An ode to Orangette

Lately, I've been reading the archives of one of my favorite blogs, Orangette. I discovered the delightful Molly Wizenberg a couple of years ago, through my dear friend Helen, who had read about Molly's blog (and her then-upcoming column in Bon Appétit) in her kindergarten-class newsletter. (Does your kindergarten class have a newsletter? Mine does not. I have no trouble imagining Mrs. Dobbs lovingly compiling one, however. Once, when home on a break from college, I ran into her in the grocery store. She recognized me instantly. I had no idea who she was.)

Well, it's only lately one of my favorite blogs. Shortly after Helen sent me the link, I bookmarked it (I was on deadline, after all), then proceeded to mostly ignore it, pulling it up only once in a while and reading only the latest entry. I'm not sure what sent me back to Orangette, but I'm thankful for whatever it was. I'm now reading her blog from the beginning, since her new book is not yet available in Hong Kong and I'm not in the States for another month. Visiting a bookstore to buy my very own copy of Molly's book is, oh, No. 3 on "Things to do if I make it through customs," after "Savoring a chile relleno and a margarita at Matt's" and "Going to a store that carries MORE THAN THREE SHOES in my size!" (And that's three actual shoes, not three pairs of them. No guarantee that any of the three will have a mate, either.)

But I digress.

Orangette is mostly a food blog, and many of her current posts involve sharing recipes and stories about them. But it wasn't always so. There's lots of food back in the 2004 posts, like this one that involves roast lamb and a recipe for "evil flan" (that I really, really must try!) but there are occasional gems like this one, with vignettes from her weekend "in reverse chronological order" that have very little to do with food. If only my weekends were as interesting... (Of course, they're really only one day long, and that cuts into the fun.)

I just love Molly's writing. It inspires me to do a bit myself. All good writing inspires me to write. What else should I be reading?

A long time coming...

It's funny, the things that confuse us.

Last Friday, for me, it was silverware.

I spent a long weekend in the Philippines, where I met up with a college friend and her traveling companion. We spent the whole time in Manila, which is, in my opinion, a completely skippable city; if you find yourself in the Philippines, do yourself a favor and get out of the capital as fast as you can. It was a slow weekend, partly because the city is pretty difficult to get around -- the taxi drivers had to stop and ask for directions on several occasions, even when we were traveling within the same section of the city; the traffic is atrocious -- and partly because my friends were laid low by foot-and-mouth disease. It was no fun for any of us.

But sitting in a restaurant, I did have an epiphany of sorts: I have been in Hong Kong long enough for the strange to become the familiar.

When we sat down for dinner, I spent about 45 seconds looking for the chopsticks. I spent another 20 staring at the fork and spoon beside my plate, wondering what I was supposed to do with them. I did a double-take when the waitress refilled my glass. These things never happen in Hong Kong. Actually, I was amazed that we didn't have to flag down the restaurant staff. I actually told my friends, "You never get this kind of service in Hong Kong." It's true: I usually feel like I'm fighting with the waiters...

I also had to remind myself every time we crossed the street that the cars were coming from the opposite direction. And that people don't speak Cantonese. (Not that I do, either. Not really.)

It's funny the things we get used to. It's not that I never use spoons and forks these days -- but I usually use them at home (or in the office, when I bring food or grab a quiche or a salad or something). Of course, there are forks in Hong Kong restaurants -- but usually not the kind that serve Chinese (or Thai or Vietnamese) food. When I eat in a restaurant that serves Asian food, I expect chopsticks. And seeing a fork on that table in Manila threw me for a loop.

Another thing drove home the fact that I've been in Hong Kong a long time: My work visa, which is good for a year, expired yesterday. I'm back in the country legally, but as a visitor.

But this time, I'm a visitor who has an inkling of how things work around here. And that's a good feeling to have.

A taste of home

Many, many times in the past year – more times than I can count – I have passed over a strong desire for a taco by ordering dumplings instead.

 

And yet, one year after I walked off the plane and into Hong Kong, I found myself at a bar in a Mexican place, chatting with my friend Rosa and sipping margaritas.

 

It was, somehow, the most appropriate place to celebrate my Hong Kong anniversary. For 364 days, I had steadfastly suppressed any and all cravings for Mexican food. There’s a good reason for this: I’ve eaten Mexican food in foreign places before, and it’s almost universally disappointing. I learned long ago to steer my parents to my favorite Mexican place the instant we left the airport. (I’ve also known exactly where I’m going and what I’m going to order the day I return to Dallas in May. I decided months ago.)

