Things One Gets Used To …. modified September 30th

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