Sprouse / LV / Hong Kong
May 9, 2009
If all goes according to plan, the next time you hear from me, I'll be in Hong Kong — assuming I have time to write while I'm there. I'll be busy working, overseeing the installation of a Stephen Sprouse exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art -- part of a larger exhibit called Louis Vuitton: A Passion for Creation.
I've been so focused on the design and details of the Stephen Sprouse aspect of the exhibition (not to mention my other job and our recent apartment move) that it wasn't until this morning that I looked at the museum's website to get a handle on the rest of the show.
It's hard not to feel intimidated by the roster of world-class artists that are listed, and I almost wish I hadn't looked, but the Sprouse part is essentially an adaptation of the design I did for the Stephen Sprouse retrospective at Deitch Projects in New York, so, hopefully, there won't be too many surprises. I know better than to expect zero surprises. There have already been a few. But at the moment, I'm more stressed out about traveling than anything else. I hate flying to begin with, and a fifteen-hour flight is a long haul. Not to mention it involves a trip through some sort of time tunnel, which lands me in the future by a day.
Deborah plans to travel to the future, too, later in the week. I'll be busy, but hopefully I can carve out a little time for us to spend together to see the sights of Hong Kong -- not to mention celebrate our first anniversary. If not, she has a surprisingly long list of friends of friends for her to look up once she gets there.
May 12. 2009
I arrived safely in Hong Kong, but so far haven't seen much more than the inside of my hotel and the inside of the museum, so I don't have much for show and tell. (I do have a ton of work-in-progress installation photos, but those will have to wait. It's too soon to give anything away yet.)
I'm a little creeped out by all of the people I've seen wearing surgical masks. I suppose they're creeped out by me, too, for not wearing one. The hotel gave me a free daily paper this morning, and in it was the headline: "U.S. in Swine Flu Axis." It went on to say, "The United States has lost control of the situation and is exporting the disease to the rest of the world."
Makes me self-conscious to sneeze.
I have to admit that I have been feeling a bit run down since I arrived, but it's just the jet lag, honest!
May 14, 2009
Deborah's jet lag is worse than mine was. Partly because I was treated to a business class ticket, which, on Cathay Pacific, included a fully reclining seat that allowed me to sleep comfortably en route, but mainly because, since I'm working, I was forced into a new schedule immediately. That doesn't mean I didn't want to sleep all day once I got here, only that I couldn't. Deborah, on the other hand, had no particular place to go and was free to sleep as much as she wanted to. I told her it would be better if she didn't, though, and that she should try to force herself to stay awake during the day so she could sleep at night, and eventually fall into sync with the rest of the eastern hemisphere.
Lounging poolside at the hotel sounded to her like a good compromise.
When she arrived at the pool, two American guys were there, and she sensed them staring at her as she tested the water. She did her best to ignore them and took a lounge chair on the far side of the pool. It didn't help matters that Deborah's bathing suit was more appropriate for a beach in Rio than a hotel pool in Hong Kong.
The sun was brutal, and she didn't want to overdo it on her first day, so after a few rounds of dipping in and drying off, she packed up her stuff to leave. The American guys watched her and tried to time their exit to coincide with hers. They stood by the elevator, procrastinating, as Deborah took her time, waiting for them to leave without her, but the two seasoned American businessmen with their well-honed "horndog away from home" timing were masters at such things, and, as much as she tried to avoid it, Deborah rode the elevator with them.
"Hello," one of them said, "Where are you from?"
"New York."
"Me too," said one. "And he's from Florida."
Deborah nodded, uninterested.
"What are you doing in Hong Kong?" they asked.
"I'm here with my husband," she said, getting that bit of information out as soon as possible. "He's here for work."
"And how about you?" said one, "You came along for vacation?"
"I came along so I could tell him what Hong Kong is like."
