Reading Week

In the past two weeks, I've met at least 5 other exchange students, all of whom are very nice, and all of whom I will likely never see again. This seems to be the way such things go -- it takes roughly a semester to get the feel of things, and there's all that traveling in the middle, and just when the city is feeling like yours, and you have the time and energy to make friends beyond the small circle you met in the heady rush of orientation, it's time to go.

I remember in Spain, I lived in an apartment with a French med student, a German law student, and a Spanish DJ. The French guy was dating an Indian woman, the Spanish guy was dating an American, and my British friend Vic was crashing on our couch. We were a regular little L'auberge Espagnole (did anyone else ever see that movie about a bunch of exchange students living together in an apartment in Barcelona...?) and would have dinner parties in which we went around the table saying the word "penis" in all of our native languages, to many giggles [note: the words is recognizable in basically all languages of these languages :-)]. I felt so worldly, and we all vowed to stay in touch -- that lasted maybe 3 months. Since that was also pre-Facebook and pre-ubiquitous-Gmail addresses, I have a small list of old contacts "@hotmail.com" or "@netscape.com" that no longer work.

Now, of course, the HK students and I are internet-savvy, and I have a host of new Facebook friends. But it really is too bad to have to leave just at this turning point when my comfort with the city has begun extending past Tom's and my routines to encompass somewhat of a social circle. My friend from college, Ellen, extended her junior semester abroad to encompass the spring as well as the fall, and although at the time I couldn't fathom missing out on springtime in Providence with my college buddies, I think time spent in a place beyond the 5- or 6-month mark is different than time spent in a place before that.

That being said, I won't miss our closet of an apartment. Tom and I had to find somewhere for him to live in Portland (and for me to live in Portland the 4 or 5 days a week I'll get to be there!) and we gleefully perused the pages of craigslist to see how much more bang for our buck we could get for housing back in Maine. Suffice to say that we're getting a fully furnished, 2-bed/2-bath apartment for a short-term lease with parking and all utilities included for less than we're paying to live in ~180 square feet right now. I'm daydreaming about the cooking projects I can take on with access to an oven and a dishwasher, while I know that Tom is excited about the studying he can do on the formal dining room table (as opposed to hunching over the foot of the bed, which serves as his current desk). Put that apartment in HK though, and I just might consider staying :-).

My next post(s) will be all Thailand-centered -- we leave on Saturday. Five days up north in Chiang Mai (three of those hiking in the hills), six days in Koh Tao on the beach, and four days in Bangkok (including NYE)...

A Visitor!

It's been awhile since I've written in the blog, and my excuse is that my lovely mother came to visit for 8 days and we were too busy doing for me to take any time to write. But she's been back in the States for more than a week, and I'm always happy for an excuse to procrastinate from studying (it's exam time right now, and although Tom and I only have to pass, we don't really know what to expect, so we're on total lock-down!)

Mom stayed at a place called CHI Residences, which is right near our apartment, and it was entirely lovely. Her serviced apartment was more than twice as big as ours and had a few key elements that made me want to hang out there all the time: namely, a couch and a toaster. Eating toast with my scrambled eggs while curled up on the couch instead of having to sit on the bed was just about the best luxury I could imagine.

But anyway. Since she had been brave enough to come on her own, and this was her first time in Asia, I wanted to make sure that we did as many cool things in Hong Kong as possible. I may have gone a bit overboard in the planning department, but I was flexible with changing plans -- I just didn't want to have that dreaded vacation morning moment when no one really knows what they want to do for the day and you end up spending two hours being indecisive.

Some of the things we did were highlights from earlier in the trip that Tom and I wanted to repeat -- hiking the family trail on Lamma (with the best weather and the bluest skies we've seen all semester) and eating ridiculous amounts of fresh seafood at one of the waterfront restaurants; going to the track (where Mom's lucky gambling streak didn't fail her -- she won her bets twice out of four races); bringing her into the notorious Chungking Mansions for lunch at the Khyber Pass (our Wednesday afternoon tradition); introducing her to the best dumplings in the world at Crystal Jade.

