Shopping is the opposite of cycling. - Warning - Miserable!

pottssteve

Christmas in Hong Kong.
Twenty five degrees outside and the blue air is thick with petrol fumes and filth. Everything you buy is wrapped in plastic, so tight your finger nails can’t get a hold. The only way in is with a sharp knife. A stab, slash, or a flick. Vacuous, slack-jawed slow, soft and spoiled teens slop around the over-bright, falsely happy malls, their Converse trainers grazing the polished floor tiles. Gangs of pubescent consumers, the city’s future, God help it, neither looking where they are going or where they come from. The shops are a sea of junk; new clothes which already hang limp and ugly on the rails, piped carols, hormones, false smiles and desperation. Items, fifty quid a piece, even with 40% off, shipped from the Third World where they were made for less than a dollar. Up scale boutiques I daren’t enter because I know I cannot and will not pay the prices they demand. Looking at what I cannot afford makes me poorer, but I can’t explain that to the assistant in the corporate uniform who earns way less than me.

Fast food. Saturated animal fats, meat of some sort, sugar, salt, waxed paper cups, plastic trays, ketchup in sachets. A treat, the waste, it slides down and doesn’t fill or satisfy. Bloated on the carbon dioxide in the cola.

A woman in a polyester uniform dry-mops a bit of polished tile that cost more than she does and I think, “I’m glad I’m not her”.

There’s just so much stuff.

Western men, Australians, British, pot-bellied Americans, parade a range of variously attractive Filipino girlfriends around the supermarket aisles, a grotesque parody of normal family life, and we all know how she paid for the Gucci jeans he paid for. And I think, “I’m glad I’m not her”. I imaging them later, at “home” in the apartment they share, him, four bottles of imported Belgian beer inside him and feeling randy, her unfortunately sober as he leans against the jamb of the open bathroom door......

Jeez, I need to get out for a bike ride.

mmitchell88

This is good stuff, pottsteve! Do you blog? Keep it coming....

VinceEager

i felt that this year in london in the lead up to christmas - the manic consumerism...people desperatly shopping for things...spending more and more it seems - the experience is not a nice one - it looks like the commercial face of christmas has slowly eroded everything behind it to such a point that christmas is the coca cola vision.

i know what you mean about cycling being almost an opposite - there is quite a strong compulsive and gratuitous materialist element in cycling though that goes right against the honesty and purety i think you are hinting at - new wheels, new frame sets, upgrades, lighter components, bike computers, gps navigation etc etc etc always more to buy to make us happier.

pottssteve

mmitchell88 wrote:

This is good stuff, pottsteve! Do you blog? Keep it coming....

Hi mmitchell,

No, I don't but I'm 20,000+ words into writing a book. :shock:

Thanks for the positive feedback.

Steve

verylonglegs

I understand your sentiment but our economy and many peoples ability to earn a living is now based on consumption. Once you have the essentials of food, warmth and shelter covered then you could argue everything else is superfluous but how many would be unemployed if it wasn't for the desire to consume?

Angus444

pottssteve wrote:

Christmas in Hong Kong.
Twenty five degrees outside and the blue air is thick with petrol fumes and filth. Everything you buy is wrapped in plastic, so tight your finger nails can’t get a hold. The only way in is with a sharp knife. A stab, slash, or a flick. Vacuous, slack-jawed slow, soft and spoiled teens slop around the over-bright, falsely happy malls, their Converse trainers grazing the polished floor tiles. Gangs of pubescent consumers, the city’s future, God help it, neither looking where they are going or where they come from. The shops are a sea of junk; new clothes which already hang limp and ugly on the rails, piped carols, hormones, false smiles and desperation. Items, fifty quid a piece, even with 40% off, shipped from the Third World where they were made for less than a dollar. Up scale boutiques I daren’t enter because I know I cannot and will not pay the prices they demand. Looking at what I cannot afford makes me poorer, but I can’t explain that to the assistant in the corporate uniform who earns way less than me.

