I have been considering the things that seemed really weird when we first moved to Hong Kong but are now part of our life. One thing I have never talked about on this blog is laundry. First permit me to rant. Our washing machine is located where everyone's washing machine is located, below their stove top, as in, instead of their oven. This machine though hatched in Italy has to be the most useless piece of schiese on the planet. It uses no more than 250ml of water and slaps the clothes around for as long as you ask it without actually cleaning them. Your clothes become greyed and misshapen because of the "spin dryer" and then you must hang them in your bathroom to dry. With the relative humidity at 80% it takes 2 days for things to dry. And then the treat of all treats is that they are like cardboard. Towels as rough as sand paper. People solve this problem by pounding them on rock…oops different culture. People solve this problem by taking them to the cheap chinese laundry shops on the next block and chances are there will be one. They get them laundered by someone else. The other option for faster drying so they are a little less cardboard is hanging them on the balcony like the rest of the folks. Everyone has laundry hanging in various ways on their balcony. Even though it is prohibited in our complex because it brings down the property values haha everyone does it and we ourselves have 2 bars installed on our balcony to make it very convenient to hang clothes there. In poorer apartments people hang there clothes on a pole out the window. It is not uncommon to find underwear or shirts on the sidewalk having fallen down from a clothes line above. At first I thought this was odd now I am accustomed to it
Another thing is dogs and cats roaming aimlessly. They are never ferocious or obtrusive. Just there.
Another oddity is the number of older people who walk around in pijamas. These suits are seriously sold as pijamas in North America and I have seen men and women walking around in them- yup striped cotton pijamas.
Umbrellas are used to keep out the sun or rain so they are in use most all of the time. They add to the annoyance of short asians talking on cell phones by being right at eye level positioned to pierce your retina.
Live fish tanks on the streets, in markets, and outside restaurants with water a bubbling into them to keep the unsuspecting fish/shell fish alive long enough for you to pick them out for your dinner. These tanks have an odour as you walk by that I can no longer tolerate - initiate gag sequence alpha.
Yellow lights mean get ready to go they do not mean get ready to stop!
Living on the 47th floor. The view has become normal. Actually our building is so high and is such a distinctive feature on the landscape that when I am out on a run and find myself hopelessly lost I can just begin to run toward the light… I mean the towers. It is quite convenient.
Chop sticks - ahh yes. We have from the beginning eaten with chopsticks even though when we go into many restaurants the waiter automatically clears the chops sticks and little bowls and brings us plates and forks and knives. We always ask for the sticks back and have become quite proficient at their use. One night we were in a restaurant sharing a table for 6 with an elderly couple. This is also normal by the way. If you walk into a full restaurant the waiter will sit you with others. Anyway, this old couple was very chinese and very old and very a couple. She chewed him out and he mumbled yes dear I presumed. She watched me handle my chop sticks and then when she could no longer stand it proceeded to demonstrate how to better hold it. She ranted and quaked and I tried to do what she said. They ate their dinner with minimal bickering and a few complaints to the waitress and we left. Thank you Gramma Wong!
Little Buddhist Temples implanted into buildings, burning incense and sporting offerings such as 3 cups of tea no less and a pamelo or bananas or other fruit. They are on every corner so to speak and have been made as part of the design of the wall. They are as small as 1 foot high and 6 inches wide with a little alter and picture or symbol of some kind.
SARS masks: We in Canada have cough etiquite (sp) they have the same here except it involves washing hands like us and throwing tissues you cough at into the trash. What they add is if you have a respiratory infection you wear a surgical mask in public. So you see kids at 5 years old coming to school with a SARS mask on and it is hanging from one ear before 0750 a.m. You get used to seeing the people with the mask and I actually find myself flinching when someone hacks on the bus I am travelling in and does not even cover. Since the SARS scar they are quite vigilant here. So much so that each child has a temperature check each morning. The health department will close your school if you do not have a temperature check program . Each child exposes his or her forehead to the temperature monitor and their temperature is checked on the way in the door. If they have a reading or >38* degrees they stand aside and wait 10 minutes and check again. If they again have a temperature >38* they are sent home.
