Blogging begets blogging, it seems.

If I could draw like Jorge Colombo, my HK experiences might come to life. Because one of the most striking things about this place is the way the people dress. There are plenty of jeans-and-T-shirt types, but just as many middleaged women in pink party frocks, Japanese tourists in head-to-toe Gucci, teenage girls in 1960s convent girl school uniforms (carrying mobile phones with up to 10 dingledangles hanging off them), Chinese punks in tartan and combat boots on 35 degree-plus days, young women combining 15 styles and accessories (think Madonna's early days, through a Vogue mixmaster), and, just sometimes, a big white guy (sorry, BWG) who towers above the subway crowds in his tailored suit, big nose leading him along.

the nice thing about the Internet is that you can find 18-month-old flame parties in someone else's comments when you're innocently surfing for an article you wrote once.

in this case, I'm accused of being lame and a few ethical misdemeanours. my employer is (wrongly) castigated for sending me to a blogging conference. I wish. paid for that one myself.

Bloggety Blog, however, has got increasingly lame as time has gone on. I have a couple of other, topic-specific blogs kicking about that do get updated when stuff happens - eg, the pub is benefiting from the best growing season for yonks.. but my life in general is very baby-focussed now and it doesn't always make the most scintillating reading (yesterday was a six-poopy day, does that push your buttons? thought not.) And I was always careful not to make this blog a work blog or anything other than a personal blathering place, so I could care less about criticisms of my style etc. It does nark me when people have a problem with me but don't let me know about it - and the person accusing me of that isn't the person I quoted, whom I interviewed and did fact checking with and appeared quite happy about things.

as for the Rebecca Blood stuff, I don't get it. she was in fact blogging before the term "blog" was commonly used. no one said she was the only one.

where is this going? nowhere, really. I don't feel ready to just close this blog down. nor am I in the mood to reinvigorate it with the effort it would take to say something interesting about Hong Kong, motherhood etc. I'm not actively studying blogs or writing about them right now (resounding cheer from the peanut gallery, I suppose). those few people who do drop by are either friends whom I'm too slack to email (Hi, M&M!) or poor dears who've followed a Google link. the flamethrowers in question won't read this, because I'm not feeling provocative enough to link to them in this post. and here my lame post peters out...

(edit: I'm well pleased to find that my blog, and various other lame sites I have, are now on at least the third page of Google results for a search on my name. sinking merrily into obscurity, me!)

probably more amusing than the actual books: vidlit (broadband only)

enjoy mashing words with Babelfish but can't be bothered with all the busson pushing. someone has saved you the trouble (via William Gibson)

The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

Ralph Waldo Emerson


via scrapatorium

hehehe. John Howard in india rubber. via invisible shoebox

an idea for a blog: Improving Me - to get a slew of self-help books and actually do what they say - plaster my walls with affirmations, get up 1/2 an hour earlier to exercise, do visualisations, etc etc. of course I won't, but it's a blog I'd like to read.

hong kong weirdness: when they take apart the bamboo scaffolding on buildings, they just cut and drop the plastic ties on whomever is passing below.

and a newspaper report on a boy who'd been seriously injured by a bus also noted that his bicycle had been damaged. like, who cares? the child had head injuries and they're wasting space on the bike??

pollution is the issue du jour here - it's not just me, the place really is filthy, air-wise. I hide inside with the baby a lot of days, not going out for more than an hour unless it's to an airconditioned mall or apartment. it really is that bad. melbourne's smog is ambrosia compared to this lot.

baby=teething. poor little creature.

blogger has a new way to waste your time: at the top of their blog*spot blogs, instead of an ad, there is now a search and "next blog" function, for one-click, mindless, random blogsurfing.

naughty blogger! we're trying to get some sleep here!

what is expatness teaching me? perspective.

that Melbourne is a subtle place, that though I missed it, return is simple being here, not any brilliant moment or surge of joy.

that all the bits of the paper I hadn't missed are not worth reading, though some I greeted with recognition and pleasure. that I need to throw a lot of useless junk out. that I will probably always respond with warmth to Chinese faces from here on in. that my baby is still cute here, but not as cute as he is in Hong Kong.

and, when going to a cold climate from a warm shopping paradise, to BUY MORE WARM BABY CLOTHES AND TAKE THEM.

that said, it is a sunny spring day with a warm north wind and I am well pleased to be here, if only for 12 days. do not expect more blogging, I'll be too busy living.

although one of them did have an amusing link to supermodel personals

like a good broadsheet journalist, I've been reading the South China Morning Post. but to be honest, while it churns out the details of politics and city news, I get more excited when I get a new copy of HK magazine.

