Highway to Happy

Above photo was taken more than a month ago in the streets of Hong Kong, Fortress Hill area to be more accurate. Behind us was a colorful double-decker bus that we found too cute to pass on without a picture. We spent 4 happy days there, away from the supervision of our parents, who, more than trusting us, trusted that we were all in a safe place.

Too bad we couldn’t give Hong Kong residents the same kind of assurance.

Below is another picture of a bus then- filled with Chinese nationals, who merely wanted to explore what our country is about, and this is what we gave them.

One man’s action cannot fairly reflect an entire country’s condition, true. But yesterday’s tragedy clearly mirrored how poorly we respond in case our stable and supposedly peaceful condition is being threatened. That is just sad and shameful.

Throughout our HK experience, we relied on residents, bus drivers, by-standers, attendants, to practically show us our way and help us navigate in an unfamiliar land. We met a group of teens that showed us how to get to the “very cheap” H&M. There was even this store owner who ran after us when she saw we took a wrong turn, misunderstanding her directions, just so she can patiently explain again. How can we forget that “Horror House” guy who mistaken us as Thais (which can be an advantage now), giving us some good laughs and blurting out “Mekeni” just so he can relate to our being Filipinos? There was also this busy-looking woman in her corporate attire, who didn’t hesitate to stop and give us directions to The Peak, even repeating it twice just so we wouldn’t get confused. Another lady from Ocean Park happily assisted us about the right bus no. to hop on and voluntarily gave us instructions in case we opt to take a cab. She even scribbled the name of our destination in Chinese in a piece of paper so we can show it in case the cab driver doesn’t speak English. There was also this policeman who gladly assisted us when we missed our bus stop and got lost at midnight. He tried giving instructions, with all the English he got, although we never had it right since it took us forever to interpret that he was saying bridge and not beach. Another unforgettable one happened on our last night, when we had this festive dinner at a restaurant. We met a teenage guy eating with his friends, who was surprisingly very fluent in English. We asked him a couple of crazy/funny questions before ordering because the waiters couldn’t understand us. Until now, when that “Are you taking away the tea?”- “You’re so funny!” back-to-back hirit is brought up, we get tearful rounds of laughter like it was the first time we heard it.

When news reports of the tragic incident continued coming in, I couldn’t help but remember those people and how extremely nice they were to us. I wonder if they still remember the bunch of teenage-looking, loud and always lost bunch of Filipino tourists they helped not a long time ago or they are now blinded by rage caused by the tragedy and look at all Filipinos as violent, incompetent and everything but peace-loving.

God, I hope not.

# posted by Liana : 5:19 AM