Just as Crazy as Everyone Else

A writer friend of mine at Holden Village once told me that often you need some distance from a place before you can write about it.  I am going to blame my inability to write good blog posts about Hong Kong on that fact.

So what have I been up to?  That is a good question.  Umm, well, there has been class.  And sleep.  And class. 

Ok, but seriously, what have I done with my time here?  I went out to lunch once with Sherry, I went out to lunch with Stephanie and her sister Maria.  I went to 180, the young adult bible study.  I went to church.  I am starting to sense a pattern here…

They say that people who are involved with religious communities are happier.  It might be because of religious belief, or that it brings people together.  I am not exactly sure which is affecting me more.  But the fact that religious event and hanging out with the people I met at them were the things that immediately popped into my head does say a great deal about my psyche at the moment.

Ok, but actually.  The big event of the last week and a half is that a bunch of us went to Ocean Park, a mixture theme park and aquarium and zoo.  Whoever came up with this mixture was an absolute genius.  You get off a roller-coaster and are feeling a little tired.  No worries.  Go look at the seals for a few minutes, then you can go back to the rides.  The only problem was that there was so much to do that we could not do and see it all.  But we were able to prioritize, and do a great deal.

We had a field trip to a Daoist temple.  Daoism is the 21^st century, hybridized indigenous religion of China.  The Chinese, for the most part, love to take pieces of their past and modernize them.  To sum up Daoist beliefs briefly.  Everything is made of Qi (or Chi). Light qi goes up to heaven, dark qi sinks to earth.  The movement of qi is the ying and yang of the universe, which drives all change.  One can be free of this change and become immortal if one aligns their qi with the cosmic qi (become closer to nature through mediation and austerity and all that jazz).  There are gods, but they don’t really have names or do much.  They accept Buddha as a god (or immortal, I’m not really sure which, or if they even know). There are immortals (humans that have achieved immortality) who have adventures that kids read about in story books.  There are guardians based on the year you were born.  There is a mother goddess (very Neolithic tribal religion ish).  It all becomes very nebulous.  The hard core Daoists are vegetarian, but I don’t really understand why.  I am sure it has something to do with non-violence.  But they didn’t really explain it. But we had a very yummy vegetarian meal there.  The religion reminds me a lot of Jainism in its practices.

We had eggroll night!  Sherry was really confused when we tried to explain eggrolls to her.  She decided that it must be an American thing.  But actually, we made Hmong eggrolls, which are the same size as American eggrolls.  Which makes me feel a little better about American culture.  We may be crazy in what we eat, but we are not alone! 

It is really funny though to see what the Hong Kong people think of American food.  We had “authentic New York style” pizza, which had a diameter of two feet!  Do the Hong Kong people really believe that all of our food is that supersized?  If my world travels have taught me anything, it is that Indians eat a lot more food than Americans do.  Again, we might be crazy.  But we are not any more crazy than the rest of the world.  We are just the most public.  And our public image is not the most endearing.

Museums are free on Wednesdays, so we have been taking full advantage of that.  Last week we went to the Space museum, which was actually pretty lame.  They had a good Imax theatre though.  This week, we went to the science museum.  The museum itself was not great, but they had a spectacular temporary exhibit about dinosaurs up.  They had a few animatronic dinosaurs, a huge number of recreated skeletons, and some amazing fossils.  I have not been this excited about dinosaurs since I was a little kid.

This week we have been learning about Chinese painting and calligraphy, with demonstrations.  The artist who came in was amazing, and made everything look super easy.  I wish I could paint like that.  And write like that.  And play a Chinese instrument.  And appreciate good Chinese tea.  Man, China is making me feel so inadequate and uncultured.

It has been almost three weeks, and the number of malls still makes me uneasy.  In our class on modern art, we started talking about how China has embraced some of more vicious parts of capitalism, such as unadulterated consumerism.  And then I open the International New York Times to seen an article about how austerity measure seem to be helping Britain’s economy.  Then I start thinking about Holden Village, and all of the discussions we had there about consumerism in America.  It is a lot to think about.

But I am on the verge of falling asleep on the floor, so I think I am going to go to bed now.

Good Night

Andrea

Our Dysfunctional Family

Hong Kong!  I have lived here a week and a half and still have not blogged.  How awful is that?  But there has been so much to do here.  I haven’t had much time to myself since arriving.  Which is both a good thing and a bad thing.

Walking around Hong Kong feels reminiscent of walking around in a big city in America.  The streets are clean, the people are dressed in a mostly western/ cutesy Asian inspired fashion (it comes with being a fashion capital I guess), and the streets are safe.  I cannot emphasis enough how much safe streets has put everyone in our group at ease.  It is truly a wonderful thing, and something I will never take for granted again.

The weather here is in the 70s everyday, never rainy and always beautiful.  Which makes walking to class quite nice.

