The Name Game, Part Deux

Just for kicks I posted some of the fun English names I encountered in my first six months in Hong Kong a little while ago. I appreciate the interest but I don't want to keep you waiting any longer. The answers are below, and no, they don't make any sense to me either.

Pinkie ………… Ingrid Millet (salon) employee
Kinke ………… Ingrid Millet employee
Winky ………… Jusco (like Walmart) employee
Fish ………… Hair stylist
Rainbow ………… Student
Circle ………… Student
Sony ………… School administrator
Luparker ………… School principal
Bobo ………… 2 Primary school students: one a boy and one a girl

The Joy of Cooking

Cooking is a joy, no matter where you live. Hong Kong has challenged that notion for me, yet, more and more, I think it's starting to be true again.

Let me begin by laying out some of the challenging aspects of cooking in Hong Kong. Sure, good cooks have too be flexible, but I sincerely doubt that Julia Childs ever cooked in a 3' by 4'7" kitchen. The close quarters require great coordination for a few reasons. First, any time a knife comes out of the drawer, it is pleasantly close to other people. Second, that means all of the appliances attached to this tiny space are likewise tiny. No oven, a fridge half the some of the one I had in the States and one medium-sized sink. The other drawback is that valuable counter space has to be given up to our office-sized water cooler and microwave; if you can't drink the tap, then we have to keep something handy. Turns out the giant water cooler was cheaper than stocking cases of bottled water. Throw in storage space, and it feels like I’m working in an airplane galley.

All that aside, there are some good things going for the DIY gastronomic in Hong Kong. I long lamented in the States the infrequency of fish in my diet; I want to be like one of those 90 year old Japanese dudes still working as a fisherman and playing tag with my greatgrandkids. Since I presently live on a peninsula attached to an archipelago, it is convenient and cheap to get all manner of seafood. For example, I visited a fishing village yesterday, where groups of people gather around the pier when a boat comes in so they can yell their orders down.

Which brings me to my second point. Fresh food in Hong Kong is cheap. To cook dinner last night, we spent the equivalent of $1 US to buy four kinds of vegetables and then another $5 for freshly prepared fish and beef balls. This, along with some rice, made enough for dinner and lunch today, and these ingredients are impeccably fresh since we can easily walk to our choice of markets everyday. We have a Western-style supermarket as well as the traditional Chinese wet market within a ten-minute walk.

I grant, this still means I have to cook whatever I buy in a small wok on my gas range, but I'm learning to be creative. When all else fails and I can't fight my cravings for lasagna or cookies, there is a Mrs. Fields in my train station and a half-dozen Italian restaurants on the way home.

The Name Game

This is why we name our kids instead of letting them do it themselves. In Hong Kong people pick their own English names and they usually do so in elementary school, at least the first time. English names can change as quickly as hairstyles. Perhaps this is a compensation for a universal resentment from teenagers that their parents chose their name instead of them, but names are frivolous things here. To help you better appreciate the situation, dear reader, I have prepared a little game.

Each of the names below corresponds with one of the contexts in which we met each person. To make it a little easier, we have included multiple students' names. When you think you have figured out who is who, submit your guesses as a comment so all can enjoy.

Pinkie ………… School principal

Kinke ………… Hair stylist

Winky ………… 2 students: one a boy and one a girl

Fish ………… Student

Rainbow ………… Ingrid Millet (salon) employee

Circle ………… Jusco (like Walmart) employee

Sony ………… School administrator

Luparker ………… Student

BoBo ………… Ingrid Millet Employee

The End of Holidays

Well the holiday season is over, and I am not all that disappointed. Months of celebrations have come to an end as January draws to a close. This last holiday, Chinese New Year, has been the one to do us in. This holiday is billed as a traditional time of cultural memory and filial piety. It could more accurately be described as pushing crowds and tourist traps. Chinese New Year may have also been the holiday that put us over the edge because it lasts a whole week. This how our week went.

