satisfied, I then took out my wallet and showed him my identification.

Then the strange questions started coming. Yes, the day is never complete without those. He asked me,

"Do you have any special thing in your clothes?"

I stifled the urge to reply, "Nothing you'll ever get your hands on.", partly because I assumed he had a gun but mostly because the wit would remain unappreciated and answered with a blank and uncomprehending glassy stare.

In their defense, I think they're just doing what they were trained to do. Somewhere in the curriculum must be a checklist of things to consider suspicious when patrolling. Checking out lunch menus and walking home at mid-day might be at the top of that list. They see one thing and they react appropriately. Stimulus-response.

It's easy to take advantage of that, really, because another thing they have been conditioned to do is to be extra friendly to tourists. So you can just pretend to be lost and ask them how to get to so-and-so tourist attraction and they will happily show you the way. Some even forget that they were conducting a random inspection in the first place.

Yay! Three cheers for Pavlov.

One word of advice though: if any of them start drooling, it's time to run.

posted by rgucci @ 5:01:00 AM

It's post Valentine's Day again. I just realised that it's been over a year since my very first blog entry. And I got, what? Less than ten entries? Funny how time flies when you're being unproductive.

Reading my entries back then, I feel I have to make a few updates:

• Nothing catasthropic has happened to my Treo since I got it exchanged. It's amazing how you can be more careful when the warranty expires.


• Still no gravy at KFC but who cares, even gravy doesn't taste good with H5N1.


• I've outgrown palabok cravings and take my tequila at home.


• I've moved into a new flat a few months back, so my kitchen isn't a fun house of claustrophobia anymore. Well, not exactly. It's an open kitchen, meaning you can see, and sometimes smell, all the unwashed dishes when you enter my living room.


• My previously lauded herbs growing on the window sill have long since been dumped in the trash, plant, pot and all. What? You have to water them?


• I still hold to my theory that all these animal diseases jumping to humans are a result of esoteric sexual practices of farmers who have too much time in their hands and no high-speed Internet connection. Yes, I realise I've worn out the Farmer Joe and World Wide Web reference so many times!


• But I have yet to find snot in my soup.

So that's a whole year's worth of musings from me to you.

To end on a romantic note (it was Valentine's day yesterday after all), here is a nugget of wisdom from a web-slinging sage...

The story of my life... save the world, lose the girl.

posted by rgucci @ 3:39:00 AM