I’m in Victoria Park, which was formally a typhoon shelter known as Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, a part of Victoria Harbour, used as a refuge by fishing boats and yachts during typhoon seasons. I’m watching men race toy boats. They take this seriously. As for the Queen Victoria reference, there’s a big statue of her, which somehow feels out of place amongst the Hong Kongese trees and joggers. The statue was cast in Pimlico, London. Many people see the statue as symbol of oppressive rule. In 1996, artist Pun Sing-Lui tipped buckets of red paint over the statue and smashed its nose with a hammer. Instead of seeing the artists political motives for this, people thought he was crazy. Covered in red paint, he spent two nights in a psychiatric institution before being sentenced to 28 days in jail. This action intended to serve as a protest against “dull colonial culture” and to encourage “cultural reunification with ‘red’ China. In response to this act Hong Chin Tin, a political commentator asked ‘Who are we?’.
My Skype interview at the library is in three hours. I’ve been preparing for this relentlessly. I hope I get the job, it will mean I can travel with peace of mind, knowing I have a fresh start and security when I get back to the UK.
I’m tired, I keep staying up until the early hours on the hostel rooftop. There’s so much drink, with cans of beer dominating the surface of each table. Most of my friends have left the hostel and a new crowd has arrived. They love to get wasted. It isn’t the same. There are also a few people who live at the hostel, so I’m getting closer to them as we are in it for some time together. I miss my friends but now they are all continuing their travels. I’m reorganising my travel plans, while getting lots of tips from experienced travellers. There are a few of us who are long-term here (which basically means weeks instead of days). This is Chase. He says dude a lot, sings and plays the ukulele and we share food. He’s only 19 and his mum won’t let him travel around mainland China because he might get into trouble. Bless him.
My Skype interview went well, I think. I managed to gain some energy despite the intense heat. For some reason people are only allowed to book a meeting room at the library for minimum of two people. I had to lie and say my friend was arriving soon. The Skype connection was mostly strong, although it cut off at least 5 times. The interview lasted approximately 45 minutes and then I had to deliver a lesson to a class of BA Fine Art students. I asked them to act out Richard Serra’s verb list, amongst other activities. They seemed to enjoy themselves. I also asked them a lot of object-based questions. After the interview I felt relieved, as I had been relentlessly preparing for it for some time. I stood waiting for the lift and the library assistant told me not to return as I booked the room and I wasn’t with another person. How stupid is this rule? What about people who have no friends? Or people who need to do things alone? I shrugged and said ok.
Most of the time I feel content and relaxed but occasionally I get pangs of panic. Will I be safe? Will I find my way around knowing very little Mandarin? How will I manage with limited internet options? What’s in store for me when I get back? Will I manage to find my way home?
I had contact with E yesterday as it was his birthday. He says he’s clean and deciding to go for it. He seemed different, more determined. Most addicts know they need to admit they are powerless over their addiction and turn to rehabs, clinics and the rooms.
I’m grateful that I was strong enough not to pick up a hard drug habit. Watching people change as they think they have a handle on it and experiencing the chaos unfold is very traumatising. E said he feels like he’s banging on a thick glass window and nobody can hear his screams for help. I call him boy blue, stuck down a well, refusing to be lifted out into a better life. I’ve spoken to my mother and E about being in my blog and work. They have agreed to work with me and I want to do my best to protect them by not exposing them or exploiting them in any way. If you have seen Nan Golding or Richard Billinghams work, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
I’m smoking way too much. It’s helping with the panic. I think I’ve replaced my alcohol addiction with tobacco. A friend of mine says ‘why give up drugs and alcohol to die of Cancer?’, or something along those lines. I need to give up. I’ve heard smoking is a huge thing around mainland China. E was meant to be travelling with me but it all went wrong. I’d like a companion for this trip, so it feels a bit tainted. Everyone keeps reminding me that this is about focussing on myself. When I leave my phone and Internet for my travels soon, maybe I will learn something about self love.
I feel low at times. Being in a hostel is like being with family, except you have to be smiley and lovely all the time. There is no room for a low or bad mood as everyone is on a high. Sometimes I close the curtains to my bunk and hide away for hours. This place feels like a place between the UK and HK, with a steady flow of people staying for a few days, sometimes less. I’ve stopped asking everyone where they are from, where they are going to and even what their names are. Because they all leave and I feel like I’m on a loop setting. There are some people who don”t stay at the hostel, live in HK and go to the roof terrace to get wasted everyday. I do love the rooftop in the evening, people play the guitar and drink a lot. I’m still sober and actually found someone else to talk to who is a year sober. Today I had to avoid standing barefoot into vomit.
This blog is beginning to be a comfort to me. Knowing you are reading and somehow not feeling so alone. I miss the dutch guys and everyone from the first group. We went to the highest bar in the world, which was incredible, drinks were expensive though. We also managed to get extremely lost in a shopping complex and couldn’t find our way out. We walked through the market and soaked in the tacky stalls, neon signs and the familiar HK smells.
Yesterday I went to the lovely little island of Cheung Chau, HK to see the dragon boat race (photos below). Enzo from the hostel showed me around. It was a scorching hot day and I got badly sunburnt and bitten all over. My skin is crawling, itching like crazy. I look like I’ve got the plague. It’s stopping me sleeping and driving me nuts. I have some cream and taking medication now.
