Victoria Peak:
The perfect viewing point of Hong Kong
Wait. What is all that green stuff?
Trees?
I thought all of Hong Kong was exactly like
its skyline.
Buildings. Tall Buildings.
Very Tall Buildings.
And more Tall Buildings.
Apparently not.
I see more trees than sky scrapers!
Jin Eu Market:
“Be careful. Is a city. Watch your wallet”
Our taxi driver counseled us before we left his
cab to wander the streets of the goldfish market.
What might one buy at a goldfish market?
Well, goldfish for one thing. Also,
Blue fish, green fish, orange fish, purple fish,
Speckled fish, spotted fish, big fish, tiny fish,
Bottled fish, bagged fish, dead fish, live fish.
And every other imaginable form of “adjective + fish”.
(other possible options for adjective include but are by
no means restricted to: plastic, hollow, jade, wriggling,
monstrous, school of, neon, darting, and fluorescent.)
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Beijing: The North Capital
Our first night in Beijing: 3 hours on an airplane, 1 very bad airplane dinner, 1 grandfather throwing up on the bus, 1 stroll past Tiananmen Square and the entrance to the Forbidden Kingdom (technically called the Palace Museum), 1 strange paper pet named Fredrico, 1 group picture with a bunch of random Chinese people, 1 Mao Zedong watch purchased, and fairly comfortable beds at the Jade Garden Hotel. All in all, quite a wonderful (and eventful) night.
As we maneuvered our way through the crowd milling about in front of the main gate to the Forbidden Kingdom (it’s closed at night) I noticed many people taking there picture with the huge portrait of Mao Zedong hanging above the gates. I especially noticed a very happy looking little boy posing with his legs spread wide apart and his hands clasped behind his back. His father was proudly taking a picture on his phone, while the boy’s mother took a picture of her dearest son and Mao with a camera. Other family members stood around beaming at the heart-warming image of their young relative posing in front of “the greatest Chinese leader of the 20th century” I looked on, slightly confused at their smiling faces. Why were they smiling at the larger than life portrait of Mao? Had they forgotten who Mao was? Had they forgotten what Mao had done? Then it hit me: They didn’t know. They didn’t know that Mao had indirectly killed tens of millions of people. They didn’t know that he had directly killed tens of millions of more people. How much did they now about the recent history of their country? Did they know that Mao had ordered the police to let the Red Guards ravages through people’s houses? Did they know that he had condemned ancient Chinese relics to be burned and smashed? How much did they now about the scholars sent to labor camps to be “re-educated”? My guess is, not much.
The Forbidden Kingdom is HUGE. And when I say HUGE I don’t mean, wow, look at that mansion it has five floors! I mean wow, look at that huge cluster of richly decorated mansions, courtyards, streams, and stairways, oh, and by the way did you notice that there are over 9,000 rooms?
Strangly it was built to hold the Emperor, his family their servants, and no one else. Why, you might ask yourself, is it so big?
It is so big because the Emperor had one official Empress, but also had 3,000 concubines.
This courtyard is like the “mud room” to the Forbidden Kingdom.
As we strolled through one of the many routes of the Forbidden Kingdom our guide told us about the fengshui of buildings. Each building had animals on the crests of the roof, but because of fengshui there were only odd numbers of animals on the roofs. Special stone barriers stop “negative energy” from entering separate courtyards. The yellow of the tiles is only used by the Emperor because yellow is an imperial color.
The Great Wall is truly Great. Long lengths of rock wall connect towers on distant mountain tops. The blue sky (strange for Beijing) stretched endlessly above the orange trees. It was a Great day to climb the Great Wall.
As we trecked up the forest of staircases we admired the trees, blue sky, rocks, and of course, our newly purchased Panda Hats.
