Some people never learn. Many of those people are called “Republicans.”

With so many choices across so many cuisines and price ranges, I don’t understand why people in HK still like to go to McDonalds or KFC.

Friday night, dinner at Rei Sushi in the IFC Mall. They claim to get their fish flown in from Tsukiji six times per week. The aji tataki was the real standout. The maguro was really nice but the ohtoro was disappointing. Overall I prefer Sushi Hiro in Causeway Bay, but I was at the IFC already for other reasons.

Saturday, lunch at Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao, the Wanchai branch of the Singapore chain. Their xiao long bao remains my 3rd favorite in the world and is consistent across all of the branches that I’ve tried. (A little no-name dump in Shanghai is my #1, the original Din Tai Fung shop in Taipei is #2.) The jiang nan style pork ribs were also really really good.

Saturday dinner at Agave, Wanchai branch. If you’ve never been there, this place has over 200 different tequilas listed on their menu, an entire page of margaritas and two more pages of tequila cocktails. So details on exactly what I ate are fuzzy, but it was strips of beef served in a pan with a slightly spicy sauce, some onions, some beans, some tortillas stuffed with cheese served on the side. What I appreciate about Agave is that a large portion of their menu is really Mexican, not the Tex-Mex hybrid that every other place in HK tries to pass off as Mexican.

Sunday, dinner at 798 & Company, the branch of the “gastropub” located in Times Square in Causeway Bay. This place is a problem for me because every time I go there, I want to order the entire menu. But I kept it simple, spaghetti with clams – spaghetti was perfectly al dente, clams were cooked exactly right and the sauce was a very basic olive oil and garlic.

Monday, dinner at Nha Trang, Wellington Street near the escalator, still a line at 9 PM on a Monday which will tell you that I’m not alone in thinking this is the best cheap ‘n cheerful Vietnamese in HK. I practically inhaled the softshell crab and we should have ordered a second plate of the rice noodle rolls with prawns. I thought the Vietnamese chicken ceviche didn’t do anything for me. And we had a beef dish that was not bad at all though the details are a bit hazy.

Okay, I guess you can guess from reading this that I’m heading off to have lunch now. If I was in Wanchai, think I’d be waiting in line for some char siu at Joy Hing. Sadly, I’m in Quarry Bay ….

No, not a further post on the Wanchai murders. Last night I went to see Ang Lee’s latest film, Lust, Caution.

I wasn’t too sure about going to see it in a HK movie theater because I was afraid that too much of the audience would be made up of idiots merely lured into buying a ticket because of the Cat III rating and the sex scenes. Most HKers seem pre-occupied with the color of Wei Tang’s nipples (apparently they are not pink enough, leading people to believe she must be a slut) and that you can see Tony Leung’s balls in one shot.

It did seem as if the only people in the theater who were talking during the movie were the two women sitting behind me, Aunt Blabby and her cousin, who were engaged in a non-stop yak-fest. About an hour in, I couldn’t take it any more, turned around and said, “what the hell is wrong with you?” And they did then seem to keep their conversation below 100 decibels for the rest of the film.

As for the movie itself, it is as you probably know more than 2-1/2 hours long and it really feels like it, too. I think there’s a good 97 minute movie hiding inside just waiting to get out. Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography is first rate throughout and high marks for Lai Pan’s flawless production design. The sex scenes were, I feel, necessary to the development of the plot, an important way to show how the relationship between Mr. Lee and Ms. Wong changed over time.

One thing that seriously distracted me in the movie though. Granted I’m no expert on Chinese history. My view of Shanghai during WWII was shaped by the film Empire of the Sun. Lust, Caution depicts a very different Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. A Shanghai in which lush shops and cafes are still open and thriving along Nanjing Road. A jewelry store owned and staffed by men from the middle east. Westerners can frequently be seen walking down the main streets. Our heroine stops into a western style cafe and the waiter is a European man. And at several times during the film, she goes to a movie theater showing American films (although one screening is interrupted to show a Japanese propaganda film). This stuff just took me out of the movie. I thought that all of the westerners in Shanghai were either killed or tossed out, except for Batman.

Another thing that struck me was that here we had a movie with a plot that made sense. It was well thought out and the characters’ motivations were clear and logical. We rarely get that in HK movies any more, where people act in stupidly unpredictable ways in order to advance the plot in illogical ways. Which had me thinking … where is modern Hong Kong literature, even at the pulp fiction level? Is there really no one writing novels or short stories locally? Around the world, novels, short stories, magazine articles are the primary source material for films. That doesn’t seem to be the case here. Are these things not being written? And if they are being written, why are they not optioned for films – $$$?

Does this point to yet another HK failure – the failure to provide students with education in arts and culture equivalent to the basic math and language training? In Hong Kong, art (including theatre, literature and music) is seen as something to invest in, not as a career and not as something to appreciate for its own sake. Why is Beijing a global art center but Hong Kong isn’t? (It ain’t just HK. Shanghai and Shenzhen are also both pretty much cultural wastelands.)
Take a ride on the MTR or KCR here sometime. See for yourself what percentage of people are reading books (not including textbooks or manga).

