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Why Move?

USA! A land of Christmas and interestingly decorated cafés. A land of truck stops and rolling hills, big roads, big cars and big trolleys for people who are too fat to walk.

The first time I went to the US was in 1979. I went to “see if it was as awful as they say”. Yes in those days I was like everybody else; America-hating, PLO-loving, kill-the-rich, down with everything pretty much like the “Occupy” movement. Now I can’t see what’s so attractive about 1970s radical thinking. It certainly isn’t radical anymore.

Wonder what Martin Luther King would have said if he woke up in Birmingham, Alabama and saw a statue of himself

Anyway, I love America now, naturally. It’s so beautiful and everybody’s friendly. People there think I’m from London OR Australia. But my trip there was a holiday, that’s all. So why is it that since I’ve been back to Hong Kong, no fewer than five people have asked me if I’m moving to the States.

Not “would you ever consider living there?” but “are you going to live there?”

A lesser person would feel slightly paranoid. Do they want me to move? Surely, that can’t be the case. Can it? But I never hear of anyone going on a long weekend in Manila and people asking them: “So, are you moving there now?”

No, maybe I should take it as a hint. I also noticed at my last birthday a disproportionate amount of presents was about personal hygiene. OK, perfume. No, I won’t take it as a hint. But for everybody’s information, I love Hong Kong and I’m staying right here.

美國 (Mei Gok – USA)
留o係度 (Lau hai dou – staying here)
去旅行 (Heui leoi haan – go on holiday)
澳洲 (Ou Jau – Australia)

P.S: Americans! Want to learn Cantonese the natural way – from a Norwegian? Now you can take Skype lessons from me. Your morning or your evening, one hour a week.
Here is a film about the USA I made before:

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… all the way to the throbbing metropolis of Mui Wo – La Pizzeria to be exact!

My heart didn’t stop exactly, but I had to swallow hard a couple of times last night when I read the Sunday Times from June 12 (carried around in my handbag unread for two weeks) →

As I was looking through my old columns from South China Morning Post trying to get some other newspaper gigs (do newspapers even exist anymore?) I found the above story from Norway. Allowed only 450 →