 

In addition to the killer Chinese food, which I have loved from Day One, Hong Kong has a lot of great ethnic food – and you can get pretty much everything here. There’s no shortage of Thai, Indian or Vietnamese places. I’ve found the best croque madames and steak-frites I’ve eaten outside France. But, taco snob that I am, I found disappointing what my co-workers raved about. (Seriously, how good can something be when it comes from a place called “Taco Loco”?)

 

But when a friend told me that the new Mexican restaurant in SoHo had great margaritas, curiosity got the best of me – and I found myself at the bar with Rosa.

 

And I have to admit: They were far, far better than I expected. The nachos, too, despite the use of Spanish chorizo. Surprisingly, the tacos weren’t that bad. I wasn’t disappointed. Actually, I was impressed – I didn’t see a Mexican in the place. (In fact, the kitchen was staffed entirely by Chinese. It’s a bit funny, since the Chinese restaurants in the States are staffed almost entirely by Mexicans.)

 

At the time, I couldn’t decide if I liked it because it was good or if I liked it because it had been a year since I’d eaten a decent taco. I’ve come to think that I liked it because it was good. Because when you’re living in a place that’s as different as it can possibly be from home, nothing is better than a taste of the familiar. Was it the taco of my dreams? No – it’s far from it. But did it scratch that itch for goodness wrapped in a tortilla? You betcha.  

 

And on March 7, 2010, if the restaurant and I are both still here, you’ll probably find me at the bar, sipping a margarita.

Vietnam, A to Z

I got back from a trip to Vietnam with my friend Liz and her grandmother Karen a couple of weeks ago. I'd planned to do this post with photos, but I've been a bit slow on toning them. (Surprise, surprise. Some are on my Flickr site, though.) I'll add pictures to this post sooner or later, but, in the meantime, I'd like to share some highlights of my trip.

I'm using the same format I used for my trip to Taiwan several months ago. It takes the pressure off – You get the highlights relatively soon after the trip, and I'm not worried I'm boring you with all the details.

So, here we go: Vietnam, A to Z

A is for áo dài, the traditional Vietnamese dress. (It's said kind of like ow-yai, at least in the north.) We saw lots of women wearing them, though few were walking down a Hanoi street.

Mostly, we saw them in one context: it's the uniform for Vietnamese schoolgirls. They're white – shockingly, so. They do an amazing job keeping them clean (especially since, one of our guides told us, the boys do what they can to mess up the girls' clothes…) It's a nice change from the school uniforms in the U.S. (khaki or black or navy pants; school-color polo, etc.). It's also quite fun to see flocks of girls riding their bikes to or from school – and just as fun trying to snap a photo of them from a moving vehicle on the same road.

B is for bread. Really tasty bread. In fact, it's the first decent bread I've had since I moved to Asia. It's got a thin, crackly crust – like the best baguettes I ate in France – but it's also lighter. The secret (as I understand it) is a combination of rice and soft wheat flours. Another bonus: It's still soft the next day! We bought a loaf on the way to Halong Bay, and then left it in the car. We gave it up as lost, thinking it would be as hard as a rock when we got back to it the next afternoon. It wasn't!

C is for coffee. Really tasty coffee. In fact, it's the first decent coffee I've had since I moved to Asia. It's strong, good hot or iced, and brewed perfectly at a street stall. The most popular way to drink it: iced, with a dollop of condensed milk. Perfection in a glass.

D is for durian ice cream, which Liz ordered at the Rex in Ho Chi Minh City. I had hoped it wouldn't have that awful smell durian has, but it did. And it tasted like rotten onions. (But Liz ate it all!)

E is for embroidery. Liz bought a giant one that the woman at the shop said took about five months to complete.

F is for funeral rites. It's complicated, but part of it involves burning paper things that the dead will need in the next life. This includes things like money and food, but also things like bicycles and cellphones. Karen, amazed by this, had to buy a paper cellphone to take home. (She really wanted a paper BlackBerry, but they were sold out.)

G is for a glass of frog-egg tea, consumed at an organic garden in Hoi An. (Our cooking school guide, Susu, explained: "In Vietnam, we eat everything.") Actually, the "tea" – a mixture of frog eggs, ginger, mint, sugar and water – was quite refreshing. And it only reminded me a bit of seventh-grade biology.

