A Day at the Auction House

HONG KONG - "It's not cheap. But these days, nothing is."


The words belonged to a Englishman, a man of around 40 dressed in an impeccable three-piece suit and one of those white ties that are very much in fashion over here. Next to him was an Asian female, around his age. They conversed in English, she had the same British accent as he. In his left hand, he carried an art catalog. Standing in the center of Christy's Auction House, they blended in perfectly.

My university is paying for this trip, but they're paying me nowhere near the amount of money to justify a trip to Christy's - one of the world's oldest and most respected auction houses. I arrived thanks to a happy accident.

I was on the hunt for an art gallery which my Lonely Planet guide suggested was near the Hong Kong Convention Centre. I wandered through the cavernous building - it appeared especially designed to make a person seem small. There were stores, halls and even a convenience store inside, but I could find no art gallery.

Christy's was on the way to the bus stop. I walked by the entrance oncem, then I turned around and walked by it again. Could I go in? The last auction house I was in was ten miles outside of Albany, and specialized in estate sales. After my freshman year in college, my friends and I would go there to look for cheap road signs to hang in our dorm rooms. I usually spent no more than $10 a night on cheap dinnerware and old road signs.

I'm sure I couldn't get within 100 meters of the Christy's in Manhattan, but here I just walked in. I was dressed in $5 Gap pants and a fake $3 polo shirt, and carried with a faded computer bag. Everything about me screamed: THIS MAN WILL NOT BUY EXPENSIVE ART. But I was let in without incident by an extremely friendly attendant.

Christy's is gorgeous. There is a free tea area in the front, where the live auctions are displayed on flat-screen televisions. The high bid is displayed in eight different currencies - helpful if you're representing a Swiss client with a hankering for Ming vases.

On display were the jewelry of Princess Margaret. The recently deceased sister of the Queen owned an extensive gallery of large diamonds, brooches and tiaras which was very impressive. There was also a preview of an art sale, where I saw several Picassos and even a Van Gogh. It was like a museum, but free and without crowds.

The auction house reflects Hong Kong today. The city is not - as I once suggested - a dying city. Any place where a single print can sell for a million dollars, is the only place in Asia where the royal jewels are displayed, and where dozens of smart-dressed men and women can afford to waste several hours on the middle of a Monday afternoon looking a fabulously expensive items, must be doing pretty well.

Azn Studies

BOSTON - With the graduation clock looming, I've been struggling this week to complete four years of delayed paperwork in one week. This has included applying for honors, getting lunch tickets for commencement, removing classes that my transcript shows I have been enrolled in for two years and declaring a minor. Usually minors are declared along with majors in the spring of the sophomore year. I barely made the major deadline, and sure as hell wasn't pushing to apply for a minor, which is exactly the kind of thing you can let slide.

Besides, I figured I could just complete the necessary classes for minor and then receive it naturally. Kind of like those people who are awarded honorary degrees after they're dead, or maybe not. But I kept plugging away on Communications & Media Studies (our fake journalism program) at the steady clip of one per semester.

This fall, when it was actually time to declare a minor, I was in for a rude surprise. I didn't have the right classes for the communications minor. I needed two more, even though I'd taken several, because the ones I had taken were all from the same "cluster" of the minor. I balked, and decided that I really didn't need a minor in communications. After all, people say a minor is useless anyway.

So the next thing I did was start searching for another minor. Because while minors might be useless, it did seem just a little unnatural not to get one. It took a little bit of digging, considering there was only one semester to go, and I already had three classes to take to fulfill actual graduation requirements, but I found one: Asian Studies. I've taken a lot of Asian classes, both in language and just on the culture, so the requirements were already filled. I e-mailed an art history professor in charge of the program, which is interdisciplinary (a fancy way for saying that we can't afford to hire faculty).

Here is a paraphrase of what happened over eight or nine e-mails:

Me: "I want to minor in Asian Studies."
Her: "Great!"
Me: "Do I meet the requirements?"
Her: "Sure!"
Me: " What about the independent project?"
Her: "Just use your seminar paper from your Chinese politics class."
Me: "Great!"

It was set. This week, after completing that Chinese politics seminar, I printed out the paper, and went to have her sign it. The Art History building is right next to < Sophia Gordon Hall, which unfortunately won't be completed for another three months. That meant dodging cranes, bulldozers and six or seven people in hardhats to arrive at the department's office, housed in a 19th century brown house.

The secretary was not in. Neither was the secretary's student worker. The only person there was a pleasant professor, who must teach on Dadaism or the French Revival. I asked her where the Asian Studies adviser was, and she replied: "Well, she's in Japan. Until July."

Yikes.

A great plan ruined, all because of 10,000 miles and Japanese art. What followed was a little too painful to describe, but suffice to say it involved an impromptu thesis defense, hyper-printing, and more faxing on my part that any time since 1994. But I made it: when I graduate on Sunday, my diploma will say that I minored in Asian Studies.

Actually, diplomas don't list minors. Damn. Minors really are useless.

Dried noodles!

