Hedley In Hong Kong

2010-07-06T04:19:00.000-07:00

Early June
It has been a long time since I have written anything for this blog. This is not, of course, because my life has become boring and I have nothing to say, but rather because I have been rather busy with not enough time to think about things let alone write about them. Actually, that is not true, I am thinking about things quite a lot, but now mostly from the perspective that this big adventure is finite in time and will be over all too soon.
In fact, as I write, I am sitting alone in our apartment, with a beautiful breeze blowing in through the window. Both things are unusual, in fact I should probably go out and take some pictures because the wind has brought a rare clarity to the air and the lights from the buildings across the harbor could be captured well. But the alone part is because Jacob and Duncan left about 10 days ago and Elizabeth also set put on her travels last week. We bought round the world tickets to get here and home and so they are utilizing them well. Elizabeth has a Japan/Denmark/Italy/England/USA plan and Duncan and Jacob are visiting Germany/Finland/Italy/England/USA. You will note the overlap of the latter parts and I will be joining them in Italy in 2 weeks time. I get to travel less than everybody else because I have a commitment to work here for 10 months and so cannot leave until mid-June.
I did a workshop today at Shue Yan University, a private institution here in Hong Kong. There were 4 of us general education Fulbrighters there and apart from noticing how easily and well we work together, it was also clear that this was one of the last times that we were going to be doing so. We all are going back to our regular jobs by different routes and at different times, but I am not sure that any of us are looking forward to it. Life here, both professionally and socially/culturally is so exciting, interesting, fast-paced, ever-eventful and just plain damn fun, that nothing is likely to measure up. Perhaps inevitably, a passage of your life where you get to go off and do something different in another place for a limited amount of time is going to be more interesting than the routine, but here that has been taken to another degree. Firstly the project itself is of enormous scale and significance. The education system in Hong Kong is attempting to reinvent itself in a very courageous and far-reaching way. To have the opportunity to assist with such a transformation is rare. Of course, it can also be frustrating and feel like it's going nowhere, but even that is much easier to deal with when it is not your institution and that it really is up to others to make the decisions. Ten months is actually a good length of time, because it allows us to really get to understand what is going on here and make some useful contributions, but still permits us to be external, neutral and not partisan in the struggles that inevitably surround changes of this magnitude. Another important part about it is that do get to work as a team. It is an excellent way to work. - we learn from each other, spark ideas off each other, lend a ready ear when we are trying to figure out what is going on around us and are also good playmates. I guess on the larger scale of things we are rather similar and are all very enthusiastic about general education. But we also have our diversity, which contributes to the overall level of thinking. In fact, the level of discourse on the general/liberal education topic that can be had with this group is probably as high as you are going to find anywhere.
So the work has been wonderful but then Hong Kong has to be one of the most exciting places on earth, especially in comparison to rural Connecticut. I am not knocking Connecticut and there are aspects of it that I am eagerly anticipating (cool, crisp mornings, peace and quite, relatively clean air). But there are several fold more people in the housing development in which I live than there are in my home town. And this one is not particularly big by Hong Kong standards. I see more people on my walk to work in the morning than I do in a whole day back home. I am not going to talk about the food here, except to say that it is exceptional in terms of variety, availability, cheapness (if you go to the right places) and all round excellence (if you go to the right places and sometimes they are the same ones as in the previous phrase). Public transport, arts events, the ability to get out of the city in well under an hour, Premier League soccer on TV - the list could go on and on. Of course, there are downsides - just think of the inverse of the things I am looking forward to in Connecticut, but now is not the time to dwell on them.

Early July
I never quite go to post that last entry. Too many things to do in HK befo re I left and them limited internet access afterwards. A good period of time in Italy and England certainly made leaving Hong Kong easier, though it remains to see how it will be to reenter Connecticut.I I could write about World Cup and Wimbledon and weddings, but that somehow seems quite separate from Hong Kong and this blog. Except perhaps the World Cup, since many in HK are very involved in that. The day before I left, I visited one of the plusher malls and watched half of the Slovenia/Algeria game. Very big screen TVs, miniature mock stadiums, special promotions in all the stores. Ah for Hong Kong! I suspect they were more upset when England was knocked out than many here.

2010-04-14T05:45:00.000-07:00

Today, my colleague Pak-Sheung and I had arranged to have lunch together. We do this from time to time and there is always intent behind it on his part. On my part also, which could broadly be described as experiencing more of Hong Kong. Pak had decided that it was time for me to try stinky tofu. Shops that sell stinky tofu can easily be recognized by their distinctive odor, that of rotting food of a proteinaceous nature. We decided that since we did not want to sit in a restaurant smelling that way, we should get stinky tofu from a take out place, and then go on somewhere else for lunch itself. This plan was agreed upon and then the day before Pak came to me suggesting I might like to change the date. As part of his attempts to become a good Buddhist, his practice was to avoid meat on the 1st and 15th day of each month and our date was for the 15th. I said that vegetarian food was fine with me and so there was no need to change.
Pak's gastronomic excursions always have settings and this one was to occur in East Mongkok, in the neighborhood of the goldfish market. When he was younger, he had gone there regularly to buy fish. There are lots and lots of small stores selling innumerable, magically colored varieties of fish, plus all the required accoutrements.
It is in a relatively run-down neighborhood and so perfect for good cheap restaurants.
Pak decided that, since it was the 15th and many people would be avoiding meat, we should go to the vegetarian restaurant first before it got too crowded. Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered that the restaurant had changed and was now heavily centered on meat. We decided to move on to Pak's second choice, which focused on food from Yunnan Province. But that also no longer existed. This is not an uncommon occurrence in Hong Kong, where restaurants change with great rapidity. So we crossed the road to eat at a dumpling restaurant.
It turned out that it was part of a chain, a Chinese variety of fast food. They sold about five different kinds of dumplings that could be had boiled or fried. You selected one or two kinds of dumpling and combined it one of five kinds of soup. Very simple and formulaic, but very tasty also. I had hot and sour soup for the first time in Hong Kong. All of the dumplings had meat in them, but Pak had decided that he had met his religious obligations by searching out the other restaurants. He could not be blamed for the fact that they no longer existed and he was being forced to eat meat.
There were several elements of the dumpling restaurant that interested me and can be contrasted with US fast food. First, one of the employees was sitting there, busily stuffing and folding dumplings. We asked her where the wrappers came from and found they were made at their central facility. In the US, everything would be made at the central facility and delivered frozen to the outlet. Then the serving dishes, plates, bowls everything were real china or plastic, nothing disposable. It's often difficult even to get a napkin in a restaurant here, but that's another story. The chopsticks, spoons and small bowls were kept in drawers within the tables; you just open up and take out what you need.
Having finished lunch proper, it was time to search out the stinky tofu restaurant. Part of me was hoping that it would have met the same fate as the other restaurants, but soon I could tell that was not the case. The unmistakable odor became apparent amidst all the other street smells. It grew stronger and stronger until we reached the storefront. It seemed like they had a variety of things available, including sausages and animal parts, but we were single-minded. For HK$6 (less than a buck) I got a brown paper bag containing a 2 inch cube of the magic stuff on a stick. It had been deep-fried a toasty golden brown. By this time, we had started to become accustomed to the smell. Texturally, this food is good. A nice crunch to the outside, with soft and creamy inner parts. Unfortunately it tasted just like it smelled and as I started to eat it, the taste and smell combined synergistically in a rather unpleasant way. Fortunately there were several condiments available, both sweet and savory. I found that the hot sauce was pretty effective for masking the flavor, though it could not override the smell. Pak assured me that I was not required to finish the whole thing. I heartily agreed with him and jettisoned the rest of it in a handy garbage can.
I asked Pak why people ate it; did it have some perceived medicinal benefit? He said no, it was just that some people liked to live on the wild side. Stinky tofu is outside of normal behavior and consumed by people who like to be a little outrageous. I have a wide definition of food, but this was a little much for me. The soft inside part was full of gas bubbles from active fermentation. No wonder the smell was so powerful. I wondered which bacteria were responsible and hoped that they had all been killed by the frying process
We had agreed that this was to be a three-part adventure so now we went in search of Chinese dessert. As I said, Pak always has something in mind and he was looking for something in particular here. He found it, with a little directional help from some street vendors, - the Yee Shun Milk Company. I had seen these places before, though never been in. Their windows are filled with dishes of various puddings/custards. Milk-based puddings did not seem very Chinese to me, but apparently these places, which originated in Macau, have been around a long time. But they definitely represent a fusion between East and West. The menu also included fried eggs and sausage and sandwiches. But we were after desert. We both got steamed milk; Pak's was flavored with ginger. I thought of it as something you might be fed in a British convalescent home. Very nutritious with all those milk and egg proteins but easy to get down. It was softly set, nicely flavored and not too sweet; the perfect antidote to stinky tofu.

2010-04-09T21:52:00.001-07:00

Touring China

My brother Stuart and his wife, Corky came to visit us in Hong Kong. Stuart has recently retired and so they took the opportunity to come here and then travel through China. Their trip through China was organized through a tour company and we joined them for the first leg of the trip, to Guilin in southern China. It was interesting to compare this kind of traveling with the youth hostel, figure it out on the fly approach we used for our last big trip to China.

This kind of touring was not the busload of gawking foreigners approach. It just meant that we had a guide and a driver, with accommodation and meals arranged.

At our suggestion, the first leg of the trip to Guilin was by train, so that S&C could experience first hand this kind of travel in China. Its interest started the week before they got here, when the tour company emailed Stuart to say they had been unable to get soft sleeper tickets originating in Shenzhen (just across the border from HK) and could we start from Guangzhou instead. That's just a 2 hour train ride up from HK and so not difficult, but what is interesting about it is that the train we could not get on in Shenzhen was exactly the same train we ultimately did board in Guangzhou. So our soft sleeper berth went from Shenzhen to Guangzhou empty, while we followed the same route on a different train. I assume it is something to do with ticket quotas available in different towns.

Having a guide and driver available is something that I could get used to. It is feasible, even for a small party, because wage rates in China are relatively low. With our lack of Mandarin, there is always so much we miss when traveling in China and so here we always had somebody to whom questions could be addressed. Of course, you have to bear in mind that you are getting one person's version of the world so statements have to be interpreted with caution. But S&C had done their homework well and selected good and interesting places to visit and we were delivered to them with great efficiency and ease.