H is the letter of the trip! It stands for Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hoi An, Huế and Ho Chi Minh City, the places we visited. In 10 days.

I is for iPhone, which Liz was never without. Also, when our cooking school instructor saw it, he told Liz he'd cook for her for life if she'd buy him one. She thought it'd be a pretty good deal… It's also really, really making me want an iPhone.

J is for … just go on to the next letter for now. (Maybe I'll fill this in later.)

K is for kayaking, which I did for the first time in Halong Bay. (I even got to steer!)

L is for Lan, the worst tour guide ever. We knew things were going to be bad when we arrived at the Danang Airport at 9:30, hot and exhausted, and Lan was far too cheerful. The woman was useless! And we all wanted to strangle her at one time or another. She has two insanely infuriating tendencies: rushing us through things and disappearing. Our visit to a museum of Champa sculptures was one of the fastest museum trips I've ever taken: It wasn't a big museum, but we were in and out of there in 20 minutes. And I lost count of how many times one of us would look up from taking a picture or studying something to say to the others, "Where's Lan?" Never have I been so glad to see someone go.

M is for motorcycles, the transport of choice for most people in Vietnam. (When we arrived, Zum, our guide, said: "Welcome to Hanoi: a city of six million people, and three million motorcycles!) And people load them down with everything…

N is for Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan, whom we saw at the Tu Duc Tomb in Hue after two days of missing him at various places. We also saw his motorcade in the Mekong Delta. (The man was stalking us!) It was my first (and probably only) brush with royalty.

O is for the Old Quarter of Hanoi, through which we took a cyclo ride. At rush hour. I'm still amazed that we shared the road with as many cars and bikes and motorcycles as we did without getting so much as a bump.

P is for pagodas, of which we saw many. (We often said, only half joking, that we were pagodaed out.) The best one by far was Thien Mu pagoda in Hue, where we saw a Buddhist prayer service.

Q is for the quest for the ultimate pho. It's a noodle soup that's pretty much the national dish of Vietnam (it's even on the stamps!), and every place makes it a bit differently. It's hard to beat a good bowl of noodle soup, but I love pho for the things you add in it: pickled garlic and onions, crispy shallot, fresh cilantro and squirts of lime juice. It's heaven in a bowl…

We even learned how to make it ourselves at a cooking class in Hoi An – from broth to noodles. It was delicious, but I think I'll leave it to the experts.

R is for rice fields. The country grows a lot of rice.

S is for the shape of Vietnam: an S! (It's also said to be the shape of a dragon). Zum told us there was a reason the country is shaped like an S: to remind everyone that Vietnam is small, but strong.

T is for tailors. They can make almost anything in 24 hours. I got a dress made in Hoi An that I'm planning to wear to a wedding later this year.

U is for Unesco World Heritage Site. I think "Unesco World Heritage" is Lan's favorite phrase. Granted, a lot of things in the center are Unesco sites (and six of the seven in Vietnam are in the center; the other is Halong Bay), but we didn't need to be reminded of this, oh, every five minutes…

V is for Valentine's Day, which we spent in Ho Chi Minh City. It's a big deal in Vietnam, and that totally took us by surprise. We wanted to have a great last night in Vietnam, but, because we didn't have a reservation, we were turned away from three restaurants. The motorbikes carried young couples, with many of the women holding onto bouquets of flowers. We wanted to end the trip with a drink on the rooftop of the Rex Hotel (it had been closed the night before), but even the hotel was in full-on Valentine's mode. We skipped the roof, for which you needed a ticket, and went to the lounge on the first floor instead. It was packed, mostly with Vietnamese, and featured what Liz called "the Asian version of Barry Manilow." He sang things like "Endless Love" and "Unchained Melody" and "My Valentine." It's enough to make you want to vomit. (Hey! Another "V" word!) We laughed so hard that we cried.

W is for water puppets, which we saw in Hanoi. The farmers from the Red Delta area invented it in the tenth century as a form of entertainment, and it's a lot of fun. The puppeteers stand behind a screen and control the puppets using long bamboo rods, while a traditional Vietnamese band provides background music and sings out the stories being acted out.

I got a kick out of the dragon puppets, which spit fire and water, and the goofy water buffalo.

But the highlight of the show for me: when the hunter cut off the tiger's head.

