Djurdjevic - Personal Photos - Asian Christmas

HONG KONG, Dec 19, 2007 - If you thought mist and smog were bad two days ago when I first passed through Hong Kong, you should have seen them today, Dec 19. Well, actually you can see how little you can see if you join me on this ride from the airport to the city...

Very close to the airport, you pass by these humongous new highrises (left) - the first inkling of a vertical life without vertigo that the Hong Kong residents have lead. The land is to precious that most of its seven million people live in little cubby holes no bigger that 350 sq ft (which you will see later). So by comparison, these 1,000 sq ft modern apartments are considered a luxury. And they'd better be. They sell for about $3 million (yes, three million U.S. dollars for a 1,000 sq ft apartment!).

As we drove on closer to the city, the partially hidden outlines of the otherwise quite spectacular bridges and inlets seemed more mysterious enveloped in mist than even the London bridges famous for its fog.

In the city, the visibility was a little better, revealing skyscrapers that were built so close together that fog probably probably gave up trying to squeeze through. :-) The colonial-style building in the right image is the Hong Kong Legislature. It still operates pretty much the way it did before 1997, when China reclaimed Hong Kong from Britain as its territory.

The tall building in the middle of the left photo is the IFC Tower, the fourth tallest building in the world, I've been told. And all four, starting with the tallest in Taipei, are based in Asia. The Jin Mao Tower, where I had my meetings on Tuesday in Shanghai, is apparently the second tallest skyscraper in the world.

The area all around my hotel, the famous Mandarin Oriental that dates back to the colonial e

ra, is a bustling shopping district.

You'll find here every famous global brand. And they are present not just in name, but housed in some of the largest shopping facilities I have ever seen. Some of them dwarf similar stores on Fifth Avenue in New York, for example. And the billboards, well the billboards are something else. They look a cross between the Times Square and Madison Ave ads, with a smattering of Hollywood thrown in for good measure (like George Clooney, the new Omega watch salesmen - middle right). As for that babe promoting Gucci on the right, with no wedding ring or clothes, her presence is probably episodic, like the name of the store above which she stars.

In between the stores, congestion is incredible (left two photos). In the left photo you can see a line of people 50 yards long. What to you think they are lining up for? Some special show tickets? Or other marketing freebies? No. That was a line for taxis at a taxi station. Back in the States, taxis tend to line up at taxi stations waiting for passengers. Here, would-be passengers line up and wait for taxis.

From congestion to serenity, in the midst of all this apparent chaos, I walked by a black chauffeured limo that was parked curbside. I noticed two cute little Chinese girls inside. As I peaked in, their Mom or Nanny smiled at me and rolled down the window. I asked if it would be okay to take a picture. She nodded affirmatively. She then explained that the girl that looked like a Halloween reveler actually pained her face herself. But it was the other little one who crept into the picture, lest she be outshined by the older sister, that won my heart. Isn't she just a doll?

I went into several dozen jewelry stores, looking for a special gift for my darling, and used the occasion not only to educate myself about jade trade, but also to socialize and observe local customs. Closer to my hotel, where evidently more opulent customers shopped, every store would offer me a leather chair and a cup of tea while I was perusing their wares. Closer to the other end of Queen Road, in the "dodgier neighborhood," as the Brits would put it, both the chairs and the tea disappeared. The luxurious stores turned into crowded little stands in steep side streets. And through all this maze of shoppers and merchants, an old bag lady was pushing her cars full of trash bags. Her sad predicament and her presence here was all the more poignant considering the next thing I came across.

Half way along Queen Road, though, I saw the most amazing jewelry gallery. The two sculptures you an see in the right photo are worth phenomenal amounts of money. The one on the left, made out of jade, costs $7.8 million HK dollars (over a $1 million U.S.). And the one on the right, made out of ivory, is priced at $2.8 million HK dollars ($370,000 U.S.). The prices instilled in me a heightened level of respect for jade's beauty and rarity. No wonder in Asia it is considered a precious stone that's credited with all sorts of good luck attributes, even with some healing powers.

Not far from there, I passed what looked like soup kitchen, where two chefs were preparing cheap meals in a steamy kitchen. In the alley right next door, there was a black Lexus limo waiting for someone's rich kid to be picked up from a private nursery and taken home, probably in the suburbs.

"My God, this is real Asia," I muttered to myself. Enormous riches and people at the depths of poverty and despair breathe the same air; share the same sidewalks; each accepting and occupying their station in life without apparent resentment or strife. I saw that in India. I witnessed it in Bangkok. And now, I was in the middle of it in Hong Kong.

More than anything else, that endeared this city of fragrances to me, almost instantly. For, I did not see anything like the melding of castes or classes in Shanghai, Beijing or Tokyo - all three ostensibly big Asian metropolis, but lacking the pulsating vibrancy of Hong Kong, Bangkok or Mumbai - "my kind Asia."

