Hong Kong Blog Day 8--The Day of Leslie

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I woke up early to have plenty of time to prepare for a very long day of commemoration activities.  This was also the first day that was going to be not only humid, but hot as well.  I dressed for the weather, not knowing when I would get back to the hotel.

 At 10 o’clock, I met an assembled group of Leslie friends:  Julie, Simie and Molle, and I caught a cab to take us to our first top, Leslie’s house at Kadoorie Hill, about a mile from the hotel (though all uphill).  Flowers that were ordered a few days earlier were scheduled to be delivered to the house early that morning.  We got out of the cab at the head of the street with Leslie’s house and walked the rest of the way.  As we came around the curve, we could see the house and a small and quiet gathering of fans bringing flowers and taking pictures.  There were already a number of beautiful bouquets placed on the pavement outside the door of the house.  In contrast to the showy bouquets at the Mandarin Oriental, many of these were smaller and more intimate in scale and there were many pots of flowering orchid plants, one of Leslie’s favorite flowers.  There was a somber mood to the gathering, overall. 

What a peaceful neighborhood this was.  Although it was only a short distance from the bustle of Mongkok, it was quiet and there was a cool breeze blowing up on the top of the hill.  All of the houses were single-family dwellings, some rather large.  Each house had a garden filled with trees and greenery and this added to the coolness.  You could also hear a variety of birds singing in the trees.  It really was a peaceful green oasis that Leslie had chosen for his last home in Hong Kong.

After greeting some other fans that Julie knew and taking pictures, it was time to go to our next stop.

We took a cab back down the hill to the Prince Edward MTR station and went over to Central.  There we caught the tram and took it to Happy Valley and alighted opposite the Happy Valley Racetrack.  Julie said that Leslie had been quite a race fan and had been a member of the Jockey Club.  Our next stop was a little, slightly ramshackle café opposite the racetrack where Leslie used to like to go and get milk tea and sweet buns.  We ordered the same, as well as an egg-custard tart and Hong Kong iced tea.  At the café, we ran into some other Leslie fans and saw Leslie’s autograph framed on the wall.  Some of these fans were heading to the temple that has Leslie’s Spirit Plaque to make an offering.  Since the group I was with was also going to this temple, we joined forces and set out together.  On the way we stopped at a florist shop, and one of the fans began negotiating with the owner about the flowers and their price.  Although all of this was conducted in Cantonese, I was able to follow the entire discussion and felt quite proud of my improving Cantonese language skills.  If I had been able to stay in the city and formally study the language, I think I might have made great progress.  I have been working on learning Cantonese on my own for two years now and, while my working vocabulary is still pretty small, what I do know I seem to know quite well.  I am getting to the point that I can now understand snippets of conversations, but still not enough to really understand most of what is being said.  I also need a lot more practice speaking, which I don’t get here in the US.  I must start buying lottery tickets and use any winnings towards going to Hong Kong to study Cantonese at one of the language institutes there.

When we left the café, some of the fans had taken buns and cups of milk tea to offer to Leslie at the temple.  Now we also had some flowers to present as well.  We took another cab that climbed the steep streets of Central.  I haven’t seen hills like this since I was in San Francisco.  I’m glad given how hot and humid it was already that we were taking cabs to some of these places. 

The temple is small but very nice, with a school attached.  We went inside and, avoiding the main sanctuary, went up a set of side stairs to the second floor where the room with Leslie’s Spirit Plaque was located.  An attendant met us outside the room and helped us select a vase for the flowers from a cabinet that had many vases of different sizes.  There was also a sink and a prep area for cutting the flowers and arranging them in the vase and adding water.  Obviously many people make offerings of flowers to loved ones since everything is set up to facilitate this.

Once inside the room, one of the fans pointed out Leslie’s Spirit Plaque, which, in dimensions and format was exactly like every other one in the case above the altar.  There was a small altar with room for offerings and a seated figure of a Buddha dressed in a patched cloak and crown.  I asked one of the women which Buddha this figure represented and I was told that he was the Buddha of Hell.  (I prefer to think of this figure as the Buddha of the Realm of the Dead because in Buddhist theology (at least my understanding of it) this realm is not Hell in the Christian sense, a place of perpetual damnation, but is instead a place of purification before a soul is reincarnated into another life.)  There were many vases with flowers on the altar, as well as offerings of fruit and now our food offerings.  Someone had incense sticks, which we were all given and lit and offered to the image and to Leslie’s plaque, as well as to another image on another altar across the room.  There was an air of somber sadness in this act of making offerings to Leslie’s spirit.  At this point, someone led us to another room to see the Spirit Plaque of Leslie’s mother, which was also in this temple.  Apparently one of Leslie’s sisters had donated these plaques for her mother and little brother.