Arc welding in the market and mechanics working on cars or changing windshields on the street. The shops are so small that there is no room to perform these tasks so you can go to buy lettuce and find yourself on a desperate quest to not look at the light produced by the man welding in the next stall.
Well there you have it. I am used to being warm (30 degrees still but I don't want to rub it in) and seeing all of these wonderful things that Hong Kong has to offer. Rochelle
Big Wave Bay
Not just another beach!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Mid-Autumn Festival and Other Oriental Anomalies
I blogged previously about the cheese of the decorations so please see the accompanying pictures. Also see the other new pictures we have posted.
Road writing: One picture is of words written on the road to tell you which way to look. This is strictly for foreigners who errantly think that cars would maybe stop for them if they were at a cross walk. Also for those of us who drive on the right i.e. correct side of the street. You are instructed to look left or right according to the flow of the one way street. You do so in order to see the colour of the car that will be hitting you immediately. Honestly they drive so fast around corners that I have been close to dead a couple times when I did not see the BMW rounding the bend. Seems like a "no brainer" but for us Canadians who think we have the right of way these signs have proven to be invaluable.
Moon Cakes: Pictured in the cheesy decoration pictures are moon cakes. These are sweet and rich treats sold only at this time of year. They have a salty egg yolk in the middle. The expensive ones contain 2. It is important to try these once… a second time is optional.
Trees: They have interesting roots and trees here. I think the reason why the roots grow this way is to fortify the tree against the typhoons and monsoons. There is a typhoon warning today. We have typhoon days here where we stay away from school just like snow days in Canada. The trees pictured here were at a beach we visited. They also are for strengthening each other.
Bank Elevator: Our bank is the HSBC. The first day we went there we went up stairs to get in and had to use the elevator to exit. To my amazement when the doors opened we were on the street outside, half the block away from where we went in. Unexpected and weird!
Dogs: We blogged about Lady being shaven but another doggie fact is that they are all over the place here, off leash just walking around bothering no one. I have never seen more placid dogs. One dog was being shaven in the middle of the sidewalk. He just laid there like a lamb to the slaughter… So strange the things you see here on the street.
Cardboard Ladies: There are old ladies who we thought were official paid "cleaners of the street". They well could be but they walk around with flatbed carts and collect cardboard and sweep the side walk. We are not sure if they are paid by the city or they collect the cardboard like street people in Canada collect bottles. Sometimes they take an old umbrella, put it over their chinese hat and have an instant shade tree to keep out the sun. These are just a few of the more interesting things we have seen so far. Rochelle
Road writing: One picture is of words written on the road to tell you which way to look. This is strictly for foreigners who errantly think that cars would maybe stop for them if they were at a cross walk. Also for those of us who drive on the right i.e. correct side of the street. You are instructed to look left or right according to the flow of the one way street. You do so in order to see the colour of the car that will be hitting you immediately. Honestly they drive so fast around corners that I have been close to dead a couple times when I did not see the BMW rounding the bend. Seems like a "no brainer" but for us Canadians who think we have the right of way these signs have proven to be invaluable.
Moon Cakes: Pictured in the cheesy decoration pictures are moon cakes. These are sweet and rich treats sold only at this time of year. They have a salty egg yolk in the middle. The expensive ones contain 2. It is important to try these once… a second time is optional.
Trees: They have interesting roots and trees here. I think the reason why the roots grow this way is to fortify the tree against the typhoons and monsoons. There is a typhoon warning today. We have typhoon days here where we stay away from school just like snow days in Canada. The trees pictured here were at a beach we visited. They also are for strengthening each other.
Bank Elevator: Our bank is the HSBC. The first day we went there we went up stairs to get in and had to use the elevator to exit. To my amazement when the doors opened we were on the street outside, half the block away from where we went in. Unexpected and weird!
Dogs: We blogged about Lady being shaven but another doggie fact is that they are all over the place here, off leash just walking around bothering no one. I have never seen more placid dogs. One dog was being shaven in the middle of the sidewalk. He just laid there like a lamb to the slaughter… So strange the things you see here on the street.
