Made in Japan, Outsourced Globally

Watching Chungking Express was like getting a much needed fix of Hong Kong through your veins. Granted this film was from 1994, I could still smell the stench of the bustling streets and the humid, in-your-face steam of the Hong Kong I know. I loved everything about the film - the scenery, the busy-ness of the plot, the subtle humor that doesn't impose.

Enter: blonde Asian Greta Garbo operating an illegal drug trade in the subcontinent island of Chungking Mansion - known to many as a shady building filled with the largest Indian/Pakistani density. Knock-off items, chachkies, and sari shops.

I've been there (and so have Devrim and Kirk) - the narrow concrete walls are like a maze, and decades old porn are shamelessly displayed in the stores along with the cheap calling cards. You cram into the small tin-can elevator like sardines, hardly escaping the body grind and pungent odors that punch through your nostril. Once you arrive at your destination (most likely, you were attacked by a dozen salesmen outside giving you pitches about their restaurant - and you just pick one out of the groping hands and ask him to take you there), which is nothing more than a floor full of apartments. But, as soon as the door opens, you are welcomed into a reasonably organized eatery, fuming with mouth-watering Indian spices.

Fading in: the down-right seedy bar, jukebox with spinning CDs and all. Kaneshiro Takeshi is seducing Brigette Lin in Cantonese, Japanese, English, and then Mandarin.

What can I say... but 'Bonkers'? 2 hours of a drink buffet for less than US$12 is never a good idea. The mood of the place was none other than "seedy," with the black couches, faded red velvet carpet and the big-screen TV, usually showing the races at Happy Valley. Bonkers was a regular activity during my first couple months - and then we ran out of Bonker virgins (see, most people never go to Bonkers after their first time. So Lars and I would have to recruit newbies every once in a while).

Tony Leung is fooling around with his flight attendant girlfriend - you can see people passing by from his apartment. When the girl takes off, she waves goodbye to him from the escalator.

So Tony Leung's character lives right next to the escalator. When you talk about "the escalator," there's really only one place in Hong Kong - which is the Central Escalator (the world's longest escalator) in Lan Kwai Fong. No expat can live without stepping on this escalator. It goes from the bottom of Queen's Rd., through SoHo, even further up Robinson Rd. - I forgot where it stops, but I had to take it to get to Courtney's place (Courtney Estates II & III).

Faye Wong is a short-haired, lanky girl who loves to listen to "California Dreamin" way too loud. She works at a kebab stand near LKF/SoHo.

Kebab stand! Haha. It had completely slipped my mind that this movie evolved around this one eatery, Midnight Express, and the characters who somehow intersect there. Midnight kebab trips were pertty much a constant at one point or another in our lives. My favorite midnight munchie story is when Helen and I went to "home" - a trans/rave gay club and she got this Italian guy to buy drinks for us (he was convinced that he had met Helen somewhere else - she recalled no such memory). Around 5am, Helen goes to the Hotdog stand to satiate her craving, only to find the guy at the stand too. She wanted to get away as quickly as possible. She dribbles ketchup down her white top, and exclaims "Ooo! Gotta go!", takes off her shoes and ran down Hollywood Rd. all the way back home. Brilliant.

Faye Wong is dragging basket full of vegetables through a wet market, bumps into Tony Leung who is eating at a cheap outside eatery with orange plastic chopsticks and plastic plates.

There's much to be said about the "streets" part of HK - the wet market is just fascinating for the fact that you are in one of the most modern cities, yet you have this beat-down-bargain bazaar of fresh vegetables, fish, and raw meat (with huge meat cleavers and the joint-breaking "whack!" sound) one alley over. And you learn to haggle, shouting "gei dou chin a?" "n-mai, n-mai!" - it's just a given, if you want to experience HK.

Then, there's the cheap food, like the HK$10 (US$1.25) wonton noodles and rice dishes with lots and lots of meat - duck, succulent pork (knuckles), chicken, beef... Mmm... They aren't the cleanest places, but you need to have an attitude adjustement if you want to immerse into a different culture.

It's hard to describe, but I definitely gravitate to Hong Kong.