During one of those idle days when all the devils from the underworld are cavorting and doing the conga line inside your head. My friend and I decide to traipse by Shenzen, the sourthernmost city of the Guandong Province, Mainland China, roughly an hour away from the riotous Hong Kong. My friend, who is the undisputed king of superlatives and theatrics ( its the greatest doughnuts! its the coolest place! its the worst smell! Its the freakiest, scariest face!) has been told that Shenzen boasts of great and dirt cheap massage parlors, and if you really have the eye for great and obscene bargain deals, you can even snag a free accommodation for the night, all under 150 Yuan (I prefer to use yuan, aside from its ancient feel, RenMinBi makes you sound as if you'd lost all your front teeth.) Having been addled with the Chinese opera music that is eternally blasting downstairs that regularly makes our brains just ooze out our noses, the prospect of getting away from it all seems irresistably inviting, or as the way my friendputs it while throwing his hands on the air, ''fantastically brilliant!''.
We pack our bags, and head to the Jordan MTR station. While standing on the platform I start getting weird and quizzical looks from people. Everytime I get weird looks, I start to act like a lumbering log, indifferent and catatonic, until I convince them that I am really just an inanimate object that stands upright, its so effective that after a minute or two, they instantly lose their interest and leave you alone. It turns out that one of my 'festive' underwears is peering out of the bag. When you are 22, please take the initiative to buy and choose your own underwear, because your mom is just more than willing to run that errand for you at the slightest provocation.
There's nothing really much to see in the Hong Kong countryside aside from the occassional doddering Chinese oldies doing that hiphop dancing version of people who have extreme case of rheumatism called Tai Chi, I swear watching them can put you in a suspended animation. It gives you the urge to just grab the remote clicker, fast forward and get done with it. A single step can reach up to 3 minutes, during which you lose your consciousness while drooling inordinate amount of saliva.
In the PROC immigration, the lines to visa counters are mercilessly long, in this case, after standing 10 full minutes in queu, Its either I start muttering to myself all the country, city and airport codes that I have learned in college or flirt with the nearest human standing regardless of the gender. In that moment, the target by default is an Indian national whose smell can send your olfactory bulbs on the endangered specie list. I decide to quietly recite the codes while trying to breathe through my ears.
To be continued.
