apparently i am not a creature of habit, because as those of you who have read my blog over time have discovered, i tend to write only occasionally. this may be because i am trying to write several pages of other material daily, and simply run out of words (like a personal vocabulary quota) at the end of the day when i turn my mind to the creative -- or because i am an undisciplined person by nature. well, i'll leave the conclusion to you, dear reader.
for the past two weeks, i have been deeply submersed in the cheesy genre of hong kong magic realism. i've watched sammi cheng and andy lau pair up as ironic couples in comedies and tragedies. i've seen miriam yeung and tony leung do the same, going from one setting to another, but eternally in love with one another and with love itself. some of you may ask, "why bother?!" when i think of film as a high art. the plots are more or less the same. hong kong films are interesting in that death is just as acceptable of a conclusion as marriage to a romantic storyline but with the same a-list, b-list actors playing more or less the same parts in films that are made in two months by the same directors and producers, why bother?!!
well, perhaps my overuse of the word "same" in the last sentence tipped you off. what i see in those movies is actually "hong kong" itself. i see kowloon, i see hong kong island, i see the harbor in its full glory (i feel like i should spell that "harbour" in the nice british way that Wiser Half always uses) and as i decided a few days ago, i miss water. i miss being near a big ocean that is cold and filled with fish like tuna and halibut. i miss being able to look out and see large vessels, like the kind my father used to ride as a naval officer and later would repair as an engineer. part of me feels that as much as i love being carefully tucked into the middle of the country and the joys of the simple life here in central ohio -- i will always be a girl of the coast. born near the ocean and with all luck, destined to spend the last days of my life near one too. i'm not picky. i love all oceans equally. i've spent a total of 19 years on either side of the pacific ocean and 9 years near the atlantic, and i'd be happy being near the indian ocean or some subsidiary body like the mediterranean sea -- as long as i know i could build a proverbial raft and float out to the ocean. it's ironic, of course, that i focus so much of my research on people who lived in land-locked territories -- but maybe it makes sense. i bring the energy of the ocean-borne wind to their river and lake-based existences.
and this brings me back to missing hong kong terribly. i'm not from hong kong and i've only visited three times but all were good, so it's high time for another look around. well, for now, i'm happy to have many films that show me little bits and pieces, of loud, loud Central (the commercial center in the land of gold and silver), the breezy wooded areas around hong kong island, the government housing projects, the beaches that i adore more than anything (move over, fancy caribbean resort -- hong kong's beaches are premium-quality), and the harbor that links hong kong island with kowloon and that is home to my favorite moving thing -- the Star Ferry.
no, i didn't accept any compensation from the hong kong board of tourism or the hong kong film industry for that matter, and i wouldn't. i was just struck by the complete beauty of hong kong when i first saw bruce lee cross the harbor on his sampan in 1981 (i was three, you can do the math), and that love at first sight never diminished in strength...
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