After work, I met Deborah in the hotel lobby and we went to a place nearby called the Vienna Cafe for a quick bite of seafood, soymilk soup spaghetti. Yes, that's all one dish, and no, I didn't make it up.
Afterwards, we took a stroll in search of a nice dessert -- maybe something with mangos, since that was mentioned as something we had to do by everyone who had anything to say about it. On the promenade along the harbor, we saw a line of people at a Disneyesque food stall resembling a soft serve ice cream stand on a New Jersey boardwalk. "That place must sell dessert of some kind," I said. "Let's check it out."
"Cuttlefish? Hmm, not right now. Let's keep looking."
May 16, 2009
I blame the lingering jet lag and the fact that it's all seemed like one long day since I arrived, but I forgot that today was our anniversary. Thankfully, Deborah forgot, too. Happy anniversary, Deborah!
(Actually, it's still the 16th in New York, and since that's where we were married, we both get a pass.)
It's getting down to the wire, and there's still a lot to do on the installation, so today is probably going to be a long one at work, but if Deborah and I don't get to celebrate tonight, we'll do it when we can.
I finally had a few hours to run around and see some sights beyond the few blocks between the hotel and the museum yesterday. Hopefully, a picture is worth a thousand words because that's all I have time for.
May 17, 2009
Today is the last day for finishing touches on the exhibit, and my stay in Hong Kong is about to turn from a very busy working calendar to a very busy social calendar. Tomorrow we check out of the working-stiff four-star hotel and into the swanky five-star Peninsula Hotel. I'll tell you all about it.
May 19, 2009
I finally have an afternoon off, and plan to do a little sightseeing, but the hotel is so nice it's hard to leave. Either way, we're waiting for our dim sum breakfast to be delivered, so we'll be kicking back in the hotel for a little longer, anyway.
Deborah has been alone for most of the trip, be-bopping across the city via subways, taxis, and ferries, to various markets and neighborhoods, generally exhausting herself, so once we checked into the hotel yesterday, after we'd finished our welcome tea, of course, she collapsed on the bed and took a nap. Jeffery Deitch and Paige Powell both arrived in Hong Kong the previous day, and I met them in the lobby and escorted them across the street to the museum for a preview of the exhibit.
Escorting them across the street sounds like a quick and easy jaunt, but to get from one side of Salisbury Road to the other, you have to go down into what must be the largest network of underground shopping malls anywhere in the world. Every subway stop seems to have several entrances blocks away from each other, and riding the escalator down into any one of them is entering into a climate-controlled twisting maze of high-end boutiques selling high-fashion getups.
After our museum visit, Jeffery and Paige decided to head to Macau. It's something Deborah and I had planned to do together, so I headed back to the hotel to see if Deborah was up for going, or at least to make sure she didn't sleep the whole afternoon away. When I got off the elevator, it felt like The Shining — hallways, stretching to infinity, lined with identical doors. Even with small wall plaques pointing the way, I still had trouble finding the room.
Deborah was awake, but with a slight headache and not up for rushing out for a wild night in Macau. Instead, we simply took a short elevator ride to the second floor for some Peking Duck at one of several hotel restaurants. Like I said, the hotel is hard to leave.
Gwielo — Cantonese for "ghost person" or "foreign devil" — is apparently what westerners are called. And walking around the streets of Hong Kong, it's exactly what I feel like — a ghost. Locals walk into me or cross in front of me as if I'm not even there. On the other hand, the Indian and Middle-Eastern barkers on the street see me from a mile away. Custom suits, massages, and "Rolex" watches are their primary trades, though I imagine if I were interested they'd have all sorts of other possibilities to offer. They are tactless and accost me with aggressive regularity. If I happen to pass by the same guy more than once— on my way back from one place to another — it's taken as interest. "No. No. NO!"
The only solution is to treat them as gwielo's, too — to ignore them, as if it's possible.
