3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (THE FINALE)

THE ACTUAL FINALE

Part 1 in case you are absolutely new to this story.

Part 5.75 if you missed the last one.

I specifically wanted to have one separate blog post for the disrespect that is about to ensue, targeted towards the old hag of a bitch and the posterchild of people who should not reproduce to prevent further contamination of the human species who was more or less the reason for my 2-year ordeal in the first place. In case God didn’t reserve a special place in hell for this devil of a punyeta who was so desperately trying to put me in jail, who put me through the most miserable time in my life, the least I could do is dedicate a special place on the Internet for her where I essentially trauma-dump and curse this bitch out in the worst of ways. It is extremely important to know that I was raised by my mother mostly and I have the utmost respect for women but yo, this sociopathic bitch is much closer to a hyena in species than a woman. The disrespect will be unparalleled in this blog post, so reader discretion is advised. 

I get called to the stand. It is extremely nerve-wracking for a man with crippling anxiety to be in such a quiet room to begin with, but not only is this room a fucking courtroom, everybody is gathered there essentially for me and my case, so best believe I am quite literally shaking. Ms. Ho says “State your name for the courtroom please” and now begins the most terrifying set of my life. “Yuri Tomiyama.” I resist the urge to continue with “Hollywood Road Jap Boy Southside Kyushu all day” and rep the gang but this is neither the time nor place for that, but jesus my voice sounded so shaky on the microphone I felt like I had to say some hard shit to compensate. Like the others, I was asked my religion to which I wanted to reply Hinduism just to see what would happen but I had to set my ADHD aside and reply none and the trial continued. Honestly though my part of the trial was quite boring because all I had to do was tell the truth. The cute little prosecution lawyer girl who I wanna cook yakitori for and my lawyer, Mr. Hunter take turns asking me questions of the night and I really just answered them as is. The only part that I choked on was when the prosecution asked “Were you angry at the time of the incident, and if you were not being held back what do you think would have happened” and you see, prosecution lawyers are slippery like that because even though you didn’t do it, they try to paint a character of you for the judge that it could have happened outside the scope of the camera and I wasn’t expecting such a question so I stuttered and I paused for like 10 seconds to find the right words as my boner for this girl subsided and I could see Mr. Hunter’s look of concern from my peripheral because I definitely fucked this question up but I managed to end it with “Yes I was angry, who wouldn’t be after being cursed out at and threatened for 10 minutes, but as you can see from the camera I never leave the frame so no, I wasn’t capable of doing the crimes I’m being accused of.” I felt hurt, betrayed. The devil sends the cute ones to do his work. I won’t dwell too much on my part of the trial because it was the most straightforward part in the whole ordeal - except for the fact that it was so fucking subzero cold in the courtroom it made me wanna piss real badly and I can say with confidence that if my queen Judge Ho did not call for a recess after my part of the trial, I for surely would have pissed myself in that ice skating rink and I’m pretty sure that’s some sort of felony. I DEFINITELY did not want to be the “Ay what you in here for?” “I pissed myself at trial” head ass mf like there is literally NO coming back from that LOL.

In terms of order, this horrid abomination of failed botox was next, but I will reserve that spot for last, so for writing’s sake I will talk about Manny’s turn on the stand first. Anybody that knows Manny will know that him just being in a courtroom is hilarious as fuck, and you can’t take either one of us anywhere because of our combined chaos and our severe inability to take anything seriously. Keep in mind, Manny got a big afro, is half Nigerian and half Cantonese with Canto being his first language, and is THE most Chinese man I’ve ever met in my life. I would not be surprised if I was walking by a park one day and this mf just out here doing tai chi with aunties to Chinese folk music blaring out a radio with the antenna on it. Like I literally would be like “Yeah he probably do this all the time” and keep it movin’. Won’t even say hi because I don’t wanna fuck up his third eye zen shit. Like Manny has taken us to the MOST underground restaurants in Sham Shui Po where he somehow is best friends with the 70-year old uncle and can get off-menu shit in a restaurant with no menus. But yeah, that’s my bossman and my brother from Ozu so you know we both some demons and here we are, in the courtroom together, the all-star players for the Ozu Degenerates, the Hollywood Road Hoodrats. Manny walks in with his lil’ tie and like I said, it is impossible to take any of this shit seriously with him in the equation so we immediately meet eyes and crack a smile just laughing at ourselves and the situation that we in. 

Judge Ho goes “May I please call upon defence witness Leung, Sai Ho to the stand” and it’s already fucking hilarious because that’s Manny’s government name, and everybody is dumbfounded, looking around for a Chinese dude and wondering who this big black dude with a fro is and I’m just dying laughing on the courtroom bench while everyone is confusedly staring at him and their papers wondering who the hell this guy is. The courtroom was absolutely intrigued with Manny to say the least. The intro alone went something like this:

“Are you…. Leung Sai Ho?”

“Yes”

“Leung, Sai Ho, is that your real name?” 

“Yes your honour.”

“Are you from Hong Kong?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you have a Chinese name?”

“My dad was Chinese. My mama is Nigerian.” 

“Lei sik mm sik gong guangdongwaah?”

“Hai, sik gong.”

“..Wah” 

The whole courtroom is absolutely impressed by Manny and I’m still in my corner on the bench dying laughing as this man is being examined like a rare breed of an endangered species but it’s good because the crowd is into it. Once they got over the fact that Manny is both Chris Tucker AND Jackie Chan, his part of the trial was also pretty straightforward - end of the day all him and I had to do was tell the truth, in detail. The video footage was brought up and again, he was asked to identify himself on camera and it went something like this.

“Can you identify yourself in this video?”

“Yee. That’s me in the bottom left corner, with the uh.. big hair.”

“Alright… And what were you doing at the time of incident, you would say?”

“I was uh.. As you can see uh… I was talking to some girls, you know, entertaining customers”

I don’t know what it is but with us everything is funny and for some reason this mf sounds so sheepishly guilty that he’s talking to these girls on camera so I’m on my bench stifling a laugh the whole time but again, it is good that he is my witness because he indeed was in between me and the vIcTIm the whole time and it was definitely impossible for me to make any further contact. Rush Hour 4 finishes his testimony without anything out the ordinary happening, he walks out the courtroom as I dap him up cuz that’s family for life and, as I mentioned earlier Manny was actually the last to testify so he waited for me outside the courtroom and as soon as I came out we met eyes and he didn’t talk about the case, he didn’t talk about the verdict, he didn’t talk about his time on the stand,  he doesn’t even ask me if I beat it, instead he goes….

“so……. that prosecution lawyer girl kinda cute huh?” LOOOOOOL I KNEW THIS MF AIN’T SHIT HAHAHAH.

Ok. So. My hate letter for this demonic excuse of a human is about to commence. I’m not even going to lie to you, my hands are shaking from anger just reliving this moment, at the absolute horror that such a vile creature is allowed to exist in this world, that such sociopathic behaviour is sometimes actually rewarded while they get to go on living their pathetic lives where their life is as meaningless as a protective case for the Nokia 3310. I don’t think I’m allowed to post her name here but she has the nerve to have the word ‘Angel’ in it and I almost vomited in my mouth again just thinking about it that someone can disappoint their parents so badly to become something on the opposite end of the spectrum. From here on out I will not be referring to this bitch as A, but variants of absolute disrespect. 

Did you know the word oyakodon 親子丼 literally means, parent and child donburi? Kinda gruesome if you think about the fact that it's chicken and egg on rice where it's a dead family reunion in a bowl. Once you get past that morbid fact, it makes for a great comfort food and yo the shit is so easy to make and quite healthy also, packed with protein so it’s a great guilt-free pleasure for those people that drink vodka sodas only and go to the gym to offset their cocaine use. Aight so boom, here’s a simplified recipe because don’t nobody got time to steep konbu and katsuobushi in water overnight to make dashi we ain’t Japanese like that so start off with those trusty katsuobushi packs from Donki or wherever then superman that ho in the microwave for about 40 seconds and crush it up with your hands to create that powder like you may have done last time with my yakisoba recipe. Try your best not to snort this powder, chop up like half an onion in slightly bigger chunks (you can also substitute this with thinly sliced leek, I feel like onion adds more natural umami and sweetness though) and dice up your chicken thigh in bite-sized chunks and sprinkle a bit of sugar (yes sugar) on it  and around 2 tbsp of soy sauce and rub it in like that one time your girl was wrong and you were right oh btw here’s a tip in case you’re slightly new to the kitchen cut all your veg first before the meat so you don’t gotta wash your chopping board twice or risk getting cinderella. So the sugar makes sure the chicken doesn’t dry out and the soy sauce adds a bit of an undertone to the flavour. Obviously you can use chicken breast but I have given up on my summer body 2028 so we using thigh and cook that skin down until. again, the meat got that nice Timberland colour and you hear Jadakiss and Fat Joe in the background then toss in your onions and let that cook in the chicken oil for a little bit. Make your shiru, or your oyakodon stock which is that katsuobushi powder, 2 tbsp water, about 2 and half tbsp of mirin, and half of the amount of mirin for soy sauce and see if you fw the taste, adjust accordingly. Turn the heat OFF and then fo shizzle drizzle this stock into the pan and sprinkle some Uncle Roger, yes MSG, the cocaine of cooking, the Make Shit Good to add umami. Turn your heat on low and I always said cooking with induction is like cooking with a condom on but that’s what I will have to use and then stew this mixture til the onions get nice and soft and the flavours infuse and then lightly beat two eggs like your favourite child committed a misdemeanour but not a felony and then drizzle half of it in a circular motion to cover the chicken and onions. Simmer on low heat for like a minute? And it should be a nice hanjuku, half cooked state then drizzle the other half of your lightly disciplined eggs and then cook on low heat for like a minute. Don’t give me no shit about wow that’s so much cholesterol cuz maybe if your only form of exercise wasn’t jumping to conclusions then you could have two eggs in one day. Some people like their eggs fully cooked but I like em runny so totally up to you and then for garnish it’s usually a mitsuba which is like a 3 leaf vegetable but this probably not so accessible so just chop up your trusty spring onion or even garnish with coriander and then manoeuvre this dead family over a steaming hot bowl of rice. Goes great with Yardbird shichimi or Flagrant Hot Sauce actually, no I am not getting paid to promote us but it is a fact. JUST A NOTE if you are cooking to impress your crush on IG again this is NOT the dish because it looks like something you would see on the floor in the wee morning hours in Wan Chai but TRUST ME it is fire and is a very comforting and hearty dish.

So this bitch walks in looking like both the before and after picture of a chin surgery and sits down on the stand. The chair screams. When Chinsanity is asked if she has a religion she wishes to swear upon before she testifies, this bitch obviously replies no because her only belief in life is that 5G is giving her headaches, and then she’s proceeded to be asked the non-religious version of the “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” To which she replies in perfect English, I do, and the judge continues to ask informal questions such as her name and occupation to which she replies in perfect, CANADIAN English, and then finally when she’s asked what language she wishes to conduct the rest of the trial in, she notices that my lawyer is an old white guy….. AND DECIDES ON CANTONESE!!!!! DO YOU NOW SEE WHY I HATE THIS CONNIVING PIECE OF SHIT MORE THAN THE ACTUAL GUY!? Not only would this NOT even be a thing in the first place if she didn’t freak out over her dick appointment gone wrong when he tries to fight a whole bar but NOW YOU’RE TRYING TO LIE UNDER OATH IN A LANGUAGE MY LAWYER DOESN’T UNDERSTAND!? You bilingual fucking heathen, I can tell by the way you talk you have your eggs frozen in some dusty ass fridge next to the peas carrots and corn veggie mix PLEASE DO NOT REPRODUCE you sociopath fuck I pray to God that a wire trips and your freezer stops working overnight so you lose all potential of offspring so the world will be a better place. No amount of makeup can cover the absolute filth of a human being this bitch is but judging by the red velvet cupcake on her fucking face she damn sure is trying smh bitch got a whole bakery on her visage. I can feel my blood pressure going up as I type this, it was actually sickening. Like just how badly does this bag of shit want me in jail when LITERALLY all the evidence says I’m innocent? EVEN THE JUDGE had the raised eyebrow look like oh? Proceed. 

Anywhooo the prosecutie who has slightly betrayed me starts asking the Cake Boss questions first in Cantonese and from the bits of Canto that I understand, I knew a few things were certain:

1. Houseplants die around her

2. She peaked in grade 7 when she played the triangle as an instrument

3. Sephora need to choose a new colour for her foundation cuz yuck

4. She has a face for radio and a voice for subtitles

5. Before she goes to sleep at night, she prays to her God, Amber Heard.

6. She is absolutely playing the victim and trying to paint me as the criminal because she is describing how the night went down in her delulu space between her ears that she has the audacity to call a brain.

My blood is boiling because she keeps looking towards and pointing at me as she gives her statement and I can genuinely say that she seemed to be enjoying this moment being up on the stand, all eyes on her, basking in her pathetic version of 15 minutes of fame where she doesn’t have to think about the fact that menopause is about to kick in her door waving the .44. Does she realise that if I’m actually convicted for something I didn’t do that it will affect my life… forever? Does she realise the magnitude of fuckery she is pulling, literally lying on the stand… and for what? For justice? If justice existed her plastic surgeon would be serving life rn don’t take that shit out on me? Is she just upset that Kim Kardashian doesn’t reply to her “Can you please follow me back I’m a huge fan” DMs? Do you have any idea how embarrassing and… scary it is to get arrested in the airport in front of everybody you just shared a plane ride with? Yeah I was fucking scared. I have never been so scared in my fucking life because they said I fled the country which is a whole different charge and I thought I was about to do the time… without even doing the fucking crime! At least if I did it I could live with it but this was a whole different story. To this day I get PTSD every time I’m at immigration, heart racing like crazy. That’s what the fuck I have to live with. Keep in mind, this trial is on my fucking BIRTHDAY. This bitch really think she the main character up there on the stand but what she needs to do is consult a ouija board and try to communicate with all the dead skin cells on her face and beg them to come back because my god, her soul is so evil it’s deforming her face. Skin follicles if you are here in this room with us give us a sign.

Video footage is pulled up again, but of course they skip past the parts where she is trying to restrain her fucking manchild, skip past all the parts where he is cursing us out and threatening us, directly to the part where I shove him out of Ozu and this horrid, dreadful bitch made it seem like it was the most violent and aggressive thing to ever get caught on camera but that’s a lie because her denim skirt had holes in them that night and she’s definitely in her late 40s and in Cantonese I can hear her saying how I was the instigator and how she had to shout for us to stop like her man wasn’t tryna come at us and being restrained in the process and then getting his shirt ripped but only on the nipple area so that’s indecent exposure ho. It’s my lawyer Mr. Hunter’s turn to cross examine this heinous walking haram of the lowest form and of course, she made it difficult by doing the whole thing in Cantonese to try and one-up my poor Scottish mans. So he’s asking the questions in English, and she’s replying in Cantonese while a translator translates and even the judge is clearly disgusted because there are moments when he will ask the question and she will start replying in Cantonese without waiting for the translation or even accidentally replying in her perfect English and then catching herself and switching to Canto. Sometimes would even have the nerve to flash a smirk like oops I forgot I need to manipulate the situation and make it hard for this white lawyer. Absolutely horrific behaviour. I don’t even have a punchline for this. I really think she is a human of the lowest form and if she was in a burning building and all I had to do was give a small itty-bitty morsel of a fuck to save her with literally 0.1% of empathy required…. I would not give a SINGLE. FLYING. FUCK. Here’s how some of the cross-examination went with Mr. Hunter. 

“So, Ms. A, according to you the defendant banged your partner’s head on the metal gate a total of 4 times correct?”

“Ye-….. I mean, hai” *continues in Cantonese

“Ok, very well. Can we pull up the video footage and you can pinpoint exactly when the defendant does so?”

We are rewatching the video like 2 or 3 times and again, this fucking parasite of a hag is struggling just like her man because, again, I DIDN’T FUCKING DO IT but like her man, finds that ONE second where I fully disappear from the frame and she goes “There.”

“But Ms. A, he is only out of the frame for one second then he’s right back, look that’s his arm being held back.”

“4 seconds. Um I mean *continues in Cantonese*” fucking bitch.

“4 seconds? You count 4 seconds he is out of the frame?”

“Yes, uh, hai” Notice how the translator isn’t even translating now because even she probably thinks this is pointless. 

“Well… I guess some of us seem to count much faster than others” LOOOOOL 

Keep in mind the timestamps of the CCTV footage are in the bottom corner and OBJECTIVELY, it is actually 1 second that I am gone from the screen. Like it is an actual fact but this bitch is somehow telling the judge and is convinced that I am gone for 4 seconds and that is more than enough time to do what I allegedly did. Judge Ho isn’t saying anything and I’m praying she’s just as disgusted as I am because I’m not even anxious anymore, the nervousness was just fully replaced with nauseousness of having to share the same air molecules as this failed genetic experiment. People were laughing and making jokes for the Amber Heard - Johnny Depp trial. I was not. I was actually brought back to a very dark place.Those two are cut from the same monster, shameless, pathological liars, the type to swear on their family and lie and feel no types of way, the ones who can actually fake tears on cue but have trouble hiding their evil smiles. Just straight evil. I know some dangerous people and some absolute fuckups but I feel like nothing topped the soullessness of this woman. The rest of her cross-examination went more or less in the same way, with Mr. Hunter finding it hard to have the same impact as earlier because everything kept having to be translated. Basically she was telling the absolute twisted version of the story, of how I snapped out of nowhere, fucked this guy up, made him bleed then fled the scene….. but you literally see me on camera going back into Ozu to close the bar because I didn’t do jack shit. Judge Ho actually didn’t say too much during her cross-examination probably because she could see right through this fucking psychopath and Mr. Hunter held it down nevertheless by bringing up hard facts that she of course tried to deny, like the part where she’s literally trying to hold him back. Of course my Hunter brought that footage up and it went something like this:

“But Ms. A, if your boyfriend wasn’t exhibiting threatening behaviour why do you have to be restraining him?”

“I wasn’t restraining h- .. *continues in Cantonese*”

Translator: “She is saying that it was out of affection and that she was tired and wanted to go home.”

Or this one:

“Ms. A, you know what’s funny is that we had your boyfriend in here a few hours ago”

“I know.”

“And he said the defendant banged his head on the floor, not the metal gate”

“No, the gate. For sure the gate.”

“But he didn’t say that.”

“I saw. Maybe he got hit so hard he forgot.”

“But if that was the case the defendant would have had to be real close to him. Your boyfriend couldn’t even identify him in the police lineup.”

“Yes but I did. The gate, for sure.”

Like……what????? Not only did she forget to put on the Canto front from time to time but every FACT was denied. The whole part of her trial I had the biggest stank face on over her outlandish performance of buffoonery. Like it was actually incredible, the lies she told and the way she tried to throw off Mr. Hunter. Finally after a blood-boiling hour where we just witnessed a witness lie and not get struck by lightning there were no further questions and again, everybody has to walk past me when they leave the courtroom and I’m a petty Scorpio so while she’s walking towards me I look her dead in the eye and I mouth the vilest Fuck. You. I have ever mouthed and wished nothing but misfortune and skin infections and failed chin grafts and bed bugs on this piece of shit. That was the last time I ever saw her and I hope she is doing horribly in life, I hope one of my scammer homies digitally robbed her 401k which made her put her life savings in Bitcoin but it plummeted so she’s down bad I hope she had to pawn all her jewellery and the shop only gave her 20% of what it’s actually worth, I hope that if she has kids they seenzone her Merry Christmas texts and if she doesn’t have kids I pray the frozen sperm from a nonathletic and unintelligent donor in the freezer will melt. I pray she doesn’t get any inheritance from her parents because their will specifically said not to give her shit I pray that her and her dickhead who put me through all this go through nothing but failure in all departments of life, I pray their property gets water damage and they don’t have insurance, I pray for mold on their walls. mosquitoes in the winter and cockroaches in their cereal god I fucking hate them so much. ‘Llow me this my friends because after I finally post this and finish this story I’m letting this shit go, for me. 

Mr. Hunter says his closing statements which was backed both by facts and video evidence, and of course, the prosecutie has to give a closing statement too and it’s kinda obvious that they don’t really got nothing because the power in the statements are super lopsided. It was like the 96 Bulls vs. the Guangdong Tigers. A lot of the facts are summarised and repeated, nothing new and I thought our arguments were super strong and that the judge would give the verdict on that day because I was CLEARLY not guilty but… my verdict and verdict only got adjourned to November 10th. Yeah. I was heartbroken because when I left the house that day I was doing that positive imagery shit in my head and I was about to beat my case then go home to take a nap and then celebrate my birthday but none of that happened. I actually went straight back to Yardbird to work my shift and…. let’s just say it wasn’t a great birthday for several reasons lol. The upside is, the prosecutie gave me a smile and I told her thank you and sorry for the trouble and she seemed pretty chill, and seemed convinced that I didn’t do it so that was nice. Happy birthday to me.

