After a long absence

It is so hard to get back to something once we’ve fallen behind, and in truth, the thought of all that I’ve missed writing about is what has kept me from this blog until now. But I went to Hong Kong yesterday and bought a Paulo Coelho book, and his works are great for reminding us that there’s nothing that we can do about what has passed, so I hope you will simply enjoy what I have to share with you today.

I continue to marvel at how oddly contented I feel here. From my 8th floor apartment window I look out at Shekou harbor. It is mostly quiet, though the prostitute bars on the road below me sometimes do get noisy, and last night I had to pick up my blankets and move to the bedroom along the front hall. My ironically-named cat, Sweetie, is in fact a good kitty most of the time, but still doesn’t know how to pull in her claws when she’s playing.

Work is rewarding; we just had conferences, so I told all the parents that I will be moving up with the students to teach them in the 8-year-old class next year, and everyone seemed pleased. My colleagues are wonderful, especially my hall-mates, who comprise a rich linguistic stew. David, across the hall, is from “New Zillund,” Mari is Estonian, Leticia is from Brazil, and I’m not sure where Amanda is from, but she has the sweetest “suthen” drawl you could imagine.
And my passport is filling up with Hong Kong stamps! It’s a 5 minute walk to the ferry terminal and a one-hour boat trip to Central HK, but it’s cheaper to take a city bus to the border crossing and hop a 40 minute express bus to a mall in Kowloon. I can happily spend the day there since there’s a Cineplex, bookstore, restaurants, and a great grocery store, or go to the basement level and take the metro into Central. Yesterday was the perfect day, and though I sometimes feel a little lonely traveling around by myself, it felt good to settle back into my own wandering rhythm around the city. It was a lovely spring day, with just enough breeze to keep it pleasant. As I’ve mentioned before, HK is really easy to maneuver. Besides the clean and efficient Metro, there are busses, double-decker trams, and the longest escalator in the world carrying passengers up the slope through different neighborhoods. Everywhere there are covered walkways and lights to get across the busy roads. I’ve gotten hooked on the mango smoothies at a chain restaurant called “Mix” where I can also check my email, so after lunch there I decided to find the Man Mo temple. In the midst of modern galleries and chic cafes, I came upon a small traditional style temple, the air thick with incense. I declined to have my fortune read, but it looked like there was no shortage of customers.

I walked back along the streets, shading my eyes to look up at the soaring high rises. I tried to go to the top floor of the Bank of China building, but it’s not allowed after 2 pm on Saturday, so I’ll have to wait for the view another time. The line for the Peak Tram was way too long, so I went to the Botanical and zoological gardens. Being designed by the British, who like their havens and afternoon teas, HK is a very civilized city. In the midst of the concrete, there are lots of parks and gardens. Suddenly I was walking on densely shaded paths, the sounds of birds shutting out the traffic noise. I spent a long time watching a pair of orang-utangs and reading about the zoo’s mission to help maintain a population that may be reintroduced into the wild some day.

Before coming here, I was afraid that HK streets would be crowded and panic-inducing, so I’m relieved to find out I was wrong. There are lots of people walking around, and in this international city, many of the faces are western, so it’s a bit of a shock after being in Shenzhen. Once I leave the enclave of Shekou, everyone is Chinese.

I ended my day back at the mall, picking up some books so I could read while eating great pad Thai at one of its cozy restaurants. I bought my favorite bread at the market, and came home that night, tired and happy.

Expanding horizons

A few weeks ago, I went overland to Hong Kong with 3 other teachers. This meant taking a 15-minute taxi ride to the border crossing and then about an hour riding metro trains and one bus to the starting point for our hike. Before I came to China, I had pictured Hong Kong as a bubbling, crowded mass of humanity and tall buildings on a very small island, but I’ve discovered to my delight that I was wrong. In fact, the Island also has miles of hiking trails, scenic views of the surrounding islands and lovely beaches. We hiked the Dragon Back trail, a windswept ridge with stunning scenery to either side. After a couple of hours we descended to "Big Wave Bay" and felt we could be in a beach town anywhere in the world. Surfboard rental shops, dudes with tanned skin, tattoos, and salt-blown hair, greasy spoon restaurants with upstairs decks where you can sit and drink beer and relax forever in the ocean breezes, the proprietor looking as if he now lived in shorts and sandals after retiring from a stressful life somewhere else. After lunch, we changed into swim suits and I charged straight into the waves with whoops of joy! We spent the rest of the afternoon there until dusk (always around 6 in the tropics) and made our way back home, tired and happy.

Since I didn't write about that trip right away, I'm including two for the price of one in this post. Expanding my horizons recently, I ventured over to Macau for the day. As with the ferry to Hong Kong, this was an easy one-hour trip. I left my house just 20 minutes before sailing time, walked 5 minutes to the terminal, paid $35 round-trip, cleared customs, and got on board. Shekou is on a peninsula; the Hong Kong ferry heads slightly northeast, winding around the New Territories, whereas the Macau ferry travels west across the South China Sea before it meets the huge Pearl River estuary. You can actually see the line in the water where it changes from blue-green to muddy brown.

