A few days eating around in Hong Kong

I have spent a few days in Hong Kong, and I am so impressed. This is a fantastic city, so full of life, energy, fun and culture. And amazing food, cheap and tasty! I have eaten all kinds of stuff, some that not even J. could quite explain what it was... I tried hard but could not find anything, I mean ANYTHING, I did not like. The one plate that stuck most in my memory was pig's lungs in almonds' soup. OK a bit unusual, not even J. ate the lungs, she was happy with just the soup, but I found it all quite well matched. Which was followed by pork liver. WOW!

Often J. and I would eat at street stalls, delicious and cheap food served in paper bags, so cheap and so tasty I had to really make an effort to stop.

For food shopping, there are countless markets of all kinds. I found the "wet markets" especially interesting. They are called so because fish is so fresh... it is fact sold alive! Instead of dead fish on ice or shrinkwraps you buy fish here that is still swimming in styrofoam boxes. One day J. bought an octopus, which was still alive when we took it home for cooking. I was slightly shocked to see her cutting it up as it was moving around the kitchen table, but it was definitely fresh!

We even found a specialty shop with Italian produce, you can get real mozzarella di bufala flown in from Italy daily. I could buy some pancetta and Roman pecorino cheese, and was proud to make some authentic amatriciana at J.'s home for all the family! OK OK for purists: I did not find the mandatory guanciale, but maybe I did not look well enough!

Touring Hong Kong is fun in the traditional two-storied trams, that apparently were now bought by Veolia, a French company which however has pledged to keep the traditional trams running. However, for longer distances, and to cross over to Kowloon, the metro system is fast and superefficient. Taxis are convenient and cheap too.

Arrival in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year's celebrations

It's my first time back in Hong Kong after 14 years. Last time I landed in the old airport, an experience I will never forget! This time I am welcomed by the new airport, an architectural and logistical masterpiece that is voted best airport in the world over and over again... This, also, is a great experience!

Film Review: War Photographer, by Christian Frei, *****

Synopsis
An Oscar nominee for best documentary, 'War Photographer' was directed by Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei, who followed Nachtwey, who for many is the greatest war photographer of his generation, to Kosovo, Palestine and Indonesia.

We see the photographer in combat zones and pockets of horrific poverty, approaching his subjects slowly, with a hand raised in peace. After 20 years of covering war, poverty and famine Nachtwey still sees his work as an antidote to war and his photographs as a graphic 'negotiation for peace.'

Review
Christian Frei is never in want of original ideas for his films. Here he mounts mini movie cameras on Hachtwey's photo cameras and shows us the world's tragedies as Jim himself saw them. From war theaters in Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Somalia (hence the title) to poverty and gruesome mines in Indonesia, Jim has seen it all. His goal: to make people around the world aware of the horrors of war so as to build up forces to prevent this tragedy from happening again. A bit idealistic perhaps, but he puts immensely powerful images behind this goal.

Jim took all black and white pictures, and some scenes of this documentary are shot back home in NY and show Jim working with his assistants in the darkroom (this is predigital) to make perfect prints of his negatives.


You might want to buy his superlative photography book on the wars of the 1990s. It is a big, heavy and expensive book but worth every cent you pay for it.

14. - 11 JAN: Addis Ababa and departure, end of the trip

Last day in Ethiopia for this trip. We spend it around the city in the company of R. and S., two Ethiopian ladies we met at a restaurant last night. First stop is at a music shop, where I can buy some CDs of Ethiopian music. The area is by the "mercato", the Italian built covered market. All around an odd mix of old and new. Some donkey-pulled carts roll down the street next to modern cars and traditional spices are sold next to Coke. Out little music shop displays a rich variety of CDs.

When I ask about "traditional" Ethiopian music the lady at the counter looks bewildered. "We don't have so much, no one listens to that stuff any more." I suppose it would be like a foreigner going to a music shop in Rome and asking about CDs of "O Sole Mio"; he would probably get the same answer. Instead, she proposes a few disks of contemporary Ethiopian hits. Rather rock and rollish, with a touch of techno. Anyway, this is Ethiopian music today, so I buy a few CDs to take home!

More shopping at a bookstand. Again I can find some old colonial publications in Italian, I am struck by a meticulously detailed issue of a Rivista Economica in which the Fascist administration was proposing to reorganize the Ethiopian economy to face the League of Nations' sanctions!

Pit stop at a mango juice stand. Two ladies press the fresh drink, which we all enjoy, only to be a bit disappointed when the older one presents us with a bill for the drinks and... for the pictures we have taken! We don't pay and she is seriously disappointed. I mean, come on! I would have understood this kind of request in a tourist trap fake village by the entrance of a Kenyan national park, but not in a bustling city that prides itself (and if fact IS) a major continental capital.

Later we drive up the Mount Entoto, perhaps the best vantage point to view the city. In the huge park the highly significant Church of Mariam is worth a visit. Rose and Selam stop to pray by the little shrine at the bottom of the steps which lead into the Church itself. As we drive back into town on a newly paved road, an old lady walks briskly downhill with a huge pile of what looks like dried bamboo on her shoulder.

It's time to go to the airport, the trip is over. One last mishap, but not a major problem. It is impossible to change back our leftover Birr after security control, and therefore the only thing left is to spend them at the duty-fre shops. Nice picture books on Africa are fortunately available...

Book Review: The Emperor, by Ryszard Kapuszinski, *****

Synopsis

After the deposition of Haile Selassie in 1974, which ended the ancient rule of the Abyssinian monarchy, Ryszard Kapuscinski travelled to Ethiopia and sought out surviving courtiers to tell their stories. Here, their eloquent and ironic voices depict the lavish, corrupt world they had known - from the rituals, hierarchies and intrigues at court to the vagaries of a ruler who maintained absolute power over his impoverished people. They describe his inexorable downfall as the Ethiopian military approach, strange omens appear in the sky and courtiers vanish, until only the Emperor and his valet remain in the deserted palace, awaiting their fate. Dramatic and mesmerising, The Emperor is one of the great works of reportage and a haunting epitaph on the last moments of a dying regime.