November 10th finally comes around and again, I’m dressed in a suit because if for some reason I don’t beat this case at least I’ll get locked up in style and my verdict will be in some offbrand courtroom way up on like the 10th floor or some shit. I think the verdict was like 2pm which is fucking phenomenal because nobody wanna go to jail in the morning cuz then that means you got a whole day of jail ahead of you and that day I woke up, just in case, I made sure somebody had my key so my cat would be taken care of if the worst case scenario happens. Manny doesn’t have to be there but he chooses to be and I was PRAYING that the two C-U-Next Tuesdays would be there too so when I beat the case I could full on curse them the FUCK out which I was dying to do but those two poisonous cyanide filled peas in a pod edamame fucks don’t show up so it’s me, Mr. Hunter, and Manny waiting in the courtroom while people slowly start filing in. The atmosphere is…. friendly with Mr. Hunter and the prosecutie chatting and making jokes, Manny patting my back like “You gon be a free man after this Yuri-san”, and he’s also chatting with some of the people in Canto and they are still shook that his Canto is perfect and I’m cracking up; good vibes. And the judge walks in and gets right to it….

“After careful consideration and reading both the prosecution and the defence’s testimonies I have come to the conclusion… that defendant Yuri Tomiyama, charged with one count of assault occasioning bodily harm at #1 Hollywood Road, Ozu Bar, on October 23rd at exactly 11:57PM is NOT GUILTY-“

I didn’t even hear the rest of what Judge Ho said cuz my mind just went blank. I actually teared up from relief. I can hear Manny from behind me like “I toooold you Yuri saaaan let’s go drink.” Mr. Hunter turns around in his seat and gives me a thumbs up. Looking like a successful frog. The judge is about to leave after saying all charges against me will be dropped and I can see a small smile on her face seeing how much this shit meant to me. My auntie crush meter is dinging. I hope that queen is doing well. I hope her loving husband gives her foot rubs and listens to her problems intently and they celebrate their anniversary together every year. I hope her kids don’t ever have to see the inside of a courtroom except for Take Your Kid to Work Day. I hope she is on holiday right now drinking mimosas on a beach with soft white sand, with her phone on DND because you deserve a break from crime boo. Free the mandem tho. “All rise.” I stand up and then I give her the most respectful Japanese bow I have ever dropped. Oh man, the relief I felt. 2 years of mental anguish, of jail cells, police check-ins, a lineup, getting arrested at the airport, court dates, lawyer fees, finally done. Over with. I can’t tell you in words how happy I felt that day. I really can’t.

Me and Manny did go day drinking before my shift at Yardbird that day. And sorry but the story got kinda unfunny towards the end just because it… really was not a funny time waiting for my verdict. I swear I started writing this story like 2 years ago so if you actually made it this far then thank you for reading. A lot of you guys constantly ask about my blog and it does mean a lot. I don’t know what the moral of the story is. Yeah it sounds funny but it was a very dark time in my life, even darker because the people who were supposed to be there for me were not. But I will finish this story with this one last highlight from that day at Eastern Magistrates Court. After the verdict is done, I shake hands with Mr. Hunter and tell him thank you for everything, for teaching me the word ‘gesticulating,’ and drop him my number and told him dinner at Yardbird is on me. I think he appreciated that quite a lot. We are sent back to the duty lawyer’s office where, my now friends, Mr. Chan and Auntie Elaine have already heard about me beating my case and are congratulating me. Well Mr. Chan is, Auntie Elaine just has a stern but tiny smile on her face but doesn’t say much, just “Ok. Good.” I say my goodbyes which was a little emotional because these people helped me out in the system and they were genuinely good people giving legal representation to people who couldn’t afford it. I am told to go collect my bail money that is owed to me at the office so me and Manny walk there and I hand in my paper but the office lady says… “That’s your court sheet, not the bail sheet. If you want your money you need to get your bail sheet.” I honestly have no clue where I kept it. I’m like flipping through my wallet and my papers but it’s not there, and I’m tryna plead my case like hey come on, I just beat my charge and I got the papers, can I just get my $500 back and then she says I can get a new bail sheet processed but that I will have to come back another day to get my money…. And then I look at her…. I look at Manny…. And then I laugh and say

“Y’ALL CAN KEEP THAT LIL 500 DOLLARS, I AIN’T EVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN!!!!!”

The End.

3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (Part 5.75)

In case you are not caught up at at all on my shenanigins: Part 1 | Part 5.5

Has anybody had a panic attack? Like a real one where you actually think, oh fuck, this is it, I’m just gonna die right here and you actually feel prickly pins and needles from your brain down to your spine and you feel like you need to text your mom you love her and that you’re sorry you didn’t call as much? Ok too deep for this blog so let me translate into my fuckery. To someone who hasn’t had a panic attack, it’s like being in the back of a red minibus and the driver is clearly a triad, because.. well, he has a fucking dragon tattoo from the 80s on his arm that’s so old it’s turning green and you yell “yau lok” to get off at your next stop but he doesn’t raise his hand so now you’re just there sweating wondering if he heard you and if you should say it again and potentially get yelled at or just trust the process. The amount of times I trusted the process and ended up in neighbourhoods that I had no business being in like what the fuck am I doing in Shun Lee. This lizard looking mf is still smirking as this man Mr. Hunter is shuffling so much paper I thought we was back to running poker with two decks in our TST house. His 3-piece suit no longer looks sharp, no longer looks dressed to kill. It’s starting to look more like that middle-aged Japanese salaryman mf you find in the bushes on the way to Shinjuku station. I forgot to mention that before the trial began, Mr. Hunter gave me a pen and a notebook to pass him notes in case of an absolute emergency and just when I was about to write “Palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy” he lets out a soft “aha.” He realises that he mixed up the timestamps on the actual .mp4 video file with the realtime that shit went down. “Sorry your honour for the delay, may I proceed?” The judge, Ms. Ho sighs and says, “Yes, proceed.” 

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MAN I ALMOST DIED OVER HERE BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T USE A POST-IT NOTE. OR AN IPAD. To be fair he looks like he would struggle with touch screen technology. You know how moms type with their index finger. Even the judge seems relieved. Ok it’s back to business. Fucking gametime, game 7, 4th quarter. He finally finds the right timestamp and lo and behold, it’s LL Fool J in Ozu on that fateful night. Mr. Hunter starts the video footage from the top, upon his entry, as he narrates. Keep in mind, he has the thickest Scottish accent. This dumb mf walks in with his bitch, fist pumping to hip-hop music as if it’s techno which is already 5-10 years with no parole. “Aha. You see? Wild dancing and waving of the arrrrms. Clearrr signs of intoxication.” I snorted to cover up a laugh. I need this guy to narrate my life. We watch him continue on with his tomfoolery, clearly drunk cuz he’s everywhere. “Aha! A stumble, have you not?” Bro what? This mf seems so proud he finally found the right timestamp and is chattin’ baaaare shit now. The video footage continues, now it’s at the part where he’s putting his arm around some stranger he just met and he clearly doesn’t like this new PDA from this slithery snakeskin mf. “Aha, upon my gander, it seems to me that they are not acquaintances at all and seems rather uncomfortable with his drunken behavior.” Ok relax there Gandalf you’re getting a bit too much with the vernacular. We get to the part where I’m taking the order for their drinks and I lean in to talk to his bitchass bitch (sorry I’m running out of disrespectful things to say about this ho. Respectfully.) to ask if she was okay because she looked like he was bothering her and he goes “Aha, my client showing compassion as he fears for the wellbeing of this young female patron.” Idk about young cuz she a banshee hag, respectfully, but ya go off then Frodo. He fast forwards a bit to the moment of truth where shit starts to go down. Joanna mixes up the credit cards by accident and after that it’s 3-4 minutes of footage of this guy taunting her, waving his arms around threateningly, pointing fingers at my face, chatting shit to Roberto. “Your honour, you see this man is clearly gesticulating belligerently at the staff.”

Hold the flying fuck up did this man just slide a 5-syllable verb and a 5 syllable adverb in the same mf sentence in the courtroom? This is HIS shit now. HE is the captain now. That suit looking crispy again, freshly ironed after a bender at 42. This mf woke up from the bushes, went home to shower, drank some Pocari Sweat and came back a new man. I immediately forgave him for the heart attack he put me through 6 minutes ago. 

You can’t go to a Japanese outdoor festival without coming across some form of yakisoba and trust me there’s a reason why it’s such a popular dish. You ever walk into a Park N Shop or a Taste or something and see those yakisoba packs sitting next to the tofu but think to yourself, nah I can never make it as good as the yatai or a restaurant and keep your cart moving but yo, you can because your boy here about to give you the scoop. Of course, if you wanna go the whole 9 yards and recreate it just like in Japan or you wanna flex your mediocre cooking on IG in hopes of that person you like DMing you “wow that looks so good” to reply with “I'll make it for you” followed up with “Seen at 8:36PM” then you can go to Donki to get aonori (dry seaweed powder) and benishouga (red ginger pickles) because they add a nice colour which makes for a better picture but honestly speaking, you can do without and it will still taste delectable. Aight so boom, this part is not a must but definitely adds a fuckload more umami to your dish - get yourself some katsuobushi packs from Donki or your nearest Jap store btw I learned recently that Jap is a racial slur lol well then I guess I need to stop using the word and calling myself Jap Boy also known on the streets as Leonardo DiJaprio or Kylian Mjappé. So katsuobushi is when the Jap weirdos decided one day to dry out the fish called bonito….then shave it for some reason on some weird fetish shit and they somehow came up with the greatest shit ever which became 1 of 3 ingredients of dashi - the mother stock of Jap cooking. So get yourself some katsuobushi packets (they’re actually not that expensive), get you a leek, some bean sprouts, some pork belly, and these yakisoba packs and everything else you should already have in your pantry and if you don’t then step your game the fuck up how are you in your 30s without soy sauce. Absolutely no soy sauce will be used in this recipe. Make sure you close the elevator door on your neighbour running to catch it, get home, and open up a pack of this shaved fish into a bowl and throw that ho in the microwave for like 30 seconds. When you take it out the microwave these flakes should be moving on its own on some Paranormal Japtivity type shit like oh gosh you scared the Jap out of me now use your fingers to kinda crumple these things up until it becomes a powder. Open up one of these yakisoba packs and there should be some brown powder in a packet. Take this felonious dimebag of heroin and mix it in with the now-powdered katsuobushi and add like a tablespoon of sake, about half a tablespoon of mirin, a bit of oyster sauce, black pepper and a tiny bit of curry powder. You should be left with your sauce base and feel free to adjust according to your taste but that’s the gist of it - I’ve added a bit of sugar in the past too and it ends up a bit more sweet and savoury which I’m sure your third child from your third baby mama would like - but a lot of people don’t fuck with sweet so ya. Chop up some leek, figure out how to store the rest of this monstrosity of a vegetable in your fridge, chop up some garlic - and I didn’t mention this before but most typical recipes have cabbage and carrot too but honestly I don’t got the time to juliana some fucking carrots so you don’t either let’s keep it moving, and then you don’t even have to get your chopping board dirty cuz you can just hand pull the pork belly into pieces. Typical recipe here will use lard but I’m tryna get in shape for summer 2028 so I put some sesame oil into a pan and make sure you heat that bitch up nice and hot before you throw your noodles in because if not the oil will seep into the noodles and make it soggy which is a crime in Japan equivalent to jaywalking and then just cook the noodles, only the noodles. No need to loosen them up but you actually wanna burn it a bit because the char adds umami. Once both sides are golden brown like some Timberlands take the noodles out one time and leave it on the side like the person who you quite like but you just can’t get over how their Ice Bucket Challenge only got 3 likes back in 2014 then throw in your leek and garlic and again, char it a little bit then toss in your pork belly, salt and pepper accordingly. Allow the side piece noodles to re-enter the main stage of your life then add the narcotic mixture brown sauce and cook everything together. At this point, your kitchen should smell like a dope house because trust me you are currently cooking some absolute CRACK (I been to a crackhouse before btw it is hard to breathe 10/10 would not recommend just wait til I write a Yelp review) and then get your finesse on and do some stir fry pan tricks to make sure the sauce is distributed evenly and fairly like communism. (lol) Bean sprouts cook fast as fuck so you can just toss them bitches in for like the last minute because I like to keep the crisp texture btw try asking a Cantonese man to pronounce the word crisp they keep saying crips it’s hilarious cuh and then this last part is total preference. Some people will prefer an egg sunny side up here with some extra black pepper relinquished on top but I like to make a thin omelette to warmly embrace the noodles underneath then drizzle kewpie mayo and okonomiyaki sauce from a height creating a mess in the kitchen but I understand not everybody got these in the pantry (these are acceptable to not have, soy sauce is not). But yeah total preference. Sprinkle some aonori and garnish with benishouga if you actually went the extra mile to get these ingredients and yo, let me tell you, this will be in the top 2% percentile of best stir fried noodles you ever had and once you filter out this recipe by removing my fuckery analogies and shit, you will find out that it’s actually super easy to make and kinda hard to fuck up. Unless you’re one of those people who somehow manage to burn water then maybe stick to Uber Eats.

The footage is now showing this fuckface touching things on the bar to fuck with me while his witch from Left 4 Dead 2 is putting her arm out to try and stop him. Respectfully. Mr. Hunter has that smug look back on his face like Kobe after Matt Barnes tried fake throwing the ball at his face but that cold ass dude didn’t flinch one bit. Rest in Peace to the legend. “Aha, you see your honour? The need for restraint. Usually only occurs when one is the aggressor, is it not?” This man legit pushed his glasses up while raising an eyebrow as he said this. It’s over ladies and gentlemen. This mf is educating right now. Ain’t no fucking stopping The Hunter at this point. He probably practiced that eyebrow cockup in the mirror while synchronising it with the glasses lift. Mf think he Konan. It’s crazy because we then get to the part where even in the grainy footage, you can clearly see this guy mouth to Roberto “I’ll FUCK you up”. To which Mr. Hunter goes, “ehem, your honour, pardon my profanity, but if you look closely at his lips he clearly says “I’ll fuck you up” and I believe that is a direct threat where my client fears for the safety of his colleague.” This C U Next Tuesday is sitting in his chair with his eyebrows all scrunched like “I did not say zat” like shut the fuck up bro you got caught in 360p. I’m on the courtroom bench, nodding up and down like a proud dad watching his 3 year old son score on his own goal in soccer.  You think I feared for Roberto??? LOOOOL this mf LOVE to fight. But I sat there looking concerned like he’s my baby bird who I had to protect from the evil snakes of this world. We get to the part where I “assaulted” him, where I push the guy out of Ozu. “Alright your honour, I’m sure the prosecution (he stressed that word while giving the sassiest eyeroll to skinny Ne-Yo without a hat on) would argue that was assault but I believe my client felt the need to use a reeeeeasonable amount of force to remove the immediate threat upon the premises that he manages.” I have never heard “We had to get this stupid muthafucka out of this bitch asap” translated so eloquently. The footage of the outside scuffle ensues where again, most of the camera is conveniently covered by the fan. But thank FUCK because the whole time I never disappear fully from the frame and it’s clear I’m being held back; if I did what this nunce said I did, then my arms would literally have to extend to twice its length on some Incredibles shit. 

Mr. Hunter continues: “May I kindly ask… At what point in the video does my client assault you against the floor? The gate? Please state the timestamps for the courtroom.”

“Yes I would also like to know.” Judge Ho chimes in. We start watching the video, over and over again while Lord Voldemort is trying his absolute best to find a timestamp where I'm actually not in the frame. He finally finds a morsel of a second where my arm disappears for a tiny moment and he goes “Aha! Zis is when he assaulted me” but I'm right back in the frame the next second clearly being held back by Manny and even the judge goes “He's not out of the frame long enough” and that's when I developed a full auntie crush on Judge Ho because she was absolutely correct and we keep rewatching the video to no avail for this lying mf so in the end he just stammers “I don't know ze exact moment I was assaulted but I just know I was assaulted by zis man.” There's a Japanese proverb that goes “a drowning man will grab hay to try and float” and this mf was grabbing mad fucking hay I'll tell you that. My queen Ho just goes “Oh?” and ends it at that and now I'm sitting on the courtroom bench wondering if she likes younger men.

The Hunter starts with his concluding statement as he goes for the slam dunk. It ain’t verbatim obviously but the flow went something like this. “To conclude your honour, my client indeed possesses quite a tall stature. But considering the gate where the alleged assault took place is all the way over here, there is no possible way he could have extended his arm that far to commit said crime as you can see he is being held back by his colleague Manny. Moreover, although he does leave the frame for just one second, the prosecution is alleging that my client banged his head on the gate? The floor? Does he even know at this point? a total of……..foooour times? Ha.” This mf takes a moment to fucking chuckle in the middle of his closing statement. If that ain’t some gangsta shit I don’t fucking know what is. Ms. Ho is his ho rn. Nah jk I love her she is my queen. “Your honour, that’s just physically impossible in a span of one second, plain and simple. The prosecution will argue that the initial push makes my client the aggressor but based on the footage we saw just now your honour—it is clearrr who the rrreal aggressor is. I believe my client was wrongly accused of the crime he was charged with as he felt he used necessary force to remove the immediate threat upon his establishment for the safety of his colleagues and other patrons. Keep in mind your honour, many establishments especially during COVID could not afford security which means the staff must sometimes act as bouncers and what is the job of a bouncer you may ask? Is to throw people like this out for their intoxicated. Disruptive. Threatening. Behaviour. Needless to say we are amazed at how far this case has come as this just seems to be a classic case of a man’s damaged ego on a drunken night out and we ask you to drop all charges against my client immediately. Open to any questions your honour.”

Let me translate what he just said in short. “Bitch I know this mf tall for an Asian but you think his arms extend that far and fucked this guy up 4 times in ONE second? JET MUTHAFUCKIN LEE couldn’t do that shit. Is he fucking dumb dawg? He ain’t do nun, Ozu too broke for security so he the bartender AND security he had to do what he had to do this mf just salty that when he fell his shirt got ripped and his nipple was all out while his bitch watched boohoo cry me a river stop wasting the court's time and tata the fuck outta here. Free the mandem.” 

It's the prosecution's turn to now ask leading questions to this wanker to defend himself against the case the Hunter just crucified him with. The prosecution lawyer, the sorta cute one who I want handcuffing me and hitting my wrist with a ruler steps up. I swear I could see she let out a little sigh because I’m sure that even she knows that defending this clown is gonna be difficult like math when they decided to include the fucking greek alphabet in it and is probably about to ask for a raise after her shift. She rewinds the video to the part where this guy walks in fist pumping to hip-hop music which is punishable by death in the Bronx and proceeds to ask her first question. “At the time of the incident, were you in fact intoxicated?” He replies with a confused face like algebra just woke up one morning and decided to include Japanese hiragana in it too. “Intoxicated? No I was not intoxicated. We had ze dinner at around 7:00PM, then go to a few bars at around 9pm, then finished off at zis establishment.” Keep in mind, this shit popped off at 11:57PM so this dumb mf just confessed to pretty much being out and about for almost 5 hours. It’s actually incredible that they let this mf be the regional director of whatever the fuck it is that he does when he’s got the common sense of a wilted cauliflower. Mr. Hunter suddenly pipes up from his little corner:

“AND DID YOU PERHAPS HAVE ANY ALCOHOL WITH YOUR DINNER?” 

“Yes, yes I did.” 

“AND DID YOU PERHAPS CONTINUE TO DRINK THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT AS, YOU SAY, YOU WENT TO OTHER BARS PRIOR TO MY CLIENT’S? I KNOW THAT AT LEAST, BACK IN MY DAY ONCE I HAD ONE DRINK I WOULD HAVE ANOTHER, AND ANOTHER.” This shit is starting to feel like the most intense Alcoholics Anonymous meeting ever. I’m cheering Mr. Hunter on in my head like “YEE MR. HUNTER DROP YO HISTORY TALK TO EM ABOUT YO PAST LET EM KNOW YOU SEEN THE LIGHT!!!!” 

“Yes, perhaps I may have had a couple drinks.” 

“A COUPLE, YOU SAY? HOW MANY IS A COUPLE?”

I’m not even sure at this point if Mr. Hunter is supposed to be talking but the judge lets the shit slide and same with the prosecution because I don’t hear any “Objection your honour”s. 

“I would say about…. 8 or 9.”

“8 OR 9 THAT YOU REMEMBER, CORRECT? DO THESE INCLUDE SHOTS?” Jesus this man is really tallying up every droplet of alcohol this clown may or may not have had that night. In my head I’m thinking YEE MR. HUNTER GO FOR HIS THROAT FUCK HIM UP!!!

“I remember everything. I was not ze drunk at all.”

“NOT DRUNK YOU SAY? Your honour… if I may.” I mean he definitely already been speaking out of turn but now he’s asking for PERMISSION to continue speaking out of turn so I feel like he’s about to be on some savage shit. “Proceed.”

“HOW WOULD YOU EXPLAIN YOUR ACTIONS OF GESTICULATING AT MY CLIENT AND HIS COLLEAGUE, POINTING AT THEIR FACES. WHAT EXACTLY DID YOU TELL THEM?”

YEE MR. HUNTER THIS GUY WAS GESTICULATING LIKE A MF ALL NIGHT! ME AND BERTO FELT SAD HURT AND THREATENED!!!! TELL THESE MFS HOW WE FEEL!!! MEN GOT EMOTIONS TOO!!