Thursday We visited a seasonal flower market to pick up some festive floral decorations for the house, but ended up spending the time dodging drunken revelers stumbling home.

Friday & Saturday Quiet days at home. Ran a few errands. Needed more of these.

Sunday On New Year's Eve, we went to eat a traditional meal at an aunt's house. We were warmly received and fed, and we watched a silly countdown on TV with more synchronized dancing and some singing I would rate as “early round American Idol.” On the way home we were treated to a few more drunkards going home. Watch your step.

Monday The next afternoon we went out to a Chinese New Year football match headlined by Korean and Czech teams. The games were exciting even though the 40,000-seat stadium was at only 30% capacity. The games ended with penalties and as it was a tournament and the teams were tied at the end of the regular five shooters, they continued through the 11-men rosters until it came time for the keepers to shoot – pretty thrilling stuff even if you’re not a diehard football fan. Our next venture was a significant departure from our earlier enjoyments. We caught a train across town to watch the tail end of the biggest parade of the year. Instead of lots of traditional costumes and decorative floats we spent about an hour being in a 10-person deep crowd being pushed from all directions by some of the least charitable humans I have encountered in a long time. If someone could explain to me the logic of one old lady elbowing her way around a man with a stroller to be similarly crushed in 1.5ft ahead, I would really appreciate it. My normally passive-aggressive nature was overcome, as I couldn’t help openly chastising 2 people pushing from the middle of a crowd, despite the low likelihood they understood what I said. It really was one of those moments where you realize the great bulwark simple courtesy is against mindless selfishness. As soon as we got out of the crowd, we took a circuitous route to a farther train station in order to avoid as much of the crowds as possible. Once home, we sat silently in front of the TV for an hour or so, occasionally muttering comments about the depravity of humans in general.

Tuesday After the night before, we thought we would try something simpler and smaller and went to visit a department store across town, which turned pout to be closed for the holiday. That evening we hid out from the crowds and watched the melodramatic story of a very dumb dog stuck between two buildings rather than watching the big fireworks show at the harbor.

Wednesday Having sufficiently licked our wounds, we tried another big event. The main race track in Hong Kong hosted 80,000 people for the New Year’s races. We watched as people handed over what was later reported to be 1.4b of accumulated wealth ($10 of it ours) to the track and the race organizers. Good to know the recession hasn’t hit all sectors of the economy.

Thursday A new mall farther from the traditional touristy corridors was our plan, but we were unable to escape them entirely. On the train ride home, we traveled right through the heart of the tourist area, resulting in our being farted upon and one tourist attempting to stand between my knees as I sat. Bear in mind, compared with train service elsewhere in Asia, this experience was downright luxurious. Add to that the fact that I was made fun of for my coffee order (yes, I know I am a coffee snob) and at the boulangerie we tried I made the staff awkward, prompting the response, and I quote, "Go, sit down." I think I have all the elements for a teenage, angst-filled emo song.

Friday We traveled across town to greet a family friend visiting from the US. This kind soul brought us a suitcase full of niceties from friends and family in the States and upon delivery promptly began to share the story of the trouble with her sciatica and her bulging disc. “Sorry. Here’s some chocolate” was the best response we had.

Hopefully next year’s holiday season will involve significantly less pushing crowds, shoppers pulling items out of your hand, and farting tourists. Maybe, this will be one of those experiences we look back on later and say we just didn’t know what we were doing and walked into the worst situations, unintentionally avoiding the really great stuff, which just happened to slip by unnoticed. You have to have something to hope for, even if it is far fetched.

Happy Holidays!!

I saw an episode of Everybody Hates Chris where Chris’ family converts to Kwanzaa so the dad will not have to pay for Christmas gifts for family and friends. The Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, holiday, et al season in Hong Kong is just about the opposite experience.

