Live well, work hard, play play? 
.
As we walk to the bus stop, Ekin and Devil starts bullying me.
“Did you read the comments on Kenny’s blog? His readers find you cute leh.”
“Really?”
“Ya, some of them were wondering where I hid you when you came to visit.”
Ekin looks at me in disbelief, obviously oblivious to his inherent cuteness and blog-traffic-inducing-capabilities.
“Whatever. I don’t read your blog anyway.”
At this point, the Devil starts giggling.
“What do you mean you don’t read my blog? You left a comment. Twice. Once. I think.”
“Well that was before I realised all you blogged about were women staring into water, and fish in the water, and the fish or woman or water crying… something like that.”
Devil starts gurgling, half-choking, I hope.
“Too many metaphors. I don’t know what you are talking about most of the time. You’re like, uhm, Wong Kar-wai.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Uhm, yeah?”
Devil is now laughing out loud and scaring small Hongkongese schoolchildren and Pekingese doggies. (Or is that small Pekingese schoolchildren and Hongkongese doggies? You never know, post-reunification and all.)
“Sacrilege! Wong Kar-wai is brilliant! He is like the master of mood… and… and… atmosphere… and…”
“Nothing happens in his movies. People just walk slowly toward each other. And eat noodles.”
“And change cheongsams a hundred times,” chimes in the Devil.
I start staring daggers into the Devil. (Not the easiest task when this Devil is paired not with a pair of horns and a pitchfork but some serious Bambi-batting eyes and self-declared angelic demeanour.)
“Exactly! Nothing happens, no story, they just have wardrobe changes! Like a Sammi Cheng concert without live music!”
“But WKW’s films always have the best music…”
“Whatever. I don’t read your blog.”
And we have to leave Devil behind at Wan Chai because he can’t get up from the street from equal bouts of laughing and crying and a few extra kicks from me to his sorry butt.
.
“The woman looks in the water. There are fish in the water. The fish are crying. The end.”
.
.
We get on the bus. I love how we get on one end and get off on the other, literally climbing the stairs to the upper deck, sit, then walk down another flight of steps to exit. I mean, it’s probably done like this all over the world since I rarely take buses in Malaysia (I mean, who does, don’t we all drive, fossil-fuel-guzzlers that we are?) but it’s exciting anyhow… cos we are in Hong Kong!
The streets of Hong Kong are so different by day. The first time we were in Hong Kong, half a year ago, it was a day trip from Macau so we didn’t really much time. We did manage to visit the famous Women Street or Ladies Market in Mongkok, where char chan tengs jostle for space with street stalls selling all manner of imitation products at night. You know, like they do in Malaysia. And Vietnam. And Thailand. And China. And most Southasian countries we can visit. It’s just not so interesting when you’ve seen more variety and possibly better quality fake items elsewhere.
For that matter, I’m not too sure if it were Women Street that we visited or was it Temple Street? There are so many market streets in Hong Kong, it’s hard to tell them apart. When I tell this to Ekin, a pseudo-resident here part of the year, New York-born native that he is, his reply is, quite, naturally, given his newly-found universal-catchphrase-of-the-year:
“Whatever. I don’t read your blog.”
.
“The woman is in the water. There are fish swimming in the water. The woman and the fish are crying, together. The end.”
.
.
But daytime, the streets of Hong Kong come alive in a way that calls out to me. Break of dawn and the previous night’s garbage is being cleaned away. The streets that are unwashed and unimagined come alive to all the possibilities of a fresh 24 hours.
Boxes, filled with all sorts of secrets and supplies and surprises, are being pushed by trolleys to unknown destinations. We watch all manner of Hong Kong’s citizens upright and otherwise waiting for buses, ours and others, happy and sad and unconcerned, they tell us a story, that this is a city, it is alive as are we. This is life at its best, when so much can be done. So much can be achieved.
The streets of Hong Kong, hustle and flow, the sounds and the sounding, the signals and the signs, the smells and the scents and the breath of life pounding through our veins like blood, like an anthem…
I must have a certain sort of look on my face cos the Devil and Ekin are staring at me.
Damn. They are right, after all. I do sound like that. You know, the woman/water stuff. Crap.
“Do we get off at this stop?”
“Whatever. I don’t read your blog.”
.
“There is no woman, there is no water. There are no fish, no swimming, no crying. But this is not the end. One day this might even make some sense. Maybe.”
