Hong Kong is not for the timid or the insecure.
Hong Kong will stare you down until you’re so uncomfortable that you run for a mirror to see if you have ketchup or just gweilo on your face.
Hong Kong will fill your lungs with pollution, cover your skin with eczema and make you think “double confirm” is good English.
Hong Kong will make you want to leave after the first year of your contract is up or make you want to go the distance for permanent residency. Permanent residency is like a scar to be worn with pride because few understand the suffering you went through to earn it.
You’ll learn why soon enough.
FOOD
There’s a common saying about the Cantonese that “If it has four legs and isn’t a table, wings and isn’t a plane, and swims and isn’t a submarine, they’ll take photos of it and obsessively post them to OpenRice.”
Eating is a major pastime in Hong Kong—second only to training for races from subway platforms to empty subway seats—and if the only Cantonese you ever learn relates to food, you’ll be able to understand 80% of conversations. Learn how to curse and you’ll get the other 20%.
Pork is considered a vegetable. If the English translation of a dish is “Rice and vegetables, LOTS AND LOTS OF VEGETABLES OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS THING IS LIKE VEGETABLE PARADISE PAUL MCCARTNEY WOULD ORGASM ALL OVER THIS CORNUCOPIA OF VEGETABLES,” you’ll need to dig through pork to get to the vegetables. What, it didn’t mention there’s pork? Right, because pork is a vegetable.
Pineapple buns do not, in fact, contain pineapples.
Hong Kong is often called a “cosmopolitan” city, but this refers to the alternate-dimension Hong Kong where there’s an expansive range of both Western and non-Western restaurants that build their reputation on quality and consistency. In our dimension’s Hong Kong, most restaurants are owned by soulless cynics who care more about style and buzz than making tasty and/or innovative food at reasonable prices.
Why are there sausage, mayo, shrimp, hot dog, pineapple, and cheddar and mozzarella cheeses on my pizza? Because fuck you, that’s why.
In Cantonese, the Italian word “bolognese” loosely translates as “why is there so much damn sugar in this sauce?”
Most Italian sauces sold here are made by well-known Japanese characters.
In the West, steakhouses either have manly names—like Big Earl’s Colorectal Cancer Meat Shack—or simple, refined ones—like S&M Steakhouse. When you’re in the mood for sirloin in Hong Kong, you naturally head to a place that sounds like a Polly Pocket playset—like Sweetheart Garden.
Until the invention of public-service announcements, Hong Kong residents regularly died of botulism and stupidity.
The sesame seeds are never in the supermarket aisle you expect them to be.
Names given to “Western bread” here are fantastic. I recently bought a bacon tunnel, which is surprisingly not yet slang for vagina.
When you turn a corner and it smells like something died, came back to life, rolled around in raw sewage, crawled into a rotting corpse and then died again, you’ve stumbled across stinky tofu.
Pineapple buns do not, in fact, contain pineapples.
Hong Kong is often called a “cosmopolitan” city, but this refers to the alternate-dimension Hong Kong where there’s an expansive range of both Western and non-Western restaurants that build their reputation on quality and consistency. In our dimension’s Hong Kong, most restaurants are owned by soulless cynics who care more about style and buzz than making tasty and/or innovative food at reasonable prices.
Why are there sausage, mayo, shrimp, hot dog, pineapple, and cheddar and mozzarella cheeses on my pizza? Because fuck you, that’s why.In Cantonese, the Italian word “bolognese” loosely translates as “why is there so much damn sugar in this sauce?”
Most Italian sauces sold here are made by well-known Japanese characters.
In the West, steakhouses either have manly names—like Big Earl’s Colorectal Cancer Meat Shack—or simple, refined ones—like S&M Steakhouse. When you’re in the mood for sirloin in Hong Kong, you naturally head to a place that sounds like a Polly Pocket playset—like Sweetheart Garden.
Until the invention of public-service announcements, Hong Kong residents regularly died of botulism and stupidity.The sesame seeds are never in the supermarket aisle you expect them to be.
Names given to “Western bread” here are fantastic. I recently bought a bacon tunnel, which is surprisingly not yet slang for vagina.
When you turn a corner and it smells like something died, came back to life, rolled around in raw sewage, crawled into a rotting corpse and then died again, you’ve stumbled across stinky tofu.
People wear their finest clothes when eating at noodle shops.
The popularity of a beverage is dependent on how much you want to be bukkaked with it.
The two biggest supermarket chains are Wellcome and Park N Shop, which I call Poop N Shit because that’s generally the quality of the products you’ll find there.
Each month, Poop N Shit sends out circulars listing their latest themed deals, as well as useful tips for using the products.
Fancy expats and locals go to grocery stores like Three-Sixty, Oliver's and City Super, which I refer to as Shitty Super. Okay, so I’m only capable of inventing fecal-related nicknames for grocery stores. Because they're all pretty much shit. It's better to stick to the wet markets for produce and find a butcher for your meat.Milk tea is delicious.
So is hot Coke with ginger.
On Friday and Saturday nights, expats descend upon Soho like a plague of locusts, devouring all of the overpriced, underwhelming food in their path.
You generally choose snacks based on your gender.
If you have a craving for American food, look for the sign with the Statue of Liberty surrounded by all kinds of processed, high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden products. A little-known footnote in U.S. history is that the original phrasing in the Declaration of Independence was “Life, liberty and the pursuit of Cheese Nips.”
Every lunch with local co-workers will take 20 minutes longer than necessary, as they spend 10 minutes discussing the menu with the waitress and another 10 minutes taking photos of the food.
Taking photos of food is a popular hobby. Not like you foodies in the West, lovingly memorializing your Oysters and Pearls at French Laundry. Expect to attend parties where people snap shots of chicken wings catered by Pizza Hut and then put them on Facebook.
And, finally, two words for you: meat sundaes
3 comments:
time to go local and photograph the heck outta that bowl of fried spam in instant noodle soup breakfast :D
Realmente gostava do seu blog "Americana Boca Suja" porquê desistiu ein? Saudações!
Fucking brilliant. Want to score hot Coke with a bacon tunnel for breakfast.
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