by Johannes Pong

Nightlife Changes

by Johannes Pong on Friday, August 27, 2010 at 2:26am

Source from http://hk.asia-city.com/nightlife/column/nightlife-changes

26th August 2010

Last night, eerie Cantonese opera and karaoke that is more fun than it has any right to be was being performed for the dead in the backstreets of Sheung Wan. A depressing shroud seems to be in the air as I’m writing this column on Tuesday, with the rain, the old ladies burning crap to the hungry ghosts on every corner, and our Bauhinia with a black background flying at half-mast.

At Jasmine Place before the Gucci show last Friday, my Haus of Joha makeup artist Julia said I was pale green from a hideous hangover courtesy of too much Montepulciano from Barolo and sambuca shots from DiVino (grazie mille Tony and Claudia!) Thank God for the almond and pig’s lung soup—I drank bowls and Julia didn’t even have to work her concealer magic on my visage. Gucci was fun. Nothing cures a hideous hangover like fashion and free champagne. And my +1 was a fashion show virgin, and he dressed up for it... always makes an event more exhilarating. Women’s was ho-hum but this half-crescent, muted grey suede hobo-like manbag totally got me salivating. After the after party, we went down to PLAY where a very drunk male Japanese model was comatose by the lounge, so we had our wicked ways with him. Hallelujah!

That will probably be my last time modelizing at PLAY, for the whole of California Tower will come tumbling down, and LKF will have another face lift. It’s not the first time—I remember my mom telling me that her father took her to LKF when she was a little girl. Not out clubbing! Back then, Lan Kwai Fong (Orchid Cassia Square) was just a quaint neighborhood of florists, and grandfather hung out there with his mahjong friends.

Gecko, my favorite bohemian lounge, is also closing end of August—after eight ecstatic years of absinthe and the best organic jazz in town—as owner Christophe has simply decided to stop drinking. All those nights with the green fairy and improvisation with the jazz cats on Tuesdays and Wednesday will be sorely missed.

Then there’s FINDS leaving LKF tower, to move to The Luxe Manor in Kowloon… which brings me to Colette, its founder and Hong Kong’s darling nightlife doyenne. She has sadly left our world for a better one this Monday. I believe she was on driploads of morphine when she passed so that’s rather fabulous.

Colette Koo was also the founder and face of Drop for three years. For those three years, I was the ass of Drop. OK, not ass… I was one of the vital organs of Drop—spending four nights and mornings out of a week at the club. During those three years, we shared drinks, dance floor and delight. We bonded even more last year, after she called me upon experiencing Lady Gaga live in Macau. “OMG Gaga was incredible! I’ve never seen anything like her before!” she screamed like an excited little punk girl.

I’ve never met anyone like Colette before either. I know a lot of people. And I know a lot of nightlife people, and the nature of nightlife is fickle. But Colette was so real, and so giving, always smiling from the inside, and so there with you whenever you were with her. That was so very admirable and made an impression in my then-young mind. It made me think, “hmm… I can be Nightlife like her.”

On her Facebook wall, there’s one of my favorite goodbyes to her, written beautifully by Richard, Drop door bitch extraordinaire and Events & PR Manager:

“Will never forget the wonderful tour de force that was Colette... Death is not extinguishing the light, it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”

Bon voyage, Colette Koo!