The area is very touristy but with good reason. A lot of those classical pen and ink Chinese paintings are from here, with the limestone karsts rising vertically and spectacularly out of the otherwise flat landscape. Absolutely beautiful, but a little too touristy for me, especially Yangshuo. Except for the Chinese characters on the buildings, I felt like I could have been just about anywhere (e.g. the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The landscape was different but the tourist pedestrian street was the same. But actually, it did not take too much scratching beneath the surface to find the differences. I always like to get to the food markets in these places and this one was easy to find, in a large single storey building just off the main street. There was a sign close to the entrance, interestingly in English as well as Chinese, advertising a restaurant serving dog meat. And there, buried in the back of the market, alongside the live chickens and ducks and rabbits, were the dogs. I first caught sight of one whose throat had just been slit and was bleeding out. That was right next to several cages with light colored mongrel dogs. One of the things our guide had told us was that people think light furred dogs taste better than dark colored ones. Seems unlikely, but who knows? I ate dog meat in Beijing, but that was cooked on a stick and quite different from seeing the animals being killed up close. I am not sure for me whether it was any different from seeing a sheep or a pig have its throat cut. Getting that close to the reality of being a meat eater is never easy, but I think quite useful.

On the subject of food, the downside of being on the hands of the tour company was the places they took us to eat. The hotels are safer from several perspectives and are happy to bill the tour company. But the food reminded me of the kind you get at generic Chinese restaurants on the West. And despite going to different restaurants, they get serving us the same food (corn soup, beef with onions and peppers, egg fried rice). It came to a head quite hilariously when we were served French fries, though with that funny sweet sauce they often serve with the prawn crackers at the beginning of Chinese meals in the USA, rather than ketchup. After that, we did manage to impress on the guide that we would like more interesting food and it did get better.

It was eye-opening to be traveling with Corky, who has both balance and endurance issues and cannot walk far or climb stairs easily. Neither China or Hong Kong is set up well for people with disabilities and it took us all some time to figure out good ways of dealing with it.

We were in Guilin/Yangshuo for 4 days before S&C took off for Shanghai/Xi'an/Beijing and we took the train back to Shenzhen. That was an interesting coda to the trip. We had been thinking we would just get the train tickets from the tour guide and make our own way to the station. But he seemed to want to take us there and so we arranged to meet him at a downtown hotel an hour before the train was due to leave. We arrived at the station and he dropped us off at the entrance for soft-sleeper passengers (yeh, for the class system of Chinese train travel!) while he went to get the tickets. He came back to tell us that we would be getting the tickets on the train. A strange idea to us that also meant we were barred from the soft sleeper waiting area. We were taken to another waiting area where we met the tour agency's train ticket guy. He looked just like the sort of person who would be touting tickets outside sporting venues in the USA, where you would worry whether the tickets you might buy were legitimate. He did not speak English (at least to us) but the guide told us that all the tickets to Shenzhen were sold out, but this man knew how to buy them on the train. There were always some available from the train staff and we would have no problem. It was fascinating to watch the ticket guy working. His eyes were always flitting around, sizing up the situation. Certain individuals would be selected as being important (e.g. a policeman) and he would sidle up and engage them in conversation. Part of the ritual was to offer a cigarette that would be stored for later use.

At a certain point, we were given the sign and walked quickly through to the platform, at the head of the line. Magically, nobody asked to see our tickets. The person in charge of the train was quickly located, given a cigarette, and we were invited to wait in the dining car of the train. After a while, another train person came and sold our guy two soft sleeper tickets. They were in car 2, which seemed unusual since the soft sleeper carriages are usually in the middle of the train, close to the dining car. We were delivered to our berths and the guide and ticket guy took their leave. We were the only people in the entire carriage, which also appeared to lack some of the attributes of the typical soft sleeper, e.g. carpet on the floor in the corridor. It turned out that we were being housed in the train's staff quarters. A mother and child came to share our compartment, but everybody else was train personnel. I think we had been sold empty slots rather than taking somebody's bed, but I have no idea who got the money. So it worked out fine in the end. Actually much quieter and more peaceful than the average Chinese train trip. I suppose it also shows the advantage of using tour companies. We would never have gotten on to that train without them.

2010-03-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of a busy patch of workshops and lectures at the moment, but before that we went to Thailand for an extended weekend. The visit was facilitated by Harold Furr, ex of UConn and soon to be ex of Mahidol University just outside Bangkok, where he has been working at their Institute of Nutrition. I gave a talk on zinc to the faculty and grad students there. I don't think he is looking for a job, but if you ever want a tour guide, Harold did a wonderful job of welcoming us and laying out options for various things that we might do.

We flew to Bangkok on Sri Lanka Air - we had not heard of it either but I discovered a wonderful package including 4 nights hotel for about $250 each. The flights were fine, as were the hotels. It may a little tricky getting used to flying in the US again. The flight to Bangkok was a little over 2 hours but we got a full meal and I even ate most of it.

Within about 3 hours of landing in Bangkok, we were all having massages. It is an omnipresent cottage industry. There must have been 30 different places within 5 minutes walk of our hotel. I started out with a Thai massage. I was dressed in pajamas, lying on back and front and the massage therapist came at me using all parts of her body to gain mechanical advantage. So lots of elbows and forearms in addition to hands and she was quite happy to sit on me or alongside me - whatever made sense for the kind of manipulation. Sometimes a little intense but basically very good. Other nights I had a foot massage. A little more relaxing and less full contact, focusing below the knees, but then including the arms and hands, shoulders and head at the end. We ended up going back to the same place almost every night. Either kind of massage cost 200 baht, which is a little more than US$6. The one night we did not go there was because Duncan and Elizabeth decided to get adventurous and went for the fish nibbling feet massage. You put your feet in a fish tank for 15 minutes and the little critters nibble off your dead skin. It sounded altogether too ticklish to me so I did not try it.

Bangkok is a big city but totally different from Hong Kong. It has space to grow out and so it has not needed to grow up. It has relatively few tall buildings, but getting around can be tricky, given the distances involved. There are two skytrain lines and also a couple of subway lines, but their coverage is limited. Most people have to use the streets and so they are very congested. Taxis are good and cheap and brightly colored. We were delighted to ride in from the airport in a bright pink taxi.

Bright colors are a continuing theme, particularly evident in the temples. I think they take their Buddhism fairly seriously in Thailand, or at least as seriously as they take anything. It is apparently somewhat different from the Chinese Taoist/Confucian variety and incorporates more Hindu elements. In fact, in addition to the innumerable buddhas, there were many god statues, some complete with multiple limbs, trunks, etc. One day we went on a tour to Ayutthaya, the old capital. Our guide was very good and he pointed out three different ordination ceremonies where people were becoming monks. Apparently most men in Thailand become a monk for a while one of more times in their lives. Ayutthaya was an amazing ruin on an impressive scale. Early European travelers there described it as far in advance of London or Paris. Unfortunately, a Burmese invasion put paid to it and the capital was reestablished in Bangkok.

Another thing that interested me about Thailand was how unashamedly monarchist they appeared to be. The king is referred to as His Majesty, with big portraits everywhere. There were many parallels with my home country. Both have very long serving monarchs in their 80s, who have been on the throne for almost 60 years. Both have crown princes, with significantly less popularity. Both are really just figureheads, with real political power resting elsewhere. It seemed to me that the Thai king is more genuinely popular and probably better connected to his people. A little more active and involved and less aloof.

Things were disturbed politically while we were there by the decision from the Supreme Court to confiscate a large part of the resources of the ex-premier, Thaksin, who was deposed by the military, I think 3 years ago. Military coups are a bad idea, but this court case seemed pretty clear as he was making billions from the telecommunications industry while he was prime minister. Despite his corruption he remains very popular with the rural people and so they, the so-called redshirts, are protesting and demonstrating and demanding that the government step down. Apparently, their party has won every election in recent memory. Fortunately for us, they took a few days to get organized and so it is happening now rather than when we were there.

It would seem almost sinful to not say something about the food and the markets, since they are such important and enjoyable features. But I think I have written long enough, so if you want to know more, drop me an email and ask.

2010-03-03T06:45:00.000-08:00

There are lots of differences between Hong Kong and the United States (or England, although there are a few more similarities with the ex-colonial power). This unsurprising thought came to me this evening as I was cooking dinner and tipped a collection of cut up chicken pieces, bought wrapped in plastic at our local supermarket, into the pan. The expected wing and breast and leg were there, but then so was a chicken foot. And a "parson's nose", which is essentially the chicken butt. I cooked it all up happily, although Jacob commented that the actual meat was rather sparse. But then he was a little prejudiced because (another difference) he had just spent 2 hours unsuccessfully searching for tortillas. He had a hankering for tacos, which was destined to remain unfulfilled.
You can get excellent food in malls in Hong Kong. I had sort of been aware that good restaurants could be located in malls. Ground floor shop front space is in short supply, so restaurants often set themselves up elsewhere. But last Saturday, we went to see Precious and decided to go look for dessert as part of our attempt to process what we had seen. The theater was about a 10-minute walk from a big ritzy mall so that was where we headed. The mall, Langham Place, is architecturally very interesting. It is spread over 12 floors and has some wonderful open areas that allow you to look down through most of those indoors. I don't think it can be very "green" - it must take a lot of energy to cool that volume of air. It also has some very long escalators, which means that you can get up 12 floors in 3 flights. Anyway, to get back to the food, we toured the mall in search of dessert, but also noticed the crowds of people, at 10.30 PM, sitting and eating dinner. There were lots of different kinds of food and all of it looked good. Actually, I am sure there must have been a McDonalds there also, so perhaps that was an overstatement. We ended up at a Japanese/Western fusion restaurant on the 11th floor and enjoyed delicious and unusual desserts. The mall did start to close around 11 PM, much later, of course, than those in most US cities.
A snowstorm would feel pretty good right now. For the past week or so, the temperatures have been in the mid to high 70's and the air has been as wet as it can get. Warm fog is a new phenomenon for me, but visibility quite often has been down to about 50 yards. The great view that we have out across Victoria Harbour has been reduced to gray, and boat foghorns have been added to the background noises. We had been washing our clothes in our machine and then hanging them to dry, because we don't have a drier. That doesn't work any more because they just don't dry. So now we have to take them to the laundry. Elizabeth and I realized that the dirty smudges on the wallpaper in our bedroom were actually healthy (or rather unhealthy) growths of mould. Fortunately, the wallpaper was washable, so that was what we did. Also fortunately, it was warm enough to turn on the air conditioner and use it to dry out the room.
I had been thinking that Hong Kongers were lousy pedestrians, because I keep having to adjust my direction to avoid them as I move at my faster than average pace. In fact, I think they are just average pedestrians, although they do walk a lot more than the average Western city dweller. My collision avoidance tactics are required simply because the density of people is so high that there is very little space between us. It’s a bit like driving a car in London, where you have to get used to negotiating narrow spaces with very little clearance.
Here is my final difference for today. This afternoon I met with the director of Hong Kong Community College, which is affiliated with PolyU. Hong Kong has community colleges, just like the US, to give opportunity to those who cannot attend a university. However, here it costs more to attend community college than one of the state-sponsored universities. I think about 16% of high school leavers can find a place at one of the 8 government funded universities. For those that cannot get in and don't have the resources to go abroad, there are local private full degree colleges and there are these 2 year institutions. Community college students here are mostly school leavers, attend full time, and evening and weekend classes are not offered. And at least for HKCC graduates, they transfer into full degree institutions at a very high rate.

