We're in Shanghai

     Terry and I arrived in Shanghai tonight.  He'll be doing an energy efficiency assessment training with a corporate group tomorrow.  Late tomorrow afternoon they'll all be bussing a few hours to Shaoxing, where they'll do an assessment at a factory on Friday.  I'm pleased that I'll get to go along with the group to Shaoxing, too.  This will be my first opportunity to travel outside a Chinese city.

Bamboo

    

     Construction is going on all around us, due to the subway line that's being extended out to our neighborhood on the west side of Hong Kong Island.  A few buildings are being renovated.  Old ones are being torn down and replaced.  About "old":  Hong Kongers' idea of old housing is different than ours.  Someone I recently met said she lived in a very old apartment, built 36 years ago.  Our 65-year-old house in Minneapolis seems ancient to them.
     Walk down most any block and you'll walk under or around scaffolding like this, always made of bamboo.  Bamboo is widely used in Asia because it's plentiful and thus economical, and it's strong, lightweight, flexible, and versatile.  It's highly renewable, too.  Bamboo is not a tree, it's a woody grass, one of the fastest growing plants in the world.  Many species mature within 3-5 years. It grows from a rhizome, so it easily regenerates after it's been cut, and its extensive root systems help prevent soil erosion.  Bamboo has been used since ancient times in China for food, clothing, buildings, household implements, weapons, papermaking, musical instruments and medicine.
     What's most striking about bamboo in Hong Kong is seeing this low-tech material used since ancient times being used in the 21st century as scaffolding on some of the sleekest, most modern buildings in the world in the Central business district.

     Here's another incongruity.  This delivery guy was ahead of me on a walkway over a busy road in Central.  He was headed into the swanky IFC mall, carrying his goods the way they've been carried for many centuries in China, on a notched shoulder pole made of--you guessed it--bamboo.  You can see the flexibility of the bamboo here.

"Waking of the Insects" Holiday

     Today was Jingzhe, a lunar holiday in the Chinese calendar.  According to traditional folklore, this is the day that insects wake up from hibernation and the mythical white tiger is out looking for prey, so people perform a ritual to appease the tiger.  Somehow appeasing the tiger got connected with the "beating the petty person" ritual, also called the "villain hitting" ritual, which I mentioned in my Feb. 11 post.  Most likely this became a two-for-one deal:  I could get rid of the negativity caused by an enemy by feeding the enemy to the tiger, and by doing this I'd placate the tiger so it would leave me alone.

     The first indication that something was going on today was when I ran into 3 groups of women on the Belcher's Street sidewalk about a block from out apartment, like those at the right.  They were sitting on low stools with a very curious assortment of stuff:  canisters with burning paper, burning joss sticks, makeshift cardboard altars, baskets of eggs and oranges, and some small yellow paper cut-outs of a fierce looking beast that sort of stood up.  Most curiously, a piece of what looked like raw chicken sat on top of some of the paper beasts.  After I got home I read online about Jingzhe, the paper tigers that are used in the rituals, and the salt pork that's used to feed the tigers.

     Late this afternoon I got off the tram close to the Canal Street flyover and walked through the underpass area where the elderly women who are the professional petty person beaters sit on their stools and beat a paper cutout of your enemy with a shoe.  (The woman in the center of this photo is holding a red shoe in her right hand.) The stools were full of customers today, the shoes were beating paper fast and furious, there were paper tigers all over and some meat for them, too, joss sticks and paper were burning at all the beating stations, and clients were handing over bills to the beaters for their services. I read that the standard fee to have a ritual performed on your enemy is $HK50, or about $6.50, and that this is a huge money-making day for the pros.  There were hoards of people milling around this spectacle and a few police were wisely stationed here, as well.  Because the air was very unpleasantly smoky and I didn't especially like hanging out with this crowd,  I didn't stick around long enough to watch a client getting the full ritual from beginning to end.  If I had, maybe I'd understand better how all of these parts of Jingzhe and villain beating fit together. (Where do the waking insects come into all of this, anyway?)
     The Jingzhe ritual used to be observed in the Pearl River delta region of southern China until the Communist takeover in 1949.  Now it's mostly just found in Hong Kong.
     I would say that it's a fair generalization that most Hong Kongers think that this is a more sophisticated place than anywhere in mainland China. If you were visiting Hong Kong today on Jingzhe, however, you might question that presumption.

