To Be Un-Fab in a Fabulous City

I am not a fabulous person. In fact there is nothing ‘fab’ about me at all. I don’t smoke or drink, I don’t do drugs and I don’t even hang out in bars and night clubs. I’m so un-fab that I may even be lame by now, or corny, or even worse…old. To be fair, I may have been fab once (or even twice), but that was a long time ago when being fab would have meant much more.
I live in Hong Kong these days, a city of scandalous Canto-Popstars, Maserati millionaires and hot tip traders who all like to pay to play. They coalesce around the fab haunts found halfway up a steep hill in Central Hong Kong; a place called Lan Kwai Fong. On any weekend night you can see a glittering galaxy of international beauties in tight cocktail dresses and spiky heels, and constellations of shooting star short sellers and financial fireballs; spending, sipping, gulping, sniffing, slipping and staggering around like there’s no 2012. Yes, LKF (as it’s cleverly called) is the place to see and be seen if you’re fab in Hong Kong.
But as I mentioned I am decidedly un-fab. A few years ago when I was a DJ and still fab-ish, I was invited to Hong Kong (I lived in Bangkok at the time) to play music on a Friday night at a club in LKF. Pretty fab you’re thinking…right? I have two unfading memories of that night. The first is two English guys in vomit smattered business suits at around midnight, silk neckties wrapped around their foreheads (Samurai yuppie!), insultingly but evidently hilariously, karate chopping random people in the crowded street while they did bad Bruce Lee voiceovers: What can I do for you Mr. Braithwaite? Chop! Whaaaaaaaaaaa! Chop Chop! The second was a girl of indiscriminate nationality (possibly Australian, but hard to tell from the slurring and hiccupping) who had it in her muddled mind that since I was the DJ I was either holding cocaine or knew where to get it. The first time she asked I laughed out loud, since I have been drug free for a long time now (which, come to think of it, could definitely be contributing to my un-fabability). I calmly informed her that I wasn’t from Hong Kong and had no idea where to find blow. Now it’s quite possible that she forgot she had harangued me for drugs previously - such was her ardent state – but back she came at least five times during the course of my set, each time leaning in conspiratorially and saying things like, C’mon I know you must have some shit…you’re a DJ! I’ll let you in on a little secret: DJ’s often have no idea where to get drugs at all, despite the folklore. Some don’t even do drugs. How un-fab is that?
Another hotspot for the city’s movers and shakers is the seedier, less fab (but more functional) round the clock red light zone, Wanchai. Admittedly this place is a bit nearer and dearer to my heart, but mainly because it is more shall we say, down to earth. It’s hard to be haughty when you’re chatting up a five foot Filipina bar girl wearing saran wrap and stilettos. Yes in the realm of Men prostitution is the great equalizer, and the price is the same for taxi driver and CEO alike. This Wanchai is a democratic land of blinking neon and horrible music, where earnest English teachers, pencil pushing clerks, and power boating playboys alike can stand outside of a loud bar blaring Hotel California or atonal techno (who cares?) and feel superior. It’s good that way. Happy hour on Lockhart Road is where you can find everyone from budget backpackers to financial kingpins enjoying a quiet baker’s dozen of pints – all bonding over a heady combination of football, bargirls, beer and brio.
My favorite Thai restaurant is on Lockhart Road; a little arctic-chilled hole in the wall, with a sliding front door called Thai Farmer. But it’s good and it’s real; the owners are from Isaan Province in Thailand, and so is the clientele – mainly the savvy girls who come over on month-long tourist visas to work the bars of Wanchai. It’s a cozy, cheery little spot (how could it be otherwise when run by Thai people?) with exceptional crab curry and mango and sticky rice dessert. But is it in any way fab? Absolutely not.