There was a slight pause because clearly he doesn’t remember ever doing this shit and now he’s on the spot. “I was eh.. I was simply pointing at ze bottle that I wanted to purchase.” This was like the DUMBEST excuse I have ever heard and The Hunter capitalised like crazy.

“WAS THE BOTTLE THEIR FACE?” JEEEEESUS bro who let this mf out the trenches of Scotland!?!?!?

This guy is starting to look like the defendant now LOL how the turns have tabled and he’s increasingly getting angrier. “The bottle is behind zem I was simply pointing at ze bottle that I wanted! I was not drunk at all!!!” 

“SO ACCORDING TO YOU, MY CLIENT, COMPLETELY UNPROVOKED, CIRCLED THE BAR AND ASSAULTED YOU AND BANGED YOUR HEAD ON THE METAL GATE 4 TIMES oh by the way you said floor which contradicts your initial statement ehem haha OVER A SIMPLE CARD DISPUTE!?” 

Stop right there. Watch clip 1. And watch clip 2. At this point I’m 2 seconds away from getting up from my seat and shouting “TALK. TO. THIS. MUTHA. FUCKA.” while clapping with each syllable. This man just interrupted himself, ehemed himself and added in a chuckle and destroyed this whole man’s argument. This shit is so adrenaline rush I feel like giving the biggest dap to Mr. Hunter and chest bumping him in the middle of the courtroom like we just won the Eastern Magistrate Finals. I just wanna bring him to the Chungking Mansions so one of the homies can give him the N word pass. I just wanna introduce him to all my criminal friends to give him some business so his kids can have a better life. I wanna take him to Tony on Temple Street and get matching neck tattoos. I want him to speak at my wedding with Netflix providing subtitles because there is no way my mama would understand his accent.This man is CERTIFIED. 

“….Yes. I was paying for ze drink, I got frustrated because of ze cards, and before I know it this man is in front of me att-“

“No further questions your honour.”

Bro. Let me tell you how badly I wanted to just shout in that courtroom at Mr. Hunter’s absolute savagery. THAT’S RIGHT HE JUST CUT YA ASS OFF! NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BIIIITCH! SIT YA LYIN ASS DOWN AND CALL UPON YO BITCH SO WE CAN EMBARRASS HER NEXT! Respectfully. My mind was in absolute hypeman mode. The prosecution lady isn’t saying shit, she already knows at this point that she lost with this witness and now her job is to shake me up when I get called to the stand. This one is a lost cause, like that trust fund kid who wants to join a street gang and being sent to his room isn’t a harsh enough punishment anymore. 

The judge dismisses this lying ass piece of shit because even the prosecution doesn’t have anymore shit to say and I can tell he’s frustrated as fuck as he’s asked to leave the courtroom and again, he has to walk past me to leave and me being the absolute child that I am made sure he heard me say “The floor huh” as I let out a quiet mocking high pitched giggle because I’m immature and I’m a Scorpio and I want him to know that he has the IQ of a family pack of frozen dumplings.

“I will now like to call upon, defendant, Yuri Tomiyama to the witness stand.”

Aight here we go. Gametime. 

3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (Part 5.5)

PART 6 - TRIAL FORREAL

BIRTHDAYS WAS THE WORST DAYS

Well, well, well. Sorry to everybody that I promised this finale to back in 2023 when I was optimistic about my time management but better late as fuck than never right? Today, the substance in my body that is helping me write is not alcohol or date rape drug, but the absurd amount of caffeine that I consumed to power through work with a fever just to get sent home tweaking. Like I can smell the colour blue and do algebra in hieroglyphics right now. Do I really have a reason for why I haven’t had time to finish this blog, I honestly don’t know, but Yardbird has been busy as ever committing genocide on chicken and I also took up a job at a “coffee shop” called Rootdown on Sundays where all I do is not make coffee and consume tequila so I guess I been busy? Also been working on my first and most likely last album of my life before I start a blooming career in data entry. I’m tryna be the Lebron James of Microsoft Excel forreal, keyboard shortcuts and pivot tables. So yeah, here is the final part of my 3 arrests and trial and if you have no idea what I’m talking about then you can start from Part 1 here or you can deny yourself an entertaining glimpse into my brain and click the red x on your top left corner and go scroll 9gag for 9 hours. EDIT*** This part got kinda long so I’m sorry to blue ball you but this is part 5.5 LOL.

So if this waste of life wants war, we about to give him one. Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, this guy had the option to accept a bindover plea and let all this shit go but he rejected so I had to go to court for like the 7th time and wait in the courtroom having my charges read with a bunch of other half-a-star wanted level delinquents for the 7th time and then my trial date was officially set by the judge— and with my luck of course, of course. Friday, October 28th. My birthday is October 29th. Trust me when I say, that fucked me up in the head because I already have a bad history with my own birthday and it was deja vu with this one too that all I had to look forward to was literally my freedom on the line. But yo, positive thinking. In my head I was trying to positive imagery that day of me getting out a free man; telling the whole world that I beat my case, shots all around, babies being thrown, girls flocking to my side like “Happy birthday congratulations on beating your case I’m so happy for you I never realised you were cute btw can I please pay your taxes?”, Carrie Lam shaking my hand and begging me for my forgiveness, you get the point. Positive imagery, therapy shit. 

This was the end of August so it was 2 whole months until my actual trial and I feel like professional fighters gear up for their matches the same way I got ready for mine. My anxiety has always been peak and I knew it was going to be skyrocketing through the heavens on the actual day so everyday I did breathing exercises. Everyday I inflicted pain on this mf accusing me of these false charges in my head a million times. Trust me, the amount of times I pictured using a shrink gun on this mf and his lying ass bitch to turn them into ants then trapping them in a room full of guys having a Krump battle then enjoying watching them scream while they tried to avoid being stomped by size 13 Timberlands. I had one last meeting with my lawyer Mr. Hunter but this one was accompanied by defence witness #1 aka Manny which was somehow funny as fuck because, again, just picture me and Manny in any serious situation where you’re not supposed to laugh LOL. Nah really, just picture a 60+ year old Scottish lawyer, a black Chinese man, and a Japanese guy out on bail in the same room, it literally sounds like the beginning of a fantastic racist joke. We again, go over the video footage of that night but this time my lawyer is asking Manny to explain what’s happening as he would say it in the courtroom. Here’s how it sounded:

Mr. Hunter: “Can I confirm that’s you in the bottom left corner of the footage?”

Manny: “Hm?…..oh yee yee das me right there with the fro”

Mr. Hunter: “So at the time of the incident you were here, outside, talking to some females correct?”

Manny: “FEMALES!? oh. yee” *turning to me* “oh DAYUM was that Jess? I forgot I was talkin to her fine ass that night.”

For anybody that knows Manny and heard this in his voice, I know you dying laughing right now cuz you know I ain’t lying LOL. In all seriousness, this is the last meeting before the actual trial so we get everything down to the details, Manny knows exactly what to say no matter what question gets thrown his way in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, and probably Yoruba, and as for me, I actually didn’t do shit so all I had to do was tell the truth which I’ve been doing the whole time anyway. Me, Manny, and Mr. Hunter. We either the Avengers of Hollywood Road, or a United Colours of Benetton ad. We ready.

THE DAY

Why the fuck I gotta fight for my freedom so early in the morning? Why do girls ask you if you would still love them if they were a worm? Why do Japanese people mix up their Ls and Rs when they can somewhat pronounce both? What size and brand were the shoes that were thrown at President George W Bush at that press conference? I woke up with so many questions. No wonder people miss court and prefer to go to jail instead. Nah really though, the night before that I was still working my shift at Yardbird like how I always would cuz I’d rather my mind be occupied and I was scheduled to work on that day too so I’m pretty much going to be awake for 24+ hours on my birthday. Sometimes I feel like it’a s toxic Japanese trait to live life on difficult mode but then again I’m a difficult mf so I guess that explains. I have my final meal for the last time; half a duck fried rice from Yardbird as I prayed over my food to my God, Matt Abergel, I shine my shoes, do half a jumping jack so just a jack, get toothpaste on my suit, play with my cat one last time and explain to him that daddy gon’ come home a free man, and boom I’m off to Eastern Magistrates’ Court in a taxi looking like Ricky Tan Foot Soldier #3 from Rush Hour. I go up to the duty lawyer’s office again where Manny’s already there and I know he genuinely cares about this shit cuz it’s the first time in our then 8 years that I’ve seen him in a lil navy and yellow tie and it’s a wholesome moment. My lawyer Mr. Hunter is perched in his office wearing glasses so thick he can read a newspaper through the wall from the next room and we go over everything one last time until me and Manny are sent downstairs to the courtroom and lo and behold, the starting point guard for the Los Angeles Fakers, the guy who is falsely accusing me of aggravated assault along with his bitch, is sitting on the opposite seats as us. Is it a felony if I just type out their full government names? Just in case that it is, I will refer to the bald, Mauritian fuck who tripped on himself and banged his head as “C” along with anything disrespectful to describe somebody who would wake up in the morning everyday and look himself in the mirror and tell himself “YOU are the alpha male, YOU are NOT in the friendzone she’s just playing hard to get”. And his lying ass counterpart pretend-Canadian but local girl as “A” along with anything disrespectful along the lines of a woman going through a mid-life crisis who peaked in high school and feels the need to cause drama to deal with the fact that the highlight of her day is going home to a dildo at 48 years old and asking questions like “Is my helper allowed to have a livable wage” on the HK Expat Moms FB group. Like I said before, you are way too old to be wearing a denim mini-skirt with holes in em with blonde streaks in your hair, girl. Looking like Sadvril Lavigne. And then sitting on my side—the most pleasant reunion—Mr. Wong!!! The super kind detective who felt bad about arresting me and made sure I was alright in the precinct who had to come in on my trial date to be called upon as police witness. I was genuinely happy to see him and he was surprised af like “Wah you remember me?” and then proceeded to tell me in disbelief “Diu I can’t believe these on9 really pursue case for 2 year and we hav to come todei” like PREACH Mr. Wong TALK THAT TALK YOU AIN’T NEVER LIE. Just the fact that the fucking POLICE are sitting on my side should tell you everything you need to know about this case. Me, Manny, Mr. Wong are seated on one side while the benchwarmers of the Chicago Bullshit are seated on the other and you already know it’s going to be a lopsided win like the ending of You Got Served where our team be doing mad headspins and backflips while they’re stuck doing some sidestep shuffle. 

We’re finally called into the courtroom where I’m banished to a bench where I sit for most of the trial until I’m called up to the stand, and the first thing I think of is, what the fuck polar climate is this because I’m in 3 decent layers for a 25+ degree October in Hong Kong—a t-shirt, button-up shirt, and suit—and I am SHIVERING. It is definitely colder than the public courtroom; idk if we was in that bitch doing a trial or cryotherapy and if I was gonna come out with my skin glowing cuz what the actual fuck. Does Canada Goose make suits? Does the judge wear a wig with goose feather lining? Was that a penguin I just saw or some rent-a-lawyer in a G2000 suit? Can somebody dump a bucket of water on the floor so we can ice skate up in this bitch? I had so many questions. Anyway the trial was going to go in this order of 1) tHE cUSTomeR iS AlWAyS rIGht iM THe vICtIM head ass “C”, 2) myself, gangster on the mic but currently shaking from anxiety Yuri, 3) mid-life crisis Asian Professor Umbridge “A”, and then 4) Hollywood Road OG and has a high school crush on Jess, Manny. Jess is a made up name btw don’t be asking this man his business if you know him irl btw LOL. 

So here is the format of trial, at least for mine. I will be sat there for the whole time—each witness will come in separately and are not allowed to hear each other’s testimonies. Each time, my charge that I’m being accused of is read out loud in front of the whole courtroom, and then both the prosecution and the defence lawyer will ask the witness questions while the judge listens and makes her own judgment. Video tapes will be played and replayed constantly. My judge is Ms. Ho, a stern looking middle-aged lady who looked scary as fuck tbh and apparently her reputation is “strict, but most of the time fair.” I gulp every time she made eye contact with me with her piercing eyes, just looking for a reason to give me 40 to life over a bar fight that resulted in exactly 3 scratches. 

I genuinely feel like those frozen udon packs are underrated so here’s how to make a super fast and cheap Creamy Mentaiko Udon similar to the ones you see on your frenemy’s IG feed every time she goes to Japan and posts so many stories it just looks like she’s thinking real hard at the top like ……………….. First, go to Donki after every other supermarket closed down already because you’re a night owl then buy yourself some overpriced Mentaiko for like 50 something dollars, then buy an aroma diffuser and some other random kitchen utensil you will use twice a year to go along with it. Honestly this is preference, but for your greens you can choose between shiso or just regular spring onion; I got shiso because a pack was $15 and spring onion is $28 at Donki and I simply don’t care how much I love spring onion or how rich I ever get, I refuse to pay $28 fucking dollars for some spring onions that are $4 in Japan. So throw that pack of shiso to the side and take the $28 spring onion and if you can find it, get yourself some Shiro-Dashi also, which is kinda like liquid dashi stock that adds umami to anything but you can probably substitute this with a little tsuyu which you can find even at Park N Shop. Take a last longing look at the shiso you tossed aside and brace yourself for the $28 you’re about to pay for your beloved, afterhours Japanese imported spring onion and go to checkout while grabbing random snacks off the shelf. Make it home in one piece without being police checked, toss the frozen udon in the microwave for like 3 or 4 minutes ish until it’s the texture you fuck with. So mentaiko is a bit tricky because you gotta separate the eggs from the egg bag or whatever the fuck that embryo ting is but you can take like two of em cocoons and put a slit in the tip OUCH then use the flat end of your knife to get them out. Eat the egg bag, chase with shochu like a real Southside Japanese mans, such as myself. Chop up some garlic, like 3 cloves cuz we single and not whoring and not kissing on nobody anyway, slowly cook that in some butter in the pan til the garlic got the same colour as a fresh pair of Timbs to stomp these wastemans out in. Add like 140ml of soy milk because we lactose intolerant but we just pretended to not use butter and add idk…. a tablespoon? Of shiro-dashi or tsuyu, throw 80% of them mentaiko fetuses in from 3-point range but make sure the kids say bye to each other first then cook that bitch for a bit. I think if you add powdered parmesan cheese here it will become more carbonara-like, I haven’t tried but you probably can’t go wrong. Once the sauce gets to the thickness you like whether it’s sporty or BBW you can toss in your udon then cook for a little bit. Plate that ho up, torture some black pepper over it, add spring onion, add the 20% of the survivors on there for garnish, add just the yolk of the egg in the centre, chop up some dried nori if you want to flex on your frenemy and bruh, let me just tell you how crack this recipe is. If you ARE financially responsible unlike me and got shiso, take like 3 leaves, roll it up like you had a long day and then cut, it will come out in nice thin strands. Ok back to regularly scheduled programming you’re welcome.

The trial officially starts. The gavel is gavelled. This shit feel like the start of an episode of Better Call Saul, but where my scene is super insignificant to the plot. My charges are read “Defendant Yuri Tomiyama, you are accused with one count of assault occasioning bodily harm on Dwayne, The Crack Rock, Johnson where you allegedly caused severe damage to his forehead by banging it 4 times against the half open shutter gate at your establishment at the time, #1, Hollywood Road, Ozu at exactly 11:57PM on October 23rd, 2020. How do you wish to plead? Please state your plea to the mic.” I quietly stand up and step to the mic.

“First of all your honour…… it’s OZU GANG FOR LIFE FROM HOLLYWOOD ROAD TO EASTERN MAGISTRATES COURTROOM WE UP IN THIS BIIIIIIITCH. Not guilty your honour.”

“May I please now call to the stand, prosecution and victim (LOL) C to the stand to give his testimony.”

This slithery face ass mf walks in with his superior expatriate walk in his little Mid-Levels suit and my eyes are on this mf the whole time. If only you knew how many fucking times I had them krumpers squash on your fucking headtop in those bigass unlaced Timberlands. He actually looks almost scared and I believe this was the scariest I have ever looked at someone in my life. I LOATHED this guy. He reaches the stand safely without me sticking my size 11 dress shoe out and tripping him like we was in high school. A note here, everybody is asked if they have a religion that they wish to swear upon before they testify, to which this mf replies he’s Christian, so they get a dusty ass garage sale Bible out to which he is told to place his lizard paw on and asked “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to which he replies, I do. Why is it sunny outside on this day can SOMEBODY find some lightning to strike this mf cuz he about to lie like a muthafucka. My charges are read again. I will repeat that. MY CHARGES. ARE READ. AGAIN. Ok, start of his testimony. His lawyer, the prosecution, is a petite Asian girl, kinda cute tbh. He is asked random questions about his name, occupation, his compatibility with Pisces, and most recently used emoji then he is asked what language he prefers to have the trial in. He goes, well English but I also speak French, Spanish, Creole…. And I just remember thinking NOBODY FUCKING ASKED YOU CLOWN DOES ANYBODY IN THIS ROOM LOOK LIKE THEY CAN SPEAK FUCKING CREOLE!? Sorry, not important. Needless to say the trial continues in Creole and the prosecution, HIS lawyer asks a simple question— “Could you please describe what happened the night that you allegedly got assaulted?” Simple question right?

“So me and my girlfriend…”

BOOM. Lightning strike BITCH. Because judging by the body language, they definitely, FOR SURELY met on THAT night, IN FRONT OF ME. Btw I forgot to mention this mf got a French accent.

“So me and my girlfriend were having a date night…”

BOOM. Lightning strike BITCH it was not a date it was a failed dick-me-up. Ok you get the point.

“So me and my girlfriend were having ze date night, and we were hanging out at ze bar, just enjoying. Then I was trying to pay for my drinks and zen zis guy, he just come out ze bar and push me. And zen next thing I know, he slam my head multiple times on ze floor, and zen when I get up I left and call police.”

The cute little prosecution girl that I lowkey want having me arrested is in disbelief. “Wait could you repeat again, where exactly did the defendant slam your head?” She is desperately trying to help herself from looking absolutely hopeless in this trial. 

“Ze floor. I remember being on ze floor and being slammed.” 

Timeout, right here. Me and the judge looked directly in each other’s eyes and I give the absolute stank face while doing the IS HE FUCKING DUMB hand gesture at this guy while I let out a pretty audible PSHHHHH. Like I was in absolute disbelief. The judge obviously didn’t say anything but I think even she is impressed by how dumb this mf is. This man just did a Vince Carter 360 windmill into his OWN basket!!!! This man handed in his exam paper and he spelled his OWN name wrong!!!!! Where the flying fuck is the lightning!? The crime is LITERALLY in the opening statement, the answer is LITERALLY in the fucking question dufus!!!! YOUR dumbass and YOUR dumbass “girlfriend” claimed that I slammed your head into the gate which is why there are CUTS and not bruises!? How does a fivehead have four brain cells? Why are we currently all present in this room? Did you and your dumbfuck girlfriend not have a team huddle before you tried to put an innocent man behind bars? Mr. Hunter turns around in his seat with a smug face looking like a frog waiting at the bus stop and gives me a thumbs up. The butterflies in my stomach are Shmurda Dancing. MITCH CAUGHT A BODY BOUT A WEEK AGOOOOO.

Now it’s the defence’s turn to speak. Mr. Hunter gets up to talk like “I’m about to end this man whole career.” Notebook in hand. Glasses so thick he can see that I’m a good person. He can see that this mf is lying. He can see that you are a good person for how far you have made it into my fuckery of a blog post. He sees it all. Apparently all them youngin’ lawyers got all their notes in an iPad but nope, not my Mr. Hunter, he keep it old school. This my knight in shining armour. I’m damn near rubbing my hands like Birdman. I’m damn near rubbing my hands like Diddy when he saw Meek Mill wait what. He buttons up the top button of his sharp 3 piece suit and clears his throat which is the equivalent of Ash Ketchum turning his hat backwards in Pokémon. It was about to go DOWN. Like Yung Joc before the perm. Your honour, may I please pull up video footage of that night? May I please have the video set at x minutes and xx seconds?” He says it all gangsta-like. Ohhhh shit here we go TALK TO THIS MF MR. HUNTER. We got the screenshots. We got the tea. We about to go to town on this mf. I can hear 2pac in the background. He about to drop one of the hardest Hit Em Up remixes to ever come out.

The video is set to the time that Mr. Hunter requests and starts playing for about a minute. Wait…. I’ve seen this footage a million times, in slow motion, in reverse, in fast forward, upside down, night vision, VR. This ain’t the part. This ain’t the important part where it incriminates this mf and gets me off a charge. Literally it’s just our bar service on the TV screen with nothing eventful happening. The courtroom is dead silent except for the sound of Mr. Hunter shuffling mad papers. I start panicking because he is currently DEFINITELY panicking. C3PO now has a smug look on his face. It’s been like 3 or 4 minutes which is like 30 minutes in court time. The judge finally asks, “Is everything alright with your preparation?” Mr. Hunter is stuttering about the timestamps being wrong. Hoooooly fuck I should have gotten this mf an iPad.

3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (Part 5)

PART 5 - PRE-TRIAL 

In case you are new to this blog, here is part 1.

