Drizzly Days and A Few Good Films

A screenshot from Pane E Tulipani by Silvio Soldini

It's typhoon season in Hong Kong, and my shoes are really suffering. I think my least favorite feeling in the world is the squelch of walking around from class to class with wet shoes. One thing I definitely didn't plan for was the rainy season here.

But honestly, the grey city skies are fairly romantic in my opinion. As someone who enjoys taking the mini-bus and watching the world pass by, it could be worse. I bought a pretty sturdy umbrella in a Walmart in Shenzhen (yes, there are Walmarts in China, weird right?) and as a result, I'm pretty well protected from the elements. HKU is a fancy plexiglass maze of a university, specifically designed to make sure you can walk from one side of campus to the other without even realizing it's raining, so that comes in handy as well. Really, the whole campus is something out of a sci-fi movie so don't be too surprised about this.

My week has been fairly stress-free, which is nice considering I basically have two weeks until the essay-writing/final-taking apocalypse of the last week of April. I have a final every day of that week and I don't feel very prepared or coordinated or in-control of my curriculums so I guess I'll have some intense cramming sessions to do before then. But such is the life of a college student! Cramming and cramming and cramming some more.

On Monday, I had a presentation on gender representation (my absolute favorite topic) in Italian Cinema in the 1970s and 80s for my European Cinema and Society class. The two films I chose to talk about were Pane e Tulipani by Silvio Soldini (an absolutely fantastic film about a women who accidentally gets abandoned by her family on a road trip and hitchhikes to Venice, I highly recommend this) and Sotto... Sotto... by Lina Wertmüller (a sexist, yet intriguing, film about a woman who leaves her husband for another woman). Guess what? I got an A+ on it! I was really excited about this because I don't think I've gotten an A+ on anything since high school.

I wrote about Sotto... Sotto... by Lina Wertmuller, who may be the most sexist director I've ever  come across.

On Tuesday, I had Cantonese class which I always enjoy, but compared to last week when the whole class went out to eat dim sum, and the week before when we had breakfast at a Hong Kong style cafe, this week's class was relatively un-delicious. I sincerely recommend that anyone interested in studying abroad in Hong Kong take a Cantonese course. Language is power and knowing a few words of the local dialect was more valuable in making me feel acclimated to the city than any of my other experiences. Usually people will understand your English, but if you can rattle off a couple of Cantonese phrases (or understand when people are trying to rip you off at the Ladies' Market), it's much easier to make friends and feel comfortable in a place that, at first, feels very far away from home.

On Wednesday, I had my last lecture for Hong Kong Cinema on Global Screens, where we explored the idea of independent filmmaking in Hong Kong. The film we screened was Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong, a cool, low-budget film about disillusionment of troubled youth in HK during the 1997 handover to China. If you have interest in independent Asian cinema, I highly recommend this work. It was really fun to watch, a little dirty and weird, and there was one incredible 60s style drug trip scene (sans drugs, because there are incredibly severe drug laws in HK) in which the protagonist dances and eats moon cakes off a gun. Oh yeah, it's good. It reminded me a lot of Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider, films about a counter culture of youth with too much time on their hands and no future.



I also signed up for an all day bike trip in the New Territories for this Saturday (pictures to come)! Since I biked in both Guanzhou, China and Mai Chau, Vietnam, I've been obsessed with bike trips. I can't wait to get back to Huntington Beach so I can ride to the seaside!

Also also, I met with my English-Cantonese conversation partner Eileen at the vegetarian restaurant for the first time since I've been in Hong Kong and we had a great chat! Since it was our first time talking, we just spoke English this time, but since she's from Shenzhen in the Guangdong Province, she speaks Cantonese and mentioned she wouldn't mind helping me out with my conversation skills. I tried freshly made soya milk for the first time, and Eileen asked me if America was anything like the sitcom Friends. I told her it was. Laugh track and all.

Today was significantly less exciting. I had class from 10am until 5pm (we talked about Memento by Christopher Nolan in my Film Trauma class, if you're interested), and last night, I went out to the bars in Wan Chai for ladies' night. Free rum and cokes/gin and tonics at Typhoon on Wednesday, ladies! I was basically a zombie all day, but it was worth it, as I hadn't really gone out in HK for weeks! I'm trapped in the library all the time!

I need a nap.