Leslie Cheung, Another Farewell, and Lunch at Four Seasons

TL;DR:

• I commemorate a pop star’s 70th birthday at a museum
• I wax poetic about Hong Kong
• I have lunch at Four Seasons(?)

Life Update

I went to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s Leslie Cheung 70th birthday exhibit on the 13th. For those of you who don’t know, Leslie Cheung was a renowned Hong Kong singer-actor who was most active during the 1980s and 1990s, with a globe-spanning fanbase amongst Chinese-speaking communities. Despite his suicide in 2003, his music and movies are still remembered fondly by scores of Hongkongers and other admirers worldwide, some of whom lent their prized memorabilia to the Heritage Museum for this milestone exhibit.

Unfortunately, I was not one of the Hongkongers who got to experience Cheung’s star power first hand, as he died shortly after I was born, but I have listened to some of his music and watched several movies he starred in growing up. That said, I felt weirdly emotional while walking through the exhibit and learning more about who Cheung was, almost as if I was hearing stories about a beloved relative who I never had the chance to meet in person. If I had to put how I felt into a few words, I’d say it was like experiencing a fragment of the Hong Kong that existed before my time, distilled into the life of Leslie Cheung.

(For those of you in Vancouver, here’s a little fun fact for you. Cheung lived in Vancouver during his hiatus from showbiz, and there’s a bench dedicated to his memory in Stanley Park. It’s in front of the teahouse looking out into Burrard Inlet.)

Reflections

Since I leave for Manchester at the end of this week, this will probably be the last entry I’ll write in Hong Kong for quite some time. There’s a lot I haven’t covered about this visit back home, mainly for reasons of privacy and expediency, but I hope that what I’ve elected to share gives a clearer picture of how I view the city I grew up in.

Because Hong Kong means so much to me, I constantly have trouble distilling how I feel about it into something concrete, much less put it into words like I can with almost any other subject. With everything I’ve experienced during all my years of living here, and even the times I’ve returned, layers upon layers of feelings about my home have all piled up on each other over time. This has turned even the simplest memories into an interwoven tapestry of emotion, tinged with hindsight and nostalgia for a life I can’t return to, especially if I want to keep moving onwards and upwards.

Still, it’s these complex feelings that have played the most pivotal role in shaping who I am today. While I certainly have been changed by my time in Vancouver, those developments ultimately happened on top of the foundation I built back in Hong Kong, so who I fundamentally am as a person hasn’t been affected all that much. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that my upbringing continues to affect the decisions I make, no matter how small, which means a bit of Hong Kong is present in everything I do. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m immune to other, newer influences in my judgements, but they are underpinned by how I was raised to act.

Now that I’m right on the cusp of leaving for another new country yet again, I don’t know how long it’ll be before I’ll set foot back in my home. Regardless, despite my ultimately abortive attempts to leave behind the place I grew up and move on, Hong Kong still has a way of making both my body and mind return, reminding me over and over why it remains so important to me. In a way, no matter how far or how long I separate myself from its confines, I feel as if part of my destiny is intertwined with Hong Kong, turning each visit into an opportunity to fully realize who I am and who I want to be.

Honestly, there’s still so much I want to say about Hong Kong, but I’m afraid it’ll have to wait for another time, or multiple times depending on how comfortable I am. But for now, it’s time to bid Hong Kong farewell, and I’ll see you next week in Manchester!

Baked Pork Chop Rice Review

OK, I may have technically lied in the title of this week’s post, since I didn’t actually eat baked pork chop rice at a Four Seasons hotel (or at a landscaping company, for the matter). Instead, I had it on the 17th at a restaurant called Seasons Cafe in English, whose Chinese name translates to Four Seasons Restaurant, so I’m still being truthful here. Anyways, enough semantics here. Time for the actual review!

Sauce: 3/5 - Was sizzling hot when it arrived at my table, resulting in some crispy burnt edges, though pretty standard other than that rather unique point.

Rice: 3/5 - An ordinary base of rice. Nothing to write home about, be it good or bad.

Pork chop: 4/5 - Punches way above its weight in terms of size, and slightly above-average in terms of texture and taste. With the exception of the quality of the pork chop itself, this is probably one of the best pork chops you can get in Hong Kong

Additional toppings: 3/5 - Onions are a natural choice, but why include broccoli of all vegetables as well?!

Portion size: 4/5 - While it looks rather small at first glance, the dish being rather deep lets it hold more than expected, not to mention the pork chop being quite large as well.

Total score and final remarks: 17/25 - Aside from never eating there before and it scoring slightly better on reviews, the only reason I chose to go to Seasons Cafe was because it was $1HKD cheaper than the other restaurant I wanted to eat baked pork chop rice at. Nevertheless, this was a dollar well saved, as my expectations for Seasons Cafe’s baked pork chop rice were exceeded in the best possible way. Even though it certainly isn’t a conventional way of serving it, seeing a sizzling plate of baked pork chop rice is something I won’t forget for a long time.