Shanghai and Hong Kong have been compared, and have been competing, ever since the Opium Wars. Hong Kong is old school, established, buttoned down, cool and reserved -- Hong Kong knows it’s got it. Shanghai is on the rise and on the make, flashy and trashy, trying to prove itself, to the world and to itself. Hong Kong is San Francisco, Shanghai is L.A. (but without the movie business --that’s in Hong Kong). Hong Kong is Nancy Kerrigan, Shanghai is Tonya Harding. Don’t remember them? OK, then Hong Kong is Colin Firth, Shanghai is Charlie Sheen.
Hong Kong was also our home for two years; when we left, Allison was seven months pregnant with Kai. So when we went to HK for a week at the beginning of April, it was our first time on the old stomping grounds with the boys, our chance to introduce them to friends from those days, and to show the boys a little slice of the city where their mother once removed their father’s kneecap as he attempted to drive between a cliff and a row of double-decker buses... ah, good times, good times. We also got a peek at how the other half lives, and I don’t just mean the Hong Kong/Shanghai divide. We stayed with our friends the Sistersons, who have three daughters, and since we have two sons, we combine to make a near-Brady Bunch situation (I know, no third boy, no symmetry... also two sets of parents, it’s not perfect analogy, but let’s just roll with it). We are so extremely happy with our guys, we generally don’t imagine what it’d be like if we’d come back from the chromosomal slot machine with girls instead. Tanzin, Taylor and Jamie gave us a window into the world of princesses, ponies, and pink (although Taylor would tell you she doesn’t care for princesses. Hey Taylor, start your own blog, all right? I’m working here.)
Houseguests are like fish in that, after three days, you’ll probably want to throw them out. It is to the great credit of our friends John and Simone, and the Sisterson girls, that they hung in there for six nights, and we truly enjoyed ourselves with them. The Sisterson girls and the Ratner boys meshed beautifully. Kai and Keegan were lost in wonder and admiration at these exotic, older women, ages 3, 5, and 7; For Tanzin, Taylor, and Jamie, being with the boys for a week was a bit like having living dolls move in with them. In the evenings the girls would vie to get in the tub with Kai and Keegan, or read with them, or share their bedroom, the one that the boys evicted Jaime from for a week. Taylor and Tanzin both asked every night, “can I please sleep with them?” I told Kai and Keegan they would hear this request many times in the future, and they’d have to be judicious about when to accept it; for now it’s probably best that we settled for reading together. Tanzin and Taylor taught the boys a new way to go down stairs, called “bump bump”, that they now want to play in Shanghai too. In the video version, I love how the Barbie sleeping bag creates a trompe l'oeil illusion that Kai has Barbie's legs.) Tanzin even gave Kai piano lessons, free of charge.
Oh, and we did leave the house a couple of times. Hong Kong has a Disneyland, but it’s a bite-sized little portion of Mouse, and it really doesn’t measure up to its American cousins, except maybe for the crowds. That’s why we went to Ocean Park, a locally-brewed Hong Kong amusement park and aquarium that the Sisterson girls, and now our boys, think is fabulous. Actually, Allison and I liked it quite a bit too, so much so that the boys had a very late nap that day. It’s a great place to walk through a shark tunnel, peep on a panda or two, listen to a faux-Jamaican band, ride a frog hopper, and maybe grab a snack of Haagen-Dazs or some chicken feet -- all in typically hyperactive cultural-cuisinart Hong Kong style. Props to the mascot Whiskers the Seal (and Jamie’s boyfriend!) for showing us a good time. On another day, we hit the beach at Big Wave Bay -- Hong Kong is not exactly Malibu, but the low-key beaches are a blast for the kids anyway, and there’s nothing quite like watching your children happily munching on fistfuls of sand. Allison actually had to go into the HK office one day (those corporations are slave-drivers), and the girls all ran off to some activity they referred to as “school”, so I took the boys across one of the world’s most picturesque harbors on the Star Ferry to the Kowloon side, and we strolled down the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui (just like in Hollywood but with Li Tit and Fung Bo Bo instead of Clark Gable and Bette Davis). The boys really liked the boat traffic on the harbor, and the goofy statues of Bruce Lee and movie equipment. As always, they were the subject of many dozens of tourist photos. When I asked a guy to take our picture on the waterfront, he happily obliged, with my camera, his camera, and his girlfriend’s camera. On the way home, we shot our own film on the Star Ferry (destined for straight-to-DVD), and stopped off at IFC Mall for more fabulous views.
A major highlight was visiting with friends. Our old trainer and pal Lap Fong, one of the sweetest guys in Hong Kong, came by to meet the boys, as did Allison’s friend Barbara. We met Wai Quen and Danny and their kids, Mattie and Hugo, in Victoria Park, and walked to dim sum in Causeway Bay, where Danny made sure I got my share of fried foods, meatballs, and goose. We had pizza in Stanley with Christine and Jason Brueschke and their boys, Thane and Leiden, though we had sadly (but temporarily) left our camera in an undisclosed location, so we have only a couple of hazy shots I took with my phone (the Stanley video was made with the Flip). My favorite is this unintentional video of us assembling for a photo, to be taken by the ten-year-old daughter of Christine’s friend we happened to run into. The little girl noticed and thoughtfully pointed out to me that I had my phone camera on the wrong setting. Ouch. Wow, just wow. We had a great visit with Tim and Mari Dose Brantingham, Miya and Thomas, and it’s a true tragedy that we neglected to take any pictures, not only because the kids are cuties, but also because I would love to show your their high-rise complex, Bel-Air in Pokfulam. The apartments are genuinely lovely, the facilities are terrific, the views superb, but the decor... well, take the Bellagio in Vegas as a starting point, throw in the neo-classical rooms at the Louvre, a little day-glo Kandinsky and Picasso, a few bad nights in the Village, maybe some Keith Haring, some Botero, and a soupcon of Timothy Leary, and you have the Bel-Air. There are many, many places in China where you can find such, let’s say, eclectic blendings of taste, but the Bel-Air is an outstanding example. Tim said he wished he could be on the decorating committee, and I hope he gets his chance.
Looking out over the city from the Sisterson’s patio in Bamboo Grove, our old home, it was easy to be nostalgic about Hong Kong. It is, or at least it seems, easier than Shanghai; as a British colony until just over a decade ago, HK is part China, part London. With its spectacular cityscapes and its surprising amount of green space (thanks to the rugged and impossible-to-develop coastal hills), it’s also part Manhattan, part wilderness. But the practical reality is that we live in Shanghai, and we’ll be here for quite a while. I don’t want to spend my time wishing myself away; I want to embrace the sprawling, cacophonous city we call home, speak its language, learn its nuances. If I can just figure out those tones, and find a decent bagel, I think I’ll be all right.