Deborah did want to get a custom dress, however, and she walked into one of the many street stalls that are no bigger than a closet, and spoke to four Bangladeshi tailors who were crammed inside to inquire about having one made. She was quoted a price equivalent of about $200 US dollars, and even though she'd seen better prices elsewhere on Nathan Road, that particular street is so annoying to walk down, she decided the place she found was as good as any. She chose some black silk fabric with embroidered red roses and then made an appointment to be fitted the following day.
The next day she arrived on time but her particular tailor wasn't there. The others working there told her, "Five minutes, five minutes" and offered her a Coke while trying to sell her on more things. "Whouldn't you like a suit as well?"
"I don't wear suits."
"Like this?"
"I don't wear suits."
"Are you sure you don't want a nice suit? We make you a nice suit." They pulled down several bolts of fabric for her to choose from.
"I don't wear suits."
And so on.
It soon became clear the tailor wasn't going to show up and Deborah decided to call the whole thing off.
"Please, please, just five minutes."
"You've been saying that for a half hour already."
"Where are you staying, we can come to your hotel."
"No. I'm only in Hong Kong for a few more days. I don't have time for this."
"Please, we can make an appointment for you."
"This is my appointment," she said.
"Please, come back tomorrow."
"I'd like my money back, please."
The situation was tense, but one guy was doing his best to keep things from escalating. However, the standoff went on for far too long, and Deborah couldn't help but let the word, "Fucking" leave her lips. Once it did, the peacemaker was powerless. The scene exploded.
"You come in here and think you can buy the shop? You think we need your 200 dollars? You think you can order us around with your 200 dollars? You want to buy the shop?"
"Buy the shop? What the fuck are you talking about? I don't want to buy anything. I want my money back."
"We don't need your money."
"Then why am I still standing here? Where is it?"
They swore at each other for ten more minutes before Deborah left with her money.
"That sucks," I said. "But you can find another place. They're everywhere."
"I don't even want a fucking dress anymore."
May 21, 2009
I had just enough time yesterday to squeeze in a quick trip to Macau, which, if you don't know, is a Special Administrative Region like Hong Kong. First settled by the Portuguese in the 16th century, it was handed back to China in 1999, making it both the first and the last European colony in China.
The fact that it's a Special Administrative Region meant that we had to get our passports stamped on both ends of our journey. We knew that, of course, and were prepared for it, but we weren't prepared for the long lines, which added another hour to the trip.
While on the ferry, we were shown a video of how to sneeze into a tissue and how to properly dispose of it afterwards. We were handed special health declaration forms by a woman in a mask and rubber gloves. At the ferry exits in both Macau and Hong Kong, two men in lab coats and face masks manned an infrared scanning device. Surrounding them were several armed military personnel, also wearing face masks, ready to escort anyone who showed up hot on the scanner to a quarantine camp. Thankfully, we waltzed right through.
Not sure what to expect at the airports when we fly home tomorrow.
The ferry terminal is walking distance to several large Las Vegas-style casinos which would've been fun to see at night, but since we were there in the daytime, we opted to head for the historic district, instead, which is also walking distance to the ferry terminal, but not without working up a sweat in the relentless humidity while dodging hundreds of speeding cabs and gazillions of scooter-riding kids. Scooters seem the best way to handle the narrow and bumpy streets that wind up and down the hilly city. It made me wonder why I didn't see more of them in Hong Kong.
I was scheduled for a special dinner back in Hong Kong, so we didn't have as much time as I would've liked, but I'm glad we went. It's a lot more different from Hong Kong than I expected. I read that Macau is one of the wealthiest cities in the world -- and was told that despite being hardly more than a shoe box (granted a luxurious shoe box) Macau's Louis Vuitton store is the fifth busiest in the world. But much like Las Vegas or Atlantic City, Macau's gaming cousins in the U.S., Macau's high-rolling wealth is offset by ramshackle outskirts, including entire blocks of corrugated metal shacks and dilapidated apartment buildings with birdcage balconies.
