See, I told You Something was Going On

When I lived in Japan in the late 1980's, one of the things that struck me was the uniformity. Not only did the people all dress very similarly, but they all seemed to behave well within the norms of expected social behavior. A Japanese proverb says that it's the nail that sticks out that gets hammered. True enough. The extreme punk rockers that used to gather in Central Park on the weekends seemed to be the exception that just proved the rule that there was a very narrow tolerance of aberrant individual expression.

In The States, by contrast, individual expression seems to be paramount. Do your own thing. Let it all hang out. Be true to yourself. Express yourself.

Hong Kong seems to be in the middle somewhere. As any ride on the train will show, compared to Japan of twenty years ago, there is certainly a greater variety of personal expression when it comes to clothing. But I haven’t experienced the full-on, eyebrow-raising, goofballs that you might encounter on the streets of San Francisco, Miami or Chicago.

That was until we walked past this banner on the island last Saturday.

It reads: American Secret Agents are using Using Wireless Mind Control Techniques to make people sleepwalk and kill themselves, destroying China’s social and economic stabilities.

It’s good to know that conspiracy theories are alive and well in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the man (is it fair to assume it was a man?) who was responsible for this banner was nowhere to be found. I looked, but didn’t see anybody with tinfoil in his hat.

I'm relieved to know I'm not the only goofball wandering the streets of Hong Kong.

This gives me great hope that I might actually find a support group here in Hong Kong for those of us who have been abducted by aliens.