There's hot, there's hotter, there's hottest, and then there's Hong &@#% Kong

How hot is it in Hong Kong?  It’s so hot that: 

• If you go for a swim in the evening at the outdoor pool, putting your face in the water feels like dunking your head in a hot tub.
  
• I wear two or three shirts a day, and an equal number of underpants, just to deal with the sweat.  Sometimes I have to change my trousers, too.
• Putting on anti-chaffing cream is part of the normal morning ritual.
  
• People carry around umbrellas for shade. 
• When you turn on the cold water, it only runs chilly for about three seconds.  Then it becomes sort of luke warm.  And In another 10 seconds, you might as well have it on hot. 
  
• Today on the bus, one young man kept switching seats from one side of the aisle to the other, depending on which side the sun was shining on.
  
• You can get an all-around tan while swimming laps:  your back from the sun shining on it, your face from the sun bouncing off the bottom of the pool. 
  
• I’ve found actual salt stains on my clothes.   I’ve run 6 miles in blazing July heat in Virginia, and never had salt stains on my close.
  
• When you’re in the pool and it thunders, the lifeguards just look at each other and shrug.  Better to be electrocuted and die than have to live in this heat.
  
• I’m writing heat and humidity jokes.  Here’s one:.  A man walks into a Hong Kong bar and takes a seat next to his friend.  His friend asks what he’s been doing all day, and man says:  “Well, I had an egg salad sandwich for lunch, then I found a couple of hookers and went and had unprotected sex for hours.”  His friend stares at him, shocked, and says, “What are you, crazy?  You got some kind of death wish?”  The man shakes his head and says, “Yeah I know, but they were awfully pretty—“ and his friend interrupts:  “Egg salad?  In this heat?”
  
• Ellen, my always-tasteful wife, has started putting her red wine in the fridge. 
  
• People actually step outside on 32 degrees Celsius days with 73% humidity and say, “Hey!  It’s starting to cool off!”
  
• Last week someone mentioned to a group of newcomers that Hong Kong was truly tropical.  “In fact,” this person said, “it’s at the same latitude as Hawaii.”  “Really?” someone else responded.  “I thought it was a little lower, like around, say, Hell.”
  
• Even the Hong Kongers complain.

 

My, Watchacallit, "Job" Thingy

I’m not known for my subtlety. 

Let me rephrase that:  that I can even spell the word subtle is some kind of miracle, because subtle is the antithesis of me.  I am the anti-subtle.  I am Satan with a pitchfork and boombox, to subtle’s sublimely thoughtful Jesus Christ cuddling a baby lamb. 

Mmmm . . . lamb.  Yummy.

I mention this, because my official task is to serve as a general education consultant to my host institution.  More accurately, I’m supposed to spend 50% of my working hours helping my home school, and the other 50% working with the other seven Hong Kong universities that are shifting from a three-year British system that does not have general education, to a four-year American system that does. 

I’ve learned many things during my first three weeks in Hong Kong.  I’ve learned that the Hong Kong people are incredibly insanely kind and generous.  I’ve learned that egg plant prepared with preserved fish and ground pork can be delicious.  I’ve learned that digital cameras actually cost more here than in the US.  I’ve learned to always look to the right when you cross the road. 

And I’ve learned that consulting does not come naturally to me.

And that I’m not subtle.  Have I mentioned that? 

When I was writing my application for this Fulbright last year, I remember including a list of the many roles I saw myself playing:  resource man, ideas guy, mediator, hermaphrodite, Bruce Willis wannabe.  “Most importantly, though,” I wrote, in my desperate quest to get money so I could spend a year eating dim sum, “most importantly, my job will be to listen.”

Man, that so has not happened. 

Partially, this is not my fault.   Partially it is.  On the “not my fault” side of things is the fact that the director of our program made a point of telling us to get to work immediately.  “You only have a year,” he said,  “You can’t wait until January, getting a feel for the territory, then start pitching in.  They want you to hear your ideas.  So tell them your ideas.”

And then he went one step further and pointed at me.  “You,” he said, “are at a school that only gets one Fulbrighter.  Every other school might have another one next year, or might have had one last year, but for your school, you’re it:  four years of work in one year.”

Um . . .

On the “is my fault” side, is the fact that, damn, I’m old.  And I’m tired.  And I have three kids here with me, and geez Louise, if it gets any hotter I’m going to start walking around in my jockey shorts with popsicles strapped to my chest.  It takes energy to be a good listener, and man, I just don’t have any . . ..  Which is a pathetic excuse, I know, but you try living in a time zone where all your friends are asleep when you’re awake and you have to wear three shirts a day just to keep from showing up for meetings dripping—and I do mean dripping.   Added to this is just the fact that it’s hard—and I mean, headache-inducing, energy-draining, flat out hard—to be in an entirely different place dealing with an entirely different culture.  I mean, when you’ve only been there for two weeks, going to the grocery store and picking out toothpaste is hard enough, much less reading the nuances of interpersonal dialogue, the subtle shifts and grimaces that might signal the difference between utter intellectual engagement with a new idea, and you-stupid-white-boy frustration.

