As I See It

Dear Readers, My brand new blog The Real Deal ( http://realdealhk.blogspot.com ) is now up and running!! The Real Deal is a comprehensive review site that offers straight-to-the-point opinions on the dernier cri in the city's leisure scene: restaurants, movies, hotels and stores. Each "bite-sized" review aims at giving you the lowdown on everything you need to know to seek out the city's best kept secrets or before you step into the next tourist trap. Combining wry humor with razor sharp observations, the blog serves to inform and entertain. The Real Deal

Valentine’s Day is, for many, the most dreaded holiday on the calendar. Those who are already spoken for go along with it and pretend to enjoy it. For 24 hours, they act as though their love were as sweet as Godiva chocolates and their lives as rosy as an Agnes B flower bouquet. Singles , on the other hand, are relegated to spending the night alone at home with a tub of Häagen-Dazs in front of the television or meeting up with other singles to commiserate the way the years have slipped through their fingers. No one wants to be a wall flower or shrinking violet. The obligatory heart-shaped chocolate box Valentine’s Day is a quintessential Hallmark holiday. It was conceived, created and blown out of proportion by florists and chocolate makers. Originally dedicated to the Valentine of Rome, a martyred priest in the Middle Ages, the holiday was later removed from the Christian calendar because there wasn’t much to celebrate... _______________________ Read the rest of this...

Beep, beep, beep. The x-ray machine went off as I walked through the gantry. I was going through security at Terminal 3 of London’s Heathrow Airport, where I was to take a connecting flight back to Hong Kong from Geneva. I didn't understand why there was no direct flights between Hong Kong and Switzerland. I also didn't understand why connecting passengers who had just got off a plane and never left the restricted area would need to go through security again. Even the purple and yellow signage inspires hatred Airport security officer Patel* signaled me over and asked me to stretch my arms for a manual screening. He began waving a handheld metal detector over my body. “Lift your arms higher please,” he said. I complied. I didn’t have any cell phone, loose change or keys on me. It had to be my belt. But I thought belt buckles wouldn't set off airport alarms. I am a frequent traveler and I don't remember ever removing my belt. And why didn’t the same b...

Dear Readers, My personal website  www.jasonyng.com , designed by award-winning, UK-based creative technologist Edan Kwan , is now up and running. Check it out and I hope you find it informative!! www.jasonyng.com

This month marks the third birthday of my blog As I See It , a social commentary on the trials and tribulations of living in Hong Kong. The occasion coincides with the 100th article I have written under the banner. Having reached a personal milestone, I decided to take the opportunity to reflect on my still-young writing career and wallow in, dare we say, self-congratulatory indulgence. The original version of  As I See It , created in 2008 It all started in November 2008 on the heels of the last U.S. presidential election . I was getting ready to create a personal website as a platform to consolidate my interests and pursuits. To do that I needed content. That’s how my blog – or my “online op-ed column” as I prefer to call it – came into being.  Before I knew it, I was banging it out in front of my iMac every night, going on and off the tangent and in and out of my stream of consciousness about the odd things I experienced in the city, the endless parade of ...

What do Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger have in common? They are all American icons who use their celebrity status to make our world a better place. Yawn. They all have promising young daughters who are destined to follow in daddy’s footsteps and achieve great things. Yawn again.  As if the column title hadn’t already given away the answer, all three of them are powerful men who, at the pinnacle of their careers, put everything they had on the line and cheated on their wives. Powerful men who fell from grace For every Bill, Tiger and Arnold, there are hundreds other famous men who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. At times it seems that the more successful a man gets, the more willing he is to throw away everything for a fleeting moment of carnal pleasure.  According to a 1950s study on American men by the Kinsey Institute, there is a one in two chance of indiscretion occurring during marriage. In the Information Age where...

Determined to reclaim Hong Kong from European powers, the Americans are sounding their battle cry and marching into the city to pomp and circumstance. I am not talking about the type of invasion unleashed on Qing China by the Imperial West; I am referring to the almost contemporaneous arrivals of heavyweight American retailers in our city beginning this fall.  Abercrombie & Fitch , Gap and the Apple Store are all set to squeeze into the city’s already crowded retail space, promising to shake up our cityscape and transform our shopping routine. The good news is that we no longer need to travel to Tokyo or New York to get our hands on anything with a moose logo.  The bad news is, any Joe Blow – make that Joe Ho – in Hong Kong will soon be able to walk into these new stores and walk out with the same pair of jeans you had once begged a co-worker to bring back from the States. Globalism can be such sweet sorrow. Foreign invasion Not since the coming of ...

The No.2 train slowed to a halt. Inside the subway car, the overhead florescent lights went out for a moment and flickered back to life. The middle-aged Caucasian man standing next to me heaved an impatient sigh, bemoaning the frequent interruptions of an antiquated transport system. Suddenly the train doors parted and the crackling PA system issued a dispassionate instruction: An emergency has been reported in Lower Manhattan, all passengers must exit now . 14th Street, where I got off the subway train on September 11th I climbed two flights of stairs and came out of the 14th Street station. It was one of those beautiful September mornings in New York . Cloudless blue skies and a few falling leaves. I looked to the south and there it was, the reason why my train had stopped: plumes of heavy smoke were billowing out of the World Trade Center. I walked into a nearby Citibank branch to find out what had happened. “Some fool flew their plane right into the building, sweethea...

Six miles off the southwestern coast of Hong Kong Island is a piece of rock smaller than New York’s Central Park. Shaped like a dumbbell, Cheung Chau – or literally Long Island in Cantonese – was once a strategic hideout for ferocious pirates who ruled the Canton coasts.  At the turn of the 19th Century, these pirates of the South China Sea, our very Jack Sparrow and Captain Hook, terrorized seafarers and threatened the Qing court . The most prominent of them all, Cheung Po Tsai (張保仔), famously bisexual and captain of a vast and formidable fleet, was a staple among local legends. With all the eye makeup and flailing hand gestures, Johnny Depp might have had a certain Chinese pirate in mind when he crafted his character. Aerial view of Cheung Chau Cheung Po Tsai was only 21 years old when he took over the pirating business from his adoptive parents. During the short period between 1807 and 1810 – the year he capitulated to the Qing court and became an imperial nav...

New Yorkers often joke about keeping their sweaters in the oven because they never cook. Hong Kongers would have loved to do the same, if only we had the space for an oven. The lack of a proper kitchen and the ease of dining out have made home cooking a vanishing art in the city. At times it seems like no one around us – other than those penny pinching, foldable cart pushing see lai (師奶; middle-aged housewives) – bothers to prepare a home cooked meal any more. Two see lai grocery shopping at the wet markets Cooking is time consuming. Considering that most worker bees get home just before the 9:30 soap opera starts, banging and clanging in the kitchen is the last thing on their minds. From buying groceries to all that washing, chopping, frying and steaming, the whole production is guaranteed to take up the entire evening... _______________________ Read the rest of this essay in No City for Slow Men , available at major bookstores in Hong Kong and at Blacksmith Book...