Anna

Disclaimer: This one is double the word count.

Last Tuesday, I wandered around Hong Kong for twelve hours with no plan beyond stopping at White Noise. A record shop known for carrying a wide range of Japanese imports with a focus on hip hop. The week had been chaotic. Three countries, long days at work, and in the moments between, lots of time stuck behind the glow of a laptop screen. I needed to just disconnect and be alone. Alone in the way that was normal twenty years ago.

I got lost, I took some trains, I hopped a ferry, had french toast and milk tea, ate wonton noodle soup at Mac’s, found an artist pavilion and bought some stickers and a t-shirt, popped into a coffee shop, saw a shop selling melon cakes and devoured one. I’d left at 9am and it was 7pm when I got to White Noise, where I got a copy of Muro’s “Diggin’ Japanese AOR”.

It was my last night in the city, and I wasn’t ready to head to bed. On the walk back, I saw some people sitting outside of a small shop on stools and modernist chairs, smoking cigarettes, sipping sweating pints, with some tunes leaking through a gap in the sliding glass door out onto the street. I sat at the bar, ordered a beer, and within minutes was talking with two locals who’d commented on my camera. Nathan was the owner. Originally from the states and now splitting time between Hong Kong and Bangkok. Nic, a tattoo artist, musician, and teacher.

For two hours we shot the shit, talked life, learned that Nic’s son’s band was about to play some shows in China, and he was going to be their roadie (in reality, a chaperone).

N.Y.P.D. was one of the bands they turned me onto. A local post-punk group. Nathan even gave me two sets of N.Y.P.D. branded chop sticks that were merch from their last tour.

It was a series of human moments that you couldn’t manufacture, the ones that just have to happen (or just never happen at all). No phones. No dick swinging about work. A bit of kindness in a new place. Just existing in the presence of others.

On the walk back to my hotel I got a bowl of gyu don for $40HKD.

There’s a lot of life out there beyond the algorithm. The bar was Bound.