A quick rundown of what I have been up to.  Some of the highlights from the last week and a half include hiking around Lamma Island, a nearby island that does not allow motorized vehicles (a few exceptions of course).  On the island are two small fishing villages with really good seafood.  Heather, who hates seafood, even liked it.  We took a cable car across the mountains of Lantau Island to see the giant Buddha there, then took a bus to the other side of the island to see pink dolphins (yes, we did see some!).  We visited the market at Mong Kok (I don’t know if it was the Lady’s Market or not, but I don’t think it was). A few of us lay on a beach for an hour because we missed the ocean, and it was too cold to swim.  A few of us went to see the Symphony of Lights, a nightly light show up on by the buildings of Hong Kong Island.  We visited the history museum, which is free on Wednesdays.  The Hong Kong Cultural Association, our liaisons here, treated us to Thanksgiving dinner. 

At dinner we met Sherry, possibly one sweetest people I have met on this trip.  Sherry is from Mainland China originally, but university and then job prospects brought her to Hong Kong.  She invited us to her church.  The church, call “The Vine,” attracts mostly (but not exclusively) young adults, about equal parts Hong Kong people and ex-pats.  Services are in English and us contemporary music from the west.  There is also a Saturday night bible study.  The people there are extremely nice.  We met and went to dinner with a few of Sherry’s friends, all of whom were incredibly fun and talkative.  One of them, Stephanie, is a missionary’s daughter turned missionary herself, has lived her entire life in Hong Kong.  Then there were John and Isabel, both native Hong Kong residents, both of whom are in fashion.  They gave Elena some wedding fashion advice.  Ef, another Hong Kong native, took us out to a great Dim Sum place, and I got to try jellyfish (it was really good).  I also met a British girl (I never got her name) who was interning before going back to school to be an occupational therapist.  Basically, all really awesome people.  I am definitely going to church next week.

Class is daily at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, or CUHK.  The university has about 13,000 students.  The campus takes up an entire mountain.  Our classroom is about half way up.  Our hotel is at the bottom.  But there are free shuttle buses to take us up the mountain, which is wonderful.  You just have to be careful though.  People cram onto the buses, making it very hard to get off at your stop.  Heather and I once got trapped on the bus and had to ride to the next stop before we could get off!

Class is like in India, where we have different speakers come and talk to us about different subjects.  So far they have all been very good.  It is also really nice that the Hong Kong accent is not a very strong one.  And that many of our speakers have lived for prolonged periods in English speaking countries.  Our class here is art history, which is very interesting.  We have learned about everything from Jade to Tea (yes, it is an art). 

One visitor to China in the 18^th century commented that coming to china makes a western visitor feel as though they have come across a much more sophisticated culture.  I am starting to understand why that is.  To everything there is a hidden meaning and a subtlety that is hard to pick up on.  Nothing in Chinese culture is ever overt, as that could be offensive.  On the simplest level, words are never direct.  A phrase such as “the dogs bark at the sun after the rain” actually implies that someone is so stupid that they cannot recognize the sun.  Beyond that, if you are given the gift of a vase (a common gift), the picture on the vase suggests how you feel about them (there is a very long list of symbols we had to learn).  It reminds me of India.  No one at the ECC spoke directly either.  It really tests one’s perceptiveness.

There is also a deep level of sophistication in other areas of life.  There is a proper way to grow tea, process tea, brew tea, smell tea, hold tea, and drink tea.  If you do it the right way, you will be invited back.  There is a proper way to view art, talk about art, shop for art, bargain for art.  If you mess up on the first two steps, you will never be taken seriously. 

Our residence is the Hyatt Regency, a very, very nice hotel right outside of campus and a two-minute walk from the train system.  The apartments here can be rented for either a normal amount of time, or leased long term.  The head of our program is staying in the Hyatt for a year.  I didn’t ask how much that cost, but I can’t imagine it is cheap.  Despite the fact that this is long-term residence, we are still treated like hotel guests.  Our towels are changed daily, whether we want them to be or not.  Our rooms are cleaned weekly.  We are given water bottles daily (even though tap water here is basically safe). 

All of this is a bit of a culture shock after India and Thailand.  Who am I kidding?  It is a huge culture shock!  Hong Kong has a strong tradition of consumerism because of its British influence and position of being a prominent trading port for the last 100 years.  We are also staying amongst the affluent here in the Hyatt.  But after India, the rampant consumerism is a bit jarring.  It probably comes from the territory of being a fashion capital.  A lot of globalites feel pressure to buy new clothes in order to be fashionable, since everyone here dresses fashionably.  Finding clothes is not difficult, since there is a mall every mile (you think I exaggerate, I don’t).   It also bothers me that my apartment at the Hyatt is so much nicer than most of the staff housing at ECC.  Money may not buy happiness, but every so often, when I think back to the India, I am outraged that we can live so large while others do not.  What is most frustrating is that about half of the globalites seem not to notice.  They seem to treat the living conditions in India as a bad dream that they have woken from and are trying to forget.  The sheer amount of wastefulness is really getting on my nerves. 

It has gotten to the point where everyone is getting on everyone else’s nerves.  It is really frustrating.  We all know each other enough to know each other’s faults and to be annoyed by them.  And people have just about run out of patience to deal with other’s shortcomings.  But I guess that comes with the territory.  No one is perfect.  We are just one dysfunctional family.