So Long, Hong Kong

 

     Tomorrow will be my 100th day in Hong Kong.  I'll be leaving early in the morning, so there have been lots of "lasts" today.  I went to one last Chinese exercise class in Belcher Bay Park this morning.  Mr. Lee, the teacher, is dressed in black toward the right.  Expert David in the yellow t-shirt had a few last corrective suggestions for me--standing up straight, holding the arm here, slapping the pancreas there, always more to learn.  Afterwards there were goodbyes, some handshakes and a few hugs.
     The dew point was around 80º earlier today.  I'm looking forward to returning to the class and seeing everyone in the fall when the air is much more comfortable.
    

     On the way home I stopped one last time at the organic store on Belcher's Street to get a few vegetables for our supper curry.  Several locals have told me that this shop really does source local organic produce.
     That's the exception in Hong Kong.  It's estimated that only 3% of the produce consumed here is produced on the 1900 farms in Hong Kong, all located in the New Territories.  Around 80 of those farms are supposed to be certified organic, whatever that means in Hong Kong.
     The tomatoes, red peppers, beets with greens, broccoli rabe, spinach and cucumbers I've bought here have all been fresh and flavorful.

     I also made my third and last stop at a tea shop on Belcher's Street a block or so from our apartment.  I wanted to pick up a little tea to take home and bought some very fragrant jasmine osmanthus tea, a blend of those particular dried flowers added to green tea leaves.  It's not as if I knew enough to ask for this particular tea, or that I've tasted it or had even heard of it before.  Derek, the son of the owner, recommended it.  It's really fun talking tea with this guy, the tall one at left.  He knows a lot about it, his English is good, and he's very friendly and willing to tell you as much or as little as you want to know, even when you're making a modest purchase.
     Terry and I sampled the tea late this afternoon.  Very good.









     I'm mostly packed and ready to go.  I'm looking forward to springtime, cleaner air and of course to seeing family and friends again.  I've also begun a list of things that I want to do when I come back.
     So long, Hong Kong.

 
    
    

Dressed-Up Breakfast

     A few days ago at the grocery store around the corner I found 4 smallish Philippine mangoes marked down to $HK 5 ($US .65) because they were looking a little wrinkly and soft.  Appearance is really important to Chinese consumers, which means that there are sometimes bargains on produce for less-choosy shoppers like me.  I've been enjoying the mangoes for breakfast the last few days and have one left for tomorrow morning, a delicious going-away treat.
     My usual Hong Kong breakfast is a microwaved porridge of coarse rye and oatmeal flakes with some cinnamon, and a cup of green tea.  The mango and a splash of milk have almost made my breakfast into dessert the last few days.
     We've been buying a local brand of milk, Trappist Dairy, which is available in a little glass bottle besides a standard paper carton.  This milk used to be produced by a Trappist monastery on Lantau Island just west of Hong Kong Island from the 1960's until the 1980's.  Lantau Island is where the new Hong Kong airport opened in 1998, replacing the old Kai Tak airport in crowded Kowloon.  The dairy most likely moved to its present location in the New Territories when airport construction began.  I had been under the impression that this was one of the few local Hong Kong food products a person can buy.  But now I've read that Trappist Dairy products come from cows in Guangdong province in southern China, although the milk is processed and packaged in the Hong Kong New Territories.  Ever increasing land prices make it more and more unlikely that food will be grown in Hong Kong.
     Dairy products are expensive here relative to MN prices.  A 946 ml carton of milk (about a quart--the largest size in the dairy case) is around $HK 20, or $US 2.60, but since I use a only a bit on my breakfast grains and Terry uses it only to doctor his Nescafe, we don't go through much.
     Terry's breakfast was dressed-up by a treat this morning, too.  While in Shanghai a couple days ago he found some fresh coffee beans that brewed a great cup of coffee, much-savored after mostly drinking instant stuff lately.  He said the bag of multi-colored beans reminded him of Bruegger's everything bagel, kind of a "sweep up all the odds and ends and sell it" concept.  Just as good as Dunn Brothers and less expensive, too, a surprising find in Shanghai.

