Hong Kong Monday Night

Hong Kong Monday Night

We walked to Times Square and ate at the food court. Times Square is a high-rise mall. It was 7 stories, and that made it seem huge, but actually I think it was an average-sized mall. We were out on the street at around 7 PM, which is still rush hour here and it was the first time I felt somewhat overwhelmed by the crush of humanity. Actually crush is the wrong word; it was more like the flow, rapid flow, of humanity. If I didn’t look too far in front of me I was fine, but if I looked far up the sidewalk, at the sea of Asian faces walking purposefully, talking on cellphones, arms around their girlfriends, handing out fliers, I actually had a sense of vertigo for a moment. Everything was in movement; it was dizzying.

In the mall it seems like each brand has its own little store. Some of the brands are familiar (Calvin Klein, MaxMara, Bass, Nautica, Brooks Brothers, Benneton, but most are not. The clothing seems pretty nice, and the prices were really cheap. You know how in the US Benneton is usually a pretty trendy, and very expensive store? Well the one we went into here was trendy all right, but it was really inexpensive compared to the US. Lee was like “well, they make them right here!”. That’s true, but its still kind of strange.

Even the food court seemed odd. It was all Asian food; I don’t know why I expected a McDonalds! It just seemed funny to see all these Asian kids and young adults sitting around in a food court eating noodle bowls with their chopsticks.

I was really conscious of not seeing a single Caucasian tonight. Part of me was getting a bit mopey about it, but on the other hand I found myself thinking - this is good! This is really good! You get to see how it feels! But, its not like we were odd to them. Its kind of hard to explain. Its just so illuminating to be on the other side of the world and have the fact that not everyone is just like us staring me right in the face. Its one thing to acknowledge it intellectually; its quite another to experience it first hand. I’ve always been a minority, but being Jewish is different. Its easily hidden, if I choose not to reveal it. Its easy to just not say anything about religion and let people think I am whatever they want to think. But I can’t do that here. Just walking down the street I am different.