THE LEAD-UP 

Shiiiiit. I was too busy becoming first name basis with otters and drinking enough hi balls in Japan to quench the thirst of a thousand horny, old and married guys that poke girls on Facebook that I forgot I left y'all hanging about my story of getting arrested and tried. I only realized when I got a text that Squarespace charged me $1738hkd (Yaaaa baby) to my credit card through autopay for my annual subscription and I was like hold up when tf did I sign up for autopay but be glad that I did cuz if not y'all would have been left hanging forever and would have to hear the rest of the story in a tldr form from a drunk me somewhere in LKF. Honestly the story isn't that exciting I just make it colourful with my fuckery. Plus I'm currently on a plane somewhere over the ocean and need to distract myself from the fact that I have befriended some pilots and they're absolute wastemans and there is bare turbulence while I write this. **EDIT: I started writing this post on the plane back from Japan, now it is almost 2 months later and my life took a 180; I ended things with who I thought would be my future wife and my music career just took a huge hit after my set got shut down at ALSOFEST and honestly it feels like I’m taking Ls left, right, and centre but at least I have this outlet? Lol sorry tmi. Ok here is how pre-trial went for me. 

I was "summoned" to court (LOL SUMMONED wingardium leviosa) at like 9 in the morning which to me is like a death sentence already and thanks to my trusty tattooed and lovely lawyer Kwanye, I sorta knew what to expect. This stage was called the plea, where you're read your charges and you either plead innocent or plead guilty and you go from there. At this point, Kwanye is simply being a brother to me by giving me all of this free advice because I already told him I can't afford him anymore and that I'll be going for the duty lawyer route, which I wrongly presumed was the equivalent of the free toy that comes with a happy meal. Seriously though, regular lawyers charge you an arm, a leg, and a silver pubic hair for having to share the same ecosystem as you so he really was doing me a huge favour. Like they will literally bill you minutes of a phone call and can you imagine if you got bad reception? All my Filipino goons know that I’m on that KABAYAN $88HKD a month unlimited data plan and we don’t get the best signal sometimes. That man will speak at my wedding for sure. Here's a haiku that I just thought of written with love: 

When I get married

Whether to her or the skreets

Kwanye East will speak

Arigatou gozaimasu.

I remember getting up that morning, NOT hungover for once because I'm an adult now and eating what would later become my routine pre-court meal, which was half of a duck fried rice from Yardbird. Nah really though if any of y’all get arrested, try it out as a pre-jail or pre-court meal, it’s light but heavy enough to last you most of the day, not too much oil and no triggers for people with weak stomachs and the duck confit is spectacular mixed with the herbal shiso and ume flavour. Absolutely decadent. Shoutout to Matt, word on the street is that he was thinking of giving me a raise for plugging Yardbird so much, like I ain't imposing or nothing it's just the word on the street. I knew that I was gonna have to plea but I was still pretty nervous as to what to expect so I didn't take NO chances - I got dressed in a suit and even shined my shoes. I mean my hand tattoos made me look yakuza as fuck but at least I looked like I was the somewhat respectable accountant for them and not the guy who convinces you to go to a bar in Kabukicho (the Wan Chai of Tokyo) then when the bill comes it's $150USD for a bowl of Calbee potato chips and $200USD for a whiskey soda and $80USD for….. the ice in your fucking whiskey soda. I’m not even joking you can Google it, it’s called 氷代 and the shakedown gangsters are infamous for it. Nah forreal though, I felt like I had to dress like I gave a fuck because trust me I gave a fuckload of fucks. I wasn't about to leave that shit on my criminal record for some shit I didn't do not to mention over the lowest form of human to exist. I taxi straight to Eastern Magistrates’ Court in Sai Wan Ho looking dangerously majestic like a lion holding a shotgun and highkey feelin’ myself and I get there so early the fucking court is still closed LOL. I literally had like an hour to kill so, in my suit looking out of place as fuck, I walk to a nearby park that had some waterwork type of thing going on where the aunties are doing tai chi and the uncles are curling and twirling their long hairs coming out of a facial pimple and the weather is beautiful and I just sat for an hour. It was one of those rare moments in life where I was like damn.. Freedom is such a blessing. 

After I was finished emoting and looking more out of place than 21 Savage at a Klan rally, I walked back to court not knowing what to expect, and then BOOM here I go bumping into a friend I haven’t seen in almost a decade who’s there visiting his parole officer probably with a cup of clean piss he got from someone else (cuz I KNOW this mf get high LOL) and I can’t help but laugh at how fucking small this city is because bro it’s like 8:45AM on the Eastside why tf are you here and it’s funny because I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing. I go up to the duty lawyer’s office and I’m told to wait - clearly I’m overdressed because I’m up there looking like one of the actual fucking lawyers and not a criminal because everybody else waiting in line with me just looks like… ‘yeah he definitely did that shit’ LOL. How tf you gonna show up to court with a Gucci sidebag bro of course you in here for possession hahahah you might as well jump into your jumpsuit and get used to the fact that the closest vagina gonna be over a barbed wire fence now my g. Should have moved more silent like the “g” in lasagna huh?

Finally I get called into a room and I meet my first duty lawyer - his job is to just give me legal advice and tell the judge what I’m pleading, which is obviously, NOT FUCKING guilty. Let me just say this about this lawyer - he should definitely explore other options in life and maybe see if he can paint or crochet some sweaters or some shit because lawyering is not for him. I’ll describe him - kinda tall middle aged Chinese dude, heavy American accent, glasses, grey hair with a matching grey suit and a grey tie on some weird camouflage shit, and the personality of someone who… became a lawyer just so he can chat with criminals and act like he’s ‘down with the hood.’ Nah forreal, he’s saying things like “aight?” and “but you sayin’ you ain’t do it tho right” like sir I did not get dressed in my suit to talk to a mid-life crisis. 

Now here’s why I say he should stop lawyering - because one of the first things Rice Cube tells me to do is to take a bindover plea. So what this means is, you literally admit to the crime and then ask them for a lesser charge and since it’s my first offence, he's saying I’ll probably just get probation or something for a year. I find out later from other lawyers that this is one of the DUMBEST things I could have done because A, I would be admitting to the fact that I banged this guy’s forehead against the gate like 4 times and fucked his face up which I did NOT do, and B, I wasn’t getting charged for a small-time common assault, my shit was one level up closer to an aggravated assault charge because it involved head contact so there would be NO way I’d get away with just probation for a year. Why the fuck do I even want probation when the camera CLEARLY already showed that I physically could not have done it. This is a lose-lose-lose situation like on a night out, when you gotta take one for the team and not only does your boy not hit but he now in the hospital because the shady Viagra he bought on cheapviagra.com not mixing too well with his arthritis meds and honestly, fuck him but y’all went to the same kindergarten so now you gotta wait with him at the hospital til he discharged. Man fuck this guy Gucci Mein, I have literally gotten better legal advice from my youngins who can’t stop getting arrested and know the system like they know how to do crime LOL. I feel like this guy definitely has 8Mile on BluRay. Anyway I strongly disagree and kept turning down Lil’ Bao Wow and his “Aight man I’m just sayin’ you ain’t got much to lose with dis bindover hea” bullshit and agree to just adjourn the verdict - this means I can not plea anything this time and then talk things over, give myself more time to prepare, source a better representative than LL Wok Hey which I think is the best idea. Now I’m sent down to the courtroom to wait. 

Bro the courtroom is so fucking cold, I wrote so many rap lines in my head about it. “My heart colder than courtrooms, long memory short fuse, Prayin’ I don’t ever gotta call mama like “I’ll be home soon”” etc etc etc. TELL ME THAT AIN’T FIRE. Nah forreal though, being in a courtroom is real interesting shit because it’s quite noisy - there’s quite a lot of people and it’s open to the public for the ones who wanna laugh at other people’s crimes and there’s just so much going on, with papers rustling, mfs crying, low-level gangsters walking in without bowing to the judge so they get dirty looks from the oldass rent-a-cop who looks like dust finna fly off him if he coughed, it’s like the most fucked up classroom. A few people caught my eye immediately - there was the chubby guy with the Gucci sidebag who, of course, got caught with possession LOL, a huge black guy in a suit who needed an interpreter who I later find out was tryna hit on a girl through text but got hit with a restraining order instead like damn bro city boys down 1000, a Thai guy who kept on rolling up his sleeves like he was gonna fight the judge who FSHO did everything he was being accused of, and a few others. So mostly everybody here is in the plea stage but there were two cases that definitely stood out.

The first was a white guy who was definitely an alcoholic who apparently got so drunk in Wan Chai that he smashed multiple store windows and a taxi door and this mf bail was set at $5000 and mine was only $500 so I was like GODDAMN how many fucking windows did he break!? I felt like I needed to up my game a lil bit because this dude was dropping Lebron James numbers on my headtop, like hm how do I feel about extortion and its ethics. The second case was this auntie who was actually already in jail I assume and her case I couldn’t understand too much of cuz it was in deep Canto. So, on the side, there’s a section that’s fenced off where I guess the people who are already in jail/custody get escorted in by police and are read their charges and she walks in, chained tf up and the whole courtroom was like, “…damn”, like when a princess appears at the top of the castle stairs except the princess was a crackhead auntie and the top of the castle stairs was a miniature cell inside a fucking Eastside courtroom. Anyway she’s being read her charges and it must have been something serious because everybody finally stfu to listen and everyone around was saying ‘..wah’ quietly. Auntie clearly doesn’t like what’s being said about her crimes by the prosecution and so she starts talking over everybody - something you’re obviously NOT supposed to do. Talking over the prosecutors, the judge, yelling to the crowd tryna win us over on some weird gladiator shit and now police are yelling and are tryna subdue her while she screams and struggles and guess what? The judge takes this opportunity to just PEACE the fuck out!!!! Like he didn’t even bang his gavel, he looked both ways real hard like a 4 year old crossing the road for the first time in front of his parents, just saw the commotion and DIPPED for like 20 minutes with the most expressionless face and even the lawyers were confused like wait hold up huh..? And what’s hilarious is, when everybody came back, I think everybody in the room knew ….. that he really had to go take a shit LOL. And I can hear the Cantonese chatter and yes, it was unanimous, everybody thought he went to take a shit and dipped as soon as the Auntie presented him with an opportunity hahahaha. I wonder where he put his wig while he took a shit though, like did he hang it from the hook or on top of the toilet paper dispenser? I guess he gonna have to plead the shits on that one.

Anyway my turn finally came and it was uneventful as fuck, I stand up and go to the mic and my lawyer says to postpone my shit another month and the judge asks me if I’m ok with this and I say yes and that’s it. It was like, my shortest set ever. I get my courtroom summoning papers back and I am sent back upstairs to the duty lawyer’s office. Now I’m made to talk to this young guy in a suit who works in the office, Mr. Chan. He, like everybody else I have met in this system, starts off talking to me wary like I’m some criminal but reads my case and is like …. why the fuck are you even here over this. Mr. Chan says he’s glad I didn’t take the bindover deal from Vanilla Rice and tells me the next time I come here I will have to plead not guilty. And he encouraged me to fight it because he knows I can beat it. See? That’s the fucking attitude that I need, take notes MF POON. Idk I could have totally written this whole thing without mentioning Mr. Chan because he doesn’t do anything hugely significant but he was a genuinely nice man who wanted the best for me and was super happy when I beat the case that he actually called to congratulate me so I just wanted to mention him. He directs me to who I will call Auntie Elaine, who is a feisty older Cantonese lady with glasses and short hair who was essentially responsible for me getting a free lawyer from the government because I was actually riiiiiight on the line of being illegible for “making too much money” but that’s bullshit because I go into CitySuper to window shop and enjoy free aircon.

My next few visits to the courtroom were very uneventful and mostly administrative - I plead not guilty in the courtroom and my trial date was set, Mr. Chan collects a statement from Manny which was funny because I mean… just imagine me and Manny in any situation that’s supposed to be serious, and I manage to get a free duty lawyer thanks to Auntie Elaine carefully going through all my financials. It was funny because they go through EVERYTHING money wise - luckily my health was taking a bit of a turn because of all the stress at the time so I could plead that my hospital bills are just gonna add up even more (they actually did too) - and when she asked about the money I get from Spotify streams it was extremely hard to tell her that I get money from music about ‘fuck the system’ and essentially, fuck you too Auntie Elaine, so I just played it off like I played guitar or some shit like that. Really though, she was like an angry mother to me the whole time which was so comforting with her ‘hai why did all my sons end up being the dumbest criminals I still love you tho here’s some cantaloupe I cut for you’ vibe. Even when I told her I beat the case she just looked at me over the top of her glasses like “Mkeh. Good,” but I could tell she was quite happy. Damn, writing this, I think I’m gonna go back and get them some Japanese snacks or something I lowkey miss them. Sorry that was already long but finally I am about to meet my official lawyer. 

MEETING MY LAWYER

I’m not gonna lie to you, when Mr. Chan gave me the piece of paper that said “R**** Hunter” followed by his phone number, I did not have high expectations. I won’t lie and I will admit to you that I had my prejudices - a white lawyer in Hong Kong for a case as small as mine - surely he could barely give two fucks. Plus my computer teacher in high school had the same last name and he was a cunty Australian guy that had the biggest white superiority complex and was mean as fuck to us until we caught his bitchass taking upskirt photos of girls in Carnegies one time then he switched up like Asian moms in front of company and tried to be nice. So I don’t know if my brain automatically made that weird connection like they was some distant cousins or some shit but I went into the office expecting to be talked down to and dismissed but thankfully it was the total opposite. 

So what you wanna do is heat your deep pan or hot plate up to like medium heat and then get some decent beef - honestly that beef shoulder with some good marbling from Kai Bo that goes for like $60HKD a brick is pretty good for this too and then cook it halfway til I would say about 60% then set that shit aside. What this does is release the good oils from the meat into the pan and now you wanna toss in your vegetables. Sukiyaki literally means, “what you like, cooked”, so toss in whatever fucking vegetables you like cuz we ain’t communists but the go-tos would be onion, shungiku, cabbage, leeks, and carrots with some sides like tofu, shiitake mushrooms (I don’t fw these at all tho) etc. Some people gonna tell you to add the ingredients AFTER you already put in your sukiyaki tare but nah fuck that, you want some of that char on your vegetables for extra umami, the only thing you should add after is udon, konnyaku and whatever veg and meat you got left over. But the first round you need to get that char for that fucking UMAMI is what I’m saying. What, do you put milk first and then your cereal you weirdo? Let me guess, your favourite ice cream flavour is vanilla right? Yo it actually embarrasses me to watch actual Japanese people do Youtube tutorials on sukiyaki catered to foreigners and they add the sauce right after the meat or they don’t even take it out of the pan so they overcooking the shit out of it like bro come to the Southside let me fucking teach you how it’s done. Anyway every household got a different sukiyaki tare recipe but here’s the Tomiyamas - soy sauce, a fuckload of sugar, and sake to adjust. The sake finna burn off like cardio once it hit the pan and turn to skraight umami and it balances the sweet and salty from the sugar and soy and create a harmonious marriage of flavour. I don’t really measure shit cuz time is money and I ain’t got both but I’d say mix about 100ml of soy sauce to a fuckload of sugar and like siu siu sake til it’s a flavour you like. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you that this blend (called warishita in Japanese) should be made before you start everything. Once your vegetables and tofu got some nice char to it, pour that bitch in (maybe not all of it depending on how much veg you got) and let the sake evaporate for a bit then toss that 60% meat back in. Crack a whole raw egg, chop up some spring onion and add some Japanese ramen oil into your bowl and dip everything in this mixture. This mix helps cool everything down fast, even tofu fresh out the pot. Don’t give me that shit about how you don’t eat raw egg, you shouldn’t have been raw in that pussy either and now look your second baby mama keyed your Playstation cuz your broke ass don’t got a car. Once you’re getting full, toss in a pack of udon into your hot pot as the shime or the closer and double up on your egg-spring onion-ramen oil mixture for some of the most flavourful noodles of your life. Best during family gatherings especially in the wintertime.

I probably have ADHD. But sukiyaki is my favourite food ever in life and I promise, the Tomiyama way is probably top 4 in the world. So I was met with a middle-aged chubby man in a sharp 3-piece suit and thick round glasses who spoke with an extremely strong Scottish accent. He is pleasantly surprised that his client speaks perfect English for once as he told me he doesn’t speak any Canto and I shudder to imagine what he has to go through when Ah Gwai from Sham Shui Po somehow has to explain to him that the drugs weren’t his, they belonged to his friend Ying Gor from Tsuen Wan but they exchanged Gucci sidebags on a night out for OOTD pics in LKF and then accidentally got caught with his friend’s drugs when Magnum got raided but he really doesn’t wanna snitch cuz they failed their DSEs together and bonded, like can you imagine? We’re sat in his comfortable lil office where he’s drinking, of course, tea, and again, like everybody in the system, he starts off slightly wary of me and sizing me up like “hmm I wonder what this suited up big Jap guy with hand tattoos is about, he kinda looks dickish” but we start watching the videotapes of the night of incident at Ozu and of course, he realises that I really could not have been the one to assault that fucking bald fuck.

We’re rewatching the tapes and adding his little Scottish commentary like “Oh ya, I see him pointing in your fehs (face), that’s rud (rude)”, “Oh ya, I see his mizzus (missus) holding him back from being ungry (angry)”, “Oh ya I see him gesticulating, this is all good materiiial for the judge” like damn Mr. Hunter how you casually slide ‘gesticulating’ in your sentence and I had to interject and tell him that is officially my new favourite word. Like I may have mentioned before though, the footage is mostly cut off by the conveniently placed fan and I never leave the frame long enough to be able to grab Tin Man from Wizard of Oz’s head and bang it against the gate. By the end of the videotapes me and him are like best friends now which is kinda weird bonding over footage of a crime scene but it is what it is and he comes up with a plan to try and get the case tossed fully by asking for the same bindover plea - BUT to edit out the statement and remove the part that says that I was the one who took this guy by the head and banged it against the gate. So I would be admitting to the fact that I pushed the guy out of Ozu out of self-defence but nothing was done afterwards because, as the video shows, Manny was too busy keeping us separated and it is as CLEAR AS DAY that I am physically not capable of doing what they’re accusing me of. He explained that if I admit to the edited statement and if the bindover works, I’d probably just get a warning or a light common assault charge that will go away within a year of no further criminal activity and I’m quite okay with that and I thought he was a sicko when he actually threw the word “gesticulating” into his report to the judge and talked bare shit about the main instigator of this incident - fucking C3PO. This man SAT score must have been off the charts. We both have very high hopes for this plan and it would avoid trial where he says “anything could happen.” Btw if you don’t get any of the references to the guy who put me thru all this, send me a DM I’ll send you his picture and it will all make sense LOL.

Well I guess the judge is legally blind, POP holdin’ it dowwwn because the bindover plea is rejected and I’m set for trial. Turns out, the prosecution, aka the drunk fucker who caused all that trouble at Ozu, has to approve of the bindover and just let that shit go, but he said no. So yeah when I first found out I don’t think I spoke for like 2 days just out of disbelief and anxiety. But you know what? If this motherfucker wants war, we gonna give it to him.

3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (Part 4)

PART 4 - MY 3RD ARREST

Here are parts 1, 2, and 3, in case you wanna read about this fuckery from the beginning. 

For the longest time, I thought I got away with it like potato chip companies putting mad air in their product and honestly, why shouldn’t I have? The case barely had legs, I actually was innocent, and so much happened in that year after my police line-up that I actually forgot about it — I did a couple of big shows, learned how to cook quite well during peak COVID, tried to forget the time I went in for a handshake but the other guy went for a fist bump and we ended up playing a game of 5, 10, 15, and the main thing of all, I finally made the move out of Kowloon side after 10 years to Sheung Wan which was literally 30 seconds away from Yardbird. 

Side story - let me talk about how big of a change this was. I lived in a 6/F walk up in Yau Ma Tei at the time and my building made the news for all the wrong reasons: https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/police-raid-drug-den-on-reclamation-street-in-mong-kok-9-arrested/ Even if you didn’t click the link, the link title says it all. Long story short, my downstairs neighbours had an operational train ran on them by the police and they got caught with a lil’ bit of heroin, meth, paraphernalia, unsolicited pictures of targiers, all that. Some of these mfs tried to jump out the window but realised they didn’t have health insurance so they walked back in to get arrested LOL if you thought your walk of shame at 2pm out of Buddha Lounge was bad then I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as theirs. This happened a month after I moved out and honestly, I have so much shit to say about this. 

To the drug dealers. Firstly, WHY the fuck would you place your lookout in FRONT of your door and not OUTSIDE our actual fucking building? You’re paying this mf to literally stare at the wall and listen to people coming up the stairs. What the fuck is he looking out for? Cockroaches? Jehovah’s Witnesses? My OOTD? What if he hears police running up, what’s he gonna do, bang on the door and say “sorry boss, we had a good run”? Bruh, sometimes this mf had airpods on!? What kind of low budget production was this drug movie? It felt like some Gen Z kid with a Monster Energy snapback on named Kyle was gonna pop up at any given time like “it’s just a prank broski, it’s a prank”. Like I had to question my career choices and wonder if I could have made it as a kingpin if Pablo Messcobar over here is making money? How do you and your whole gang share a grand total of 2 brain cells? Now look, your lookout did such a good job looking at the wall and jamming to Andy Lau that you, him, and the gang got matching jumpsuits in Lai Chi Kok prison. To the lookout - you couldn’t raise your hand in the Drug Dealers Anonymous meeting before it was adjourned and make a suggestion like “uh, sir, I think it would make more sense if I sat outside the building and not actually in it”? You could have been a hero, gotten high-fives and standing ovations, gotten a sick nickname like “Eagle Eye” and really prospered in the drug dealing community, gone home proudly with a Good Job star sticker on your chest to show your mom but now look, you gotta lookout for your soap being dropped instead. 

