Under the Baobab Tree

Yesterday we did what we actually came to Hong Kong to do in the first place -- give a three hour presentation to the Hong Kong Productivity Council on US Consumer Product Safety Commission regulatory issues. I am no stranger to giving presentations but this one was unlike anything I've experienced in my career so far.

The HKPC is essentially the trade association for Hong Kong manufacturers -- toys, electronics, art supplies, sunglasses, lightbulbs, you name it. They are funded in part by the government, in part by the Hong Kong Green Manufacturing Alliance and various other other industrial trade associations in Hong Kong. They occupy a building in Kowloon that looked like a student union building from the 1970s -- lots of open spaces and curved walls and exhibit space. The stage was massive and our powerpoint displayed across four floor to ceiling screens. We had name tags that came with corsages of pink flowers, as did all the VIPs who seemed to be various toy magnates and other industrial luminaries. Everyone had assigned seats (I was between the head of the Hong Kong Toy Manufacturing Council and a representative from the Hong Kong Federation of Industries). The event began with "souvenirs and photographs." Each of us were called up to the stage in turn and presented with an crystal "souvenir" engraved with our name and something extensive in Chinese. The English said "Thank you for your contribution to our seminar on the US Consumer Product Safety Commission." We had to stand with our crystal souvenir for photographs with the head of the toy manufacturing council, then we had a group photo with a lots of other people wearing pink corsages, then more photos -- and this was all before we even gave the presentation.

After the presentation we went on a tour of the industrial exhibits in the building -- mainly so that they could take more photographs. We stood in front of a mural of trees that represented Green Manufacturing. We stood in front of, and then inside, a concept car that had all the different parts of the automobile that are made in Hong Kong on display. We played with the car parts and giggled. More pictures. We stood in front of the signage of each contributing member to the seminar for photos. We stood out on the street in front of the HKPC logo for more photos. Then we went with everyone who had a pink corsage to a massive, extensive, formal Chinese celebratory lunch at a restaurant inside a humongous Kowloon mall. Again I sat between the head of the toy council and the lovely lady from the Federation of Industries. Contrary to everything I have ever heard about Chinese officialdom, we all giggled helplessly during the meal about everything. My Federation friend was wearing pale yellow and I was dressed up like a cherry blossom in a pale pink frilly number so we talked about that a lot. A LOT. We talked about how boring it must be for Hong Kong people to travel to the rest of the world. They nodded vigorously. We laughed about a lot of other things, murky and inscrutable. Terribly jolly -- terribly. Again, not really sure exactly what I ate except I know I ate a cabbage and fish soup that was excellent and a dessert of sago cream with grapefruit that was also excellent. Oh, and Peking duck in there somewhere.

Then they sent us to a jade market so that my two male colleagues could buy gifts for their wives. I was the consultant but I was not very useful nor was I in the mood for it, considering I was still dressed up like a cherry blossom with my foolish pink corsage, lugging around my unwanted crystal souvenir in the tropical humidity in my pointy shoes -- all I wanted to do was put on blue jeans. One of them would say "would my wife like this?" and I would respond, "I don't know, what does your wife like?" Etc.

That was all exhausting, as you can imagine. But then the best night of my Hong Kong trip began. My lovely friend who is the co-head of our technology practice in the Hong Kong office and I set off on an adventure (I had since put on blue jeans) to pick up a Burmese kitten that was arriving for her from Sydney at the airport. We had her husband and son in tow. Our first job was to find the cargo terminal at the airport which was no easy feat -- it is abbreviated HACTL which sounded rather like something the Burmese kitten might hack up on the kitchen floor. As we were driving out over the Calatrava (or Calatrava-esque) suspension bridges that connect the various islands, the airport called and said, essentially, "Your kitten is here, are you coming?" My friend said back, "yes yes! We're on the way! Thank you so much!" We found the cargo terminal and walked past massive numbers of pallets of cargo destined for various places. I thought -- ha! These are the very products I was discussing this morning with the Productivity Council -- here they are actually beginning the supply chain! As my friend maneuvered through the bureaucracy in Cantonese trying to find the kitten, her son and I tried to identify the commodities on the pallets and their destinations. The best thing we found was a pallet of lightbulbs going to Tblisi, Georgia on Air Guinea. Cathay Pacific cargo planes roared overhead, forklifts beeped all around us. Her son is 14 and made it quite clear that he had never had a grownup suggest this sort of game before. Eventually, after carting little pieces of flimsy paper from one window to another, dodging forklifts and industrial equipment, paying cashiers piddly sums hither and yon, etc., we were ushered into a bright white room and the kitten was "released." She was adorable -- a lilac-colored Burmese who had flown 9 hours from Sydney and really wanted to come out and play. Everyone, including the HACTL employees in their hard hats and overalls, stopped among the forklifts and clanging sounds of things and clustered around the kitty carrier and said things like, "aaaaaawwwwwwwww! wook at the wittle kitty!" Or its Cantonese equivalent. It was lovely.

Then we drove the kitten back to my friend's apartment which is in the Mid-Levels on the way up to the Peak. This was my first experience in a private home in Hong Kong. She has stunning views and her home is beautifully decorated in the Chinese style -- lots of red and dark wood. Alex was very proud of his room and showed it to me and presented his music collection and I asked him questions about his organizing principle for his CDs etc and then her son went and got me a glass of red wine and some dolmas (my friend's husband is Greek) while everyone else was huddled off with the kitten getting it settled. We spent an hour or so settling the kitten and paying attention to the original cat (Atticus) who was sulking in the kitchen and then we went off to SoHo for dinner.

In Soho, we rode, as a family, what is called The Escalators. This is a Commuter Escalator that takes office workers from Central up to the Mid-Levels and is, literally, an escalator that goes on for miles and miles with stops at important thoroughfares. It's fabulous. You can look in store windows and apartment windows and everything as you pass long. I took pictures -- my friend took pictures of me, I took pictures of them, etc. It was excellent! Every major City needs a Commuter Escalator. We hopped off at some British sounding road and wound through the old winding streets of the Soho district which is packed with amazing restaurants of all types. The place was buzzing on a Friday night -- everyone was out for a lovely meal and a stroll. We went to an Italian place that felt as if it could be in San Francisco, or in Italy itself, or in New York -- a tiny tiny hole in the wall with maybe 6 tables and amazing food in a space that was architecturally miraculous for clinging to the mountain and perching on the winding road all at the same time.

And we had a fabulous meal -- we talked about everything imaginable. Books, wine, the son's future educational aspirations, a planned retirement home in Penang, the struggle to always Do the Right Thing in life and most especially in work, the virtues and drawbacks of Hong Kong as a place to live, comparisons to Singapore where they had also lived as a family, etc. It was wonderful.

I felt so lucky to have such nice friends in such an interesting place who let me join them fetching a new pet from the airport, and I was so impressed with how they were raising their son to be such an interesting young man who could more than hold his own with the grown up conversation, and I thought how remarkable that I even know my friend considering I had never been to her city before ever in my life, and that what a strange day it was that began with corsages and crystal souvenirs and photos in working class Kowloon within sight of mainland China and ended with a fabulous meal in a super cosmopolitan Italian restaurant on the side of a mountain that rises out of the South China Sea.