.
Words, photographs & design by Kenny Mah.
Macau & Hong Kong & Back Again: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6. To be continued.
LOL. You kept to your 2010 resolution!! LOL.
Bald Eagle thinks the Devil deserves an award.
There is no fish. I ate the fish. I crapped the fish.
1. Haha, kept it so far only… who knows how long before the cheesiness and corniness and sugariness creeps back in; I do flock with food bloggers after all — I totally blame all of you rather happily for all these food-induced “-inesses”.
2. Bald Eagle + Devil = A Bad & Dangerous Combination (for me, that is). Poor moi (Aber nicht pour moi).
3. Poor fish.
Poor fish, my ass.
My ass indeed.
And how do I even begin to reply this? (Btw, LUB your ass also.)
P.S. But not, you know, when it’s a-crappin’. Not into that. Not that I have issues with those who do.
P.P.S. Does anyone? Do I have readers into that? Uhh…
Bald Eagle craps a lot. It drives me crazy.
But don’t you guys have separate bathrooms? You crap yours, he crap his? How, then, can his de-crap-it activities affect your sanity?
If anything, I’d think it’d be these assorted threads of comments that’d drive one crazy. It sure is working well on me…
I can smell.
From behind not one but TWO closed bathroom doors? Oh crap. I mean, wow, that sure is some crap Bald Eagle, uhm, expels?
Aw, I like the woman and the fish and the water and all that. Oh, and the crying too.. (But wait.. is the crying obvious at all, since they’re both in water? Whatever..)
For the sake of being kepoh, and searching for some other topic to talk about besides women and fishes crying and swimming, which Wong Kar Wai movie’s your fav?
1. The obviousness and the ridiculousness is part of the mystique, my friend… or maybe it’s just me blabbering away, haha.
2. Which is my fave WKW film? Hmm… tough one that. First fell in love with Chungking Express when I saw it on TV, loved Takeshi Kaneshiro’s mute pig-masseur in Fallen Angels, loved the narrative riot in 2046 and the narrative maze of Ashes of Time, but…
It’s In the Mood for Love.
A populist choice, maybe, but it’s THAT good.
isn’t happy together his best movie? i love in the mood for love, but it doesn’t hit quite as hard for me as happy together. though that’s probably because of the context and period in which i first watched it.
I guess everyone has their own favourite and for different reasons. There was actually no special context or meaning to the period when I first watched In the Mood for Love — it just survived the ravages of time better than the others for me, and the impact just deepens every time I watch it.
And I happen to like the near-uncountable cheongsam changes Maggie Cheung goes through unlike some folks.
have u watched criterion’s 2-disc version of in the mood? it not, i could pass it to meena next week to pass it to ya. it has deleted scenes, making-of doc, interviews with wkw, tony, maggie…
Omigosh, there’s a Criterion edition already? Oh if you don’t mind, I’d love to watch your copy of it till I get my own.
Danke, danke!
oi, it was released by criterion in 2002 la. no prob, will pass it to lemongrass on friday. be sure to remind her to pass it to you, since she’s somewhat scatterbrained, haha (meena, u said it yourself!)
Ah well, I am scatterbrained too. Meens does know this. Which is prolly why I missed the Criterion edition in 2002.
Nevermind, I’ll try and get Miss Serai out for a date; we could re-enact the whole slow-walking, noodle-eating scene from In the Mood for Love together…
Eeeek! My goldfish memory is being discussed here. Sean Yoong….being forgetful if far from being a scatterbrained chick! Chis!
You may make it up to me when we meet. 
As for you, Kenny Mah….we’ve been talking about a date since mid 2009 and nothing’s materialised. Ptoooi. Re-enact the scenes? Noodle-eating scene? The noodles sound good, but do we have to share a bowl and slurp a single strand from both ends? Kewlness!
1. Poor Sean Yoong. Making up sure is hard to do…
2. Eh, I’m not the one with the calendarful of activities, O Great Queen DSLR… I only happen to have to travel and work all the other times ma…
3. Slurping a single strand from both ends? Ooi, this is WKW, not Disney lah! *faints*
OH my gosh.. props to you Ken…. You went on a trip to H.K.? Hey.. are you still needing that camera?
Yeah, my second trip to HK (and Macau, together) in less than half a year. It’s just that much fun, haha.