Mostly, though, my lack of subtlety is due to my colleagues:  at my very first meeting, discussing the overall goals for the general education program, Anita, the chair of the GE program, started the meeting by turning to me and saying, “So, we want to hear what you think about these.” 

I adore Anita.  She’s stunningly smart, and stunningly dedicated to her work and her family.  When she talks to you, she always leans forward and always looks you in the eye.  I would hurl myself in front of a herd of stampeding rabbits for Anita.  But I had my vision, I knew who I was, I wasn’t about to go trampling all over her and her staff like a typical American bully.

“Actually,” I replied, “I’m curious to hear what everyone else thinks first.”

Anita gestured to herself and her staff.  “When you sent us comments about these outcomes two weeks ago, we saw you were talking about it in ways we didn’t even understand.  Clearly, we need your help. “

“Now don’t be silly,” I responded, all Zen and lamb-cuddly and serene, the wise and great ear who would listen and was wise and would listen wisely in a serene kind of cuddly way.  Thoughtful, too.   Like Buddha, only in khakis.   “You’re all very smart here.  I’m sure you have some interesting ideas.  I’d like to hear them.”

“No,” said Anita.  “We need your help.”

“You go first,” I responded.

“No,” she said, her teeth gritting slightly.  “You.”

“Don’t wanna,” I said.

“Too bad.”

“Can’t make me.”

“Can too.”

“Uh-uh!”

“Uh-huh,” she said.  Then she reached over and gave me a nipple twist, right through my shirt, right in front of everyone. 

“I’m telling!” I cried. 

Anyhow, once I’d stopped weeping, we launched into a discussion of the course goals (outcomes, in official academic bureaucrat-ese).  It was a lively discussion, ranging from the incredibly specific (do we use the word “analyze” or “assess”) to the very broad (What is the purpose of general education?   To not end up  delivering pizzas, we eventually decided).  I talked a lot, sure, but so did everyone else.  We played with wordings a lot, trying to be specific enough to be helpful, and but not so specific as to restrict teachers teaching the courses.  Sometimes my wordings won.  Sometimes they did not. 

Throughout, I’ll admit, I kept feeling myself wanting to hold back, to clam it up.  When I was in grad school, I sat next to a guy who scribbled NASGDW at the top of his notebook every day.  Finally, half-way through the semester, I leaned over and asked him what it was.  He looked at me and smiled a little.  Then he spelled it out, word by word:  Not Another Single God Damn Word.  I understood.  Like me, he was one of those people for whom not speaking was actually physically painful—and I really do mean this;  when I have an idea bouncing around in my head, when there’s something in there that I want to share—I almost instantly know exactly how to say it, what words to use, what tone of voice.  And to not say it hurts.  The words sit on my tongue, weighted, bulbous, wanting to get out.  My stomach starts to ache, like I’m constipated, maybe, or about to throw up.  It’s not that I think my words are better than anyone else’s, because I don’t.  It’s just that I want to—need to—get them out of me. 

So, 10 days into my year in Hong Kong, three days after my wife had returned from her father’s funeral, in the very first hour of my very first meeting, I just said what I thought.

And it pissed someone off. 

It wasn’t evident at first.  I’d been keeping my eye on a person to my right, worried that she seemed to be growing wary of my encouragement, slightly weary of my suggestions.  Then the person to my left—with whom I’d openly disagreed, and he with me, but with whom I seemed to have a good rapport—turned to me and said:  “First of all.”  And then he said it again, “First of all,” and then he corrected my pronunciation of the school we were at.   And I don’t mean the Cantonese name.  I mean, the English name. 

It was an honest mistake, I’d been making, but it was a mistake, and in some ways it was a pretty stupid one.  So he was right.  But man, did my face burn.  We’re talking, you could’ve roasted chestnuts off my cheeks.  You could’ve melted glaciers.  Pamela Anderson and her various augmented body parts would have turned to slushy goo were I merely to glance her way.

After that opener, which generally hushed the room, he went on to list two or three other points of mine with which he’d disagreed.  They were solid points, but I had an answer for every one.  I didn’t give those answers, of course.  I just kept my head down, fingering the spiral of my notebook.  It was such an obvious move on his part—so deliberately intended to undermine my credibility in every way—that it was almost shocking.  I haven’t learned yet just how much the idea of saving face is valued in Hong Kong culture, but at that particular moment, I utterly understood the concept:  my face was not mine.  It was red, and hot, and shameful, and everyone in the room could see it.  Even worse, of course, having a bald head doesn’t even allow me to duck my face down, as even my dome turns crimson when I blush.  One more reason for buying that blue wig with the peacock feathers. 

The conversation went on.  Soon there was a break and I stepped out into the hall to get a drink of water, forgetting there are no water fountains in HK (I’m not sure if this, like the double chopsticks at the table, is post SARS or just common sense).  Heading down the stairs, I heard a shout and turned to see William, the guy who’d made me cry. 

“I’ll join you for a drink,” he said.  I waited until he caught up, and then we walked down the stairs and into a late afternoon blast of heat. 

“It’s funny you should mention Cambridge,” he said as we strolled through the open-air concourse under the buildings.  “Because I attended there for a while.”

“I know,” I said. 

He looked at me startled.  “How did you know?”

“I could hear it in your voice.  You sound like you’ve been to Cambridge.”