Secondly, why the fuck would you sell to white kids? Not even the white kids that know how to get down cuz they grew up here, but skraight expats and college kids? We in YAU MA FUCKING TEI during COVID my guy, do you know how much of a red flag that is? After dark, the closest expat is 10 blocks away at a Temple Street daipaidong paying $218 for a plate of shrimp to “get in touch with local culture” hahaha. Shoutout to my 廟街 hustlers I see y’all, I hope you selling I <3 HK T-Shirts at 96% margins to these tourists again to make up for the pandemic Ls. Nah but really though, I got so tired of seeing these curly-haired junkies with backpacks on in my staircase, acting like they weren’t buying drugs and acting all casual while walking up a dark, grimey staircase in Yau Ma Tei hood at 2 in the morning. You’re about as casual as Crossfit people trying their best not to talk about Crossfit. 

To the police… REALLY? It took y’all more than a year to run an entire operation on the Toys R’ Us Kids of drug dealers? You guys really had names and faces pinned on bulletin boards, set up wiretaps inside tennis balls, deciphered criminal slang, and only managed to find $98,300HKD worth of drugs? That’s like, 6 bags of coke in 2023 after inflation. LOL jk. And why so specific? What’s the extra $300 for, did you seize two bottles of Evian water and a bag of capsicums from Citysuper while you were in there too? Who tf calls bell peppers capsicums you ask? ME, only on this blog because I do whatever the fuck I want. These mfs were Tomfoolerying around for so long the whole block knew what the fuck was going on. It’s like being the last one invited to the house party… and it’s your fucking house like how are y’all so behind on the times? Y’all never wondered why the Jean-Pierres and Alejandros suddenly started putting on their brave beanies and wandering around the hood without a signed permission slip from their parents? Matter of fact I forbid y’all to call that shit an “operation”. I’ve seen fire drills with more suspense. And to think I pay my tax dollars for this? I mean I still haven’t paid in 2 years, but again, that is besides my point. The HKPF really needs to hire Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan to do a sweep of these neighbourhoods and kick criminals down bamboo scaffoldings and shit and just call it Operation Rush Hour 4D. If I was a drug dealer I would be shook knowing that a black man and a Chinese man might fly through my window at any moment and I might take bamboo to the face like a panda bear.

ANYWAY I got super carried away sorry, I am just extremely passionate about crime and incompetency that I had to speak on it. My new place though is amazing. Nobody pisses in the elevators, there’s an actual lobby even though the guard is off for lunch 22 hours of the day (no really, he’s actually only there for lunch that’s how safe it is), the neighbourhood is quaint and quiet and get this - I seen a white guy with a dog get out the lift once. The police around here are so bored with the lack of crime they check me every week, sometimes twice a day. It’s like I’m their fucking fridge that they will open, not see anything inside, and then open back up 5 minutes later hoping I would have something different. Where are the triads on plastic chairs? Why does it not smell like incense in the hallways? Why can’t I hear sirens? You mean to tell me that the women here actually don’t have pimps? Is this the feeling of…. safety? It actually got some time to get used to. But yeah, you can understand why this big move to the island for the first time in my life really made me feel safe, and sheltered. So when I was thrown right back into the epifuck of the law it really caught me off guard. This is the time I got arrested at the airport coming back from Japan, which I think you should actually read here. From here, I will continue the story from the end of that piece. 

So at this point, I finish quarantine. I was scheduled to report to the police station closest to the airport at 8:00AM a week after my hotel release date and yeah, again, I was shrouded in this cushiony Sheung Wan bullshit that I underestimated it. I thought it was gonna be a regular check-in like before because I “tried to flee” the country (LOL trust me if you haven’t read that story you should for context) and that I would be done in an hour, tops, as always. So what did I do? Of course I drank. The night before, I went to my bro Sulai’s SpiceMrkt pop-up at Elgin Street and we ate and drank like a mf. Quick plug, Sulai and Bas make some of the best Indian fusion food around. Anyway, and then Manny being Manny was like “oh, you gon’ see popo tomorrow? Just drink you gon’ be aight”, and me being Sheung Wan Shtupid was like yeah fuck it, kanpai, and got home at like 4. Seriously, I think everybody should live somewhere shady at least once in their life because it teaches you to always keep your guard up. My guard was all the way the fuck down like I lived in Discovery Bay my whole life. Somebody could have said I got ketchup on my shirt and I would have looked down only to get my nose flicked. Amateur shit. I was ashamed of myself. 

The next morning I get up, hungover again, barely any sleep, (seriously I never fucking learn I deserve to be like one of those white children on leashes) and take the Airport Express to the airport. And I always thought there was a station inside the premiseseses (shoutout to Mr. Wong’s vernacular) but nah, some airport narc told me I had to take another taxi from there to some concentration camp looking place that was actually closer to Tung Chung MTR so I was bitter as fuck that I wasted $100HKD on Airport Express. Keep in mind, I am still in this lull state of feeling like, ain’t shit gonna happen, and I’m 30 minutes late because I was never built to be an outstanding citizen of society that is capable of clocking in someplace at 8AM (seriously, I sleep at 8AM sometimes), and like the cheap frugal bitch that I am, I am more invested in the fact that I spent $100 on a train ticket when I could have just taken MTR. In my head, I was counting the amount of siu mai i could have gotten with the 80 something dollar difference. It was 60. Oh what a luxury to be pissed over such small things. 

I walk into this police station-concentration camp collaboration exhibit and then my anxiety finally starts kicking in. I mean first of all, this is DEFINITELY the place where they first take drug mules who just got arrested at the airport tryna smuggle a bunch of coke disguised as baby formula which is like, so 1970s, and if so, you deserve to get arrested. Secondly, this station is in the middle of nowhere, literally, and also has a 3 star review on Google. That’s a C minus grade and as an Asian this already made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Being in the middle of nowhere meant that there are no walk-ins, appointments only and I realised… besides the front desk, all the cops were specifically there.. for me. They literally rode their cars from the city specifically there for me and holy fuck I am late so they’re already PISSED. I hand in my papers and I didn’t even get to sit down as I was immediately called into the back of the station through a door that said Personnel Only or some exclusive shit like that which I did not want to be inclusive in and I’m immediately sat in the interrogation room. Something was off. The way the officers are moving, it’s like I was the one who disguised coke in baby formula cans and they’re disgusted by my unoriginality. There are three CIDs. The main one, who isn’t that old but his hair is giving up like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons, starts pacing AROUND me and literally says “Oh man, you are in so much trouble you know that?” Wait…. what? The second one is a tomboy with the can I speak to your manager haircut who keeps nodding and shaking her head with a frown like she gets paid to be a stern bobblehead. I forgot what the 3rd one looked like, but he wasn’t entertaining, like F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Nope, not taking that one back. I thought sitcom stood for situational comedy, not sit and completely not laugh. Anyway. Anxiety on 100000. I thought this fleeing the country thing that I was laughing about with Manny the night before was really about to put me inside for a few years. I plead my case though. Officer, I was literally LET OUT of the city, I didn’t know I couldn’t leave and had to report to police before I did? Officer, I was told that my case would be dropped for now and that you guys would call me if anything changed? Both of these are facts so I was fucking clueless. 

Then he drops bomb after bomb. First, apparently I was WANTED status for quite a while because they banged on my old address in Yau Ma Tei and I moved away already at that point, all safe, snug, and stupid as fuck in Sheung Wan. And apparently they tried to call my phone plenty of times to try and find me (this was absolute bullshit because I pick up all numbers that start with 3, 8, 5, whatever, for THIS specific reason just to hang up on these fucking PROMISE and UA loan sharks) Second, this means my case was open as fuck like Port during COVID and I was fully being prosecuted. I had so many questions. If I was so fucking WANTED then why wasn’t I arrested on the spot during all those routine police checks? Again, if I was such a threat, why the fuck didn’t y’all over at Narcs & Recreation arrest me at immigration when I was leaving? Why are you being so mean? Do you have my Mr. Wong’s number? Why did your hair get divorced? How did it feel when Neil Armstrong planted a flag on your head? Can I speak to HER manager? I had so many questions. I was arrested again right there on the spot, for the 3rd fucking time and had my charges read out to me. This shit was getting old man. 

All this time I’m being treated like a fucking criminal by these CIDs. They didn’t handcuff me but they definitely used a lot more force escorting me to their narc car. Now I’m in an unmarked white car again, hungover, 3 narcs and me, en route to the Central/Western Police Station. I mean… it’s dysfunctional as fuck if you ask me that these officers also had to come to bumfuck county in Chep Lap Kok just to arrest a Japanese guy who.. literally lives in Central/Western. This car ride is different from the first time I got arrested after Ozu. I don’t even bother to try and text anybody, I feel like they’d actually put cuffs on me if I tried. No lie, I was miserable. And scared. They kept emphasising on this fleeing the city thing and I thought they were gonna add some charges. I was dying to text my lawyer Kwanye like “SOS CUZZZ” but forreal, I was too scared. 

We get to Central/Western which was quite a relief because at least I feel like I can actually reconnect with Mr. Wong if shit goes down and I’m led through the same doorways and past the same cells me and Roberto were making fun of the Teletubbies in, to the same room where I’m stripped of all my belongings. At this point I’m so familiar with the station that I’m making the right turns before my escorting officer does and I don’t know if that’s a flex. I’m led back upstairs to run my fingerprints, again, and get another few mugshots and usually deja vu is a somewhat eerie but pleasant feeling but this time around the guy taking my fingerprints isn’t as gentle and I do not feel the same sensuality and connection coursing from his hands like the last guy so I am totally turned off. I have a lot more hand tattoos since the last time I got arrested at this point and they are literally adding descriptions of my tattoos in my database file. I try to lie and say that my swallow tattoo is actually a sparrow but I don’t think it was very effective cuz all the guy put in the database was “bird”. SMH put some respect on the species homie. Now I’m finally put in another interrogation room with Mr. Burns only and an interpreter. Seriously, what the fuck is with these interpreters Japanese is not my first language ffs. Somebody bring me an interpreter to interpret this bullshit that I gotta deal with for the 3rd time. 

I was being polite to this mf Mr. Burns the whole time cuz he angrily dropped all the bad news on me at the Airport Police Station so I didn’t give him a reason to do some unfair shit. But it did feel kinda hopeless at that point. Burns gotta input this new case into my file and explain why I’m being prosecuted, when I need to show up to court and all that and that’s when, I realise after, he FIRST looks at my file and his demeanour completely changes. He simply goes, “Ha? You’re in here for a bar fight?” And I blurt out “YEAH, and I told you I didn’t even do anything!!!” I guess he realised I was telling the truth and that I actually didn’t really do anything wrong with my case and that these two, good for nothing waste of life pieces of shit really were starting a whole lot of nothing. And this whole “fleeing the country” thing was laughable at this point. Seriously, what kind of low, self-esteemed criminal would I be to feel the need to FLEE THE CITY for… pushing a drunk guy out of my bar. Like oh shit, pack your bags, somebody call FedEx cuz I’m moving to Azerbaijan. I put on my best hurt puppy face and act like he actually hurt my feelings by being mean to me the whole time. I’m sensitive, my feelings were hurt. There wasn’t much acting involved. He goes “Diu, this so pointless” just like everybody else I encountered in the system, and says the first nice thing to me all day: “I think you have a good chance to beat this one.” I mean, Mr. Burns you could have read my file while I made you wait 30 minutes in the Airport Police Station so we could have been friends by now but whatever, I’ll take the kindness anyway, but just so you know I roasted your hairline in my head the whole time in the back of your car. Seriously tho your hairline make you look like you’re related to jellyfish. 

Anyhoo, the paperwork is done, the interpreter was as useful as a lifeguard at the Olympics, and I’m told by Mr. Burns to report to Eastern Court a month from then for my plea at the courtroom. He finally kindly explains to me that this is where I can plead guilty for a lesser charge or plead not guilty to go to trial and the rest I should discuss with my lawyers. Burns actually wishes me good luck and then I give a final wave to him and his sunflower hairline and I am escorted out of the station without having to do any time in the cell again. I think it’s worth mentioning here that I got to work ON TIME, after literally being arrested, prosecuted, transported, and processed so to all you youngins in F&B who can’t even make it to an afternoon shift on time, y’all should be super ashamed of yourself. “No cap” as you kids would say. 

Anyway this story was only supposed to be in 4 separate parts but I talked so much shit about irrelevant things that it might have to be 5. Or maybe 6 cuz pre-trial was also a whole different system that I had to learn about. I feel like I’m just writing these to finish the story at this point but I hope it is still as entertaining for y’all. I guess DM me and tell me you fw these because insecure men need validation sometimes. 

Yeah definitely will be 6 parts of this cuz pre-trial was like a month process and trial was 2 days. Stay tuned I guess if you care?

3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (Part 3)

PART 3 - THE LINEUP

See Part 1 and Part 2 here if you haven’t already.

So as some of you may know, I got drugged the other night while being out in LKF and I lost everything; my wallet, phone, keys, and August Alsina’s hat, and me being the emotionally crippled person who can’t do anything creative without a substance in my system decided to make use of the residual date rape drug in me to bring you this blog post while having the shakes so.. you’re welcome. Also, fuck all you incels who are out here drugging people to get something you could never get, there is a special place in hell for you where the only available nutrition is a KFC biscuit with no drink to wash that dry thickness down so it just stays stuck in your throat you bitch. Anyway here is the continuation of the story and how my (first) day in jail was just the beginning of it all. 

The first few months were uneventful as fuck, which, to somebody who has to report to the police station every month, is a celebration in itself like waking up alive every morning. Wow, too deep for this blog. Me and Roberto would show up to the station, I believe, on the 15th of each month and in the beninging we would show up looking sort of respectable you know, like tattoos covered, hair done up like a church yute, button-up shirt on with all the buttons actually buttoned for maximum 乖仔 energy, sit patiently on some duck duck goose shit. But after like month 6 we started showing up hungover in wifebeaters, kissing our teeth at how long they took just for them to look at our bail papers only to say “come back lext munth”, taking videos of the police officers at their desk and roasting their convertible Mercedes hairline on Instagram, taking our morning shit (the most disrespectful and smelliest of shits) at the station, all that. And I think at around month 9, the officer took us into the office, locked it, which is fucking terrifying, only to drop the great news that we don’t have to check in anymore and the case is still open but dismissed for now so me and Berto celebrated that night by going up to police officers yelling “BEAT MY CASEEEE”…. because we’re losers. I even dropped a song called “Mark Six” and at 1:24 I even had a line, “And we definitely hellbound, laughing at police cuz me and Berto off of bail now.” We got cocky, we thought we were Steph Curry running backcourt before the shot even went in but in the end, we were just Nick Young because I think around month 13 we both get told that the main office is prosecuting us and going ahead with our case, and to prepare for an “ID parade” aka a police lineup. 

Ok stop right there. I watched enough CSI to know what the fuck a police lineup is, where they find like 6 or 7 mfs who are supposed to look like you and then the victim comes in behind a one-way glass and points you out teary-eyed like “y-y-yes officer, th-that was the man who said I got the swag of somebody who watches Youtube tutorials on how to be an alpha-male” and then I proceed to get handcuffed and shit. I still had so many questions. Why did I actually Google to see if there are tutorials on how to be an alpha male? Why did I just fuck my Youtube algorithm up and now my homepage showing me some of these in ‘related’? Why does chicken taste so good every single time? Where in the flying fuck are they gonna find 6 or 7 Japanese mfs that are 6’3”? Sorry I totally added that line in there just to flex my height. Nah but really though, where are they gonna find these somewhat identical looking Japanese people cuz I ain’t never seen them at the club? I ain’t never seen them at the basketball courts? I don’t go to either but that’s not my point. And if they actually do manage to find ‘em, am I allowed to make contact with my twinsies so we can actually start a gang called the Japanese Jehovahs and knock on people’s doors and ask if they wanna hear more about how to make box curry taste 10x better? 

Oh. I thought I told y’all in my first blog post that this is my blog and I do whatever the fuck I want. I’ll eat chili-based ramen in a fresh white tee. I’ll wear Adidas socks and Nike Air Forces. I’ll moonwalk into the police line-up. HEE-HEE. I don’t give a FUCK. Talk to me nice. So I’m just gonna drop a sick curry recipe in the middle of some serious shit so yeah, you’re welcome. 

Go buy yourself a box of Japanese curry that looks anything like this. Chop up one big-boned onion in slices, peel 2 small cloves of garlic and grate one, toss the other to the side like that person who you sorta like but cbf to save their number yet, grate some ginger, like a tablespoon maybe and have that ready. Put a decent amount of oil in a pot or a deep pan, not too much but enough for President Bush to start pondering, and then toss in like… a teaspoon of cumin and cook them shits til the aroma come out, then put some of the grated ginger and garlic in but be careful cuz if the oil is hot enough shit gon’ sizzle like a mf and if you don’t have insurance then go get some before you start this recipe. Ya insurance is one of the ingredients to this recipe. While this is happening, microwave your sliced onions without saran wrap for like a minute I guess, then toss them shits into the pan and cook on high heat with this ginger-garlic-cumin mix til you brown them nice - it should resemble the complexion of a shiba dog in the end. Careful not to burn shit because ask Usher how that shit turned out. Totally forgot to mention but you should have chopped up your meat of choice and salt+peppered it before and then toss them bitches in and cook til like 90% done then put in 600ml of water. Let it boil one time then take HALF your box of curry, break it up into pieces, TURN THE MF HEAT OFF and then toss them curry cubes in and stir til thick. Season as needed but you shouldn’t have to at this point. Turn the heat back on, couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce, a little bit of sugar or even honey, about 10g of butter, and if you feel like you need a bit more of a punch then grate the 2nd piece of garlic and stir til the consistency you like. Fuck potatoes and fuck veggies, this curry recipe features just onions and meat and is the only one you need. Serves 2, maybe 3 normal human beings, and 1 food whore. I am food whore. 

Shoutout to my lawyers Kwanye East and Wendy. Kwanye East’s government name is Justin and that’s my bro from Ozu; more tatted than me and one of the best barristers ever who saved our asses. Think of him as the Asian that parents would be so confused with - tatted the fuck up (“oh no you disrespect family honor”) but highly respectable job (“oh you know my son, all A plus in school, he lawyer now”). Me and Roberto were fucking clueless as to what to do and how to prepare and they walked us through it beforehand. The day of the police line-up comes around and like we were instructed to, showed up looking like kids that bought into pyramid schemes and sung choir. Chill, sensitive people who lost money and sang well, I am allowed to say this cuz I was both LOL. Wendy came thru clutch with foundation and was able to cover my hand tattoos and in the distance I could hear my ancestors chatting shit again about this extremely un-Japanese pickle of a situation I put myself in. We were told to show up hours earlier than the scheduled appointment time so we don’t accidentally bump into C3PO and Trisha Takanawa at the entrance (if you don’t get the references, you gotta go back to Part 1 or ask me for their pictures LOL) and boom our cover is totally blown. Really though, the police didn’t even tell us about this, our lawyers did; can you imagine how dumb it would be to show up to a police line-up and both the victims and assailants just bump into each other in the lift like “Damn the humidity today tho eh?” Me, Roberto, Kwanye, and Wendy are told to wait in a room that quite literally looks like a triad office with the shrine and all, and we watched as police officers occasionally walked in to 拜神. We are told to wait until the pirated-copy of Jeremy Meeks and the Matchmaker from Mulan arrive, and after what feels like an eternity we are notified that their unwanted presence is present in the building and to go downstairs into the waiting room. Let the anxiety begin. 

We’re guided into this narrow room now at this point, and it’s still just us 4 but this room connects to the main police line-up room so you can hear a little of what’s going on outside. Now we can’t see, but they’ve gathered Roberto’s lookalikes and are trying to shepherd them into sitting down - these guys are just randoms that are getting paid to be there. Can somebody that looks like me commit more crime so I can volunteer for jobs that literally pay you money to sit still like damn. Roberto’s up first - I keep wondering why he always gets to go first cuz I’m cute too but at this point I establish, they like him better. A sleepy-looking officer walks in to make sure I don’t scratch rap lyrics on the wall on some solitary confinement shit while I wait and then the 3 of them - Kwanye, Wendy, and Roberto - go into the police line-up room. Anxiety level at around a 9 at this point. I’m agoraphobic and I don’t do well in situations like this. I’m counting sheep. The sheep are counting me. I’m tryna take a breath. The breath is taking me. Oh God I miss my cat. 