2010-02-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, I put myself in the hands of my companions, rather than figure everything out myself. Usually, I like to know exactly where I am going and what I am doing, so this was a major departure for me. It started because Elizabeth had gone on line and got tickets for the HK Jockey Club Equine Funfest. The reservations that I felt about attending an event of that name were what caused me to take the take things as they come attitude. HK is very big on horse racing and the Jockey Club makes an enormous amount of money from people's desire to bet on the races. I guess this event was one way in which they give back, although to be fair to them, the Jockey Club gives out money all over the place. So the Equine Funfest was held up at the Shatin racecourse, which actually was where they had the show jumping events for the Beijing Olympics. My favorite adjective to describe the event was remarkable. The most remarkable feature of the Equine Funfest was its lack of horses. There were some nice full sized plastic horses, left over from the Olympics I believe, painted in all sorts of decorative ways. There were ponies on which small children could ride. There were Shetland ponies with which you could be photographed. There were horse-like machines on which you could develop your jockey skills. There was even a mock-up of a horse's rear end on which to practice grooming. But no examples of the real thing. Once we realized that our quest to find real horses was to be in vain, we relaxed and enjoyed the trees.
Actually, the Funfest was the second event of the day because first we went for dim sum, Shanghai style, with Alex and Elaine, two HK friends. Normally we have Cantonese dim sum and that style is relatively plain and simple, allowing the quality of the ingredients to shine through. The Shanghai version was more complex and spicier. A noodle soup with a rich peanut broth, steamed dumplings that magically contained soup in addition to the expected pork. It helped that Alex and Elaine knew what they were going for and could read the menu. It set us up well for the horseless festival.
From Shatin, Alex drove us across the New Territories to Tuen Mun and the Tsing Chung Koon Taoist temple that contained photographs of his godparents. I realize that I do not understand exactly what godparents are in Chinese terms, but honoring ancestors is a very important part of this culture. So having a place where you can go and connect with them is very important. He bought incense sticks on the way in and then both he and Elaine would light a few at a time and present them to the photographs. No actual bodies or ashes were there. They lit some on behalf of themselves and then some for their son, Gary, and then others were presented to the neighboring photos, to keep them happy too. I think there is a sense that of you are good to your ancestors, they will be good to you too. Another important way that people make offerings is to burn stuff, for example bags of fake money. There are stores where you can go and buy all sorts of paper objects - houses, cars, clothes - anything that a person might need in the afterlife. The temple has big ovens to burn these objects, although often you can see people just burning them in the street also.
The temple complex was large, with several buildings including an old peoples' home and a free Chinese medicine clinic. There were nice gardens too, with a pond full of turtles.
We moved on from there to briefly visit the visitor center for the Ping Shan Heritage Trail, a set of walled villages, temples etc., but then we needed to pick up Jacob and Duncan who had spent their day working as English teachers at Mr. Brown's English Highway. We also rendezvoused with Elaine's sister and her husband who also brought Gary. Our two-car convoy then drove off to find the oyster capital of Hong Kong, Lau Fau Shan. We perused the market there thoroughly, and then made our selection of seafood and restaurant. It was a spectacular feast, a large section of an enormous fish that we watched meet its end, cooked two different ways, clams, crabs and then the oysters, either, or I should say both, deep fired in a light batter or sautéed with ginger and garlic. There was a lot more, of course, but these were the memorable bits.
This posting is rather light on photos, I am afraid - J&D were not present for most of it and then E's camera had a battery problem.

2010-02-18T05:30:00.001-08:00

February 14 combined Valentine's Day with the first day of the Chinese New Year (CNY). This was viewed as a very auspicious occasion around here, although that might just have been the commercial interests, trying to persuade us of its importance. I did not see much evidence of Valentine's day - there were a few hearts to be found in the street decorations and the fireworks, but there was no missing the Chinese New Year of the Tiger.
Kung Hei Fat Choi is the standard CNY greeting. Best wishes and prosperity. CNY is mostly a family affair, which of course did not involve us. People travel to see their parents and grandparents. The train stations in China got even more crowded as this is one time when you feel that you really have to go. I think this is a few levels beyond the US Thanksgiving obligations. The schools are closed for a week here, although I am expected back at work on Wednesday, so the weekend plus 2 days for me. We followed our normal practice of experiencing everything that we could.
One of the nicest parts is all the flowers. There are lots of flower markets set up several days before hand. One of the biggest is in Victoria Park and so that is where we went. The flowers were gorgeous - lots of gladioli and chrysanthemums and then more specifically Chinese variants - peach and plum blossoms and then small or not so small tangerine (or related citrus) trees. They also have small daffodils that you want to buy closed so that they will open on New Years Day and bring you the most luck. There were many, many flower vendors doing a good trade, but then there were even more stalls selling all manner of junk. HK is the capital of junk and of commercialism and it was out in full force. Tigers made out of everything to fit all parts of your body and to perform all functions. Lots of fair food, some familiar and some not so.
Actually, I have to say, for me CNY food has been something of a disappointment. They have these rice flour cakes, flavored with brown sugar or turnips or carrots. They are extremely gelatinous and not very sweet - in fact sometimes they are savory, with added fish or bacon flavorings. You buy them as circular cakes, slice them, dip them in egg and fry them. Given the numbers of them sold, they must be very popular here, but all I can say is, there is a good reason that most cultures in the world bake with flour made from wheat rather than rice.
Putting aside baking, the Chinese certainly know how to throw a parade. The HK New Year Parade was one of the best I have ever seen. It was certainly the most international. There were fireman gymnasts from France (performing in their fire-fighting gear), flag throwers from Italy, stilt walkers (some ridiculously high) from Belgium, steel drums and puppets from the Notting Hill Carnival, Russian dancers, US cheerleaders (yes, that was a little disappointing) and then, of course participants from all over Asia. Lion dancers and dragon dancers, and dancers of many other kinds, lots of bands, and big commercial floats of varying degrees of creativity. More than 100,000 people come out to watch it so we had to get there early and wait almost 2 hours for the parade to get to us. Actually, it was the first parade that I have ever been to where there was a pre-parade - a Scottish/Hong Kong bagpipe band did a couple of circuits to keep us entertained while waiting.
That was the evening of the first day of the CNY and then the second evening was the fireworks. There have been a few other firework opportunities here, but we have never really seen them at their best. This time we (well at least Jacob and Duncan and I) decided we were going to do whatever it took, so we got ourselves down to the best viewing area, the Avenue of the Stars on the waterfront, about 2.5 hours before they started. We took our first waiting position in a convenient Starbucks (must have one of the best views of all Starbucks). We went and took up position opposite the firework barges with about 1.25 h to go, and the time went pretty fast as we shared stories of our youth. The fireworks were very impressive. They seem to specialize in pictoral displays. So along with the valentine hearts, we had lots of tiger faces, smiley faces, 8s (very lucky) and Chinese characters. We were close enough so we could feel the explosions as well as see and hear them.
We also had a couple of other good close up CNY experiences. Some friends told us that a lion dance company were going to perform in the lobby of a nearby hotel on the morning of CNY Day. They were spectacular - 2 men to a lion, jumping all over the lobby. And then the Notting Hill Carnival group came and performed alongside our Whampoa ship on Tuesday. They were quite foreign in the local context, black-skinned people playing steel drums with great exuberance. Nicely familiar for me, though. And at the end a couple of band members came to greet me because they noticed my Arsenal scarf and wanted to say hi to a fellow supporter.
One other interesting custom is the giving of red packets, small envelopes containing just a little money. Most of the ones I have given contain HK$20 (about 3 US bucks). They go to friends who are younger than you and unmarried and to people that perform services for you, e.g. the security guards and janitors in our apartment complex. The $$ amount is less important than the well wishes and the associated good fortune for the coming year.

2010-02-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

I've written about food and I've written about trains, but those were incidental rather than central to the reasons for going to China. So before I totally forget, let me say a little about what we actually did there. We visited two cities, Xi'an and Beijing. The old capital and the new capital. Both have a lot to recommend them, but Xi'an is a lot easier to deal with as a tourist, I suppose because of its smaller size.
Xi'an is home to the famous terracotta warriors, the army that was buried alongside the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. He died about 200 BC, so they have been there a while. Apparently, his original plan was to bury the real army alongside himself, but his advisers persuaded him that it would be better to bury full size replicas instead. And replicas they are, each one an individual, with his own features and expression. I think they were known of but not located until about 30 years ago, when a local farmer discovered them while digging a well. It was some kind of anniversary when we there and so said farmer was there at the site, signing guide books. They are impressive, not least because there are so many of them. The largest hall is the size of an aircraft hanger. There are infantrymen, archers, cavalrymen, officers and a few generals, all quite distinguishable from each other. Some of them have been set up in exhibition cases so you can get very close to them. But most are left where they were originally set up, rows upon rows in neat formations. They were painted but the paint faded very soon after they were exposed to air and light. There are many still buried and so they are trying to work out a way of uncovering them and preserving the colors.
There are old parts of Xi'an that are pretty well preserved. It has an intact city wall, of varying ages, that is very impressive. It has spectacular gate towers and a road that runs along the top of it. J, D & E rented bicycles to circumnavigate it - took them about 90 minutes. Also impressive were the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower. Apparently, most old cities in China have them, though usually not on this scale. We stayed in the Xianzimen Youth Hostel, which is located near both towers. It is years since I have stayed in a Youth Hostel and I have never stayed in one as good as Xianzimen. It is located in a complex of old building and we had nicely furnished private rooms. It also has a restaurant and a bar, that appeared well liked by the locals. So it had a very nice feel to it, not least because the people that worked there were very friendly and helpful. If you are ever in Xi'an, check it out.
We went from Xi'an to Beijing on the overnight train. Soft sleepers this time so it was pretty plush. It delivered us to Beijing West Railway Station about 11 AM. There we encountered the longest and one of the slowest moving taxi lines I have encountered. The temperature was about -15 C, so we were well and truly frozen by the time we got to the front of the line. In Beijing we stayed in the Happy Dragon Hostel. Not quite up to the Xianzimen standards, but still pretty good. Elizabeth had a hard time in Beijing because the weather was really cold, apparently the coldest it has been for 30 years. I think it went down to -19 C at night and by the time we left, when it had warmed up a little, it was getting up to about -5 C. There was relatively fresh snow on the ground, although it wasn't added to while we were there. We often came across groups of workers, sometimes soldiers who were removing the snow, shoveling it into trucks or smaller bike powered containers.
I really enjoyed visiting the Great Wall. The weather was cold, but also sunny and not windy. Excellent wall- walking weather, in fact. Very beautiful, with the surrounding mountains covered with snow. We walked along it for a couple of hours, sometimes on the flat, sometimes up or down ancient and uneven stone stairs. Local people, who lived in villages outside the wall, set up little booths and tried to sell us very expensive candy bars or hot drinks. They showed great persistence, greeting each new tourist with enormous enthusiasm.
The Forbidden City seemed almost as big as the Great Wall. It just goes on for ever and ever. Interesting buildings, although most of the artifacts there are not particularly well displayed. One exception is the Clock Museum, which has a wonderful collection, mostly presents to 18th and 19th century emperors.
What else did we do in Beijing? We had to visit the Olympic site, of course. The buildings are spectacular, especially lit up at night. We went to the Peking Opera and a bunch of markets and teahouses and, of course, in addition to the fun food that I already write about, we ate some delicious Peking duck.

