A Change of Pace

In the fast-paced city of Hong Kong, you never miss a beat. There is always something to listen to without even trying. 

It’s an everyday routine for Mr. Chan. To take the morning double-decker bus going to work. Usually, it would be too cramped, and you have to wiggle your way into the bus’ lower deck to just barely find some room for a breather. The metro is no better. There is never an available seat by the time Mr. Chan gets there. And even if he does find one, with the polite man he is, he would always give it up for an old man or lady standing next to him.

But that’s as bad as the morning could possibly be. The walk to his office is not too bad. It only took eight minutes, five if Mr. Chan was in a rather stressed mood.

The real fiasco was not in Mr. Chan’s mornings. No, it was always the post-work walk back home. Somehow, the chaos was more prominent by then. Crowds of people would begin to go on their way out of their office, all wearing black-and-white suits that make them look like penguins waddling back home. If someone wears a color out of that spectrum, well, those outfits are almost inconspicuous with the amount of grayscale clothing that was being consumed by your eyes.

So Mr. Chan always makes sure to pack light, chanting what he calls the Holy Trinity before he sets off for work: his wallet, his keys, and his phone. If he feels rather upbeat, he would add his earphones from time to time. Everything else, like the laptops, and the packed lunch, those are all already provided by the company. That was one perk of working in a traditional corporation. Besides, Mr. Chan preferred a predictable, normal way of life. Not like those millennials who seemed to always be creating a startup if they were feeling lucky. It’s not sustainable, he thinks.

Mr. Chan is a simple, traditional, Chinese man. He prefers things the old way: with a system and a set of rules. The millennials’ way of life was just something he would never understand. He could not seem to stop himself from shaking his head whenever he thinks of how impatient they were. Always finding a new way to do things. They always get bored too easily. It shows their lack of discipline.

With Hong Kong becoming a more and more dynamic city, those thoughts seemed to be more frequent. The people he passed by were getting younger and younger every year, and he only started noticing these things after he looked at the mirror one day and saw how old he was becoming.

And one of the best ways to stop him from these thoughts is the smell of a traditional, Hong Kong dinner. 

Mr. Chan looks to his left and smiles. Ah, yes. The Golden Duck Restaurant, which opened in 1982 and has been running ever since. That restaurant was probably the only sight that has never changed in almost twenty years, and that always puts the man at ease.

He steps into the restaurant. Despite seeing that restaurant for two decades, Mr. Chan could only recall eating a meal there five times. Perhaps he has eaten there more than that, but those five times held a significant memory. Like when he went to eat with his best friend on his first day at the job, and the day his wife surprised him at the office since she finished work early. Mr. Chan was never one to reminisce since he was always so forward-thinking, but it was a way for him to de-stress when things got too overwhelming.

Tonight, he decides to eat there for dinner despite the absence of a special occasion. He orders what he usually orders when he goes there: steamed rice with soy sauce and its signature dish, roasted duck.

He eats quickly, reading a news article on his phone about global affairs. That was another thing about the new generation. They care more about what happens around them. He remembers his younger years when he would have never imagined that he could retrieve all the answers from a phone so small and portable. It even saves an incredible amount of paper used to make newspapers.

Perhaps millennials were not too bad.

Once he finishes his meal, he walks to the metro. His mood quickly dampens after seeing the long line behind the gates, slowly regretting his decision to eat out.

It was a sea of penguins once again. They never seem to know what personal space is as they squish against one another.

The train arrives and the gate finally opens. The sea begins to crash down, with the penguins wiggling its way into the train, some of them pushing one another to get ahead of the line.

Mr. Chan huffs through his nose. He was a fast-paced man, but there was something unclassy and quite sad about pushing someone to get ahead of the line. So he never does it. He patiently walks behind the person in front of him, but also stands firm like a rock to prevent anyone from cutting him.

He’s able to get into the next train. As he goes in, he makes sure to stand right next to the train door that opens on the right. After thirty years of working at the same office, he indeed remembers which train door opens to the station he has to exit. He sees it as a storybook that he has read more than a hundred times. No matter how many times you read it, the words stay as expected.

Nothing changes. And Mr. Chan enjoys that way of life. He’s a traditional man after all.

He exits the station which leads to a mall. It was bustling with teenagers, who are still wearing their school uniforms. He sees a swarm of them every day, like they were at every nook and cranny. They head either to a bookshop, which he approves of, a bubble tea stall, which he purses his lips at, or a fast-food restaurant, which he hates among everything else. 

Finally, he exits the mall. Right outside are all the bus stops in place, lined up in rows. He walks over to the bus stop at the very last row. There was the bus number: 319A. The number looks worn out, and so did the sign, which was once in bright green, but now looks just like a murky, rusty brown. You would think someone is in charge of maintaining bus stop signs and paints the signs every now and then. But the sign was like this as long as he can remember.

The bus arrives shortly after Mr. Chan gets in line behind what looks like a dozen people. The same minibus that he has taken for his entire work life, with its green roof and yellow exterior that has banner ads on both sides. The people slowly enter the minibus, with Mr. Chan being lucky and getting the last seat.

The sight through the window is the same old view. The bus first passes by some residence buildings. It’s evening, so most people were walking back towards the neighborhood than out of it. Then the bus continues driving along the road placed between the mountains of a country park. As it emerges out of the grassy part of the ride, the minibus passes by another neighborhood that looks similar to the first one. 

When Mr. Chan saw the beach right next to that neighborhood, he knows he is almost at the highway bridge. And from the highway bridge, he could see his apartment building from afar, standing next to three other identical ones, like they were quadruplets.

The minibus finally arrives at the bus stop near his home, with the entrance to the neighborhood at the opposite street. He gets out of the minibus, and runs toward the crossroad as he saw the green pedestrian light blinking. The entrance says Lotus Coast in neon lights, though the ‘o’ in the word Coast was flickering slightly. As he walks to the entrance, he climbs up two flights of stairs. Though he was old, he still had the stamina of a thirty-year-old man.

Finally, he turned left and walked to the apartment block at the very corner. Some children were still out playing around the neighborhood with their friends, or perhaps siblings, with a volleyball. Some were riding on their bicycles. Looking at the sight never fails to make Mr. Chan smile, even if it was just a little bit.

He enters his apartment building and greets the security guard at the lobby before he presses the button for the elevator. When the elevator door opens, he sees his longtime neighbor and the two exchange bows. The two have known each other for twenty years of living on the same floor, which was the highest floor of the apartment. He enters the elevator and presses the button to the 38th floor. 

And there he was. Out of all the four rooms in the floor, the gate to his door looked the most polished. After all, Mr. Chan enjoys maintaining his home amongst all the ignored public places. He learnt that it was quite a blessing to take care of his possessions.

He rings the doorbell. He knows he has his keys with him, but he likes ringing it anyway. Because every time he does, his wife opens the door and gives her usual, calm smile.

“Welcome home.” She says.

When you are surrounded by the same, ordinary things for a long time, even the smallest changes shine through like a bright light.

He knows that because he notices how his wife is beginning to grow some white hairs among the silky, brown ones, and how he is losing some of his own. He notices the wrinkles underneath both of their eyes, and the lightness in their voices as they are growing old.

That, to him, is the only difference that has ever made him feel like nothing still changed. 

“I’m home.” He says back.

And when you are surrounded by the same, ordinary things for a long time, it becomes easier to find the extraordinary in it.