X is for "Xin chào!" Repeat after me: "Sin chow." Now you know how to say hello in Vietnamese!

Y is for yin-yang. Because there's an S at the center, it's considered another symbol of Vietnam. We saw it on a drum at the Ngo Mon Gate, the main entrance to the Citadel in Hue.

Z is for Zum, the best guide in the history of the universe! I am not making this up. If you're ever in Northern Vietnam and in need of a tour guide, let me know. I'll send you his info.

That's it! Well, that's not it. It's barely the highlights. There's so much more I could say, but I'll end with this: 10 days was not nearly long enough. I know there's more to see and do.

But honestly, I'd go back just for the coffee.

Environmental evils

The Keep Hong Kong Green! campaign totally cracks me up, considering how insanely polluted the place is, but things are getting out of hand, people.

In the grocery store the other day, I heard the following announcement: "Please do your part to protect the environment, and don't use a plastic bag!" To encourage shoppers not to use plastic bags, it has set up special lanes for people who don't need them, which is cool. Of course, there's like, two people in line for those lanes and 22 in line for bag-dispensing lanes. (Another store offers a refund of 10 cents if you bring your own bag. That's slightly more than a penny U.S., but I guess it adds up. I mean, if I remember to take my own bags 69 times, it's bus fare home from the office...)

It's not an unusual announcement these days -- encouraging the use of reuseable bags is all the rage -- but it's ridiculous in CitySuper, the grocery store I was in, because everything they sell is imported. Hong Kong imports most of its food; there's not enough land to farm here. But there's also a pretty big expat community, and us expats hanker for a taste of home now and then. To get it (or as close as we can get to it), we head for stores like CitySuper, which stock almost everything imaginable -- I've taken home good French cheeses, non-Hershey's cocoa powder, my favorite brand of French yogurt, and even the occasional bag of masa and a can of tomatillos. (And although they sell peanut butter, there are no Reese's peanut butter cups in sight.) It's expensive, but sometimes, it's worth it.

And it's totally bad for the environment. Every customer taking home their purchases in reuseable bags is not going to offset the damage done if the store continues to fly in brie from three different continents.

Everyone's an editor

Seen in a bathroom stall at the Ho Chi Minh City Airport:


I saw this in not one but two different bathrooms. (I thought about looking in the other stalls, but I ran out of time.) The Japanese editing, in particular, makes me smile. I wish I knew what it said...

I admit it...

...I suck at the blogging thing.

But my life really isn't that interesting!

I guess I should have thought of that before I started the blog.

From my home to yours

Best wishes in this holiday season. Nothing says it better than skyscrapers.

Do your part!

The building management has kindly posted a giant sign next to the elevator in my apartment building. Its purpose: Help residents prevent fire and theft (which, according to the sign, are more common during the holidays and through to Lunar New Year).

Most of the tips listed make total sense: Close your windows; lock your doors; don't leave candles burning.

One, however, leaves me quite puzzled:




Surely, bad music sung badly would keep the burglars away.

My sister is in town (check out her account of her trip), and we're headed to Thailand in a few hours. So I'm going to use that as my excuse not to blog for the next week.

Because I've been so good at the blogging thing up to now...

A friendly reminder

So, things have been a bit crazy since I got back from the Mainland last Friday. A better blogger than I would have told you all about it by now, but you're stuck with me: the girl who has barely unzipped her suitcase. What, you expected photos, already? Puh-leaze.

I'm a bit occupied at the moment fighting off a plague of ants.

The one thing I did get accomplished this week: I voted. I didn't fashion a voting booth in my shower using a pirate flag like somebody I know, but I did sit at my kitchen table and fill in (most) of the bubbles. And then I took my ballot to the nearest FedEx office, since they're mailing absentee ballots of overseas voters for free.

The friendly reminder of the title: Go vote. If I (and several other Americans I know) can do it from halfway around the world, you can do it from there.

Even if FedEx isn't around to send in your ballot for you.

*************
Also, if two-plus years of campaigning haven't gotten you in the election spirit, this will. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next 6 days bring.

Like greased lightnin'

Tonight, I timed the Ikea men who delivered and assembled my furniture. (Yes, in Hong Kong you can pay Ikea to assemble the furniture. It was, perhaps, the best $43 I've spent in a long, long time.)