He stared at me.  “No!”

I nodded, too tired to explain the truth, which was that hints of upper-crust Britain occasionally dotted his speech, and I could tell it wasn’t Oxford so figured it must be Cambridge. 

We got a couple bottles of Perrier and headed back to our building, chatting about minor stuff that I can’t remember.  Just as we reached the door, he said, “Sorry I gave you a hard time in there.”

“It’s okay,” I said. 

“I like to play devil’s advocate.”

“That’s good,” I said. “It makes for a better discussion.”

He nodded and we headed back up the stairs and into the air conditioning. 

 

It’s entirely possible, I suppose, that his apology was another cultural move that I don’t understand—that, having offended me so publicly, he’d violated some socio-behavioral norm and felt the need to compensate, even if he was being insincere.  The problem, I’m finding, is that I can’t tell what is real Hong Kong culture, and what is me thinking something is cultural.  Are my colleagues being sincere when they are frank with me, or are they only acting that way because I’m an American and they know they can?  When I say something I think is meaningful, are they silent and nodding in assent because they really do agree, or are they just refusing to shame me to my face by voicing disagreement?  It doesn’t help that I need to figure all of this out on the run, that within a week of arriving I’d had to learn where to buy food and how to use the cooker and be gentle with my wife as she mourned the passing of the first of our parents, that I’d put two kids in an entirely new school (one as a kindergartner), that I didn’t have a car and don’t know the language, that I’m away from people who know me and who, if they don’t like me at least tolerate me and assume that my social gaffs are well intentioned if not well executed. 

So was he being sincere? 

I don’t know.  But I’ve been here only three weeks, and I’m going to be here another 37.  So I’m going to go with yes.

It’s the only thing I can do.    

 

Getting There

    Let’s face it:  getting the kids out of bed and dressed and fed and to school—no matter where you are—is a pain in the butt.  Getting the kids out of bed and dressed and fed and to school in Hong Kong, though, is an adventure—and a pain in the butt.

It’s not that there’s no way to get from our flat in eastern Tai Po to the school in northwestern Tai Po, it’s that there’s no direct way.  It requires a long walk down a big hill in the hot sun, a mini-bus (the #26, known around here simply as “The 26”), and a shuttle bus from the Norwegian International School Kindergarten to the Norwegian International Primary School.  It is important to note that the shuttle bus, for which we pay US$70/month, arrives promptly at 8:30, and leaves promptly at 8:31.  Miss it, and you’ll have a long, hot walk through noisy Tai Po.

Because Ellen and I are nothing if not anal, we made a point of leaving the flat the first morning promptly at 7:50.  We strolled down the hall, took the elevator to the twelfth floor, and began to descend the hill behind the Senior Staff Quarters where we reside.  About half-way down, Ellen glanced at her watch and said, “Uh-oh.”  We picked up our pace, expecting the descent to finish at every bend, the parking lot and bus stand to appear at any minute. 

Another two-hundred yards, and Ellen glanced at her watch again.  She didn’t say anything this time, just bent down and buckled Jamie into the stroller before taking off at a dead sprint down. 

Finally we arrived at the lot.  Luckily, a mini-bus was just pulling in, and we climbed on, glancing at our watches and cell-phone clocks to make sure there wasn’t some mistake.  There wasn’t.  But that didn’t phase our driver, who sat glancing back in the rear-view mirror, waiting, I don’t know, for Julia Roberts maybe?  Or Ed McMahon with a million-dollar-check?   (“He’s dead!” I wanted to shout.)

Eventually he started off, and we made our way through Tai Po with its stacks of white high rises and concrete malls and across the canal to Old Tai Po with its huge signs and gray buildings and wonderfully busy streets.  Finally our stop came up and we climbed off.  Ellen glanced at her watch again:  8:27.  Snap! Jamie was buckled in again, and we beat it down the block to the shuttle bus like some sort of bizarre Disney movie about a family of five living in Hong Kong with two stupid parents who were always late (movie rights still available, by-the-way). 

We made it of course.  But we’d learned our lesson.  The next day we woke the kids up 15 minutes earlier and headed out the door at 7:35.  Same trek down the hill, same sprint for the mini-bus, same drive through Tai Po and across the canal into the old neighborhoods.  Once we got to our stop, Ellen looked at her watch:  8:27.  Damn.  We ran.

The next day we’d planned on getting up even fifteen minutes earlier, but the alarm didn’t go off and we ended up bolting out the door, unwashed and barely fed, at 8:05.  Dash down the hill, onto the mini-bus, drive through town, get out at our stop, look at our watches:  8:27. 

Huh, I thought. 

The next day Ellen needed a swim (go figure), so I took the kids myself.  We headed out the door at 7:45, but I made a point of taking our time as we walked down the hill:  we looked at spiders, we talked about the weather, we picked pretty flowers.  When we got to the parking lot, we refused to run, even when the mini-bus revved up and pulled away.  We waited in the shade for the next one, and boarded when it arrived.  When we got to our stop, I looked at my watch:  8:27.   A-ha. 