The boat race was pretty impressive, very colourful. The Dragon Boat Festival is allegedly based on an old man called Qu Yuan, an official that was so disillusioned with his country’s government that he drowned himself in protest by jumping in the river. The locals then rushed to him, paddling on their boats and banging drums, gongs to scare away anything that might harm Qu Yuan. They couldn’t find him. They also brought offerings of rice to calm the old man’s spirit.
Go on Enzo, I dare you to get closer.
Then we went on a little hike to the top of the island, where massive spiders spin their complex webs and odd little insects dangle from their threads. At one point we decided to take a back alley and a wild barking dog confronted us. I definitely don’t fancy rabies right now. Then we walked some more through a jungle type landscape, walking towards a deserted beach. The beach looked idyllic from far away but when we arrived it was full of rubbish. We went for a swim and the water soothed my burning, itching skin. We talked about Vietnam.
Huysmans: Against Nature (Penguin Classics)
“Rather than visit London, stay at home, in the chimney corner, and read the irreplaceable information supplied by Baedeker” (a travel guide).
When I firsrt met E, he lived in a bedsit, it was basic but ok for a young man. We held hands and stood on a windowsill, overlooking the room. We talked about how it felt, a different perspective of a familiar room. We also did this on a wall overlooking the market square at night. There wasn’t a person in sight. It was just us, connected, looking at our town.
When I close the curtains to my bunk, it becomes my bedroom, where I feel safe. I’ve gotten over the bunk bed and curtains trauma from the war, it seems. I think about my life and what the hell I’m doing. There’s a powerful and sometimes overwhelming sense of fear, elation and depression. I know this is Post Traumatic Stress disorder, from dating an addict. This fear is also connected to a deeper problem engrained in my experiences from the past, with my mother.
I am ready to face myself. I gave up drinking and I’m travelling alone, asking so many questions and working hard. So why do I still want relationships where people are afraid to deal with their own troubles, cutting them off with addictions? If we only have this limited time on this earth then why not spend it in reality? I look into pubs and wonder how many people are thinking about what they are actually doing? People say everyone has to have a vice. Do you need a vice that destroys you every week? Something that makes you look like a fool and not really listen to each other? Try sober clubbing. There’s a point when you reach a natural high that’s so good, the same high as you’d get exercising. Now imagine if we all did that together every week.
When I tell people I don’t drink, there are a number of responses:
1. ‘Wow, your life must be so boring!’. Imagine someone saying that to you.
Watch the film Naked, if you haven’t already.
Johnny: ‘Was I bored? No, I wasn’t fuckin’ bored. I’m never bored. That’s the trouble with everybody – you’re all so bored. You’ve had nature explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the living body explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the universe explained to you and you’re bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn’t matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it’s new as long as it’s new as long as it flashes and fuckin’ bleeps in forty fuckin’ different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I’m not fuckin’ bored.’
2. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m an alcoholic’
‘Oh um’. Silence.
Naked:
Johnny: ‘All right, listen. Does anybody mind if I scream here? Is that okay with you all? Cause I’d feel better for it. It won’t take long.’
3. A detailed account of their own drinking diary. How they should quit drinking or cut down, at least.
Naked.
Brian: ‘What’s goin’ on? What’re you doin’ ‘ere?’
Johnny: ‘Well, you see. I was over ‘ere [takes a step to the left], like this, but that didn’t work for me, so I thought I’d try over here [steps back], but I don’t think there’s much future in this one either.’
What is out of control in your own life? Have you even noticed it creeping up on you? How can you control it? I gave up drinking; I must be able to get out of this headspace. Somehow. What does solitude actually mean? Are you afraid of being alone? We can all connect to films like ‘Into the wild’, ‘Castaway’, ‘The Martian’ and ‘Moon’ but we never actually really know what complete solitude feels like. What are we holding on to?
From the film Naked, again:
Johnny: ‘I’ve got an infinite number of places to go, the problem is where to stay.’
“A creature that hides and “withdraws into its shell,” is preparing a “way out.” This is true of the entire scale of metaphors, from the resurrection of a man in his grave, to the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent. If we remain at the heart of the image under consideration, we have the impression that, by staying in the motionlessness of its shell, the creature is preparing temporal explosions, not to say whirlwinds, of being.”
― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Melting bus stops. Melting. That’s how hot it is here.
The rest of my time I’ve been editing photos for this blog and editing footage for my solo show here in HK.
My MacBook charger broke at the same time as my friend Elmar’s! So we, my friend Nathan, a keen young photographer and Elmar, an inventor, went to the Apple Store. We complained but still had to pay full price for the charger (even though they said 10% off after I already swiped my card.). Nathan counted my loose change, which amounted to 151 HKD! This is because my Dyscalculia makes me panic about counting change in public, so I just exchange notes all the time. I’m going to miss these guys. Below Nathan Bennett has has given permission to show some of his photos on this blog.
Elmar built a product that turns any set of speakers into battery powered Bluetooth speakers. I’ve seen and listened to the prototype, and a small (but powerful) rechargeable battery makes big speakers blast sound. I highly recommend keeping your eye on this product for when it comes out.
Oh and let me mention the bites again. It’s all in the genes and scent, apparently. Or maybe it’s the bug print t-shirt that’s attracting them to me. That’s the science bit over. I’m feeling sexy.
