A black Benz with the number plate GY1 stopped across the street from where we were seated- a restaurant called Diner on Arbuthnot Road- and GY aka Gilbert Yeung crossed the road followed by his posse of two blondes and their three companions and headed for his headquarters at dragon-i.
In a city with so many flavours of the day, one has to give props to the savvy Yeung for ensuring that his dragon-i remains the place to be seen with some thinking that once been able to walk through its hallowed doors, instant hipness and coolness has been bestowed on them and are now part of the GY Inner Circle.
Everybody loves Raymond, and many wish to get to know Gilbert Yeung, son of well-known “impressario” Albert Yeung, Chairman of Emperor Holdings whose EEG division controls and manages many of Hong Kong’s best known singers and actors. Yeung Sr has been in the news over the past few months for threatening Google with legal action over some rather dubious information about him in Wikipedia. Albert Yeung? Associated with the local triads? Of course, not. He just always travels with five hefty bodyguards.
As for the magnet that is dragon-i, it is Hong Kong’s Viper Room, CBGB’s, Studio 54, and every other hip club that has come and gone around the world.
As we stood on Wyndham Street where every wannabe dragon-i roarer were lined up like the accordion of a polka musician, one couldn’t help but notice how, like all the samey same clubs on this strip, just how similar- and one dimensional- the wannabes spilling over onto the street looked and sounded.
Many were pencil- thin models- or faux “models”- mainly from Europe and Eastern Europe- suddenly, Hong Kong is being overrun by Eastern European “entrepreneurs” awash in cash- and those who are always with these species. I had not seen so many white people in one place at the same time in Hong Kong. Even the Chinese and Asians making cameo appearances looked white.
What’s strange is just how different they are to the crowds one sees at nearby Lan Kwai Fong and Soho.
At these two kinda trendy areas, what you have are “the poor cousins” of the Wyndham Street catwalk show. It’s amazing to think that a city as small as Hong Kong can have such vastly different “customer demographics” to which can be added the totally different regulars whose bases are Wanchai, Causeway Bay and Quarry Bay. Kowloon remains a different planet.
Still back on the catwalk of life on Wyndham Street, every second person seemed to either be posing or doing the dance of the peacocks to attract attention, while the latest inhabitants to this area were hustling hard- the army of Nigerian coke dealers offering their ways to make the night go better and faster with their HK$1,800 bags.
As the recently arrested British banker who chopped up two Indonesians he was dating has proved through what the police seized from his apartment, and the other one-time Hong Kong-based banker, the cocaine culture here is rampant.
It’s also part of the catwalk floor show down Wyndham Street. It’s way too hip and cool for me. My friends and I walked away and into an area where we could breathe and not be smothered by cheap perfume and pretentiousness.
At dragon-i, they partied on, dudes, like it was 1999. There really is quite a sad feeling of “Been there, Done that” to just “hanging” and people watching and hoping to “get lucky” until 4am watching spaced out space cadets try to hail taxis on wobbly legs. The taxis don’t stop for them and so, they decide to slum it and keep partying on in the Cochrane Street neighbourhood of Drop- and past more Nigerian pusher men seeing easy targets heading their way.
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