Old People and Pink Hair

In a few days it will be Chinese New Year – ushering in the Year of the Rooster. For those of you who know next-to-nothing about Chinese astrology, let me fill you in.

If you were born in 1971 or 1972, as most of my friends were, then next year is not going to be anything to sing about. It’s predicted that pigs and rats are only going to have an average year. Since the rooster year symbolizes the flaw of taking yourself or your accomplishments too seriously, it is not a particularly good year for overestimating yourself. In other words, don’t do anything drastically different this year or you might live to regret it. The rooster, you see, crows about himself whether or not he’s worthy of it, which can have a tendency to go terribly wrong. So, if you were planning on changing careers, moving to Australia, or trying out kickboxing – think again.

Alternatively, you could just say “That’s bollocks!” and move along to attempt anything you wish. Up to you. Just don’t come crying to your fellow rat when your tail gets burned.

Because it’s the time of year to clean house, give red packets filled with money to those who work for you (also to children and any single friends), and change things, my mind has been veering toward the topic of AGING. Even the best of us eventually go down the “I saw my first grey pubic hair” road, and it can be quite devastating. Especially to those of us who were a bit vain to begin with. Perhaps those not as gifted consider aging as a leveler – like death. At 60, it doesn’t really matter anymore who is better looking because we all have one foot on a banana peel.

In Harbin, I spent time with a group of people, mostly women, who were all at least 25 years older than me. Now, most of them, if not all of them, had loads and loads of money to cushion the blow of being over 50. However, I believe that it might have also dulled their senses a bit, as most were incredibly polite, generous and boring-as-all-hell. I think it was also the incredible divide of the generational gap.

For instance, at one point I came back from a mid-dinner trip to the bathroom and was asked to settle a dispute about marijuana. All parties simply assuming that I would know what I was talking about. I preceded to tell them that 1.) no, there was no difference between marijuana and cannabis (cannabis being the more scientific name) and that 2.) no, cocaine and heroin did not actually come from the same plant, but from two entirely different ones (the coca plant and the poppy). Then, I detailed that you could both smoke or inject heroin, it being a personal choice, but that injecting did give you a considerably bigger high. At the end of my summation on the drug topic, all faces were not only turned toward me intently, but there were actually some dropped jaws. I’m fairly certain that some of them think I am a former (or perhaps current) user.

But the thing that worried me the most about being with these people was this: they had traveled all over the world, had children, did everything that you could think of doing and yet they were entirely soulless. They were, simply put, old THINKING. Ugh. I spent the rest of the trip explaining their children to them, all of whom happened to be my age. That no, we don’t consider having careers really, but jobs. And yes, we have incredible difficulty with the whole marriage, kids thing because we watched too many 80s movies and think unrealistically about these things. And, basically, none of us have a clue what it is that we really want out of life anymore than we can accurately tell you where we will be at their age. Except in debt, for the vast majority of us, especially those of us who have children. So they should stop worrying about their kids being abnormal because if being confused and/or fucked up is being abnormal, well, then, I would just eat my shoe. In other words, their children and their problems were 100% postmodernism normal.

Which got me thinking about my own life and my own set of confusing problems. And the one thing I do know for sure is that A.) I am far from boring and B.) I am far from normal and C.) I do not, under any circumstances, want to end up like most of the people I traveled with to Harbin. I want to have a vibrant life where I do not confuse boring conversation with keeping my opinions to myself. I want to be a real person – not someone who just goes through the motions of politeness. Hell, if I’m still insecure at 50, then what is the point of all of this? Really, I’d like to know. There aren’t a hell of a lot of people out there carrying the torch past the age of 35, that I know for certain.

I read a quote the other day that said: Don’t dare to be different. Dare to be yourself. If that doesn’t make you different, then something is truly wrong.

So, as a consequence of all of this, I have decided to dye the front part of my hair on one side pink. Pale, rock-star pink. Because I have always wanted to do it. When I was about 9 years old my favorite things were the color pink and Blondie. I thought that Deborah Harry was just about the most gorgeous, coolest thing I had ever seen. (I still think this.) The most vivid memory I have is seeing the front cover of the album Parallel Lines. Blondie in a white dress, white high-heel clogs, with her shock of blond hair in the front. So I am getting that Blondie shock of hair in pink. I’m not going quietly people. I choose, finally, to be myself, regardless of whether or not it is polite or fashionable.

Mainenence with Chinese Characteristics

When I left for my trip back to the U.S. three weeks ago, our air conditioner was broken. It had been for about two weeks. As I sit here typing, there are currently five men involved in the replacing of the air-conditioning unit.

This brings me to my topic: the little differences.

In most large apartment buildings in New York, there is a general maintence staff. If the toilet breaks, you call them. If a light doesn’t turn on, you call them. Refrigeration problem? You guessed it – you call them. Just one number for everything. Unless it’s a specific issue, you see the same people every single time.