But we also interspersed some new stuff in there, which was really fun. I think it's easy, after a few months in a place, to get into a routine and to know what you like and just do that, but a visitor brings a whole new perspective/impetus for trying new things. One of the highlights was our visit to the temple of the 10,000 Buddhas in Sha Tin -- you walk up a steep hill lined with hundreds of gold buddha and warrior statues (and stalked along the way by monkeys which are NOT statutes -- and which are terrifying!) until you get to a temple in the hills with all sorts of lovely, unexpected corners, and 12,000+ little buddhas in the main building (yes, 12,000+, despite the name...). The smell of incense drifts by, and thanks to the incline, there are fewer tourists than some other places. The city stretches out below, and it's all so unexpected and quirky -- truly one of my favorite sights in this city. It's Hong Kong, so it's kind of commercial, and kind of "fixed up" in a sort of inauthentic way -- but despite the newness and the plastic, it has its own authenticity.

We also checked out the Chi Lin Nunnery, which was meticulously restored in 1998, but had such an aura of peace and tranquillity (and I swear it was at least 5 degrees cooler inside its gardens than in the neighboring areas) that it didn't matter that the buildings actually weren't all that ancient -- the feeling of them was. In Hong Kong, too, you have to grab at peace and tranquillity during those rare moments that you find it, so we lingered to enjoy the feeling.

Mom and I did some of the more touristy stuff too, like having lots of dim sum, checking out the antiques along Hollywood Road (spoiler alert: they're very fake), having drinks at the Eye Bar overlooking the gorgeous harbor at night (we could see everything from the balcony!), and having shirts tailor-made from a little shopfront in Admiralty. We also took the scenic bus (Route 6, which goes along winding cliff roads and which caused me to grip my armrest in terror for the entire 40 minutes) to Stanley, which was full of expats and their dogs and babies, but also beautiful blue water and the best fish and chips I've ever had, consumed on a high-up balcony overlooking the water (for those who ever come here, the restaurant was called "The Boathouse" -- yes, just like the only restaurant in NewB, so Mom and I felt at home :-)).

It was a lovely week or so, and when I sent Mom to the airport (after utilizing the amazing transportation system that is Hong Kong and checking in her bags at the MTR stop right near my apartment!) I was newly in love with the city. Right in time to buckle down and spend all my time in the library!

We have finals for the nest 2.5 weeks, and then we're off to Thailand for Christmas and New Year's. Updates to come; timing dependent on internet access!

Shenzhen

Last weekend, Tom had a paper to write (actually, he's had/he has a paper to write every weekend this month -- this semester abroad is a lot more work than that whole undergrad study abroad deal!) We decided to use our visas' second entry into China to go just across the border from HK into the "Special Economic Zone" of Shenzhen for the weekend for cheap shopping, hotels, massage and dim sum.

Shenzhen was established as an experimental "Special Economic Zone" in 1980, which means it basically shares a birthday with Tom. China wanted to try out a market-based economy, but didn't want that darn capitalism to infect the rest of the country in case it didn't work, so it took the formerly sleepy fishing village of Shenzhen (kept that sleepy on purpose, since it was so close to the bastion of capitalism that was and is HK) and turned it into an experimental town.

The experiment was a success. Shenzhen is now the wealthiest city in China -- if not the most cultured. It's weird to visit a city that is only 30 years old. A lot of the skyscrapers are comparable to those that you can find in Hong Kong. The shopping is ubiquitous. The art scene is slowly, but surely, growing.

But there's still an unfinished vibe to Shenzhen. There are a lot of young, single men standing on the street corners at night to no apparent purpose. There's a kind of "dangerous adolescent" tinge to the air. Tom and I didn't like to wander around in dark streets at night by ourselves (the opposite was true of Beijing -- wandering around in dark alleys at night seemed to be the thing to do).

But to start from the beginning. To get to "real China" from HK, all you have to do is hop on the metro's East Rail Line (the line I take to Chinese University's main campus) and stay on it until the end. Then you pop through customs and there you are! If you're not an American, you can pick up a Shenzhen-only visa right at the border. If you are, you have to use one of your two entries (for which you pay a lot of money -- this is what happens when we make it hard for Chinese citizens to come to our country!). Right as you cross customs you can see one of the more famous shopping spots in Shenzhen: Luohu Commercial City. This is a 6-story mall that sells all manner of knock-offs -- specializing in bags, shoes, and cheaply tailored clothes.

