HONG KONG: April-May, 2004 (Part 13)

In both Rome and Hong Kong I had started to chronicle my travels and send email travelogues to friends and family. In part, my writing was the result of being on my own so much. I needed to speak, in English. I needed to communicate what I was experiencing.

Up to this point, my writing life had existed only in screenplay format. Writing prose and memoir was fresh territory and my readers back home responded favorably to my efforts.

After lunch with William one afternoon in Hong Kong, I broached the subject of taking my writing further.

Hey, you know, I think I might be able to write a book.

What do you mean?

Like, maybe a book about my travels, expanding on my email essays.

William and I have a favorite travel writer who will remain nameless at this juncture, but that writer's name came up right here.

Well, William offered, you're no _____________________.

I know I'm not __________________! I'm not saying I'm ______________! I'm saying I'm me and I think I have a book in me.

And then I cried. And he felt terrible.

Later on, this incident came up with our therapist.

Okay, William, she said, you basically pulled out a gun and shot her dream in the head. What are you, a literary critic? This is your wife, your partner. You stand behind her one hundred percent, no less. And, Mel, this is not about you. This is about how he sees himself.

If that comment had come from a colleague or friend, I may have thought fuck off and been done with it.

But it came from him. The one I want to impress. The one I want to make proud. I wanted his advice and encouragement. I craved his admiration. But in the moment I shrank away and heard a parent's voice from a long time ago. I sailed right on back to my eight-year-old self on the night I announced to my family that I wanted to grow up to be a professional actress.

What? You're not pretty. Don't be ridiculous. You'll be a nurse and that's that.

HONG KONG: April-May, 2004 (Part 12)

I'd been up Victoria Peak a couple of times on the bus before deciding to try the famous Peak Tramway funicular. I happen to have a recurring nightmare of driving up an intensely vertical hill where I gain traction, then slip down, down, backward. That happens to be the Victoria Peak tram ride.

Operating since 1888 without a single accident, they say. Up it goes, ascending a dramatic incline then slipping back as it adjusts itself. Coming down isn't any less terrifying because the tram is on a single track and passengers are thrown against their seats in what feels like a backward freefall.

Glad I did it. Once.

On a Sunday afternoon William and I sailed to the island of Macau, a sixty-minute ferry ride from Kowloon. Macau, a Chinese territory settled by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, remained in Portugal's hands until 1999. Today Macau is on a fast track to becoming the Atlantic City of Asia.

Because the Black Ships of Lisbon traded goods between Japan and China from Macau, Portuguese architecture dominates the landscape in pink, yellow and white buildings with arched windows and ornate staircases.

Macau is not, however, a quaint, sleepy fishing village. It's a gambling hub of flashy lights and showy fountains competing with its more vintage aspects.

Wandering up and down the narrow, hilly cobblestone streets, we saw furniture shops filled with reasonably priced pieces that would cost a fortune at home. They're advertised as antiques but I learned that craftspeople here are very good at creating "antiques," so who knows, and really, who cares? I'd have been happy with any of them but wasn't about to start shipping, certainly not without a Black Ship of Lisbon.

We settled into just looking, and lunched on a popular Macau treat: custard tarts. Flaky pastry encasing a creamy and airy pudding. We sat with our paper bag of sweet goodies on the steps outside what was once the Cathedral of St. Paul.

A tall gray stone façade is the only remaining component of the original structure, giving it the appearance of a film set. This poor building apparently never got the memo that it wasn't supposed to be here, ever.

First constructed in 1580, the cathedral barely survived two fires, one in 1595 and another in 1601. It was rebuilt, phew, breathed a sigh of relief and then a typhoon stormed through in 1835 and the building caught fire a third and final time. Periodically the Ruins of St. Paul's are restored...to what? I guess being really good ruins. I can vouch for the ruins as a dandy place to eat tarts on a sunny spring afternoon.

After our day on Macau we headed home to Kowloon. I babbled on to William about tomorrow being the day we would pick up his newly tailored linen suit. He didn't say anything. I did all the talking, using words like dapper, classy and rakish. William studied the shoreline as we breezed by on the ferry. He seemed amused that I didn't get the memo any more than those poor builders of the Cathedral of St. Paul.

HONG KONG: April-May, 2004 (Part 11)

One more block and we landed at Temple Street and the market itself, where merchandise hung on racks and overlapped on rickety tables. I bought a pashmina-type shawl and a pair of Ray Ban-style sunglasses. A week later the lenses popped out of the frames. Yes sir, you get what you pay for. Maybe I was lousy at shopping.

I took a pass on the wigs, watches, T-shirts, dresses, teapots...well, they have everything. Temple Street, a blinding and atmospheric adventure, is worth the view. We sucked in the tangy smoke rising from grill carts piled with barbecued meats. I bought a crepe, stuffed with ham and melting cheese, wrapped in a wax paper cone.

Around another corner we came to the goldfish market, where hundreds of bags of the minnows hung outside storefronts. Many children own the little fish as pets because it's difficult to own a puppy in a tiny high-rise apartment.

As William and I ducked in and around the hordes I asked if he could ever live here. His answer was a firm no. We agreed Hong Kong was dazzling but claustrophobic. Also, for William the experience held myriad strange touchstones. He looked like a local, but there all cultural similarity ended because William was born in New York and grew up in Southern California.

William described his time in Hong Kong as Roots meets Lost in Translation. Waiters in restaurants addressed William in Cantonese and when he responded with a blank stare the shock on their faces was obvious. William's fish-out-of-water experience was even more palpable than mine. I was supposed to be out of water while he was supposed to be swimming — but had never learned how.