Out for Hot Pot

     Last night Terry and I ventured out of our plain folks' part of the city, taking a taxi  halfway up Victoria Peak to the Mid-Levels.  We'd been invited for hot pot at the spacious and lovely apartment of a gregarious American business acquaintance of Terry's and his Chinese-American wife.  Our hosts did a great job introducing us to hot pot-- Chinese fondue--which is popular here during the winter months.
      Before we sat down, we were instructed to pick up the bowl at our place, step over to a side table, and put together our personal dipping sauce for all the things we'd be cooking.  "With hot pot it's all about the sauce," Jim said, "and if you don't like your meal tonight, it'll be your own fault!"  So we each concocted combinations of various jarred chilies, chili oil, sesame oil, several kinds of Chinese barbecue sauce and, unbelievably, Skippy peanut butter, the supposed secret to a great hot pot sauce, according to Jim.  Terry also broke one of the fresh quail eggs into his sauce, a Taiwanese touch we were told.  (Quite a delicious addition, he said.)
     Terry's business partner and his wife were part of the group, as well, which made 6 of us sitting around the table with 2 steaming hot pots of seasoned chicken broth.  On each end of the table was a heaped tray of fresh vegetables:  chinese cabbage, choy, several kinds of mushrooms, daikon radish, fresh water chestnuts (what a treat) and lotus root.  There were also platters of very thin strips of sliced beef, lamb and chicken, and bowls of scallops, prawns and tofu.   We each had 2 sets of chopsticks, a wooden set for putting food into the hot pot and removing it, and another lacquered set for eating.  I made the mistake of putting my first strip of beef on my plate before putting it in the pot, which prompted the hosts to clarify that raw food was to go directly in the pot, only cooked food should go on our plates (yoo hoo...a little common sense, Kathy...).  At that point someone told the story of a friend who contracted an infection from contaminated hot pot food and nearly had to have a liver transplant.  After hearing that, I spent a few minutes focused a little anxiously on the area on my plate where the raw beef had been, hoping that the juice from some hot vegetables would soon de-contaminate it.
     We had a delicious time of it, dropping ingredients into the pots, stirring, retrieving, and dipping away in our sauces.  The pickled accompaniments on the table were tasty, too, mostly Japanese pickled vegetables we were told, one dark green finely ground one with sesame seeds, another that was chunks of radish, and my favorite, burdock root.  There was also a dish of sliced yellow pickles that the hosts said their family called puo puo, so-named for the person who made them--this is "grandmother" in Cantonese.
     Dinner conversation was wide-ranging and interesting.  Someone had ribbed the host about his collection of books about bananas, so that story had to be told; the host had lived in Nicaragua and had done his thesis on how the political situation changed the banana market there.  Terry's business partner and his wife came from South Africa for jobs in Hong Kong 20 years ago, just before the first democratic election when the African National Congress came into power.  He's an Afrikaner who went to boarding school and was quite naughty, according to his wife, though we only heard about the time he "borrowed" the headmaster's car.  His wife's father ran away from home in New Zealand at age 14 and jumped on a ship, not knowing that it was headed for South Africa, where he ended up working 16 hours a day to put himself through school and eventually starting a business.  The host's Chinese-American wife commented on her mother's distaste for religion because most Chinese religion is focused on getting something--success, good fortune, riches and the like.  The other 2 couples both are busy with their young kids, especially getting them to soccer and rugby practice.  Playing fields are in short supply in Hong Kong, which adds more complicating factors to the shuttling.  The hosts said that their daughter practices south of here on the old Stanley Fort grounds, the former British barracks.  The Chinese People's Liberation Army has been housed at Stanley Fort since the handover to China in 1997.  Lately there's been concern about security, so every vehicle arriving for soccer practice has been stopped and searched by the PLA before being allowed to enter the grounds.
     All in all, it was a much more lively Saturday night than usual for us.  And my liver is feeling fine so far, thank you.  Here, I'll slap it a few times for good measure...

Saturday Solicitors Across from the Library

     The 2 women in this photo are part of a veritable army of smiling Saturday street solicitors you see collecting money for various charities all over Hong Kong.  Their particular cause is the Hong Kong Southern District Women's Association United, a social welfare organization.  The woman in the middle held her shoulder bag out and indicated where I should put money in the slot, which cued the woman on the left in the photo to apply the small yellow "I gave" sticker to my jacket.  Then I took this picture of the next donator right behind me. Saturday seems to be the big day for these solicitors, probably trying to catch shoppers who've just made a purchase and want to get rid of the thick, heavy $HK5 and $HK10 coins that people would just as soon get out of their pockets.  Many people stop and slip at least $HK1 into the money pouches.  There seems to be a strong presence of community service organizations here in Hong Kong, possibly a British influence.  To my understanding, in traditional Chinese culture people care for each other through family and friends, not through community organizations that serve people they don't know.
     I ran into these women right across the street from our neighborhood library, located on the 3rd floor of a newish community building that also houses a "sports center" with volleyball, badminton and squash courts, as well as a fitness center.   Rose, whom I met 10 days ago at a group lunch, thought that I should learn how to get to the local library, so she took me there this morning, pointed out the English language newspapers and books, and then took me to the desk to get a couple forms to fill out once I get my Hong Kong identity card so that I can get a library card and check out books.  Well--OK then!
     Rose herself goes to the library most mornings, she said, and she spends time every afternoon tutoring her primary school-age niece.  She said that one of the reasons she likes to spend this time with her niece is that she thinks that both the school and the girl's mother take too serious an approach to learning for such a young child, and she's trying to put more fun into it.  Rose told me that she formerly was a social worker, specializing in elder care, but she retired early because the stress of the job took its toll on her health.  She criticized the Hong Kong government for underfunding programs for the elderly, mentioning for example, that the government encourages elderly people to live independently and to access home nurse services for health needs, but that 200 is the normal impossible caseload for such a nurse.
     While touring the library we spent some time looking out the huge windows on the hill side of the building.  Rose showed me the new Kennedy Town subway terminal being constructed right next to the community building (2 1/2 years until it's done), she pointed out the 2 public housing high-rises in the neighborhood where a single elderly person can rent an apartment for $HK2000/month ($260), and she gestured toward the Hong Kong University campus up the hill.  I'd read about the Fung Ping Shan history museum at HKU and asked her about it.  She said I'd like it, and we made plans to go there week after next.
  