They began at 10:24 p.m. At 10:34, one man had assembled the bookcase, save for putting in the shelves, and another had put together a chair. At 10:40, the bookshelf and another chair were finished. At 10:47, the final chair. At 10:49, the table was done. At which point Ikea guy No. 3 throws up his hands, smiles, and says "Finished!"

Five pieces of furniture in 25 minutes.

Had I just had everything delivered, I would have been struggling with the box 25 minutes after I started. It would have taken me two days to put everything together.

(Actually, had I been doing it myself, I would have been yelling and cursing after 45 minutes, crying after 55 minutes, and abandoning the mess and going to the bar after 60 minutes. Then, I would have waited for my dad to come put everything together for me. Good thing he's flying in tomorrow.)

In Dallas, I did put a similar, much larger, table together by myself. I started cursing at the 60-minute mark and crying at the 90-minute mark -- when I saw that the instructions I had been following ever so diligently by myself now pictured TWO people. Eventually, I got it together. But it was a struggle. After which I swore to never buy anything from Ikea again.

But Dallas doesn't offer delivery and assembly.

God, I love Hong Kong.

Taipei, A to Z

After a two-week delay, I’m finally bringing you an update on my short trip to Taiwan. I’m borrowing this format from a dear friend. I like that it’s short and simple. Besides, who doesn’t love the alphabet?

(By the way, more photos can be found at my Flickr set.)

So here we go:

A: Asparagus juice!

B: Bubble tea. I haven’t had any since my internship in New York, and, since the stuff was developed in Taiwan, I felt this was a good time to drink it again. It had milk in it along with the tapioca pearls; I’m probably getting a kidney stone as we speak.

C: Chopstick skills. Emily, my traveling companion, and I learned how to cut noodles using our chopsticks. It started at the Peking Duck place; we got soup, and the woman serving it used her chopsticks to cut the noodles. Emily and I decided on the spot that we, too, needed such a skill and promptly started practicing. (It took a bit. The waitress, seeing our troubles refilling our soup bowls, hurried over to help us several times. But in the end, we conquered the noodles.)

D: Danshui. It’s the stop at the end of Taipei’s MRT line. We wandered along the riverside boardwalk, watched Chinese flamenco dancers and saw pigs in the street.










E: Eating. I think it’s the national pastime of Taiwan; I don’t think we ate anything we didn’t like. We barely made a dent in the duck, though.

F: Face masks! The hotel gave them to us when we checked in. Emily models one.

Lovely, isn't she?

G: Giant mammoth. As we were wandering through Chaing Kai-shek Memorial Hall, we heard a bunch of people laughing. They were dragging along a mammoth balloon.

Emily had fun with him.

He was a bit deflated, though.

H: HEAT! We saw one sign with 37 degrees Celsius. That’s a cool 98 Fahrenheit. Fine when you’re inside; not so when you’re wandering around the city.


I: Ice Monster, which is where we ate giant plates of shaved ice. It’s like a sno-cone on steroids: shaved ice topped with mango, condensed milk, and some syrupy stuff. But it’s perfect for those brutally hot days -- I really did feel cooler after eating it.

Now, why don’t they have this in Hong Kong?

J: Jade in unusual shapes, seen at the National Palace Museum. Among them: cabbage and a slab of meat. (I told you eating was the national pastime, right?)

K: Kindness. Everyone we met was so warm and friendly. The loveliest person was perhaps Grace, an English0speaking guide at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. She came up to us after the changing of the guard ceremony and asked if she could explain Taiwan’s history. Then, when it was over, she gave us gifts. Again, why don’t they have this in Hong Kong?

L: Lin, the crazy cab driver. Who taught us the following:

“Taiwan tea, No. 1
Taiwan Beer, No. 2
Taiwan dumpling, No. 3.”

Chinese tea - “not too good, not too bad, so-so.” Or, in Mandarin, “mamahuhu.” (I googled it; it means “horse-horse-tiger-tiger.” But I don’t see how that translates to “so-so.” )

He also had some rather interesting things to say about Americans and Japanese. I’m glad to be the former, at least during that cab ride.

M: Motorcycles. Everyone rides them. At intersections, they all congregate at the front of the line during red lights, so it looks like a city of dueling biker gangs.


N: Night Markets. We started at Shilin, the most famous one. It was lively when we got there, then, a few minutes later, the merchants started hiding their stuff. The street went from packed to empty in three minutes. A few stalls away, a police officer was writing a woman a ticket. We asked someone about this a bit later, and she said it happens several times a night. The police station is just around the corner.