On Friday, we slept in until 8.  I made the kids bacon and eggs with fresh-squeezed orange juice.  On the way down the hill, we unfurled a kite and flew it in the stiff morning breeze.  Lucy had some sidewalk chalk and drew pictures of all five of us, then sketched in a forest and a harbor with some boats bobbing on the waves.  When we got to the mini-bus stand, I made a point of glancing at my watch:  9:07.  At that point, we should have taken a taxi, but I refused to be rattled.  We boarded the 26, took our seats, and chatted as the bus made its way through Tai Po’s industrial park and the crowded downtown streets.  When we emerged, I looked at my wrist. 

8:27.

So yes folks, it’s true:  Hong Kong really is a magical place.

 

Okay, so I made that up.  The fact of the matter is, though, when you’re going from one place to another using mass transport in a big city—even one like Hong Kong where the transport is amazing—you really have no control over when you arrive.  We’ve left the flat at 7:50 and arrived at 8:29.  We’ve left the flat at 7:50 and arrived at 8:10.  We’ve left the flat at 7:40 and arrived at 8:25. 

Any number of things can cause this unpredictability:  on the walk down the hill, you can see a truly amazing—read:  big enough to eat your cat—spider.  Or you can turn the bend to the bus stand and see the 26 pulling out (they don’t really run on a regular schedule—it’s not unusual to actually have two 26s riding one right behind the other).  Or you can get to the stand and find a full bus.  Or you can be on an empty bus, and the driver has to pause at every stop because someone rings to get off or waves to get on.  The buses all have digital speedometers over the windshield so that passengers can report a driver who goes too fast, but on occasion you’ll have a maniac who likes to take corners on two wheels and who won’t so much stop as slow down to let you off.  At other times, we’ve had drivers who are so cautious that I want to report them to the police for being a menace.   And there are days the 26 turns the bend to cross into Old Tai Po, and you see double-decker buses lined up 6 deep on the bridge. 

The great thing is, the kids like the adventure.  They dig the spiders, sure, but they like climbing on the bus and saying “Tai Po,” so the driver changes the meter to half-fare.  They like flashing their Octopus Cards (multi-purpose, reusable pre-pay cards that can be used for anything from train fares to bar girls) at the electronic scanner until it beeps.  And they like climbing in the front row and taking turns getting the window seat.  The stroll from the bus stop to the shuttle pick up is shady and short, and when we get to the meeting place, there are kids and parents mingling around.  Too, it’s amazing how, in such a chaotic town full of so many people, there can be such continuity:  every morning while we’re waiting for the shuttle, we see the same man in blue jeans walking the same fat chow.  Every morning the same school girl in her white uniform and ballerina slippers strolls by.  I swear I’ve actually seen the same young woman, standing the front step of a double-decker and listening to her iPod, three days in a row. 

After Will and Lucy get on the shuttle bus (Lucy always waves; Will never does), Jamie and I stroll back down the street to the shops in Old Tai Po.  Sometimes I push Jamie in the stroller, sometimes he gets out and pushes it himself.  Sometimes we stop and get a paper from a newsstand.  The man there always hands me a square packet of disposable handkerchiefs.  I’m not sure if it’s a promotional gimmick, or if he just abhors sweaty white men. 

Paper in hand, we cross the street at the corner and wait for a 26 heading back to campus.  We’ve yet to stand more than 5 minutes.  On board, we sit and watch the people strolling along the canal and the school boys in their white shirts and the old men sitting on benches talking—a national past time in China when you’re retired. 

Inevitably, Jamie and I back to the college by 9 or a little after.  We stroll across campus, stopping at the Coffee Corner to pick up a chocolate muffin, which we share.  Sometimes we stop at the library for kids books.  Sometimes we just head to the flat and crank the AC.  Then Jamie plays on the floor and I do a little writing.  Eventually, keys jangle in the lock, and Ellen comes in, smelling of chlorine and looking satisfied.

Yeah.  We’re getting there.  

Hong Kong Geography: A Bitter, Bitter Tale

     If you’re anything like me—that is, ignorant—then you assume that Hong Kong is a city.  In fact, it’s a region covering a grand total of 426 square miles. 

Indeed, Hong Kong is divided into three parts:  the oldest and best known, colonized by the British in 1841, is Hong Kong Island.  The urban region on the northern part of the island is called “Central.”  I’ve heard it’s cool, but to be honest, I haven’t been there yet.  Across the harbor from central is Kowloon, occupied by the British in 1861 using some preposterous rationale that basically boiled down to “We’ve got better guns, we make better cocktails, and if you don’t give it to us, we’ll take it, so there.”  The way I heard it, they didn’t even say please.  Using essentially the same argument in 1898, the British expanded further inland, creating the New Territories.  Of course, expanded is sort of an inaccurate term, since no Brit in his or her right mind had any intention of living in those god-forsaken, mosquito-infested hills.  For one thing, the New Territories were away from all the action in central.  For another thing, they were god-forsaken, mosquito-infested hills.

God-forsaken, mosquito-infested hills in which, I might add, we now live.

Just to give you a sense of what, exactly, that means, allow me to mention a few details:  1)  We are located in Tai Po, in the northeastern New Territories, a city that is closer to the People’s Republic of China than it is to Central—or even Kowloon.  2)  Not only are we in Tai Po, we’re on the edge of Tai Po—barely legal if you will.  3)  We’re the very last stop on not one, but two bus routes.  4)  Adding insult to injury, we’re at the point of campus furthest from the bus stop—a good 15 minutes walk, in 90+ temperatures even at eight AM. 

