Mid-Autumn Festival in the Boondocks
As much as HK can have boondocks anyway — hey, if they have pythons, I guess it qualifies… Yesterday was one my clients, with whom I am quite friendly, called me to go celebrate the new moon with his friends. Barbequeue, he said. OK, can do. Where? I was envisioning a nice air-conditioned, albeit smoky, place where meat and beer flow continuously, somewhere in Kowloon. Little did I know, brother. I asked him whether I should go downtown — since I live on Lantau, advance notice is appreciated. No need, the place we’re going is closer to your place. Now I’m worried. Closer to Lantau than Kowloon, but not on Lantau, that’s either the remote islands or the New Territories, in the I-can-see-mainland-China-from-the-toilets-window variety. Yup, señor, su final destinación esta Tuen Mun. Ouchies. As in, I have seen that name on road signs, synonym of wherever that is, up north. Dude.
And, dear friend, how in fuggeration am I supposed to go there?
I already looked it up, easy, take bus E33, seven stops. Sounds reassuring, right? Except that between stops 2 and 3 there’s, I dunno, the bus doesn’t stop for 40 minutes… 7 stops alright… Of course, I wasn’t there quite yet. Get off the bus take cab, call friend, pass mobile phone to cab driver, more driving, and el señor taximan drops me off in what looks like a huge parking lot. Oh my, tyre BBQ dot com… Apparently not though, as my friend picks me up and takes me, where, I dunno, this outdoor BBQ place is so packed, it’s hard to know. Looks like the whole of Tuen Mun is here with us. The whole park, let’s call that a park, is divided in smallish areas tended to by food hawkers. Each area has oil drums cut in half, serving as BBQ pits. People are sitting on benches around the pits, make that planks on empty plastic beer cases, holding long forks over the fires. Looks fun. Large polystyrene ice boxes — as in half full of rapidly melting ice, this is HK, it’s warm to say the least, and the boxes are surrounded by BBQ pits, whaddaya expect? — display a relatively uniform assortment Sprite, Water and beer — one brand, local, unknown and best left thus. Except our little corner, which has a bunch of Paul Masson plonk, chilled so that it goes down easier, and some Chilean white, well, wine? Anyway, this is a client and he’s in the wine biz, after all. Not that his choice of wine would buy him points, but after I saw what they did with the plonk — between mixing it with Sprite and downing full plastic glasses in one shot, I guess one can understand why there’s no Chateau Ausone here tonight. Shudder…
Meanwhile, I realize that most of the BBQ pits in our area are occupied by friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends… You get the setup. Two people invited four more, and by the time I arrived 50 people were enjoying roasted meat more or less together. I am of course the only white person here, probably in the whole BBQ area, but apparently not the only foreigner. One of the members of our party is from Taiwan, and her Cantonese is immensely better than her English — she went native alright! Nobody except my friend and another guy seems to speak any English beyond Hi! And since my Cantonese is just one notch above that — I can say bye bye too 
— the conversation is a bit strained. Not that they didn’t try! Friendliest people I have seen so far here. They tried to teach me these games they play while drinking — no luck, the rules were beyond our reciprocal vocabularies. One girl kept telling me “FIVE, M; TEN, SAP” as if these two numbers were the problem… Silly wabbit! It’s what I am supposed to do with m and sap that nobody was able to tell me… And let’s not get started on that game with one to five that is seemingly best played slightly below the light of speed. Extremely entertaining to watch, a bit like fish being auctioned away on harbours. Nobody except the locals seem to make sense of what’s happening, and let’s keep it this way!
The amount of meat, booze, and cigarettes consumed [they really have a smoking problem here…] is astounding. How many pigs and cows and chickens were slaughtered yesterday for the occasion is probably best measured on a pogrom scale. Sitting is only available close to the pits, 120° when a cooling breeze blows, and these planks are damn narrow. I am off the booze for an undetermined period of time, so between munching on sausages, drinking water and sweating like a pig while trying to catch bits of conversation, I am soon knackered. The noise level too is way off the scale — if they can be noisy in the MTR, surely in an open air space they can let it rip, right? — and it’s taking its toll. When I left a bit after midnight, people were still arriving, and the libations showed no sign of abating. The roads were packed with cars going fuck knows where, and the trip back home in an air-conditioned cab — welcome back civilisation! — took longer than the bus ride on the way in, and was the most expensive item that night: we paid 150$ [less than 15€] for the right to gorge on food and drinks all night. I don’t know, seriously, how the people managing the food stalls make money. I know for sure that a Chinese won’t go into business for the glamour of it, so there has to be something in it for them, but man, life can be cheap here…
The worst part was the smell. Cooked sweat is smelly indeed, and doesn’t go away easy… 