Top Gear

In an effort towards cultural equality and to make up for years of going to the ballet, we all recently went to a car show. Top Gear, a BBC television show about cars, which we have never seen but many people here rave about, was in town over the weekend and we had tickets. Leading up to the show, Adam was honestly excited. Phil was mildly interested and the girls were oblivious. Not thinking cars at all, I was just worried about a 6:30 pm show on a Sunday night before Monday school.

The Top Gear show involved a car exhibition beforehand, where you could look at fancy cars. Adam ran up to cars and touched them. He asked a man if he could sit in one and was told he could. We were pleasantly surprised as Hong Kong is typically a hands off place for kids. Hong Kong is, however, all about fancy cars. Phil only half jokingly said we could have saved the admission cost and just walked through the parking lot in our apartment building, which Adam tells me includes two Ferrari, lots of Porsches and lots of mini Coopers. Just this past weekend, we took the kids to a birthday party at a cupcake bakery. To get to the cupcakes, we parked (our Mitshibushi Space Rover, for the record) in front of the local Ferrari dealership. On our way home from the party, we actually saw someone buy a red Ferrari and drive off the lot. While I first thought we should not stare, I then thought our attention probably made the moment even more so of whatever a buying a Ferrari moment is.

The Top Gear show itself was loud and over the top, with cars and motorcycles doing stunts. Lots of cars squealing around, flashing lights and smoke. In one of the more gimmicky moments, some little cars played a game of soccer with a big inflatable ball. Half of the cars were on England’s team and the other half made up the Hong Kong team. There was a lot of ribbing back and forth about who has the better team, who has David Beckham etc. Once the game was underway, our kids unabashedly cheered for Hong Kong. We were all about stomping England at car soccer and suddenly it did seem like a very American moment in a twisted sort of way.