Fragrant (Or Not So Fragrant) Harbor

Hong Kong, or Fragrant Harbor, as it is translated, is certainly full of smells. Whether they can all be classified as fragrances is debatable.

As far as smells go, the harbor in question doesn't rank very highly in my book.  Sometimes it's briny and fresh, but other times the blue-green waves are accompanied by the smell of rotting fish, trash, and boat exhaust. That's something they don't mention in the Lonely Planet guides. 

Maybe Hong Kong should be renamed as the "Occasionally Fragrant and Sometimes Unexpectedly Pungent Harbor." Whether good or bad, Hong Kong is certainly full of smells. Many of them are not good. 

Stinky tofu is another less tourist-friendly smell, but at least people are fairly warned by the name. When I started working in Wan Chai, I always wondered what that terrible smell was that surrounded me every time I walked past the shoe store and stationery shop. Believe me, it was not a shoe or stationery smell. It was at least a half a year later when someone informed me that there was a stinky tofu shop hidden around the corner. Oh no, sir. Stinky tofu shops can never be hidden. They may be out of sight, but they will never be out of mind. 

In my current working area, dried fish product shops line the streets. It's really dangerous to walk down the street. When second you have the delightful smell of roasted cha siu wafting through the air and the next minute your nostrils are full of stale fish smell. 

Really, there's all kinds of terrible smells everywhere. On the way to my normal bus stop, one section of the sidewalk always smells like sewer. Always. Since there's not much for green space here, dogs are forced to pee and poop on the sidewalks. You can always tell when you are walking near a dog hotspot. I'm not even going to mention the MTR in the morning. Some things must be experienced to be believed. 

But let's not be overly negative. I don't want to give you the wrong idea. Hong Kong does also have plenty of really delicious smells. It's just that they are all mixed together. 

As I alluded to before, one of the best things ever is walking past a restaurant and getting hit by a wave of aroma. Cafe de Coral, a Hong Kong fast food restaurant, was originally a burger place. Apparently their strategy was to put the hamburger grills in the front so that the sizzling sound and the aroma of grilling meat would draw in customers. It works! Whenever I smell coffee as I walk on the street, I start salivating and thinking if it's time to grab a cup. 

The street by my first flat, fortuitously near the Under Bridge Spicy Crab restaurant, always smelled wonderful. While I still haven't actually made it inside to eat crab (bucketlist!), every night as I walked home, I would be enveloped in the warm, golden smell of fried garlic. Who can be grumpy when you're smelling fried garlic? 

Just today I stumbled across a new, wonderful smell. I stepped into the lift like usual, when my nose immediately noticed that the man next to me was especially good-smelling.  

"Why do you smell like that? What is that smell?"

These words nearly flew out of my mouth, but I bit my tongue, remembering we still had fifteen more floors to go. I couldn't handle that many floors of awkward. But seriously. Why did he smell so good??? I don't usually care that much about cologne, but if everyone's cologne smelled like that guy's, I sure might.

Something similar happened a few years back. I was walking to the Flying Pan, dreaming about weak, bottomless diner coffee, when a guy walked past me. Now, on the busy streets of Hong Kong, that is not an uncommon occurrence. But as the guy passed, I was hit by a wave of delightful fragrance. 

Accustomed to walking by sweaty basketball players who have a grudge against deodorant, I didn't know how to react. I may or may not have turned and gaped after him as he walked away. Just a normal guy. I don't even remember what he looked like. But I will always remember that smell. Yes, this is turning into a cheesy cologne commercial.

Similar to the elevator guy, I wanted to run after him, begging for him to reveal the secret of his fragrance. I wanted to buy that smell, wherever it was, whatever the cost. But once again, my propensity to follow social norms kept me running after him and figuring out his aromatic secret. 

That's the way it goes around here. Exhilaratingly good aroma and heartbreakingly bad stench. I propose that we rename it The Harbor of Schizophrenic Smells. Doesn't it have a nice ring to it?