We arrived back in Hong Kong with just enough time for me to shower and change for the VIP dinner. It was held at a private residence located at the top of Hong Kong's famous peak. Try as I might, I couldn’t finagle an invitation for Deborah; I just here as a proxy for the late Stephen Sprouse, and don't have that kind of pull. The party doesn't know what it was missing. Deborah was jealous of course -- being picked up by a limo, served a bottomless glass of champagne and a delicious meal in a beautiful house with a gorgeous view, hob-knobbing with famous artists, designers, VIPs, CEOs, and Hong Kong socialites -- but I was equally jealous of her, too, with time to herself to luxuriate in the hotel without feeling like a fish out of water the way I did— trying to explain who I am or why I'm here.
To simply say, "I designed the Stephen Sprouse room," was enough for some -- "Oh, congratulations, the room looks great" -- but for one Chinese writer from Shanghai in particular, I needed to provide a full-length resume, and she still didn't seem to understand why the hell I was there. Understandable, I suppose, in a room full of people where just a name would suffice.
May 21, 2009
I'm leaving Hong Kong today, and I don't have time to edit my blurry photos from last night's opening and gala after-party before I catch a plane home to New York. But since the show is now officially open, I can post a couple of photos that I took the other day during the brief time between the installation being (nearly) complete, and it being overrun with reporters, photographers, politicians, artists, and socialites.
(I found this photo of Mr. Henry Tang, Chief Secretary for Administration, touring the Sprouse room with Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of LVMH -- i.e. the richest man in France.)
Here's one of the Murakami rooms, too:
And Richard Prince:
Although I didn't get to see too much of the "real" Hong Kong, the trip itself was pretty spectacular. My final days were so tightly scheduled I felt like a traveling Head of State. At two-fifteen arrive here, 3 o'clock head over there, five forty-five line up there, at six o'clock get led to a special "artists area" on stage left while the real Heads of State give speeches and cut ribbons. Deborah sent me a text to tell me she'd made it as far as the big glass doors of the gallery entrance, but was having trouble getting any further.
"I'm stuck onstage," I said. "As soon as I get free, I'll find you and get you in."
When the speeches were over the big-name artists were introduced to the crowd and posed for pictures while I sweated under a bank of floodlights, waiting to be released. The artists finally finished mugging, and we were led through the crowd via a corral of velvet ropes.
I spotted Deborah, who had managed to fight her way inside without my help. An old pro.
Hurried along by men with walkie-talkies and women with clipboards, I called to her and pointed, "I have to go this way. Meet me over there."
She was having none of it and pushed her way through the crowd, hopped the velvet rope and hugged me. "This is crazy," she said.
We rode the escalator to the second floor and made a beeline for the Sprouse room. Deborah hadn't seen it yet, and I was eager to show her what I'd been doing while she had been sunning poolside, buying Chinese chachkas, arguing with Bangladeshi tailors, and eating mangos all week.
“Wow, cool!”
The show was crowded, but not so crowded that they couldn't have invited a few more people -- like, say, the young Hong Kong artists whose work was in the show. But for reasons I don't quite understand, the local artists didn't make the list. "Wait," I said when one of the girls who works in the museum told me that. "There are artists who actually have pieces in the show who weren't invited to the opening?"
She nodded.
"I guess they do things differently in Hong Kong."
She shrugged.
Champagne glasses constantly filled, like bottomless cups of coffee at IHOP, Deborah and I mingled and people watched -- Hong Kong socialites, fashion victims, reporters, movie stars, politicians -- I introduced Deborah to various people I'd met during the course of work.
"There she is," said one. "You've been hiding her all this time. I was beginning to wonder if she really existed. You should bring her out with you more often. I mean, look at you, you're actually smiling."
