Photos from Hong Kong

Near the end of the main street of the main town on Lamma Island, an island near Hong Kong Island where no cars are allowed. To the right is a used bookstore and vegetarian cafe.





Something I ate at a vegetarian restaurant.





A view from Kowloon Park.





Smaller statues in front of the Giant Buddha.

New Year's Competition part 2

After a couple hours of listening to a story about a wolf who terrorizes a riverbank and the coalition of thirsty animals who try to stop him, we were almost finished. I was given a chart and had to put a check mark next to the names of the 15 or so children who I thought had given the best recitations. We drove back to the hotel courtyard, where groups of children in various costumes and uniforms were milling around one building in particular. We went inside. To the right was a stage and a catwalk, on which four emaciated girls who couldn't have been older than 13 were awkwardly modeling skimpy dresses. In front of that were several rows of chairs, all empty except for four in the front that were occupied by the judges--including Aileen and Liu Xiao. Behind that, on the other side of a crowded aisle, were more seats, which were full.

Mary and I stood in the doorway for a few moments, and then a guy with a headset pushed through the crowd and beckoned us to follow him. He led us to the judges' chairs. Feeling a little embarrassed about this special treatment--I wasn't actually going to judge these models, was I!?--I chose a seat several rows back and on one side. Soon the modeling transitioned to dancing, which was mostly hip-hop and I thought pretty impressive. After about half an hour I decided it would be more fun to use the remaining hour or so until lunch to explore the city. Mary and I pushed our way back through the crowd of people--assailed with "Hello!"s from every direction--to the courtyard. After checking in with the woman in the neon orange coat--who I had started to think of as my handler--we left. We walked across one of the covered bridges and through some sunny open markets.





Influenced slightly by my throbbing head, I suggested we stop for tea. Instead of a traditional tea house, Mary took me to a black-and-white cow-patterned, narrow place across the street from her university. I ordered a hot green tea, and a black ceramic mug on a shelf behind the cashier reminded me to ask for it in something other than plastic. "Plastic is all we have," I was informed. "What about the mug right behind you!?" I asked. That was for display purposes only. With Mary's help, however, I prevailed upon them to serve my tea in it. The cashier called the busboy over and asked him to wash the dust out.

After tea we walked back toward the hotel and intercepted the other judges and organizers (including the woman in the neon orange coat) on the bridge. Together we walked to a nearby restaurant and feasted on foodstuffs. As we walked lazily back to the hotel, we passed an old man sitting at a little table with a camping stove, on which there was a bowl of shiny brownish liquid sugar. In front of him was a baking tray with a piece of wax paper on it. The man picked up the bowl and with deft motions poured tiny amounts of the liquid sugar onto the paper, soon creating a fish, which he mounted on a stick. Another of the judges paid the old man two yuan and asked me to choose an animal. The man had a wheel with twelve different animals on it that you could spin, and the arrow ended up pointing to a crane (sorry it's not the best picture).





Walking back to the hotel, Mary told me that the man was a local celebrity.

We were taken back to the school for another round of speeches. This second time, however, the contestants were the same (minus the ones I hadn't given check marks). And they performed the same speeches, recited the same stories. The only difference was that this time I had to give them ratings on a 10.0 scale, marked next to their names on another chart. As far as I could tell, I was the only one rating these children, and I found it a little disquieting that although I had no formal training and had been given practically no instructions, I was solely responsible for how they fared in the contest--for which most of them must have spent a long time practicing.

After the second round of judging, we had more time until dinner, so after watching the dancing again for a while--this time it was mostly large groups of children doing traditional ethnic dances, although right when I came in someone was breakdancing--Mary and I took off again. We walked toward the biggest of the bridges, which was lined with teahouses and tea shops.





We were sitting in one of the teahouses sampling their finest grades when Mary got a call. It was the woman in the orange coat, calling us back for dinner. So we went to another restaurant, where we had a private room on the second floor. This time there were about 15 people, and there were so many dishes on the table that they had to start stacking plates on top of the edges of other plates. One of the dishes was the famous "Ya'an fish soup". One of the reasons the fish is so famous is a bone in its head that looks a lot like a saber. The restaurant guarantees that any customer who orders the fish will get a saber bone to take home with them. When they brought the fish out, the orange coat woman and the waitress spent several minutes digging around in its head with a knife, but they were unable to find the bone. Fortunately, the restaurant must have kept a stock of extra saber bones just in case, because the waitress returned shortly with a little gift box. It was passed around for everyone to see, and then the woman in the orange coat gave it to me.

