| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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Of course you couldn't have something like
that in the malls in the United States. The first day people would be
spilling Orange Julius on your fancy chairs and putting out cigarette
butts on your statues.
But looking around the streets I see again that whether Americans
are thought to be boorish or not they have created a cuisine that is
popular the world over. I am speaking, of course, of American junk
food. You look in the streets and you see signs like 'The Spaghetti
House--Home of American Pizza,' 'The American Cafe,' and the ever-
popular McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And lest you say it is
just Americans who are going to these places I will point out that
McDonalds is doing pretty well in Moscow where their prices are two or
three times the United States price and in a really strapped economy
people are lining up to buy their product. Like many Americans I used
to feel guilty about exporting junk food to the world. But if they
really like it, who am I to tell them 'no'? I've never heard of someone
Chinese saying it's too bad there are so many Chinese restaurants in the
United States. I love Chinese food but much of it really is not all
that healthy. Do Chinese worry about the cholesterol Americans get from
Beijing Duck? We're not talking really healthy stuff in either case. I
prefer to avoid McDonalds both at home an abroad, but if the world
really wants it, I don't think Americans should feel guilty about it.
If McDonalds does well in the Soviet Union they must be making someone
happy.
Anyway so the bus picked us up for our city tour. We'd had a city
tour when we came here with Travelworld in 1982. This was sort of a
test of the contention that you can get the same sort of service if you
just buy a city tour yourself. In fact it was a mild failure in my
estimation. The thing is with a whole tour from an outfit like
Travelworld there is end-to-end accountability. You've paid them a
large sum of money and they want you to do it again real soon. They
want you to finish the tour happy. When you buy a stand-alone one-shot
city tour by its very nature you are unlikely to represent much chance
at return business. Now in Edinburgh the city controlled the city tours
and they were really fine, as Evelyn points out. The city tour for Hong
Kong was pretty bad. The first and best item was the Aberdeen fishing
village. They told you a couple of paragraphs of information, then you
could either take a junk ride and see the colony closer at a fee of just
HK$50 (about US$6.45) or you could sit waiting for the people to get
back from the junk ride. The second stop was to see a jewelry factory
and actually get a chance to buy their jewelry. (Surprise! Surprise!
Surprise!) The next stop was Stanley Market. And the final site was
Victoria Peak (and souvenir stand). Each stop was a real K.O. (that's a
kickback opportunity). We were also supposed to see Repulse Bay, but it
was a sort of 'If you look quick out of the right window' sort of thing.
Well, I should say something about the sites. The Aberdeen boat
people are the Tankas. These are refugees from Fukian Province in China
who came to Hong Kong but were not allowed to come on land. Instead
they could harbor off Hong Kong Island in Aberdeen. At times up to
40,000 of them lived their entire lives on boats, most never knowing
what it is like to walk on land. They were ethnically different from
anyone else in Hong Kong. They had their own religions, holidays, and
rituals. Now with times becoming more enlightened Hong Kong authorities
are going to get rid of the sampans and try to assimilate the boat
people. Our guide, ever-sensitive to the plight of the less fortunate,
told those of us who took the sampan to go around the boats, 'Look quick
and you may see one taking a bath.' Well, at 3-ish in the afternoon
most of what you see is people working: maintaining fishing boats,
working on nets, etc. We saw one boat that had several hundred squid
drying in the sun. Some of the boats were fancy, some only very simple
sampans. Steve said that on one hand he thought we were intruding into
the lives of the boat people voyeuristically, but on the other hand,
that is what photo-journalism is all about. As we were getting off the
sampan a photographer took our pictures for souvenirs. As long as he
had B&B posed, I also took their picture. I tend to steal pictures
other people are photographing? How else can I learn?
Jewelry is the fourth biggest industry in Hong Kong. Third is
tourism. Second is electronics. Number one is fashions. Our next stop
was a jewelry 'factory' to see jewelry being made. We didn't see much
being made because it was Saturday afternoon and they were off having a
good time some place. I was somewhat distracted because the strap of my
camera decided to let go and the camera fell on the hard floor, breaking
the lens over the flash. First day of the trip and I am having serious
camera doubts. Does it still work? Does the flash? Well, it turns out
it is mostly okay though the flash may not be lighting right. I took a
flash picture and will have my first roll developed here. Surprise of
surprises, the factory jewelry store was fully open. Evelyn, Steve, and
I were off to the side talking about the camera when a salesman came
along and ... asked us to go over and get a drink. They had a soda
dispenser with very cold soda which they dispensed in eight-ounce
glasses. That is a little underhanded since we were all hot and
dehydrated and they knew we would be abysmally grateful. I grudgingly
admit it tasted about as good as anything I'd had all week. And right
there were some Chinese carvings in ivory, very small. I told a
saleswoman that the style was much like Japanese netsukes (NETS-kees).
