Sunday Morning Sights

     The sun was out, the air was mild, and there was a fresh breeze.  It was time for another map-free Sunday morning ramble.  I headed up winding Queen's Rd  West and stopped to take a picture of this not-your-typical MN sight.  This cargo was headed for one of several small meat markets right there next to the sidewalk, each one of them almost always having a line of customers waiting for the expert butchers to cut off their order from the unrefrigerated pork hanging or lying in neat rows for close inspection.  These guys work fast and expertly with their substantial knives on broad wooden slabs, carrying on friendly banter the whole time.  None of them seems to be missing finger tips.
     I bought a small piece of pork at a neighborhood grocery store last week for an eggplant and red pepper dish I made.  It was in a refrigerator case and came on a plastic meat tray covered in plastic wrap, just like at home.  And just like what I often found in China last year, there was a complimentary hog bristle included on the meat.  I'm sure that it would amaze all those customers standing in line on the sidewalk for their meat this morning that I would bother to mention this.  For them this maybe would be a common thing, a visible reminder that the animal was recently alive with an intact bristly hide; freshness is a very big deal here.  For me it's a reminder that this isn't MN.
  

     Terry's walk to work turns off Queen's Rd West and heads up Hollywood Rd, so I thought I'd go see what he sees every day.  About the name:  most of us Americans associate Hollywood with that famed area of Los Angeles, but here it refers to the holly bushes that used to grow here.  This street is a mixture of old and new.  There are lots of antique stores and also lots of art galleries, owing to its location on the edge of the Soho district (which refers to an area south of Hollywood Rd after you've walked uphill for a few minutes), all of which makes for fun window browsing.  This particular gallery was full of these lean and whimsical red Asian man figures.
     Not far up from Queen's Rd I came across Hollywood Rd Park, which looked vaguely familiar.  A few steps inside the entrance I spotted a small red, green and white pagoda surrounded by a murky pond with goldfish and terrapins.  Yes, I was here last March when I was doing some exploring in this area and I'd taken a picture of this pagoda.  I stopped to watch a group of several men and another group of high school kids working on martial arts routines, all fascinating to me.  Something/someone else was familiar.  Earlier I'd watched an elderly woman with a walker very slowly navigate up two angled, narrow steps at a street corner and then walk down another two.  I  imagined my own mom navigating with her walker here and cringed.  I walked a few steps past this woman and then turned around and watched her, ready to offer help if she needed it.  But no, she was sure-footed, probably more than I.  She'd made her way to the park to take her morning stroll.
     In Hollywood Rd Park is a display of a few very old black and white photos, showing neighborhood sights as they looked long ago.  There was one from 1930 showing Possession Point, the actual location of which is inside the park.  This is where a British naval contingent landed and claimed possession of Hong Kong Island in 1841, soon after Captain Edward Belcher had surveyed the area. (Thus the origin for Belcher Street and Belcher Bay Park near our apartment, a considerably more interesting reference than what I'd earlier imagined.)  In 1841 Possession Point was at water's edge and Queen's Rd West would have hugged the harbor, which explains the street's winding nature.  Nowadays they're both a few blocks from the water, after considerable land has been reclaimed and developed.
     Across the street from Hollywood Rd Park were two small narrow shops, open to the street, their goods stacked and ready for customers to come in and make a selection.  Coffins they were, beautifully crafted, in several varieties of highly polished wood.  After I got home I read that there is a renovated ancestral hall nearby, which was a storage place for bodies awaiting burial.  Next door to the coffin shops was St. Matthew's Church.  I glanced inside the open doors and saw a cross and simple altar at the front, but the space between the doors and the altar was completely open and empty, except for a rectangular table to one side not far from the entrance where several people were sitting, each with what looked like an open Bible.  There was a large information board on the sidewalk just outside the entrance, with details about the kindergarten program the church runs, including the goals of the religious instruction for its students:  "know how to live with others in harmony and with a willingness to be a helper...be a responsible person, understanding the difference between right and wrong, having a positive value of life."  On recent walks I've noticed several other preschools/kindergartens housed in churches.
     By the way, I didn't memorize the above quotes and bring them home.  I usually carry a pen and an index card with me when I'm out and about, so that I can write notes to myself about what I'm seeing.  Sometimes I think if I'd had to exercise my memory like literate Chinese who've learned to read and write many thousands of characters, I wouldn't have to carry around pen and paper to remember things.
     A little further on, a sign a few floors above the street caught my attention:  Wrong Design.  Colin Fong had emailed me a few days ago about the Chinglish signs that I've written about, mentioning that these signs strike us as unusual or even humorous because they're literal translations of the more euphemistic Chinese.  I'd like to know what a more accurate translation of this business name would be.  Maybe it has something to do with creativity, originality, or thinking outside the box.

     I turned on Wyndham St. to walk down the hill toward the harbor and then started back home on Queen's Rd Central, which was a busy broad street on the edge of the skyscraper district where I'd been walking a few days ago.  I didn't know exactly where I was, but knew I was generally walking in the right direction.  Soon enough, I discovered that this street turned into Queen's Rd West.  Before I got there, though, I walked through a couple very hospitable plazas like this one.   Here's a special Chinese New Year display,  more elaborate than most I've seen.  This is the year of the dragon, which is the most powerful of the 12 signs in the Chinese zodiac.  It's supposed to be a very auspicious year to start a new business, Terry says.  Note the curve of small potted mandarin orange trees behind the rope.  All the New Year's displays I've seen include at least one orange tree, because this fruit symbolizes abundance and good fortune.