He would've seen her sooner if I'd had enough clout to get her into the assorted parties dotting the perimeter of the main event. He would've seen her later, too, if I'd been able to get her into the dinner party after the show. I felt guilty leaving for such a star-studded and swanky affair without her. "It's okay," she said, "I'm just glad I was able to get into the show. I had no idea it was going to be such a scene. Have fun at dinner, you deserve it. I'll see you back in the room."
I kissed Deborah goodbye and was directed by a line of Chinese women in tailored dresses, pointing the way to go like game show models pointing at a new car. Down a hall, make a left, to another hall, to a table with a guest list, pose for a quick photo by a guy documenting everyone as they arrived, then up a special elevator to a restaurant on the 28th floor with a staggering view of Hong Kong. I found my place at one of four long banquet tables lined with illuminated Murakami placemats while Murakami himself sat just a few seats away.
I skipped the after-party and went back to the hotel room to spend my last night in Hong Kong with Deborah. I tried to describe the dinner and told her about the famous Hong Kong actress and the famous Hong Kong ballerina. Told her about the famous French pianist, Michel Dalberto, who impressed the crowd with a performance of Chopin and Debussy, and told her about the curious Asian pop that the DJs played too soon afterwards, causing everyone to groan. I told her about the scallop carpaccio, about the beef tips and white asparagus, about sitting next to Paige, an animal lover and strict vegetarian, while being served foie gras, and about the white chocolate and mangos.
I didn't do a good job of describing any of it to her. Didn't do a good job of describing here, either. But there it is.
Bye. Hong Kong!
May 26, 2009
Sixteen thousand some-odd miles to Hong Kong and back again, parked in a cab at the doorstep of my new apartment -- the one I moved into only two weeks before leaving for Hong Kong -- figuring out the tip on a forty-dollar fare, anxious to run upstairs and collapse into bed. I pay the cabbie, get my luggage out of the trunk, wheel it into my apartment building, ride the elevator up to the seventh floor, wheel down the hallway, and knock on the door. Deborah, who had taken a separate flight earlier in the day, let me in, hugged me and said, Welcome home."
"You too," I said. "We made it."
I absentmindedly patted my pockets -- a habit I have when traveling to make sure I have everything -- and realized my wallet was gone. Left in the cab that I took home from the airport, no doubt, destined to be picked up and rifled through by the cabbie's next fare. The fifteen-hour non-stop flight from Hong Kong had me discombobulated -- groggy and confused with jet lag -- and I'd let my guard down a few beats too early.
"Fuck!" I retraced my steps to the street, in the unlikely case I'd simply dropped it along the way and it might be lying on the ground waiting to be rescued. "Motherfucker! What a fucking way to end the trip."
Deborah pointed out that it could've been worse -- I could've lost my passport in Hong Kong -- but I couldn't see what one thing had to do with the other.
My rhythms were off-kilter, and I couldn't sleep. I lay restless in bed for a few hours, but it was useless. It was Friday night, and I could hear a crowd outside a bar on the street seven floors below. People were arguing, then yelling, then screaming. Was that a car door? Did someone get shot? Stabbed? Punched? Deborah woke up from all the screaming, and we looked out the window together. It was dark and hard to see what was going on, but when the cops, fire truck, and ambulance all arrived, flashing red, there was enough light to see that a guy was sprawled on the street. We watched him get lifted onto a stretcher and loaded into the ambulance, and we continued to watch until the street was clear and the sun began to rise.
Welcome back.
Deborah called her parents the next day to let them know she was home. After giving Deborah a detailed recap of the grand finale of American Idol, her mother said, "We were worried that you got burned with acid."
There had been an incident in the Mong Kok area of Hong Kong while we were there -- someone had thrown a bottle of acid off a roof and injured something like 60 people. Although we'd visited Mong Kok a day or two earlier, obviously neither of us had been among the injured. Deborah was surprised that her mother had heard about it.
"No, we didn't get burned with acid, mom," said Deborah, debating whether or not to tell her about the shooting or stabbing or whatever it was the previous night on the street where we live.