We retraced our steps back downstairs and I noticed some sandals outside of a door at the bottom of the stairs, to the right side of the main sanctuary.  In this sanctuary, there was a large altar and also many prié-dieus, each with a book covered by an embroidered cloth.  This was obviously where the monks attached to the temple chanted.  I told the fans to wait for me, that I wanted to visit the sanctuary and I would be with them in a minute. 

Once I crossed the threshold, I was again overwhelmed by the intensely spiritual vibration that permeated the space.  It pulled me in and I was enveloped in it to the point that I actually lost my bearings and could no longer feel the ground under my feet.  I was overwhelmed with intense emotion and began crying, as I had done at the other temple.  I felt my entire being vibrating in concert with the vibration that filled the space.  There was no separation between me and that vibration—it was in me, I was in it.  The feeling of total unity and the dissolving of personal identification was instantaneous.  It was an incredibly joyous and liberating experience and perhaps that is why it was so intense and had me again on the verge of tears.   I could have stayed there for hours, but the other fans were waiting for me, so I had to leave another one of Hong Kong’s spiritual havens and reengage with the world.

Our next stop was Bojyo, a Japanese Restaurant that had been a favorite of Leslie’s not far from the temple.  We walked there from the temple and, because the trip was entirely downhill, it wasn’t too difficult.  When we entered the restaurant, there was Franny and another fan from Japan.  This restaurant had been one of Leslie’s preferred restaurants and he often went there with friends.  The owner one night created a special dish for Leslie  and there was a booklet and photographs of Leslie with the owner on the table.  He also switched the television to play Leslie’s music videos while we were in the restaurant eating lunch.  We had a delicious lunch and were touched by the story of how Leslie’s special dish had been created.  It seems that one day when Leslie visited the restaurant with his friends, everyone else’s food came quickly because they had ordered sushi, but Leslie ate only cooked food, so his dish was going to take longer.  The owner saw that Leslie looked hungry, but was having to wait for his food, so he created a special dish just for Leslie to eat.  When the owner came over and asked Leslie how the dish was, Leslie replied that it was alright (implying that, maybe, it wasn’t all that tasty).  The owner was a bit taken aback, for he thought he had made a lovely dish for Leslie.  But then Leslie caught his eye and winked at him, showing that, in fact, the food was quite good.  It seems that Leslie didn’t want his friends eating the dish, he wanted to keep this special dish all to himself as his own special treat.

After lunch, we caught a cab and went to The Peak to visit Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum and see the flowers for Leslie placed around his wax figure.  I was surprised by how long the trip to The Peak was by cab, after the short trip on the Peak tram.  But, obviously, the road had to take a less direct route and we passed many homes on the way.  I didn’t have any idea how many people lived on The Peak.  What a marvelous place this would be to live, with cool breezes in summer, all of the greenery, and all of Hong Kong and the harbor at your feet.

On at The Peak, we went straight to Madame Tussaud’s and quickly made our way through the museum to Leslie’s figure.  There were many beautiful bouquets of flowers around the image of Leslie and a number of fans were taking pictures of the flowers and having their picture taken with Leslie’s wax effigy.  When I dutifully stood next to it for my picture, I was surprised by how slight Leslie had been.  He was barely taller than me and seem quite slender and delicate next to me.  It was a very strange sensation to stand next to this figure and feel something of the physical dimensions of Leslie after having known him only from a television or computer screen or as a voice coming through a speaker.  Having this physical dimension was interesting in a certain sense, but also sad because obviously I never would actually have this sort of experience of the living Leslie. 

