Hong Kong

I got to Hong Kong and man, what a culture shock it has been again! From a hot (40 degrees Celsius), suffocating, poor and disorganized Calcutta to this heaven of commercialism, spotless, most organized, air-conditioned, efficient and cool (about 20 degrees Celsius). It's a lot like NY but much cleaner - there's not one piece of garbage on the streets, no gum, no cigarette butts, no nothing. In terms of architecture and interior design it looks like 22 century (or Odyssey 2000). It's basically offices and shopping malls. It's a shopper's heaven: all possible brands, including the heute couture brands, and at reasonable prices. I walked in the Harbor City which is a mall but it is, indeed, like a city and checked where the best, most beautiful (and they are really incredible in terms of styles and fabrics) clothes are made and they are made in India and in Poland. They are also made in Sri Lanka, Macao and some other places where there's cheap labor. The blouses you can get in India are $2 and here they would be about $30 (and in the US they would be $200, I am talking about the BIG brands). I bet the Indian tailor gets $1 per piece and the Polish one slightly more. That's how the world works, not to mention that a lot of people live on 40 rupees a day in India which is $1 (that is enough for two meals). The Indian government declarees that below 25 rupees is life below poverty line. So I came, in just one day (the flight was 3 hours from Bangladesh), from the country where people live on $1 a day to a place where a cup of coffee is $1 (or $3 when it's Starbucks as prices for food are closer to these of NY); from a country where there are power cuts every day to a place where there's electricity used for air-conditioning in a climate which doesn't require any cooling; from where people have one set of clothing which they wear until it drops off from them to a land where everybody looks as if they stepped out of a Vouge magazine and leaves a smell of sophisticated perfume behind them. Everybody is well dressed, coafiured, manicured, equipped with all kinds of electrical gadgets, wired with headphones for i-pods, telephones, etc. Right now I am sitting in a public library where there are about 100 super fast computers for free use up to two hours, in a steryle, air-conditioned, quiet environment. The use of the phone for local calls is also free at the guest house and I hear that the land line is free in general. The guest house is a flat in one of the high-rised buildings and it's $8 a bed per night. It's not entirely spotless and the dorm is incredibly small but it's fine in comparison to some hostels I've seen before... During the flight to Bangladesh I met a couple from Spain, Margarita and Serge, and at the guest house I met Hanna and Victor from Sweden and also Alex from Ethiopia and we have been enjoying walking around the city (also late at night - it seems a very safe place) and conversations at meals and in the evening. I will stay here a few more days. I will also see if I can leave my resume at some employment agency because I could definitely stay here for a while. Hong Kong is lilke NY - to enjoy it fully it would be best to stay here for a few months. The one thing that I immensly enjoy is... the clean bathroom with a clean toilet, with the toilet paper, a waste basket, and a hook (and tilted walls so clean that I can see myself in them as opposed to walls so dirty that you are afraid you would get glued to them permanently if you touched them). As I can remember the last time I could actually sit on a toilet seat was in the hotel in Moscow. You may find it funny but I am telling you guys... it's hardship... not to have a clean bathroom once you are used to it... Since I found this computer heaven I will be back soon with more news.