So far, I have had a few things go wrong. The toilet was leaking – this involved at least 8 different people in different stages. First, we had the team that made sure the bathroom was not flooding. Once they ascertained that there was no immediate danger to the building, they contacted our landlord. Then, a representative of our landlord brought another two people along to inspect the toilet. At this stage, they were just making sure I wasn’t some nutter who likes calling in false leaking toilet alarms. That being done and the leak being verifiied, we moved into the “fixing” stage. This involved two separate visits: one for initial fixing, the other for final fixing with the correct equipment.

At some point, I thought about have refreshments set out for all of the visitors. Iced tea, anyone? Cookie?

As for the air-conditioning unit, I have lost track of all the people I have seen. The estimate is somewhere between 15 to 20 different individuals. And, no, this is not a bold-faced case of a gweilo who keeps seeing the same faces and cannot tell the difference. I swear to you, these are completely different people. Which makes me wonder . . . are meetings being held somewhere else about us? How can so many different people be involved and know everything about the situtation? Has there been a memo? And if so, why haven’t I gotten one?

My husband has suggested that it takes so many people to fix something because China has a shortage of viable jobs. They have to invent different levels of one job in order to make room for everyone to have a job. I thought that maybe in the jokes about screwing in the light bulb, we just got the nationality all wrong. Like the game of telephone – by the time it got to us, we heard Polish.

Now, I’m fairly certain that these people consider me the biggest idiot in the world. They have to send a translator along just so that they can communicate with me. That is a fairly big sign of my inadequacy in dealing with the situation. So perhaps I shouldn’t judge.

And, actually, at this point, we’re getting used to the sweating. It’s like having your own private sauna with a bed in it. Sweating out the pounds while you sleep. It could be all the rage on the dieting circuit.

At any rate, I find it more amusing than annoying. I like finding out about these small differences in culture. On the surface, they seem baffling, and I’ll probably never understand it. But you don’t go to China to have american experiences, then, do you?

Fendi, Gucci, Prada, Sis-Boom-Bada

I am not an avid shopper. That being said, I have no business even being in, little alone living in, Hong Kong. For one of the unknown facts about this city (at least to most Westerners), is that Hong Kong is the largest continuous shopping mall on the planet.

I have never seen so many shops in my life.

Picture the mall. I am talking about the behemoth, triple-level structures in most suburban areas across the United States; the ones that look like giant sports stadiums and hold an array of shops, eateries, and in some cases, carousels and roller coasters. Now imagine yourself walking through the mall to get to another mall, only this time the mall is in an open-air environment, surrounded by tall buildings with businesses and homes.

This, in a nutshell, is Hong Kong.

I have never in my life seen so many shops concentrated in one area. Not only that, but Hong Kong is home to more high fashion shops than even New York City or Paris or Rome or Milan or London. I’ve counted. In one day, it is possible to pass by three Hermes shops. Three. I’m fairly certain that I’ve only seen the ONE Hermes store in New York. Paris might have more, but I couldn’t stop eating chocolate croissants long enough to find out. (For those uninitiated to the world of fashion, Hermes makes famous silk scarves and letter ‘H’ belts and watches, among other things. Think of the fashion equivalent of Sesame Street when it is sponsored by a letter. In Hermes, today’s letter is always ‘H’.)

What’s more, I almost never see a woman walking down the street without a shopping bag. Or two. At any time of day, it is a parade of new bags. And I find myself wondering about these women. Do they work just so that they can buy expensive bags? What are they buying all the time? How many outfits and pairs of shoes can one person own? From the looks of it, a lot.

In the more ‘fashionable’ malls, you can even eat dinner at an expensive restaurant. I don’t mean that the restaurant is conveniently located in one of the shops either. In some places, the restaurant is literally smack in the middle of the walkway.

Office buildings all have shops in their lower floors. There isn’t a single place in the city that one can escape it. Even at the Peak, right there in back of the grand view of the harbor, there is a mini-mall.

If western values are infiltrating China, Hong Kong is definitely the entry point. The women in Hong Kong are by far the most fashionable women I have ever seen. And I used to work in the modeling industry, so I should know. But instead of looking cool and beautiful, all too often the effect of being head-to-toe in Prada or Chanel is that you simply look rich, not stylish. It’s like the 1950s in the US. Every woman looks like she is wearing a uniform, no matter how individual the outfit. They literally look like, and you’ll forgive me for this, China dolls. Perfect, polished, petite, fashionable dolls. Extra outfits sold separately.

And the men are almost as bad, only they are obsessed with cars and the latest electronic toys. Everyone here owns a Mercedes or a Lexus. If I were a luxury car salesmen, I would want to do business here. Occasionally, you can find a Mercedes shop in one of the malls. And, no, I’m not joking.