2010-01-23T22:21:00.000-08:00

The question is, where do you draw the line between what constitutes food and something you would not put in your mouth in a million years? The Chinese predilection for chicken feet is well known and we have had our share since we have been here. But in Beijing, we decided to take it to another level and visited a market well known for its interesting food. Some things we could recognize, but others were a mystery. But then we were fortunate in finding one of the stall owners who spoke a little English and was very happy to proudly show us all he had available. So we started at his stall and asked for silkworm larvae, scorpion, dog meat and sheep penis. Does that sound like a tasty meal or what! The sheep penis was the surprise on the menu, but there they were, anatomically unmistakable, butterflied and threaded onto a stick. Actually, everything was threaded onto a stick, so that we would never have known the dog was dog if we had not been told. Tasted like chicken, of course, but looked more like little pieces of pork. We wondered about the scorpion tail and whether the venom would survive the cooking process. We ended up breaking off the very tip, just in case.
The method of cooking at this stall was the same in all cases - throw them in the deep fryer, which I appreciated from a food safety point of view. It rendered everything small crunchy. So, if you want to know what a scorpion tastes like, I could tell you its similar to silk worm larvae and both are very crunchy, without having a lot of other flavor. The sheep penis was perhaps a little tougher than other cuts of lamb.
So what could we find to top that? Not much, it turned out. Next we tried a starfish. Surprisingly, that was only shallow fried and it was the only disappointment of the day. The outside was fairly tough and fibrous and only a little crunchy. Inside it was softer, definitely nautical tasting, but not particularly appetizing. It was the only thing that we didn't actually finish. We, in this case, primarily meant Jacob and I. Duncan was the official photographer, although he has a taste of most things, even bending his vegetarian principles for the experience. Elizabeth came along for the ride, but her role was mostly restricted to providing sound effects and expressions of disgust.
We moved on to grasshopper and centipede. The grasshopper would definitely get my vote out of those two. Once the centipede had been deep fried, it was kind of difficult to get it off its stick - or even to tell it apart from its stick. The grasshoppers, on the other hand, better maintained their integrity and provided one of the most pleasant crunches of the meal.
If food and/or protein is in limited supply then the definition of what constitutes food tends tends to get expanded. You can introduce whole new species, as in the Beijing market, but more commonly for meat it means using all parts of the animal. Why just eat the muscle when you have all the organs available? When I was in the market in Mai Chau in Vietnam, I saw very little of the kind of meat that Westerners are accustomed to, and a whole lot more liver, intestines, lungs, skin and feet. We had lunch at HK University of Science and Technology this week and were presented with a dish of fish bladder. I tried it and was wondering if I could still taste any urine, until it was pointed out that this was a gas bladder, used for flotation purposes. That made it taste a whole lot better. It was off white, with a pleasant spongy texture and relatively subtle fishy taste. Chinese people really like it and consider it to be good for the skin. I realized that I have seen it in the fish market all the time without understanding what it was.

2010-01-19T02:11:00.000-08:00

So after Vietnam came China. And one of the most interesting things about China was that our major mode of transportation was the China Railways system. The trip was made complex by the bizarre booking system of this system, or should I say the lack of a booking system. You can only buy tickets in the city of departure. So our trip was HK to Guangzhou to Xi'an to Beijing to HK. The first leg was just a 2 hour trip that we have done before. We then took the subway across Guangzhou because the Xi'an train left from a different station. Only then could we buy the tickets for the Xi'an train. After some effort we discovered that the Chinese system is to have the ticket-booking hall in a separate building adjacent to the station. Upon entering, we were met by this vast sea of humanity, roughly organized into lines in front of the 20 or so windows. Careful examination of these revealed the one window staffed by an English speaker. That was the line to join. After waiting our turn, we asked for 5 hard sleeper berths to Xi'an. They were available (fortunately - they often sell out and this train only goes once a day), though not in the same compartment. But we took them and then tried to find our way into the station itself. Basically, it was follow the crowd, through the security lines and into this behemoth of a station that was so overrun with humanity that it made the booking hall look like a quiet dinner for two.
We thought that we would find several restaurants in there for lunch but unfortunately, there were only two, both fast food, one Chinese and one KFC. That explained why there were so many people selling food outside the station, but once inside there was no going back. I figured out where we were supposed to wait for our particular train and joined the hoard there. I noticed enviously that people who had soft sleeper tickets had their own waiting room and even better, a tea room. From time to time they would make announcements in our waiting room, entirely in Cantonese of which we understood not a word. So we just tried to behave like everybody else and line up in the appropriate places. It was kind of funny, we were all lined up at one end of the room, with us at the back, when a new announcement caused everybody to rush to the other end of the room. That meant we were much closer to the front and that was the end from which they started boarding the train. It was all rather mysterious to me because, as far as I know, everybody had an assigned bed or seat on the train and therefore it really did not matter when people boarded.
We found our hard sleeper berths, in two adjacent compartments. They are arranged in bays of 2x3 beds, with the top one not having too much space. Actually they charge less money for the higher ones also. There are no doors on these compartments so they all open directly on the corridor. Thus, we shared the next 25 hours, very intimately with the other people in our compartments, but in the same small world as everybody in our train carriage. There were two women in the bottom beds of my compartment with a very young baby. Elizabeth though neither of them looked like they had just given birth, thus we surmised adoption. Actually, when I woke up the next morning they had all gone, so we had a lot more space. I spent a lot of time sitting in the corridor and watching life come and go. There were many vendors of food. The food was very good, much better than you would encounter on a British or US train, and reasonably priced. You could also buy all sorts of other stuff - my favorite was a necklace that offered all sorts of protections, most notably against radiation damage.
The trip from Guangzhou to Xi'an takes 25 hours. We left at 3 and got in around 4 the next afternoon. The passing landscape was mostly unremarkable, with occasional interludes; many different kinds of houses, lots of big cities, a few mountains here and there. I saw very little unused space. Land without buildings usually had something planted on it. Visibility was often limited by haze. Maybe it was just the weather, but more likely it was pollution. Sometime there was a touch of the Lorax about it.
I did not see any other Westerners on that train - there were lots on the Beijing to HK trip. Jacob in particular had a very nice interaction with some people in the next compartment. I can't remember how it started, but it morphed into an extended language lesson, with most of the benefit coming in our direction.
We had soft sleepers for both of the other long train rides. Not for the nicer waiting rooms but rather because the hard sleepers were all sold out. They were very nice but meant more privacy and therefore greater separation from the other passengers. Duncan really appreciated the soft sleepers. He had been on the very top bunk in the hard sleepers. They control the lights and the PA system centrally for the whole carriage and he was woken up at 7 AM by a bright fluorescent light about a foot from his face. On the trip back to HK I woke him about 10.30 when I was fed up with waiting for the rolls we had bought for breakfast.
Every train carriage comes equipped with a supply of near boiling water and each compartment, both hard and soft, comes with a thermos flask that can be filled with this hot water and then used to make tea. The soft sleepers even come with nice mugs with lids to facilitate that process. Is that civilized or what!

2010-01-12T06:24:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas in Vietnam. Not exactly a hotbed of Christianity, although the French influence has left some churches in Hanoi. We thought it might be nice to escape the rank commercialism that is Christmas in Hong Kong, and indeed it was, although vestiges remained. We saw several Santa-suited bikers on the streets of Hanoi. We went out to dinner on Xmas eve with another Fulbright family from HK. We ate at a relatively up-market restaurant and were greeted there by a Santa. Except that he was a little half-hearted. His beard was pathetic and he was only wearing the top half of the costume. But once we were seated, he came and gave us all a present, attractively packaged in a brown paper bag. Inside was a pair of white cotton tube socks. Everybody got the same adult size, which particularly bemused the young children present. But the food was good and that represented our main Christmas meal. Christmas day itself found us being driven about 4 hours to Halong Bay.
Given limited time and no knowledge, we had opted for a package tour in Vietnam. Buffalo Tours - I would highly recommend them if you want to go to Indochina. So they were taking us to Halong Bay and our small cruise boat that was going to take us around there. HB is one of those breathtakingly beautiful places and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has these limestone casts that form islands, mostly small rising abruptly out of the waters of the bay. I think there are about 1000 islands in a pretty large bay. It's so gorgeous that everybody wants to go there and so there about 100 boats like ours, cruising the waters. For the most part, there was plenty of room for everybody, although when we visited the caves, we had to wait to get to the dock. I even went kayaking, an unusual event for a landlubber like me, but that way we could get to otherwise inaccessible places. Our boat had 15 passengers and very good food, a good portion of which had come out of the bay.
Actually, Vietnam was good from a culinary perspective, since the other place we went was about the same distance west of Hanoi, Mai Chau, which is up in the hill country. We stayed at a resort there, which catered to us very nicely. It was a small town, surrounded by several small villages, set on a flat plain between two ranges of hills. Quite misty when we were there and also very beautiful. I walked between the rice paddies, which were terraced, though absent of rice since they were between crops. The villages are set up to sell handicrafts to tourist like us, lots of gorgeous scarves and embroideries. We got to enter one house, which belonged to the grandfather of our guide. It was set up on stilts, basically post and beam construction, with a thatched roof and bamboo floor. Large, open, simple and elegant. We did not meet the grandfather, though I would have liked to do so. He had his war medals on the wall and his picture taken with Ho Chi Minh. Next to that was a frame containing 5 photos - Ho, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Elizabeth sometimes found it a little difficult being in Vietnam because of the history, but that aspect did not bother me.
Back in Hanoi we went to visit Ho Chi Minh's tomb and the buildings in which he lived. He started off in a colonial palace but then moved quickly on to a smaller building nearby. But he spent most time in a much smaller two storey, four room building that was very simple and beautiful. Seeing his body was interesting. You have to go through all sorts of security and then march up to it two by two. He looks like he died yesterday. People there really seem to like Uncle Ho and see him as a real hero.
Hanoi was a trip. Six million people and 4 million motorized two-wheelers of various kinds, though mostly with pretty small engines. They are used for multiple transport functions. Seeing them carry families of 4 was common, as were livestock (pigs or chickens) and enormous and apparently precarious loads. Would you fell comfortable transporting your new, large, flat screen TV on a motor scooter? There were some cars, lots of taxis and very few buses - public transport is not one of the major achievements of this socialist state. I am a very proficient urban pedestrian and crossing the street in Hanoi required all of my skills. Vehicles take traffic lights as suggestions, rather than commands, and traffic lanes and right of way are alien concepts. But it all seems to work. Although sometimes it felt that were we risking our lives while being driven places, I never saw an accident. Drivers seem to be able to predict the behavior of others and also judge distances very well.

