The towering skyscrapers of Hong Kong imposed upon the cityscape in every direction but I wasn’t looking at them. My eyes were fixated on the everyday makeup applied at street level. 

The rectangular traffic lights with their circular hoods protecting the red, amber and green lights, the police cars and ambulances, the street signs, the zebra crossings, the double lines and the LOOK LEFT LOOK RIGHT written in cracked white paint on the ground. 

It was all hitting me deep in my colonial loss spot. 

A few decades of being a part of China again had failed to diminish the cultural similarities. I felt like I was back in England a week earlier than planned. 

I was feeling a sense of loss and an underlying pain that this beautiful British city was no longer. 

The scenery was both a symbol of the UK’s downward spiral and a realisation that I would be back in that same country in a week. 

My head was in a fog of emotion as the taxi pulled up at our hotel. I shook off the thoughts dusting up my mind as I stepped out of the cab and hauled our bags into The Mini Hotel. 

The Mini Hotel. I liked the concept. The room was the same width as the double bed at the end of it. It took only ten steps to walk the length of the room, the see-through bathroom also made things interesting. 

I sat in bed as Natalie showered. I switched between focusing on the beauty of my girlfriend’s naked body through the glass and the Hong Kong beauty out the window behind me. 

The fog had returned. The rest of the day was a blur. 

The next morning me and Natalie went to a local restaurant for breakfast. We ordered the milk stuff – milk jelly, milk coffee and tea and the milk bread. It made me joyful for some unknown reason, this assortment of many milks. 

We chewed and slurped up all of this milk stuff and concluded in unison that Hong Kong breakfast was pretty fucking delicious. 

Over the next few days we explored Hong Kong. Each new historic landmark we visited just strengthened the weird feeling I had in my heart. I was as joyful as the milk made me but the joy was surrounded by some kind of devastation. 

The height of the feeling came at the top of Victoria Peak. Standing on a lookout above one of the more beautiful cities in the world. It was such a shame that this city with such a rich history that England had been a big part of was now on course for a full CPC takeover. 

The contrast between the crumbling old colonial apartment blocks and shiny modern skyscrapers nearly kicked off an anxiety attack. 

It should have been different. Singapore had thrived on its own. Hong Kong would have got on just fine as an independent state. If only I’d been Prime Minister during the negotiations. Hong Kong would have been on a very different path. 

I left Natalie admiring the view while I took off to find a quiet spot to smoke a cigarette and have a moment. 

That moment didn’t cure anything though, the feeling persisted for days and was on the verge of overwhelming me when I finally found an escape from it around the other side of Hong Kong Island. 

. 

We were on a small bus making wild swerves along the edge of a mountain. 

I always get a thrill out of these kinds of situations. Unexpected near-death experiences. 

We were still on Hong Kong Island but a part of it I’d never heard of. Hong Kong to me equaled skyscrapers, here there were none, just lush subtropical mountains and a scattering of buildings hugging their sides. 

This place was truly unique with less reminders of imperial doom. My head felt clearer as it smashed up and down and swung from side to side.  

One of Natalie’s young students from Canada lived in a place called Stanley on the quieter side of Hong Kong Island for half the year and we were on our way for a lunch date with her family. I didn’t know the student, it would have been a bit weird to know her, she was hardly six years old. I didn’t know her family either. 

I always accepted these kinds of social occasions as a chance to practice my internal strengths. 

I knew what was coming during this lunch date, small talk with people I didn’t know. 

Painful, painful, painful small talk with strangers most likely thinking the same thing as me, ‘SHOOT ME!’ or truthfully ‘SHOOT THEM!’ ….. 

We ate Dim Sum in a restaurant by the waterfront as I steeled my stomach against the banal conversation. It was as awkward as I had expected. 

After lunch the mum left for a doctor’s appointment and we went to a nearby playground for Natalie and her former student to play which left me and the dad stuck together watching on. 

The dad looked across the playground and bobbed his head anxiously, “Wow, three years, wow that’s a lot.” 

“Yeah, it’s over now though.” I said, wanting my girlfriend to return and end the awkwardness. 

We played out the same two lines between us using different words for a few minutes. 

I could tell we had similar dispositions. I hated small talk, he hated small talk, but we were forced into it by the absence of his wife and my girlfriend, my girlfriend who was now running around a playground with her former student with no end in sight. 

Thankfully after five minutes that felt like five hours the pain ended and we were both released. 

Me and Natalie boarded the bus back to the skyscrapers of Hong Kong. 

Back into my emotional fog.