O: Oolong tea. It’s particularly famous, though not my favorite. We had it once: at a shop owned by a friend of Lin, the vivacious cabdriver. He took us there. After all, “Taiwan tea No. 1!” We paid way too much, but it was a good story to start the trip.

P: Pepper pork buns. Perhaps the best thing I ate in Taiwan. I saw the long line at the Shilin Night Market.

Q: Question: What service vehicle sings in Taiwan? Garbage trucks. We first heard them coming up from the MRT station. Our immediate thought: ice cream! Boy, were we surprised.

R: Red bean dumplings. Yum.

S: Space. There’s a lot of it. Or perhaps it just feels that way, coming from Hong Kong. One of the first things we noticed on the ride into the city from the airport was how short the buildings were. And how much sky was visible.

Even the MRT stations had high ceilings and a lot of room!

T: Temples. Taipei has some lovely ones! The colors are always so bright, the deities so full of character. We walked through one of the largest, Longshan, at night. It was filled with people lighting incense and praying. Outside, a “cleansing waterfall.”

U: Unesco family day. Which got us into a fort in Danshui for free.

V: Very long lines. They mean good food. They led us to pepper pork buns, after all. And there was a long, long line at Din Tai Fung. Both were totally worth the wait.

W: World’s tallest building (for now), Taipei 101.


Among its cool features, the world’s fastest elevator (85 floors in 35 seconds. It takes a minute to get to the top floor in my apartment building: the 6th.); the “super big wind damper,” which stabilizes the building during typhoons and earthquakes...

... some cool mascots known as the damper babies...

... and the coolest mailboxes I’ve ever seen (you can also add your own “postmark” with Taipei 101 rubber stamps...).

Also, some kick-ass views of Taipei.

X: Xaiolongbao, or “soup dumplings.” Eaten at Din Tai Fung, perhaps the most popular tourist destination in Taipei.

They were so good, we went there twice.

Y: I’m skipping Y, dammit. I’ve done all the hard letters until now!

Z: Z’s. We may not have gotten enough, but we were back at the hotel and thinking about sleep about the time one of us would have been on deadline. The hazards of packing in so much in so short a time…

Umbrella angst

Today, I hate Hong Kong. Well, maybe not hate. But I spent a good chunk of the day seriously questioning my love for this town (after talking it up to someone in the States). The complaints I have aren’t major things – other than the lack of decent Mexican food. But, these little annoyances have added up over the last eight months, and, today, when FIVE locksmiths refused to make a copy of my apartment key -- including one who made a copy of said key not two months ago (with whom I promptly lost my temper; I kind of feel bad about it now) -- I decided that I had had enough.

Today, I hate Hong Kong.

The rain pushed it over the edge.

This city is absolutely unbearable when it rains. Even if, like today, it isn’t raining very hard. There’s one reason, and one reason only: No one in this city knows how to use an umbrella. They simply weave all over the sidewalk, never really looking at the people around them (particularly this tall white girl who is pretty sure that she will one day get her eye poked out by the edge of an old lady’s umbrella). And, when meeting people coming from the opposite direction, no one tilts their umbrella to either side or moves it up or down. They just barrel through and expect everyone else to get out of the way.

And it doesn’t stop on the sidewalk. Oh, no. Some people (particularly little old ladies) carry this nonsense inside. More than once, I have watched people who have been under cover and completely removed from the rain for several minutes keep their umbrellas up. The chances of this happening increase exponentially the narrower and more crowded the walkway gets or if flights of stairs are involved.

It’s surprising, really, considering how often it rains here. I would have expected there to be some sophisticated, unspoken umbrella etiquette. But no such luck.

There are some other things I don’t understand. Like why escalators are so confusing. Or why people have to rush to get on the MTR before people can leave it.

Soon, I’ll go right back to loving the city again. But I think I’ll just stay inside until it stops raining.

Stars and sand

It was one Friday night where I was seriously looking forward to going home and crawling into bed with a book. I’d just finished a six-day week, and I’d gone straight to the office from the airport after a very fun, very exhausting three-day weekend. (More on that trip soon; I’m still toning photos.) Then a coworker announces that she’s heading to Shek O to meet friends and eat Thai food. Did any of us want to join?

