Today I went to Macau (I will tell you more about it soon) and during the breakfast I had the stupid idea of buying a newspaper to read during the trip… which finally became a good idea, as I spent in the whole day more than 2 hours queuing in immigration lanes (exit and enter HK and Macau). I read this I found it quite funny.
(…)
When I was a fourth-grader in Benson School on the West River Road north of Minneapolis, Mrs. Erickson gave us the essay topic, “What would you do if you had one day left to live?”
We had just read an inspiring story about Helen Keller (…) and Mrs. Erickson wanted us to write something inspiring about smelling flowers and listening to birds sing and watching the sun set, but I wrote that I wanted to get on a plane and fly to Spain.
I had never flown in my life, and we had finished a unit on Spain and learned about bullfighting, which seemed like a very cool thing to do. So it was Spain for me.
Mrs. Erickson told me to choose something else. “Spain is too far,” she said. “It takes almost a day just to get there.”
I stuck with Spain. Even at that tender age, I knew that life is the journey, not the destination. So Mrs. Erickson kept me indoors for recess, which was fine by me – if she wanted to punish me, she should’ve made me play outdoors with other children.
I’ve never been to Spain because I associate it with having only a day left to live.
(…)
Paris a fine place to wait out the big belch, by Garrisson Keillor.
It is not my last day left to live, but the last day of my China tour… and I am not going to Spain, but Tokyo to recover for a couple of weeks of “normal” life there (if we can call it normal).
Right now, I should be somewhere in a skyscraper in Hong Kong, cheering for 2009 with a mainly nordic group of friends, and about to party the new year. It is unlikely, therefore, that I am eating 12 grapes, like all my compatriots will do in 7 hours, and I will not run San Silvestre race like last year, but I hope that does not mean I will get a bad 2009, and my wishes are still valid. 😉
I wish you all the best for 2009. Feliz Año Nuevo!
PD: I have realized that 2008 would have been the shortest year of my life… for 7 hours if it had not been a leap year… Who cares, right? 😛
Walking in the street today I saw this sign in a park in Hong Kong.
It might seem a bit strange to you, but there is some foundation for this. In China, spitting is normal, extended and generally accepted; at least in all three cities I have been before, and I do know than in many others too.
Hong Kong is really close to mainland China, and in fact, it is part of China, but they still have many english ways of living, and one of them is that spitting is not something socially accepted, as in the rest of the country, so they have set up local penalties to fight against that.
Hong Kong is one of those special places in the world for several reasons. It is a city in chinese territory, and now under the chinese flag (until 1997 this was Great Britain), but still with special agreements regarding passports (you do not need a visa if you come from the EU, for example), currency (HK dollar), driving (on the left)… and, of course, appearance.
It is also peculiar because they are a set of islands with many mountains, so the space is quite scarce. Its situation has been very important in the history, and therefore it is one of the economic poles in the Globe. That justifies being the second city in the world in number of skyscrapers.
I like this so far. It does not have many spots to see, but it is clearly different from the rest of China, which makes it interesting by itself in this trip.
