Why I Love Queen's Day

It's been 2.5 years (whoa!) since I moved from Amsterdam to Hong Kong, but I've managed to go back 3x already, twice during Queen's Day if we count this current trip. What can I say, I miss the Netherlands big time and will jump at any opportunity to revisit my second home, ESPECIALLY when it coincides with what is arguably one of the world's biggest and best parties - QUEEN'S DAY, aka Koninginnedag (forget Will & Kate)!

For those unfamiliar with Queen's Day, it's basically the Dutch's national holiday every year on 30-April where everyone dresses in orange and floods into Amsterdam for an all-out street party. Before you dismiss it as JASP or 'just another street party,' here's what makes Q-Day so freakin' awesome:

DJs
Fans of house, electronica and trance music like me always have trouble deciding where to party on Queen's Night & Day, because the all of the world's top DJs including Armin van Buuren, Tiesto, Chuckie, Sander van Doorn and more will be spinning in various squares and open areas around Amsterdam, all for FREE!

Crazy Boat Parties
On Queen's Day, the canals are flooded with party boats that are blasting dance music and full of happy, drunk and dancing people. The boats are privately hired and cruise around Amsterdam all day long, allowing the party animals to hop on and off as they please (usually for pee breaks)!

Flea Markets Everywhere
Queen's Day is the only day of the year when the Dutch don't need a license to sell stuff on the streets, so anyone can set up shop as long as you mark your territory in tape at least a full week ahead. That means the streets are literally lined with everything from kids to seniors putting on dance shows, carnival games and selling home-baked goods, drinks, old clothing, books, and I've even been tried selling my crap on Q-Day twice! Hardly made any money, but it was fun while it lasted...

Turning Orange
As mentioned earlier, the colour to wear is orange and that means anything and everything orange you can get your hands on, including hats, scarves, shirts, pants, socks, wigs, etc. Of course, the more unique your item is, the more nods, attention and RESPECT you'll get compared to everyone else, so definitely try to stand out with your orange picks!

Oops, this is starting to sound like PR copy, so I'd better stop!! If you ever get a chance to visit Amsterdam during Queen's Day, be sure to do so. But now...it's time for me to go and get out there in all my oranginess!

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Blogstipation

Wow...so this is what happens when you don’t blog for a long time. You get a million ideas piled up in your wrinkly brain, only to have them hardened into a rock hard turd that’s near impossible to squeeze out when you finally have time to sit down.

I guess that’s the ‘shitty’ part about being a full-time writer. During the day, we write so much that it becomes a chore to write even more at night (especially when most nights are used for writing whatever we couldn’t finish during the day), so we end up losing any motivation to sit in front of a computer screen at all.

Even so, I won’t and don’t wanna give up. Hopefully, there’s some kind of ex-lax remedy for my case of blogstipation, or at some point, I’ll just painfully explode with a gazillion ideas spilling out of me. Until then, stay tuned for more uninspired bits of writing...

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A face only a mother could love

Sometimes, you come across people so beautiful you can't help yourself from staring. Other times, you come across people so ugly...you just wanna punch them out.

WHAT? Yea, I said it. Some people are so ugly, they just trigger the whack-a-mole reaction in me, whereby I gasp in horror every time they pop up and all I wanna do is clobber it back into its sad little hole with my giant stuffed hammer.

I believe there's a term for this in Cantonese called 'yeung seui', which literally means 'ugly in appearance'. I've tried to translate it into English before but never quite managed, since 'fugly', 'repulsive' or 'disgusting' just doesn't warrant a physical beating like 'yeung seui' does. Or is it just me who defines 'yeung seui' as 'so damn ugly you just wanna punch him/her out'?

As an example, I came across a very 'yeung seui' guy in the MTR the other day. He was sitting across me looking like a zombie with his lower jaw jutted out and mouth hanging open to catch any flies passing by, I presume. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head, yet he still managed to stare at everyone around him for uncomfortably long periods of time, all the while giving a 'I want to eat your brains' look to us all.