this week they had an article about HK blogging. no earthshattering revelations, and after working my way through the blogs referenced, I've concluded that bwg continues to be the most fun, batgung has his moments (which I already knew), and in general if the list in the paper is all HK has to offer in the way of blogs, it's a sad state of affairs.

not that I can talk, being so preoccupied with my darling baby that I can't really be bothered noting the small weirdnesses of HK, like the spiral-shelled snails and the funny outposts like Lamma, a 20 minute ferry ride from Central but with the soul of a Qld country town (and a great-looking beach, complete with trees.

maybe I'll go looking for some better HK blogs. they must exist.

napping is good. these places should be everywhere.

yesterday I thought I saw smoke coming from the high mountains across in China. but it could have been low cloud. today the city is covered in what I hope is smoke - if it's smog it's the worst I've ever seen, even flying into LA. and across the street, two people are flying a kite from the roof of a 20-storey building, using the north wind to send a red paper hawk bucking and kicking through the air.

why does google keep not noticing the wonderful silas carson coates?

HK is officially bilingual, but Cantonese rules. still, it's often not necessary to hear the English version. When the Tannoy makes an announcement 15 minutes before the pool closes, it's saying "the pool is closing". When the sign in the shower is in black with highlighted sections in red and blue, it's saying "turn on the cold water before the hot". When a bloke in the market knocks a vendor with his goods trolley, she says "look where you're going" and he says "your bum is sticking out too far" and everyone laughs. when the girl at the fish stall talks to the baby, she's saying "you're cute" and when he then cries, the blokes on the stall are saying "ha! even the baby's scared of you"

I haven't picked up any spoken words, but I can now read "warning", "fire", "person" (a generic two-stroke figure that is paired with other symbols to make man, woman, many people etc), "lift", "exit", and "just" as in only.

so we're settling in - at the same time I'm plotting a trip home, whether or not Qantas will give me a seat on points. I miss Melbourne, friends, the dog, the space, the baby's friends, the Vic market, the cold...

Okay, I take it all back. About the shopping, I mean.

this afternoon I walked into a store and walked out with, among many other things, a perfect pair of black linen casual trousers. the right length. in Australia, this just doesn't happen. everything is made for five foot ten women and the rest of us are supposed to "just take it up", which of course is annoying and usually would ruin the cut.

but here in the land of smaller people, the length is right. I just fit into their "large" sizes but hey, no complaining.

also, courtesy the summer sales, I have a bag full of bizarre and interesting designer (Mossino, Armani Junior) clothes for all my friends' kids. cheap, yes. the credit card took quite a hit, all up. my tendency when stuff is good and cheap is to buy heaps. if it's expensive, I just buy one. either way, I spend about the same, just that today I got more bang for my buck.

I'm seeing HK through a fog of sleep-deprived exhaustion. so forgive me for the lack of scintillating posts. as a resident rather than a tourist you tend to notice minutae instead of the impressive features of a place.

like: the way there is a United Nations of Coke in the supermarket. for a premium, you can get Japanese Coke, Korean Coke and so on. it all tastes the same - kind of like Australian Coke really.

like the bizarre swimming pool protocols. the rules are the same - stay left, swim in the correct lane for your speed etc - but in practice, everyone cruises along doing breaststroke in whatever land and whatever side of the lane they feel like. in Melbourne, I'm a slow swimmer. here, I'm Ian Thorpe. no wonder they had to give their female swimmers hormones to get them medals.

predictably, the Olympics are everywhere. with the next games after this years' in Beijing, Olympic themes are appearing on murals, in advertising and on (Chinese) Coke cans.

last night we saw Spiderman 2 across the road. we learned that you need to book early to get 2 seats together. and I learned the Cantonese symbols for "person(s)", "thank you" and "just" (as on only, merely). also that as far as English movies go, Melbourne is about ten times better than "international" HK. the only movies are big blockbusters, and even the sole arthouse shows Robert Altman - interesting, but not exactly out there. and baby sessions? nonexistent. sigh.

hong kong is a shopping paradise and hell. lots of cheap no-name and name brand stuff. almost none of it fits. and I'm not huge, just a size larger than last time I was here. gorgeous silk Max Mara top for $120au? wow. doesn't fit. and so on. and why, in a city that is like a sauna, is half the stuff nylon and polyester?

the Post (sorry, no links until I learn to zip around cyberspace on the Mac better) has a daily horoscope for western stars, Chinese years and an entry from the Tong Shing, an advice almanac. today's colour is pink, and I happen to be wearing a pink top. maybe I'll subscribe to the paper and check the advice before getting dressed each day. as long as there's no yellow. I don't look good in yellow...