We went there (picked up a couple of pairs of eyeglasses -- eye exam and all! And a purse...and a suitcase...and some "Deisel" sneakers for Tom...) and were pleasantly surprised to discover a restaurant inside where we had some of the best food we've gotten since being here. It was loud, and crowded, and we stuffed ourselves with dim sum only to find that the very cheap dish of "beef soup" that we'd ordered was actually a huge entree that the chef was making at a special station next to our table. Needless to say, we left there stuffed.

The other main appeal of Shenzhen was our hotel. It was a relatively old-school multi-star hotel, that had been bought by a Crowne Plaza, and included a state of the art gym and spa facilities. Being able to spread out all his notes on a big desk made Tom very happy, and getting to work out with a TV tuned to international CNN made us both happy (and I don't even like working out).

We also took the internet's advice and went to a local spa for the day. Since we didn't go to the one recommended for tourists, no one spoke English at ours, but through sign language and a patron who was kind enough to translate at one point, we figured it out. Tom and I were sent to our respective dressing rooms by gender, and then rendezvoused for Thai massages in the same room. Our masseuses were nice, and one knew a tiny bit of English -- the 100 minute massages flew by.

After that, Tom and I wandered around the spa in our silly regulation-issue outfits and checked out the variety of entertainments available inside -- there were rooms for watching movies, rooms for surfing the internet, rooms for playing ping-pong and pool, rooms for getting manicures and pedicures, free fruit smoothie bars, restaurant areas, and big whirlpools. It was no surprise that people can spend days at a time inside. We played a little ping pong, but the whole 100 minutes in a dim room getting massaged deal left us with the urge to do something more energetic than hanging out in a spa. We headed back out into the bright sunshine...

The other really interesting thing we did in Shenzhen was wander around Dongmen Pedestrian Street. This is a part of the city where the locals actually shop, and it was full of families out enjoying the sun, vendors selling fresh melon, dumplings, and lamb kebob, and all manner of goods directly off the truck from the factories. It felt like the most Chinese thing that we've done in all of our travels, and it was cool to wander around and feel completely immersed in a different culture. I rustled up lamb kebobs for us and went to McD's for the addictive iced coffee (I know, I know, that's not actually a different culture -- but a Chinese McDonald's is not the same creature as one at home). We didn't buy anything there -- and we hadn't brought the camera, so we didn't take any pictures -- but it will remain one of my favorite memories of this semester.

By Monday we were ready to come back to HK and our routine of classes and our tiny apartment...

Tailors in Hong Kong continued

Following our initial meeting with the tailor, Tom and I got ready to go back yesterday for the first fitting of the suits, and lunch. We dressed nicely, probably out of a desire to appear more legitimate, and showed up on the dot of 12:30 pm.

Jack welcomed us warmly, and got us cool drinks to sip while he wrapped up some other business. After about 35 minutes of sitting in the office (during which I still couldn't quite believe that we were actually going to be taken out to lunch -- and not in the bad way -- by Tom's tailor), we headed out. He took us to Gaylord, which is rated the best Indian restaurant in HK, and we proceeded to have a feast.

The food was delicious -- and Jack helped me to a serving of basically everything -- but the more surprising bit was that the conversation was delightful. Jack chatted a little about his childhood in Karachi (when it was still in India before partition) and later Bombay, and how when he and his brother started their business in HK they used to split breakfast and lunch with each other because they were trying to pay off their business loan as fast as possible. He told us about some of his business travels all around the globe, and gave us more life advice (but good-naturedly admitted that he knew he like to give "a lot of advice."). He invited us to come to one of the monthly or so dinners he and his wife hold at their house for various customers of his...

Basically, he seemed like he was genuinely interested in people from all over and from all different stages of life, and enjoyed helping two law students out a little bit. After our absolutely gut-busting lunch, we headed back to the shop for Tom's first fitting (and the beginnings of the suit look great!). Jack sent us on our way with handshakes (for Tom) and hugs (for me) and an appointment for next Monday. We left his shop feeling like we had just had one of the most delightful experiences, not only from our time in HK, but in general.

