Lessons from the Quake : Do not take the lift

So, there I was enjoying a day off, catching up on my reading in bed and suddenly I feel the bed shake. I get off the bed and peep out the window and find other faces peering out their window in the building next to mine. Ok, so i didn't imagine it. Now, I live on the 17th floor and up here, you can really feel the building swaying. For a few moments it felt like I was on top of a palm tree in a gust of wind.

Now I've experienced this before in 2007 and dutifully blogged about it at the time. Then it was the result of an earthquake in Sumatra Islands in Indonesia, 8.4 on the richter scale. Nasty business that one. So, when I felt the building sway the same way, it was déjà vu and I knew, this was serious.

OK, next step, grab phone, wallet and keys and run out. Just then my phone rings and it's my old friend Suresh Venkat on the line. Considering he rarely calls me, this is indeed an earth shattering occurrence. (yes, pun intended) As I tell him that I am possibly in the middle of a quake and run out the door, I make my first mistake.

I decided to take the lift, forgetting every single safety warning about NEVER going for the lift during fire and quakes.

Looks like every one else in the building made the exact same mistake. The lift stopped at every floor and gradually I am forced into the corner at the back quashed in next to an old chinese gent with a hearing aid on my left and 2 young chinese girls in front of me. Along the way we gather a tiny, possibly new born baby with its nervous parents.

2nd mistake - Should have gotten out when it started to get crowded and the lift was still stopping at every floor.

By the time we reach the ground floor, the lift is packed like a can of sardines with 15 of us and it comes to a stop with a THUD! We wait for the door to open...nothing happens. Then suddenly the lift is moving and we go to B1. Another THUD...then silence. Doors do not open. Just as we are recovering, lift starts moving again and goes all the way to B2 and this time the THUD is massive. The old gent loses his balances and staggers. We grab him before he falls...but then where is the place to fall?

B2 is the absolute lowest the lift can go to and the doors refuse to open. A guy in the front rings the alarm bell for what feels like hours before a security guard answers on the lift intercom - "Any problem?"

"YES!! 15 of us stuck in a lift in Basement 2 after feeling 3 massive THUDs and a tiny baby bawling its eyes out. IT IS A PROBLEM!"

Guard assures us that he'll get to it immediately and we wait patiently. Well, as patiently as one can in the circumstances. The baby is really at it by now and the lift is getting hot as hell. The mother and father try in vain to get the little one to stop. Suddenly a lady next to the mum says, "do you want to feed her? We'll cover you and you can move to the corner."

Miraculously, that works. I am quashed in one corner and the mum feeding the baby on the other.

Suddenly, the old Chinese guy says - Did anyone ring the alarm?

"Err, ... yes Sir, we did and we are now waiting."

10 minutes....no sign of guard. We ring the alarm again. This time the guard says he is waiting for the lift technician to come and he is on the way. He needs another 10 minutes.

By this time, everyone is getting fidgety. 15 people in a small lift in basement 2 with very little ventilation is NOT pleasant. Two guys in the front try to pry the door open in He-Man style. There is a lock on top and the doors don't budge. The He-Man wannabes give up eventually.

Suddenly, we can feel the tremors again and this time its SCARY because there is no where to run!

The shaking stops as suddenly as it started. I swear I can hear someone murmuring a prayer. Throughout all this, what am I doing? Since there is no signal in the lift and I can't live tweet this earthquake experience in true social media diva style, I am taking notes on the iPhone. Yes, unbelievable, I know. Some cry, some pray and I tweet. Maybe that's my salvation!

Finally, after what feels like hours the rescue brigade arrives and the doors are opened. As we all rush out to get some air, an Arab girl who got in on 16th floor just after me, stands there looking completely disoriented. I ask her if she is ok and she looks blankly at me for a second before saying - "How do I go out? "

Basement 2 is the car park and clearly she has either never been down here or is still reeling from the whole "building-shaking-thud-stuck-in-lift" ordeal. So, I grab her arm like the good samaritan that I am and lead her out the ramp that goes to the ground floor. We come out into the sunlight and I've never been more thankful for the harsh, humid heat of the Malaysian sun.

And my phone rings again, now that I am out of the lift-basement area and signal is back on, its Suresh Venkat again - "So, I really did shake your world?"

Yes Suresh, this time, you really did!

The delightful world of Suzie

Four days of being confined to bed with no strength for anything except turning pages, meant that I did a lot more reading than usual. I couldn't have asked for a better book than Richard Mason's "The world of Suzie Wong" to keep me company and take me back to 1950s Hong Kong, to places that I am so familiar with in their post Y2K avatar.

In short, its a love story. A prostitute with a heart of gold meets the poor white artist trying to find himself, against the backdrop of colonial Hong Kong in the seedy by-lanes of Wanchai's Nam Kok hotel. They fall in love over the course of the book and a lot of emotional drama ensues. But that's not why I love this book, addicted as I am to sappy love stories. In fact there is nothing particularly original about the story.

What had me hooked is Richard Mason's ability to tell a masterful tale, in an engaging, entertaining manner that evokes a distinctive sense of a specific time, and to share his experience of an exotic era that will not return.

Wanchai as I know it today, is probably not that different from the Wanchai of Suzie Wong's story. The Chinese girls in silk cheongsams have been replaced by Thai girls in barely-there cheap miniskirts and plastic go-go boots. Business is not restricted solely to sailors whose ships dock for the week. And on digging around a bit, I realise that the Nam Kok hotel where all the action takes place in the novel, is based on what is today the Luk Kwok hotel, which is in fact a rather smart, boutique hotel which has never been host to the 'yum-yum girls' or their trade. Either today or in the 50s.

I found that the book had been made into a hit Hollywood movie in 1960, though upon reading the plot I realised I don't want to see it. The images of Suzie and Robert, the protagonist on the DVD cover are not the images I have in my head as I read their story. Suzie Wong is one of those amazing ageless characters. Funny, intelligent, vulnerable and so absolutely human that you want to slap her when she does something stupid and cheer her on, as she makes hesitant attempts to break taboo.

The book was first released in 1957 and was apparently a huge success. Richard Mason died in 1997 and never really wrote anything this successful after "The world of Suzie Wong". He reportedly said he didn't have any good stories left to tell! Penguin recently re-released the book and that's how I found it in Hong Kong airport 2 weeks ago. If you live in Hong Kong, have ever been to Hong Kong, or just love a good story, I recommend it highly.

Here's a preview from Amazon.