Winter Comes Early

The two stories of the week are the cold snap and the 10th annual Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival.
Last Sunday came in like a lion. The highs have been between 15° and 20° C all week, with lows in the 10° to 15° C range. My colleagues tell me this is February weather. (Eat your hearts out.) Doesn’t sound cold to you maybe, but when there is no heating in the apartment, the temperature falls rapidly. For a guy with no blanket, it’s no fun. (Question #2 – so what did you do, genius?) I finally went out Saturday and bought a space heater. It works like a charm and will help when winter really hits in February. (Answer to Question #1 – because Dale’s bringing blankets in January and I’m too damn cheap to buy one that will be redundant in a month.) Things appear to be getting better; forecast is for highs in the mid-20’s by Wednesday.
The film festival has been fun. I’ve seen about 10 movies so far, with one to go, as I write. They have included everything from an Israeli gangster movie to one from Kazakhstan, a comedy about a group of fat Israelis who start a sumo wrestling group, a number of documentaries/re-enactments, and a Canadian documentary called “Hannah’s Suitcase” that reminded me a lot of “Paperclips”. The quality ranged from excellent to laughable (only one), and the stories from feel-good comedies to last night’s scary feature that starred Jeff Goldblum as a Holocaust survivor in an Israeli rehab facility and Willem Dafoe as the concentration camp commandant who features prominently in his flashbacks – ‘nuff said?
The classic was the gangster film, “Maftir” – the cheesiest movie I have seen in a long time. I stayed to the end because it was so bad I couldn’t tear myself away, waiting for the next bad scene. Took place in South Tel Aviv – the South Bronx with yarmulkes. No good guys, only shades of bad – Israelis vs. Russians vs. corrupt cops. Film kept switching between b&w, colour and sepia, to remind you this is a film noir. The dialogue made CSI look like Paddy Chayefsky, including a scene where one character refers to a gun as a Smith & Weston. I followed the spoken dialogue closely to make sure it wasn’t a typo in the sub-title. The director used a lot of close-ups of the “hero” looking pensive, hurt, etc. Basically trying to act without dialogue – didn’t work.
My Chinese is not going anywhere, but my Hebrew is improving. Every Israeli in town has been to the festival, and I hear as much Hebrew around me as English. The venue is great – an AMC multiplex with high-back leather captain’s chairs and leg room for a basketball team. Attendance has been in the 60-70 range at most of the showings I’ve attended. Bottom line, I’ll go again next year.

This week’s general observations:

• Taking the subway is interesting if you are tall. There is only one very long, articulated car, which bends up and down, and right to left as the car moves through the tunnel. The view from above others' heads is like being inside a worm or snake as it moves.
• The shopping malls here are like those at home – they all feature the same chain stores, except here they are slightly more upscale – Chloe, Louis Vuitton, Zegna.

• The crowds of helpers out on Sundays is stunning. My bus goes by a large Catholic church, and I went by just after the mass had ended the past two weeks. There was a line of 200 or more Filipinas walking in single file down the steep slope of the narrow sidewalk, looking like the extras in a science-fiction movie
  
• My neighbourhood is very middle-class. I know because on Saturdays the Kumon and other tutoring centres, art classes and activity centres are packed with kids being primed to overachieve.
  
• It’s interesting to read foreign words that sound like English. Today, I found the deep south in the northeast of the island - Po Man Street
  
• The movie today was shown at the new Jewish High School. To get there, we went by chartered bus along HK's version of the Gardner Expressway. It’s an expressway that runs along the waterfront. It’s everything the Gardner (or the Met) should be – wide, well marked, fast, un-pot-holed, clean, and with a beautiful view of the harbor and Kowloon.