Like a train wreck, I tried to look away but found my eyes drifting back to him magnetically against my will, getting more and more annoyed with the way he looked, and why did he have to keep staring at me?! Even though it was days ago, the image of him was emblazoned into my head, so I just had to draw him out:

...now isn't that a face you just wanna punch out!? 

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Tazed and confused

So…the votes are in and it seems that most people actually dig armpit hair…! However, I decided to go through with my laser hair removal appointment anyway and boy do I have a story to tell…

First of all, let me explain the reason why I even signed up for laser hair removal in the first place. The thought of doing it had never really occurred to me until an email landed in my inbox from the increasingly random group buying giant Groupon, this time advertising for 'permanent hair removal at just HK$388 (instead of HK$6,000)'. Since it was for an unlimited number of treatments, I thought, "Meh, what the hell. It's cheap. Why not?" Smart consumers would of course do a background check of where the laser hair removal would be done, but silly me figured it'd be fine, wherever it was. But little did I know…

The company I had bought the deal from is called Brand New Skin and located in Tsim Sha Tsui East on the basement floor of a browned and aging mall. To my surprise, the address led me to what looked like a makeshift office, where the interior was partitioned into various rooms by typical cubicle walls. To be honest, the place looked more like a pop-up blood donation booth than an actual beauty salon where laser hair removal would take place.

Thy advertisement sucks!

After registering my name, the 'technician' (read: random middle-aged woman) asked me to get ready in the 'operation room' (pictured below), which basically meant take my shirt off, lie down and get ready to get zapped. So I did. When she walked in, everything happened so quickly. She tucked paper napkins into my bra to cover my stomach and neck, gave me some orange sunglasses to wear, slapped a bit of clear jelly on my underarm, and then started zapping.

The bare-bones 'operation room' with a toy-like laser machine!

This is where I have to say - I have NEVER experienced anything more PAINFUL in my ENTIRE LIFE! And this is coming from someone who's got a pretty high tolerance for pain (really!). Pinch me, drill my teeth, punch me in the face - I can handle all that. But the feeling of the intense lasers piercing deep into my armpits (like giant 4" needles), pulse by pulse, row by row, was completely unbearable and had me writhing in pain, shouting, "Stop!! Stop!! STOP!!!" Unimpressed, the woman did stop for a few seconds, telling me in a flat voice to just bear the pain, but before I could catch my breath, she started again, piercing into my underarms and heating them up so much that I was convinced that they were burnt to a crisp like a roasted suckling pig.

"Ahhh!! Am I burnt??" I squealed as she kept on pulsing, row by row. "I'm almost done, hold on," she said, emotionless as ever, and then asked me to switch arms, which I reluctantly did. More zapping and screaming ensued, and by the time she was finally finished, she left the room hastily, leaving me lying on the bed with my arms hanging over my head and a frozen expression of shock on my face. 

I think I was lying like that for a good five minutes before slowly coming back to my senses, wondering what the hell had just happened to me. I mean, the feeling must be similar to the way people feel after being tortured, tazed or abducted by aliens. Dazed, confused and with very sore underarms, I got dressed carefully and left the office building wondering if I'd ever return.

Curious about how all the other women do it, I did a bit of research online and found out that in professional salons, the laser should only feel like a rubber band snapping against the skin, and that if it hurts too much, they should give you a cream to numb the pain! If I go back, which I think I probably will (yes, we women are nuts), I will probably find my own to apply beforehand. I mean, I can't waste my HK$388 now can I?? :p

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Ghostly Guards

"Hi Elaine, can you please get someone to remove the 'ghost' that is in the pot outside of our apartment door before we move in?"

A few minutes later, my housing agent replied: "In Chinese, the ghost must remove by the landlord. I discuss call you later."

Who (or what) is this ghost, you ask? To be honest, I haven't really got a clue either. I only noticed the little red pot of soil outside of my new front door last weekend when a few of my friends pointed it out, saying that I shouldn't touch it and that I'd better get rid of it before moving in this Saturday.