BOSTON - To eat or not to the Baby Star Chicken-Flavored crispy noodle snack?

This tasty treat has been sitting on top of my refrigerator for four days now. Here's a top view of the bag:



It doesn't look too bad. Those giant brown noodles resemble crunchy angel haired spaghetti. The mascot is a cross between the karate kid and a Martian. I especially love the way there is a dialogue bubble with the text "Chicken Flavored" in it. The title is labeled, and so is the "crispy noodle snack" part, but apparently the "flavored" was only added as an afterthought.

Perhaps I'm reading way too much into this. As you can see from the front, I purchased these noodles for $1.09 from the Sun Sun Grocery Store in Chinatown. I was on assignment - taking a short interview from the owner of the store behind the main cash register - and looked around for a small morsel to eat on the subway. I bought these, and right as was about to open them on the way back, I saw this:



It's the back of the package. Telling me that consuming these noodles will add 600 calories, and 88% of my daily saturated fat allotment. That's a lot to ask for a snack that's only chicken flavored, and not actual meat. It means cutting out the hamburgers, steaks and real chicken for the rest of the day, all because of some salty yet slightly soggy meat substitute.

What were these people thinking? Or specifically what was the Oyatsu Company in Mie, Japan, thinking when they invented this snack? Did they possibly think it would be an acceptable substitute for the all-conquering and far-too-tasty Doritos (especially the Cool Ranch variety)?

Or maybe they have their own marketing strategy. I turned my attention to the bottom of the package:



Three ways to eat? That's crazy! Doritos only usually offers #1, considering that their triangle-shaped morsels are way too big to shove right into the mouth. Usually I'm not in the mood for dried noodle-y things when I'm drinking tea, but next time I am I'll be sure to try this.

Maybe these will getting eaten after all. I'm bound to be too cheap, lazy, or hungry at some point to leave them just hanging around the dorm room.

Update (11/26/06): I never ate these.

For $100, I'll stopover on the Moon

BOSTON - Finals are over, college is over. I'm graduating in less than two weeks, and that means my return to Asia is drawing near. It also means I'm beginning to address some practicalities.

First up: a plane ticket.

Last time I used Orbitz to get a ticket on Cathay Pacific. It was very, very simple. I flew from JFK airport in New York direct to Hong Kong, and it cost about $1,050, for an unchangeable round trip fare. I thought I was getting a good deal; I was flying more than halfway around the world non-stop.

But when I arrived in Hong Kong, I was the fool. Everyone had gotten cheaper tickets -- $500 from Los Angeles, $700 from Toronto or $800 from New York. Most of them were of Asian descent, and used Chinese travel agents in Chinatowns back home. Those agents - typically ultra-serious women in their 40s - scour the ends of the Earth in search of a cheap ticket. It might include a layover in Texas, Guam or maybe Korea, but it will be cheap.

I wanted in. Boston's Chinatown isn't too large, but there is one travel agent right on the main intersection. I went there without success. June is pretty high season for connecting flights to China (although not in Hong Kong, because it's bloody hot), and Hong Kong is the most common place to do it. The woman wanted to sell me a ticket for $1,100, the day after a wanted to travel with layovers in Detroit and Tokyo. And I couldn't leave the airport in Tokyo. Typical Chinese travel agency restriction, without the typical Chinese price.

Things online were worse. Orbitz had no tickets below $1,400, and competing site Kayak, $1,500. I knew I could do better. I took the Metro to the Student Travel Agency, even though when I went in there for Spring Break tickets in January they laughed at me. "You have to book those in September," the agent, a woman with a Eastern Europe accent and very white teeth, said. "Do you want to reserve now for 2007?"

This time they found a deal: $1,000 for a ticket, with an international student card thrown in. It originates in Boston, and from proceeds directly onto Hong Kong. The carrier is Cathay Pacific, the best airline in the world. (And it's not just me: http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/02/pf/goodlife/best_airlines/index.htm)

Two weeks from now, I should be cruising at 35,000 feet, martini in hand, watching "The Da Vinci Code," with a belly full of steak. I love a good deal.

Excuse me, you're a little close

BOSTON - Shaws supermarket, 7:00 P.M, on a Thursday evening.

I'm picking up a few dinner essentials: chicken breast, roasted potatoes, apples and a few cans of seltzer. I decide, in the interest of time, to use the self-checkout.

Waiting in line, my thoughts turn to Chinese class. There's an oral exam this week which I've haven't studied for and will probably screw up, an upcoming skit project and I don't have a partner yet and a slew of character-copying to do.

"Excuse me. You're a little close."

I look up. A woman, in her late 20s with a very cropped haircut has turned around in the line to chastise me. Apparently I'm invading her personal bubble.

I'm not touching of her or even in danger of touching her. I am perhaps a foot away from her leg. But it's too close.

I mumble an apology and step back. But why should I? The concept of "personal space" is largely an Victorian construct. In China and elsewhere people crowd in large masses, standing close. There's little queuing, and when there is people make sure no one can butt the line.

So why shouldn't I stand close? I'm only trying to show her the rest of the world.