From the desk of PK, International Man of Mystery & Music.

After years of talking about it (until close friends rolled their eyes), I finally put together a trip to Asia. Stops included Hong Kong, Bangkok, Macau, and Taipei. The plan was to catch up with old friends, expats from the U.S. who have made their home overseas, and check out the various music scenes going on, with some touristic sidetrips as well.

The trip exceeded my expectations. It was a real mix of ethnomusicological fact-finding, meeting and jamming with various musicians, absorbing new music, and making new friends and musical connections.

I kept a diary of sorts, and now that I’m back in Austin I’m supplementing it with what I can remember of the last month, before it starts to fade in the searing Texas heat

4/18/08
I have been in Hong Kong about 5 days now, just getting used to the island and the constant bustle. As I said to a few people, it is like a mixture of Manhattan, San Francisco and Istanbul. Or more accurately, imagine tying those 3 cities together with bamboo scaffolding, and plunking the assemblage down in the middle of a New Orleans summer.

I’m staying in the Mid-Levels, which is up and up the hill from the harbor about halfway. It is fairly easy to get from the airport on Lantau island to Hong Kong itself, using the Airport Express metro train. It was a little confusing for a jet-lagged musician, even with some advance warning from my Austin-expat friend Linda who has been a Hong Kongian for years now. The drill goes like this (pretty much true for all my international hops): You de-plane, shuffle your way through customs, avoid the taxi scammers trying to glom onto dazed foreigners like yourself (they’ll take you for a ride at a jacked-up price), find an ATM machine, get some local currency, then look for local metro or bus transport. You get your metro ticket from a machine that only accepts cash, that’s why you hit the ATM first. For the Hong Kong metro (MTR) you can buy a single-fare ticket, or get an Octopus card, which is the way to go if you’re going to be riding the MTR for awhile. The Octopus card is like a debit card that you add value to, and the turnstiles have sensors that can read the magnetized strip through your wallet or purse. Very convenient in the crowded hustle and bustle of urban mass transit, even if it does feel a bit Big Brotherish (we can track you anywhere, etc.). You can use the Octopus card on all public transportation except taxis, and you can also use it in chain stores like 7-11. I know that some U.S. cities which have good mass transit systems are now introducing these cards. It’s definitely the way of the future, and Asian mass transit systems are ahead of the curve. I soon discovered that the metro systems in Bangkok and Taipei ran the same way.

The Airport Express train only has 3 stops, Tsing Yi, Kowloon, and Hong Kong Station, so I could relax in the quiet comfy metal tube that hurtled through the evening, watching the lights flash by outside. A green LED display near the ceiling of the car showed the progress of the train. Hong Kong Station is next to Central, the station for the regular MTR line. Linda met me there and acted as my sherpa, guiding me through the urban ascent back to her apartment in Mid-Levels. There is a central staircase and escalator (I think it’s the longest continuous escalator in the world), though the escalator stops running after about midnight, just when one is staggering home from the bars.

I found some great musicians and party animals at a jazz club called Vibe, and jammed on some standards with them. There are many little cafes tucked away in the winding streets and alleyways. Each night I discover a few more. The weather is a little sticky and warm, sort of like Texas in June. A typhoon was predicted for this weekend, but so far it has only brought a cooling light rain. The air quality is a little funky due to the heavy industry pollution blowing in from southern China. Hong Kong itself doesn’t spew out much in the way of factory fumes, but the car & bus exhaust tends to hang in the air. It takes a little getting used to. Between that and my initial jetlag, the first couple days were a bit surreal.

The food is great. I have been pretty conservative so far, mainly noodle bowls and dim sum. There is an amazing array of street food like grilled octopus, stinky tofu, fish balls, and various internal organs of various animals prepared in various ways. So far I have resisted the urgings of my local friends here to indulge in these delicacies… Speaking of food, I think it’s time to get away from the computer and hit the streets. There’s a place nearby with great seafood congee, or so I am told…. -PK