As we maneuvered our way through the crowd milling about in front of the main gate to the Forbidden Kingdom (it’s closed at night) I noticed many people taking there picture with the huge portrait of Mao Zedong hanging above the gates. I especially noticed a very happy looking little boy posing with his legs spread wide apart and his hands clasped behind his back. His father was proudly taking a picture on his phone, while the boy’s mother took a picture of her dearest son and Mao with a camera. Other family members stood around beaming at the heart-warming image of their young relative posing in front of “the greatest Chinese leader of the 20th century” I looked on, slightly confused at their smiling faces. Why were they smiling at the larger than life portrait of Mao? Had they forgotten who Mao was? Had they forgotten what Mao had done? Then it hit me: They didn’t know. They didn’t know that Mao had indirectly killed tens of millions of people. They didn’t know that he had directly killed tens of millions of more people. How much did they now about the recent history of their country? Did they know that Mao had ordered the police to let the Red Guards ravages through people’s houses? Did they know that he had condemned ancient Chinese relics to be burned and smashed? How much did they now about the scholars sent to labor camps to be “re-educated”? My guess is, not much.
The Forbidden Kingdom is HUGE. And when I say HUGE I don’t mean, wow, look at that mansion it has five floors! I mean wow, look at that huge cluster of richly decorated mansions, courtyards, streams, and stairways, oh, and by the way did you notice that there are over 9,000 rooms?
Strangly it was built to hold the Emperor, his family their servants, and no one else. Why, you might ask yourself, is it so big?
It is so big because the Emperor had one official Empress, but also had 3,000 concubines.
This courtyard is like the “mud room” to the Forbidden Kingdom.
As we strolled through one of the many routes of the Forbidden Kingdom our guide told us about the fengshui of buildings. Each building had animals on the crests of the roof, but because of fengshui there were only odd numbers of animals on the roofs. Special stone barriers stop “negative energy” from entering separate courtyards. The yellow of the tiles is only used by the Emperor because yellow is an imperial color.
The Great Wall is truly Great. Long lengths of rock wall connect towers on distant mountain tops. The blue sky (strange for Beijing) stretched endlessly above the orange trees. It was a Great day to climb the Great Wall.
As we trecked up the forest of staircases we admired the trees, blue sky, rocks, and of course, our newly purchased Panda Hats.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Guangzhou
While reading Lost on Planet China I came upon a section about boarding trains in China. J. Maarten Troost, the author of Lost on Planet China, described his experience as a new and inexperienced zookeeper might describe feeding wild tigers and monkeys. Hoards of people elbowed and shoved there way to the front of the train platform. Once the train arrived people scrambled over each other to obtain seats. While Troost tried to board, he glanced at the woman next to him, and realized that her seat number was the same as his. Once on the train Troost’s only seating option was a hard piece of floor between two chairs. The men around him chain smoked and screamed at each other in Chinese.
After reading this frightening (but hilarious) account, I prepared myself for the train ride to Guangzhou. After much wandering about the train station and many mind-numbing conversations in Chinese we bought five express tickets on the 7050 train to Guangzhou.
The train ride proved mostly uneventful. No sharp elbows driven into my ribs. No three foot grandmothers pushing their way past me to the front of the line. The most exiting thing that happened was the explosion of my seltzer over a five-foot radius around me. Sadly, this five-foot radius included Kif, Stirling, Isabel, Jacek, the woman sitting in front of me, the 5-year-old boy sleeping on the lap of the woman in front of me, the woman in a short green dress next to the sleeping child, and the woman staring out the window at the passing farms.
Once the train arrived, we climbed off and were pulled through a dimly lit tunnel by a stream of people into the bright sunlight of Guangzhou. We surfaced, wandered about in the blazing sun, then dove back into the ground. The underground world of China is quite astonishing. Underground life seems about as lively as the world above. Tables staked with cheap ceramic cups and plates lined one side of the metro tunnel, while on the other side jeans and t-shirts hung up. Men and women shuffled by sipping tea and munching chicken feet with rice. Restaurants, moon cake shops and shoe stores filled the underground metro tunnels. After maneuvering through the groups of shoppers, sellers and travelers, we bought green metro chips and descended another level to the metro platforms.
