Hong Kong

I spent both my nights in Hong Kong in the rural hills and sparsely populated area called Yuen Long. Most tourists who visit Hong Kong see the uber modern and newly built dimension of the city. Even the Po Lin monastery big buddha, which didn't exist over a decade ago, can now be reached by aerial cable cars from Tung Chung, one can now see at the transfer subway station for the newly opened Disneyland there is a special line where the subway cars have mickey-mouse shaped windows, and the Victoria peak has been topped with a brand-name shopping complex.

But as I have a penchant for old things and history, I like to look underneath that all and see what once was. For example, Kowloon Walled City. "Originally established in the eighteenth century as a far-flung outpost of the Chinese empire..." it was never really a city. When the British took Hong Kong island and Kowloon, China kept the walled area to keep a military presence there to guard against England. But when the New Territories were ceded over, Kowloon Walled City became a political no-mans land, neither China nor England owning it. Squatters took up residence there, but there was no rule of law, no police, no garbage collectors, no sewage. Electricity was illegaly and slyly tapped from the main grid. Some of this information I garnered from a book I just finished called Gweilo, memoirs of a British boy's childhood in Hong Kong. I found myself in Mong Kok two days ago, drinking Pacific Coffee coffee, reading his book, and then walking over to his urban "playground", especially touched when I went to the spot of my favorite anecdote from his book. There was a "Plink Plonk man" who played the Xylephone on the streets and his pet monkey dressed in traditional Chinese mandarin uniform danced mechanically to his music.

All went well until one day when, halfway through 'Marching through Georgia', the monkey finally managed to bite through its leash. I was on the opposite side of the road and watched the whole drama unfold.
In a flash, the monkey was up the nearest tree. The music stopped abruptly and the plink-plonk man stood up to survey the situation. The monkey was out of reach, the tree too stout to bend and the remnant of the leash too short to be grabbed.
At first, the musician tried to sweet-talk the monkey down, holding up a piece of a bun. The monkey just peered down through the branches. Not to be hoodwinked by this, it then slowly, strip-tease fashion, divested itself of its ludicrous costume, letting each piece drift to the ground where the musician collected them up, folding them as he might those of a child. His attention taken by this task, the plink-plonk man's eye was briefly off the monkey which, holding on to its little cock, gave it a few masturbatory tugs before proceeding to urinate upon its erstwhile master.
It was a moment or two before the musician realized what was happening. He unwisely looked up to be hit in the face by the full stream. This not surprisingly drove him into an irate frenzy, cursing the monkey at the top of his voice, throwing the clothing at it and then pelting the monkey with unripe olives, some of which it caught and returned with considerable accuracy, the hard fruit bouncing off the musician's head.
Tiring of this game, the monkey headed off down the street, swinging Tarzan-like from tree to tree, always keeping just out of reach of the musician who ran below, jumping up to attempt to grab the dangling leash.
It was pure pantomime and, by now, had gathered a crowd far greater than any the plink-plonk man could ever have hoped to collect through is music. He ran along behind the escaping monkey, his face wet with urine, his fists clenched, pleading, cussing, cajoling and threatening the creature by turns. His swelling audience, meanwhile, hooted with laughter, shouted spurious advice and encouragement to the escapee.
At the junction of Emma Avenue and Soares Avenue, a network of electricity wires spanned out from a junction box. The monkey, blithely swinging through the foliage, was unaware of the danger. The plink-plonk man saw it and tried in desperation to turn the monkey back. Enjoying its liberty, it ignored him. There was a violent blue flash accompanied by an equally brief high-pitched squeak. The lights in the shops flickered. A few bulbs exploded. The monkey was instatnly immolated. All that was left was a charred corpse stretched between two wires, adrift of smoke and the acrid smell of burnt hair.
The plink-plonk man sat on the curb, his feet in the gutter, and broke into tears. The crowd, now subdued, dispersed.
I never saw him again.

I went to the junction of Emma Avenue and Soeares Avenue. There was no more network of electiricity wires spanning out from a junction box.