Cardboard Ladies: There are old ladies who we thought were official paid "cleaners of the street". They well could be but they walk around with flatbed carts and collect cardboard and sweep the side walk. We are not sure if they are paid by the city or they collect the cardboard like street people in Canada collect bottles. Sometimes they take an old umbrella, put it over their chinese hat and have an instant shade tree to keep out the sun. These are just a few of the more interesting things we have seen so far. Rochelle
Friday, September 10, 2010
I want to be China's first cream Baroness
I have figured out why china has no cheese! I was told before we left Canada that cheese was expensive in China. I ate a lot of cheese at home in Canada. I used to buy those 1 kg bricks weekly. I used cheese every day. You know those commercials that say: "Want your kids to leave home? Stop cooking with cheese!"? Well that was me. I just love cheese of every kind. I could never have fathomed the degree of scarcity of my favourite commodity as I am experiencing in this obviously foreign country.
In Hong Kong we shop at local stores called Vanguard or Park and Shop (although there is no parking anywhere near this store…Typical of Chinese to say one thing and do another). The only cheese I find here is those little cow cheeses and "cheese food slices". You know the ones where you drop one and leave it under the fridge till the next time you clean under there and the cheese slice in the plastic cover is just old but not mouldy? It looks and feels like the plastic that it is. Those are the only cheeses that I find in the stores. Speaking of dairy, I have also looked around for cream. Real cream to put in my coffee. They have milk, fortified milk, calcium enriched milk, low fat milk and chocolate milk, but is there cream? No. Where the "h" is all the cream in this place. If I could find this repository of cream I could be a rich woman. I would make cream and cheese popular!
I had to go to a British specialty shop to find cream. There I found coffee cream, clotted cream, sour cream, you name the kind of cream, these British people know their cream. They know that where there are cows and cow's milk there is cream! I like the Brits! But in Hong Kong regular people stores, not a chance! So no cream and no cheese…. hold it wait I have now found cheese! This week I have found cheese abounding! However it is not the edible kind.
In 10 days is the Harvest Festival. God knows why they would celebrate harvest when they have a 12 month growing season but whatever. Who am I to criticize a culture? Hey wait, I think I am just about to mock one; is that the same as criticizing? (I didn't know culture shock was gonna be so fun!) Anyway, in our apartment complex they have decorated for this celebration. They have tacky sparkling lights, mesh pink bunnies, pinata goldfish and red lanterns abounding. There is gold and red and moon cakes and christmas lights all mixed together in the cheezy-est display you could muster in your wildest nightmare. I am literally ready to lose my lunch (or supper which corresponds to the time of day I see this display more accurately although it does not sound as good) each time I enter the recreation area lobby where they have the most poignant display so far.
So I must retract my statement about not finding cheese in China. There is cheese, I am told, at all celebrations and this is just a first taste of the cheese to come. I have never seen cheesier decor. It is so cheesy it is hard to describe. I will try….. Barf.
Now if I could find the cream they are hoarding I could make some real cheese and these horrendous decorative outcroppings will become redundant because Hong Kong will have enough cheese without them. And I will be a rich baroness! with real cream in my coffee too!
Rochelle
In Hong Kong we shop at local stores called Vanguard or Park and Shop (although there is no parking anywhere near this store…Typical of Chinese to say one thing and do another). The only cheese I find here is those little cow cheeses and "cheese food slices". You know the ones where you drop one and leave it under the fridge till the next time you clean under there and the cheese slice in the plastic cover is just old but not mouldy? It looks and feels like the plastic that it is. Those are the only cheeses that I find in the stores. Speaking of dairy, I have also looked around for cream. Real cream to put in my coffee. They have milk, fortified milk, calcium enriched milk, low fat milk and chocolate milk, but is there cream? No. Where the "h" is all the cream in this place. If I could find this repository of cream I could be a rich woman. I would make cream and cheese popular!