Are They Ruining It?

      One of the worthwhile books about Hong Kong I've read in the last few months is Jan Morris' Epilogue to an Empire.  Morris, who's a British historian and travel writer, wrote the book a few years after Britain and China signed the 1984 agreement that would hand over control of Hong Kong to China as a Special Administrative Region in 1997.  It's interesting to look back now 25 years later after Morris wrote the book.  She was not optimistic that China would basically leave Hong Kong alone, which was the stated plan in 1984.
     Morris writes about many parts of the Hong Kong story that aren't a credit to the British, starting with British businessmen's eagerness to claim Hong Kong Island in the 1840's in order to make it easier for them to ship more opium from India to the growing number of addicts in China.  The relentless search for business opportunity continues to draw people to Hong Kong.  A laissez-faire fostering of capitalism still dominates government decision-making, as well as the general atmosphere in Hong Kong--not always a good thing.  At the same time, the British have created orderly and stable systems here over the years that have seemed to work.  Hong Kong has prospered, has developed an educated, ambitous and generally content middle class, and has funded a decent social welfare system.  The same cannot be said for the People's Republic of China, looking back over the past century and a half.  In the end, the British did quite a lot more good than harm in Hong Kong, says Morris, and it would be a shame for China to dismantle Hong Kong's successes.
     So far, 15 years after the handover, Morris' worst fears have not come to pass.  However, some would say that there are unsettling subtle changes afoot.  One of Terry's colleagues recently made a not-subtle comment about China's involvement in Hong Kong affairs:  "They're ruining it."  Something that particularly bothers this colleague is China's increasing involvement in the education system here and the growing emphasis on learning Mandarin in the schools while the emphasis on English decreases.  Until recently English proficiency has always been important for success in the school system here--that's what's needed by the work force in this international business community.  Mandarin, with its tonal and pictographic features, is not and likely will not be the lingua franca of business anytime soon.
    
  

Ding Ding

     The tram is one of the things I'll miss about living here in Hong Kong.  It runs on the street right outside our apartment building from around 5:30 a.m. until 1 a.m.  The hum of the wheels on the tracks has gotten to be a familiar background sound.  There's also the occasional "ding ding" of the bell when the driver is warning someone in the track to move. 

     It costs only $HK 2.3 to ride, which is $US .30, no matter how long the trip.  It's only $HK 1, or $US .13, for senior citizens to ride, and many of them do.  I had been under the impression that the government had to subsidize the tram line because the fare is so low, but I recently read that the company that runs it has been turning a nice profit because the exterior of each of the 162 cars and also each tram stop is advertising space.  See above.

     The tram line runs for around 9 miles along the northern side of Hong Kong Island on Victoria Harbor.  We live at the far western end of the line.  Since the island is so mountainous most everything that humans have built here is clustered down fairly close to the harbor, so you can take the tram to get most anywhere and not have too long a walk to get to your destination.

     Here's the interior, with wood trim, cozy seating, and windows you can slide up and down.  Most of the time passengers seem to like the windows open for fresh air, even when it's cool in the wintertime.  That's fine with me, because people are packed in fairly tightly sometimes.  I like taking the winding staircase on the right to the upper deck, where it's easier to see outside and where the bucket seats are a little more comfortable.  Actually I bring something to read much of the time when I ride now, because I've traveled the route enough times that the scenery isn't so novel anymore, and it can be kind of a slow trip sometimes.

     In a few more days I'll be back to driving a car to get most everywhere.  I don't think I've missed it, but maybe once I'm behind the wheel again I'll wonder what I thought was so great about the tram.  

     

Banking Could Be Better

     Today while at the bank I was once again frustrated by having to talk to the teller through a wall of glass.  The tellers have microphones, but they don't seem to use them much, and when they do they often fail to speak from an appropriate distance into the mike.  I have to ask them to repeat information, which adds to the slow line problem--always lines for doing banking errands.  I really don't understand the need for the glass, since Hong Kong generally has a very low crime rate and guns are illegal for ordinary citizens.  

