It's a Grand Illusion

It seems as though the people of Hong Kong have little or no interest in the American Independence Day. You'd think Americans would have a kinship with Hong Kongers--ah, yes, we've all been a British colony at one point--but no. The only evidence I saw of 4th of July festivities was a severely drunk woman wearing a foam Statue of Liberty hat, stumbling home (I assume and hope) at 10am on July 5th.

I spent the day at a bookstore doing a performance of "Penguin". I had to wrangle innocent bystanders in--even a former student, Baloo the Bear, was in attendance. There was one unruly audience member who kept shouting things at us, like "Punch him out!" or "The smoke is coming out of the pipe! Just turn it off!"--There's no pipe, kid, this is theatre, it's smog caused by human activity, come on! I think my favorite was when he told Eric, "You look like a girl!" Which, in Eric's defense, he was not in his usual attire, but in a dress and curly blond wig.
After the show, he was being annoying again, so I made him deflate our giant globe, which he couldn't do properly, so as I helped him, I asked him his name and how old he is...the answer "10.9"
In my family, we have a running list of traits of annoying kids. Declaring an age using fractions (and, let's add decimals now) is on the list. I mentioned something about his birthday must be fast approaching and he said, "November! Come to my birthday party!" And after more banter (mostly my attempt to observe more traits), he had to leave, which of course he refused to do until McDonald's was used as leverage, and upon his departure, "Don't forget to come to my birthday party!"

The Parental Units arrive on Friday night this week, and the suspense is unbearable. In case they're reading this, I attempted to email both your itinerary and character sketches of people you will meet, but my gmail will not open, so I will send them first thing tomorrow morning (Tuesday night for you)...print and memorize.

As for other news, I have travel plans--Switzerland, England, Chicago, South Dakota, and Phoenix...between August 5 and 17. It shall be a whirlwind, but worth it to see friends, family and hit restart before coming back to Hong Kong for an extremely busy fall season of TIE (all the shows postponed due to the PANDEMIC and rehearsing with the new actors)

Also, have I mentioned that whenever I tell a Hong Konger that my surname is Carpenter, the response is always along the lines of "We've only just begun" or "Now and Then." I think The Carpenters are better known here than Elvis.
Or maybe despite the fact that I live in the future, pop culture from 1970s America is just now hitting in Hong Kong.