2009-12-31T03:21:00.000-08:00

Duncan got sick just before Christmas with a sore throat and laryngitis. He decided to see what traditional Chinese medicine would do for him. We were with one of my HK colleagues, Pak Sheung, and he volunteered to facilitate the process. First was finding a practitioner. There are plenty of them around, with little shops around the neighborhoods, but Pak wanted to make sure we found a good one. The one he chose, I pass frequently and there is always a line of people, sitting on stools in the store, waiting to see the doctor. I did not experience that part of it (Pak and Elizabeth, along with the patient seemed sufficient), but the doctor felt various energy points and asked several questions before prescribing a concoction that was to be taken for 4 days. It would not be ready until the evening, and in we had to go back for each of the next 4 evenings to pick up a 10 oz paper cup that was filled with the medicine. I don't know the ingredients (barks, leaves, roots, etc.), but it was black and thick and smelled sort of like licorice, but worse. The taste was extremely bad - very bitter, the sort of thing you might give somebody if you wanted them to throw up. I just had a small taste to see what it was like but Duncan was supposed to consume the entire 10 oz. We discovered subsequently that many people have switched to western medicine here because they cannot deal with the taste of these remedies. Duncan did his best, and by the fourth day got down about half of it, but I think he has had his fill of Chinese medicine.
Did it do any good? Hard to say, because he was not that sick and would have got better anyway. Pak's point of view was interesting. He said that experiencing the bitterness was part of the cure. It was part of the price to be paid to get the benefit of health.
Elizabeth enjoyed the football at the East Asian Games- sort of - though we were there for about 5.5 hours which was a little much. So the following, we went to a different marathon activity, Cantonese Opera. Elizabeth's exercise class teacher was performing. There were nine sets of two performers, one playing the female and the other the male role, although they were often both women. The female role was sung in falsetto, which meant it was really high. Each pair only sung one song, but each song lasted about half an hour, so you can do the maths. Everything was in Cantonese, so we had no idea what was going on. Good live music, with a mixture of Western and Chinese instruments, but overall something of an endurance test. The performers are supposed to be singing for the gods, which is just as well as the audience didn't seem to be paying too much attention. Actually, sometimes they were, but at other times they would be having loud conversations with each other or falling asleep. It was an older crowd. We were the only white folk there and also part of the few who were under 60.
I took a break at one point and wandered round the neighborhood in search of some flowers to give to Elizabeth's teacher. They were easily found and more interesting was the scene at the local office of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. It was mobbed, with lots of people spilling into the neighboring plaza, where they were sitting around, perusing the racing paper and often smoking cigarettes. Mostly male, but not entirely so. I think I wrote about going to the races a couple of months back. This is the off- track part of the experience. It looked like the Hong Kong counterpart of a familiar working class British tradition. However, here, the Jockey Club has the monopoly on betting (or legal betting, I should say), so the shops are fewer and the crowds at them larger.

2009-12-15T07:19:00.000-08:00

For the past 10 days, Hong Kong has been hosting the East Asian Games. We thought we would take advantage by going to see a few events. There are 9 countries competing - China, Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei, as the announcers were told to call it), Macau, Mongolia, Hong Kong, two Koreas, Japan and Guam. We started with table tennis, since it seemed that this part of the world contains the best players. It was very impressive, with four games going on simultaneously, all of which could be seen at once. I tended to find a game that was competitive and watch that one. However, I made an exception to that rule when the two Guam players came out to compete in the singles tournament. They looked like they could have been father and son. Dad was about 40, with a paunch to match, but could move surprisingly well. His 'son' looked younger than Jacob and Duncan. They were absolutely creamed, but took it is good cheer and I bet had a wonderful time in Hong Kong. Actually, I noted in this morning's paper that Guam's total medal haul for the games has been one bronze, so I suspect their experience may have been shared by other members of the Guam team.
We also saw Guam compete in both men and women's Rugby Seven's. Apparently, the biggest sporting event of the year here is the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, when the best players in the world compete. That wasn't happening here, because, in contrast to table tennis, East Asia is not noted for its rugby prowess. However, they do take it pretty seriously. For those that don't know, Rugby Sevens is a version of the game where each team has 7 players on the field and each half lasts for 7 minutes, with a running clock. The idea is to make the game go very fast and it works that way. It has been added to the next Olympics and so the IOC commissioner was here to give out the medals to denote that fact. Getting creamed at Rugby Sevens looked distinctly more painful than at table tennis. The biggest discrepancies appeared to be with the women, where the Hong Kong and the Guam teams looked like high school girls, in comparison to the much larger and stronger Chinese women. In the first game I saw, the Chinese women beat Hong Kong by 44 - 0. That is a lot of points to score in 14 minutes.
The men's games were more competitive, and in fact Hong Kong heroically beat China to get to the gold medal game against Japan. They almost won that too, but Japan overtook them on the very last play of the game. In Rugby Sevens, the game can only end on a dead ball and since that does not happen very often can get extended beyond those 7 minutes. I get the sense that Hong Kongers have absorbed some of that British plucky losers spirit, so almost winning may feel more comfortable. The Guam teams endeared themselves to everybody after their losses by performing a short excerpt from Michael Jackson's Thriller on their way off the field.
The football was spread out over the duration of the games and we just saw the 3rd/4th playoff for bronze and the gold medal game. And unlike the rugby, only men were competing. The bronze medal game was interesting because it was North vs South Korea. Who knows what was going on in their heads, but they were very nice to each other on the field. Playing hard, but the fouls were fairly benign and they helped each other up after them. The north team looked a little older and a little tougher, but the game ended up as a 1:1 draw. The south prevailed on penalties. One remarkable thing about that (for all you soccer/football aficionados out there) was that the referee had a N Korean player take his kick 3 times. The first 2 attempts were both saved, but the ref said the goalie moved too soon. The goalie got really mad and ended up getting a yellow card for his pains. But he went ahead and saved for a third time, which meant that S Korea had won the game.
On to the final, Hong Kong vs Japan. HK were expected to be the plucky losers once more, but this time they won, again on penalties, much to the delight of the large and raucous crowd. We were sitting right next to the core of the HK support, who came equipped with drums and an enormous flag - probably about 20 x 30 feet. That flag did a complete circuit of the stadium, being dragged across the tops of the crowd's heads. It was interesting to see the enthusiasm with which the HK fans booed the opposing team - seemed a little unAsian somehow. The Japanese scored half way through the first half. But then HK brought on their super sub at the beginning of the second half. He is actually part of the British Premier League's Tottenham side and they allowed him to come home for this game. He only arrived a couple of hours before the game and scored with a nice header about a minute into the half. That was all the scoring, despite extra time and so to the penalties.

2009-12-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I have added to this blog. I guess that reflects my current state of busy -ness. Let me survey the last few weeks, since we got back from Korea.
Korea was followed relatively quickly with a trip to Zhuhai. Zhuhai is to Macau what Shenzhen is to Hong Kong, i.e. a city just adjacent to a Special Administrative Region, where economic incentives facilitate rapid growth. However, Macau is not Hong Kong and so Zhuhai has not developed to the same extent as Shenzhen. Maybe at least in part because of that, the PRC government is trying to make it into a center for higher education, establishing branch campuses for several universities. Hence United International College, which bizarrely is a partnership between Honk Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University. Christianity and communism combined! However, the HKBU part is dominant and really all that BNU does is to enable HKBU to set up shop in mainland China.
We were at UIC to help with a liberal studies conference/workshop that also involved a number of people from a consortium of Minnesotan Private Colleges. I was particularly impressed with the President of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, who gave a couple of talks with excellent and thought-provoking content.
It was a much more Chinese environment than the more international Hong Kong. Such things are most noticeable for me when it comes to breakfast. Any number of savory dishes - congee (savory rice porridge), noodles, steamed buns of various types, meat and vegetable dishes. One evening we went into town, but UIC provided us with student guides, to take account of language issues and to make sure we did not get lost. Elizabeth and I had a great time with our guide, who unusually was from Hong Kong. We spent the whole evening in a hot pot restaurant, which meant we were given pots of broth, heating on burners at the table, in which we cooked all manner of good stuff.
The provost at UIC has the goal of extending the work we are doing with general and liberal education in Hong Kong to mainland China. Talk about thinking big. Rather overwhelming if you ask me.
So that was a 3-day trip and since then I have helped with workshops at the HK Institute of Education and the HK University of Science and Technology. Plus things have been heating up at PolyU, since I have figured out how to engage with the parts of the university required for me to be effective. In addition I have been working with the General Education Centre here as it plans the transition to a normal academic department. Then the semester is ending so I have had all the usual end of semester stuff with my class.
However, there has still been time for fun stuff, not that the work stuff has not also been fun. There was Thanksgiving in there somewhere, when the Freake/Huebner family cooked. Lacking an oven, we could not host, so we decamped for the afternoon to another Fulbrighter's much larger apartment. Just the afternoon, mind you, because I had to teach in the morning. And the turkey cost the usual weekly food budget.
This past weekend, we had two wonderful outings. The first was to Sai Kung Country Park. It required a 90 minute ferry ride and then close to an hour trek, to get to some fabulous beaches. These beaches came equipped with cafes, which suited me, and big waves, which the surfers enjoyed. Then yesterday we went to one of the HK islands called Cheung Chau. It was just like putting down into a Chinese version of a Mediterranean village. A little bigger and more crowded but a wonderful place to be. You can buy fish in the market and take it to the restaurants to be cooked. And just half an hour by the fast ferry from downtown HK. Not a bad place to live!
By the way, I am not sure what photos I am going to put up with this narrative. My designated photographers, Jacob and Duncan were off in Sichuan on the Habitat for Humanity. They had a wonderful time there and are now adept bricklayers.