When I first found out my assignment, Ellen and I got on Google and tried to find Tai Po.  It took a while.  When we did eventually locate it, we both stood there looking at the screen. 

Finally, one of us said, “Huh.”

There was a pause and then the other one said, “Yeah.”

The irony here is that I’m a country boy:  I grew up in a town where pheasants and deer strolled into your backyard most of the winter, looking for food.  I went to a college in Iowa where my freshman dorm was located across from a cornfield.  My favorite place in the world is my parents’ cabin, not too far from Eagle River, Wisconsin, where on a clear night you can see something like three trillion stars powdering the sky. 

But despite all of this—or maybe because of all of this—I was really looking forward to being in a big city.  The thought of walking out of my building onto a bustling street was appealing—as was the thought of grabbing a newspaper at a corner stand, coffee from a busy shop, and a pastry from some bakery we’d discovered on a weekend stroll through the neighborhood.  A year of hustle and bustle?  Just fine with me, particularly after the relative peace-and-quiet of small-town Virginia. 

The fact that none of this was going to happen really hit home the night we arrived in Hong Kong and were chauffeured out to the campus of my host school.  After leaving the airport on Lantau Island, we crossed the harbor on a high, arched bridge that was lit with golden lights.  On the left we could see ferries dotting the darkened waters and the glistening towers of Sham Tseng, one of the waterfront communities.  Far off to the right we could just make out the blue and purple lights of Kowloon and Central—all the neon and glass and steel that is be featured prominently if you ever do a Google Image search of “Hong Kong.”  (Pictures of Tai Po, oddly, never show up with such a search.)

Anyhow, having crossed the harbor, we proceeded inland.  And inland.  And inland.  And inland.  In total, the trip took nearly an hour, which is roughly the same length of time it takes to get from our home in Lexington Virginia to the nearest regional airport in Roanoke. 

“%#@$ hell,” I said to my wife as our van drove into Tai Po, then out again the other side and into rural darkness.

“Shhh,” she said.  “It’ll be okay.”

“It better %$*^& be,” I said.  It was almost like I’d been awake for 30 hours or something.  

The next morning when we woke up and inquired about groceries, we were informed that we had two choices:  walk a mile up a 70-degree hill to a corner store that had limited supplies, or take a taxi into town.

“Son-of-a-&%$@,” I said.

“This’ll be a much more authentic experience,” Ellen said.  “We’ll see parts of Hong Kong that most people don’t even know exist.”

“That’s because those parts of Hong Kong %&@# suck,” I said.  “If they didn’t @!*&, then they wouldn’t @#&% and most people know that that’s @(&*^!  Stupid @&$% idiots.”

Making it worse, almost everyone we met seemed to almost desperately aware of what a lousy situation they were in. 

“Sure we’re isolated,” one of our neighbors in campus housing said, “but then, you don’t get sunrises like this in Central.”

“That’s because people in Central have something to %&$@ do at night,” I snarled, “so they sleep in.”

The older I get though, the more I find that things tend to happen for a reason.  Case in point:

My friend Susan who was in the first cohort of Gen Ed Fulbrighters last year, was assigned to one of the universities closer to downtown.  When they first go their, they put notes in all the mailboxes in faculty housing, just saying howdy and letting people know they would love to get acquainted.  It worked, but only some.  According to Susan, the strongest friendships they developed were through their kids’ school. 

In contrast, we arrived here Wednesday night.  By noon Thursday, we had an invitation to a party. 

And after Ellen’s dad died and she had to fly back to the US and I was trying to manage three kids for six days in a brand spanking new country, here’s was happened: 

One neighbor arranged for Ellen to be driven to and picked up from the airport in a chaufered car at a discount rate.

Another neighbor dropped off a huge lasagna and box of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Two more neighbors invited me and my jet-lagged, hot and befuddled kids up for dinner.

Two different neighbors gave us curtains to keep out the heat and sun and give our flat a cozier look.

No fewer than four neighbors offered their in-house helpers as potential babysitters (Yeah, I know:  kind of weird from a US perspective, but it’s the thought that counts). 

One other neighbor offered her daughter as a baby-sitter (that offer was accepted).

And yet another neighbor offered herself as a babysitter (that offer was accepted as well). 

In short:  holy crap. 

Or to put it another way:  wow. 

Yeah, it still irks me every once in a while that we have to take a taxi or bus to get anywhere.  But taxis are only 4 bucks, and the buses are more like 75cents. 

And sure, last night when I was down in Kowloon over the dinner hour, and the sun set and all those big buildings lit up, I thought, “Oh man, wouldn’t it be cool to live down here.” 

But then, geeze, you know, we have a pretty awesome view from our deck and our bedroom.  And the mountains are a lot bigger in real life, actually brushing the clouds. 

And, okay: the sunrises don't suck completely. 

 

 Note:  This is my blog and only my blog, and in no way represents the views 

of the Fulbright or any related organization, so don't even go there, Miss Thing.    

