October 6 -- Hong Kong

Hello Everyone,

I'm at the top of Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong looking out at the whole city.  What a sight!  We're going to be here till the sun sets.

We've spent the last two days doing our story on superstition in Hong Kong -- althought we're not supposed to call it that because that's rather ethnocentric.  :)  We went to Temple Street last night where dozens of fortune tellers set up every night.  Some speak English, some don't.  Some are nice, some aren't.  One guy has a bird that comes out of its cage to pick out a card for you, and then the fortune teller would read your fortune from that.  The atmosphere was great -- there were people singing Chinese opera, and a lot of food stands were set up.  Our two reporters had their fortune told (one by a palm reader and one by a Chinese astrologer) and we also interviewed them about their beliefs.  I got my palm read too... the guy said my career is going through dramatic changes right now and that I'm entering the glorious years of my life.  Sounds wonderful. :)

Today, we went to shoot a few banks that were constructed to feng shui principles.  We would stop people on the streets -- foreigners and businessmen -- and ask what they thought of feng shui and astrology and all of them gave us really insightful answers.  We also dropped by a Catholic church where the pastor greeted all of us and served us soft drinks.  He didn't want to be on camera but told us a lot about his views on the local beliefs.

What I realized today is how much fun it is to do journalism without too much preparation.  We just go to all these places and get what we can get.  Most of the time we don't really know what to expect.  It can be nerve wracking if things don't go well, but when they do -- you get this feeling of exhiliration because you happened on the good stuff by accident.  I feel this is why I went into journalism -- and it's also a nice break from NewsStand-style journalism.  You should've seen us in Japan -- we did two camera sitdown interviews without using tripods.  Dave said to me afterwards that CNN folks would die if they saw us.

Anyway, we're only two days into our stay in Hong Kong and I can already tell I'm going to miss this place.  I miss Japan too.  But we also have Vietnam to look forward to.  There, we're going to follow this kid whose father's a Vietnam vet.  The kid's going to travel around the Mekong Delta and do a report about the legacy of the war, the attitudes toward Americans and how Vietnam has moved on.  I suggested that we do it in the form of a letter from him to his dad.  And he agreed.  He's even asked his dad to send pictures of himself from his Vietnam days and a letter recounting his experience in Vietnam.  We should be getting the letter when we arrive in Vietnam, which would be a good beginning to the story.

In any case, I just hope we won't get stuck here because of the typhoon.  It's supposed to hit us on the day we're supposed to depart.  I'll let you know what happens.

Charles