Hong Kong Locations

May 13, 2005

I was in Hong Kong last week, my first visit in three years.  I have missed Hong Kong, and so was very glad to have ridden the Star Ferry again, and eaten roast goose and century egg at Yung Kee.  I also bought new shoes and shades.  It was a good trip.

This time, however, I was able to visit a couple of locations where Wong Kar Wai shot his fantastic film, CHUNGKING EXPRESS. I felt so cool riding on the same escalator were Faye Wang and Tony Leung where, and also saw the outside of Tony Leung’s apartment in the film.  Nearby was the street market where Faye’s character would “accidentally” bump into Tony Leung while he ate his duck over rice lunch.

I wish I knew where to find the locations for FALLEN ANGELS too, where the mute dude massaged pigs in the market and where the assassin and the assassin’s assistant had their apartment for assignments.  Wong Kar Wai’s early films are simply so cool.  Cooler than The Fonz.

More on film, but light years away…the poster ads for EPISODE III in the Metro stations all over Hong Kong are the best.  I wanted to break the plastic partition and steal the poster of Yoda, and most especially the poster of a sole Storm Trooper.  I haven’t seen a better poster campaign since THE MATRIX RELOADED.  Come to think of it, the SPIDER-MAN 2 poster trilogy “Choice, Destiny, Sacrifice” is pretty damn good too.

Hong Kong is really a super energetic city.  If I were to direct a James Bond film, I’d set it in Hong Kong (and in the isolated white sand beaches of Mindoro).  Also, why couldn’t Spider-man swing around the skyscrappers of Hong Kong too?  He could fight The Vulture there, or Kraven the Hunter.  It doesn’t have to be always New York.  Would Daredevil survive Metro Manila?  The pollution would kill him, and the jeepney and bus and tricycle noise will make his super hearing explode.  Don’t you think? 

“Do you like pineapple?” - from CHUNGKING EXPRESS 

  

 

Cebu water sports

May 2, 2005

I haven’t been to Cebu in 11 years.  I’ve always liked Cebu because the beach resorts in Mactan Island are nice, and the good times in the city at night is nicer.  I got to see the best hotels and resorts in Cebu in this trip I just had there last week.  Unfortunately, seeing those resorts was for work, so I was in the manager’s office, not in the pool or in the sand.  Anyway, I started to wonder why there aren’t too many competitive swimmers in Cebu.

Perhaps the pools and beaches are not designed for swim training.  Much like Laguna should have the best swimmers in the Philippines because Laguna is the land of the swimming pools.  There are too many figure “8″ shaped pools in this country, not enough rectangular ones with lanes and are at least 25m long.  Every high school I’ve been too in America has a swimming pool designed for lap swimming.  The kind of swimming we like in this country is dipping in the water to keep cool.

But since we are surrounded by water (being an archipelago), we should at least have a nation with good swimming genes.  I was in Matabungkay a few years ago and the young kids who kick the raft out from the sand have natural technique.  Their parents and grandparents probably did the same thing, pushing a raft full of people, full of adobo, coke, beer, and nicotine to a day under the sun, floating and eating.  Unfortunately, the natural swimming ability they possess aren’t nurtured to a competitive level.  We can probably push a raft from Cebu to Bohol better than anybody in the world, but I wish we were the best butterfliers or backstrokers or breaststrokers or freestylers or IMers in the world.  We have never been.

I’m going back to Cebu soon, for work again.  But this time, I will find time to swim in the sea.  I like diving down deep to find shells, even if my ears hurt.  I promise to be careful.  But for several generations, pearl divers in Mindanao go down deeper than me, free diving, staying underwater for minutes (re: more than one minute which is hard).  They are quite incredible, but also quite deaf.  If one has strong lungs, proper swimming muscle movement, and no fear - champion swimmer material for sure, if only they had the proper swimming pool.

 
“What I have crossed out I didn’t like. What I haven’t crossed out I’m dissatisfied with.”
Cecil B. De Mille