New Year's Competition

In the middle of December I got a call from a guy I met through a teaching interview, asking me if I wanted to judge an English competition in Ya'an on New Year's Day. A driver would pick me up on New Year's Eve around 6:30, I would stay in a hotel, judge the competition the next day, and they would drive me back that night. Ya'an is a town about a two hours' drive from Chengdu, famous for its elaborate covered bridges, high quality tea, copious rain, edible fish, and beautiful women (there's a pun in Chinese about the last three). That was about all the information I could get.

On New Year's Eve, around 9:00, a van drove up to the gate. There were already four people inside plus the driver, and before leaving Chengdu we stopped to pick up one more. I sat in the middle row next to a young couple, and we chatted for a while. I tried to ask them if they were going to the same competition, but I couldn't understand the answer. I thought maybe they were honeymooners or something and this was one of those unofficial cabs that take multiple groups at the same time.

Once we got onto the freeway I dozed, and when I woke up we were driving along a wide river. We turned down a covered bridge, at the end of which was a huge, perfectly shaped tree silhouetted against some street lights, the air around it glowing orange. Some people were strolling along the bridge and river bank with big red paper lanterns.

We went through a gate into a courtyard and got out of the van. Some other people were there waiting, but they left with the driver and the couple who had been sitting next to me. I stood by the van with my bags, wondering if someone was going to tell me where to go.

After what seemed like twenty minutes, a woman who had been sitting behind me in the van motioned for me to follow her. She was walking with two other guys toward what turned out to be the door to the hotel. Inside the deserted lobby she gave me a key. I tried asking again what was going on. Finally I learned that these three were also here for the competition. The woman, Aileen, was a singer; one guy, Liu Xiao, was a dancer, and the other guy, M_____, was a professional MC. I started to feel slightly under-qualified. They helped me find my room and said they would come get me the next morning at 8:00. It was then about 10:30.

The room was considerably nicer than the hotel room in Chongzhou (not that I'm complaining! There are worse things to suffer than being put up in an imperfect hotel room). The bathroom was big, clean, and didn't smell like sewage, the heater worked well, and the wallpaper was only peeling in one place. I put on my pajamas, but I didn't want to go to bed right away since it was New Year's Eve. Fortunately, I had anticipated this scenario and had brought some DVDs. I was just about to watch one of them when the door became the source of a knocking sound. "How did you become the source of a knocking sound!?" I asked. Actually, I think I just called out "Hello?" The voice from the other side of the door belonged to the other judges. I opened the door. They had come to ask me if I wanted to go eat something with them. I ran back into the room and threw my clothes back on, and we went.

At the entrance were a man, a woman, and two cabs. The man and woman were introduced as friends. We took the cabs across the river to a restaurant on the shore. The place seemed to be made completely of weathered wood, with gaps between the floorboards and stairs that creaked alarmingly. It was mostly empty, but we were led up the stairs to a little nook directly over the river. If not for the darkness and fog, I think it would have been quite a view. The waiter then put up a theater curtain, turning the nook into a private room. The darkness, wooden walls and furniture, little windows, and that we were sitting above the river made it feel almost like we were in the cabin of an old ship.

First beers were distributed, and "soy milk" for the ones who didn't drink ("soy milk" in China means a combination of soy and cow's milk). Then dishes quickly started appearing. My clearest memory is the chicken feet--a plate of five or six long, gnarled claws covered in brown scales that glistened under the hanging light bulb. There were also skewered vegetables and meat, sliced meat, stir-fried meat, and just meat. But there were some things I could eat, like corn, stir-fried greens, and tofu. The tofu had an interesting flavor and I asked about it. The man who had been ordering and seemed to occupy the head of the square table said it was stinky tofu (chou doufu), but it tasted nothing like the overpoweringly pungent stuff I had in Taipei.

I also got to experience Chinese drinking culture again. Even after the first toast involving everyone at the start of the meal, it's considered impolite to drink by yourself; you either have to toast someone else, or be toasted. But it's hard to break the habit of drinking whenever you feel like it when that's what you're used to. Once I caught myself doing this, but luckily, I made eye contact with someone across the table and was able to avoid a faux pas by shouting "Happy New Year!" before we both took sips. At one point the waiter brought us a big pitcher of some kind of steaming yellow liquid with flowers and vermilion things that look vaguely like walnuts. Is that tea? I asked. They told me it was beer. It tasted kind of like Dimetapp. Near midnight everyone had pretty much finished eating. I was still picking over a plate of home-made potato chips, dipping each one in a plate of powdered chili pepper and MSG. Everybody seemed to be half focused on whatever conversation was happening around the table, and half focused on text messaging with their phones. At midnight we all stood up and had another toast.

