Hong Kong — Stories

Rice Cracker Sex

Sex can be rice crackers, crumbs in the corners of the bag…

Not Just Halloween Pumpkins

Woody persimmons sit on a small Japanese table with dark marker grimaces. Acrid pumpkins from China are baskets for treats...

Moose Tongue

It was about half an hour in, and most of the attendees are comfortably settled into the conversation. It is the right time to hurl a brick through a stained glass window during a funeral. “I was thinking of boiling a tongue today for dinner...”

The Steam Bun Shell Game

I couldn’t make up my mind so I bought one of each. My fingers were the worse for wear because the bags were only big enough to cover them, not carry them…

Micronesian Chinese Money in Alaska

My family lived abroad. The arts embraced in Micronesia were very different from those in British Hong Kong. There was little chance to delve into interpretive or classical art. When you weren’t taking the aspects you liked, discarding what you didn't and establishing your own local spin on painting, dance and music, you had to go microcosmic...

Teach A Man To Fish

The three of us viewed the crowded steam venting streets being worked for subway tunnels as an industrial Disneyland. Men swarmed up and down bamboo scaffolding. We snaked our ways along the queues for the old red double decker buses that bumped their way around Kowloon...

How To Move Like A Kennedy

The second or third day after the earthquake, I sat in my apartment and realized the training my family and I did in Germany was no different from the onboard aircraft evacuation training I went through over the years. "Take nothing that will slow you down. Run, run far and don't look back..."

Hale Boys' Reprise

It was just after Nagano was chosen for the winter olympics that I suddenly was Mr. Popular. Did I have a spare bedroom? Could I show people around? “Paul, let’s talk after the reunion.” I left before the introductions were even made. That was the end of my high school connections...

ANTHONY

I am or have been a local of London, Lahore, Dacca, New Delhi, Kuwait City, Dhahran, Manila, Bangkok, Pattaya, Tokyo, Salt Lake City, Evanston (Wyoming), Istanbul, Saigon, Hong Kong, Toronto, Freetown, Addis Ababa, Singapore. It seems like a lot but it's kind of a blur.

The Thermostats Of Strangers

Perhaps my sorry state tugged on this woman's strings of motherhood and allowed her to look upon me as just another uncomfortable human. There was a call to nurture and I allowed her to play mum for just the briefest of instances - so fast, if you weren't looking, you'd miss it.