I had to go to a British specialty shop to find cream. There I found coffee cream, clotted cream, sour cream, you name the kind of cream, these British people know their cream. They know that where there are cows and cow's milk there is cream! I like the Brits! But in Hong Kong regular people stores, not a chance! So no cream and no cheese…. hold it wait I have now found cheese! This week I have found cheese abounding! However it is not the edible kind.
In 10 days is the Harvest Festival. God knows why they would celebrate harvest when they have a 12 month growing season but whatever. Who am I to criticize a culture? Hey wait, I think I am just about to mock one; is that the same as criticizing? (I didn't know culture shock was gonna be so fun!) Anyway, in our apartment complex they have decorated for this celebration. They have tacky sparkling lights, mesh pink bunnies, pinata goldfish and red lanterns abounding. There is gold and red and moon cakes and christmas lights all mixed together in the cheezy-est display you could muster in your wildest nightmare. I am literally ready to lose my lunch (or supper which corresponds to the time of day I see this display more accurately although it does not sound as good) each time I enter the recreation area lobby where they have the most poignant display so far.
So I must retract my statement about not finding cheese in China. There is cheese, I am told, at all celebrations and this is just a first taste of the cheese to come. I have never seen cheesier decor. It is so cheesy it is hard to describe. I will try….. Barf.
Now if I could find the cream they are hoarding I could make some real cheese and these horrendous decorative outcroppings will become redundant because Hong Kong will have enough cheese without them. And I will be a rich baroness! with real cream in my coffee too!
Rochelle
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Kids, Smog, Lady, and Big Buddha
Hello everyone. This week was interesting in that it was the first full week of school and Rochelle got to meet her students. For me (Dirk) teaching PE outside, there is no gym at CAIS, can be a little challenging. The outside courtyard at the school is a large cement slab with basketball courts drawn on it. By early afternoon it is as hot as a frying pan. When it rains, and it did all day on Friday, the courtyard is slick as ice. Thankfully there is an air conditioned fitness room and an air conditioned dance studio that are kept at Saskatchewan winter temperature. It is a great relief for all. I had to laugh when kids at recess were trying to sneak into the fitness room from the outside to cool off. Back home it was exactly the same but for the opposite reason. Cold to hot.
Rochelle finds her students interesting to say the least. Almost all of them have had two years of kindergarten already. Almost all of them are Chinese, but most speak English quite well, some even with a proper English accent. A few can already read. So out goes the well thought out curriculum for this year. Rochelle works with a teacher named Helen who is from India. They are getting along great and Rochelle is happy to be working with her.
On Tuesday and Wednesday a weather system out in the Pacific caused the air pollution to be trapped over Hong Kong. Previous to that winds from the ocean had blown all the bad air to the mainland. Wow was it bad. The great views were obscured in a white haze, eyes and throats got sore. Terrible. Thankfully Typhoon "Liongate" blew some rain and wind in and by Saturday morning things were clearing up.
On Saturday morning Rochelle and I embarked on a journey to see the Big Buddha. When we got out of our tower there was a Sheltie, that looked a lot like Lady, to greet us. This Sheltie had mercifully been shaved, due to the extreme Hong Kong heat a normal thick furred Sheltie would have melted. The only fur left on the Sheltie was a lions mane. We thought of our own Lady and had a little laugh thinking how we would have had to shave her if she had been here. It was bittersweet.
The Big Buddha was interesting. Buddhism is kind of crazy to me. Buddhists are trying to reach the state of Nirvana, which basically means completely dead. Buddhists believe in reincarnation so if we don't get it right, that is enlightenment and perfection, we come back and back never dying always suffering until maybe we reach this state of enlightenment and really die and get to Nirvana. Let me just say that a merciful God who forgives sin and promises sweet heaven if we just trust Him is much more appealing to me.
Nevertheless the journey to the Buddha on a 5 km long cable car over a river and some mountains, naturally air conditioned by the way, it said so in the brochure, was very cool. The Disneyland like atmosphere by the Buddha, shops, shows and fake monuments to Buddhism was kind of interesting. The actual Buddha is pretty amazing, although seeing the swastika on the Buddha, which the Nazis copied (stole) from Buddhism for their own symbol, was rather weird to see. The nature around the Buddha was great and we took a walk along the "wisdom trail. " It went through a jungle and it was quiet and smelled great. Ahh. We came out to these wooden pillars. Not sure what they mean but they were interesting. The view was spectacular. Mountains, waterfalls, and jungles, it was all very serene, compared to the madness that is Kowloon.