2009-11-15T05:38:00.000-08:00

Last week we went to South Korea. The Fulbright program in Asia has travel funds that allow you to go and give presentations in another country. So, with the help of my wonderful ex-student Yangha Kim, I was set up with three very diverse talks. First, I gave a keynote talk at the annual meeting of the Korean Society of Food and Nutrition in Changwon. I don't think I have ever given a keynote address before. This one went well, with about 200 people and a title something like "Zinc: making the connections between the biochemistry and the physiology". Then up to Seoul where I talked to the nutrition department at Ewha Womans University on US foodways - my take on Michael Pollan's ideas. That was fun, though a little rushed because I had to get to #3. That one was on UConn's internationalization activities, for various faculty and administrators from Ewha. They are in many ways far ahead of UConn, with currently 30% of their students studying abroad, with a target number of 60%. They had not quite thought about curriculum in the way we have, so that piece was useful for them.

So that was the work, and then there was exploring Korea. The first remarkable thing was that it was autumn or fall. Their was a nip in the air and there were trees whose leaves were changing colors and falling to the ground. Not very remarkable you might be thinking, but in Hong Kong terms it certainly is. There are temperature variations here, but not really the four seasons that we know and love in the northeast USA. So oohing and aahing over the spectacular colors (largely Japanese maples - or are they Korean maples?) and swishing our feet through piles of leaves was delightful. I hadn't thought about missing fall at all until I saw it again.

I think Korea is not nearly as well known in the USA as is Japan and China. In fact it is a very old and vibrant culture. Seoul is enormous, but much more spread out and not as vertical as Hong Kong. A slower pace, I think. The four of us stayed in a suite in a hotel that was very close in size to the apartment we live in. The kitchen was a noticeable upgrade, with a dishwasher, very modern clothes washer/dryer and, best of all, an oven! Surprisingly, we never got around to baking anything.

They have done a pretty good job of preserving some old palaces in Seoul, despite occasional fires and invasions.. We went to the largest and best preserved one Chankdeokgung. We were only allowed in as part of a group with a guide, but since the guide was good and the cost was minimal, that was just fine. Beautiful buildings of brick and stone and wood, reminiscent of those we had seen in Guangzhou. In fact, my Chinese colleague Pak told me that they were Chinese in design, but sadly, from his point of view, most Chinese palaces like that had been destroyed.

Another interesting place we visited was the DMZ (demilitarized zone). That had been on the top of Jacob and Duncan's list ever since we had been told about this place frozen in time that was now an ecological treasure. Not that you can get in to see the treasure, the DMZ itself is like that because humans don't go in there. But it is the most popular tourist destination in Korea, at least among foreigners. I think fewer Koreans go there. Our bus group had people from about 10 different countries, with most continents, with the exception of Africa, represented. It was a gray and rainy day, at least on the way up there. That seemed appropriate - I was sort of thinking of it as trip to Mordor. We saw the Freedom Bridge, an observation post and then went down into one of the several invasion tunnels that had been dug in an attempt to invade the south.. On the one hand it seemed a little like an amusement park (they do have rides by the Freedom Bridge). On the other, there were soldiers there ready to delete all the photos on your camera if you took forbidden pictures. In fact, the day after we were there, there was a skirmish between the two navies, which resulted in one sailor being killed.

Older Koreans would like to see the country reunited. In fact they built a beautiful new train station that currently sits unused, waiting for the border to reopen and trains to run north again. But the border is over 50 years old, and for younger Koreans, reunification is rather abstract and may not be a good idea.

Well there is much more I could write about, the markets, the food, the outdoor sculptures, but I think I'll stop here and leave you to wonder what on earth we were getting up to in those cool costumes!

2009-11-03T07:20:00.001-08:00

I haven't been to China in the past week but lots of interesting things keep happening. For example, when was the last time you were invited to a reception aboard an aircraft carrier? I guess that being a Fulbright Scholar has a certain cachet and so when the USS George Washington (plus accompanying members of the 7th fleet) came to Hong Kong, we were invited to welcome it (her?). It was an interesting invite, rather formal (business attire required, only one accompanying person) but with this interesting sticker on the back saying that the visit of the fleet (and therefore the party) was contingent on final approval from the government of the Peoples Republic of China. Fortunately, permission was given by the PRC and then also by the consulate for both Jacob and Duncan to accompany me (Elizabeth was at her choir practice that evening).
We arrived at Fenwick Pier, the little bit of Hong Kong Island reserved for the US Navy, to get the water taxis out to the ship. Since it is nuclear powered, it was not allowed into Victoria Harbor and so we had a 40 minute ride out to it. Aircraft carriers are big, especially when you come upon them in a small boat. (How do those Somali pirates do it?) We boarded via a floating dock moored to the stern of the ship. We went up a couple of decks to find the welcoming party - two rows of sailors, both genders, all saluting that funneled us in to shake hands with the captain. We turned the corner to enter a big hanger area, where there was another more inanimate gauntlet consisting of flags of the 50 states. Plus the odd helicopter and fighter jet. A friendly woman from the US embassy volunteered to take our picture in front of the helicopter.
We entered an adjacent, even larger hanger area with even more F18s, where most of the reception was held. I'd guess about 500 people, including sailors were there. Very meaty food and lots of beer, though not, at least initially for the sailors. No chairs. I liked talking to the sailors to find out a little about their lives. One of them was an armaments technician - it was his job to maintain all the bombs and rockets that go onto an F18. Jacob and Duncan got into all sorts of technical conversations about nuclear reactors and such things. There were a few but not many speeches and then came the highlight of the evening. We got to ride on this enormous platform elevator that is used to bring aircraft to and from the flight deck. I guess they need to move them quickly, because this one elicited fairground-like gasps from the passengers as it took off upwards. I liked being on the flight deck - big open space, with lots of planes, and of course the Hong Kong skyline as a backdrop. More F18s but then other surveillance and communication planes too that had all sorts of weird bits sticking out.
Five thousand people live on the George Washington. It's a small city, powered by two nuclear reactors and home to who knows how many aircraft. Your tax dollars at work, though I, for one, might vote to spend them on something else. I did enjoy the party, though, and fortunately Jacob and Duncan avoided taking the King's shilling.

2009-10-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took advantage of a 3 day weekend to spend 2 of them in Guangzhou. It is a 2 hour train ride from here, an interesting joint venture between the capitalist MTR of Hong Kong and the Chinese rail system.. They cooperate very well together to give a highly efficient and pleasant service, from which Amtrak could learn a lot. My only quibble was that the restaurant car doubled as the smoking car, but given the shortness of the ride, I could live with that, particularly since part of the service was to deliver a bottle of water to each of us.

Guangzhou is better known in the west as Canton and so, unlike Shenzhen (last week’s Chinese sortie) is very old. It is old with respect to Chinese culture (as in 1000s of years) and also in terms of interactions with the west as a center for trade. A few weeks back we went to an art exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art that was laid out as a travel guide to Canton, not to be used after 1850. Lots of paintings and drawings showing what the average Victorian tourist might see and do there. I believe that Guangzhou is now the third largest city in China and so it has lasted well and prospered.

English is understood and spoken only to a very limited extent. But a little pantomime goes a long way and we did not really have any problems. The hotel had little cards on which we would get them to write the names of places we wanted to go for taxi drivers. Plus we had a pretty good map that we could use to negotiate destinations. We also used the subway, though for the 4 of us, taxis came out to be the same price with greater flexibility.

Lack of being able to speak Cantonese or Mandarin to any significant extent led to interesting food experiences. Lunch 1 right after we arrived had to be close to the hotel since we were hungry. We went of the Hunan based on the fact that it was on the 6th floor and any restaurant that survives there has got to be good. The menu had very good pictures. We did not appreciate that Hunan = spicy and so unlike last week when we negotiated around one very spicy dish in Shenzhen, here they were all like that. But that tasted very good, particularly the fried eggplant and the river shrimp. Dinner ended up being Middle Eastern, for reasons also related to language, but that I won’t go into. One of the managers befriended us. He was from Jordan and insisted on going around the very extensive buffet and explaining each dish to us. Everything was very good, but also quite expensive by local standards and so we felt obliged to overeat. The next day we were in a market at lunchtime, so we just randomly selected a busy market café. There did not seem to be any menus, but the food on other people’s plates looked good and then it turned out that one of these people spoke some English. We ended up getting 4 plates of what she had (fried noodles – they were excellent, especially with a little chili sauce and fresh cilantro added) and 4 oranges sodas (because they were cold and presumably microbiologically sound). The whole meal cost 28 yuan for the 4 of us – which amounts to about US$4.50. You could spend the same amount, well actually more, on a tall latte at one of the several Starbucks, also to be found in Guangzhou. I guess we are one of the few bizarre people who frequent both kinds of establishment.

But the high point of Guangzhou for me was the Chen Ancestral home. A beautiful, very well preserved collection of buildings, about 150 years old. The decorative carvings were magnificent, either in stone, brick, wood or plaster. The whole thing was very nicely laid out and also housed a folk art museum. The museum had just about the most spectacular embroideries I have ever seen, very realistic landscapes, but with the sheen of the thread giving a texture you would not see in other mediums. There were also wonderful multiple-layered ivory carvings – I have no idea how they are done. We also had chops made. This was my solution to the problem of not being able to write my Chinese name. A chop is a stamp, in this case made out of soft stone, so now my Chinese illiteracy can be concealed. The chop carving was followed by an extended bout of tea tasting. All in all, a wonderful place to visit.