Oh well, it’s Monday.

The bodies of two American men were found Friday night in a room at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Wanchai North.

The SCMP’s article (paid subscription required) offers reaction from some guests to finding out that they were on the same floor with two bodies but offers no speculation as to what the cause might have been. (Oddly, the article refers to the two Americans surname first, given name second, e.g. “Cherry Paul.”)

The Standard’s article is more forthcoming with details, noting the men were spotted returning to the hotel that evening with two women, that a 20 year old Filipino girl was arrested 8 hours later and that a check of credit card receipts showed the two men had been to a number of bars in Wanchai prior to their death.

Since the bodies show no visible wounds but “white foam” coming from the mouths of the bodies, the speculation is that they brought two hookers back to their hotel and that the hookers either drugged or poisoned them as part of a robbery attempt.

Curiously, the Standard’s article says that the Filipino girl who was arrested on the basis of overstaying her visa does not mention how the police tracked her down. The photo accompanying the article shows a girl in a very short skirt and leather boots covering her face as she’s being escorted by cops past Mes Amis, which as most of you know is several blocks away from the Hyatt.

This type of event does not happen often in Hong Kong – or perhaps it does but is not deemed newsworthy if it just ends in robbery and not death. Rare or frequent, it’s distressing and sad on many levels.

Unlike other HK bloggers, I cannot get upset over the fact that some people in HK and China have called Martin Lee a traitor for suggesting that other countries use the Olympics as an excuse to pressure China on human rights. What else did anyone expect? For them to suddenly go, “wow, yeah, he’s right!” If Lee had any expectation of any outcome other than this, then he’s an even bigger idiot than his enemies think.

And aside from the fact that the Olympics doesn’t mean shit to a tree to me, I thought the general concensus amongst those who like to believe that they are politically correct in their thinking is that one should not politicize the Olympics. That doesn’t suddenly change because you happen to agree with the issue involved. You don’t make exceptions. Some things in life need to be absolutes. Like freedom of speech. Or human rights. You don’t pull no punches but you don’t push the river.

And it’s not unexpected when HK officials blame six months of the worst pollution in HK history on the weather. Why get upset over it? There is a script to be followed and The Donald has his job because he does an excellent job of following it. Why does anyone expect him to change? Is he suddenly wearing turtlenecks instead of bow ties?

United States Resident George Bush actually thinks that someone aside from the 20% of double digit IQ Americans who still support him would care what he has to say. He doesn’t seem to understand that when you launch an unprovoked war on a sovereign country, displace millions of people, cause a million casualties, throw away the Geneva Convention and torture people, hold people in prison for years without legal council or trial, illegally wiretap your own citizens, (well the list goes on – national debt, New Orleans, Blackwater) you no longer have the moral high ground to lecture someone else like, oh, Cuba, on how they should govern themselves. And he hasn’t got the brains to figure out that the world isn’t going to jump to support you when you threaten war against Iran simply because their unpopular nutjob of a president has done a better job of being a nutjob than you have. Right now Kim Jong-Il is shaking with laughter thinking about how he can do and say whatever he wants since he doesn’t have any oil in his country for Bush to try and steal.

And don’t forget about the fires in California, which not only wonderfully illustrate the perils of ignoring global warming and climate change but have also given Arnold ample opportunity to show how someone who was honestly elected and re-elected and has behaved in a mostly responsible fashion should respond to a crisis. But of course, since Bush already appointed anyone with any experience running dog and pony shows to national security positions, all Arnold had left to hire were people who might have a chance of knowing what they were doing.

From the funniest thing I have read today (the spelling isn’t a typo, it refers back to an earlier joke in the essay):

In a brief Q&A, the president said that the Dali Lama had asked him who he would want to be reincarnated as, and Mr. Bush replied “An Iraqi woman, because that means I’d be living in a free, open, democratic society. Plus, I’d look great in a burkah.”

When the Dali Lama reminded him that he’d be having sex with Iraqi men, Bush said that would be an improvement over Dick Cheney.

Just one of many issues I’m having at the moment. TTFN.

I’m just back from a quick weekend trip to Singapore. Managed to spend the better (and worse) part of Sunday with Expat@Large, Indy, Mercer Machine and others. My thanks to all for the good companionship and for continuing to put up with me after I drank the better (or worse) part of a bottle of Jack Daniels. I also got to eat pepper crab and chili tiger prawns and murtabak (but no laksa), spend a couple of hours stocking up at Kinokuniya, and managed to avoid the sorts of places where I would normally be found, so all in all a very successful trip.

That being said, at the moment, my passion for blogging is at an all time low. It could return as soon as later tonight, or it might be a while, hard to say. Suffice to say that I am alive and well and as close to happy as I generally allow myself to get. Columns in BC will continue ….

Monday night and of course I’d like to spend a quiet evening at home with my dogs and my maid. Instead, I went out to a press junket on Fashion TV’s F. Diamond mega yacht, currently anchored in our fair harbor. While there, I was forced to watch a show that featured 17 models in tiny dresses and bikinis. It’s a hard luck life for Spike.

