Hearty Christmas

Yes you read that correct, it's the Chinglish phrase that some local genius has come up with and pasted all over the seventy odd floors of my building, brilliant!

Even though the locals don't really do the whole Jesus thing and ignoring the interesting terminology Hong Kong has been dressed for Christmas. All the towers on the harbour have been decked out in lights in festive scenes and there are fake trees sagging dangerously under the weight of a seemingly impossible volume of baubles and lights everywhere. If it wasn’t for the fact its not that cold and it hasn't rained for months I could almost believe its fast approaching late December.

The reaction here to the cold is hilarious. The government actually put out an official cold weather warning a week or so ago as it got down to 11 degrees C. Everyone is wrapped up in big winter coats, hats and scarves, I feel like a proper northerner strolling around in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Needless to say I get a few funny looks but that's nothing new.

My seasonal celebrations are continuing at pace, last week I even got into a Christmas fashion show! Spent the night drinking a bottle of Moet with a straw and watching models walk about in small, predominantly red (well it is Christmas) clothes, magic. Two shows just a few short months, I have great mates here in HK!

I fly back to the UK tomorrow so I'm afraid you'll have to live without my e-mails for a few weeks but fear not, for those of you around London you can have the joy of seeing me, in person, on new years day, the rest of you will have to wait till I'm back at a computer for all the exciting news!

New Years Day, 4pm onwards, The Blue Post, 28 Rupert St., Soho (http://www.fluidfoundation.com/venueDetails.asp?Venue_ID=579 ). If you can make it it would be great and obviously invite anyone you'd like along.

Sing dan fai lok (Cantonese for Merry Christmas, last lesson of the year!)

Jonathan

HK


Jonathan Partington
+852 6429 4092

Hangover season

Not only is it almost Christmas but it would appear almost everyone I know has something to celebrate at the moment. Although fun I don't think this is going to be good for me!

To fill in a couple of blanks I left out in my last e-mail... in all the excitement of telling you about the show I saw in Bangkok I forgot to mention the great Thai food and the not so great the cake I ate there.

Though I didn't eat anything especially weird or new it was all delicious, except that is the traditional Thai birthday cake which was something else. Gelatinous and multi coloured and just plain bad!! I was told it was made of flour, sugar, coconut milk and food colouring. How they made such innocent ingredients so awful I don't know.

Other than that a couple of weeks ago I headed over to Macua (a quiet Portuguese version of HK about an hour's boat ride away) with Darren and explored the city for a day. Think its fair to say the place was nice for an escape from the pace of HK but it didn't quiet have the power to keep us from heading back for Saturday night in Wan Chai cheering the mighty mighty England to victory over the Aussies (we'll not mention either rugby against NZ or cricket in general!)

This weekend wasn't what you could call a quiet one. It started with the first Christmas do of the year on Friday - a fancy dress Christmas party no less. In the spirit of it I painted my body green, purchased and plugged my eyes with green/ blue contact lenses and shredded a pair of charity shop jeans for the occasion (I was Dr. David Banner recently back from being The Incredible Hulk it you hadn't guessed).

Unfortunately the venue was too dark to see I was green and no one really knew I've normally got brown eyes so I just looked I've a half naked bloke with bulging eyes (I'd never worn contacts before!). On the bright side it was a free bar!

The weekend didn't easy up once I woke up on Saturday morning surrounded by freshly green sheets (d'oh!) as I then had an all day BBQ for Sean's 30th. Sunday continues the trend towards liver failure as I managed to fit in not one but two all you could drink wine buffets for yet another birth celebration, happy days!

To continue sharing the knowledge, the latest Chinese phrases I've sort of mastered are;

Door tse - thank you (for a gift)
joe sun - good morning
hi - hi (tricky one that!)
Whiy (raising like a question) - hello, uh!, general non committal noise
mai yut, dar gip - don't move, this is a robbery (not sure when I'm going to use this one)

So all that leaves me to say is that I'm back in London for virtually no time at all over new year but will be in "The Blue Post" in Soho most of the afternoon and night of January 1st 2006. If anyone's there and fancies catching up it would be great to see you - I'll send another e-mail shortly with full details.

So until the next time.

Jonathan

Hong Kong.