We climbed up the steps of our metro station destination and were greeted by the familiar and repulsive grin of Ronald McDonald. After glancing past the golden arches down a street lined with trees and trash we turned to find a much more inviting sight, our hotel. A marble doorway with “China Hotel” engraved above it stood not three feet away from us.
After dropping our bags off at the China Hotel we ventured out into the streets of Guangzhou in search of a Cantonese flavored lunch. What we found was a “South Ocean Seafood Village” which was in fact an incredibly nice dim sum restaurant. We ate our fill of crunchy greens and sea urchin roe then visited a nearby park.
At the park we increased our “qi” on colorful metal machines, observed multiple ping pong games, pedaled a boat across a lake, watched wedding photos being taken, and witnessed a child catch an incredibly small silver fish with a bit of string.
Our first day in Guangzhou was quite a success, including explosions, strange and delicious food, fortification of personal qi, and swift travel.
After reading this frightening (but hilarious) account, I prepared myself for the train ride to Guangzhou. After much wandering about the train station and many mind-numbing conversations in Chinese we bought five express tickets on the 7050 train to Guangzhou.
The train ride proved mostly uneventful. No sharp elbows driven into my ribs. No three foot grandmothers pushing their way past me to the front of the line. The most exiting thing that happened was the explosion of my seltzer over a five-foot radius around me. Sadly, this five-foot radius included Kif, Stirling, Isabel, Jacek, the woman sitting in front of me, the 5-year-old boy sleeping on the lap of the woman in front of me, the woman in a short green dress next to the sleeping child, and the woman staring out the window at the passing farms.
Once the train arrived, we climbed off and were pulled through a dimly lit tunnel by a stream of people into the bright sunlight of Guangzhou. We surfaced, wandered about in the blazing sun, then dove back into the ground. The underground world of China is quite astonishing. Underground life seems about as lively as the world above. Tables staked with cheap ceramic cups and plates lined one side of the metro tunnel, while on the other side jeans and t-shirts hung up. Men and women shuffled by sipping tea and munching chicken feet with rice. Restaurants, moon cake shops and shoe stores filled the underground metro tunnels. After maneuvering through the groups of shoppers, sellers and travelers, we bought green metro chips and descended another level to the metro platforms.
We climbed up the steps of our metro station destination and were greeted by the familiar and repulsive grin of Ronald McDonald. After glancing past the golden arches down a street lined with trees and trash we turned to find a much more inviting sight, our hotel. A marble doorway with “China Hotel” engraved above it stood not three feet away from us.
After dropping our bags off at the China Hotel we ventured out into the streets of Guangzhou in search of a Cantonese flavored lunch. What we found was a “South Ocean Seafood Village” which was in fact an incredibly nice dim sum restaurant. We ate our fill of crunchy greens and sea urchin roe then visited a nearby park.
At the park we increased our “qi” on colorful metal machines, observed multiple ping pong games, pedaled a boat across a lake, watched wedding photos being taken, and witnessed a child catch an incredibly small silver fish with a bit of string.
Our first day in Guangzhou was quite a success, including explosions, strange and delicious food, fortification of personal qi, and swift travel.
Macau
As you may (or may not) know the Chinese have a Mid-Autumn festival, because of this holiday many people have work off and kids have a break from school. Kif had a break at the law school because of this and we decided to go on a trip. Macau, a small island, seemed an ideal spot to spend our vacation.
Macau was a Portuguese colony until 1999 when Portugal returned Macau to China. There are still some Portuguese speakers in Macau, though we did not encounter many. People in Macau seemed to have a good grasp of English making bargaining more understandable, but definitely not easier.