Did I ever tell you what a friend said to me when he heard we were dating?

What?

He said, I never knew you were into Asian men.

Really?

I know, weird, huh? Like you're a fetish.

What did you say?

I said, I'm into this one, that's all I know.

We took to pointing out what we called "CLUs" when we were in public. Couples Like Us. It was a rare thing to see an Asian man with a white woman, although the opposite was commonplace. In two months in Hong Kong we saw exactly two CLUs.

Sometimes I'd daydream about getting out of Los Angeles and living in the country in another state. If we sold our small house in Los Angeles, we could get a mansion in somewhere like Iowa. On television I'd seen commercials of happy, rich couples raising llamas in Idaho and think, We could do that. Llamas look nice enough.

And llamas are likely nice enough...but we'd be so far out of our league when it came to CLUs. And I'd ponder what that would really be like. It would be way too weird for me, for us.

I squeezed William's hand as we walked through Temple Market. We would probably always be city folk. Swimming in pools of mixed-up fish was where we belonged.

HONG KONG: April-May, 2004 (Part 10)

As much as I thought I could resist the shopping thing, once more it proved unavoidable.

The next day, I discovered a Deco-designed department store called Shanghai Tang. A boutique of impeccable Chinese chic. I admired the polished wood floors, wrought-iron staircase railing and dresses hand-made in slippery silks and brocades. These were displayed next to aqua, coral and lemon-yellow cashmere sweaters stacked perfectly on shelves. I didn't dare touch and I didn't buy, but boy, did I take it all in.

William and I spent an evening at the famous Temple Street night market. We climbed out of the subway, walked three blocks, and we heard them before we saw them: Cantonese singers performing traditional Chinese opera.

I'm not an opera buff, but I can appreciate the melody of Puccini. This was not that. This was discordant, squeaky and bordering on shrill. I'm told it's an acquired taste (the cilantro or caviar of music) and with time and careful listening an appreciation develops. This may be so, but what I heard that night was heartache, high drama and shrieking. Lined up one after another, these Cantonese singers in garishly painted faces fought for our attention. Felliniesque.

The Temple Street night market is known as "The Nightclub of the People," and here was the evidence. The crowd, the singers and the sellers shone under brilliant green, blue and red lights. The streets of Hong Kong are always as packed and glowing as the Las Vegas Strip.

We arrived at a row of fortune tellers with their hopeful customers. Spread in front of each oracle, a method of divination: a raised palm, Tarot cards and overturned teacups. The clients, still and desperate, hung on to every syllable dropped from the seers' lips.

I'd be exactly like that, I thought, because I have a weakness for wanting to know: What the hell is going to happen to me? Maybe these people could tell me where I was supposed to find my purpose and creativity. Maybe they had the inside track on this information. I slid closer, like a moth hovering near a light bulb, and felt William's hand on my elbow tugging me to the other side of the street.

Whatcha doin'? he asked.

Looking. Just looking. Jeez.

Uh huh.

Well, you never know. Really you never know who might know something of value.

That may be so, but I can tell you they don't.

I glanced back over my shoulder and secretly speculated if they knew: What the hell is going to happen to me? What am I supposed to be doing with my life?

HONG KONG: April-May, 2004 (Part 9)

Hong Kong weather is dramatic. Spring days are often cloudy but sticky. A walk down a crowded street assails the senses with exhaust fumes and the thick air hurts the lungs and muscles. Thunderstorms arrive unexpectedly and drenching rains create little rivers in the gutters. Lightning flashes in zig-zags over the harbor, competing with the city's nightly laser light shows.

Earthquakes are not commonplace, as they are in Japan, but typhoons are. The tempests are categorized on a scale of one through ten. At Level 8, officials declare a "direct hit." At that point, one is advised to stay clear of windows. Typhoon season starts in June and I was scheduled to be gone by then.

One night in April, a thunderstorm arrived, full of bravado. Lightning flashed and thunder exploded like bombs in the sky. On our way to dinner we joined a lineup of people waiting for taxis, each of which hydroplaned to the curb.

During the week, William and I would meet for lunch and dine on Indian, Taiwanese, Italian, American, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese — the benefits of being in a cosmopolitan center. Once, I mentioned to William that I was oddly in the mood for Chinese. His response: You're in the wrong town for that, sister.

On this particular rainy night, we were off to celebrate William's birthday at a Hong Kong institution, Jimmy's Kitchen. This restaurant has been popular for its Western-style cuisine since 1928. Jimmy's is reminiscent of the kind of New York City dining rooms seen in black-and-white movies of the 1940s, with dark wood paneling, ceiling fans, crisp linens, efficient waiters and jazz playing in the background. The menu choices included shrimp cocktail, baked onion soup, beef Wellington and chicken à la king.

I sipped a martini in a frosty glass and William had a scotch. We ate seafood vol-au-vent, oyster soup, rack of lamb and rare steak. A waiter presented a tray of accoutrements for our baked potatoes: small silver dishes with sour cream, chopped chives and bacon pieces. Dessert was Baked Alaska, dramatically flambéed at our table.

This was the dining experience of another generation and, hey, Isn't that Deborah Kerr nibbling on her martini olives? She may have put on a few, but was still elegant in a turquoise cheung sam with cap sleeves and narrow satin piping.

The storm passed during dinner and we walked home on shiny rain-slicked streets reflecting a parade of neon light in small puddles. This was the Hong Kong of the movies.