The next day, after a breakfast of cold vegetables and steamed buns (mantou), hard-boiled eggs, and milk (no coffee or tea!), I was ushered into another car. A girl got into the front seat and introduced herself as Mary, my interpreter. She was a student at the local university. Then a woman in a neon orange overcoat drove me, Mary, and the MC to a slightly dilapidated school building not far away. There we met up with the "honeymooners", Y_____(f.) and Z_____(m.), who were actually also judges. Mary, Y_____, and I were shown into one of the classrooms. All of the desks were pushed against the far wall, except for three set in the middle. We sat at these desks.

Up until this point I had an extremely faint idea of what I was supposed to do. I had pictured myself sitting at a judges' table near a stage and holding up signs with "9.7", "8.5", "9.2" printed in big numerals as crowds booed and cheered. I wasn't really sure how this empty classroom fit into the picture. I wanted to ask Mary about it, but I didn't know where to start.

A small child walked into the classroom and started giving a well-rehearsed speech in Chinese. Y_____ made a few notes, asked the child some questions at the end, and thanked him. A little girl came in and gave another speech. These children were almost offensively cute. "Am I supposed to be doing anything?" I asked Mary. She said that the English speeches were later. The English speeches turned out to be about 20 children later.

They mostly acted out stories, or gave monologues about a particular park or school or something. Most of the children from the same school had learned the same speech. And not only were the speeches the same, but they were told with almost identical intonation. At the end of each speech I was supposed to ask the children questions (that was the extent of the guidelines I received), so I usually asked them their names and ages, and then I tried to test comprehension of the stories they had told. I was disappointed that most of them seemed to have a very foggy idea of what their monologues were about.

To be continued...

Yak Butter

[edit: I can access blogspot again! Woohoo!]

As of today, my living room has graduated from "rustic" (3 out of 5 on the living room homeyness scale) to "comfortable" (4 out of 5). A friend just went out of town and generously let me keep her bookshelf and couch. And I have even gotten around to acquiring such civilized articles as a plant, a non-eye-frying, non-headache-inducing light bulb, some real speakers, and a bowl of fruit. And the fridge is perfectly situated so that no matter which of the two couches you sit on, you can open it and grab a drink without standing up.

The other night I got together with my friend Aileen for dinner. She's one of the people I met at the New Year's Day arts competition I judged at, and she's a professional singer and singing teacher. We went to a Tibetan restaurant in the Tibetan part of town, where we met another of Aileen's friends, J____--who also happens to be a kung fu teacher--and a friend of his, T_____, from Tibet. I think this Tibetan friend must have invited us, because he ordered and paid for everything.

We shook hands in the parking lot, and then T_____ handed Aileen and me each a long strip of white, silky cloth. Aileen put hers around her neck, so I did the same thing. Are these scarves? I asked. Everybody laughed, leading me to conclude that these were not scarves. The ends were frayed and the material had a tendency to get wrapped around things, so pretty soon there were little strands of white fiber clinging to everything. Eventually I gathered the cloth might be a Tibetan holiday tradition. A Tibetan tallis?

The restaurant was in a 3-story complex with a lot of statues, instruments, and art, and the interior was made to look like an old wooden building (I think this was carried out pretty well). As I sort of expected, the meal was not centered heavily on vegetable matter. I broke my normal rule by drinking some of the salty yak butter tea. Tasting like liquefied buttered popcorn, yak butter tea somehow manages to occupy that ambiguous space between a soup and a beverage. I also tried some kind of pita sugar sandwich, and an extremely crumbly, maroon-colored cake of tasty but mysterious contents that in terms of texture seemed closest to wet sand. At the end of the meal we played rock-paper-scissors/"stone-scissors-cloth" to determine who would have to eat the last three pieces. The main dish was a big plate of beef cubes (or was that yak meat?), and there was also a plate of meat dumplings. And we were each served a bowl of yogurt. I don't usually eat yogurt, but I ate it this time, and while I can't say I exactly "liked" it, it wasn't a bad experience. Finally, I think my friends were feeling bad that I couldn't eat some of the things on the table, because halfway through the meal the waitress brought out a heaping plate of french fries with ketchup.

I have a tutoring session in half an hour, so I'm just going to add a picture from my first teaching experience, on Dec. 27th, in Chongzhou. Christmas lessons!

Getting as much ultraviolet light as possible

It is sunny and 21 degrees (69.8 Eastern Orthodox) here in Kowloon Park, multiple birds are making funny sounds with their throats, and leaves are gently waving around in the air.

