to the land of the branded

branded meaning of course, brand-name items. yes, i have just been to Hongkong, the shopping capital of the affluent Asians. the land of the Toyota Crown Smart taxis running side by side with various luxury cars, hundreds of looping flyover streets, tall buildings, tall shopping malls, and a city wherein half the population seems to be wearing formal business attire.

so the last time i've been to HK must have been more than a decade ago, so i only have a fuzzy recollection of that last time, but nevertheless even if i did i doubt that my recollection would guide me very far since everything looks brand new. given that i stayed in the main part of the city rather than to kowloon or sham sui po, so all i saw were very tall towers and throngs of people walking around. and of course the occasional ferrari, porsche, bmw's and lexus's seemingly cruising around.

the main reason we were on this trip was to accompany my aunt who had a few business deals with people who work in HK, and my grandma(mom side) loves any excuse to get out of the country came along, and they needed a baggage carrier(what they consider us young adult male relatives with flexible schedules, overpaid though, hehe). so there i was. so about a quarter of our time was spent meeting these various people who seem to have open checkbooks when it comes to treating us to a meal, especially when they heard my grandma was with us, which isn't all that bad after all. so we had a few free lunches(no such thing?) then left aunt to hammer out their business while me and grandma went out shopping or resting in the hotel room. of course, the good thing about being in HK is no matter which hotel you stay in, a shopping centre is right around the corner, in our case, that shopping centre was SOGO.

independence and the chinese psyche

i've read somewhere that statistically, chinese children in the US tend to leave their parents' care later in life compared to their white counterparts, who yearn for independence probably right after hearing the word for the first time. it's doubly true here in the philippines, where chinese children could stay with their parents till their 30's with a raised eyebrow the only reaction from other people. the reason might be, first of all, its practical. you have your built-in roommates, you don't have to pay rent, you could pay your share of the bills, have food cooked for you, share in the laundry, and all those little things that you'd have to learn to do for yourself if you move out. of course the downside is that you will always be under your parents' thumb, there's no sense of independence, and you have to account for everything that you do.

this is doubly true if your house is also the family business office.

i don't know if this leads to a warped sense of the appropriate.

on depression and dysfunctionality

i've never found it comfortable to talk with my parents about anything. put it down to upbringing, but having both parents working from 9-7 does have its toll. for most of my teenage life, i see my parents an average of 30 minutes a day, and that's during dinner. we leave for school before they wake up, and come back home before they do, then after dinner we get to do our homework and they get to relax in their room cozying up to the TV. nope, i never did question our way of life, nor did i envy those other people who's parents seem to want to cuddle them all the time. but it just means that i don't really relate to my parents all that much.

of course the schedule did have its benefits, since in the time we come home and before they do, is essentially free time-to play games, watch tv, and all those other things children aren't supposed to do before they finish their homework. we even learned to squeeze every bit of playtime we could, even timing how long it takes for my old Pentium I to shut down and how much time it takes for the househelp to open the gate, let the car in, and them to walk inside the house. of course, we even cherished the times when they came home late since it meant even more playtime.

now that i look back on it, my family would probably be considered a pretty cold one. i mean my parents are there to take care of the financial and livelihood issues, and all we had to do was appear studious and get decent grades(unfortunately, when you're just smart enough, appearing studious had nothing to do with getting decent grades, i could and did probably go through elementary and high school with minimal studying) we didn't need to interact to do so, except for that quarterly report card time, sundays, and the occasional trip out of the country.

now fasttrack to the present, where we now work in the family office, and see our parents almost 12 hours a day, and two things can happen: 1. you lose your cool and kill everyone you see; or 2. you try to keep interaction to a minimum, just enough to satisfy and work together.

(to be cont.)

passing/playing time

one of the things i like to do in the mall is go to the arcade, juvenile as it may sound, it really is an easy way to relieve stress, and basically while away a few hours i would have spent in front of my computer anyway, this way i have to walk around and play games standing.

barring that however, the other fun thing to do in the mall(ok fine, in the arcade) is to watch the masters of each particular arcade machine at work. of course the most entertaining to watch would always be the dance-dance revolution people. these dance people on first glance are your typical young adult wandering around the mall with too much time on their hands kind of people, but when they step on the dance floor(pun intended), they are reborn into incredible dance machines with seemingly weightless legs! even when the whole screen is filled with hundreds of arrows they never seem to skip a beat. same goes for the drummania people, who even bring their own drumsticks with them.

what you'd notice then from these people is their utter nonchalance, even when they nail that particularly hard segment that had me dizzy just from looking at it, they exhibit this cool attitude, perhaps just a small smile of satisfaction or a slight smirk and then they step off the podium, having finished their 15 minutes of fame.