     Today I was acutely aware of this customer NOT first situation.  Here are the tellers secured unnecessarily behind glass, yet the the real security risk seemed to be mine.  The teller windows are so close together that it would have been fairly easy for the customer standing at the next window to view my account numbers that I'd handwritten and handed to the teller, as well as hear my through-the-glass-wall, raised-voice conversation, as he's lolling at his window waiting for his teller to return from an interminable backroom errand. 

     Certainly there are services in the U.S. that could be better.  But overall I think that Americans' expectation for prompt, respectful and skilled service has driven business competition and improvements that make our country's customer experience generally quite a bit better than average, relative to the rest of the world.  

     Hopefully I won't be eating my words after I return to MN next week and re-start life on the home front.  I guess I'm getting ready to leave, as evidenced by my dwelling on something that I don't like.  Overall, I have very few negative things to say about the last few months of living here.

Man Mo Temple

     Man Mo Temple is probably the oldest temple in Hong Kong, and it's less than a half-hour's walk from our apartment.  We live in the Sai Wan ("western bay") district and the temple is located in Sheung Wan ("upper bay") just to the east.  Man Mo is very close to Possession Street, which supposedly marks the place where the British first claimed Hong Kong Island as theirs in 1841.  The Man Mo temple complex was built over a 15-year period, beginning in 1847.  Why would a Chinese temple be built in the area where the British had  planted their flag only a few years earlier?  I finally came across an explanation today.
     When the British began sailing here and colonizing Hong Kong Island after it was ceded to the British empire in 1842, they settled in the Chung Wan ("central bay") area, now called simply Central.  They particularly liked living on Victoria Peak uphill from Central because it was cooler during the steamy Hong Kong summers.  Because they wanted to settle in these favorable areas themselves, they forced out any Chinese who were living there.  These displaced Chinese settled in the Sheung Wan area.  To this day, many parts of Sheung Wan retain a very Chinese flavor.  Besides Man Mo Temple, there are numerous shops nearby that sell Chinese herbs and medicines, dried fish, tea, incense and paper offerings for Chinese celebrations, and lots of traditional Chinese restaurants and dai pai dongs, small informal food stalls with that often feature rickety tables and stools under an awning.

     Man Mo Temple is located on Hollywood Road.  In an earlier post I'd written that this street got its name from holly bushes that used to grow here, which I'd read in a guidebook.  I have since read that Sir John Davis, who governed Hong Kong in the 1840's, named this street after his family home in England.  Terry knows this street well.  He walks the whole length of it from Queen's Road West until it turns into Wyndham Street, where his office is located.  I've walked by Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road a number of times.  Today, though, I decided to go in.
    

     Man Mo is dedicated to two deities:   Man, a civil deity who's worshipped as the god of literature, and Mo, the god of war, who's the patron god of restaurants and the police (those are some very curious connections).  The temple also honors the god of justice, the god of the city and the goddess of mercy.  I saw very little signage in English outside the temple.  Not knowing what was located where inside the complex, I picked the door right in front of the entrance and walked into this middle building.
     I had actually gone into the temple with a specific mission today.  I'd had a request to light two joss sticks for a friend for good luck, if I should go into Man Mo.  There were several altars in this middle building with various deity figures, and people had left many offerings of fruit and flowers, besides lots of joss sticks stuck in urns of sand.  There were a number of huge burning coils of incense hanging from the ceiling.  Burning incense is one of my less favorite smells, so I decided I needed be efficient with my mission.  I needed some help.

     There were several people in the temple, all of them with burning joss sticks, some of them bowing several times in front of the altars before they placed the sticks in the urns of sand.  I approached the woman in the orange shirt and asked if she spoke English.  Some, she said.  I told her a little about myself, told her about my friend's request and asked if she could suggest which of the several altars would be the best one.  She pointed to the one right in front of us.
     The woman in white agreed.  She added that she was coming to Man Mo as a tourist, too, that she'd been born in Hong Kong but has been living in the U.K. for the last 35 years.  She told me that her mother had said that the altar in front of us was for a "caring" deity and that this was where she was placing the joss sticks in her hand.  So I may have found the altar for Kwun Yurn, the goddess of mercy that I'd read about.
     Two of the burning joss sticks below are mine.  You can also see the incense coils on the ceiling.
     Mission accomplished.