Tailors in Hong Kong

I'm taking a break from mainland-China-related posts (although I have a couple up my sleeve -- more thoughts on our big trip and some on our mini-break this past weekend in Shenzhen) in order to write about getting a suit tailored in Hong Kong. Because it's awesome (so far).

Hong Kong is known for having a ton of tailor shops -- although plenty are just tourist traps that do a mediocre job. Most of the mediocre ones have "touts" -- guys who stand on the corners (especially along Nathan Road, which is a major thoroughfare right near our apartment) and ask every foreign passerby "Tailor? Copy watch?" They often stand in front of the stores selling Rolexes just to add a little much needed legitimacy to their endeavor. But it is possible to find a really good tailor through word of mouth -- people in Hong Kong have opinions about their tailors the way curly-haired people have opinions about their hairdressers.

Anyway, Tom knew from the beginning that he wanted to get a few suits tailor-made here, and I quickly agreed that such items should be written into the budget because I still feel guilty three years later about the time when we first started dating, and I offered to pick up his dry-cleaning, left it in my car overnight, and all of his suits got stolen by a crackhead who broke into the car, hacked out my stereo, and deposited a turd next to my car on his way out... I suppose it is possible that it was actually Finkin.* But I digress.

After doing extensive research, Tom finally asked one of his professors whose style he admired where he got his suits. The professor pointed him in the direction of a gentleman named Jack Balani of Riviera Fashions. With the afternoon off, Tom and I decided to visit.

As is usual on our Hong Kong adventures, we blundered at first. Following various hallways throughout what we were somewhat sure was the right building, we stumbled into the office of a George Balani (Jack's brother-in-law). He pointed us in the right direction, and I believe called his brother-in-law to warn him we were coming. But finally, we opened a nondescript door on the 6th floor into Jack's private office.

Apparently, people usually make appointments. But, Jack was very gracious and welcoming and asked us immediately what lovely customer of his had directed us there, as he knew that people don't just stumble in off the street and onto the 6th floor.

We told him, and then chatted for awhile about our experiences in Hong Kong and what Tom was looking for in a suit. Jack pulled out several wool swatches that he said were appropriate for a lawyer (i.e. not too flashy -- no My Cousin Vinny suits here). He also brought us gin and tonics, for which I was very grateful, what with the heat of the day and the fact that I needed something with which to amuse myself while Tom was being measured.

Jack quoted his price, and although Tom had come in ready to bargain, the price was so reasonable that I could see the fight go out of Tom's face within seconds. He managed to get Jack to throw in a couple of shirts with the two suits that he ordered, and then commenced the measuring.

Altogether, we were there for ~45 minutes, but this was just the first fitting, which is apparently nowhere near as important as the next one in which the fabric is actually draped around the customer, etc. Jack and Tom discussed style, and then Jack invited us to come back tomorrow for lunch before the second fitting. That's right, Tom's tailor is taking us out for lunch tomorrow. We are having Indian food, though the options were Chinese, Indian, or club sandwiches, really anything we wanted. This may be standard practice in Hong Kong, but it's still pretty damn cool.

In the process of chatting, Jack also learned that we two whippersnappers are getting hitched next summer, and in the delightfully familiar manner that I've never experienced in American culture, gave us advice about living frugally in our marriage, etc. etc. [Side note: the day after Tom and I got engaged, when we were taking a taxi back from the hotel room with which he'd surprised me, we lucked into a taxi driver from a southeast Asian culture who gave us a full 20 minutes worth of advice that he'd gleaned from 40 years of marriage. Unasked for, but much appreciated :-)]. Jack gave pointers on what Tom should wear for the wedding, and then invited us for dinner at his house (!). I'm not sure if the offer will stand, but I'm looking forward to seeing.

We learned that Jack, having never graduated from high school, started out as one of the "touts" on the corner more than 50 years ago, making $13.75/month. After 4 years of that, he got a small business loan from his father and opened up a storefront, growing his business from there. Now, he travels all over the world catering to thousands of clients, and has enough money to drive what he un-self-consciously describes as a jealousy-inducing car. One that he said he would send to pick us up for that dinner at his house. Tom and I had to contain our giant grins and exclamations of "That was SO COOL" until we exited the building.

