“You lucky, lucky, hmmm….”

18. Dezember 2005

Liane Schalatek writes:
Sunday morning, leisurely breakfast finished, I am getting ready to walk to the Hong Kong subway system to head back to the Convention Center, when – head and blood-shot eyes red – our web and media guru rushes by. “The BBC just reported that there has been an agreement…”, Marc shouts excitedly and jumps into the next taxi cab. I hop in, too, adrenaline suddenly rushing through my veins. Quick, quick, no time to wait for my colleague in the lobby. Every minute counts!

“Convention Center, Convention Center, hmm, tunnel closed” mumbles our cab driver, promising nevertheless to get us somewhere “cose, really cose” to the Convention Center Ok, go! He speeds off, frantically screaming into his two-way radio and answering a phone call at the same time while the red cab dangerously sways as the slightly distracted cabbie frenetically switches lanes. Marc and I close our safety-belts and hold on tight. “You lucky, lucky, hmmm …”, the taxi driver assures as for the first time: He has all the information to get around traffic slow-downs, hold-ups and police barracks coming between us and our mission to be at the Convention Center. We are lucky indeed to be in his cab.

Some 10 minutes pass, we are heading now in the direction of the airport, when screaming back out of the radio apparently our driver hears the information that continuing in our direction would mean a 30 minute delay. “You lucky, lucky, hmm”, our taxi driver says again, as he executes a precise (albeit a bit dangerous) u-turn speeding back the same way we just came. Just stop at the next subway stop, we try to tell him. He nods and ignores us politely, the foot on the gas pedal presses harder and we fly away. Another 10 minutes pass. My anxiety and frustration and the taxi-meter all climb quickly, while Marc, who normally lives in Nairobi and has seen worse, reaches a zen-state of resigning himself to this fate. All of a sudden, the car is jerked to the left, screeching off a speed way ramp. We can hear it coming, and sure enough, there it is: “You lucky, lucky, hmm….” With vigorous head nods and a broad smile, butchered English and full-body language our driver somehow communicates that the tunnel is now open again. Hurray!

Through the tunnel, up the exit ramp—the wrong one, obviously, because now our cabbie utters what must undoubtedly be an improper Cantonese curse, pounds on his horn and just barely misses a truck with hazard lights stopped dead in the middle of the street: police barricade. Marc’s and my laughing now contains a hint of hysteria. Off to the side we go, “lucky, lucky, hmm…” Five minutes later, the mad-taxi-odyssey is over. Stopped just outside the security cordon, our cabbie can go no further (THANK GOD!) and delivers us proudly to the curb. Alive! “You lucky, lucky, hmmm”, he assures us one final time with a wave in the direction of where the Convention Center surely must lie.

Marc and I walk past police barriers as we pass exhausted cops slumped on the sideways with tired, exhausted faces and their helmets and battle gear by their side. In the middle of Lockhart Street is a wagon burg made of police vans, no, actually, it is a holding pen, imprisoning the South Korean protesters who since late last night’s protest have been trapped there. As we watch and walk and Hong Kong folks take advantage of the picture opportunity with their digital and cell phone cameras, one by one the South Korean Farmers, each one flanked by two cops, are led out of the holding pen and to a nearby police van for processing – poor guys!

An hour after we set out from our hotel, we finally arrive at the Convention Center. Instead of bustling excitement, there only measured, expectant quietude greats us. No agreement, no new text yet, instead speculations that the alliance of developing countries has broken during the night, that Brazil still stands firm and that the EU may present some new text proposal at 2 pm as a last ditch “take-it-or-leave-it” proposal. Uff, still plenty of time to catch our breath and the latest rumors. We haven’t missed a thing. “We lucky, lucky, hmm….” Indeed.

Liane Schalatek is associate director of the Heinrich Boell-Foundation’s office in Washington.

Kategorie: Liane Schalatek