Yesterday I boated to Lantau Island, and then took an exhilarating bus ride to the giant Buddha statue. The name does not lie; the size of the thing is a little startling. It reminds me of a Harvey Birdman episode (Harvey Birdman is a former superhero who became a lawyer but still retains his super powers [which he only uses occasionally], his costume [which is now worn underneath a business suit], and his big blue wings [which he also usually doesn't use]). The episode starts with Harvey sitting at his desk, writing something or doodling. He sits there for a minute or two, and then he rotates a little bit in his swivel chair, and his wings move out of the way to reveal that his "sidekick", Peanut, is standing right behind him. Harvey jumps out of his chair. Glancing up and seeing this giant Buddha statue sitting above me was kind of like that.

I also visited the Po Lin Monastery, which has a few vegetarian restaurants, a lot of large incense pots, a few temples, and many areas under construction. Around that are the obligatory expensive tourist shops, cafes, and restaurants with "Gourmet Oriental" cuisine. I didn't stay very long.

Last night after dinner I met up with my friend Annie for tea. Afterward on the way home I stopped at the 7-11 near Mirador Mansions to get some water, but to get to the water aisle I first had to get past the huddles of people who were standing around drinking beer and wine out of little paper cups. "7-11 party?" I asked the cashier. She told me it was for their regular customers, but I was welcome to join anyway.

Hong Kong is warm.

Sleeping in a room with no windows can be very disorienting. But when I opened the door to the inner courtyard walkway and was greeted by the bright sunlight bouncing off the white walls across the way, and the sounds of people and animals and cars down below, I immediately felt grounded. This is the first really sunny day--and the first day when it's been warm enough to wear only a jacket and a shirt--that I've seen in a while.

I walked up Nathan Road, away from the harbor. A short way up, big, snaking banyan trees line the road, the concrete sidewalk turns to brick, and the seedy tailors, money changers, and gift shops are replaced by expensive yuppie fashion stores, jewelers, and cafes. For a minute I actually imagined I was on State Street in Santa Barbara.

For breakfast I wandered onto a narrow street lined with little Chinese restaurants and got a table at a place that was so jammed I ended up sharing a tiny, two-seat table with a middle-aged civil engineer. In addition to Cantonese he spoke some English and Mandarin, so he helped me order a bowl of hot soy milk and a big green onion pancake, which I will henceforth refer to as a "Chinese Latke". A bowl of dòu jiāng in Chengdu costs exactly one yuan (15 cents). At this place it was more like a dollar. The Chinese Latke was also a dollar. After breakfast (and some hassle having to do with adaptors not working, etc.) I went to a big chain cafe (where I am now) to use the internet, and a cup of regular black coffee cost me three dollars. That is approximately twenty-two bowls of soy milk.

Back in HK

I'm about to run out of batteries so I'll make a really quick post. This evening I arrived back in Hong Kong. Originally I was planning to take the train again, but then I realized that would entail spending more time on the train than in Hong Kong proper (if you consider the train out of and into Hong Kong an extension of Hong Kong's essence). So I flew. The flight was only a little over two hours (compared to 30 hours!) but it still felt like a long journey after the cab, the delay at the gate, the long bus ride from the Shenzhen airport to the train station, and then the long train ride from the border to Hong Kong. For old time's sake I had dinner at that "tea house" in Shenzhen where I whiled away the night a couple months ago. This time ordering was a lot easier.

In the bathroom at the train station while I was relieving myself I looked down and saw two small pink things on the floor next to me. On closer inspection I realized that they were fingers. It made me think of all the other scandalous and/or horrific things that may have happened in places where I have been, before I arrived.

When I got to Hong Kong the things that struck me most were the narrowness of the streets and the abundance of bright signs sticking out from the buildings. Next to Chengdu's wide, perpetually-under-construction boulevards and relative drabness, Hong Kong feels both venerable and vibrant. But then after you've been offered your 15th hand-tailored shirt this vibrancy can start to get a little bit annoying (though this only seems to happen in Kowloon). The first thing I did after checking into the guest house (the same one as last time in Mirador Mansions, although I got a different room; the last one was 160 HKD a night for what I thought of at the time as "four walls and a bed" and a bathroom the size of a closet. This new room is 120 HKD and is literally four walls and a bed, and the bathroom is shared this time. But that's OK.), and after stocking up on bottled water and tea and having a second dinner at the vegetarian Indian restaurant nearby, was try to log onto Facebook for the first time in two months. Unfortunately, the internet wasn't working in my room. Fortunately, there is an internet cafe two floors down that has good internet (which is where I am now). Unfortunately, my battery has run out so this is the end of this post.