Saturday night came around and I was invited over to watch Lord of the Rings with Arum’s friends. Courtney, a beautiful and attentive host, and Adam, a vivacious Englishman with endless enthusasim for football and Tolkien, both worked with Arum at the learning centre that kept them living in Hong Kong, and in my opinion and theirs, exploited. It was a sobering experience hearing from Courtney and Adam about their working experiences. All three love their work, but ultimately the conditions they worked and lived in are not sustainable. All three also have to spend considerable percentages of their income to share flats, and have little chance of improving their situation under conditions that would be llegal under Australian labour laws.
While we watched Fellowship, the Two Towers and a minor league English football game the trains stopped, and started again while Adam gave us a running commentary on characters and events in LOTR lore, as well as football and his underdog team. At some point we made our way to the nearest Seven-Eleven for more drinks, which Adam refused to let me contribute to. There was so much genuine hospitality and friendship I struggled to know how to behave after so much Hong Kong indifference.
After making our way back to Arum’s apartment early Sunday morning, we slept away most of the day before having dinner at the Indian place next to the apartment building, which was a vegeterian set affair, and quite lovely.
The next morning as Arum was getting ready for work I started getting horrible stomach cramps, followed by a complete lack of propriety from both ends of my digestive system. This continued for twenty-four hours, until I was brave enough to almost sprint to the Circle K downstairs and across the road for loperamide and Pocari Sweat. Arum’s married couple flatmates then made the mistake of trying to talk to me while I was trying to act like a person with a minimum of human dignity and failing. Twelve hours later I was feeling mildly human and left the apartment. I changed some money and ate a disappointing fast food meal that nonetheless stayed in my stomach. I bought some more drinks and snacks, and made my way back to the apartment. I checked my email and discovered that my Vietmanese visa had finally aproved, in a very SE Asian interpretation of the three working day time frame.
Adrian's Got The Moose 