Living in a Box

Sitting here in an air-conditioned, spanking new flat, engorged on a weekend's worth of food that would've constituted a week's worth of calorie intake in Delhi, I find it a little difficult to reflect on the past 6 months. It might be too early to do so - like the food, I think I need time to digest the experience and make out what it all means a before I come up with some sort of output.

I didn't work my last week in Delhi. I spent a good deal of it wandering through the maze that is Old Delhi, squeezing my way through cycle rickshaw traffic jams in both directions, narrowly avoiding the tips of their axles as they run millimetres from gouging great chunks out of my shins. Here beeping and honking is very necessary: there's too much vehicular and people traffic to find another way through. You have to make your presence felt. And as the roads become narrower and more congested, a certain degree of claustrophobia is felt and finally the past 6 months start to make sense. Everything you can't come to terms with in the rest of Delhi - the aggressiveness, the disorganization, the pushing, the shoving ­- has a reason here. You can take people out of Old Delhi, but you can't take Old Delhi out of the people. It's in their blood. I should have come here first before all the other spots. It was a mistake to leave it 'til last.

The experience has definitely emboldened me in my future travels. Hong Kong doesn't seem half as crowded or bullish as it did when I was last here 6 years ago. The few times people have bumped into me or vice versa, there have been an exchange of 'Sorrys', something which never used to happen even in the aftermath of a head on pedestrian collision (I have personal experience of such events). In fact, in my first few days here were spent in a mild sense of joy and bemusement. Surely a city can't work this well? There has to be a catch. I'm also sleeping in 10 hour stints - something my body would not allow in Delhi even when I had the time - and my mood is definitely more upbeat. Delhi wasn't that bad. Yeah, it frustrated the hell out of me, but I had a great group of friends and the days didn't seem like such an uphill struggle. Maybe that's just the conscious talking with the benefit of hind legs: the sub-conscious could still be suffering PTS.

I'm not half as jungli as I'd like to think. I like living in an apartment that looks more like a hotel room. I like the fact that there's a gym downstairs on the third floor. I love the fact that there are pavements: I'm sick of having to dodge traffic when I'm out for a stroll. I don't miss black fingernails, haggling, being stared at or bogies that look like the remnants of a Pompeian's death sneeze. So what? Sue me. I deserve a little bit of the good life [cue Kanye].

And Hong Kong certainly has plenty of that, especially if you have family here. It's one giant shopping mall - Select City Walk (for those of you who know what that is) taken to its logical conclusion. Whilst HK Disneyland is being propped up by influxes of Mainland Chinese tourists, HK city is a playground for those with money to burn. I may not have that money, but it's great to enjoy the fruits of its labour, namely a massive variety of places to eat, a fantastic public transport system and lots and lots of cool places to escape from the heat. I'm even trying to rock some Cantonese. I can order an iced lemon tea like a demon, find out the toilet is in a flash and tell people that "I know a little Cantonese", which is very dangerous when you have nothing to follow that statement up with. My granddad understood me though, which proves that at least I'm not speaking in tongues to the local population.

But I still catch myself saying 'ney' to people instead of 'mo-a' and sometimes I see prices in rupees and not in HK dollars as they are (very, very dangerous indeed that last one). All in all India will creep out of me when least expected, which may not be so much out of place here as I'm convinced that there are a lot of overlaps between Chinese and Indian cultures. Hanuman, the Hindu Monkey God is often depicted holding a golden club; Monkey from the Chinese fable carried a golden staff and was pretty much a God himself. Traditional Chinese female dress is tunic and pants, not so dissimilar from the salwar kameez and I've also discovered the 'ji/jee' is used in both Chinese and Hindi as a term of respect. In fact my Chinese name - which I've only just learnt from my father after 27.5 years - is 'Jee Sing' which means, as he described it, "Honesty and then something to do with respect tagged on". Jee Sing vs Singh-ji: not much difference really.

Although it would have been nice if my name didn't sound like 'Cheese String'. String is certainly not King!

For a brief moment Tony contemplated browsing in the Crocs shop. Then he had a quick word with himself and thought better of it.