Taking a Beating

In writing a blog, there are obviously certain stories which you include and ones you don't. I purposely left out a story a couple of months ago, simply because it was embarrassing.

Our first week in Hong Kong, our friends Danielle and Keith Binns visited on their honeymoon.  We ventured over to the other side of Hong Kong island, to an area called Stanley.  The Stanley Market is a large and beautiful market which is a common attraction for visitors and locals alike.  The first booth we came across in the market had cards for sale with names written in Chinese characters and their meanings.  Danielle and I decided to buy some for family and friends back home.  We agreed on a price, but as I started to do the conversion in my head, I decided it was pretty expensive for a little piece of paper with two characters on it (between $4-5 Cdn each), and I was worried we were being taken for a 'ride'.  I challenged the price to see if we could get a better deal, when the vendor exploded in anger.  All three of us were yelled at and told to leave.  I was shocked, but Keith later explained that he had read it was a cultural 'faux pas' to change your mind, once you've agreed on a price.  I try to be aware and respectful of cultural rules and I was really embarrassed by the whole thing, especially because it wasn't that expensive (we later paid the same price for the same product at a different booth).  Lesson learned; I would not back out on an agreement on price again.

Correction: lesson not learned.

Lauren bravely eating 'street meat' fish ball

From the Star Ferry, view of Hong Kong across Victoria Harbour

Lauren, a friend from Toronto, was visiting last week.  While Mike went to work, Lauren and I toured around HK for a couple of days.  We visited many sights including riding the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour, walking around Tsim Sha Tsui (TST), strolling along Nathan Road and, naturally, I took her to the 'ladies market'.  The ladies market is a kitschy, over-the-top street market that runs for three blocks and has anything from clothing, to tacky lingerie, technology products, artwork, food vendors and more.  Lauren showed true bravery when she ate a fish ball from a street vendor (apparently 'not bad', but no, I did not partake).  Lauren also thoroughly impressed me with her tough negotiation tactics, enjoying the game of bargaining with vendors.  She scored some impossibly cheap deals for us and I was amazed.  I was on the hunt for a small black purse, and we came across a booth with some for sale.  As soon as I started looking at them, the small vendor lady was all over us trying to make the sale.

The Ladies Market

Vendor: "$200"
Lauren: "Nah, $120."
Me: Giggling.
Lauren and I evaluated the purse and I debated whether I would actually use it or not, whether I actually liked the look of it or not, debating, debating, debating.  After a couple of minutes I decided that I did not really like the purse and I didn't want it.  We tried to walk away, but the woman gripped my arm with too much force and said, "no, no, you buy for $140." (a considerable reduction in her price).
Me: "No, actually I don't want it." She was making me uncomfortable by gripping my arm and refusing to let go.  I just wanted out of there and twisted my arm free.  As we started walking away I got pinched a few times on the back of my arm and then the woman pinched and gripped my shirt so I couldn't keep walking.
Her: "$120.  You buy for $120.  A very nice purse.  A very good deal."
Me: "No, actually I don't want it."
Her: "100. I said 100!" (raising her voice)

Playing around in street art in Tsim Sha Tsui

Me: "No.  Let go of me."
Fight or flight was kicking in. I was shocked that she was being so aggressive and holding on to me.  She was obviously small in comparison to me (who isn't?), and although I'm sure I could've taken her down, I'm a spineless Canadian who avoids conflict like the plague. Flight, definitely flight.

When I pulled free and we started walking away, the woman was raging and yelling "I said 100!  You buy for 100!" while she was slapping my back.  We just kept walking and she eventually gave up when we moved through the crowds. Crazy.

 Street art in Tsim Sha Tsui

Later reflecting on the physical assault with Lauren, I realized that I had learned this lesson before.  Because we had thrown out the number $120, when the woman came down to that number, I really should have bought the purse.  It was my cultural 'faux pas', and although she was a raging lunatic, I was the one who originally did something wrong.  Once again, public humiliation could have been avoided if I'd just bought the damn purse for a mere $100 ($12.50 Cdn).  I would have spent twice that to simply avoid the embarrassment and abuse.

Although it is difficult to find any moral high-ground when you find yourself in a fight with a small Asian woman over a knock-off purse, the culturally correct thing for me to do would have been to pay her off.

Lesson learned... again.

Kowloon, sensory overload when you add in the smells and sounds of this busy area off Nathan Road.

Duck feet, not a treat.

Friends Ayu and Chi - and a cart lady in behind!.

On Wednesday was our 'test' for passing Beginner level 2, and once again, success!  I'm trying not to get too excited as I still have a long way before I'd call myself capable of 'conversational' Cantonese, but it's a good start.  Although it really has come in handy a few times, it generally seems like most times I try to use my Cantonese, people respond in English.  I am enjoying both the challenge of it, and the amount that I learn about culture and history through language.  I have decided to take a break, and have not immediately started level 3, but I likely will take it soon.