After we finished up on The Peak, we caught another cab and went over to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to see the flowers that were outside.  There were many more flowers than 24 hours before when I had last visited, and many more fans.  It was hard to walk along the sidewalk so many fans were stopping to look at the flowers and take pictures.  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fApL3Lu5INQ[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060541)[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060542)[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060543)[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060544)[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060545)[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060546)[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060547)[](/batch.download.php?aid=7060547)The news media was there, as well.  There were photographers taking pictures for the newspapers and there was even a film crew interviewing fans.  After they interviewed a few fans, the reporter came over to me with her microphone and interviewed me for a couple of minutes in English.  It was quite an honor to be singled out and interviewed.  I noticed when I saw the file on the Internet that when they mentioned where the fans were from, they mentioned the US.  None of the other reports, print or video, mentioned the US.  Video: http://ent.i-cable.com/cen/news_video/index.php?video_id=13627When I was in front of the Mandarin Oriental, several more fans came up to me and said that they knew my radio interview and/or my blog on Alive Not Dead.  It was so gratifying to see that my efforts to share my experience of Leslie with others were noticed and appreciated by many Leslie fans.  But I’m still surprised (and tickled) when total strangers come up to me on the street and say that they are my fan!

Simie, Molle, Julie and I grabbed a quick bite in a nearby mall that had many Filipino shops and then headed over to the Candlelight Vigil in an outdoor garden nearby.  Many fans were gathering and someone was giving out candles and lighting them.  We gathered in one corner of the garden where a podium was set up next to some pictures of Leslie.  There were a lot of news media there, photographers and people shooting video for the local new organizations.

The service itself was quite touching.  I was standing in the front with Molle and Leslie, and Simie and Tracy were closeby.  Everything was conducted in Cantonese, so I couldn’t really follow along that well, but the mood was one of respectful commemoration as a bittersweet melancholy settled over the crowd.  A few fans were weeping softly and many were sad, remembering the day seven years before when our dear brother had lost his battle with clinical depression.  I have had personal experience with suicide in my own life.  My grandfather committed suicide when I was in my mid-20s and a friend of mine from graduate school suffered from schizophrenia and eventually took his own life leaving behind a lovely wife and young child.  

After the candlelight commemoration, we then moved over to Chater Garden nearby, where the outdoor presentation of the Passion Tour video was going to take place.  A VIP section of about 200 white chairs had been cordoned off.  I ran into Leslie Ho again and he was able to get Molle, Tracy and I into the area with the VIP enclosure.  Franny of Red Mission Japan was nearby with her video camera filming the entire proceedings from beginning to end.  As we came into the garden, one of the Red Mission volunteers gave me a light stick and Julie gave me some flexible light strings that could be turned into bracelets with a little fastener.  Short of attending a concert at the HK Coliseum, this was as close as I was going to get to a proper fan experience at a concert in Hong Kong.Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAtG75I4CbU&feature=related[](/batch.download.php?aid=7070996)

It quickly got dark (Hong Kong is just south of the Tropic of Cancer) and soon it was time for the show to begin.  There was a large video screen flanked by big pictures of Leslie in his Passion Tour attire.  Soon the documentary video started, to cheers from the assembled crowd.  Not only were all the seats filled, but it appeared from what I could see that the entire garden was now filled with fans standing closely packed together.  There were probably between 1,500 and 2,000 people assembled for the event.

The VIP section (extra points if you can pick me out in the crowd).The theme of this year’s event was the Passion Tour concert.  2010 is the tenth anniversary of this landmark show that has never received the recognition it truly deserves.  In my opinion, it marks Leslie’s most fully realized show.  He was not only the performer, but also produced the show and was involved in virtually every aspect of the production from the music to the costumes, from the choreography to the lighting.  Red Mission had approached the different artists and professionals involved in this production and conducted interviews with many of them and produced about a 30 minute documentary where they talked about the Passion Tour and working with Leslie on this show.  Hearing the words of these top professionals, it became abundantly clear how  much Leslie had been involved in every aspect of the show, giving his opinion where he felt it was required and making some bold artistic decisions.  I had never realized that the concept for the show, the transformation of an angel into a devil, was Leslie’s.  Nor had I known that the hair style for this show, the long hair extensions that Leslie wore, as well as the stubbly mustache and goatee were Leslie’s idea, chosen to perfectly balance male and female elements in his appearance on stage.  

