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6:15am – I try to make my way to the shower before the door slamming starts. But I don’t make it. BANG! SLAM! SCREECH! BANG! KA FUCKING SLAM! There’s 8 units on my floor and the savages living in them need to leave early for school or their customer service jobs on the other side of Hong Kong. They slam their doors with a kind of cruelty and hateful spite which truly boggles the mind. I feel like I’m being violated somehow.


6:20am – I’m sitting down, trying to read a few pages of a book before I have to leave for work. But Aunty Urine’s up there chopping a bagful of radish. CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP. She sure does have a lot of radish. She’s swinging from the shoulder too. CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! From the unit above and to the right of me, another woman…a mother, starts screaming at her young children. She’s firing off a withering barrage of instruction and scolding. She’s snapping and biting off anywhere between 300 to 500 Cantonese words a minute I’d reckon. She has, easily, one of the most grating and irritating voices I’ve ever heard. And right here, in my home, my castle…that bitch is crystal clear.

6:24am – The man in the unit above and to the left of me starts his daily hammering activities. Not sure what kind of project he’s working on, but he should be finished soon because he’s been at it for a solid year now. Moments later, car horns start going off somewhere down on the street. And I mean going off. I don’t even live in a built up area. What the fuck is going on down there? I keep reading the same line in my book over and over again, not knowing what it says. I have to get the fuck out of here.

6:30am – I’m on my floor waiting for the lift, praying none of my neighbors come out. Because if they do, I know they’ll be bellowing at one another and their breath will stink. Just before the lift arrives I hear commotion from round the corner. Keys are rustling, voices are yelling and doors are slamming in typical Hong Kong fashion. I mash the CLOSE button feverishly, in typical Hong Kong fashion, but I’m too late. Mr and Mrs So Fuk Yiu slide inside. At first they’re like goldfish added to a new tank…docile…quiet…slightly stunned. I half entertain the idea that the whole ride to ground level will be peaceful…civilized even. But like a rocket ship that’s just blown a rivet, Mrs So Fuk Yiu unleashes a wild sawtooth screaming salvo which is instantly interpreted by Mr So as some form of coherent communication and has him yelling back in turn immediately, at twice the volume. They’re not fighting…just chatting. They continue, both shrieking at the same time, all the way to the lobby. Not sure if they noticed I was there…but I don’t think it would it have mattered either way.

HK is a shithole country and we dont want no shitholians from their