As for the camera, like I mentioned earlier, it’d be fun just to take pictures with you using it when we visit you in Tokyo this year (and sooner than you may think, hehe). I don’t think I can accept such an expensive gift, dear. But very sweet of you to offer.
*hugs!*
the fish are DEAD! i read your blog! what’s next!
1. Poor, dead fish.
2. Thank you. At least someone does. (So there, Ekin-san!)
3. What’s next? Your guess is as good as mine at this stage…
why is my No1. reply clickable? WHY WHY WHY??!!!
Hahaha… all roads lead to roam, er, Rome?
is it suppose to lead me somewhere? is there enlightenment .. wort? wort?
Hopefully it leads to FOOD, in Rome ke, in Sri Petaling ke, doesn’t matter. I just need food right now. FOOD, I say, FOOOODDD!
(Okay, ends rant. I am hungry and should eat but got work. And you lot tweeting away…)
why is “you lot tweeting away” clickable? oh fish, you are lucky to be dead.
The world that clicks together tweets together.
Until they are dead, that is. Like the fish.
P.S. But they may not come back, as zombies or otherwise, unlike the fish, which do.
P.P.S. Why do they not? I dunno. It’s a mystery.
Why is poor dead fish clickable? it’ll just bring us back here. a full circle. round the mulberry bush. poor ciki. the fish are indeed dead.
Zombies. The answer is zombies. Zombie fish that is, that keeps coming back to life only to die again.
Yeap. Zombie fish. Ikan zombie. Poor Ciki. Omm.
why you say Omm to Ciki? Is she a yogi? Is the fish a yogi? It cannot be, because the fish is dead.
Dead yogi zombie fish?
yea poor poor ciki.. kenny has no idea, but LL knows that in the end, we always go IN CIRCLES!
All you lot are doing is running, er, putting circles around my eyes!
*faints*
and despite that all, you still love us. or perhaps you love the fish more. but now that the fish is dead, you love us the mostest. we are happy.
But. I never loved the fish. The woman in the water did.
Was that not clear/obvious? I mean, I am a very straightforward person after all. It’s not like I use metaphors or anything… Ahem.
Aaaargghhhh…he’s linking and linking and linking and we’re all going around in circles. I’m dizzy already. (but not with love)
O woe is me! You gotch no Love for me! (But got Lub or not?)
And, anyway, don’t they call this “link love”?)
I’m just doing this to see how far the levels will go and how much our words get truncated. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
I think it’s just 10 levels cos I can’t reply your komen oredi. But your words did not get truncated, just sticks out.
Like a nice piece of ass. Yums.
P.S. I replied by replying my own komen above, not yours. But you geddit, hor?
Goddit. I think I am done with the experiment. Good night, fish.
Yup. Rest in pisces, er, peace, dear fish. So long, and thanks for the universe…
LOL great post Kenny
Thanks, dear… means a lot coming from you. *hugs!*
Taken from the Dream Dictionary:
Dreams about swimming are related to the need to trust your instincts and look to past situations for answers to problems. They can also signify the need for nurturing or mothering in one’s life.
Fish are lucky in dreams, representing spiritual growth and transformation. To see fish swimming in your dream signifies insights from your unconscious mind.
To see others crying in your dream foretells unexpected calls for your help from others.
Since there were none of that, the Devil could be reaching a level of spiritual completeness and inner calm.
*closes Dream Dictionary for another day, another dream*
*mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water gasping for air*
Man, when the Bald Eagle and Devil read this, they are both gonna flip, them partners-in-crime-in-mocking-me…
oh my…whc is more interesting to read..the post itself or the comments?
Whatever. I do like reading your blog. And comments. ;p
Hmm, which came first: the chicken or the egg?
I’d recommend eating both…
I’m confused! Did the fish cry or you cried or cried the fish you did? Bah! The end.
But there is no the end. Everything cycles and circles. Every link is clickable. Even crying dead yogi zombie fish…
The devil is cute. Certainly wouldn’t scold him. A lil spanking wouldn’t go amiss though.
A lil spanking? Why not try spanking a lil fat monkey instead? It’s the latest thing, you know.
I admit the streets in HK are so different, esp the contrast between the old and the new. Too much modernization in Singapore – no doubt it is clean and neat, it just lacks some character.
I guess that is why we travel… we find a breath of “fresh” air in old places with old world charm and character, right?