My other favorite place on Lockhart Road is the Sunny Paradise sauna. Sunny P (as my friends and I like to call it) is at least thirty years old, and to be frank has seen better days. But what it lacks in sparkle and snap, it makes up for in slightly threadbare charm, and fawning yet familiar old school Hong Kong style service. The staff is friendly and nonchalant; the towel guys are hilariously churlish, fluent in Pidgin English, and used to a worldly consortium of customers, most over the age of forty. For this reason we also call it the ‘old man sauna’. The whole vibe in Sunny Paradise is pre-handover, as it should be since the place was definitely built well before 1997. Until recently smoking was keenly encouraged in the resting (i.e. sleeping) room, with its enveloping easy chairs, crumpled local newspapers and tinny televisions showing news and soap operas. Between each chair were great canisters of loose cigarettes and complimentary lighters, along with the Q tips and toothpicks. Now they have signs up that read No Smoking, but try telling that to the local businessmen and retirees puffing away between pork noodles and glasses of strong tea. I once saw an old codger riding the stationary bike in the antique fitness room (think medicine balls and jump ropes) huffing and wheezing away, a cigarette wedged in the corner of his mouth. Now that’s old school, and very un-fab.
Recently a friend who’s fairly fab invited me to go to the beach with him here in Hong Kong. It was a shimmering Sunday morning and I had just had my iced coffee and local gai mei bao coconut bun. It would have been more fab to go up the hill to Pacific Coffee on Bonham Road, but it was feverous outside and I couldn’t be bothered. I had never been to the beach in Hong Kong, but I have flown over the archipelago enough times to realize that there is serious uncut nature everywhere, and that includes some post card sandy beaches. He proposed going to Big Wave Bay, in the breathtaking but kooky sounding district called Shek-O. I wasn’t sure…it was already past eleven, and going to the beach seemed like something we should have planned much earlier. But my friend assured me that the subway would take us half an hour and then another ten minutes on the minibus, and chop-chop, we’d be at the beach. Eyebrow cocked I jumped in the shower, and as much to prove him wrong than anything else I was soon out the door and on my way to Sheung Wan station.
Almost exactly thirty minutes later we emerged from the bustling, urban hoopla of Shau Kei Wan station, out into blinking sunlight, exhaust and traffic. But literally ten steps away was a local minibus waiting to take people to Shek-O Beach, and the smaller, less popular Big Wave Bay. The driver was a madman naturally (all Hong Kong minibus drivers are psychos) and soon we were careening around rock-walled hairpin turns, tires pealing at fifty miles per hour, barely missing his equally maniacal counterparts coming from the other direction. But the views! As we climbed up into the verdant jungle, with its acacias, banyans and bauhinias crowding the narrow road, the air became clear, and cooler by a few degrees. Looking over to one side (a sheer drop off that made my heart flutter) I saw an undulating vista of exotic emerald; dark shadows and hills, a drastic and inscrutable landscape that had long ago gained the nickname Dragon’s Back.
Walking down the shady lane to the beach, un-intense merchants offered everything from swim trunks to sunscreen and inflatable rafts. The rustic little huts had an easy, well-worn charm, and nobody was hawking – like so many other things in Hong Kong it just worked, and everybody accepted the logic and pace of it. We rented wooden beach chairs, and soon came around a final bend to an idyllic sandy beach between two overgrown cliffs of granite. There were quite a few people there (it was Sunday) but it still felt agreeable, with an unexpected indolence. We decided to set up shop down close to the water, and as we passed through groups of slender tattooed teenagers under large umbrellas, I noticed they were drinking beer and playing current U.S. hip hop and RnB from radios – but not loudly, and nobody was being territorial. I saw a sign that said no smoking on the beach, and from what I saw nobody was. That’s another thing about Hong Kong; people here generally follow the rules.
I don’t know whether Big Wave Bay is fab or not. I suspect it’s not. There are bigger, more crowded beaches in Hong Kong, with hotter people to look at and more of a scene. But the water at Big Wave Bay was nice, and refreshingly cool once you got out past the wooing waders and splashing rafters. I liked the families and large groups of school friends playing their endless varieties of beach games. As I swam further out I gained a view of the whole bay, and noticed another cove off to one side that I went to explore later, as the sun dipped behind one of the dragon’s humps. I didn’t see any waves to speak of at Big Wave Bay, but evidently they appear during typhoons. I don’t surf anyway, so what do I care? Surfing is definitely fab.