Croon and calculate

TRAVEL

It's discomfiting to eat chicken when seated next to birds in cages. They are on outings with their octagenarian masters who feel none of that guilt as they empty plate upon plate of dimsum filled with more than just one kind of game.

I was at a traditional Chinese tea house, where the dimsum are starchy and glutinous, served up by solemn ladies with trays hanging off their necks. This was breakfast "" a lazy affair for the meaningfully unemployed.

The meal was exhausting in its endlessness (Chinese' devotion for breakfast rituals assumes a kind of apotheosis). Not to mention the effort that went into not appearing oafish with my chopsticks among dexterous nibblers.

There's nothing quite like co-existing with a group of South-east Asians (used generically) to understand the cultural chasm between the subcontinent and South-east Asian nations.

To say Malaysians, Filipinos, Thais and Chinese share a homogenous culture is an uneducated assertion, but when you're the only Indian among them, they certainly appear to.

And nothing reinforced our entirely unique culture more than being subjected, on the flight (an Indian carrier) to Hong Kong, to an explicit instruction video on how to use a bathroom, and keep it clean (lengthier, by the way, than the safety instruction video). I avoided the gaze of the chuckling Chinese businessman sitting next to me.

A visit to Hong Kong makes you feel clumsy.

First, there's the noiselessness that greets you at the airport. Everybody speaks in hushed tones... Except when they're on the phone. Then they yell. Or sing. Like the taxi driver who sang out a whole conversation with a friend on his radio transmitter.

The friend sang back, an entirely bizarre Cantonese operatic production.

Second, there's the svelte, origami-like symmetry of the local populace (and skyscrapers). Go armed with a flawless body image!

Third, and rather unexpectedly, the people of Hong Kong have the most polite, your-word-is-final manner; forget the surliness you learned to expect with the Chinese.

There is a strong strategic underpinning to this. The Chinese government, by removing all diplomatic hurdles for visitors to the SAR (Special Administrative Region) are keen on making it the Asia Pacific commerce hub that Singapore still is.

Add a well-mannered English speaking (they're working on that) workforce and voila!

Still, you may not get to practise your English very often. Drivers always demand to see an English to Cantonese translation sheet.

I attempted what I thought was an impeccable imitation of local enunciation. One driver graciously, and v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, offered me the correct pronounciation diction. "It's G-r-a-n-d H-y-a-t-t Miss," he said, "not Glan Hyaa."

The calculator is the other replacement for speech. It rubbishes all need to establish any kind of human bond with shopkeepers.

Knowing how to manipulate it will secure you anything from tacky reminders of the cultural revolution (Mao ticking on a mantlepiece clock) to counterfeit Gucci, and unimaginably imaginative underwear.

Every purchase is like a game of table tennis, the ball bounces back in your court faster than you can retaliate, but if you were quick on your fingers, you'd never lose. Unless you were me. 350? A night-market seller threw down the gauntlet. 10, I punched in. 250? 10. 150? 10. Okay 20? I had won. But wait... why was this so easy? Not sure I want it anymore. Is the fabric really silk? Will the colour fade?

The calculator was hastily withdrawn and I was waved off. The link had been broken. I has disrespected the silent arbitrator.

It was Bollywood brawn that finally provided me with an affiliation with my Asian counterparts. "I love Sharukh Khan la," said a Chinese Malay as I said my goodbyes, "also Salman and Aamir Khan."

"Everybody loves Bollywood men in Malaysia la," she said. "Also in Indonesia," an Indonesian piped in.

"If I emailed you my measurements, could you send me a Bollywood costume," asked the Malay earnestly. I smiled. The ties that emerge!