Oktoberfest ... in Hong Kong

One of my favourite feelings of cultural disorientation involves sitting on a long bench with a group of friends, drinking a stein of Bavarian beer and listening to racy German folk songs. In Hong Kong.

For a few weeks every October and November, Hong Kong's Marco Polo Hotel hosts a large and wonderfully strange German beer festival. Held on a giant terrace, which - despite boasting one of the world's Great Views- usually operates as a carpark, the Marco Polo Bierfest is a marvellous cultural (con)fusion.

The festival assembles a carnival of food stands, a big tent in Bavarian blue and white, and a motley group of musicians. Catering to the cultural diversity and general silliness of the occasion, the band sings alpine ditties, a bit of Tina Turner and a television theme song in Mandarin. Anyone who remembers Smokie's 1970s song 'Living nextdoor to Alice' will be most amused by this band's version ('Alice? Alice? Who the *!#* is Alice?')

For me, the event's enormous pleasure comes from the evening's lack of predictable cultural scripts: one can use an Octopus (smart) card to purchase pork knuckles; engage in a horn blowing competition with Winnie from Kowloon, or if the mood takes you, dance on a trestle table while looking at Hong Kong harbour.