Yay, I'm in Hong Kong. Welcome to typhoons and air pollution. And giant portions of rice and pork.

This is the conversation I had with the manager who assigned me with my latest project:

"Hi Chris, please pack your bags.

Huh? What the heck?

Hong Kong.

Huh? What? 

You fly there next month.

Oh, ok. (HOLY SHIT)

Pauses for a while....'On second thought, next Monday.'
You can't be serious..."

I am now in Hong Kong. A place I thought I'd never visit let alone work in. As I write this, the country is experiencing its worst air pollution in years. When I came, it was after the biggest typhoon in years. 

What's next? Worst dim sum glut in a century?

On paper, my race is stated as Chinese. My features are that of a Chinese weightlifter whose diet consists of dumplings with dubious meat origins in it. And rice. Lots of rice. I am anything but. I do not relate to the Chinese mentality nor do I identify myself with any of its tradition and culture. Except for being calculative, vindictive and all that Shanghai jazz. So when people see me and talk to me in a Chinese dialect, the look of disbelief when I say I don't speak any is akin to a brown bear finding out that the salmon are now chicken (gasp and roar!).  

I am going to be here for the next 6 months with flybacks every 2 weeks (it also depends on the budget since I'm worth about 4 Chinese senior consultants) or until I get myself fired for being bad at work. In all honesty, I can't wait to get back to Singapore. While their food is significantly inferior to that of my home country, Malaysia, I'd much rather have it right now as my quota for pork has exceeded by a mile ever since I got here; I've had pork with tomato sauce, pork with some unidentified sauce, steamed pork with 3 cups of rice, pork with noodles that had didn't have much noodle are among the highlights of my porky adventure thus far.

I'll be diplomatic (since I'm still on the island) and say that I truly miss Malaysia. I used to laugh and roll my eyes whenever I hear someone say Malaysians are nice and friendly and other nauseating pleasantries but I now appreciate such words. It really is true.

Gosh, it's time for dinner. Maybe I'll try some rice with, you've guessed it, not pork.

Ta.