Hong Kong a People Packin' Place

We're dining in a very old and highly-thought of Chinese restuarant in Hong Kong. We have wound our way a half dozen blocks from the Prudential Hotel (5-star) through milling flocks of smiling, well-dressed, well-scrubbed people. None of the women own a skirt longer than a hands length and none of the men own a comb . They all have shiny black hair. A six-foot, four inch guy, like Rick, Pete or John, could hold his arm, straight out and 97.5 percent of them wouldn't even brush the top of their head as they walked under it.
It's eight p.m. Monday evening and we are exhausted, having just creaked off a plane that had held us captive for 15 hours of droning boredom.
"So, Michael, how do I say 'water' in Chinese?"
"Soy, it's spelled shuai (I may have missed or added a vowel there)"
"And how do I say'Please'?"
"Kin, it's spelled Qin."
"OK, then if I say to our waitress, 'Shuai, Qin', did I say 'water, please'?"
Michael laughed and looked away. "It's not quite that easy," he said.
Nothing is. And thus endeth my first and last Chinese lesson. But I get ahead of myself.
The flight from Chicago to Hong Kong consumes: five feature-length films, a Chinese lunch--a rice/chicken thing and a spice cake desert, later a bowl of Chinese noodles, dry--"Peel back half the lid and wait for the flight attendant to pour hot water into the bowl, cover and wait four minutes before eating", followed by a ham and cheese sandwich and a cookie, an entire book 'The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception'. about three stars out of five, a book that Kansas friend Don recommended, a few walks around our cattle car, a series of BR breaks, several bouts of fitful dozing, and a bellyful of boredom.
Oh, and one more: Uncrossing the Sunday Gazette's crossword . Dianne and I wage weekly war over who can finish with the least misses. She wins more often than I. (I missed three, Babe.)
Our friendly flight attendant, Miles, smiley, single, age 57, asked where we were from. When I said Cedar Rapids (who in their right mind says 'Vinton'?), he responded, "You know I just love your Kernels logo." Whaaaat?
Where do you live, Miles? Bankok. So where did you grow up? Idaho. Then how in the world do you know anything about the CR Kernels? I'm a baseball nut. Well, I guess.
Between shows. the crew flashed a map on the screen showing our altitude: 38000', ground speed: 589 mph (about a mile every 6 seconds), our ETA: 4:26 p.m. the next day, Tuesday--they missed: we arrived at 4:23--the outside temp.: Minus 58 degrees, and the distance to destination: Whatever.
The movies all bore subtitles. There are two langauges in Chinese, Mandarin the most prevalent, and Cantonese, both of whom can still talk to each other. with understanding. Maybe that's like we MidWesterners can (sometimes) understand a redneck from, say, Valdosta, Georgia.
Oh, the subtitles were all those unimagineable Chinese heiroglyphics. The spoken movie language was English.
When the flight path revealed that we were going over Juneau and Anchorage, we lifted our shades to watch the snowy/showy Alaskan mountains, ablaze and blinding with morning sun, fly by. Later we saw our flight path cover Tokyo, Hiroshima (can you imagine?), Taipei, Nagasaki and names I never heard of but that probably hold gazillions of Asians.
Hong Kong is under construction, not that the 7-8 million people (not sure the cab driver knew) don't already have more and higher buildings than anywhere on the planet.
But China is embracing capitalism like some Americans decry it. Maybe we can learn something from them.
In June of 1997, when the Brits lost their 100-year lease, China, in a display of friendship to their new subjects, gifted Hong Kong with a huge Civic and Convention center. I've been in several. This tops anything I have seen. Outside the entrance to the center is a 30-foot statue of a flower that I believe Michael said was the HK Flower. It was cast from tons and tons of 24-carat gold.
Today, Tuesday we are going slow trying to get our body clocks up to China's speed. Nap time now and then another of our Chinese Cuisine Quest dinners, slated for the best Chinese restaurants China has to offer.
Last night we had an Australian lobster and a Japanese fish, both lifted live from a tank in our dining room, then wok'd. No rice, but some Chinese Brussel sprouts. And two sets of chopsticks. The silver handled, black ones were for taking portions of the entres off the common serving family-style dish. The tan, bone ones were for eating. Desert was a soy-almond curd together with a walnet-soy curd in another bowl. They were to be mixed and eaten with a porcelain ladle, like soup. Sweet, tasty, different.
No chard on the wine menu, but a white that was suitable. There were likely more calories in the two glasses of wine than in the entire meal. Michael was tickled about how healthy the meal was. Yes, and perfectly delicious. There are many ways to travel much worse than going gourmet.
Tomorrow is Beijing, where the warning flags already fly: Bring your own chopsticks!
Tell you why tomorrow.