The first hotel we stayed at was called the IFT. It was a school for tourism. The lady at the counter was a student and all of the workers as well. When we went to dinner the waiters were obviously new students, or just learning how to serve food (and poor water). Aparantly pouring a proper glass of water is much more difficult than it seems. As a very nervous girl began to pour Isabel a glass of water, her hovering teacher swooped down and will issueing a constant stream of rebukes (all in Cantonese, so I actually have no idea what he was saying) showed her how to properly poor a glass of water. After this scene a student wanting to learn the ancient form of “smoothie delivery” shuffled to our table. He was so nervous he forgot how to hold a glass and his chattering teacher had to remind him how. Overall the dinner was delicious including grilled bass, quail, African chicken, bacalau potato pie, spaghetti, crème bru le, rhubarb crumble, caramel ice cream, peach serradura, and flan with maracuja and carrot sauce.
To be Continued... (maybe)
Macau was a Portuguese colony until 1999 when Portugal returned Macau to China. There are still some Portuguese speakers in Macau, though we did not encounter many. People in Macau seemed to have a good grasp of English making bargaining more understandable, but definitely not easier.
The first hotel we stayed at was called the IFT. It was a school for tourism. The lady at the counter was a student and all of the workers as well. When we went to dinner the waiters were obviously new students, or just learning how to serve food (and poor water). Aparantly pouring a proper glass of water is much more difficult than it seems. As a very nervous girl began to pour Isabel a glass of water, her hovering teacher swooped down and will issueing a constant stream of rebukes (all in Cantonese, so I actually have no idea what he was saying) showed her how to properly poor a glass of water. After this scene a student wanting to learn the ancient form of “smoothie delivery” shuffled to our table. He was so nervous he forgot how to hold a glass and his chattering teacher had to remind him how. Overall the dinner was delicious including grilled bass, quail, African chicken, bacalau potato pie, spaghetti, crème bru le, rhubarb crumble, caramel ice cream, peach serradura, and flan with maracuja and carrot sauce.
To be Continued... (maybe)
Monday, September 28, 2009
Da Fen: City of Art
Da Fen, a beautiful town filled with art and recreations is about 30 driving from our apartment. The buildings in Da Fen are painted pink, orange, and multicolored. While at Da Fen we saw 5 Mona Lisas, 2 Obamas, 3 Ches, 4 Audrey Hepburns, 1 Beckham (spelled Bakeham) and 1 Alan Greenspan (former chair of the federal reserve). We saw hand painted copies of Van Gogh, Degas, Andy Warhol, and Picasso.
While roaming the art filled allies I spied a “hippie store”. Hanging outside were an amazing pair of red flower patterned pants. I tried them on and asked how much they were “zhe ge duo shao qian”. After bargaining and finding another pair of grey capris I wanted I decided I really needed her to cut down her price, so I started to walk out. She immediately dropped the price about 50 yuan, or 7 dollars. We haggled some more but she thought I wanted them “tai pian yi” (too cheap) and I thought she was trying to sell them “tai gui le” (too expensive).
I should mension she was beautiful and was the first Chinese I had ever seen with curly hair, in fact it was so curly she probably couldn’t fit anything bigger than a chopstick threw each curl. After her price did not come down enough, I started to walk out for real. We walked out and around a corner and were inspecting an ice cream cart when she walked up behind us and offered us a cheaper price. We walked back to her store and finally settled on a price after much laughing and repeating of our preferred price. I now have two new pairs of pants that are “hen ku”.
While roaming the art filled allies I spied a “hippie store”. Hanging outside were an amazing pair of red flower patterned pants. I tried them on and asked how much they were “zhe ge duo shao qian”. After bargaining and finding another pair of grey capris I wanted I decided I really needed her to cut down her price, so I started to walk out. She immediately dropped the price about 50 yuan, or 7 dollars. We haggled some more but she thought I wanted them “tai pian yi” (too cheap) and I thought she was trying to sell them “tai gui le” (too expensive).
I should mension she was beautiful and was the first Chinese I had ever seen with curly hair, in fact it was so curly she probably couldn’t fit anything bigger than a chopstick threw each curl. After her price did not come down enough, I started to walk out for real. We walked out and around a corner and were inspecting an ice cream cart when she walked up behind us and offered us a cheaper price. We walked back to her store and finally settled on a price after much laughing and repeating of our preferred price. I now have two new pairs of pants that are “hen ku”.
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