The F.Diamond is here in HK for a week and there will be a big party on Thursday night, co-sponsored by Prive, which I will probably also attend. This marks the 10th anniversary of the Fashion TV cable channel, which claims to be the 4th largest channel in the world (in terms of households which could tune in to it). After HK, they will be in Shenzhen this weekend before steaming off someplace else.

We witnessed their weekly Miss FTV contest, 17 contestants, including three Hong Kong models (one of whom was first runner-up and is my future ex-wife, though she doesn’t know it yet).

Since they had their own camera people swarming around us, this leads to the nightmarish possibility that my face could soon be appearing on FTV. The apocalypse is indeed nigh.

Here are a selection of photos – small on this page because there are so many but click on them for slightly larger versions.

This is Michel Adams, the founder of FTV, with the three local HK models. Most of the other girls are from eastern Europe, one from Spain.

And that’s just one reason I don’t live there.

Ann Coulter is a best selling author, columnist and commentator and extremely typical of the right wing of American politics.

Now I believe in the freedom of speech as an absolute right. But I am dismayed, to say the least, when some people choose to use that freedom to stir up hatred merely to get a response and get ratings, or use that freedom to express what by now should be outdated bigoted ideas.

Freedom of speech does not mean that freedom of access to media to express yourself. The fact that someone like Ann Coulter continues to have this access and receive this broad exposure is a reflection on America, because people agree with this, people like this.

Here’s a transcript of her appearance on a show on CNBC, “The Big Idea,” hosted by Donny Deutsch, earlier this month. Deutsch is every bit as guilty as Coulter, because he knows who she is and what she stands for, and is happy to let her broadcast her 15th century view of the world because he knows it means ratings numbers for him. Who is more guilty? Not easy to say.

DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

DEUTSCH: So I should not be a Jew, I should be a Christian, and this would be a better place?

COULTER: Well, you could be a practicing Jew, but you’re not.

DEUTSCH: I actually am. That’s not true. I really am. But — so we would be better if we were – if people — if there were no Jews, no Buddhists –

COULTER: Whenever I’m harangued by –

DEUTSCH: — in this country? You can’t believe that.

COULTER: — you know, liberals on diversity –

DEUTSCH: Here you go again.

COULTER: No, it’s true. I give all of these speeches at megachurches across America, and the one thing that’s really striking about it is how utterly, completely diverse they are, and completely unself-consciously. You walk past a mixed-race couple in New York, and it’s like they have a chip on their shoulder. They’re just waiting for somebody to say something, as if anybody would. And –

DEUTSCH: I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with that at all. Maybe you have the chip looking at them. I see a lot of interracial couples, and I don’t see any more or less chips there either way. That’s erroneous.

COULTER: No. In fact, there was an entire Seinfeld episode about Elaine and her boyfriend dating because they wanted to be a mixed-race couple, so you’re lying.

DEUTSCH: Oh, because of some Seinfeld episode? OK.

COULTER: But yeah, I think that’s reflective of what’s going on in the culture, but it is completely striking that at these huge megachurches — the idea that, you know, the more Christian you are, the less tolerant you would be is preposterous.

DEUTSCH: That isn’t what I said, but you said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or —

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it’s a lot easier. It’s kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can’t possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: You can’t possibly — you’re too educated, you can’t — you’re like my friend in –

COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

DEUTSCH: No, no, no, but I mean –

COULTER: We have the fast-track program.

DEUTSCH: Why don’t I put you with the head of Iran? I mean, come on. You can’t believe that.

COULTER: The head of Iran is not a Christian.

DEUTSCH: No, but in fact, “Let’s wipe Israel” –

COULTER: I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention.

DEUTSCH: “Let’s wipe Israel off the earth.” I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn’t really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we’re all sinners —

DEUTSCH: In my old days, I would have argued — when you say something absurd like that, there’s no –

COULTER: What’s absurd?

DEUTSCH: Jews are going to be perfected. I’m going to go off and try to perfect myself –

COULTER: Well, that’s what the New Testament says.

DEUTSCH: Ann Coulter, author of If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans, and if Ann Coulter had any brains, she would not say Jews need to be perfected. I’m offended by that personally. And we’ll have more Big Idea when we come back.

[...]

DEUTSCH: Welcome back to The Big Idea. During the break, Ann said she wanted to explain her last comment. So I’m going to give her a chance. So you don’t think that was offensive?

COULTER: No. I’m sorry. It is not intended to be. I don’t think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to, you know, live up to all the laws. What Christians believe — this is just a statement of what the New Testament is — is that that’s why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don’t believe our testament.

DEUTSCH: You said — your exact words were, “Jews need to be perfected.” Those are the words out of your mouth.

COULTER: No, I’m saying that’s what a Christian is.

DEUTSCH: But that’s what you said — don’t you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic –

COULTER: No!

DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You’re an educated woman. How do you not see that?

COULTER: That isn’t hateful at all.

DEUTSCH: But that’s even a scarier thought.