 

 

Three More Reasons Tai Po is the Sexiest Place on Earth

The other day, after dropping the kids off to meet the shuttle bus, Ellen and I returned to the wet market in old Tai Po and found a place that sold fresh tofu and another place that sold fresh noodles.  My favorite, though, was this little booth that sold freshly ground herbs.

Then, when we left the market we turned left instead of our usual right.  At the corner, we found a little open-front shop that had tall baskets of nuts and dried fruit, sold at bulk prices.  We looked for a few minutes, then one of the women working there filled her scoop with a handful of peanuts and gestured toward the price per ounce sign, letting us know how much $60HK  would get us.  We pointed at the almonds.  She filled a bag, then tapped the price.  More-or-less $10 US for the equivalent of two cans of nuts.  We nodded.  Next she pointed toward the dried mango. I shook my head, figuring it was the usual mangy fruit dusted with too much sugar.  “No, no,” she said, waving her hand.  She broke off a piece for Ellen and me.  It was astounding.  Just the taste of fruit and nothing else.  So we bought a bag of that, too. 

At home, I took out the almonds and tried one.  They were dusted with a salt so fine that you could neither see it nor feel it.  They were delicious.  

Random details about Hong Kong that will likely bore the living smack right out of you.

• Because we went over the North Pole on the flight from Newark to Hong Kong, they had us shut our windows to simulate night.  Then, of course, we arrived in Hong Kong after dark, which effectively meant we had a 21-hour night.  I’m sure that really helped settle our stomachs.
  
• The fancier Hong Kong restaurants have two sets of chopsticks on the table:  a black pair for serving food from the dishes to your plate, and a white pair for eating food off your plate.  This system has only been around since the outbreak of SARS a few years back.  Lower-end restaurants just give you one pair of chopsticks and let you get sick and die. 
  
• It’s easier to get through Hong Kong customs than it is to get into the Hong Kong Institute of Education pool.
  
• The mango juice we buy for the kids (orange juice is too expensive) has tiny cubes of transparent coconut at the bottom. 
  
• The Walt Disney Princess Play Kitchen that a neighbor loaned us for the kids contains a whole bunch of fake food, including a plastic squid. 
  
• Yesterday at the market I saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that said:  “Danger:  Asbestos.  Do not remove without proper training and equipment.”
  
• The man who came to repair our curtain rod the other day—a tough, wiry old rooster, with a ragged shirt and bow-legs—was barefoot but carried a cell-phone.  I thought this was a wonderful little paradoxical detail, until I followed him to the door and saw his red crocs sitting in the hall.
  
• Two-thirds of the world's population is within a 5-hour flight of Hong Kong.  
• The elevators here have clear plastic sheets over the buttons.  These sheets are changed every few days. 
• If a Hong Konger and a mainland Chinese person are abroad, and someone asks where they are from, a fight will break out if the Hong Konger identifies him or herself as Hong Kongese rather than Chinese.
  
• All mini-buses have a sign that reads “Ring bell when leaving bus.”
  
• Last week at lunch, one of my colleagues asked me if the chickens were big in the U.S.  I said yes they were, mainly because we pumped them full of steroids and chemicals.  She pointed at the chicken in front of us and said, “This chicken is small, but still filled with chemicals.”
  
• 70% of Hong Kongers employ live-in help.  
• The doorbells here are incredibly elaborate.  We have a neighbor whose bell plays, “Hava Nagila.” 
  
• At lunch, my colleagues pour tea in a bowl, then wash all of their utensils in it before eating.  
  
• Australians refer to themselves as Aussies, to New Zealanders as Kiwis, and to Hong Kongers as Honkese.  I am not making this up. 
  
• If you go to the main website for Hong Kong beaches, you’ll see that the # symbols signifies beaches with shark protection nets. 
  
• Bald, semi-fat white men are considered the epitome of attractiveness in Hong Kong.  Go figure.  
• The little girl a few doors down spends her Saturday mornings at drawing lessons, then her Saturday afternoons at English lessons. 
  
• Most native Hong Kongers have English names in addition to their Chinese names.  Often times these names are given at birth by the parents.  Other times, they pick the names themselves when they start school.  My colleague June picked hers because that was the month she was born.  My boss Anita picked hers because it was the first one on the list.  I’m not sure what the story is with my friend Dick.  
  

I Know How to Gag in 17 Different Languages

         Twenty years ago when I was in Africa, I spent a weekend consuming nothing but bananas and beer.  No, it wasn’t a kinky metaphor party.  Rather, both of the women I was with had been evicted from Tanzania with “No Re-Entry” stamped in their passports.  Further, one of them had been robbed of all her money.  Consequently, Malawi, the country we were trying to enter, was refusing to let her out of no-man’s land.  Eventually the problem got solved, but not before the banks closed for the weekend and we were left penniless until Monday morning.  The border guards felt sorry for us (and well they should, since it was their fault we were considering selling body parts) and talked a trucker and his wife into giving us a ride to the capital.  Unfortunately, the trailer tractor was hauling a load of iron over the Malawi mountains, so it took the better part of two days to get us to Lilongwe.  Meantime, the trucker’s wife saw fit to keep us fed on bananas.  And the trucker’s assistant saw fit to buy us an endless supply of beer. 