According to local sources, the ghost was hired by my past landlord through a spiritual specialist to guard the apartment, and can only be properly removed by such a specialist (or should I call this person an exorcist!?). Until then, he or she is probably floating around in my empty apartment waiting for me to arrive...aiya!!

I've searched online for hours trying to find out who these ghosts might be, but I just can't seem to get any information on them. Instead, I might just be better off putting up a poster of the door gods Qin and Yuchi on my front door to keep all the evil spirits out in the meantime. Take THAT, you ghost!!

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Central Handless Burnt Eyes Beggar

After another long day at work, I came across another beggar on my to the Central MTR. Seated on the right side of Theatre Lane near exit D2 of Central, the Central Handless Burnt Eyes Beggar has severe burn marks on his head, especially around his eye sockets.

He looks up at passerbys with a forlorn expression on his face, and shows off his (missing) hands which have apparently been cut off. His head is also quite bare from having been burnt, and as I recall, he's only got a tuft of hair on the top of his head.

Although he is in a high-traffic location where many OL (office ladies) and OM (office men?) pass by, I've never seen anyone stop to give him anything. So if you're reading this, please stop by Maxim's, McDonalds' or Marks & Spencer nearby to get him something nice!

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How to Win at Mah Jong

Like most Chinese kids, I learned to play mah jong at a young age, mostly from watching my grandma play on the weekends with her floral sweater clad gang of senior sistas from around the block.

But even with this 'intense' training, my mah jong skills never really progressed over the years, since I usually played with fellow 'fake Chinese' or non-Chinese friends (which automatically made me the expert, oh yeaah). In Hong Kong, I've definitely had to up my game when playing against locals or anyone more Chinese than me, but my preference is still to win with the easiest and most hated hand, the worthless chicken, or let fate run its course (read: no strategy whatsoever).

Of course, some people are more competitive than others, as evidenced by a notice in my apartment block about an internal mah jong competition coming up. I forget how much the prize was, but I'm pretty sure the participants are more interested in winning the title of Mah Jong Master of our apartment block than anything else.

Not that I was thinking of entering or anything, but my curiosity got me googling for any guaranteed strategies at winning at mah jong, and turns out there are a ton! Like:

When you first get your tiles, make an immediate evaluation of how many tiles you are away from victory.

• If it's under 4, play to WIN.
• If it's 5, it really depends on whether you draw good tiles.
• And if you need 6 or more to win, just give up and play defensively (or to sabotage the others, if you prefer).

If you're playing to win, take lots of chances and discard anything you don't need. If you're playing for a draw, never discard a dragon (white board, green veggie or red centre) or wind (North, South, East, West) except your own, never show your tiles by calling 'seung' or 'pong', and discard tiles in the following order: isolated winds, numerals, dragons and special winds.

Another good thing to know is what to say when you actually win. Although it doesn't happen often, I thought I could just shout "HAHA! I WIN!" (哈哈, 我赢!) but apparently that doesn't quite work in Cantonese. What you're supposed to say is "SIK-WU! 食糊!" (lit. "EAT CONGEE!"), which can also be replaced by "JI-MOH!" (lit. "SELF TOUCH!") if you drew the winning tile yourself. Pretty kinky stuff, huh?

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Do we need armpit hair?

Lately, I listed a few things online on various buy/sell websites in HK trying to get rid of some junk in my apartment. Most of the items are gadget-related, like an electronic ENG/CHI dictionary, compact prosumer camera, iPhone4 case and a bluetooth headset (*hint hint* contact me if interested ;). I thought, since I never (and I mean never) use them, why not sell them to someone who might make better use of them, right?

The problem is, once people start calling me and making offers for my items, I immediately get all wishy-washy about whether I really want to sell it, since their sudden interest proves that what I've got is pretty damn hot and in demand! Naturally, I set the price high so it's above what they wanna pay, so then I feel pretty good that I get to keep something that other people want. Stupid, huh?

I guess it's also a matter of wondering whether you are getting rid of something that might actually come into use later (a typical thought for any packrat, I suppose). But then, this thought came up again when I was about to book an appointment for my first laser hair removal treatment, specifically for the underarms.