After a Bollywood movie of time, Roberto is done and it’s my turn. Holy fuck. I walk into this long room and before I get started I need to sign some papers that declares that I know exactly what I’m getting myself into and that I am aware of the repercussions if The Nightmare Before Christmas actually manages to identify me. Get this though.. they found somebody’s old ass Japanese grandpa from the depths of Laguna Verde (if you understand this joke, props to you) to INTERPRET the English to me and my gaijin ass is having a harder time understanding the Japanese words used to describe this situation and I’m half replying in English and a bit of Japanese just to be polite but this grandpa doesn’t seem to realise that.. my English is perfect and my Japanese is trash so he keeps on repeating and reassuring me in Japanese. Looking back, bless his soul cuz he was just trying but in that anxious situation I was looking at the officers conducting the line-up like “Ayo WHO’S MANS said I don’t speak English and fetched gramps here!?” And they were looking back at me like “Yeah our bad, I don’t know why he here tbh.” Anyway the paper signing is done with and finally, I turn around to see the 7? Or 8 people that are supposed to look like me.

ONE OF THESE MANS WAS BROWN. ANOTHER ONE OF THESE MANS WAS TWICE MY SIZE. HORIZONTALLY. BONELESS CHICKEN TENDER SHIT. THE REST OF THESE MANS ARE AT LEAST A HEAD SHORTER THAN ME AND LOOK LIKE EVERYTHING OPPOSITE OF ME. I think one mf had on braces. One dude was damn near bald. Bruh…… just put the mf handcuffs on me man I’ll do the time. Which legally blind person sent out the description report? POP holdin’ it dowwwn? They couldn’t get some basketball players in there or something? Who picked this brown man up from TST East and allowed this? Don’t get me wrong, I literally grew up with only brown people so usually I’d be more than happy to see the gang. BUT NOT AT MY MF POLICE LINEUP. Even the brown guy was looking at me like “Ah shit buckle up broski, you about to eat that charge.” I’m in a police lineup with a brown dude, the chubby kid from Up, a few kids that look like Detective Conan, literally the trail mix of Asians. My anxiety level is at a fucking 10 and I’m in full panic mode. 

Here comes Kwanye and Wendy to the fucking rescue. First, they tell all of us to sit down and this the only time I’m glad my posture is kinda fucked so that eliminates the height issue. Shoutout to scoliosis cuh. Then they procure some fucking SHOWER CAPS out of nowhere and tell us all to put them on our head - now all of our hair is covered and we all look like we about to go dissect frogs. And then they find us some GLASSES (I already had some on but now, we’re all wearing the same ones) and that covers a lot of our facial features up. Jesus Christ, I am impressed. What the fuck else is in that backroom that keeps on delivering disguises cuz it would be fun to have us all in Power Rangers outfits and the two “victims” would have to choose which colour Ranger it was LOLOL. Kwanye and Wendy then tell some of us to switch shirts, or shoes and then I am switched into some plain blue button-up and some shoes you might find at a grocery store. Some of us are switched in terms of order. We are like 8 or 9 deep in that room looking like the softest Asian biker gang. Like not motorbikes, the bicycles with the basket on ‘em. Mamachari. We’re told to sit back down and it finally begins. 

I fucking hate this crash test dummy’s voice. If this voice was a person of its own it would be that mf who says “the customer is always right”. Stop humiliating yourself with your extra ass soundwaves you have the audacity to call a voice and tata the fuck out of here with your Ralph Lauren socks you victim-playing piece of shit. Oh right, about the actual process. It was intense tbh. It’s a one-way glass, so I’m just sitting there, trying not to sweat, panic attack on 10, while you hear this piece of shit slowly pacing back and forth and making comments to the officers and to himself. Once in a while he would say some shit like, I think it’s #4, just to see if there’s any reaction. Bitch I ran a poker house, I can pull a poker face. I believe I was sitting in #3. Allen Iverson baby. He keeps pacing and bitching about the glasses and shower caps because my lawyers came prepped like game 7 of the NBA Finals. After 45 minutes where I was thinking of happy thoughts to distract myself; thoughts of my cat nuzzling me while I sleep, thoughts of this mf slipping on a conveniently placed banana peel and breaking his elbow, etc., finally I hear a voice that says “I am sorry but I cannot identify him. I mean, you got them all in caps and glasses blablabla” nobody wants to hear your voice cunt and now it’s round 2 with Mrs. Puff.

As the story goes, I feel like you will start to understand why I hate Mrs. Puff and why I wish her more hell than Morpheus. Remember in part 2 I told you I leaned in close to her to ask if she was okay because it looked like he was bothering her? And why I fucking wish I didn’t? Well this is exactly why. Not only did this bitch freak out when I pushed her drunk ass man out the bar after HE made a direct threat on us, but I was later told she was the one causing a scene outside of Ozu and demanding the police arrest us and probably took po lil’ tink tink to the hospital after to make sure he pressed charges on us. She is the gasoline to the fire. The mentos to the coke.

So yeah, this demonyo bitch identified me. Hard not to because if the tables were turned I definitely could have identified her too with her botched botox and Finding Nemo lips. Why don’t you contour your shit better so you don’t look like you work the strip outside Amazonia you red velvet cake-face-having-ass-ho. And I’m not being harsh because in one of the next parts you will hear about how cunning this bitch is to put so much effort into putting me, a CLEARLY innocent person, in jail just for ... I don’t even know for what. Because it wasn’t for justice. If justice existed then her face wouldn’t look like a 4th grader tried to draw her from memory. I hope you’re reading this so you start realising that you are the personification of the word “mid-life crisis” and you need to retire from wearing denim miniskirts with holes in them you deteriorating hag of a bitch. I hope your kids call you by your first name. You have no idea what the FUCK you put me through to the point I actually genuinely wished I did what you liars were accusing me of.

Sorry about my blood pressure. Honestly though, even though I got identified, at the end of the day I was just so glad it was all over. I switch and get my clothes back from Asian square #7 and then I am told again by the officers in charge that although the guy couldn’t identify me, the girl did and that it could come back to me if the case proceeds. Honestly though, 1 out of 2 is not bad not to mention the main “victim” couldn’t identify me so I thought that was kind of a win. Japanese grandpa is at it again with the English translation but he is kinda slow so he isn’t aware that his translation is already two sentences behind because the officers and I are just talking normally at this point. My bad ojiisan. I find out later that Roberto wasn’t identified by either one and at least that is a big win and proof that good lawyers are worth every dollar. After that whole ordeal I realised my anxiety was so bad that whole day that I had severe muscle pain from being tense and I went home feeling like I ran a marathon. But the day was finally done and I was reunited with my cat and my jewellery and my tattoos.  

And with my luck, OF COURSE the case goes to fucking trial almost a year later.

3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (Part 2)

PART 2 - THE STATION

Part 1 is here in case you are lost. 

Why the FUCK I gotta get arrested!? What FUCKING evidence do they have against me? Who the FUCK does this guy think he is? Why the FUCK is there an ‘h’ in the word, ‘honest’? Who the FUCK killed Tupac and Biggie Smalls? I had so many questions. So I wake up the next morning, hungover but me being hungover is like Snoop being high so it’s about as suspenseful as paint drying, I’m just saying that to say I felt like shit the whole day with heightened anxiety. I was minding my own business in my own bed, staying outta trouble, counting my blessings and all that, you know, wholesome shit. Playing with my cat and talking to him about how inflation got me fucked up and all that. I get a text from my boss Manny and I didn’t even look at it yet but I just … knew, you know? Like when the teacher hands you your test paper faced down and her lips be tight. And yeah, sure enough, the police was called last night and I had to report to Ozu ASAP to be formally arrested and processed. I mean, aside from the fact that this mf Professor X hurt his damn self in an incident that he himself provoked, but I heard on the grapevine it was actually Meg from Family Guy who was hysterical and screaming at police saying that we needed to get arrested so here we fucking are. Oh trust me it gets worse, I don’t call women bitches cuz I was raised by my mom but for this one there’s a reason why I don’t hesitate whatsoever. In simple terms, both me and Roberto had to turn ourselves in. I don’t know if anybody else had to turn themselves in before but you know what you do when you’re hit with that ultimatum?

I took my sweet. ass. fuckin’ time. I went outside, looked at birds and shit. Fixed up the page margins on my resume. Folded a thousand origami cranes and wished food poisoning on all my enemies. Sat my cat down on some grown man shit, he nodded. He a G he seen worse. Nah but really though, I was scheduled to work at 4PM so I was up by 2, but both me and Roberto pulled up to Ozu at like 6. Fun fact, I was wearing the same hoodie all 3 times I got arrested. It lays banished in my closet as of now but if anybody wants a free jail tour complete with the fingerprint experience package hmu you can borrow it. So both me and Roberto finally show up to Ozu and sure enough, there’s 4 Anti-Triad detectives (LOLOL) waiting for us and somehow, Manny being Manny, is already laughing and buddy-buddy with them. For context, Manny is a Nigerian-Cantonese guy who speaks better Cantonese than anybody I know and this man somehow already has one of the officers’ number so he can stay updated on us when we go inside. I died laughing because he saved my detective’s name on his phone, simply as ... “popo” LOL even though he knew both his first and last name. No capitalization, no nothing. Just … “popo”. My guy’s name is Mr. Wong btw. They say whatever the fuck they gotta say: “you have the right to remain silent, everything you say may or may not be used against you in the court of law, 7k for a house like a cell and you really think we out here scared of jail blablabla” and then they just kinda held our shoulder because they didn’t want to put handcuffs on us and led us to their car which was parked right in front of Frank’s, which was kinda funny because all the homies inside were looking at us like yo nice car wait hold up something’s not right are you ok. If I learned one thing in this whole ordeal tho was that a lot of people in the system, especially the higher-ups, are quite nice because they let us use our phones in the narc car and they kept apologising saying this shit is pointless and that it’s all a formality. I fucks w all of em heavy, I hope they got promoted and are solving murders and shit now cuz we wasn’t it LOL. En route to Central & Western police station. 

Me and Roberto get there and if you’ve ever been arrested in LKF before, you’ll know they take you through like 3 doors that need to be opened via walkie-talkie and then you’re put in an office where there’s a bunch of 5-0 gathered around screens pretending to work but definitely got some other shit open on another tab. There’s 3 holding cells there if I remember correctly, and a long-term holding cell (more or less actual jail) on the right side which also opens up only when someone higher up is alerted. That’s where the toilet is at and it’s literally just a hole in the ground and there’s literally no space for any privacy let alone space to even pull an 8 ball of cocaine out the deep realm of your asshole but nevertheless, the officer stands like 2 Subway sandwiches away from you while you piss anyway. This area is kinda old and feels pretty hopeless tbh. We first get taken to separate interview rooms where we gotta forfeit all our belongings which is fine because I only have the $8 of change that Squidward dropped the night before on me anyway and then we’re taken upstairs away from this dungeon into what they called the “video room”. I’m just joking about the $8 btw, Manny made us take $1000 each out the Ozu till for bail money and for 2 years I actually kept at least $1000 cash on me at all times in case I get arrested again. I was institutionalised man. Just kidding, I just wanted to know how it feels to say that.

Now we’re at this video room and they call it that because that’s where they pull up CCTV footage of you fuckin’ somebody up and then ask you what happened as if it wasn’t just visually communicated to them in 360p. I learned most police work is just paperwork and just to get all the right documents they’re taking forever - me and Roberto are seated in two separate rooms but they bring us snacks and lemon tea to make sure we’re okay while we wait. I learned VLT is like their go-to drink because I was given lemon tea again on the 3rd time I got arrested LOL. Like I said, they were quite nice to us so I’m sorry for dropping For the City that song was directed towards the power trippin’ low-level cops not y’all elite mfs please forgive me. Anyway me and Roberto are munching on them Japanese butterfly pies and awaiting our fate and then our 4 homies come back up and finally the paperwork begins where we have to write our statement. 

Keep in mind I’m still a bit nervous at this point. I don’t really know what I’m in for and I know I was the only one that got caught on camera. And yeah sure maybe these mans fed me and gave me VLT but I’m still in police custody and I wasn’t tryna get the brakes beaten off of me off-camera. I mean I’m vibing with Mr. Wong but who knows if he a bipolar mf. If you got bipolar I’m not judging but I’m pretty sure five-o not supposed to be especially cuz they run around strapped all day. Side note, I think the police use Windows 95 or some shit cuz damn you would think they'd have iPads or something to solve crime in HD but nah, everything is done off a laptop they bought from a methhead in Sham Shui Po for a wrinkled $20 bill and a pack of Haw flakes. Anyway, you're asked to write out a whole bunch of formalities that declare that you aren’t mentally challenged and have more than 6 brain cells and that you understand everything that’s going on blablabla. Obviously I pass with flying colours and I’m not sure about Roberto but he out so I guess he did aight. LOL jk. Then they ask you shit about your life, like your age, occupation, criminal history, zodiac sign when the moon is strong, all that. Now here is the part that made me heavily fw these guys for life. At this point, my detective Mr. Wong takes over the writing while his superior carefully watched over his work like how Young Thug watches over Durkio’s studio sessions. They play the video of the altercation from all camera angles and at varying speeds. Clearly, I don’t do anything wrong except for the initial push to force Ironman forehead out of Ozu. They ask me “tell me exactly what happened right here”, indicating the moment I pushed the guy. I say politely … “I mean, officer, you can clearly see it here that this man was causing trouble so I had to push the guy out.”

To which, my guy replies in a heavy Cantonese accent, “Lo, lo, lo, LO, Yuwi. You don’t understen. You did LOT push him. You simply extend your right ahm to escort this troublemaker out of the premiseses”. Verbatim. Translation for people who can’t read in a Cantonese accent; he said “No, no, no, NO Yuri., You don’t understand. You did NOT push him. You simply extended your right arm to escort this troublemaker out of the premises.” 

In my head I was like “WORD MR. WONG, WORD!!!!” Yo Mr. Wong is HIM. He is THAT guy. He is THE Steph Curry of statements cuz he don’t fucking miss. I remember smiling and saying “Yes sir that’s exactly what happened.” I can hear from the next room Roberto chatting it up with his 2 officers. They’re fucking talking about his Naruto tattoo on his leg and how the first time he got arrested it was because he got so drunk he stole a pineapple bun from a bakery and they laughing and shit. Oh man we about to be freer than Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption. Mr. Wong and his superior are both struggling to write my statement in English, scratching out mistakes and asking me how to spell certain words every few seconds. So for people that don’t know, every time there’s something scratched out or unclear on a statement, you have to sign your name next to it as official “proof” that nobody meddled with the document after it was written. 

I ain’t never signed so many fucking autographs in my life. The police couldn’t get enough of me they love me up in that bih. But honestly, it was kinda cute cuz I could tell Mr. Wong was quite proud of his own English work at the end and his superior Young Thug seemed to have approved. The statements are done and it’s kinda bittersweet because our homies have to all go and do actual police work now which was….to go arrest people like our friends LOLOL. This is the point where we have to leave the comfort of these upstairs offices into a room where they take your mugshot along with your charge, and then fingerprint you. It was lowkey a sensual moment as one of the officers gently took my hands in his…and entered me into the criminal database. Thrn he did a romantic photoshoot of my mug and commented on my hand tattoos. If I was gay I would have fallen for him. Mr. Wong pops back in and scoops me up like a child from kindergarten before he sets out to potentially arrest my other youngin Sypaul for the 3rd time that year and walks me to my cell. He reassures me that I won’t be long in here and pats my shoulder and apologises again for all this hassle. Like I said, real one. I hope your wife makes you good soup with every dinner because you deserve that shit sir. 

Now me and Roberto are sitting alone in neighbouring cells and the time is like, 9PM at this point on a Saturday and we’re wondering how the bar in Ozu is doing with two of their only bartenders in jail LOL. How the cells are laid out is, three of them are located right in front of these officers that will never make it so if you turn to your right you’re eye to eye with them and if you need anything, whether it’s a phone call, the toilet, or a hug, you gotta ask them to let you out first. I don't talk so highly about these officers because these were the mean ones, even meaner because… well they don't even get to go patrol and flex hahahah I bet your office chair warm af huh. Both me and Berts are hungover and there’s food in the cell but we don’t eat it - it’s 餐蛋飯 that’s been left out since before COVID and you know when you keep hot food in styrofoam too long it start sweating and I ain’t tryna eat food that’s been working out after it died already. There ain’t shit to do in there and I actually manage to fall asleep for a little bit until I was woken up by a new guy in my cell. This guy’s name, I find out after, is Jason and Jason is panicking and super agitated, which is pissing me off because I was actually at peace with my claustrophobia then this antsy mf gotta walk in fuckin’ up my vibe. He keeps on begging the officer for his phone because he needs to make some calls and he’s deadass clawing on the glass like a fucking fiend like get it together bro the Walking Dead dragged the script long enough. 

Eventually we talk because… when you’re in a cell with somebody else and he damn near start crying because he don’t have his phone you start wondering if it’s serious or it’s because he missing out on all the good Pokemon. I find out that while he was on the way to Zentral, he got picked up on a cigarette fine that he didn’t pay for a year so they just sent him straight to jail and now…he’s missing out on a fun club night. Immediately I start contemplating whether I should stab this guy to get my street credibility up because I am in a cell with the Park N’ Shop value pack of crime and I felt disrespected just being in his presence but I am a nice guy at heart so I empathise. Later on it starts becoming happy hour in the cells and eventually Roberto and his cellie have to move into me and Jason’s - turns out Roberto’s cellie got arrested for having a green Octopus card for the elderly even tho he’s like 19 and again, both me and Roberto met eyes and probably thought the exact same thing. LOL jk. This shit was short-lived though because we all get separated in like 10 minutes - me and Roberto start getting rowdy like the Ozu Boys that we are and we start actually having fun roasting tf out of Tinky-Winky and Po and then the main failure in the precinct with no stripes yelled at us and made us all sit in separate cells again. Oh well it was fun. 

At around 2 or 3AM, finally after like 7 hours in the cell, Roberto gets called up to leave and there’s the first glimmer of hope. I don’t know why they take Roberto first cuz I’m cute too but I don’t take it personal, maybe I’m just not their type, and I patiently sit around waiting my turn and at last. I was told I had to check in monthly just as a formality and that the case may be reopened again but not to really stress too much. I pay my bail money, put all my jewellery back on like Allen Iverson fresh outta TSA, say goodbye to Dipsy and Laa-Laa and one of the lesser failures in the office just points to the door and says just leave out that way. I start fast-walking the fuck out of there like this, open up the door and BAM here comes Manny jumping out from behind the corner trying to knee my balls first thing like some wombat on crack hahahahahah. This fucking guy not only came to pick me and Roberto up from jail but waited around the corner hiding for like 30 minutes just to try and pop out and knee my balls. Keep in mind this mf was 34 at the time already hahahahah. I wasn’t in there 12 hours but there really is something different about the air in the cell because fresh air felt so fucking good. There’s not much to say after this but me and Manny taxi’d home and I got some curry down my place and I texted all the people who messaged me because apparently word spread faster than…COVID (sorry I wrote this for you guys on the following day and it's currently 6:23AM so my similes are lazy again) and I passed the fuck out in my own bed and not a bench. I guess the moral of this story is… don't let your guard down leaving jail cuz there might always be a 34 year-old black Chinese man waiting to flying knee your ballsack. What a fucking day for a hungover man with anxiety.

FUCK BRO THIS WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING

3 Arrests, A Police Lineup, and a 2-Day Trial (Part 1)

PART 1 - THE NIGHT

I don’t even know where to start with this story, but last night I blacked out and barely made it home alive so I’m deathly hungover and what better way to fight the elevated sense of depression and hangxiety than to pretend to be funny on the Internet. As some of you may already know, I was fighting a court case for 2 years for assault occasioning bodily harm and I didn’t really take it too seriously like multiple choice exams until they opened my case up again and decided that I need to go to trial. Seriously, my case was weak to begin with like steroid dick so even the Anti-Triad detective (LOL) that had to arrest me afterwards told me he thought it was BS and “main office have too much time la”. This isn’t what I pay my fucking taxes for. I mean I haven’t paid in 2 years but that’s besides the point. Shoutout to Mr. Wong tho he a real one I hope you have good metabolism for life and your kids grow up to be whatever they want to be. I already touched upon my arrest in my first blog post but at the time my lawyer told me to leave certain details out because it was an open case but now I can say whatever the fuck I want about it… sorta. I don’t know how long the statute of limitations is for shit like this hahah. I guess I’ll take you back to the night I got arrested for the first time in Ozu. Names and other shit have been edited LOL the real ones who were there that night know. Actually fuck it, we innocent I’m not gonna change any names. 

So me and defendant #2, aka my lil bro Roberto, were working the bar at Ozu on a Friday night as per usual and shit was lit as always. We were busy making drinks that were 3 times stronger than the standard U.S drink which should have been a crime in itself for at least one count attempted murder and everybody’s having a good time - it’s the end of October which meant it was everybody’s birthdays - including mine which was just 5 days after, so the vibes is crazy. This was the short period of time that we got to open up again during COVID too - does anybody remember Halloween 2020 in LKF? That time. LIIT like Long Island Iced Tea. Me, Berto, and defence witness #1, Manny aka my boss, are all smiles and living good. Money was coming in, I’m on like my 11th shot of JD, pretty girls are asking me to come drink with them and I gotta act busier than I actually am, we can feel the hate and jealousy from the other bar managers on the strip whining like “They can’t keep getting away with this!” Cry me a river with your weak ass 30ml pours. Life is good at #1 Hollywood Road.