2009-10-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we celebrated getting our visas for Mainland China by taking a day trip to Shenzhen. I have heard that it is the fasted growing city in the world. It currently has a population of 14 million and when there I learned that its population in 1979 was less then 20,000. So that record would take some beating. The growth was due to Premier Deng Xioaping, Mao's successor, who declared Shenzhen to be a Special Economic Zone. I am not sure what that meant, but it certainly worked in terms of stimulating growth.
It is right across the border from Hong Kong. In fact we got there by taking the MTR (metro) to the end of the line and then walking across into China. We were accompanied by 1000's of other people - it is also apparently one of the most traveled crossing points in the world. Of course, it is not really a border, because both sides are in the same country, but we certainly went through two sets of immigration controls. It took time but it was straightforward.
Many people (both local and expatriates) warned us to beware of pickpockets in Shenzhen. Many people go up there to shop because prices are cheaper than Hong Kong. There is a giant mall just across the border and countless men soliciting the wealthy looking visitors to come and buy whatever. I am not a shopper at the best of times (except for food) and we just kept walking until we had passed through that area.
Our first stop was a store selling CDs and DVDs. The DVDs included those released last week and they all cost 20 yuan, which is about $3. Duncan decided he had to try one out. The quality was pretty mediocre for both sound and video, but the packaging was very impressive. We next went into a mall because it seemed to be advertizing tea. Unlike Hong Kong, few signs are in English. It contained the largest collection of stores selling tea and tea ware that I have ever seen. Outside, each store somebody would be sitting picking over the teas, separating the leaves from the twigs. They would invite us in to drink some tea, in the hope that we would buy. Other stores sold teapots and others still tea trays. This is different from a British tea tray, in that Chinese tea ceremonies involve lots of spillage and so your tray needs to be able to collect all that liquid. The ones that I had seen before were all made of wood or bamboo, but here there were beautiful ones made from stone, with extensive carving. They weighed a ton, but we are plotting how one might find its way back to Connecticut. For the time being we resisted all purchases and moved on.
Our target was the tallest building in Shenzhen because we heard that you could get to its top. We found it and discovered that the top was advertized as the first theme park in Asia at the top of a skyscraper. We paid our money and went up to discover spectacular views and a tacky theme park, which I suppose is what I expected. From the top, we could see a park nearby with a lake and boats for rent. We decided first lunch and then a boat ride.
Lunch was a little hard to find, which it never is in Hong Kong. But eventually we found a likely looking spot, went in and pointed to what we wanted on the menu (which fortunately had good pictures). There was one person there who spoke a little English and she warned us that the fish soup we ordered was hot. When it came, we discovered she had spoken the truth. An interesting in-your-face heat, very raw and irritating to the throat. But very flavorful too. The rest of the food was more moderate (and therefore typically Cantonese). The other interesting things about that restaurant were the large jars of picked snakes. I tried to find out more about them but the English speaker had by that time left.
So off to the park, where the first exciting thing was the grass. There is so little of it in our part of Hong Kong. We rented our boat, which had a small electric motor and seemed to go slower than all of the others. After a little while, our motor gave up entirely. Fortunately, our plight was apparent without language and another boat towed us back to the dock.
But while we were out on the lake, we heard music, so when back on dry land we went to investigate. Tucked away in the woods, we came across several groups of people who had just come together to play music. The first group we listened to had an accordion player and then two people playing the erhu, a simple two stringed instrument played with a bow. They were wonderful and pretty soon were joined by people who knew the words to the songs they were playing. They joined in as equal partners, not just singing along quietly in the background, but really giving it their all. Then another man came along who decided to be the conductor. The whole group of them was so passionate and completely involved in their music it was spellbinding. There was another group playing Chinese jazz (four saxes, guitar, flute and some kind of horn) and then just a solo sax player with vocalist. Then there were the feather hacky sacs, the badminton games, the dancers and martial artists etc. etc. I loved it all. If only that went on in our local parks in the USA ...

2009-10-12T07:59:00.000-07:00

We have now been in Hong Kong for almost 2 months and I have yet to write anything about why I came here in the first place. Actually, I am still trying to figure that out, but my understanding of it does deepen as the weeks go by.

In a nutshell, Hong Kong has decided to transform its education system by lopping a year off high school and adding a year onto university, changing the latter from three to four years. Another way to look at it would be to say they are switching from a British to a US program. I had assumed that switch reflected the world's realpolitik. It seems that the US has as much influence in Hong Kong now as the UK. And then of course, the major influence on Hong Kong, i.e. the country of which it is a part, China, sends its students to college for four years.

It turns out that the decision was a little more rationally based. Hong Kong students have always scored very well on tests of quantitative ability; in fact they put the US to shame. In addition, in the international survey of universities published by the Times Higher Education Supplement last week, Hong Kong placed 5 in the top 200, led by Hong Kong University at #24. Even my institution, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, squeaked in at #195. UConn did not make the list. These league tables are always a little peculiar, with a large component based on subjective assessments, I think in this case of college presidents. However despite this rosy picture, when local employers were surveyed, they said that they would much rather hire graduates of US or European universities than those from Hong Kong institutions. Although Hong Kong graduates knew a lot, their ability to think critically and creatively and adapt to changing situations was limited. Since the opinions of local employers are very important in this capital of commerce, these surveys were taken very seriously, hence the wholesale changes that are now being undertaken.

Universities here are increasing their curriculum by one third. They have also been encouraged to do so not simply by adding a year at the beginning, but rather to rethink the entire undergraduate programs. Of course, the extent to which they are truly doing this is questionable, but that is the idea. It is an enormous, courageous and exciting undertaking. It would never happen in the US, where the system is too big and too decentralized. But here there are 8 publicly funded universities and so such changes can be mandated.

After the changes were announced, a Hong Kong businessman by the name of Po Chung got involved. He had attended college in the US and developed a very high regard for the idea and practice of a liberal education. He saw the reforms as a wonderful opportunity to get Hong Kong students to think more broadly and creatively. Together with the Hong Kong America Center, which administers the Fulbright programs here, he came up with the idea of bringing 20 US scholars who had worked extensively with GenEd programs to Hong Kong over a period of 4 years to help with the changes and try to ensure the programs developed were as strong as possible. He gave US$1M, matched here in Hong Kong to make it happen.

So here I am, slowly figuring out the workings of PolyU and the other institutions of higher education and determining what makes sense. More on

2009-10-05T05:31:00.000-07:00

This week has seen an interesting juxtaposition of two events, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Both were pretty big events, though not necessarily to the same people, and I enjoyed being a casual observer of both.
The build up to the 60th anniversary has been quite pervasive and long lasting. We have been aware of it since we arrived here, with lots of posters, neon displays, artistic performances etc., etc. It all came to a head on the day itself, Thursday October 1st. That day marked the beginning of an unprecedented 8 day holiday on the Mainland (though not in Hong Kong), which conveniently included the Mid-Autumn Festival. Thursday was a public holiday in Hong Kong. I don't know how people treat public holidays here, but as far as I could tell for the most part it seemed like a good reason for not going to work. I decided to take my parade watching semi-seriously, although since it was in Beijing that meant sitting in front of the TV. As anybody who watched the last Olympics knows, the Chinese know how to run a parade. This one was divided into two parts, the military and the cultural. I found both surprisingly interesting. The soldiers, for example, were selected for being in the parade on the basis of height. They were all the same, being between 1.8 and 1.9 m, I think. That makes it look very good, because you see an array of soldiers, aligned in perfect rows and columns, all the same height. It is a 3-dimensional masterpiece! We were wondering if some of them were wearing lifts in their shoes to make up for small differences in height. And then they drill those soldiers to such an extent that all movement is perfectly synchronized. Actually, that part goes for the cultural portion of the parade as well - they must spend a phenomenal amount of time practicing. I did not pay too much attention to the military hardware although there was a lot of it.
The cultural part of the parade was much more colorful. As a backdrop, Tienemann Square was filled with people who were holding up, probably colored cloth, so that all you see is a sea of color. But the sea has Chinese characters in it that are spelling out something. Then, almost instantaneously, the colors of the background and the characters change to spell out something new. My conclusion was that each unit of space was occupied by two people, one standing and visible and the other crouching and hidden. At set times they would swap positions, to make the color changes. In front of this backdrop they had a very impressive parade. We are already planning for the boombox parade in Willimantic next year. Do you know that China has only had 4 presidents in the past 60 years. They tend to be long-lasting. Each was represented by a large painting drawn on a float surrounded by colorful dancers.
I could go on, but I won't except to say that the commentary was very interesting. The Hong Kong TV station took the direct feed from China, complete with audio. It was totally gushing, I guess like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, except that it does come across a little differently when it is tanks rather than an inflatable Snoopy going past. But then the Beijing commentary was regularly interspersed with that from the Hong Kong station, which, while not being overtly critical, was certainly questioning. This Hong Kong attitude towards the mainland is well illustrated by the coverage in the South China Morning Post. They devoted a lot of space to the anniversary, with diverse perspectives represented. There was a table of 60th anniversary events in Hong Kong that included all the official stuff, but then just as many, if not more, protest activities focused on human rights - marches, candle-lit vigils and so on. Another time I will have to write about Hong Kong attitudes towards mainland China/ the UK/ the USA and so on. These things are complex here.
The Mid Autumn Festival seems to me a lot more straightforward, although it is very old and has some connection with liberation from the Mongols. But everybody decorates with paper lanterns and gives their neighbors mooncakes. These are baked confections that come in many flavors; disc shaped and filled with locust bean paste and egg yolks. I would not rate them at the top of my list of desirable pastries, but people here are very attached to them. Then at night, the big thing is to go out and greet the harvest moon. The children take their lanterns with candles when they do so and get up to interesting tricks with the hot wax. I did not get to see that myself, because we had spent the day hiking on Lamma Island and were pretty exhausted by the heat. More of that another time.

People

2009-09-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of people in Hong Kong. They are not quiet people either and so Hong Kong is also a noisy place. Both aspects are in stark contrast to our usual life in rural Connecticut. Both are in many ways refreshing but I can imagine there will come a time when I crave for peace and quiet.

I walk to work everyday and vary my routes for interest and to discover as much as possible in the side streets of our neighborhood. Street life is so complex that there are often new things to be seen, even on streets that I have walked on many times before. The other day I was with Jacob and he noticed a movie theater that I had never seen before. (I have been talking with a colleague in the General Education Centre who is a film critic and he has promised to get me into Hong Kong Movies beyond Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.) But the last half of my walk to work is along a walkway. It is about 20 feet wide, sometimes elevated above the roads and sometimes a tunnel, going under/over who knows what. It always appears to be crowded with people, going in both directions. Some of them are students/staff going to/from PolyU, but that probably represents a minority. The numbers are swelled by the fact that the walkway also connects to stops for buses that go through the tunnel to Hong Kong Island. But for the most part the destinations and purposes of all these people is unknown to me. But I have ample opportunities to observe.