The holiday season in Hong Kong begins with American and Canadian Hong Kong expats celebrating Thanksgiving on the 27th of Nov. The season has the traditional buildup to Christmas that one would expect in the US. Instead of aurally filling the time with Mariah Carey and Frank Sinatra singing Christmas songs, however, stores in Hong Kong are just as likely to play full length Christmas hymns and carols: not just the verses with the asterisk.

Christmas itself was an interesting time too because in Hong Kong, crowds count down to Christmas Day a la New Years Eve. I wondered if this was an abnormal trend but one of the friends I was out with called his mom at 12:05 to wish her Merry Christmas. The scene was repeated 6 days later when we all counted down to the Gregorian New Year. Perhaps one of the only benefits to a 12-hour time differential is that everyone I want to talk to in the US is wake when I my clock strikes 12.

But the fun is not over still. As soon as the lovely fir was removed from my apartment building, Chinese New Year decorations went up. Depending on when the lunar new year falls in the Western calendar, Chinese New Year is celebrated anywhere between mid-January and the end of February. In 2009, the Chinese calendar year 4707 will begin on January 26th and people will count down the night before as well. Businesses close for the typical day of and day before, but people celebrate the New Year or Spring Festival, for the whole week. People, this means I get to celebrate from November 27 to the end of January and that’s not even counting Halloween.

Celebrating with family and friends is important in Hong Kong but shopping bags and gift receipts are the primary hallmarks of the Holiday season in Hong Kong. Hong Kong gift giving borrows Hanukkah’s pattern instead of Christmas’ one day, even though in Hong Kong, Christmas is the primary religiously ceremony – there are smaller Muslim and Jewish populations. This comes as a relief to me because like most Gentile kids, when I learned Jewish kids got gifts throughout Hanukkah, I was tempted to convert. Praise God, Hong Kong has solved my crisis of faith. Here I get gifts for three months.

Hong Kong is a great place to celebrate the holiday of your choice with gifts and gatherings, but it can be tough if your move here involves leaving those most dear. Its times like these that Skype, cheap calling cards and easy access to the email make a difference in connecting to the folks back home. The other thing that helps make holidays in a new land comfortable is finding like-minded souls to commiserate/celebrate with. If you’re homesick, odds are, you’re not the only one. Western-themed restaurants offer "traditional" meals and parties for those willing to medicate their loneliness with their wallets and expat websites create avenues for impromptu gatherings and informal celebrations. And remember, if gifts, extra days off and cheerful crowds still can’t cure your holiday humbugs, you can always use an outbreak of H5N1 or SARS to con a plane ticket out of a worried relative.

Cost of Living

You wouldn't believe what people here live on. Or maybe some of you would. Moving to Hong Kong from the US brought into relief the macro differences between social and economic systems. The salaries we earn as expats with professional skills seemed in line with us expectations before we arrived but after walking the streets for a while, it is clear that we operate at a level above our self-conception.

You see the average worker here works a 50-hour week for $9k (all figures in HK dollars) a month. Just for reference sake the HKD-USD exchange rate is about 7.75 right now. Salaries here have a gap unseen in the US because it is based upon which market your job is tied to. Investment bankers' salaries have to compete with New York and London but construction workers' salaries only compete with Guangdong province. The resulting gap would rend the social fabric in most Western nations, but in Hong Kong the government and its citizens have taken certain measures to offset this.

Things here are cheap. Our friend who makes $9k/month can get government housing for about $1100/month, which is essentially a modest apartment which the tenant is expected to furnish and/or remodel to their liking. Even if you exceed the income limits you only need pay 300% rent and get the same apartment. This is possible because in the 1970's the government along with private developers 'built' new cities out of outlying villages - including the both cities the author has lived in. Now granted government housing here is as it is everywhere, substandard; but if it only costs you 13% of your salary you can afford to sock some away for a down payment on a nicer place.