City of fragrances? Yes. I also learned today that the name Hong Kong means Fragrant Harbor in Cantonese, the Chinese dialect people speak around here. It was the name the British g

ave it in 1842, when they first arrived at these shores - because of smell of burning incense and other flowers that was prevalent around the harbor.

As I swung back toward the business district, I came across this pretty modern plaza, with a Christmas tree in the middle (right). There was also a large TV screen and a number of older people intently watching the news program. Take a look at their faces: Can you be any more interested in the news than that? :-)

As I was walking down Queen Road, it occurred to me that today was Dec 19, St. Nicholas Day. And once again, I am overseas on that special day for the Djurdjevic family.

That's the Djurdjevic family's Christian birthday. It's the day on which the Djurdjevic's converted to Christianity, maybe a 1,000 years ago. Every Serbian family has such a day. It is called the Slava (the Saint's Day). The Slava tradition has been passed on from father to son for centuries. And our Saint-protector is St. Nicholas, the Miracle Maker. Yes, it's the same saint whom the Christian masses centuries ago "promoted" to Santa Claus (Claus - phonetically abbreviation of Nicholas).

If I were home, I would have probably prepared some special traditional dishes, and might have had my priest-friend come to the house to consecrate the "kolach" (special cake) and "zhito" (cooked wheat berries and walnut and sugar mixture that I loved as a kid because it tasted like a desert).

Over the years, many miracles have happened to me on Dec 19. Today, the first miracle was called Ida. The second occurred at this little Hong Kong plaza (above), where I suddenly saw a Christian church. It seemed to pop up out of nowhere - in this city of seven million people in which the Christians are a tiny minority! Instantly, I recalled that something like that also happened to me in Kobe, Japan, on St. Nicholas Day 1993 (right photo), and in 1997 back home (see "My Thanksgiving Story," Nov 2007 and "St. Nick's Three Miracles of 1997"). All three times times, it was as if God had put Christian churches in front of me in strange foreign lands on the one day of the year that is so special only to a Serbian Christian who honors St. Nicholas, the Miracle Maker saint. Uncanny.

On my way back to the hotel, I walked along a street with a lot of double-decker street cars. They looked so cute and quaint. They are about as old as the San Francisco ones, just evidently not as well known. At least I had not heard of them until today. Set against the city lights, some of these moving street cars looked like three-dimensional moving paintings. And why not? Everything else in this vibrant city seems to be in perpetual motion.

Finally, a word about the Mandarin Orient. The famous hotel is everything I have heard about it, and then some. It is really a world class host. What makes it that is not just the way it looks - actually that's a relatively minor part; I have seen many other beautiful hotels. It is the quality of the people and the service that you only get in truly top-notch hotels.

To start with, I was met at the airport (!) by a uniformed hotel representative who assisted me with my baggage to the hotel limo. Then, I was met by another uniformed lady at the hotel front door, and taken directly to my room to register there, thus bypassing the usual lobby procedures altogether. All the while the staff displayed impeccable manners.

The lobby looked quite festive, decorated for Christmas, but not glaringly so. The hotel facade ir pretty ordinary (right). So once again, it was the human touch that made the difference.

When I came back from my long walk trip, the hotel staff were roasting chestnuts outside the front door. The doorman handed me a red paper bag full of hot chestnuts as I walked in. It brought back all sorts of memories of New York at this time of the year, where the smell of roasted chestnuts is inexorably connected in my mind with Christmas. And of my youth. They used to do that in Belgrade, too. So I reveled in opening up and eating the chestnuts in my room, and laughed at my sooty hands afterwards.

Next to the elevator, they were baking cookies and serving them with some warm wine. Again, complimentary to the guests. I passed on the wine but feasted on cookies.

Before going up to my room, I stopped by the part of the lobby where they were registering guests for Christmas dinner to admire the gorgeous golden (or brass?) mural carvings that hung on the lobby walls. Each of them consisted of thousands of little carvings that told some or many stories from the Ch

inese history.

As for my room, let's just say it's very cozy. The lighting is quite subdued; the wood

paneling gives the room a warm, homey feel; classical music plays on the stereo system with a surround sound throughout the place, including in the bathroom and even in the shower. The hotel has even laid on Arizona scenes as a part of the slide show that accompanies the Mozart serenades (right). There is, of course, a persona

lly inscribed welcome card from the hotel manager, an exotic fruit basket, and a beautiful orchid, the most feminine flower in the world, floating in a water bowl like some royal princess (left).

Meanwhile

, across the street, worker bees were still working late into the night (right), including the occupant of that corner office (left). At which point this hotel room occupant looked at them and thought, "how lucky I am," like a mandarin in an oriental setting - at the Mandarin Orient.