There is a wide variety of ages. I actually see more elderly people in the streets closer to our apartment building. Sometimes they are by themselves, shuffling along or sitting on one of the benches, watching the world go by. Sometimes they are with a younger person who is playing the role of support or guide. Normally they are female, either a daughter or granddaughter or a paid helper, usually Filipino. I am told that older people do well here (I think Hong Kong has the second longest life expectancy in the world), as long as they have family. The other interesting category of people I see before I get to the walkways is children being escorted to school. They are wearing their neat school uniforms and walking hand-in-hand with an adult. It could be father or mother or, again, a Filipino helper. It has the look of a relaxed stroll, rather than the rush that you might expect in the United States. The pace of walking or the more relaxed life in general seems to allow interactions between the two of them, conversation, jokes, physical affection.

A variety of paces can be found in the walkways. Some people are ambling along, whereas others are moving much more quickly, intent on getting somewhere. Needless to say, I am in the latter category. Surprising to me, given the variations in speed and the fact that there appear to be no rules like pass on the left, there are no collisions and almost no physical contact. People have the skills to get extremely close to each other without actually touching. There is not much space to go around in Hong Kong and so people have learned to be comfortable with small amounts of personal space. Sometimes this is manifest in interesting ways. For example, I can be in the supermarket, perhaps 2 feet from the shelves, inspecting the merchandize. Local people will think nothing of occupying the space between me and the shelves, apparently oblivious to my presence. It would be thought of as extremely rude in the United States, but here the understanding of personal space is so small that clearly there was plenty of room. This understanding allows the migration of lots of people through the walkways with efficiency and lack of trauma.

Another aspect of the people that interests me is their dress. This is a big city and so dress is important. Elizabeth notices fashion much more than I do so you should go to her poisedforlife blog for more complete descriptions. I find myself noticing clothing quite often because it seems interesting. I am not just talking about short skirts on the younger women, although that is quite evident and it is almost always the women that are interesting. It might be the tops, with either cut or color or some combination of the two being striking. Or it might be the words written on the t-shirts, making statements that are not quite right, grammatically speaking. None of the phrases have stuck in my memory, but Hong Kong is famous for these t-shirts.

Our first typhoon

2009-09-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

This week saw our first typhoon. Typhoon is Pacific lingo for hurricane. Like most things in Hong Kong, their approach is very organized. You know something is up when the typhoon signal is hoisted. The language must date from the time when it truly was a flag being hoisted, but now, of course, it is publicized by TV, internet, radio, etc., but also lots of signs strategically placed, for example in the shopping malls and the foyer to our building. Signals 1 is just an alert, and then it goes to 3 when the winds become substantial. The next signal after 3 is 8, peculiarly (they used to use the intermediate numbers to signify direction). But 8 means everything stops, schools and businesses close and everybody goes home. From 8 it can go up to 9 or 10.

We got our first 8 on Monday, around 4.30 PM. But it was very civilized because they announced that the number 8 signal was to be hoisted then a couple of hours earlier, to give people, especially those living on the outlying islands, the chance to get home. Our flat is well positioned to view a typhoon, as it faces east/north/east. But of course, we did not want to experience it from the confines of our apartment. So we waited for a break in the rain and then went down to the waterfront. The tall buildings interact with the wind and so in some places we would wonder what all the fuss was about, whereas in others, we would be struggling to keep our footing and avoid being blown off our feet. Duncan figured out that that pleasurable sensation could be enhanced if he held his jacket out with his arms to create sails. Given that the walkway was made of bricks that became slippery when wet, he invented a new sport of typhoon windsailing. Elizabeth and I restricted ourselves to just seeing how far it was possible to lean into the wind without falling over - quite far.

That was the fun part of the typhoon. The less fun part was that the wind quite effectively forced water around the seals of the windows in our flat. We had towels placed along all the windows, but in the living room that was not enough, because the towels were soaked in 5 minutes. Jacob worked out an effective wicking system so that the water would flow through the towel and into a bucket. Then the latches on 2 of our leeward windows (one of them nicely positioned right above the head of our bed) broke. I managed to fix it closed with a metal coat hanger, so that we could get to sleep.

The wind had dropped some when we woke up but the number 8 signal was not relaxed back to a 3 until 10.30. When that happens, everybody has an hour to get to work. I saw a fair amount of tree damage, but overall the city came through very well. Any debris was cleared away remarkably quickly. There are 2 or 3 typhoons that come through every year and I realized that evacuations never seem to be a part of the plan. Everybody is expected to go home to ride out the storm. I suppose that the buildings are constructed to withstand anything that is likely to come. We could feel our 20 year old block swaying a little and the window frames were flexing back and forth. It would have been fun to be at the top of one of the really tall ones, to see how much they move.

2009-09-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

I am absolutely in love with the Hong Kong public transport system. I had heard good things about it before we came and was really looking forward to living without a car. However, this has exceeded my wildest expectations. Hong Kong is famous for the Star Ferries. They ply back and forth between various points on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, also part of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, but attached to the Chinese mainland. The fares vary a little bit, depending where you are going to/from, but they are all less than a dollar (US). There were riots a couple of decades back when the Star Ferry company increased the fares. It makes the Staten Island ferry seem expensive. They run like clockwork very frequently and they get people on and off them with enormous efficiency. Plus, it is very pleasant to ride them.

Then we have the MTR subway system. It is not enormous by NYC standards, but it is so much cleaner, quieter, cheaper and more pleasant, there is really no comparison. It is more like London's except enormously less expensive. Waiting for more than 5 minutes for a train seems unusual. And then they have interchange platforms, where two different lines come together, They have the timing down so well that they synchronize arrivals so that people can change from one train to the other without waiting. The exits are labeled, so that when people are giving you directions, they tell you which exit to use.

Taxis are also cheap and very plentiful, although my non-existent Cantonese means that it can sometimes be difficult to communicate the destination.

But my first love is the buses. There are literally hundreds of different routes. When I first came I asked for a bus route map, but there really isn't one - it would be too complex. So for a while, the buses were an impenetrable mystery. Then I discovered that my Hong Kong street atlas marks bus routes and since that discovery, I feel like I own the city. The double deckers are best, riding on the top deck, with so much to see. They are, of course, cheap and they go everywhere.

There are also trams, lots of them, but mostly restricted to a single line going east/west across the island. Also double deckers, but very narrow. Yesterday, we just got on them and rode from one end of the line to the other. They are very slow, but cheapest of all. It will set you back HK$2 - just over 25 cents US, to ride.

Having said all that, I walk to work every day.

2009-09-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

September 6, 2009

Sunday evening and we have now been in our apartment (or in Hong Kong/British parlance, flat) for almost a week. Our move-in was delayed by the need to install new air conditioners. The PolyU people, who are the official renters of the flat, are very picky and went over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure everything worked. The landlord, CY Chim is a very good man and he seems to want everything to be good for us. On the day we moved in he came and took us on a tour of the neighbourhood. The waterfront, the municipal swimming pools and soccer field, the local park, the wet market, the dry market, the public library and then all the Wonderful Worlds of Whampoa (more of those later). It was enormously helpful and saved us several days of wandering around lost by ourselves.
The closet city to Hong Kong in the USA is probably New York. Rent and property prices may be similar. As a consequence, apartments are very small by US standards. I believe ours is 750 sq. ft. Jacob and Duncan each have their own bedroom but they are each only about 10 x 6. What it lacks in square footage, it makes up for in views. Our flat is on the 12th floor (our block is small by local standards) and we look out over the harbour, which is surrounded on most if not all sides by high rises of one kind or another. So as I look out now, I see the MegaBox, a big retail/entertainment complex. It has an elaborate and constantly changing display of lights on the outside. Between us and it, are two cruise liners that are anchored in the middle of the bay. They are also lit up like Christmas trees and getting ready for their nightly trip out into the ocean. Gambling is illegal in Hong Kong (surprisingly) and so the solution is floating casinos. They go out very late and then return around 9 the next morning. I think I will give that experience a pass.

2009-09-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2009

So we have been in Hong Kong for 5 days now. What a place! We are staying in the Regal Kowloon Hotel. Kowloon is a part of Hong Kong that is on the mainland. It looks at Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbor, which has to be one of the most beautiful urban views in the world. They do architecture well here, so lots of elegant skyscrapers that are all lit up like Christmas trees at night. Kowloon is equally, if not more crowded than the island. A few less Westerners, so more Chinese. Our hotel is only 5 minutes walk from Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), where I will be working. Of course, I am not going to be living in the hotel for 10 months, so we have spent a lot of time looking for an apartment. Fortunately, people have helped us with this from PolyU, since the combination of jet lag, culture shock and complete lack of Chinese language skills would have made it impossible otherwise. But after 3 days of looking we were successful, and will move into our modest 12^th floor apartment later next week.

Hong Kong is very hot and humid, very crowded, very foreign and very familiar at the same time. Multinational corporations are all over the place. There are three Starbucks within two minutes of the hotel. I haven’t been in them yet, but they seem to have that Starbuck’s feel, though the menus are different. I’ll have to see what the coffee tastes like. Also lots of Seven Elevens. But they have whole cooked chickens and all sorts of other prepared foods for sale in them.

2009-08-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

August 16, 2009

I am currently 6 hours into our 15 hour flight from Chicago to Hong Kong, which means that we are somewhere over the Arctic Ocean. Who would have thought that you would fly north to get from Chicago to Hong Kong!

We had an interesting departure from Bradley Airport this morning. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel at the airport on Saturday night, so that we would be ready for our 7.15AM flight. That worked well and Jacob and Duncan had a pool party for their friends last night, courtesy of the hotel. But then this morning, when we lugged our gargantuan bags to the check-in counter, the agent asked us how long we were staying in Hong Kong. Ten months was the answer. Where is your visa? I showed her. They had been sent to us courtesy of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where I will be working. “This visa is not valid” she says. “It has to be used on or before March 11 2009”. I tell her that there must be some mistake – we had just been sent those visas, but she sent us off to another line for problem cases like us. We stood in that long and slowly moving line for a few minutes before Duncan came up with the solution. The visa says it must be used by 3-11-09. Everywhere but in the USA, they put the day before the month, so 3-11 means November 3 not March 11. I go back to the agent who is very apologetic and gives us personal service from that point on. “Your bags are all more or less under 50 pounds, right?” she says, printing out the tags. In fact they were because we had worked hard to make sure of that, but they could have been 100 pounds for all anybody knew.

The trip to Chicago was uneventful. We had to wait almost 4 hours for our flight to Hong Kong, which we boarded on time. However, then we sat on the runway for close to 2 hours as thunderstorms rolled through and then they gave priority to landing flights. But eventually we got airborne, flying north, which was a surprise. The route to Hong Kong is up over the pole and then down through Siberia, Mongolia and China.