I'm looking forward to when it starts cooling down a bit here and exploring the 100's of kms of trails that criss-cross throughout the Hong Kong territory.
Finally, I went to a church that was both in English and Chinese. They sang familiar worship songs in Chinese first, then would switch to English half way through. Was great to see how the Chinese enjoyed worship. The sermon itself was first said in Chinese and then translated into English. A little ponderous, a 20 minute sermon stretched into 40, but it was good.
Rochelle is spending Sunday afternoon clothes shopping with a teacher from CAIS whose mother was a fashion designer. This teacher is an expert when it comes to clothes. There are a lot of great clothing shops here in Hong Kong. Should be interesting to see what Rochelle brings home.
God bless you all. Till next time
Rochelle finds her students interesting to say the least. Almost all of them have had two years of kindergarten already. Almost all of them are Chinese, but most speak English quite well, some even with a proper English accent. A few can already read. So out goes the well thought out curriculum for this year. Rochelle works with a teacher named Helen who is from India. They are getting along great and Rochelle is happy to be working with her.
On Tuesday and Wednesday a weather system out in the Pacific caused the air pollution to be trapped over Hong Kong. Previous to that winds from the ocean had blown all the bad air to the mainland. Wow was it bad. The great views were obscured in a white haze, eyes and throats got sore. Terrible. Thankfully Typhoon "Liongate" blew some rain and wind in and by Saturday morning things were clearing up.
On Saturday morning Rochelle and I embarked on a journey to see the Big Buddha. When we got out of our tower there was a Sheltie, that looked a lot like Lady, to greet us. This Sheltie had mercifully been shaved, due to the extreme Hong Kong heat a normal thick furred Sheltie would have melted. The only fur left on the Sheltie was a lions mane. We thought of our own Lady and had a little laugh thinking how we would have had to shave her if she had been here. It was bittersweet.
The Big Buddha was interesting. Buddhism is kind of crazy to me. Buddhists are trying to reach the state of Nirvana, which basically means completely dead. Buddhists believe in reincarnation so if we don't get it right, that is enlightenment and perfection, we come back and back never dying always suffering until maybe we reach this state of enlightenment and really die and get to Nirvana. Let me just say that a merciful God who forgives sin and promises sweet heaven if we just trust Him is much more appealing to me.
Nevertheless the journey to the Buddha on a 5 km long cable car over a river and some mountains, naturally air conditioned by the way, it said so in the brochure, was very cool. The Disneyland like atmosphere by the Buddha, shops, shows and fake monuments to Buddhism was kind of interesting. The actual Buddha is pretty amazing, although seeing the swastika on the Buddha, which the Nazis copied (stole) from Buddhism for their own symbol, was rather weird to see. The nature around the Buddha was great and we took a walk along the "wisdom trail. " It went through a jungle and it was quiet and smelled great. Ahh. We came out to these wooden pillars. Not sure what they mean but they were interesting. The view was spectacular. Mountains, waterfalls, and jungles, it was all very serene, compared to the madness that is Kowloon.
I'm looking forward to when it starts cooling down a bit here and exploring the 100's of kms of trails that criss-cross throughout the Hong Kong territory.
Finally, I went to a church that was both in English and Chinese. They sang familiar worship songs in Chinese first, then would switch to English half way through. Was great to see how the Chinese enjoyed worship. The sermon itself was first said in Chinese and then translated into English. A little ponderous, a 20 minute sermon stretched into 40, but it was good.
Rochelle is spending Sunday afternoon clothes shopping with a teacher from CAIS whose mother was a fashion designer. This teacher is an expert when it comes to clothes. There are a lot of great clothing shops here in Hong Kong. Should be interesting to see what Rochelle brings home.
God bless you all. Till next time
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