It was 15 years before I would eat another banana.  I've yet to accept a banana split with beer sauce.

After leaving Africa, I spent a month traveling around England with my friend Pete before our year started at Durham University.  This is back in the 80s, you have to understand, when the licensing laws in the UK were stricter:  most shops closed at 5:30, and all shops were closed on Sundays.  Thus, if you were in a remote village somewhere and it was 5:32 on a Saturday evening, you’d better be well stocked, because it’d be another 38 hours and 28 minutes until you’d be getting anything more to eat. 

As you might imagine, this made a 6’3” kid who’d gone to Africa weighing 168 pounds and left nine weeks later weighing 130 just a little bit nervous.  One evening in a hostel on the island of Skye, Pete came into our room holding his toothbrush and a towel and did a doubletake. 

“What’s that?”

I looked up at him from where I was reading on my bunk.  “Stephen King.”

Pete pointed.  “No.  That.  Is it a stuffed animal?”

I glanced down.  “No.”

He leaned closer.  “Is that a muffin?”

“A scone, actually.”

“Why are you holding it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like that.  Like—are you taking that muffin to bed with you?”

“Quiet," I said, "or you’ll hurt her feelings.  You make it sound like I’m using her.”

What can I tell you?  Just the thought of not having food nearby made my forehead break out in sweat.  It’s a good thing I didn’t live through the Great Depression, because I so would have whored myself for a biscuit. 

 

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that being in Hong Kong makes me nervous, food-wise.  Part of it is simply Africa/England residue.  Part of it is the complication of traveling with kids.  Will, my oldest, who I love dearly, gets itchy when you feed him anything more adventurous than bologna and cheese—and that damn well better be mild cheddar, pal.   Lucy, my middle child, is more of a risk taker, but even she has her limits—say, anything that has fish in it, or the letter “f,” for that matter.  Jamie—well, he’s just two and a contrary little bugger. 

But part of it is that, well, they eat funny things in this country.   The other day we were on the top floor of the Tai Po wet market, where the food stalls are located.  We were standing by a noodle stand, looking entirely confused, when a young lady in black jeans and purple sweater came up and, in perfect English, offered to help us.  We handed her a menu and she started to translate. 

“This is,” she said, moving her finger down the menu, “the won-ton soup.  And here is the fish-ball soup, a Hong Kong specialty.”  Flipping the menu over, she continued.  “This is pork soup, and the shrimps, and then, these are—are various kinds of, you know, internal meats.”

The key word here—strike that, the key letter here—is the “s” at the end of meat.  We’re not talking kidneys here, people.  Or even tripe.  We’re talking everything:  everything.  Liver.  Lungs.  Spleen.  You name it, it’s in your soup. 

On an intellectual level, of course, I know my resistance is stupid.  After all, we’re not just talking about Hong Kong, we’re talking an entire continent that finds bladder soup very tasty.

Too, I’ve always admired my Icelandic friends who talk about how their parents and grandparents—before Iceland became one of the richest countries in the world (before then becoming one of the poorest again)—used to eat the whole sheep:  guts, lungs, cheeks, brains, eyeballs.  I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it?  If you’re going to kill an animal, you might as well eat the whole thing?  Granted, as much as I’ve always admired people who think this way, I’ve usually done them from a distance, the same way I admire, say, bomb disposal experts, or harmonica players. 

Deepening the contradiction is the fact that one of my favorite restaurants—The Red Hen, in Lexington, Virginia, arguably one of the best restaurants on the East coast—essentially practices whole animal philosophy.  On any given night, an order of lamb might lead to a presentation involving neck, liver, heart, and loin.  I’ve had this dish, and found it delicious.  How come I like it in my hometown, but get sort of light-headed and fuzzy stomached when it’s placed before me in a foreign country? 

I’m sure there are lots of explanations, beyond the fact that I’m a huge coward.  The heat doesn’t help:  it’s hard to feel comfortable trying new things when your skull seems to be leaking down the back of your underwear.  Then, too, there’s the low blood sugar issue:  if I’m not in a restaurant, seated, and within six minutes of being fed no more than four hours after the last time I ate, nothing—not filet mignon, not rack of lamb with mint sauce, not my grandma’s homemade donuts—nothing looks good.  That at least one of my kids is similarly hypoglycemic doesn’t help matters. 

Then there are the intangibles:  consider, for example, our trip to the top-floor food court the other day.  We were there plenty early, so no blood sugar problems.  The place was relatively clean in a rustic kind of way.  And the food looked—and smelled—good.  All around us were kids and grandmas and dads and moms eating bowls of noodles with wonderful green vegetables floating in them. 

The plan had been to check out the market and get back to our flat in time for PB&J sandwiches and a nap for Jamie.  But both my wife and I couldn’t take our eyes off those big steaming bowls of wonderful hot noodles in chicken broth.  So finally we broke down and got two Hong Kong  specialties:  won ton soup, and fish-ball soup.

Now I want to tell you straight out that neither of these are quite what they seem:  the won ton soup, though similar to the version you’d get in, say Springfield, Illinois, is actually pretty different.  For one thing, it has a much fishier taste.  For another thing, this fishy taste is caused by the huge roll of dried fish skin they put in the soup.   And for the record?  This huge piece of fish skin looks exactly like what it is, including the odd scale that might be sticking to its side. 

