Letter from Hong Kong

By Antonio C. Abaya
Written on Jan. 05, 2009

The last time we were in Hong Kong was during the New Year holidays in 2006-07. Celebrations then were muted because of the tsunami that had devastated Aceh in Indonesia and other places in the region on Dec. 26, killing a quarter of a million people.

In 2008-09, celebrations in Hong Kong were also muted because of the financial and economic meltdown that has gutted many economies around the globe, throwing millions of people on the slippery slope towards unfamiliar poverty or near-poverty levels.

But one can never guess it from the long lines of brand-conscious customers lining up on the sidewalks to get inside the Louis Vuitton or the Chanel shops near our hotel on Canton Road.

Not being brand-conscious, at least not for clothes or shoes or other baubles, I cannot comprehend such loyalties. In 1982, I bought a fake Christian Dior belt for HK$27 from a pushcart vendor off Nathan Road. I am still wearing that very same belt 26 years later and have found no earthly reason to replace it since it still holds my pants up, albeit several notches wider, to enclose a scandalously expanded waistline.

In fact, on the many occasions that I have been to Hong Kong, I have never spent more than US$200 per visit – an infinitesimally small contribution to HK’s economy - aside from airfare and hotel accommodations, which have always been pre-paid in Manila, and, of course, food, which is the principal attraction of Hong Kong to me.

I do not buy clothes or shoes or watches in HK, and I do not buy jewelry, anywhere. But I do enjoy good food and for that I am willing to spend moderately. One way I save money for an evening repast is to buy sliced bread, cold cuts, cheese, orange juice and fruits from a supermarket and consume these over the next few days as late lunches in my hotel room, thus saving money and appetite for some fine dining in the evening. This year’s discovery was Zen in Pacific Plaza.

Whenever I am in Hong Kong, my favorite, and really only, shopping haunts are the Swindon bookstore on Lock Road, and the HMV shops on Hankow Road and in Hong Kong island, for classical music on CDs and cinema jewels on DVDs. This year, as in 2006-07, we tried out the night market on Temple Street for some “globalized” DVDs, but I must say that my favorite Muslim vendor in Makati Cinema Square is much better stocked than his Hong Kong counterparts.

Aside from being a Mahler devotee, I am also a Rachmaninoff fan. I have recordings of almost all the 100 or so works composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff, including six different recordings by various pianists of his Piano Concerto no. 3 in d minor, said to be one of the most difficult piano concerti in the repertoire.

In my opinion, the must-have recording of what has become known as Rach 3 is the one (on RCA Red Seal label) by Vladimir Horowitz, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, recorded live at Carnegie Hall on January 8, 1978. I bought an extra copy of this memorable CD for a disbelieving friend, which, I assured her, would blow her socks and her panties off. (Rach 3 was the musical centerpiece of the 1996 Australian film Shine by Scott Hicks.)

More an historical curiosity than a musical gem is a CD (on the Telarc label) of Rachmaninoff himself playing 19 of his piano compositions, including, curiously, his piano arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner, recorded on a piano-roll mechanism in the 1920s and enhanced through digital technology for 21st century listeners and collectors. A rare memorabilia of the composer himself, but give me Horowitz anytime.

Highly recommended is the CD titled Unknown Rachmaninoff (on the RCA Red Seal label) featuring the Russian pianist Denis Matsuev. Most of the numbers that he plays are not unknown to me, but Matsuev has been a revelation as a Rachmaninoff interpreter, in my book the worthy successor to the immortal Horowitz..

This year I added to my short list of shopping haunts in Hong Kong stores catering to two of my earlier hobbies: model railroading and military model kits, largely because my daughter Carla resurrected from 20-25 years of storage and obscurity my earlier passions for miniature scale models of trains, military aircraft, tanks and naval warships..

In the mid-1970s I bought from a departing American missionary his set of HO or 1:87 scale trains by the German manufacturer Märklin. I bought the train set to amuse my then pre-teen children, but it was I who became addicted to it, expanding the layout ever bigger with purchases from the Märklin distributor in Hong Kong, and augmented by dear Chitang Nakpil’s gifting of her own children’s outgrown and discarded sets.

When my late wife Marica and I built our house in Merville in 1976, the biggest room was my train room, where trains ran through urban and rural landscapes, including a city with skyscrapers around which tiny cars (including a Polizei Volkswagen with flashing blue light), buses and trucks (made by another German manufacturer, Faller) also ran, automatically stopping at railroad crossings whenever a train was going to pass. (And underneath the train layout was an expanding collection of scale models of warplanes, tanks, artillery, naval warships, etc.)

Those who have never put together such an elaborate set may never have experienced the joy of creation. And, contrary to popular misconception, this is not a toy for children. It is a hobby seriously pursued by millions of adults in First World countries who can afford the considerable costs. Locomotives which I purchased for US $100-$125 in the 70s and 80s, and which have long gone out of production, are now selling on eBay for US $400 or more.

When I visited the Märklin outlet in Hong Kong (MTR stop Mong Kok) last week and bought a copy of the 480-page Märklin catalogue for 2008-09, I was flabbergasted to learn that many of the new model locomotives are now equipped with digital decoders that can receive signals from the control box to blow their horns, simulate the sounds of train doors closing and brakes squealing, and turn on interior LED lighting in the passenger coaches. Having been bitten by the bug once, how can I resist it the second time around, especially when I have convinced myself that it as a way of amusing and entertaining my grandchildren?

I also found a retailer on Hong Kong island (MTR stop Sai Wan Ho) of model kits from Russia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic that are normally not available in run-of-the-mill model shops. I promptly purchased kits of World War I aircraft such as the Pfalz E.IV monoplane and the Hansa-Brandenburg W.29 float plane, both German, and World War II aircraft such as the Russian Lavochkin LaGG 3 fighter plane, the Czech Letov Š.16 biplane, and the uniquely asymmetric German Blohm und Voss BV-194 reconnaissance bomber, all in 1:72 scale.

And in 1:35 scale, I picked up a model of the Swedish Strv 103B main battle tank, also known as the “S” tank, the only tank designed without a turret, making for a very low, hard-to-hit silhouette in a battle situation. But what do the pacifist Swedes know about battle situations? The last time the Swedish Army fired a shot in anger was in 1806 when it fought and defeated the Prussian allies of Napoleon in the Battle of Lübeck.

Carla has creatively converted my train room-turned storage room into a billiards room, with lighted glass cabinets along one wall displaying some 150 models that I had built, painted and detailed 20-25 years ago of warplanes from World War I and World War II and beyond; some 30 tanks and other military vehicles, mostly from WW2, in 1:35 scale; some famous warships from WW2 in 1:450 scale, and some 15 model trains from European and American railroads, in HO or 1:87 scale, which had all somehow survived 25 years of airless storage..

My more famous sister Gigi has in her collection some one thousand Nativity Scenes from all over the world, proclaiming PEACE ON EARTH, GOODWILL TO MEN.

In my much more modest collection, the message is TOTAL AND PERPETUAL WAR. *****

Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com..