I probably should've copied some information off the internet before I went, but I trusted to the tourist office and traveller's luck to make it an interesting day. As it is, I will definitely go back again to see some of the sights I missed. I refused an offer from a taxi driver in the terminal for a 2-hour tour; instead, I took a bus into the center of town. Macau has an interesting history, some of which I learned at the Maritime Museum. I hadn't realized how pagan parts of China were, but the local people still worship "A-Ma," goddess of seafarers before the Portuguese got there with their Catholic saints; hence, "A-Ma Gao," or home of A-Ma, became "Macau." The Maritime Museum described several festivals celebrated there, including "Festival of the Hungry Ghosts," which built on Buddhism, and the "Drunken Dragon Festival," where men parade through the streets with dragon heads, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and blessing the fishermen.

Across from the museum is A-Ma's temple, which is built against the rocks and doesn't have an inside, just a series of altars alongside the trail where people burned incense and prayed. Outside, I bought mango ice cream from an old man with a cart, and wandered some more. I tried my luck at the slot machines at the garish Hotel Lisboa, but it was all in Chinese and I had trouble knowing what to do. I kept walking, went in and out of restaurants looking at menus until I settled on vegetable curry at the friendly "Now" cafe, and bought a book at a bookstore since there aren't any English language bookstores in Shekou. I didn't find some of the places I was hoping to see, but I loved the colonial architecture and the chance to see such a different place.

When I boarded the 8:45 ferry to go home, it was still warm, though today feels like it has finally cooled off. I hope this brief description gives you some picture of my adventurous day.

Hong Kong

I went that day just because I could. It was overcast as I left my apartment around quarter to 10, but it often is, so I didn't think about taking an umbrella or even a hat. A 10-minute walk brought me to the ferry terminal, where I bought my ticket and shuffled through customs along with the crowd of mostly Chinese. Since it is difficult for the average Chinese citizen to even get a passport, I'm told, they may have been Hong Kong residents. I wish I had more courage to try to strike up conversations. I'm reading "Riding the Iron Rooster" by Paul Theroux, about his travels by train through China in the late '80s, and I realize that he had so many stories precisely because he wasn't afraid to start talking to anyone.

So I sat and marveled out the window instead for the one-hour trip. It is both faster and cheaper to take a bus to the border and the metro from there, but much easier to take the ferry, so I wanted to try it at least once. The picture doesn't capture much but it's a fast boat so you can't stand out on deck. There are a lot of hilly islands scattered all around here, something like the coast of Washington. Once we got inside Hong Kong's harbor we started to see bridges, skyscrapers and new construction going on. It surprised me that most of the island is unpopulated, and there are good walking trails all over the place.

When I got off the boat and through customs on the other side, I was glad to discover a covered walkway above the road along the harbor. Pedestrian bridges head off at intervals to different buildings-they have really planned for all the rain they get. I found the "travelator," which is a long covered escalator that climbs the hill from the harbor. In the morning it runs downhill but the rest of the day it rises to an area called "mid-levels."

My goal for the day was just to wander, so my first stop was at a little cafe for a perfectly toasted bagel with butter and Bonne Maman jam and a divine cup of coffee with my own little pitcher of hot milk. I rode the travelator from street to streeet, vaguely looking for a used books store someone had told me about, but only found a fancy-looking chain one. While in there, I heard a store clerk explaining to a customer how to get to the Victoria Peak tram, so I listened in since it was something I wanted to explore. We ended up trying to find it together, and he turned out to be a priest from France, visiting friends. So we walked in the rain and talked about the things that travelers talk about.

The tram reminded me of a cable car in San Francisco, and probably comes from about the same era. It was quite a steep angle, and I'm sure in good weather it provides stunning views. At the top, we peered out the windows into the mist and imagined what it would look like. There were lots of fancy shops and restaurants at the top, but after a fruit smoothie, it was time for me to head back to catch a 3 pm ferry.

It was a brief trip, but at least it gave me an idea of what to expect, and I look forward to going back and spending more time. I'll keep you all posted.

Yangshuo

I'm hopeless as a photographer, never thinking that my photos will capture the true magic of a moment, as these feeble attempts prove. I also feel conflicted about why I'm taking them; how many times do any of us go back and look at our photos of memorable places? I bought some postcards that do a much finer job, and besides, my Olympus told me to change the batteries even though I'd just changed them recently, so I gave up and left my camera in the room. Still, on the best day of my trip, the couple that I met and went biking with offered to take my picture from the top of Moon Hill, which we climbed, and I will post that when they send it to me.