  

Music Classes and Musing on Tea

     I came home from school today without a headache, no small feat after subbing in a music classroom.  To the contrary, I had fun, and that was because the kids were having fun.  High schoolers were researching jazz musicians and doing some nice posters about them.  7th graders were working on a Garage Band project.  Each had to create a 2 1/2-minute composition for a movie trailer of their choice.  Those kids were exceptionally engaged, every one of them, and I was happy to oblige when one of them would hand me their headphones and ask me to listen and tell them what I thought. The last class of the day was the 5th-grade band, who had 3 pieces to rehearse to get ready for their performance in a couple weeks with the Navy Fleet Band.  They sounded pretty good for a beginning band, as if some of them might actually practice outside class.

     On the way home from school I stopped at a very nice tea shop only a block or so away from our apartment to ask about their pu-erh, a dark aged tea that's supposed to aid digestion, among other things.  Terry thought he might be interested in getting some more, after using up what some young Chinese had helped him get at a tea market last year.   However, if he does get some,  it won't be from this shop.  It's not that they don't have good tea.  The problem is that it's too good.  The least expensive cake of pu-erh was $HK450, which is almost $60.  It was a good quality tea, the young fellow in the shop explained, but it was only 5 years old.  Normally you're supposed to let pu-erh age at least 20 years before you drink it. So you wouldn't even think of drinking this tea for another 8 or 9 years.  The least expensive cake of tea that had been aged for 20 years was $HK1800, which is over $230.  So buying a cake of 5-year-old pu-erh and holding it for another 15 years until it's ready to drink is an investment, just as some people buy wine and hold on to it for years.  This tea shop fellow probably would have thought that the last cake of pu-erh Terry had from a tea market in Shenzhen was dreck.
     It seems a little unusual to have this fancy tea shop in our neighborhood, which is sort of a plain-folks place.  For example, when I came home this afternoon the aquarium maker next door to our apartment building was squatting on his haunches on the sidewalk in front of his store, unshod, nail clippers in hand. He was taking advantage of the warm and humid weather today to bare his feet and trim his toenails.  

  

       

Lunch, Bank, View, Gasp

     Yesterday Terry and I rendez-voused for lunch at a Thai restaurant close to his office.  After we'd finished our curry and lemongrass tea he tried to remember if we've ever done this before.  Neither of us recalled ever meeting up for lunch in the 31 years we've been married.  So I guess it was about time, and we really didn't need to go all the way to Hong Kong for this, did we?
     We actually did have another purpose for meeting up, and that was going to the bank to have my name added to the account that Terry had set up earlier this winter.  This was none too soon, since my first paycheck arrived in the mail today.  (It's a bit of a thrill getting paid in Hong Kong dollars:  multiply U.S. dollars by 7.75.  Lao kip would be a real thrill:  multiply by 8,000.)  Unfortunately we couldn't get this done yesterday because my passport wasn't sufficient documentation.  I needed some kind of proof of my residency, such as our apartment lease--original, not a copy.  Never mind that Terry didn't need such proof when he set up the account.  A business card sufficed then.  You don't argue with bank rules.  Hong Kong banks have a reputation for over-the-top bureaucracy.
     We also hunted down the supposed nearby location of the Toys'R'Us that carries Scrabble games.  Alas, there was no such store where it was supposed to be.

     One last novelty for me on this outing was getting to see Terry's office.  It's an open space with 8 desks and a small conference room, very basic.  Here's the view from his desk out the 25th floor window. There are ropes hanging down right outside the windows, part of a window-washing rig.  
     Today he said that there was occasional fog and probably pollution that obscured  the gray skinny building in the middle foreground.  We notice respiratory symptoms now and then from the poor air quality, such as sore throats and feeling out of breath when we shouldn't.
    I recently met the manager of our apartment building for the first time, a Chinese-American young woman from New York City who moved here after spending 4 years in Los Angeles.  I asked her how she liked living in Hong Kong.  She wasn't overwhelmingly positive and mentioned specifically that she didn't like living in a place with such bad air pollution.  I asked if this air is worse than in L.A.  Much worse, she said.
     Given the air pollution problem and the all-urban driving here, something that surprises me is not seeing more hybrid vehicles.  I have seen exactly one, a Prius.  People who are wealthy enough to drive and park a vehicle here seem to like to drive a BMW, Mercedes, Lexus or other luxury car.  Brand and image seem more important than improving air quality.