My Neighbor

The second night that I was moved in to my apartment, I received a knock on my door. I had no idea why anybody was knocking on my door, and I certainly was not expecting any visitors, so I was a bit confused as to who as at my door. I opened my door to reveal a short Asian man, dressed in a silk robe from the Beijing Hilton, wearing house slippers, who introduced himself in his English name as my neighbor. I introduced who I was and he invited me to the roof top to enjoy a beer with him.

First off, I was completely surprised that somebody else lived in my building. It was very quite and I never even had gone above my floor. However, as we ventured farther upwards in our building, I could easily tell that someone else lived in this building. As we wound up the stairways I saw many of his things crammed in to the narrow hallway. I saw slippers with names of various high quality golf courses on them, and saw golf clubs, and even a fold out putting green. When we reached the roof I was taken aback by the sight. I had a great view of all our village, and can see in to Shenzen China.

View of my village from the rooftop

As my neighbor and I began talking, we found out we had lots in common, and lots to talk about. I learned he did his graduate school work at a school in the US in Artificial Intelligence and his undergrad was in Pure Mathematics. He lived and worked in Silicon Valley, California for quite some time at a very large supercomputing company. My neighbor now has diverted from that type of life and is currently a writer. He was written three books, working on a fourth, and has regular columns in the HK Golf Magazines. He also writes for for the tourism departments of many surrounding countries and is a golf enthusiast.

Shortly after our first meeting, he invited me up again and allowed me in to his apartment. I was delighted to discover he had an electronic organ and a very impressive collection of books (most of which are in English.) We have become very good friends and enjoy playing music together on his organ, or just having me entertain him with my western style of playing. We also have shared books back and forth and discussed all sorts of topics together on our regular roof top meetings ranging from girls, to physics, to golf, to HK business, to almost every other topic in between.

As our friendship has grown, we have become very good friends and I have been invited to both of his house warming parties and have had the honor of meeting some very great people. I have met Editors and GM's of HK Golf magazines and other local publications, a software creator for Apple in China, many British Police Force members, and a very wealthy day trader. Through my neighbor, I have gotten to make connections with all these people and it has been great meeting people that are, and are not, related to my field of work here in Hong Kong.

My neighbor and I have visited the Hong Kong Wetland Park together and have been planning future trips so I can get out and see more of Hong Kong. We have also had Dim Sum together and gone on shopping trips. He has also made me a little "Cheat Sheet" for getting around here. I have a sheet that I carry with me whenever I go out on my own that has the English and Chinese writing that says, "Home", "Closest Mass Transit Station", and our local train station. If I get in a cab and they can't understand where I go, I just whip out my sheet and show him and it makes life easier.

It has been so great having a neighbor like the one I have. He is somebody I can go to for guidance or help, some one to talk with, and has been a great person to go travel around with. I'm sure we will go on many more trips together and it is always great to hear about his travels around the world.
Picture from most recent house warming party with my neighbor.
Front: Golf photographer, Apple employee, GM of local edition of golf magazine
Back: My neighbors girlfriend, my neighbor, two editors for golf magazine and myself.

Notice the guy in the middle front row enjoying a piece of dragon fruit!