    

Kowloon Walking Tour

     One day last week I ventured from our apartment on Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbor to do a little exploring in Kowloon.  When I got off the subway I followed Boundary Street west of Nathan Road for a few blocks.  I wished that I'd remembered to bring along the address that our friend Colin gave us for the apartment building in this area where he lived as a 12 year old many years ago.  After I got home I looked it up on a map and realized that I'd come within a couple blocks of the address.  I'll have to go back and find it someday.

     Boundary Street used to mark the northern edge of the Kowloon Peninsula that was ceded to  Great Britain in 1860, 18 years after Hong Kong Island became part of the British Empire in 1842.  Nowadays Boundary Street is wide and bustling with traffic.  East of Nathan Road I walked by a few lush park areas and some beautiful sports fields like the one at right.  Fields like this are hard to come by in Hong Kong, given that real estate is extremely valuable and that hills and mountains have to basically be torn down and ground up to to create a flat playing area like this.  

     At the eastern side of the Mong Kok Stadium on Boundary Street I turned into a bird market.  Here there were all kinds of ornamental birds, cages, feeders, food, swings, mirrors, and anything else you could ever want for your bird.  This was a socializing area, too.  Some elderly men had brought their caged birds and were sitting here and there talking shop.  These two fellows at left were having a loud but seemingly good-natured conversation when I walked by.

     Occasionally I'll see older men in our neighborhood taking their bird out for a walk in its cage.  Curiously, the men I've seen carrying a pet bird in a cage often have a tiny, spare, birdlike physique themselves.  And why is it that bird-keeping is a man thing?  I don't think I've ever seen an elderly woman carrying around a bird in a cage.  Maybe the women encourage the men to go to the meet-greet-tweet gatherings to get them out from underfoot.

     I admit to feeling ever so slightly uneasy walking through the bird market because of a leftover Hong Kong-bird flu connection I can't shake, even though I know this place was not that kind of Hong Kong bird market.  When I came upon Flower Market Road I was relieved--I haven't heard of flower flu.  I loved walking by all the fresh potted flowers and cut blooms.  

     I've never seen such a variety of beautiful orchids as I've seen in Hong Kong.  This store seemed to specialize in them.  If you can read the small sign by the row of pots you may be shocked by the $48 pricetag.  This is in Hong Kong dollars.  The exchange rate is about $HK7.75 to $US1. So the that particular potted orchid is just a little over $6 in U.S. money.

     As I was walking down Shanghai Street I looked down a cross street and saw a rather decrepit building that stood out from its surroundings.  My map said it was a wholesale fruit market a couple blocks over on Reclamation Street.  This didn't sound particularly dangerous, so I walked over for a quick look.  Now this is a building with some character, actually a bit of fresh air after I'd been looking at mostly homogenous, rather new utilitarian buildings for the previous hour or so.   I was curious about why this patched-up old building has survived the wrecking ball in a neighborhood where nothing else looks this old and short.

     "Outlet" grabs attention and brings in business, I suppose.  Sorry, I didn't go inside to check this out.  Actually, there was a very modern-looking shoe store underneath the sign.  Maybe the acupuncturist was at the back or on the second level.

     The last place I walked through before I got on the subway to go home was the Temple Street Night market.  Every afternoon the vendors set up their stalls in the street and hang up and display all their goods.  Knock-offs abound.  Usually there aren't any prices marked and you get to bargain, the vendor using a calculator passed back and forth if she/he doesn't speak much English and you don't speak Cantonese.  

     I walked through several other street markets like this earlier in the afternoon.  The most noteworthy item I saw for sale was at a stall that sold Western board games and that's all.  There on display was Scrabble.  The game box looked exactly like the one that a British colleague of Terry's imported for us from the U.K. because we couldn't find Scrabble anywhere here.  It didn't look fake, but I suppose it was.