Just because you can see it, don’t assume you can actually get to it
I’ve talked about walking around Hong Kong before but the lessons I learned didn’t stop me trying again recently. I suppose the biggest thing to bear in mind if you do decide to walk around HK is that just because you can see your destination doesn’t mean you can actually reach it. For instance, I had a meeting in the Bank of America tower recently. It’s a nice tower – pretty big, as towers go. Just to help people like me, it has Bank of America written in large letters on the top of it, so it’s really difficult to miss.
In fact, I could easily see it; I was barely fifty meters away from it. I was so close I could almost smell the damned thing. But could I work out how to reach the place? Could I buffalo! Between the building and where I stood was a multilane freeway, half a dozen pillars supporting an overhead road and a number of flower beds. Ten minutes later I arrived at the building, almost weeping with frustration and exhausted from the number of stairs I’d had to navigate.
Lifts
Of course, arriving at the building in which your meeting is being held is not, as I had hoped, the end of the journey. Once you reach the building you have to negotiate the lifts. Now, in my experience in the UK, lifts are fairly straightforward. You get in, you press the button which corresponds to the floor you want and then the lift takes you there. In HK, things are different. Because the buildings are (a) so large and (b) contain so many different companies and offices, the buildings have to take a different approach. So, to speed things up, not every lift goes to every floor. You can end up feeling really stupid in front of everyone else when you realize that you’re taking a round-trip in the wrong elevator.
So, before you get into the lift, make sure it takes you where you need to go: you wouldn’t be the first person to get to the office block in time, and yet be late for the meeting because you got lost in the lift system. Oh, and on the subject of being late – try to avoid this, obviously, but also try to avoid being early. While in the UK, being early is a sign of respect, in Asia it can be as disrespectful as being late because your host may feel obligated to entertain you before the meeting, something he or she may not be very keen to do.
Now wash your hands
Whenever you’re out and about, it’s quite possible that you might need the loo. Should that happen to you, there are a couple of things that you should bear in mind, lest you get caught short. The first thing to realize is that, if you need the loo, you’re going to need a key. With the exception of the big malls, toilets in most places will be locked and you’ll need to ask in a nearby shop for a key; understandably, to get the key, you’re probably going to have to buy something. In this instance, Starbucks is your friend – there are about a million of them around the city, and for the price of a cuppa, you can have a key. And, as we all know, there have been occasions when that’s felt like a very cheap deal.
Once you’re in there (and here I’m speaking to the male readers) you should bear in mind that the sound of flushing from inside a cubicle shouldn’t be taken as an indication that the occupant has finished or is in any way preparing to exit. In fact, he’s probably just settling down for round two. The moral of this story is, don’t leave it to the last minute to find a toilet!
At the end of the day
Switch on the television and you’ll HK TV is really, really bad and mostly seems to consist of large groups of people standing together in brightly lit rooms, arguing loudly. I don't think understanding the language would improve matters although, it has to be said, the actresses do whiney and "pouty" really, really well and the cameramen have got that whole “zoom in on the eyes to dramatic music” thing down to an art-form.
The other type of programme seems to be made by children's TV presenters on industrial quantities of LSD and consists of neon colours, flashing graphics and an incredible amount of screaming and hysterical laughter. Again, entertaining but in a certain "what the holy hell is going on" kind of way. I recommend these programmes, if for no other reason than they have to be seen to be believed.
I don't mean to be all superior about this - god knows, British TV has produced more than its fair share of clunkers - and I genuinely have a sneaking affection for a lot of the programmes I saw. In fact, ten minutes only was all it took to get me hooked on one Chinese soap – I need to find out whether those two women really are long-lost sisters with a shared cockroach phobia. At least, I think that’s what was going on…
