There’s one other New Yorker in my company and he just sent me a link to this bit over at The Onion:

NEW YORK—At 4:32 p.m. Tuesday, every single resident of New York City decided to evacuate the famed metropolis, having realized it was nothing more than a massive, trash-ridden hellhole that slowly sucks the life out of every one of its inhabitants.

With audible murmurs of “This is no way to live,” “What the hell am I doing here—I hate it here,” and “Fuck this place. Fuck this horrible place,” all 8.4 million citizens in each of the five boroughs packed up their belongings and told reporters they would rather blow their brains out with a shotgun than spend another waking moment in this festering cesspool of filth and scum and sadness.

But the question is:  how many words would you have to change to make it about Hong Kong rather than New York?

“I always had this perverted sense of pride because I was managing to scrape by here,” said Brooklyn resident Andrew McQuade, who, after watching two subway rats gnawing on a third bloody rat carcass, finally determined that New York City was a giant sprawling cancer. “Well, fuck that. I don’t need to pay $2,000 a month to share a doghouse-sized apartment with some random Craigslist dipshit to prove my worth. I want to live like a goddamn human being.”

Probably not that many.

Okay – I would never say that Hong Kong is “a horrible place” but sometimes certain aspects of it just get to me and I guess today is one of those days.

But still, you could change this:

When fleeing New Yorkers were asked if they would miss the city’s iconic landmarks, most responded that Central Park is just a pathetic excuse for experiencing actual nature, that the Brooklyn Bridge is great but it’s just a fucking bridge, that nobody goes to the Met anyway, and that living in a dingy, grime-caked apartment while exhaust fumes from an idling truck seep through your bedroom window isn’t worth slightly bigger bagels.

To this:

When fleeing Hong Kongers were asked if they would miss the city’s iconic landmarks, most responded that Hong Kong Park is just a pathetic excuse for experiencing actual nature, that the Tsing Ma Bridge is great but it’s just a fucking bridge, that nobody goes to the Cultural Centre anyway, and that living in a dingy, grime-caked apartment while exhaust fumes from an idling truck seep through your bedroom window isn’t worth slightly bigger char siu bau.

Couldn’t you?

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