Lonely Planet says that white is color of death in Hong Kong, and should be avoided in choosing attire.
Last evening was spent attending posh gallery openings in bright white pants.
I am staying with "Imp", my gregarious friend who works as an international journalist. Imp took me on a tour of gallery openings, followed by house parties, 7-eleven stops, and encounters with roving bands of French investment bankers.
Hong Kong seems enormously sophisticated after the dirt and dust in developing Phnom Penh. I encountered only young and affluent expats, many dressed in bespoke suits and elegantly cut dresses, thoroughly urban and highly international in taste and interest. The expats may be plentiful here, but everyone described the social community as tight, and Imp and his friends encountered many familiar faces during the night.
My current reference points for the city are London, San Francisco (hilly), and Chinatown in New York City. These seem inadequate, as i've never been to China.
The motherland seems very close, probably because it is.
Our final stop was a quiet party in lovely six-story walkup where a chinese woman (roughly my age) described China's need for nationalism, unreadiness for democracy, and historic claim to Tibet.
It was a nice cab ride home. Cabs are very cheap here, for some reason.
Loisaida is a term derived from the Latino (and especially Puerto Rican) pronunciation of "Lower East Side", a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. Loisaida Avenue is now an alternate name for Avenue C in the Alphabet City neighborhood of New York City, whose population has largely been Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican) since the late 1960s.
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