Fast food. Saturated animal fats, meat of some sort, sugar, salt, waxed paper cups, plastic trays, ketchup in sachets. A treat, the waste, it slides down and doesn’t fill or satisfy. Bloated on the carbon dioxide in the cola.

A woman in a polyester uniform dry-mops a bit of polished tile that cost more than she does and I think, “I’m glad I’m not her”.

There’s just so much stuff.

Western men, Australians, British, pot-bellied Americans, parade a range of variously attractive Filipino girlfriends around the supermarket aisles, a grotesque parody of normal family life, and we all know how she paid for the Gucci jeans he paid for. And I think, “I’m glad I’m not her”. I imaging them later, at “home” in the apartment they share, him, four bottles of imported Belgian beer inside him and feeling randy, her unfortunately sober as he leans against the jamb of the open bathroom door......

Jeez, I need to get out for a bike ride.

Steve,

Wait until you get to Cadiz....you'll feel a lot better,mate. Good post!!

fast as fupp

sound great! how much for a brass? :twisted:

pottssteve

fast as fupp wrote:

sound great! how much for a brass? :twisted:

It's certainly a step up from Birkenhead! I'll make enquiries for you regarding the price of local metal alloys...

verylong legs: Unfortunately, I have to agree with you, especially in a place such as HK which has few natural resources other than a large labour force. However, I'm an idealist and also tend to agree with Niall Brennan; "A craftman's sanity is safe if the boss lets him be a craftsman. But the white collar worker is in an insecure position. The whole man needs employment and the wholeness of man is more complicated than we think".

Steve

Anonymous

I went to Costco in lakeside 2 years ago, round Dec 19th. I only have a card as my company provides one. I nipped in for a box of jalapeno cream cheese dippers, which come in large boxes. It was rotten. The place was packed with fat families arguing. The kids were rounder, doughier than the parents and uber sneery/bored. Attitude coming off them in waves. Families of 4 have 2 large red trolley heaving with food, trays of danish, coleslaw, booze,booze and more booze. Trays of meat, ham, turkey, steak, sausages, cold meat and pork/beef joints. Much much more than anyone could eat comfortably. The queues were long, every one of them fukcing moaning, not one smile in the place. It was miserable. All the checkout staff looked harrassed or completely apathetic. Sovereigns and mobiles. Big Gold Chains.

I put my £3.99 box of jalapeno snacks back and left. Not been back since. Just couldn't get the Kevin Carter photo out of my mind. Still upsets me now.

pottssteve

Been for a walk with the wife and boy this afternnon - feel much better! However, the weather is still sh!te. Take a look at this, taken on Christmas day...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31218589@N07/4220923256/

Dirty, dirty, dirty...

pottssteve

The 'photo prompted this:

Christmas day, Ocean Terminal, Tsim Sha Tsui. Three fifteen in the afternoon. Look out through the enormous plate glass windows onto the Fragrant Harbour from which Hong Kong gets its name. The water is slate grey, an oily film clings to its surface, when it rises and falls against the sea wall it doesn’t leave it wet. Hong Kong Island is covered in a petrochemical blanket, nicotine brown under the muted sun. Skyscrapers push up into the murk, a mouthful of smashed teeth, all angles and soot. Drowning in its waste. The mall is a crush of humanity; Chinese, Westerners, the occasional darker-skinned face. Filipino maids on their day off pout and laugh as they take photos of each other on their mobile ‘phones. Sugar-soaked children run and fall and cry among the legs, the cosmetics sales girls in brilliant white lab coats yawn, chat, and paint their nails. An elderly man in a security guard’s uniform leans awkwardly against a map which shows the shopper how to navigate this enormous waste of space. His feet hurt, his legs ache. Maybe once he had a real job. Maybe once he had dignity.

passout

On the positive side a Far Eastern Christmas will make you appreciate one in Britain or Spain.
I had Christmas at home in Lancs this year -quiet, snowy, neighbourly, good....

wirralguy

Hi guys i was born in Birkenhead it sounds just like HK