My friend and I went out for brunch this Sunday in Soho, a very trendy neighborhood in Hong Kong. We were sitting by the window, so in addition to enjoying some great eggs benedicts with salmon, we also got to do some great people watching.
What I realised thanks to this gastro-anthropological experiment is that (male) expats in Hong Kong tend to be of the fit, groomed and anglosaxon variety, walking about passionatly in love with their significant other or worn by their Hong Kongese girlfriends (or occasionally boyfriends) almost like a status quo accessory.
While my friend told me that the expats of the ‘sleezball I have drunk all of my free-lance money’ persuasion tend to hang out in the cheaper bars in a different part of town, she also agreed that the expats in HK tend to be of the `eye candy` sort and she confessed than when she was a child she thought all white people were beautiful (she has since then lived for long periods in Europe and America so she has been disabused quickly of this stereotype). I also thought about how I usually take care of my appearance in Cairo when going for brunch (let’s say casual-not-so-chic).
All of the sudden I felt terribly under-dressed and made a mental note that once back in the West I need to step up my game, go to the gym, lose the anarchic hair cut end and the whole mumbo jumbo if I am ever to get a date again. Last time I felt like this was a year ago in a gay club in Beirut – and I thought none could outdo the gays and the Beirutis with their dress-to-impress psychosis. Well, I had forgotten about Asia I guess.
Also, on the subject of natural and man-made beauty: this is the view of Hong Kong’s eponimous fragrant harbour at night from the Peak.
economic revolution 