Hong Kong Blog

That my return to writing the blog coincides with the end of the writer’s strike in America would surely be more than mere coincidence but for the fact that I’m neither in America, writing television nor on strike. In recent interviews John Sullivan, creator of ‘Only Fools and Horses’ has said that he created the show’s story arcs largely based on his own youth and anyone who has seen ‘24’ must obviously conclude that the same is true with Kiefer Sutherland. Indeed, at times it seems that nothing can be scripted more perfectly than life…

In late October one of the members of my team returned from a two week vacation in Canada along with the news that he’d be permanently relocating to Toronto for reasons that could easily justify a season of Dawson’s Creek alone. One of the major cinematic devices regularly employed for character development is circumstances that push the character beyond their limit, force them to deal with situations that s/he is not prepared for. Whether I was called into a meeting by my manager or a team of writers will probably never be known, but either way the result was that I would be taking over all of my team mate’s responsibilities. And I had a month to learn. Absolutely everything.

And so it was that for one month, five days a week, eleven hours a day I tried to absorb everything there was to know about Futures. I asked stupid questions, I made rookie mistakes, but I learnt. As quickly as November started it passed. Thomas left (and has actually vanished in an act which I’m sure implies that the writers mean to bring him back for a shock appearance before the end of my placement), Keith was on leave and there I was, sitting between my two bosses, praying to God that the phone didn’t ring. And of course as soon as you wish for something…

‘Futures, Rich speaking’

‘Who?’

‘Uh.. Rich, can I help you out at all?’

‘Yes. Do you know why the acronym on the acronym isn’t letting my acronym order through? Get back to me.’

~beeep~

…November was a huge challenge both on an intellectual and personal level. Problem solving is immeasurably harder with people screaming at you, letting you know just how IMPORTANT!! this is. Everything has to be done right. And more everything has to be done quickly. The very nature of support means you never know what’s coming; when you pick up the phone or run across the floor you have to be prepared for anything. Other people at the student residence don’t understand why I sleep earlier than anyone they’ve ever met, but in this line of work if things go wrong… PEOPLE DIE. Or, you know, shout a lot.

Through December the process of support became more and more familiar and our team began to work as one. If prices were slow I could see through Keith’s eyes and read Alex’s thoughts. If trader limits failed to replicate from London I could hear Ray contacting Rob or Phil, though that’s probably more for the fact that I sit two seats away from them. I was trusted with more and more important projects and the sense of ‘worth’ became one of the best aspects of the job. The distinction between ‘work colleague’ and ‘friend’ is of course noticeable and important when in the office and there are boundaries and hierarchies which need to be respected, but at times ‘friend’ seems more appropriate; given the amount of time we spend together and the experiences we share it’s sometimes difficult to feel otherwise. It’s the little things: the constant struggle we face every day in deciding what to have for lunch, timing Alex and Keith completing a Rubik’s Cube in ‘competition conditions’ and then taking just as long and with as much care and attention to randomize it for them, or in return for lessons in Cantonese (‘Could I have set meal two, please’, ‘It’s very cold’ etc) teaching the guys equally important English phrases (‘that’s what your mum said’, ‘that’s how we roll’ etc).

And then there are the more memorable moments such as when Peter Wan returned from Singapore to Hong Kong for a couple of days. Let me tell you about Peter Wan. If there’s one person that you don’t want to catch you wearing white socks to work because you’ve run out of black ones and figure ‘your trousers will cover them, no one will notice and who looks at your feet anyway?!’ it’s Peter Wan. After stopping dead and watching his eyes snap to my socks I knew it was all over. ‘Look what the kid’s wearing. Jimmy, come over here and look at this’. Then ‘Rich, come round and show Mandy the colour of your socks’. Before long the entire desk were calling me round for support which wasn’t needed so they could see. I started receiving emails with pictures of Michael Jackson and phone calls from traders in Singapore and Tokyo. I received messages through facebook: ‘How many people do you know who work in a bank, wear black shoes, dark trousers and WHITE socks ?. Richard Cohen global trendsetter.’ And to top things off, when the global head of Futures arrived in Hong Kong for his quarterly visit… guess what? I’ll be extremely surprised if Peter Wan didn’t do any interviews on British TV about it.

