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