She said she had never heard of netsukes. The next shelf actually had a
collection of Japanese netsukes and I was about to point them out to the
saleswoman when she said, 'Those are Japanese net-SU-kees.' I would
have told her that the 'u' is just very lightly aspirated or silent, but
I wasn't entirely sure of my facts so just remained silent. They did
have a nice set. I don't know if they were authentic, and there were
some rather tasteless erotic ones mixed in. I just don't know if those
are authentic themes or not. Netsukes are small ivory carvings maybe an
inch and a quarter high. Rather than put pockets in traditional
Japanese clothing they would take a small box roughly the size of a
cigarette case (called 'inro') and tie it by a string to their belts.
At the other end of the string was a small weight which over time became
carved more and more ornately. These toggles became netsuke. They are
on all sorts of subjects: demons, animals, peasant life, and perhaps
even erotic, though if so this is the first time I've seen them. The
best I ever remember seeing was a small puppy looking with true
amazement at a horsefly that had landed on its back.
Next stop was Stanley Village with the famous Stanley Market.
Fashions are supposedly bargains there, but we had half an hour to shop
(too much for my tastes). I got two scarves for people back home. We
looked for something for our souvenir table, but found little.
Finally we hit Victoria Peak, 1305 feet. Going up by bus is
considerably less interesting than the funicular railway. The view at
the top has been hazy both times we have seen it. On the way back the
photographer offered us the photo he'd taken getting off the boat at
Aberdeen. He had cut it in a circle and glued it to the center of a
souvenir plate of Hong Kong. It was a little off-center. I let him
keep it.
We dropped off some pictures to be developed near our hotel to be
sure my camera was still working. We got back to the hotel about 7 PM;
I wrote in my log while most of the others napped. At 8:25 PM or so we
got together again, picked up our pictures (my camera seems fine), and
headed out for the night market. This is much like a cheaper version of
Stanley Market and it runs till midnight or so. Restaurants come out
and serve on the street.
It was unclear what we wanted to eat and how. Binayak was for the
point-to-order scheme. I think Barbara wanted to order off a menu. We
went in one place that could not serve us outside but wanted to put us
in their 'VIP room' inside. It was not very clean-looking and much of
what we tried to order was not on the menu so we left and went to a
pointing sort of place. Even there we could not all agree what we want.
I guess this place bothered me a little in that they kept the fish you
could order on a table and they kept dumping on these things that looked
like centipedes. It turned out these were scampi and they kept trying
to crawl away. (Did I say they were fresh?) I think Binayak wanted to
order entirely by himself. I thought the shrimp would be the easiest to
divide up and eat. Binayak eventually relented. The shrimp, as it
turned out, were the easiest to eat and went the fastest. We also got
the scampi (which may have been a relative of the crayfish though they
looked more like lobster tails with heads). Their shells had sharp
points on them so you had to be careful opening them. Even then it was
pretty tough. We also got crab in ginger sauce and periwinkles. These
were in tightly closed shells a half to three-quarters of an inch wide.
At first they were hard to open, but we got the hang of it. The most
common comment was, boy, what would people at home think if they could
see what we were eating.
Also we planned the next day's trip to the New Territories. Also
the first day turned out to be more expensive than any of us had planned
and there was some concern over having enough money. Thailand and
Malaysia are reportedly cheaper but things are pretty high in Hong Kong.
Maybe not compared to home--I bought myself a battery-driven hand-held
fan for HK$5, bargained down from HK$7. That includes two AA batteries
and it cost about US$0.65. Thinking about it now I should have gotten
three. We need the batteries. I am kind of sorry I didn't get a hand-
held sewing machine for what would have been about US$5. I can't
imagine it's real quality, but I am willing to gamble for that price.
We were, however, strapped for cash. Evelyn and I walked home after.
We went to sleep about 12:30 AM. We did not sleep at all well and at
3:30 AM I woke up. After trying to sleep I decided to try to catch up
on my log. I must be waxing too verbose. I am almost a tenth of the
way through my logbooks I brought and have covered only the trip and my
first day.
October 7, 1990: Well, today we head out to visit the New
Territories. We decided there wasn't time for dim sum so we headed for
a restaurant recommended in the guide book. This must always be a
mistake. We found a sign for the restaurant but the restaurant itself
was not there. I am very reticent to tell you where the group decided
to have breakfast. It wasn't my idea. The place was red and had two
yellow arches.
We took the train to the New Territories. This works by a stored-
value magnetic card which costs a fixed fee and then deducts the cost of
train rides. I'd seen the technology before, but it was new to Steve.
Our first stop was the folk museum at Sam Tung Uk. This was a village
of Hakka people who were resettled to planned communities and instead of
their village being knocked down, it was restored to an earlier state
and became a museum of their former life style. You see clothes, farm
implements, and furniture, all in buildings that were in the original
symmetric village. You can walk only a few inches or feet into any room
before a rope stops you but you can see into the rooms. Most
interesting to me was the room of recordings of the Cantonese opera.
Chinese opera is an art form vastly unlike just about any other sort of
performing art in the world. It is very unapproachable by Westerners,
at least I find it so. As a result I have taken it on as a challenge to
learn more about it and to learn to appreciate it. |
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| Copyright © - "Mark R. Leeper" |
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