In late December Andrew (eldest sibling), Gary (Uncle) and Dad (er… Dad) arrived in Hong Kong for a visit on-location. Responding to the bad press generated by taking the family to Pizza Hut on their first night in Hong Kong last time, this time my close council (Alex, Joe) advised the opposite extreme - the restaurant ‘left of the two Broadways in Mong Kok and then another left after a couple of shops’. Posh name, posh place. Fried instant noodles, BBQ Chicken and a few dead flies later Dad and Andrew returned to the hotel to sleep off the jet-lag.

Though I had to work during the day, meeting up the following evening outside HSBC Dad, Andrew and I headed towards the Happy Valley racecourse with a very clear goal; win enough money so that we all never had to work ever again. I was wearing my lucky pair of work shoes, Dad had his lucky pen, Andrew his lucky digital camera… it was FATE. Nothing could go wrong. NOTHING could stand in our way. Aside from the fact that none of us knew anything about Horse racing.

After a ten minute explanation on how to actually go about betting on any of the horses by one of the officials, we drew to the most logical conclusion that we should bet on the top 3 favorites. I mean… they were the favorites. We were definitely missing something. We turned to a group of three standing next-to us and asked for their techniques and strategies for deciding which to go for. “Some people follow a particular Jockey. Some believe you can tell a lot by how the horse has been performing lately in training. Others say the best method is to analyze the excrement just before the race begins to tell how excited the horse is”… we decided to stick with the favorites. After the first race we then took another giant logical leap towards the key to victory: tactically bet on over half the horses running. And would you believe it…

The day before Gary flew in, Andrew, Dad and I went to ‘Ocean Park’, a marine-themed amusement park in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island. The park itself covers an area of 870,000 square meters and is connected by a gondola lift system as well as the world’s second longest outdoor escalator. Besides housing two roller coasters, Ocean Park also features a giant panda exhibit, a jelly fish and shark aquarium, as well as a four-story aquarium displaying more than 2,000 fishes. We thought we spotted the face of Bo in among them. Dad, Andrew and I began our adventure by queuing up to ride on the ‘Raging River’. Looking around everyone seemed to be donning water-proof and bullet-proof jackets in preparation. We were clearly amateurs. And what’s more, we were clearly going to get absolutely soaked. There was no way out. The only thing we could do was scream like a little girl and claim it was a manly war cry.

The following day after touring Festival Walk and City University we received word that Uncle Gary had arrived in Hong Kong. Once again turning to my closest aids for advice we headed towards Mong Kok for an all-you-can-eat Korean buffet, which essentially involved a LOT of meat. Barbequed. I’ve always liked Korea.

With Dad and Andrew flying back on Christmas Eve, we spent our last day together walking along Nathan Road, which runs from Tsim Sha Tsui to Mong Kok and is lined with as many tailors as it is paving stones. We retired that evening to the bar at Langham Place and said our goodbyes before Gary and I headed towards Tsim Sha Tsui and then took the Star ferry across to Central to welcome in Christmas with the help of the local preacher, who intoned ‘Christmas is a time for family, and Jesus IS family’.

The following day Gary and I met in Central for a lightning quick tour around HSBC. Well, that was the plan. I liked the idea, Gary liked it, Security didn’t. But of course being TV action heroes, did security REALLY think they could stand in our way? Before long we were in, though admittedly this was again more because we met two people that work with me on the way in and verified that we were indeed who we said we were. After visiting the trading floor, Gary was then determined to go to the top floor to see what was there. And so we set off and were to some degree successful until we met a sleeping security guard at which point we turned back and, because we knew this security also wouldn’t present a challenge to US, tip-toed silently down and out of the building.

When it was time for Gary to fly on to New Zealand it really defined the end of an era for me here. His visit was arranged prior to me flying out and I always knew it was coming. Even back then it marked the half way point of my time here. And looking back particularly over the past couple of months sure, there have been times when work has been tough. But nothing lasts forever… even cold November rain.

Until next time…

Rich

As they do so often on TV shows, let’s have a sneak peak of what’s…  Coming soon on The Blog:

The Chinese New Year

When Rich went to a My Chemical Romance concert…

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 1:35 am and is filed under Hong Kong, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.