Can't wait to see what the suits end up looking like! I may have to get one or two myself...

*This sentence possibly written by Thomas.

Contemplation

Contemplating our trip to China has proved a more involved process than I had expected. In some ways, I was surprised at the western touches that we encountered, although I shouldn't have been, as Beijing and Shanghai are major cities with international connections. In other ways, like a movie that you just can't get out of your mind, China was different, not just from home, but from the "home" that we've crafted in Hong Kong.

Our trip was naturally divided in two geographically, but also in some ways emotionally and intellectually. Shanghai was lovely -- the French Concession reminded me of Buenos Aires, and the Bund reminded me of old New York (Tom said it reminded him of Chicago, but I haven't been there yet). There were cool shops and artists and lots of visitors in town for the Expo. Our hostel was spacious, and cozy, and served a killer scrambled egg and coffee breakfast for quite cheap every morning. If I were going to live in mainland China, I think it would be quite pleasant to live in Shanghai.

But it was Beijing that really captivated both me and Tom. Beijing was harder. By that I don't mean that navigation was more confusing, or people less accommodating. But my brain was stretched a little bit more while we were there. Maybe it was the strangely quiet streets; maybe it was the CCTV cameras all over Tiananmen Square; maybe it was the group of middle-aged ladies we saw dancing all together in the park one evening. Maybe it was because we actually got to spend some time with people who lived in Beijing, and who could give us some insight into daily life there.

I think the presence of Communism was in the back of our minds much more when we were in Beijing. It felt a little bit like a city that was waiting for the other shoe to drop -- I couldn't tell if I felt that because I'd read that I was supposed to feel that in the midst of China's "meteoric" economic growth, or if the city really did have bated breath, but there was something there.

Perhaps that sense was well-captured when Tom and I visited my friend Kevin at his workplace "Disney English." Disney English is a new venture on the part of Disney Co. to teach children English through the tribe of characters in the Disney library. It's a brilliant idea -- middle-class parents line up every evening with their little ones to check the place out, and they're signing up dozens at a time. All of these kids will develop a strong association between speaking English and Disney characters, and presumably a life-long loyalty to the Disney brand. And China wants these kids to learn English. Maybe it's an emphasis on education that has always been there, but it seems like there is some kind of informal national mandate to "catch up" with the outside world (although not totally connect with it, see, e.g. the Great Firewall).

But, like a lot of the "catching up" happening in China, it felt a bit manufactured. Kevin -- who is wonderful with kids and fantastic at his job -- would be just fine teaching without the Disney paraphernalia. And there's a reason that "disneyfied" has developed as a term (has it developed as a term? Maybe that's just me...)...the place was cheerfully sterile.

I'm not explaining myself very well (Peter Hessler could do it better :-)). Because the manufactured "catching up" is paired with very genuine people who are living this whole change that is happening in China right now, and that doesn't feel disneyfied at all. All I know is that both Tom and I came away from the city wanting very much to study Mandarin, hard, and return in a few years to try and delve a little deeper.

All for now (it's bedtime in HK). But more on "real China" soon!

Back from the Mainland!

After 10 days, lots of travel and lots of rain, Tom and I returned to a HK of sunny blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. Glorious -- I just took an hour and a half walk around Kowloon and it felt magical.

I have a ton of stuff to say about our trip, so I think I'll break it up into a couple of posts. Some of you may remember that on Saturday the 16th, we took a 24-hour train to Beijing. We stayed there until the evening of the 21st, at which point we took an overnight train to Shanghai. On the afternoon of the 26th, we flew from Shanghai to Shenzhen, which is just over the border from HK (domestic flights were much cheaper) and hopped a bus into the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the evening.

Tom and I took roughly 650 pictures (fo' realz) of which 620 were from the Beijing portion of our trip (not that Shanghai isn't pretty -- but it doesn't have the Great Wall or the Forbidden City -- and it was very rainy for more than half of our time there). If I can expand my computer skills at all, I'll try to put a couple of those pictures on this blog.