Here comes this mercury in retrograde forever, LBH (loser back home, shoutout to Kenny from Yardbird for teaching me this vernacular), straight out of the AMEX black card douchebag directory, ‘I am a foreigner in Asia and all you Asians are beneath me’ MF. Let me describe this fucking cunt to you. Tall, skinny but sorta built, bald, lizard eyes, ugly sneery face probably from all that foreigner superiority complex. Kinda like Stewie Griffin but vertical not horizontal. He was racially ambiguous - later I found out that he’s Mauritian but at the time I just thought he was a lightskin American dude who faked a French accent to get easy pussy which should be punishable by jail time for impersonation if you ask me but whatever. He could have passed as the inspiration for Slenderman but they realised the face was too ugly so they were like nah, just make it a blank face he look better that way. So I didn’t notice this gecko from the GEICO commercial at first because I was busy having too much fun then he decides to order at the bar - ok, no biggie. I already noticed Mr. Potatohead on meth earlier in the night because when he first walked in, he was dancing around like them inflatable tubes outside car washes, swerving without turn signals, loudly telling his life story to a confused white guy who didn’t give a flying fuck but was politely nodding, that type of behaviour. I actually noticed him talking to this Asian girl before ordering and it looked to me like he was tryna freestyle rap in her ear and she definitely wasn’t feelin’ it. Let me describe her to you, mid 40s but dress like she 18, dyed brown hair, not very tall, looks like she only dates younger men. Kinda looks like Mrs. Puff from Spongebob. This was when I leaned in closer to her and asked her if she was okay (like the amazing, compassionate, caring bartender that I am, tyvm) and if he was disturbing her and she said no, it’s fine, he’s just really drunk. I WISH I NEVER ASKED THIS BITCH ANYTHING ROT IN FUCKING HELL. Ok that’s important later sorry for the outburst. My Twitter fingers almost turned into trigger fingers just now tho. 

I don’t quite remember what the skull emoji ordered, because I was already getting pretty disgusted by his attitude, clicking his fingers, not saying please or thank you, rushing me when there was a bar full of people I had to deal with. I would never spit in somebody’s drink cuz that’s just disrespectful to my own craft but damn I really wanted to put laxative or something in his shit cuz sometimes karma ain’t fast enough, on God. Multiple times, prosecution witness #1 (oh shit is this a spoiler alert well ok it’s spoiled), aka the fucking bitch he was talking to, would actually have to hold him back because he would just be pointing in our faces and just being disrespectful. Roberto was increasingly getting impatient too but I kept telling him to not say shit, it’s not worth it. Roberto’s like my cute lil bro who’s always smiling and happy go-lucky. He got tats and fights tho LOL. Caillou with a tan pays for his lil’ generic ass order with his card (really, 2 tequila shots, a fruity cocktail for the bitch and a gin tonic I mean, how unoriginal can you get I just remembered), so I pass the card to Joanna, our Ozu mama, who is at the cashier and I just go back to serving the other, far more important and nicer people in the bar. I totally forget about Thin Diesel because as I mentioned, it was all good vibes and I wasn’t about to let some piece of shit ruin our night. 

Then Tyrese on heroin starts cursing at Joanna because she accidentally switched the cards and this mf making it seem like we stole his holographic Charizard. Keep in mind, this is COVID times so we had to close at 12 and it was 11:54 (trust me I remember every fucking timestamp) which means that Joanna was busy running like 14 cards cuz everybody was leaving so it’s a completely honest mistake. All we gotta do is void the mistaken payment and run it again, which is like, 3 mins, tops. That’s cup noodle time bro. 3 packs of minute rice. Must feel like an eternity for you tho since that’s how long you last on a good day you stupid mf. Mrs. Puff is apologising and desperately trying to find ways to solve this so they can just leave. At this point Common with no musical talent is causing a huge scene, pointing his finger quite close to my face, waving his hands around, calling Joanna a bitch, if we had a bouncer he would have been gone yesterday type shit. That’s already crossing the line because Joanna is like 4ft11, can probably drive a car standing up (jk) and she’s adorable and that’s moms right there. I’m tryna close the bar at this point and he’s not letting me because he’s sneering and touching shit on the bar to fuck with me so I have to push his hand away - at this point I’m doing mad breathing exercises trying to remember Bible quotes I seen on some thot’s IG page about forgiveness cuz I’m about to lose it and this when Roberto says to him “Yo stop touching shit on the bar yeah?” To which he goes, “I’m just taking the piss on him yeah? What, you got something to say?” while sneering. Lord Voldemort and Roberto exchange a few words and then he flat out goes - “Step outside the fucking bar mate, I’ll fuck you up.” Your honour, I felt that was a direct threat of violence and I genuinely felt scared for the safety of the entire venue, staff, and other patrons. Shoutout to my lawyers who taught me how to talk like that. Lord knows ain’t none of us scared LOL we deep up in there. Anyway a direct threat was made. Green light. 

The guardian angel that must be so tired of me at this point cuz it works overtime with no pay suddenly sprung into action and as me and Roberto circle the bar, instead of punching him, last second I change my mind and just, lightly push him. Remember when Michael Jordan went up for the dunk but then at the last second switched to the left for a layup? And the crowd went crazy? The FINESSE. Terrible analogy but I just wanted to compare myself to Jordan. Keep in mind, he’s blacked out so he tumbles over like … tumbleweed. Sorry it’s 5:11AM so I’m getting lazy with my similes. But thank GOD for my guardian angel because if it was a punch then the case would still be going on right now. But he doesn’t fall because like I said, I actually didn’t really push him hard enough and after that it’s a ruckus because he’s charging back at us and everybody’s holding everybody back, his bitch is screaming, people are whispering “oh ya he deserved that”, chairs are flipping, babies crying, someone broke a nail. The point is, after the initial contact, I couldn’t reach him anymore and that’s on everything. Aight so boom, one thing led to another and he falls on himself and bangs his head on the gate and his shirt is ripped from being pulled back and it’s funny because it’s just the nipple part exposed so even in such a serious moment I remember thinking in my head “damn his titties just gon be out like that?” He’s on the floor looking confused, bamboozled, flabbergasted, nipple out, wallet and keys on the floor. I think some change fell out his pocket too. Like $8. Get you a McChicken and tata the fuck outta here bitch. At this point I’m still being held back but I just say “man fuck you, you ain’t even worth it” and both me and Roberto go back in and finish up the closing of the bar. Gonna give myself a pat on the back and say that’s some real bartender shit right there cuz if I’m going to jail let me clean my bar first. Manny hands He Who Must Not Be Named his things and in his Chris Tucker voice said “You got knocked… THE FUCK OUT!!!” Nah I’m joking. But he gives him back his stuff and said just go home man. Police are everywhere at this point but nothing happens yet and we finish closing the bar and leave and head the other way. We’re actually watching the whole scene unfold from Cali-Mex across the street as if we weren’t responsible for any of it hahah I think we went out that night too LOL. The point is, it literally happened like this - dickhead shows up drunk, mistreats staff, makes direct threat, gets pushed out, trips on himself, finally forced out. So I actually didn’t think anything of it. THEN WE GET ARRESTED THE NEXT DAY. 

How I Almost Died In the Chungking Mansions (Part 2)

If you haven’t read part 1 yet I suggest you do so. Here is the real life Frank corroborating my story shirtless for some reason like he Chris Breezy.

…The weed comes out. And don’t get me wrong, I been around weed all my life but smoking certain strains (I never figured which) seemed to trigger my anxiety so I never really got into it. There was maybe a one month period in my life when I smoked regularly and then it took one bad trip for me to never look back on it again. AND here’s a fun fact that may or may not be true - I don’t know if the people in the Mansions do shit to their Heineken or they have some shady supplier but this ain’t no regular Heineken. Everything from the outside looks normal but man, this shit HITS. And no, this wasn’t because I was coming straight from work and I was already slightly tipsy because I actually went back one time sober for mandatory “research purposes”. I am an alcoholic and one 355ml can of Chungking Heineken made me feel tipsy as fuck. So to whoever is injecting heroin into the Heineken, keep it up because it’s economic and good for the environment because you drink less cans. Save the sea turtles. So after like 4 or 5 of these Heinekens I am FUCKED. All that JD combined with this narcotic liquid acted like compound interest from a loanshark company like PROM*SE and I knew that I needed to go home soon but somehow I was hanging onto my consciousness thanks to the sip of water I took at 11PM that night. 

The joint gets passed around to me and I politely decline because I am one intake of anything away from waking up reincarnated as a dung beetle. Frank and Runner were fine, they came to Ozu later in the night so they didn’t drink much. Soto is kinda fucked but he’s a smoker so he’s doing alright. They ask again jokingly like “bro, just one puff” and with a smile, I’m like “Nah man I’m good, I’m not much of a smoker anyway”. 

Suddenly the vibes turn hostile. It gets quiet as fuck. I can hear cells go through mitosis. A Filipino couple is arguing outside of Pulse. My Japanese ancestors are bitching about my tattoos but are pleasantly impressed by my height. Morgan Freeman is narrating in the distance. “At this point Yuri knew…. he fucked up.”

One of the guys breaks the silence and asks what I guess what was on all of their minds. “You undercover police?” 

Now funnily enough, this wasn’t the first time I was asked this question in life. I am a pale Japanese man who grew up with brown people so people either thought I was a customer or some sort of informant when I was hanging around them. We used to get police checked over this sole fact alone. And random motherfuckers over the years kept on bringing up my EYES saying that, apparently, CID have the same type of eyes that I do which is fucked up. So my right eye only has one eyelid and my left eye has double eyelids meaning that sometimes my eyes are distinguishably unequal - something I was always slightly insecure about - and I grew up with people saying that was a CID trait like wtf!? You telling me that I was GENETICALLY predisposed to be a narc? 

So HELL the FUCK NO. I yanked that joint so fast it was disrespectful, I feel like I gave the poor bredrin’s fingers a form of whiplash and we was just bonding over throwback stories. Both of our fingers were dry so we almost re-discovered fire. I damn near finished the joint myself and passed it and I told them something along the lines of “Mama didn’t raise no fucking narc.” I proved myself. Everything was 1017. Gucci. Babies smiled. Soca music resumed. A unicorn gave birth. A rose grew from the concrete. “Damn Jap Boy we were just joking.” Well I fucking wasn’t. 

My last memory was the second time the joint came around and I said no, super firmly this time. They were cool with it, I mean I just finished their first joint by myself pretty much just to prove a point and now I’m just a waste of weed. I wish they thought I was a waste of weed before those 10 puffs but what’s done is done. After this, I have 0 memory and I am going off of what people told me. 

APPARENTLY, I got up at one point, and I was actually fine. I told everybody thank you for a great night, shook hands with everybody, remembered everybody’s names, and left politely. That’s the last morsel of Japanese blood in me controlling the autopilot because trust me, the ratchet side of me was saying “WHO THE NARC HUH”. Frank actually walked me out and said I looked fine enough to walk the few blocks to my house. Soto came with me because I find out later that he was slightly less faded than me which meant that if he turned his head too fast, he would have blacked out off momentum alone. APPARENTLY after we leave the Mansions, we go into a random building and I’m looking for something - I have no fucking idea for what, for who, but it was a random residential building. I could have been looking for Bigfoot for all I know but apparently I was really searching and I never said for what. And funnily enough, I think Soto was also helping me search for whatever the fuck I was looking for too so it’s just two grown ass mans walking around a quiet residential for ….. absolutely nothing. You ever seen those meme videos titled “My last two brain cells working together?” Me and Soto were our last brain cells, combined. We eventually come to our senses and leave this random ass building and Soto bounces. 

I wake up strapped to a hospital chair. I am so drunk still that my anxiety doesn’t even kick in - being trapped and helpless is actually one of my BIGGEST phobias - and I am taking a few moments to gather myself and evaluate the circumstances and the bare fuckery that I got myself into. It is a public hospital. Ok it’s not a police station so that’s a win. There’s mad elderly mans in beds surrounding me. They ain’t dead or dying though so that’s a win. I am in this hospital chair that seems to be in the middle of everything - I’m next to a hallway, I’m next to hospice beds, I swear some lady was giving birth to twins a few meters away, there’s nurses everywhere. I am awake now, as fuck, but nobody seems to care. I called out for the nurse for some water. Nothing. Cottonmouth, dehydration, I’m amazed my crusty ass throat didn’t crack and bleed internally and I didn’t just die right there, the first human to ever die from weed. Imagine how big of a loser I would be, I’d be remembered forever as public enemy #1 of stoners because the government would find a way to criminalise weed even more cuz of my bitch ass. They would build a statue of me just to tip it over and watch my cement head crack and I wouldn’t even blame them. FOX News would have a field day. Shit my mom is Japanese but a converted Canadian at heart so even she would call me a yowamushi. I call out again, and they turn to see where the voice was coming from, IGNORES me like I’m a 64 year old creep who pokes them on Facebook, then goes back to work. I was flabbergasted. Befuddled. Perplexed. I have my moments, but for the most part I think I’m a decent person. I keep calling out, and every nurse gives me a dirty look like I stole their cab at 4PM. If you’re from HK, you know that 4PM is the time that taxis switch shifts and there’s barely any on the road so this is a big fucking deal. Oh shit, I probably fucked up. I need answers and I was about to get them. 

After about an hour of somehow not getting a panic attack being strapped in a hospital chair for the whole place to see as if I was about to get publicly executed, a nurse finally comes over like “Do you know what you did last night?” Ah fuck. 

Now, my house is only 5 minutes away from the Mansions. And the following few paragraphs was all a recap, told to me. By this nurse. The following paragraphs will also be told in third person because I am no longer acting as Yuri now. This is his alter ego … Takahiro. APPARENTLY, Takahiro made it to his house on Austin Avenue. So he actually managed to make the entire 5 minute walk. Frank's guesstimate was correct, I had enough sanity left in me to walk home. BUT what was unfortunate was, Frank didn't factor in the elevator ride or my alter ego Takahiro and Taka’s bitch ass decided that he wasn’t built for no elevator in that condition so he decided to rest on the curb next to his building instead, probably to “rest his eyes”. Either not ready for an elevator ride or couldn’t remember the passcode of the door. It’s 3789#, I remember this almost 4 years later but HE probably couldn’t on that night. This would have been about 6 in the morning. Police pull up on Takahiro, probably out of concern out of anything. Poor officers. They try to wake Taka up, and he does…but thinks he’s getting arrested and flips out when apparently they were just trying to help. He is so faded that he has no idea that he is literally an elevator ride away from home. At this point Taka wouldn’t know the difference between the Chungking Mansions and Soho House. Taka was white boy wasted. Or in more politically correct terms, Caucasian-male-debilitated.

They handcuff Takahiro and instead of dealing with his fuckery at the station because technically he didn’t break any laws, they drop him off at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Taka seemed to have caused quite a stir, desperately trying to leave and calling the police “lil bitches” numerous times, and the hospital staff, God bless them, figured he was in no condition to be alone at home as he could have probably died from alcohol poisoning at that point, and had to strap him to the hospital chair just to monitor him until his stupid ass finally fell asleep. End of third person. 

I must have said sorry to this nurse 100 times, it’s almost like I cheated on this woman. “I’ll be better” “It’s not you, it’s me” LOL. Finally she unstraps me from this execution chair that probably housed numerous wastemans across Yau Tsim Mong, gives me my possessions back and lets me go. I genuinely hope she’s doing well, she had every right to keep me in that chair longer but she didn’t. I think it’s a flex here to say that I didn’t lose a single thing. I had an iPod classic still at this point in my life, yup, 256GB, and that shit was intact. That iPod had hits from way back still on there downloaded through LimeWire and I wasn’t about to re-download “Chain Hang Low” by Jibbs. I was missing one of those earphone foam things though which actually super pissed me off but besides that and my dignity, I didn’t lose anything. I was discharged from the hospital at like 10 in the morning, took mad pics of my hospital wristband and sent it to all the worried people who were wondering if I was alive and we laughed all morning about how stupid Takahiro was. I remember Frank’s voice message of him cackling away until he couldn’t breathe. Fuckin’ dick. And yes, I made it to work on time as well. No amount of Pocari Sweat was gonna save me on that day. 

Now, that wasn’t the last time I drank at Chungking. Actually I blacked out three more times after that, once while shooting HKG and twice while shooting Chungking. I just had to make sure and really confirm that Chungking was not a safe place, and not in the way the media portrays it. But the vibes is too good and the beer is too drugs and Frank’s feet are a fire hazard so it’s almost impossible to not die there. All the nights went super smoothly though and guess what. Fucking NOBODY ever dared question if I was undercover police again. NOBODY. Shiiiiit ask them about Jap Boy, they know. 

I don’t really know how to conclude this story, but here are some key takeaways. 

• With a $100, you get the same feeling - if not better - of popping a bottle in a club and buying drinks for everybody. Actually yeah, definitely a better feeling because these dudes genuinely appreciate these gestures and they never forget shit like that.

• Go to the Mansions and try the Heineken from the first floor. Go take a drug test after and let me know if you test positive for heroin or any other amphetamines. For science.

• If a brown mans ever offers you a custom suit and you decline, and then he offers meth right after, ask some questions, give him a chance. He’s giving it his all out there and he’s worth hearing out.

• If you’re ever strapped to a hospital chair, don’t resist and try to break free, all you’ll do is piss people off and now look, you’re out of breath without moving a literal inch. Just mad head movement.

• No bar in Hong Kong can ever do what Ozu did.

• If you are borderline close to death from alcohol intake and somebody accuses you of being an undercover cop because you don’t want to smoke their joint…

DO EXACTLY WHAT THE FUCK I DID AND WAKE UP IN THE HOSPITAL CUZ MAMA AIN’T RAISE NO FUCKING NARC.

Thanks for reading, love y’all. Find my friends here: Frank’s IG / Runner’s IG / Soto’s IG

How I Almost Died in the Chungking Mansions (Part 1)

First, let me start off this random blog post that I’m writing at exactly 4:14AM by saying I am residually faded right now from my shift at Yardbird and I got my glasses over my contact lenses just so I can see the words I’m typing. Do you ever go through your Instagram story archives when you’re bored and get lowkey emotional taking a trip down memory lane, well that’s where I’m at now. I’m gonna take you back to when I was in my early 20s, (I think it was 2018) when I didn’t get 2-day hangovers that give me existential crises and I could still change my fitted sheets without slipping my disk. This is the story of why I don’t drink in the Chungking Mansions anymore. 

It was a random weekend day and I was still running the bar at Ozu; I believe it was summer time because I’m pretty sure I wasn’t in the back of a police car in a jacket, that wouldn’t have been very ergonomic and I would have remembered the discomfort. This is called foreshadowing. So if you haven’t heard of Ozu, it was a bar on Hollywood Road in Hong Kong - I’m about to flex real heavy here - and we managed to last 7 or 8 years in a cursed location and I can say, with 100% confidence, that we were responsible for the closure of many, if not all, venues around us at the time. We was running shit. Ask about us cuz muthafuckas know. We were so lit that we ruined alcohol for people - we used to give triple gin tonics in a pint glass and only charge $108HKD and everybody was saying how they can’t drink anywhere else cuz their tolerance got built up too high. Me and Manny (our General Manager) used to take walks around the whole Central when it got boring and literally scoop familiar faces from other bars like “yo what you doin’ in this lil’ offbrand place, pull up”, while their GM watched hatefully yet helplessly, and pack the whole bitch out in an hour. We were so dope that we didn’t even have a demographic - our regulars could be the elderly bitching about how their son 34 but still won’t leave home, college kids who would pay $1500 for a gram of coke, bankers who don’t even like drinking Old Fashioneds but do it anyway because it’s part of the douchebag starter kit, gangsters who would openly sell to said college kids in front of us and tip us $500, shareholders who owned 5% but acted like they owned the whole venue, depressed moms who only drank Sauvignon Blanc, it really didn’t matter - if you were nice to us, we were nice to you. Other venues hated us and we basked in that shit like an Asian dad with three kids and all three of them were doctors. The word “Ozu” is a play on the word “O/王” in Japanese which means “king”, and the “zu” was a play on the plural form of the word, like an “s”; so basically Ozu meant the kings. And we were the kings of Hollywood Road. To this fucking day. 

Ok flexing is over. But if you ever been there, then you felt every single muthafuckin word that I just said. I said all of that just to say this - if a bar can afford to give away that much alcohol, best believe we drinking just as much to match that. LOL what ENT bill, charge that shit to the game baby. There was a point in time when both me and Manny could drink 20 - 25 shots of spirits a night just to show respect to our regulars (believe me, the amount of people we knew combined, this wasn’t hard) and still be fine and go out drinking after. We would talk shit and back that shit up like a Mack truck. We look back now and realise how dangerous that was, but then we were drinking Bacardi 151 (75.5% ABV) and mixing it with cheap Prosecco like it was nothing. Only the Bacardi wasn’t Bacardi, it was a bootleg version of it called Potter’s and it sold for $38HKD. Death is cheap, life is not.

