The Market Doorway to Asia
George

"Knock, knock...."

"Who's there?"

"Asia"

"Asia who?"

"Most of the human race you idiot, and almost all the pollution spewing motor bikes, gnarly duck's feet and pushy street vendors in the world—that's who."

Flying into Hong Kong is one of the more unique aviation experiences of my life. It reminded me of the opening scenes of "Blade Runner" and any of the many versions of the Airplane super disaster movies. From far away you begin to see the lights of HK, and as you approach you notice how concentrated they all are, like one giant laser of neon. Our 747 kept losing altitude, gliding lower and lower. At times like this it doesn't help to have an active imagination, but I remained confident that the pilot had done this route a billion times and knew exactly what he (or she?) was doing. Right up to the moment where we banked sharply and I noticed a few feet off our wing tip an old Asian woman sitting on her balcony staring at me.

And still we lost altitude. Dropping closer towards the earth. I heard the landing gear clunk down, always a good sign that most things in the universe are in order. But my confidence was short lived when I noticed that now off the wing tips, within Chinese spitting distance was an armada of small fishing boats. Some of the larger ones, about the size of an average Oldsmobile, actually seemed to be higher than our wing tips!

Salli, Samantha and Cassidy cling to a Hong Kong philosophy street sign--"Give Way".

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that airplanes are made to soar and boats are made to float, and 747s are not usually equipped with floats. And when all I could see beneath me out the window was cold black water at about the level of my feet I began to desperately try and remember all those things those pretty young stewardesses have said over the years: does the life vest pop out of the ceiling overheard? Does my seat cushion convert into an underwater breathing apparatus? Are we supposed to save our adult selves first then swim back for the children after drying off? I turned to the two young men sitting next to me to ask for survival instructions, but they proved useless, knowing not a word of English and having tipped forty-two too many.

Was it time to break out my Swiss Army Knife? Would I finally be faced with our greatest horror on this adventure of having to decide which members of my family would have to be sacrificed so I could write these stories on our Home Page?

But as you might have guessed, out of nowhere a thin strip of land magically appeared and our plane touched down with little effort and almost no drama except for my antics.

We rolled to a stop and threaded our way through the disorganized lines of immigration and customs, getting our second official visa stamp in our passports and entering the surreal region of Hong Kong, a place that can best be described as the world's largest and well-lit garage sale.