Welcome to Hong Kong
He met me at the airport. At first, I couldn’t find him. He was firing off text messages in rapid succession.
“Welcome to Hong Kong!”
“Where?”
“Under the clock.”
“I hold the sign.”
“Name.”
The arrivals hall was massive, and at first glance, there were multiple clocks.
“Hello, which clock?”, I tried my luck at responding.
“Tall clock”, the answer came, and “please hurry.”
First time in Hong Kong. First time in Asia. Fresh off a fifteen-hour flight.
Looking for a “tall clock”. What the heck am I doing here?
Finally, I spotted a clock on a tall column. I started toward it, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a short man, zipping by, holding a paper with my name on it. He wouldn’t even slow down at the clock. His head bobbed up and down, emerging from the mass of people and disappearing again. A land dolphin.
I caught up to him and tugged at his sleeve.
He had grey hair, thick glasses, and wore suspenders. My guess is he was maybe 70 but could have been much older.
He blinked fast. “Welcome to Hong Kong. Please, follow”.
When I grabbed the handle of my bag, he was already disappearing into the crowd.
I kept after him as fast as I could.
We ran through the length of the arrivals hall, dodging bags and people and abandoned luggage carts. I was silently praising my choice of smooth-rolling luggage.
At long last, a door emerged, and in one quick step, we spilled out into the humid heat.
The hotel offered to arrange for a “limo.” Unfamiliar with the mass transportation system and unsure of taxis, I took them up on it.
Taking in the first breaths of Hong Kong air, an airconditioned ride sounded good.
He pointed to a parking lot ahead of us. I kept my head down to navigate a few curbs and bag lifts, so I didn’t see my ride until we stood right next to it.
This can’t be it.
It was a small, beat-up car of a nondescript brand. Probably Chinese.
It looked to be the age of its driver.
The color was rusty red, although it could have passed for vomit brown from some angles, too. I spotted the windows half rolled down. No airconditioning.
While my tired mind was laboring through my thoughts, he had already heaved my suitcase into the trunk and positioned it among a collection of colorful rags and newspapers.
I found a spot on the back seat where the vinyl seat covering was still somewhat intact.
A very big part of me seriously doubted the decision I was making here.
The driver took a cell phone out of his pocket and clipped it to a holder on the vent.
He turned the key in the ignition, and against my hopes, the car shuddered to life.
Before pulling out, he sent a text message. I had never seen anyone text in Cantonese before, but as the phone was squarely in my view, I could see what he was doing.
Instead of typing, he started drawing a character with his finger. The phone would give him suggestions of complete characters, which he would select with a tap. Draw, read, tap, repeat. It was astonishingly fast.
Thankful that he didn’t do this while driving, I buckled in just as the car lurched out of the parking lot.
Completely spent, I took in the rest of the car. Scratched up, torn up, and smelling like, well, I don’t know. Days-old salted fish, maybe. Trash on the front seat, and, a shocking display of bobbleheads on the dashboard.
I counted seventeen. Among the ones I recognized, President Bush, Beavis the Butthead, Howard Stern, and Madonna, were all joining me on this ride. They were nodding, confirming my craziness, no doubt.
As we left the airport, the car picked up speed, significantly.
Soon, we were on the highway, and from what I could see, the speed limit signs did not even fulfill the function of a suggestion to my driver. He zigzagged through multiple lanes of traffic and honked every few seconds. When traffic slowed closer to the city, he showed me that getting up on the curb to get around cars, was not beneath him, either.
At one point, his phone dinged. A text message I hoped he would ignore. But no, he dove into the mess on the front seat instead. Our car must have looked self-driving at that moment, and if I weren’t mortified, it would have been almost funny.
After an eternity, he emerged wielding a large magnifying glass.
He read his text message through the magnifying glass while driving over the speed limit again. Then, he carefully balanced the magnifying glass on his leg and started responding. Draw, read, tap, repeat.
I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Please, can you do this later and just drive now?”
“It’s ok, welcome to Hong Kong!”
He cut off a car in the lane on our right, prompting a honk, and checked his texting work through the magnifying glass before sending it.
I was grateful when we reached the city and traffic slowed; I thought my odds of survival increased significantly with every red light he did notice.
When the car pulled up in front of my hotel, and I peeled myself off the vinyl, I found my legs had changed into jello.
He dumped my suitcase on the ground, hopped back in the car, and drove off. I caught a glimpse of the magnifying glass as he rounded the corner.
I looked up at the skyscrapers and the blue sky above them.
Welcome to Hong Kong.
Marie H. Anne, Mom, Twin Soul, Entrepreneur, Writer. Full of Gratitude. Boldly walking toward my dreams. I write memoirs, short stories, and auto-fiction about surviving violence and abuse and how amazing life has become despite and because of it.