The fish ball soup, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as disgusting as you might think.  First of all, no matter what you thirteen-year-olds (and you people with the sense of humor of a thirteen-year-old) might say, no, this soup does not consist of fish testicles.  Second, though this soup also contains a thick, fatty roll of fish skin, strangely the soup does not taste particularly fishy.  The fish balls themselves, make of densely compacted fish meat, taste more like rice than anything, and fill you up nicely.   I can provide no better testimony to the appeals of this soup than the fact that Will, my bologna and cheese man, gobbled it up. 

Go figure. 

Jamie was another story.  One issue with wonton soup in a real Chinese restaurant is that the noodles are incredibly long, and thus difficult to stuff into a two-year-old’s mouth.  Another problem is that the wonton dumplings are rather big, somewhere on the upside of ping-pong balls—also difficult for toddler stuffing.  The simple answer, of course, is to cut both noodles and dumplings into kiddie-friendly sizes.  But, oops, you’re in Hong Kong, where the only utensils are chopsticks and one of those thick porcelain spoons.  That the Chinese somehow manage to make eating with these implements actually look graceful—dipping the spoon into the soup and using it to suspend noodles closer to the mouth while eating with the chopsticks—is a testimony to both their elegance and their perseverance. 

I am neither elegant nor persevering.  I take one chopstick in each hand and half-saw, half-crush the won-tons into two pieces.  This works, but only after sloshing a third of the broth onto the table.  Next, I take the big fat baby spoon and try to trap a few noodles between the spoon and the edge of the bowl, effectively slicing them.   This works also, but only until I release the pressure from the spoon, at which time the freshly cut noodles sink to the bottom of the bowl.  No worries.  I reach in with my fingers and fish the damn things out.  I put them in the spoon-bowl.  I bring the bowl to Jamie’s mouth. 

“Too hot,” he says. 

“No,” I tell him.  “It’s not hot.  Daddy just stuck his fingers in, didn’t you see?”

“Dirty,” he says.

“No, daddy’s fingers are very clean.  He licks them all the time.”

But his jaw stays clenched. 

I put the noodles back, scoop up some of the chopped won-ton. 

“Too hot,” he says. 

No, I explain, it’s not too hot.  To show him, I stick some of the dumpling in my mouth.  It’s amazing:  ground pork, shrimp, green onions, all saturated with salty chicken broth.  Holy crap, I want to eat the whole bowl right then.  But there’s only one spoon.

“Come on, Jamie,” I say.  “Daddy’s hungry.  Open up.”

“Too ho—“ he begins again, but I’m too quick:  the moment his lips part, in goes the dumpling. 

“Aaaaaagh!” he screams.  “Aaaaaagh!  Too hot!”

My wife looks at me.  So does a couple at the next table, whose one-year-old is contentedly eating his noodles in that elegant bowl-spoon/chopstick way. 

“It’s not too hot,” I say to my wife.  “I tasted it myself.  It’s fine.”

“Too hot!” Jamie hollers.  “Too hot!”  His mouth is wide open, his lower jaw hanging down.  Soggy, partially chewed, sloppily-cut won-ton is pouring over his lower lip.  He looks for all the world like a demon from a Japanese horror film, come back to haunt the owners of the noodle hut where he choked to death. 

“It’s not too hot,” I say to the couple at the next table.  “I blew on it.  He’s just a fussy eater.”

“He doesn’t like the texture,” Ellen says.

“Aaagh!” says Jamie, his jaw unhinged.  His eyes are frantic, ping-ponging back and forth between his mother and me. 

“How can you say that?” I ask my wife.  “All he’s saying is ‘Too hot.’  Where do you get texture from that?

“Won-tons have a weird texture,” she says.  “Sort of gluey, with tiny lumps.”

“Aaaaagh!” says Jamie.  He starting to sound like he’s gargling.  The whole of his tongue is coated with thick rice noodle and what looks like masticated beef. 

“Get it out,” Ellen says. 

“How?”

It’s a simple question, but a brilliant one.  There are no napkins anywhere.  There’s not even a table-clothe, the corner of which Jamie might spit into unobtrusively.  The bowl of soup has barely been touched, so if he spits there, it’s a complete loss.  The only option is to have him hack into my hand, which means that I’ll be stuck with a fistful of meat and noodle with nothing but my shorts to wipe it on.  I love my children, but I’m not about to spend the rest of the day with shrimp stuck to my pants. 

“Too hot,” Jamie moans, plaintively. 

So I do what any other normal psychotic dad would do:  I grab a bottle of water, stick it in Jamie's mouth, and pour some in.  Then I clamp his jaw shut and force him to swallow.  Which he does, instantly.

Then he looks at me.  I look at him.  I look at my wife.  She also looks at Jamie, then glances at the other two kids, who are staring at each other.  The couple at the next table watches all five of us, wondering if we’re related maybe to Nicole Richie.  Then I look back at Jamie. 

“Was that good?” I say.

“More,” he grins.  “More.”

 

 Please note:  this blog is mine, all mine, and in no way represents the views of the wonderful folks of at the Fulbright office.