I decided to go, and I’m so glad I did. Minus the long cab ride over dark, deserted, winding roads, it was far more relaxing than lying in bed with a book.

After a late meal of great Thai food, the five of us migrated to a bar by the beach. It was the perfect place for sitting outside, nursing a beer and talking. It’s the first place I’ve been in Hong Kong where I can really smell the ocean. (Well, I can smell it in TST, too, but it doesn’t smell like that. In Shek O, it smells like it’s supposed to!)

It was easy to forget we were in Hong Kong. It really felt like we were on an island in the Caribbean somewhere – as far as one could possibly get from skyscrapers and bright lights and noise and crowds.

I think I could even see stars.

The great milk incident

Feeling the need for a latté (as I do once in a while), I wandered into a well-known coffee chain earlier this week.

A question pops into my head before I order. I ask the boy working the counter: “Where does your milk come from?”

He pulls a carton from the fridge and shows it to me. It’s an Australian brand, he says, and it comes from Indonesia. I ask how long they’ve been using it.

“Oh, six months. More than six months.” He lowers his voice. “Since long before the incident.”

“The incident,” of course, is the ever-widening scandal of tainted milk. At least four children have died; tens of thousands more have severe kidney problems. (It’s not limited to humans, either: Baby animals in a Shanghai zoo have kidney stones, too, after being fed with milk powder for more than a year.) Chinese dairy products have been pulled from store shelves here in Hong Kong. Melamine-tainted products have turned up in an increasing number of Chinese-made exports —yogurt, ice cream, candy, rice balls, koala-shaped cookies, potato-wasabi crackers.

There have been many, many food scares in China over the years. And, even though the government is promising better regulation, I’m sure this won’t be the last one. I’ve always been a bit wary of food from Mainland China, and it’s easy to avoid here. Though most of the food is imported, not all of it comes from China. Even the produce vendors in the street sell California strawberries and Florida oranges and French zucchini.

But very soon, I’m going to the Mainland for two weeks. As much as I’m looking forward to – even excited about -- the food there, I’m worried, too.

It’s easy to avoid thinking about milk laced with plastic and cookies tainted with lead, but it’s harder to push aside thoughts of and vegetables grown in polluted earth, fish from toxic waters, and pork pumped full of steroids. It’s enough to make one lose one’s appetite.

At least I don't have to worry about my occasional lattés.

Chinese lessons

Sometimes I think I should have stuck with Cantonese class at the office.

Yesterday, for instance. Running late for work, I flag down a cab. (I do this regularly, even though I try to take the bus as often as I can.) I told the driver where I wanted to go, in Cantonese.

I was not trying to be funny -- it's a basic address, after all -- but whatever I said made the guy double over with laughter. I think he was wiping tears away from his eyes as he set the meter and drove away from the curb. I'm sure he's at home now, telling his wife, "You aren't going to believe what this gweilo chick said to me today!"

It took me more than a week to feel brave enough to say my destination in Cantonese. In the relative privacy of my apartment, I've been saying the address out loud over and over while I do housework. I'm not sure it's working.

Usually, my exchanges with cab drivers go as follows: I get in a cab and tell the driver my address in Cantonese; a puzzled look comes over his face. I say it again. He sits there. Finally, I pull out the card with my address on it, if I have one. "Ooooh!" he says, finally understanding. He says it like he's trying to correct me for next time. It sounds exactly like what I just said. Then I hang on for dear life as the driver shoots away from the curb.

It's among the most frustrating things about living here. (I'll relate the two most frustrating things in a later post.) It's not that I'm bad with languages. I try to learn at least a few words of the language to the place I'm traveling. I speak French and had no trouble picking up Spanish and bits of Portuguese. I can say basic things like "hello" and "thank you" and "where is the bathroom" in German, Czech, Italian and Japanese. But none of those languages are tonal. Cantonese has six tones.

I have learned a few things. I know the two types of "thank you" and "hello" and "good bye." If I get stuck at a restaurant with only Chinese menus, I can order one thing: "Sichuan noodles." (The only three characters I recognize.)

But spoken Cantonese? It's eluding me.

At least I'm entertaining the occasional cab driver.

Incoming!

Typhoon Nuri is on the way. It's getting exciting, y'all.

From the Hong Kong Observatory:

"The No. 8 Northwest Gale or Storm Signal is in force.

This means that winds with mean speeds of 63 kilometers per hour or more are expected from the northwest quarter.