Ok back to my story. This was just one of those days when we were up to our usual shenanigans - and by shenanigans I mean finishing at least a bottle of JD to myself before work was even over - and I don’t really remember any significant details about work. Every weekend day was more or less the same - we would get our usual wave of regulars and we’d kill our service while being siu siu faded, then we’d close up and see what’s good for the rest of the night - usually we would pull up to Frank’s and Runway (shoutout to the family) and then go somewhere in Lan Kwai. After this alcohol abuse, I would sometimes go to the late night spot to get a plate of gailan (芥籣) and pretend I was actually healthy for the day. That day was no different, but I just so happened to get a visit from two of my boys from Chungking, Frank and Robby Runner. We got a song together btw and they dope as fuck, check it out here.

Frank is a big, Colombian dude who got one piercing, one tattoo, and never stopped after, and Robby is a slim, laidback mf with the smoothest swagger from Tanzania. Fun fact, Robby freestyled half of that verse on that song “Chungking” at my house. Another fun fact, me and Frank are so close we get into heated roast sessions where I make fun of how ugly his feet are and I only learned about this when he came over to record and I had to force him to take his shoes off. I’ve told him he’s got Playstation 2 graphics feet, I’ve told him his feet don’t fit in one-size-fits-all socks, I’ve told him when God was building his feet, he had Lego on His mind, I’ve told him that in a drive-by shooting the opps would only aim at his toes, I’ve told him that he should start an OnlyFeet, I’ve said it all. My other boy, Soto, who is a boricua from Spanish Harlem, was already there at Ozu cuz he my day one and also a regular, and we all just tambay-ing throughout the night. “Chillin” for all the non-Pinoys. All of these guys are family, it goes without saying.

I close the bar and it’s the usual chat about where to go after work and Frank suggests the Chungking Mansions. If you’re from Hong Kong and you don’t know about the Mansions, then either you’re from Discovery Bay and you walked by one time and now you brag to your friends about how hood you are, or you literally live under a rock. Like literally, like Patrick Star. For those outside of Hong Kong, the Mansions is somewhat of an infamous place. A building full of immigrants, guesthouses, restaurants (both legal and illegal) catering to ethnic minorities, shops full of secondhand phones dropped in taxis, sketchy SIM cards that let you call Philippines for free, and bootleg Adidas that has 4 stripes instead of 3. Cheap drugs cut with acetone, weapons of various stab-like nature, money exchanges with better rates than the bank, you got it all. They say that a man can go into Chungking Mansions and live there for months without ever leaving it because it’s a city of its own - and it got its infamous status from the occasional murder, stabbing, kidnapping, etc. Trust, it ain’t as dangerous as the media likes to play it, actually it’s a very harmonious place that reminds me a lot of Toronto - a bunch of immigrants with a dollar and a dream, getting along and hustling to make it out here. I fucks with it heavy and Delhi Club is one of the best spots for Indian food in the city. (Shoutout Mandeep) And if you need a haircut or a new phone, in no order, holla at my boy Hussain on the 1st floor (sorry bhai can’t find your contact). AND if you need African food and vibes hit up Paul’s Kitchen on 1/F. There’s a barbershop on 1/F too that I haven’t been to yet but some of my bros go there so best believe they versatile and will keep you fresh cuz Chungking mans do NOT play when it comes to hair, I can only imagine the roast seshs that would stem from a fucked up cut.

Now, at this point in my life, I been going to the Mansions for years, either to visit Abacha who owns a hip-hop clothing store, (who was responsible for every ethnic minority kids’ throwback jerseys and fitted hats back in the day) or to escort one of my boys who was picking up or buying cheap alcohol aka Empi. (Fun fact, don’t buy Empi at Chungking it’s cheaper in Yau Ma Tei) But I never drank there afterhours and this was like.. 2:30 in the morning already. And I thought to myself yeah I’m still not even drunk, and Lan Kwai kinda dead so why not. Both Frank and Robby are in and out of Chungking so it ain’t shit to them, and all my other friends disperse except Soto and it was also his first time. So it was the 5 of us - me, Runner, Frank, Frank’s crooked ass toes that look like they’re throwing up gang signs, and Soto. I was kinda excited because I hate clubs and I done been around the bar scene already so this shit was new to me - AND I lived in TST back in the day which meant I was a 5-minute walk away from our destination. I could crawl in 10. Shit was about to get lit. 

This was before me, Runner, and Frank shot the MV for “Chungking”, and this was before I knew some of the main players in the Mansions so I was a familiar face but I wasn’t exactly known either. The 5 of us pull up in a taxi and the vibe of the Mansions at night is different - especially since this was before COVID. For once there are no hawkers slash drug dealers openly offering you custom suits and meth at the same time. Like bro, how do you sell success and failure at the same time as a package deal? I’m kinda interested lowkey. Brown mans are the best salesman in the world, you can’t tell me shit. Anyway it was literally just a bunch of Pakistani goons on the steps smoking hash, totally ignoring and being ignored by the police car outside. But it’s whatever, we’re used to shit like that and we walk past and go inside. We go up to 1/F where I am immediately introduced to a man I’ll call Fred, who seems to be the dailo of the place; tall, friendly African man (sorry don’t remember which part of Africa he was from) with glasses who was very hospitable and it’s a bunch of the Chungking goons on plastic chairs and tables drinking everything under the sun, vibing to shit like Vybz Kartel and Shatta Wale. And everything is dirt cheap - I think it was $100 HKD for 20 Heinekens and I made decent tips that night so I said fuck it and bought mad rounds for everybody. The shit was LIT. I was having so much fun I said fuck Lan Kwai I’m pullin’ up here every time. I’m meeting some of these new guys and the connection is crazy - started talking about mutual friends in HK, about how some of ‘em having relatives back in Toronto, some of them even remembered me from when I was a kid when Abacha had his store in Mirador Mansions. I’m eating jollof rice off Frank’s plate while his feet are living its best life, Runner is just coolin’ being the cool Tanzanian mf that he is, Soto doing his Harlem thing and his accent is thicker than Cam’Ron at this point fully playing the NY card (love you bro), it’s vibes to the power of 100. What could go wrong?

LOOOOL. 

Airport Jail to 7-Day Quarantine (Part 2)

Ok ya I left you guys with a “cliffhanger” (I put quotes there because there’s not really a punchline) but I had to double check with my lawyer to see if this next part is okay. Had to delete like 2 paragraphs but it’s ok in the name of freedom. Part 1 is here in case you missed it.

“WANTED” is a pretty big fucking word. I was in the cell with a mf who didn’t pay his cigarette littering fine and a 19 year-old who had a senior citizen Octopus card. You know the green shits that let you ride the tram for a dollar, HK shit. Remember that scene in Longest Yard where Caretaker sees that his score is half a star and feels like he needs to stab somebody? I’m not saying we should be respecting crime but at least put me in there with a drug dealer or something, I’m in there with the Park-N-Shop value pack of criminals.

Anyway, what kind of fuck-ups do you also have to be as immigration officers to LET ME OUT THE CITY but get all sensitive when I come back??? I mean, I’m doing YOUR job at this point. Like… yo if I was really a criminal, you failed 18 days ago when I left buddy, I’m busy organising illegal chicken fights in Manila now. I’m jaywalking in Ouagadougou now, real menace type shit. Harry started off mad hostile and both Ron and Hermione weren’t helping because Ron was an older, higher-rank guy approaching menopause and Hermione was definitely a rookie who wanted respect from the higher-ups. You know, the type of person to sit in the front of class at the academy and would raise their hand while slightly bouncing when they knew the answer to a question - thus, Hermione. 10 points to Gryffindor. Lucky for me Harry sik teng yat di ying man so I got to break down my situation to him. 

Harry was maybe in early to late 30s (you can never tell with us Asians honestly), a bit pudgy but in a cute, Doraemon-like way, glasses ofc, and started to warm up after I told him that the police in the other district already dismissed my case a year ago, and that I went through literally all the proceedings. Now they’re all confused and arguing amongst the three of them as to what to do with me - remember that scene in Harry Potter where they’re discussing what to do with the Marauder’s Map - and then Harry apologises and says that this is all a formality but I am still technically “arrested” for “fleeing the country” (LOL FLEEING). 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione lead me further into the back of the airport where not even Coronavirus goes after 6PM and open the door into an interrogation room. This room is long as fuck, locked from the OUTSIDE - meaning the officers are locked in with me, no windows, and definitely looks like people have stayed in here for days - smells like negativity, with two cheap desks and some plastic chairs and scratches on the walls. It looked like a daipaidong without food. Without people. Without noise. Without joy. It did not look like a daipaidong I take it back. This wasn't the Chamber of Secrets but definitely airport jail or something close to it. For the sake of an SEO-friendly title I’m just gonna call this airport jail. I look at Harry wondering if this kind gentleman who has shown me some sympathy was about to beat the brakes off of me on some split personality-Gucci Mane before jail type shit. I was in slides too and nobody wanna get beaten up in some baby blue Miniso slides with socks under. $35HKD though. Miniso seenzoned me when I tagged them in a story btw smh. 

But nah, Harry tells me that this is where they’ll do all the standard paperwork for this new case of me “fleeing” and asks me how much money I got. Now I don’t know where you’re from but my mama ain’t never raise me to tell another man how much money is in my wallet especially when it’s 3 mans vs. 1 and 3 of these mfs are actually strapped. I travel with cash only so I know that deep in my bag under the Family Mart konbini sandwiches and onigiris that I brought over from Japan, that I got enough money to ball out in the Philippines for 9 days. Make it rain lumpia in the club, extra Mang Tomas sauce on everything and a tower of Red Horse for each member of the squad type shit. I’m not sure if this is a test of some sort but I blurt out a number that I can afford - $900HKD which I think was the amount that was in my wallet - and sure enough, yes. I am a sicko. I had $900 in my wallet so my bail is set at $500. The inner Temple Street in me is telling me to bargain but this isn’t really a fake Gucci belt I can pretend to walk away from then come back to, so $500 it is. 

We’re all sat at these desks. Ron moves his desk against the tattooed wall which he keeps as his own and starts playing mahjong on his phone - I could have levitated 8 feet into the air while singing the Chinese national anthem in Swahili and he clearly wouldn’t give a single fuck - Hermione is actually eager to do the paperwork and now Harry is looking at my ID as if it was written in hieroglyphics and then I realise he’s trying to actually pronounce my last name and learns I’m Japanese. He starts talking to me about the old days where he used to go to Nagano to snowboard 4-5 times a year and how much he loves Japan. My stomach is teach me how to dougie-ing with delight because now I feel like I got an actual friend in that room with 3 guns vs. me in Yardbird socks and slides. We start talking about my job as a bartender, how he used to drink but can’t anymore because he’s married and I tell him sun fu, sincerely, and now we’re hitting it off while Ron scoffs at his mahjong and Hermione is busy scratching Potions recipes into his notepad. I take my chance to ask him the real questions - “yo do I gotta call my lawyer for this” and he goes “Pshhhhh no laaaa.” You know when the laaaa is mad long that they fr fr., the equivalent of kasamh se bhai in Hindi. Ok, check. I ask him if I gotta go back to JAIL jail tonight and he says “No laaa, government say quarantine more important than anything right now, and that includes jail, you lucky wor”, and I was delighted until I realised jail food and quarantine food is interchangeable like 7-Up to Sprite but guaranteed sleep in a bed should never be taken for granted. He tells me I just need to check-in at the station after quarantine to review my case which is fine. It’s like a pimple on my ass, it’s inconvenient but I ain’t finna die. 

Somewhere along the way I discover that he too likes to drink at Donki on his days off so if you ever see any 5-0 in my MVs just know they’re all sickos. At one point I offer him some cookie cream sandwiches from Japan from my bag and I can see it in his eyes that he really wants some but can’t cuz Ron’s lil’ KJ (killjoy for all the non-Filipinos} ass is in the corner sulking cuz presumably, he getting whipped in mahjong. After a while, we finally part ways and lowkey it’s bittersweet. He says “Hope to see you again!” and I tell him “No offence but I hope not!” and we both giggle and we probably looked mad cute and wholesome in that airport jail. Ron was disgusted. Fuck Ron. Hermione was aight tho. 

Finally, I’m released from police custody, escorted into my OWN quarantine bus, duck all the traffic because it’s already 9:30PM, and get to Best Western. Chauffeur with a limousine type shit. I think I mentioned in part 1 that I will be reviewing the Best Western SYP. Good space, good price ($4800 for 7 nights), I combined my two twin beds to make one huge bed because that’s all they had available, food ain’t as bad as what the expats on Facebook groups are saying, too many fucking mirrors I don’t wanna see myself shitting panoramically, deliveries come up fast, room wasn’t dirty at all, and I got a 24-pack of VITA water so I’m hydrated as fuck writing this. (edit: I took all the water when I left, why is HK so fuckin’ expensive) WiFi is shit tho, it’s faster to transfer the Candy Shop ringtone between two Nokias than load a single webpage. Forget about porn it ain’t happening, I hope you have photographic memory. Checkout process was lightwork, they let me leave on my own and I just had to pass the paper to the only guy working at the hotel that night. K that’s all for the review. I’m currently on my second day out of quarantine, just glad I don’t have to do 21. Shoutout to everybody who brought me food while I was in there, I can’t thank you enough.

I don’t know what the moral of the story is. Some cops are good? Don’t wave to babies on the plane if you don’t know if you’ll get arrested in front of them or not? Close your eyes while you shit in Best Western so you don’t get a 360 degree angle of yourself? Either way, even if nobody reads this I thoroughly enjoyed writing this and if you did make it to the end of my first blog post, thank you! Don’t know where I’ll go with this blog but I guess the influencer-type shit to say here is, stay tuned. I don’t know for what though tbh. But I guess stay tuned. Ew. Ok tata for now, call your mama and tell her you love her while you can. 

Airport Jail to 7-Day Quarantine (Part 1)

So let me start off this impulse-driven blog by saying this; I’ve always been quite a private person and the last thing I like to talk about is myself. Not tryna be “mysterious” like The Weeknd when he first dropped House of Balloons and nobody knew what he looked like because he didn’t do any interviews, but I just never liked my business being out there for these online wastemans with buttsweat stains on their office chair to chat shit about. And it’s scary to think that everything on the Internet never dies like cockroach bloodlines. But at the same time, I have always had a real passion for writing - so much so that I was offered a full-ride scholarship from York University which I turned down only to be close to my grandparents in Japan (which I don’t regret one bit). And as some of you may know, I more or less write for a living whether it’s copywriting or writing raps. AND I’m currently in a government-mandated 7-day quarantine at Best Western and what else is there to do but push-ups, overthinking, and creative writing. So yeah… welcome to my blog? LOL yuck.

I don’t really know how to preface this because it’s gonna have no format whatsoever and it’s gonna be typed like I talk; best believe I have perfect grammar and spelling skills but they may not exist here. Fuck it, I paid $160USD for this Squarespace subscription and domain so Im’a do what I want. I’m gonna drop a sick yakisoba recipe in the middle of a political rant. I’m gonna make a list of top 10 things bartenders hate and then drop a haiku. And nobody can tell me shit about it. This post is gonna be a cross between my whole ordeal getting back into Hong Kong and a hotel review on Best Western Sai Ying Pun with all the fuckery in between. I broke it up into two parts because I’m not even sure people are gonna read this and I have a 10PM with YouTube cooking tutorials later anyway.

THIS MF ALREADY LET ME OUT THE CITY. Okay let’s begin there. According to Carrie, COVID only came out to wreak havoc after 6PM which meant evening dine-in and drinking was non-existent and legitimately illegal in the city of Hong Kong. To a bartender who literally makes a living off of nights, this is equivalent to Kim Kardashian never dropping a sex tape. So despite the ridiculous flight prices, the jail that you pay for on top of your taxes aka the quarantine hotel, the stacks of paperwork necessary to file for my Japanese visa, (yes, on paper I am a total foreigner from Canada) not to mention the literal 24 hour transit time, I decided to go see my mom and grandma in Japan after 2 and a half years. After much anxiety and extortion-price printer ink wasted, I was finally let out the city and I safely made it to Japan and I had a tearful, movie-like reunion with my mom at the airport. Let me repeat - I WAS FINALLY LET OUT THE CITY AND I SAFELY MADE IT TO JAPAN. 

Okay, skip my Japan trip here but just know I ate a lot of コロッケ (Japanese croquettes, google it) in various flavours such as edamame, beef curry, etc., made my grandma laugh til she cried (nobody in my family is funny.. honestly between us, they won when I was born) and had double-digit panic attacks in those crowded-ass trains. I felt like a frog in the bag of frogs at the wet market in Mong Kok. Anyway yeah. 

I reach Hong Kong AFTER BEING LET OUT THE CITY ALREADY. There’s like 10 or so COVID checkpoints and I manage to get through all of them - I was paranoid I caught Omarion a second time because on the flight my throat felt a bit itchy but all good, I pass the PCR test after getting nose-fucked by a part-time meth cook in a blue hazmat suit. I’m getting to immigration to pick up my luggage that has a 24-pack of Yebisu beer in it for the kitchen staff at Yardbird because Japanese people always bring back omiyage and I take out my HKID. Lightwork baby, I’m from this city, fuck that long-ass visitors line. Tata.

Now if you’re from HK you have two options; you can use the sick likkle automated gate ting where you slide your ID card in, scan your fingerprint then be let out into baggage claim. Back when tourism was still rampant, we used to flex on all the foreigners with that and give them a real cocky look like, “Oh, your prehistoric city doesn’t have this does it?” then skrt past their long line on some 007 shit. Or you can hand over your ID card to the immigration mans who always has a fresh fade for some reason. My ID card is cracked because one time at my friend Radha’s birthday my Filipino youngin’ Sypaul was doing mad backflips and all of us got so hyped that I threw my wallet and it did siu siu damage to my cards but that’s another story. So I go up to the counter and hand him my ID. 

He processes it and everything is fine and I’m thinking about the traffic fuckery that I’m about to experience because it’s 5:00PM, just in time for rush hour traffic at the Cross Harbour Tunnel (the cheapest tunnel to cross the harbour in Hong Kong). Then he makes a face like this mf just saw y=mx+b printed on my ID card. I still don’t think nothing of it though, because despite my hand tattoos, at the end of the day, I like cats and I cried in Toy Story 3 and I don’t have shit to be worried about. I mean what’s more wholesome than fighting all odds just go to see your mom and grandma right?

Now this mf with an unnecessarily fresh fade keeps looking at my ID like it has the Pythagorean Theorem printed on it and starts writing on a green piece of paper. Now, I got anxiety so I’m thinking, shit…. am I about to get arrested for parallel importing the beer? Is that even a thing? What do I tell my friends if I go down for such a weak ass charge? I’m praying that the immigration team likes Japanese beer at this point because as much as I love the kitchen staff at Yardbird, I’m not about to go to war with these immigration officers and they somehow plant a brick of heroin in my fannypack. I don’t even own a fannypack. 

Minutes feel like hours and he making mad phone calls like he in the trader’s office in The Wolf of Wall Street. Several other unnecessarily fresh faded mfs come by and from the bits of Canto that I do understand, there is definitely a problem and it ain’t the fact that all of ‘em parted their hair in the same spot If you Google “cut from the same cloth”, these mfs gonna show up somewhere on page 11. I get pulled out of line, right in front of these adorable Japanese babies who I kept waving to on the flight; now all those waves were for nothing because their parents DEFINITELY think I’m a hand-tattooed criminal if they didn’t already. I could almost hear them whisper “I knew he was Yakuza, must be chinpira though since he got his hands tattooed.” I’m sat right where people enter baggage claim so literally all the babies that were on the plane have to see me sitting there next to a new immigration officer, looking mad shiesty like “look child, stay in school or you’ll end up like him.” SMH way to fit a stereotype. I had a scholarship to every school in Toronto ho.

This new immigration officer is looking at my ID like it’s losing Mark Six numbers and finally I get escorted past a bunch of gates into an area that I never been before in the airport and now I’m in some customs office. I’m pretty sure this is where they bring mules who just got busted with liquidised meth in Grey Goose bottles and here I am, my amateur ass still thinking I’m getting busted for a 24-pack of beer. Now this new immigration officer is looking at my ID like it’s got his taxes written on them and he’s definitely getting overcharged. I’m sat next to a photocopier and this new mf - no fade tho - is printing mad documents - MY documents - but won’t tell me what the fuck is going on. I mean, if you’re gonna photocopy a man’s visage several times I think it’s right to tell him what for. I’m here for an hour and I’m actually chillin’ though; I don’t have shit to be worried about and yay I’m ducking the rush hour. 

Then the police show up. And you know how they walk; like there’s an explosion behind them on a movie set and the director told them “Ayo, walk like a badmon, still”. 3 of them, and I’m gonna name them - Ed, Edd, and Eddy. Nah I’m playing, that’s too confusing without visual aids so I’ll call them Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Hermione is a dude btw. NOW I’m shook because the sight of police gives me PTSD (more on that, one day maybe) and the room ain’t big and I’m claustrophobic. Harry asks me in Cantonese if I know why I’m here and I said, honestly, no, not really, and then he says “You’re wanted.” NOW I know exactly what he’s talking about.