First, the trains. I loooove trains, and have always wanted to take an overnight one somewhere -- you get your own little bunk, and free slippers, and can walk the hallways through the night while the train rushes you to your destination... Well, it wasn't quite as romantic as I'd pictured, but it was a very economical way to travel, and we had some nice cabinmates. On the train to Beijing, we shared the cabin with a young man named Hu who was a fur trader (there's a short story in that somewhere -- a fur trader wearing Air Jordans and switching among 3 different SmartPhones). We also shared the cabin with an older woman who seemed to be devoutly practicing some kind of meditation that involved lots of breast-beating and loud nose-breathing. That wasn't so pleasant, particularly at 3 in the morning when everyone was sleeping. But we managed to all carve out enough personal space to get some sleep, and Tom and I each basically began and finished our novels.

We foolishly did not pack any snacks, assuming we'd find things to eat on the train. We found things, but they were overpriced and disgusting versions of Chinese food -- sheer hunger meant that we ate them anyway, and washed them down with a couple of cheap beers (by far the culinary highlight of the train trip). The countryside that we passed along the way (and we had a lot of time to watch it, since we were on that train from 3 pm Saturday until 3 pm Sunday) was pretty gray -- as we got further north it got closer to wintery-feeling and there stopped being the lush palm trees and other greenery of the south. We did see rice paddies for the first part of the trip, and some subsistence-looking farming during the latter part of the trip, interspersed with more industrial development. When we arrived in Beijing West Station, we were thrilled to get off.

Beijing West is huge, and filled with the flashy giant TVs that grace many squares in the city, vendors selling various things, and taxi drivers trying to rip us off. Luckily our hostel's website told us what to expect to pay to get there, so when we were quoted a price that was 4 times that we were able to walk away in disgust. A cold snap had just descended upon the city, so we were shivery, and happy when we found the official taxi stand.

Our hostel was a place recommended to me by my dear friend Kevin, who lives in Beijing with his Beijing-born wife and their 5-month-old twin boys. It was a few blocks from their apartment, facilitating visiting, and in a charming old hutong. Hutong means essentially alley, and in Beijing, hutongs link the larger, more commercial streets, providing a lot of the character and soul of the city. A lot of people living in hutongs don't have their own toilets, so most hutongs have public toilets at either end. Lots of individuals make use of their space to sell cigarettes and sodas and snacks out of the ground floor of their buildings, so there is a semi-informal economy going on there. Sadly, in China's mad rush to "modernize," a lot of hutongs are being destroyed (and people are being forced to move further out in search of affordable housing).

Our hostel, luckily, did have its own plumbing, and our room was actually very nice (no more of the dorm-style hostel rooms for me -- this was a proper double with an en suite bathroom!). We settled in and grabbed some showers, and then set out to explore the city in the dark.

We walked down the hutong to one of the main avenues and strolled down that for awhile, just looking at the buildings. After the hyper-commercialism of HK, it was kind of surprising to see how little retail/restaurants/etc., existed, although there were definitely shops and places to eat. It was a Sunday evening, so it was fairly quiet, but we walked along Wangfujing Street, which is considered a major pedestrian-friendly street in the city. There was some public art, several hotels, and a gorgeous old Christian church, and a lot of stores advertising name brands like Gucci and Burberry. However, it definitely didn't have as developed a feel as, say, 5th Avenue. It felt slightly abandoned -- although that might have just been the cold and the fact that it was a Sunday night.

The next morning, we met up with Kevin (who kindly brought us an umbrella and Tom a sweatshirt -- we hadn't planned very well for the weather up north) to grab breakfast and head with him to his office at Disney English before sightseeing. He brought us to a typical hole-in-the-wall Beijing eatery where we got two trays of steamed pork buns (baozi) for 10 yuan (US$1.50). The place was still dirty from the breakfast rush, but those steamed pork buns were some of the most delicious and wholesome things I'd tasted in months -- and we were glad to get some fat and protein in us to help us stay warm in the rain. [As a side note, the street food in Beijing and Shanghai was one of the highlights of the strip -- more on that later].

I'm going to pause for now, but my next post will talk about Disney English and hotpot with a typical (Kevin's) Beijing family :-).