At 1 p.m., Typhoon Nuri was centred about 60 kilometers east-southeast of Hong Kong Observatory (near 22.0 degrees north 114.7 degrees east) and is forecast to move northwest at about 14 kilometers per hour in the general direction of Hong Kong.

Gales are already affecting many places in the territory. Local winds are expected to increase further."

This is the second time I've been in town when they've raised the T8 warning, which means the whole city pretty much shuts down. Buses stop running, taxis are scarce, and most offices close. By law, you can't be forced to go to work (though I did last time, anyway, as did most of my coworkers).

It's pretty windy in my part of town, but there's not much rain. It is, however, expected to get much worse. Usually, Hong Kong gets nicked by the outside of the storm. But this one is supposed to hit the city directly -- which last happened in 1999, I understand.

We're supposed to be able to work from home, but the system doesn't like Macs. (Reason No. 5,432 to get one.) So I've been told to think of today as a snow day. I'll bunker down and catch up on "30 Rock." (Why was I not watching this before?) And maybe do some cleaning.

They've just raised it to T9. Definitely getting interesting.

Channel surfing

I don’t understand the Olympics television broadcasts.

A friend called this afternoon. “We’re going to watch the men’s basketball game between Spain and the U.S.,” she says. “Meet us at 9:30 so we can get a table. Game starts at 10:30.”

When I get there a bit before 10, the bar is packed. People are milling about outside, eying tables. Rosi and MinJung are at a table, but it’s practically on the sidewalk. The air conditioner is leaking onto the back of Rosi’s chair. The men’s tennis doubles final is on.

People start getting antsy around 10:35. Tennis has been replaced by badminton. The match is just starting: China vs. Indonesia.

The bar manager begins to flip through the channels. Tennis again. The news. A Yankees/Royals game. Rhythmic gymnastics. Cricket. Rugby. Olympic soccer. More cricket. Badminton again.

No basketball. People are not happy.

One guy walks up to the manager. “We reserved a table specifically for the basketball game, and if you aren’t going to show it, we’re going to leave. We aren’t sitting around watching badminton all night.”

An American man pulls the waitress aside and asks her to turn on the basketball game. When she says she can’t, that it’s not on, he points to the TV. “Can you change it then?” he asks. “I’ll watch tennis. I’ll watch cricket. Anything but fucking badminton.”

I’m thinking the same thing. So is Rosi. It’s 10:50.

“A few more minutes,” she says, pointing to the scoreboard in the corner of the screen. “They must play to 21. They’re at 20 now.

“If it’s not over by 11, we’ll leave.”

The badminton protests have been heard. The channel changes again. Tennis. Match point.

Roger Federer’s celebrations are cut short, and basketball finally appears . . . just in time for the second half.

A realization

Something occurred to me this week: I live in Hong Kong.

I live here:


This has taken four months to sink in, and I mostly have Katie to thank for it.

Katie and I went to college together. In fact, because she lived down the hall from me during my freshman year, she was one of the first people I met in college. And since she had never been to Hong Kong before, it was a great excuse to run out and do many of the touristy things I haven’t really done.

I like living here, but I didn’t really see the city for what it is. For me, discovering Hong Kong has been about less about eating noodles and riding the ferry across the harbor and more about finding a place to live and learning how the buses work and picking up some Cantonese and finding the grocery store and generally figuring out how to live in a new city. I left Hong Kong Island only once during the first month and a half that I lived here (and only because I had to go to Macau to get my visa activated). I carried my camera around, but I rarely took it out of the case. Until this week.

This week, Katie and I were tourists. And I finally began to see just how cool this city really is.

Check it out for yourself:

An ode to salad

As seen on the wall of a cafe in Hamamatsu, Japan:

It eats in the meat borrowing and hopeless.
The vegetables, too,
eat and let’s do the good balance having a meal.
You of the living alone.
You who don’t eat vegetables at the house.
It is slightly in luxury as much as the time
of the eating-out and salad how.
Because the person who doesn’t have money has S size, too.

Granted, I haven't spent much time in Japan, but the English translations I've seen have been pretty much spot-on in the wording, if not the punctuation (lots of things are turned into possessives, whether necessary or not).

So I can't quite figure this one out...

What? Don't believe me?


The ode to appetizers is slightly funnier, but I like the line about "You who don't eat vegetables at the house."