Kenny is on a roll! how many parts more to the HK series?
I was literally laughing out loud at your conversation. Damn funny! ‘whatever, i don’t read your blog’
How many more parts? Dunno leh… But notice we haven’t even gotten to most of Macau yet…
And. You. ALSO. Don’t. Read. My. Blog?
Yeah I don’t read your blog. Whatever. HAHAHAH
I demand to see a post on dim sum, egg tart, and roast goose before you move on the Macau!
You are gonna get 2 out of 3 things. Make a guess which two, haha…
You mean you really REALLY don’t read my blog? *cries violently*
(Casual readers are gonna wonder why no one reads my blog yet comment so voraciously, haha…)
I shall continue to read for a little longer, just for the sake of the dim sum, and egg tart
Muahahah! it feels so nice to be the evil dude. I don’t want to be the nice guy anymore.
Oh but you are always gonna be the nice guy… in comparison with the Devil Wears Prada hereabouts anyways…
Okay, now you are down to 1 out of 2… LOL *cackles evilly*
I read your blog, Kennymah! And I love every word! *smiles and hugs Kennymah*
Yay for Snow White! *smiles and hugs back*
kinda iss hk now… i used to visit hk once a year since 2006 but 2010…gotta stay here in europe ><
Hey staying in Europe is nothing to sneeze at. You get to wander around so many different countries… I really miss Europe, I do.
Here where they claimed to have 5000 years of civilised life, its no surprise that wkw has that sure touch and sammi cheng the matured sound. Even more so the DEvil seems forlorn and where art thou da gUys ?
the top 2 Asian tourist destination is alive & kicking we see and so we will expect much more especially those fair sophisticated wining laughing majongi women, and the fun ladies
The Devil seems forlorn? That fella is just up to mischief, I tell you…
P.S. What are majongi women? Fun ladies, I think I know lah…
I like the pics and particularly the one shining valiantly in white and the contrasting dark vader. Yeh, I look forward to your stories on dim sum and egg tarts. I am getting giddy with links, dead fish and whatnot talk….help.
Haha, I’m sure the Devil would appreciate your calling him “shining valiantly in white” cos he’s always had this “white knight in shining armour” fantasy. Wait. No, that’s actually me with the fantasy. LOL
As for Ekin-san, I got a feeling he’s not gonna like being called “Dark Vader”.
I agree with the “Wong Kar Wai” resemblance but I am don’t quite agree with the walking slowly and eating noodles part. Hahaha! Your blog sort of made us ponder on our own lives, no matter how minuscule or unimportant our actions were, they would somehow leave an imprint in our life’s journey.
So.. I am eating a bowl of wanton mee. The wanton is really crunchy and succulent. It burst the moment I sink my teeth into it. This is the best wanton mee ever. What makes the wanton mee session even better is, crossing chopsticks with this gorgeous guy who doesn’t realize how good looking he is and how much breath he has taken away from you the moment you look at him. Haha. I suck at this!
“I agree with the “Wong Kar Wai” resemblance but I am don’t quite agree with the walking slowly and eating noodles part.”
Well you can blame Ekin-san and my other non-believer friends for that casual WKW dismissal. Hahah…
… but am I intrigued by your bowl of wantan mee or what? Which stall is this, jalan mana (which street)?
Oh dear, I guess the food bloggers’ influence is showing, huh?
All cities are alive, some are more alive than others.
I wish sometimes that the city I live in has that much hustle and bustle in it like Hong Kong does.
I suppose so, though every city must have its own stories, each one unique…
Which city do you live in, out of curiousity?
WKW is a visionary. One may laugh at his works now but soon after, you will see the same angles, settings, moods, and heck, even plots used in commercial movies. We’ll have the last laugh, bro!
Chungking Express is my favourite because of California Dreamin’ and the modern metaphors that come with it. And what’s there not to like about movies that have wanton noodles, Caesar salad, canned pineapple, steamed white rice and tiffin carriers in them?
Yay for a fellow WKW-head!
We totally shall have the last laugh. These flers don’t know what they’re missing, haha. As for Chungking Express, I know what you mean — California Dreamin’ keeps reverberating through my head years after I first watched the film….
And aiyo, you had to go mention all those food — now I am dead lapar and outstation, stuck in a strange hotel as usual!
whatever, i don’t read you blog too!
Yes, well. You go, girl! LOL