Suddenly, I found myself thinking, 'Sh*t, this is permanent man...NO more underarm hair in the future...so be 100% sure that this is what you want. Now, do you foresee any situation in the future where you might wish you still had underarm hair?'

After thinking long and hard, I couldn't think of any reason not to get rid of it, so I went ahead and booked my appointment. I can still cancel though, so if you know of any compelling reasons for having armpit hair, please let me know and I'll reconsider. :)

Zap or Keep?

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So-So Social

In the spirit of Social Media Week HK, I thought it's about time I 'socialized' my blog as well, or risk becoming a dinosaur in the digital world. Not that it'd be a bad thing, since dinosaurs rock, but you know, anything that simplifies the sharing process for people is probably a good idea.

So...what's new, you ask? Well, there's now a nifty Facebook Like Box integrated onto the right hand side of the page, as well as a lil tab on the left side that makes it easy to 'Like' or 'Tweet' the page you're currently on. Feel free to use, misuse and/or abuse them as much as you want!

A peek at the FB page

And, while we're on the topic of being social, let me introduce you to a few new friends of mine: Sherman, Jacky, Harry, Billy and Charlie... Find out who they are on my Facebook Page and let me know what you think!


(Note: Not all my friends are made of Fimo...or maybe they are... ;)

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MISSING!! Favourite concierges gone by...

It's that time of year again - Chinese New Year - and you know what that means… It's time to put on that tacky Chinese outfit you would never be seen in public with every other day of the year, time to drop our jaws for 20 minutes straight going 'wahhhh' for the same ol' fireworks in Victoria Harbour and of course, time to shirk around all those building reception and security guards that we don't really know or like enough to give them a red pocket (lai see).

I know it's proper etiquette to give all of them a lil somethin' somethin' for the hard work they've been doing for the past year, but I just don't believe in obligatory giving, especially when it's to the masses and to pseudo-strangers at that. In fact, I'm proud to say that I am a strong supporter of special treatment, both giving and getting (aren't we all?).

Anyway, now that the red pockets have been sneakily distributed to (only) those we've deemed 'favorites', I can't help but reminisce at some of our favorite building concierges gone by...*sniff sniff*

Eggie

Eggie aka. Elgar/Egwart/Egwar (?) was the first reception guy in our building when we first moved to Hong Kong. A skinny, soft-spoken and dare I say nerdy guy, he could often be seen chatting on the phone with his 'girlfriend' (unconfirmed) during his regular graveyard shifts, unless he was asked for help, that is. No matter whether we asked him where we could order takeout, how to stream Premier League games or how to change our locks, he would always conduct intensive research before answering us, in the form of a 3 page handwritten note slipped discreetly into our mailbox the next morning. Sigh…he was so sweet!

Mickey

Mickey was a beautiful and sweet Hong Kong girl who always made me wonder what the hell she was doing as a reception girl in our building. To me, she could definitely enter and win any beauty pageant with her big (contact lens-enhanced) black eyes, porcelain skin and sweet as sugar giggles. One day, she even referred to our neighborhood as a 'garbage land' (translation: dump), so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when she silently disappeared one day…

Mongkok Guy

My personal favorite, Mongkok Guy was aptly named for his partly-shaved emo haircut and rough-looking features. A man in his mid-30s, one of his eyes was a little bit smaller than the other, which I assumed was a battle scar from a fight he'd survived versus other triad members in his past (or current?) life. Always friendly and helpful, we felt particularly hurt when he disappeared without telling us, especially when we had gone out on a limb by outwardly telling him he was "our favorite" guy! ::burn::

Unfortunately, all three of them disappeared without any notice at all, so I have no idea where they are now. I hope Eggie found a better job where he can actually spend the evenings with his said-girlfriend, and I have a feeling that Mickey and Mongkok Guy may have run off together (they seemed quite close and always worked the same shifts for some reason) but who knows?

If anyone out there has seen them, please let them know that they are sorely missed... and that their red pockets are here waiting for them! :'(

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