Housing isn't the only cheap thing around here. Manufactured goods are cheap because all those products that say 'Made in China' were likely made a province or two away. Even imported items are relatively cheap because Hong Kong is one of the four busiest ports in the world, which allows scale to lower the costs for importers. The result of all this is that labor is cheap here too, mostly because the things workers need to buy don't cost that much.

The other thing that helps is the way families are structured here. In an idealized portrayal of the US, children live with their parents until their early 20's and then strike out on their own. In Hong Kong, children will live with their parents until marriage and if they are the eldest in the family, they may just stay put and wait to inherit the house. If young adults do not choose this option another common approach is to move in with friends, but either way the cost of housing is always defrayed by family or friends.

What this translates into is that the average person in Hong Kong probably has a nicer handbag or TV than we do, but when we tell them where we live they think we pay too much in rent. While its true that expats command higher salaries for importing their skill sets, they typically import their spending habits and lifestyle expectations as well. full disclosure: most expats I have met do not and would not follow the pattern described above but according to one estimate, 50-60% of locals live out their lives this way.

This reminds me once again of the heritage Foundation’s annual survey, which has ranked Hong Kong as the freest economy in the world 14 years running. The government in Hong Kong has helped to keep the cost of living cheap, allowing companies to profit and people to enjoy their lives - so long as living in a 450' apartment in a crowded, noisy city is your idea of enjoyment.

What lives on my TV

Propaganda

In the US, people often said that the media was guilty of propaganda, either for the right or the left. What I see on the TV in Hong Kong, however, hasn't been found on US TV sets for some time. Take for example the commercial celebrating the extraterrestrial exploits of China's astronauts - they did the first Chinese space walk in a Chinese-made space suit (full disclosure: there was a guy in a Russian-made suit waiting in the airlock if things went bad). The commercial shows four kids in mock space suits inviting the public to come see the spacemen at a gala event. Tragic though it may be, the only way to get Americans to pay attention to an astronaut is to strap an adult diaper to them.

Synchronized Dancing

Before I moved here, I thought the modern viewing public was sufficiently protected from synchronized dancing, which had been relegated to musicals and Bollywood. Much to my chagrin, I find myself regularly subject to synchronized dancing in a variety of contexts. One of the major networks publicly celebrated their 40th anniversary by making all of their talent sing and dance on stage. Can you imagine House, Jack Bauer and Gordon Ramsey all singing and dancing on stage together? Even the commercial for the home wares store has "shoppers" dancing through the aisles. No one dances at Wal-Mart.

The other place you're bound to see synchronized dancing is the beauty pageants. You see, in the first five weeks I lived here, I witnessed three beauty pageants, none of which even acknowledge the existence of the others. The funniest part to me is that the contestants use the shows to either be scouted by the networks as new talent or to marry a wealthy tycoon serving as a ‘guest judge.’ So you know I ‘m not lying.

Lots of Public Service Announcements

The Hong Kong government is very concerned about the behavior of its citizens: and attitude I suspect is common across Asian nations. The really noticeable part is not that they have public service messages but that Hong Kong has so many and that they are quite blunt. One of the least subtle examples is the ad condemning drugs, where you see a man have an emotional breakdown at his wedding, run out it into the street, and collapse laughing on the median as blood begins to flow from his nose. Who needs an egg and a frying pan? Skip the allusions and show them a gross overdose. My personal favorite, however, is the one with Jackie Chan trying to convince truck and bus drivers to not drive recklessly. Apparently, this is a real need as I read in paper that a bus driver over our northern border crashed his double-decker bus with 80 passengers because he was doing about 80mph.

TV may seem boring to a lot of US viewers, judging by the fact that the networks are scrambling to keep up with streaming video and similar internet based tech, but take heart. There is a simple remedy for this. You can either buy and expensive plane ticket to some pleasant Asian city and sit in your hotel room watching TV all day or take the less expensive (albeit less glamorous) route and pay the extra $45 a month to get cable channels filled with languages, customs and commercials that are brand new to you.