Picture your stereotypical Chinese landscape with rice paddies, water buffalo, and wizened old men and women wearing conical straw hats and carrying twin baskets suspended from bamboo poles across their shoulders. The terrain here is "karst," limestone rock that was once at the bottom of a sea. Much of it has been eroded over time, leaving a surreal landscape of spires, pinnacles and caves that look like children's drawings of mountains. After a marvelous day of riding around country roads, I ended with an hour and a half float on a raft made of 10 bamboo poles lashed together, about 10 feet long, sitting in a chair in the middle with my bicycle lying behind me and the boatman standing at the end poling us along the shallow river. The weather was perfect, a relief from the heat of Shekou, and late in the day the sun was setting behind the conical hills. Although the area in general was quite crowded with Chinese and western tourists alike since this week is a national holiday, it was incredibly peaceful on the river.

Good company

I've always embraced spontaneity as a key element in my life. It relates to what I was writing about last time; being open to whatever presents itself in the moment keeps me from sinking into numbing routines. Of course, it can bring its own set of problems, but I think I've been particularly fortunate in that it has mostly brought great richness to my life. And living in a new place invites lots of fresh opportunities.

Yesterday, I was wandering around on the web, looking into travel plans for the break coming up at the end of this month, and I found a notice in a local ex-pat site from someone giving away a kitten. They responded to my email right away, and several hours later I was waiting in front of my school for them to show up. As seems to happen often here, 2 other couples were passing by, and they were so excited they decided to wait with me. So not only did I have the joy of getting a new kitty, but friends to share it with. Rose had her 2 little girls with her, and 3 year old Talinn erupted in giggles of excitement at seeing the kitty, so they all trooped up to my apartment to help get her settled in. The other couple, Justin and Sarah, live next door, with 2 small cats of their own.

I had planned to go to Hong Kong on my own today because I'm anxious to see for myself what it's like. Even though traveling by myself isn't the thrill it once was, I won't let that stop me from going wherever I want. (The teacher I'd planned to go with today got sick.) But now I think I'll stay close to Sweetie and make sure she feels comfortable here. Rose and the girls said they'd come over for a visit. And besides, there's a group going hiking on Hong Kong Island next weekend, and always a lot more opportunities, if I'm open to them.

Sunday Musings

In a sense, my "real" life is in the states and this time overseas is a kind of pleasant fiction I get to live for awhile. Not that it's all pleasurable; the heat and the cockroaches in my kitchen are real enough, and I still have to wash dishes and buy groceries and go to work every day. It's just that the "everyday" is so far outside of my range for "normal." It's not hard to understand why some people choose to live as ex-pats for long periods of time; even at its most mundane, life overseas calls on you to stay awake. No matter how many times you see them, those barbecued chicken feet remind you that this isn't Kansas anymore, and you marvel at the whole thing all over again. And isn't that what so many of us complain about? That life seems to be just passing us by in an endless procession of routines?

Please understand, I'm not suggesting that those of you reading this blog should pack up right now and head for the far shores, or that I have a leg up on anyone because I've chosen this path. I titled this entry "Sunday Musings" because that's what it is and reflects what I'm thinking about right now. It's a subject that occupies my thoughts often: what is it that gives meaning to people's lives? What keeps any of us going even when what we're doing doesn't seem particularly meaningful?

Now I can see that I'm about to get myself in way too deep, and I consider whether to abandon this post or go ahead and publish it for what it's worth. Writing a blog is a curious exercise in revealing what is normally a private diary, and I struggle constantly with how much to leave in and what is better left unsaid.

Environment

In some ways, China is actually ahead of us environmentally. They passed a law this June that stores must charge for plastic bags, and as a result each market dutifully sells large canvas bags with slogans like "For a better world." There are trash cans on the street, and outside of a few cigarette butts, the streets are pretty clean. Everything gets recycled, since there are poor people who make their living going through the trash and salvaging everything they possibly can. I don't know what pollution controls are in place for vehicles, but I haven't seen black exhaust coming out of any busses, cars or trucks, which I did notice, surprisingly, in Bellingham this summer. And check out those bike lanes! There are trees lining all of the streets around here and quite a few parks, so it helps to cool off this already hot "footprint." 30 years ago, this area was a sleepy fishing village, and today the entire Shenzhen region is home to 11 million people.

The first time I walked into the Park & Shop, the grocery store attached to the school, I thought that something was rotten. Didn't take too long to figure out it was the infamous durian fruit! It's a bit larger than a cantaloupe and covered in sharp spikes, but I haven't had the stomach to buy one and experiment, so I can't tell you if it's as delicious as some people say. I also loved the looks of the dragon fruit, though I haven't been brave enough to try that either. Right now, I'm playing it pretty conventionally in my diet, too, and willing to pay more to buy familiar foods like bread, cheese, peanut butter, yoghurt, spaghetti, and familiar vegetables, but I do have an "ayee" ( housecleaner) who comes in once a week, and she cooks some tofu and noodle dishes to last me a few days.

My first week of school was chaotic, but I think I'll save that for another post. The important thing is that by Friday afternoon I was able to start breathing a little easier, and a foot massage and beer with other teachers after work definitely helped put things into perspective!