Proof of Karma

Hong Kong, December 2011
“This is not hotel, la!”
“Yes,” my wife and I took in the grimy horror that was the Cosmic Guesthouse surrounding us. “We can see that.”
So began a battle of wills that would pit my wife and I against one of history’s great evils: the slum lord.

Day 2
Us: “There’s water on the floor. Maybe there is a leak?”
SL: “It’s no problem, la! Cleaning lady just didn’t clean it, la!”
Us: “Right, so that’s… better?”

Day 3
Us: “Uh, someone took the cover off our bed. We just have a sheet now. A really small sheet.
SL: “Cover is decoration only, la! You no need!”
Us: “We’ll just take the cover off the other bed that’s taking up all the remaining floor space in our room then, eh?”
SL: “Huh?!”
Us: “Okay, see you!”

Day 4
Us: “So, my wife is, like, preganant*. We have to leave urgently. Oh no.”
SL: “No refund!”
Us: “That’s fine. That money is tainted now. And it smells like childhood fear sweat.”

* This was a lie. No excitement please, Mums.

Day 4 (an hour later)
Us: “Hello. We’d like to check in, please.”
Receptionist: “Good morning. Welcome to the Royal Hotel. We are heavily booked right now, so we’ll have to put you in one of the top floor executive suites.
Us: *Grin*

There you have it: absolute scientific proof that karma is a real thing.

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A Comparison

Cosmic Guest House


Shower pressure: Pretty good.
Number of minutes you can enjoy the shower pressure before the base of the shower floods through to the toilet: Three
View: Nestled amidst the other 13 guesthouses in a rambling tenement building, all of which are draped in sheets that may have once been white. May have.

Royal Plaza Hotel


Shower pressure: Would flay the flesh from your bones in the best possible way.
Number of minutes you can enjoy the shower pressure before the base of the shower floods through to the toilet: Potentially unlimited. (Tests were concluded after about half an hour.)
View: Overlooking the entirety of Kowloon. Amazing.

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To ward against the encroaching insanity of Cosmic Guesthouse, we binged on theme parks. Now, I’m not going to spend a lot of time going on about Disneyland – you’ve either been, and therefore know how amazing it is; or you haven’t, and I would just be making you sad. Suffice it to say, Disneyland is perfect, and despite all Disneylands being completely identical the world over HK Disneyland is the most perfect.

America? France?Japan? Who cares!

This is because nowhere else in the world do they just make shit up to put on their name badges with such reckless abandon. That’s just a Chinese specialty. When I was in China I got paired with a university student to show me around (I made her take me to the nearest video game store, then bookstore, in that order). “My name is Yuqin,” she told me. “Please call me Flower.” “How about I call you Yuqin, since that’s your name? That thing over there’s a flower,” was my response.
 This kid was supposedly one of China’s top academics, so get real, but at Disneyland, a place of magic and whimsy, anything goes! Here’s a list of names that Chinese Disneyland employees think English-speaking people have and wanted to emulate in their job:
- Wandy
- Staryan
- Yellow
- Kitty
- Shalom
- Paper
I just want to clarify that not all of these nametags were on girls either. For that reason alone, I declare Disneyland worth the price of admission. At the other end of the Hong Kong theme park spectrum is Ocean Park. This place was possibly designed by the same guy responsible for the stairs at my last apartment. He was head of the class at the De Sade Design Academy. The central tenet of this guy’s park design philosophy is walking. “If the rubes have to queue for 40 minutes to get on a ride then they won’t mind a 20 minute walk between rides. Uphill. I don’t even know how it’s possible, but it seems like the whole place was uphill! Goddamn Escher Park.

Ocean Park

At the end of the day we ate New Zealand lamb at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the bay. We finished our dinner at about 9:00 on December 31st, but that will be my prevailing memory of New Years 2012, because that moment was the best Hong Kong gave to us. 2011 was, for the most part, totally Cosmic Guest House. I intend to make 2012 a lot more Royal Hotel. I hope the same holds true for you, because you read this. So you must be okay.