The choreographer’s reminiscence of the rehearsals with the female dancers for the “Pillow” number were quite touching.  He told how the female dancers all loved working with Leslie and they were all wanting to dance with him in this number because Leslie was hugging them as part of the choreography, and they just loved it when Leslie embraced them.!  (When he said this (I was reading the subtitles), a great cheer went up from the audience.  We all understood exactly how those female dancers felt!)  The Japanese ballet dancer who had performed with Leslie on stage and also in the music video for “Bewildered” had many touching things to say about Leslie.  Probably the most striking thing revealed in the documentary was how much these artists treasured having worked with Leslie on this show and what an exemplary human-being he was.  Over and over again, unprompted, they shared stories that illustrated what a fine human-being Leslie was, how caring, patient and magnanimous he was.  They also stressed what a top professional Leslie was and what a high level of artistic achievement the Passion Tour represented and how influential it had been on the Hong Kong entertainment industry. 

Now, in hindsight, it is much easier to judge the impact of this show and to assess its true accomplishments.  At the time of the show, it had not been favorably received or reviewed by many in the media.  In fact, many of the reviews and reports of the time could be characterized as hatchet jobs.  It is hard to know if the reviewers a grudge against Leslie or if they simply were unable to understand this show and its high artistic achievement.  In so many ways, Leslie pushed the boundaries of the Hong Kong entertainment industry with this show.  But reports that characterized the show as obscene or pornographic have me shaking my head in disbelief.  How could Leslie’s creation of a truly bisexual character—equally male and female—be viewed as obscene?  In many ways, his impersonation of a woman in the Red Tango number in his 1996 tour was more audacious (and troubling), or his exhibitionist presentation in “Love By Stealth”  But instead of presenting discrete characters that were either male or female, in the Passion Tour show Leslie presented a single image that fully expressed male and female characteristics in a prefect balance.  The element of change in this later show was the journey of this character from an angelic realm to a delightfully hellish realm ruled by sexual passion.

Finally it was time for excerpts of the Passion Tour video to be screened to the gathered fans.  Light stick were ignited, the music started and the crowd erupted with a roar when Leslie first appeared on screen.  The sound system was excellent and the garden was soon filled with the sounds of Leslie and the Passion Tour.  Light sticks waved, people blew whistles and there was dancing all around just as if we were at a live performance.  I was lucky that I was sitting (or should I say dancing) next to my buddy Leslie.  We were dancing up a storm and having the best time. 

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LOsILiz-T8&feature=relatedVideo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWGeyzYJdt0&feature=related[](/batch.download.php?aid=7071026)At the end of the show, when the fans began to disperse and the lights came up, one of my friends from Alive Not Dead, Hay Leslie, came over to meet me.  She had been standing behind me with fans during the show.  But it wasn’t too hard to pick me out in a crowd—it was an extremely humid day and my curly blonde hair was taking on a life of its own.  I’m also taller than most of the Chinese fans so I really do stand out in a crowd.  When I saw the pictures from the newspapers the next day and saw myself in picture after picture, I felt a little bit like Zellig.  It is never hard to pick me out in a group.

It was getting late and we all needed to be thinking about getting back to our hotels before the last train of the night.  I had been on the go since 10 a.m. and still had one more full day of fan activities in Hong Kong before leaving for the States.

 Flowers outside the Mandarin Oriental at nightI took the MTR to TST and did the long underground walk over to the Eastern Rail Line.  When I got off at Mongkok East, another group of my Alive Not Dead fans caught up with me on the platform.  Until this trip to Hong Kong, I had no idea that so many people read my blog on Alive Not Dead.  It encourages me to continue to write with some regularity and to write about Leslie whenever I have something interesting to say.

When I got back to the hotel, I was pretty energized by the day’s events, so I started packing my suitcases.  I had plenty of dirty laundry that could be packed away, and I also begin packing the new under-the-seat bag with my most fragile purchases, like tea pots.  I turned on the TV and they were showing Leslie’s last movie, “Inner Senses", so I watched that while I was packing.  Finally, around 1:45, I felt sleepy enough to turn out the light and fall sleep.  I don’t remember anything until I awoke to the phone ringing the next morning.I leave you with one of Leslie's most moving numbers from the Passion Tour.  Surely I must have dreamed of Leslie that night.Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2PTmpfhSno&feature=related

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