Mimi & I 

After a successful 'pass' by myself and my 3 classmates, we went out for a celebratory lunch.  We went to a 'traditional' chinese style restaurant, where ladies bring around cards of dim sum, meat, seafood, and vegetables, and you simply point to what you want. The 'restaurant' was massive, and the name 'banquet hall' would more accurately describe it.  We were at table number 236, and there were well over 300 tables in the enormous room which would likely seat 1000+ very comfortably.  This place is also so busy that it is often difficult to get a table.  A classmate, Mimi had the foresight to reserve one for us.  During this celebratory lunch, I felt adventurous.  My 'adventures' included a bready-style of beef dumplings, pork belly (fatty, but tastes like pork should), and duck feet!!  Yep, although they were 'out' of chicken feet, I can now say that I tried duck feet (maybe duck foot, since I only had one, I'm not a fan).  For those curious, it's essentially like eating a chicken wing, but with no meat.  It's just skin over bone.  Being a bland Canadian, I'm naturally trying to avoid skin on meat (I lean toward boneless-skinless anything), but here they love skin.  Hence the obsession with eating feet I suppose.

     

Duck Feet (left), some crazy seafood-pork wrap (right)

Pork Belly... a chubby pig likely.

             

Eating with friends.

Meat stuffed bready-dumpling.  Delish.

Rich, Aline, Mike & I... horrible angle, but a great day.

 Saturday was exciting as I attended my first-ever rugby match.  One of the first people that we met in HK, through Rich and Aline (Canadian friends), was playing in a final 'championship' match on Saturday. The four of us navigated through the challenging and unfamiliar streets of Kowloon (suburb of HK with dramatically more 'Chinese'-feel and dramatically less English spoken) to find ourselves at a rugby match and surrounded by white people.  My first light-hearted remark of "all of know of Rugby I learned from a Matt Damon movie" earned me a few glares from the more serious crowd.  I figured I should just keep my mouth shut and cheer when they did.  I didn't understand much of what was going on during the match, although the score was tight and the game was rough.  One player was knocked out and his legs were flailing on the field, he was eventually carried off on a spinal board but we were later assured he was up and talking... crazy rough sport.  I feel guilty admitting that I liked it.  Our friend's team won, which was a nice excuse for an extra afternoon beer.

 One other notable event this week was the arrival of our furniture from Canada!  YES!  We have a bed.  No more camping on a futon in the living room.  Below are various snaps of our new crib, avec furnishings.  Visitors are welcome (our next one is arriving tomorrow)!

We have a bed.

Reading chair by the best view in the house.

Spare bedroom/office - awaiting a visitor (futon is normally a couch in there)

Living Room with night views of HK.

Living room (bought that plant tonight, loving it)

Our wee dining table.

Kitchen (looks the same, but has stuff in it for cooking now).

Macau Baby, Macau

Macau is the Vegas of China.  Like Hong Kong, it is an SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China, which means it gets to play by different rules than the mainland.  On Saturday, Foley and I took a day trip to this wonderful island, just a one-hour boat ride away.

Macau was a Portuguese colony until 1999.  It's a true fusion of European style and Asian culture.

The mosaic side walks and classic European buildings had me reminiscing past travels in Europe.  Fole's response "wouldn't know".  He's holding strong to his intention of going everywhere else in the world before Europe. We all have goals in life.

We walked around town for a while, ending up at a famous landmark called the Ruins of St. Paul's.  Where was once the largest Catholic church in Asia, now stands only the original stone facade, accredited as a UNESCO World Heritage site.  There are catacombs in behind the facade, but we had dinner reservations... I'm sure they'll keep until our next visit.

Macanese Chicken

Dinner was delicious. On a strong recommendation from a new friend, we went to a somewhat sketchy part of the city to a traditional Portuguese/Macanese restaurant called 'A Lorcha'.  I got a traditional Macanese chicken dish (chicken in coconut and turmeric sauce), Foley got a "very good" steak.  [As I'm writing this I asked him, "Was there anything special about your dinner?" Response: "Nope, just very good".  Man of few words.]

After dinner we took a long walk back to the other side of the island where the casinos are.  The first one we walked into neither Foley nor I recognized the game they were playing.  We thought it may be an 'Asian-style' game so we pressed on to a more recognizable casino, the Wynn.  As we walked into the Wynn Foley laughed.  He had looked up that mysterious game, which is called 'Baccarat'.  Apparently it is the one of the most popular casino games world-wide.  Good lord, we're such amateurs.  I went in search of a funny slot machine (because, yes, I play for the characters), while Foley watched poker.  My $100HK (about $12.50 Cdn) didn't last long (shocker).  We moved over to the Roulette table where we put the minimum bets on our favourite numbers.  Within 15 minutes we went from $150HK to $770HK... Done.  That beauty table paid for over half of our weekend trip.

After an impressive fountain show (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEpUfR2fj0I&feature=youtu.be), we walked back to the ferry docks and caught the 11:15pm ferry back to HK island.  Foley napped for the hour journey and I did some Cantonese homework.  That was our big night out.  Cripes, we are old for our age.

Sunday was a whole new adventure.  After a BodyPump class (yep, my gym has BodyPump, with English instruction! Amazing.), I came back home in the early afternoon to wake Fole up.  The day before, while walking for hours around Macau, we had decided to finally go for a foot massage (reflexology massage, actually) on Sunday.  This is a very common past-time here, and one that we're both interested to participate in.  There was one place that looked decent, which we decided to try out. [looked decent = ground level, major street, saw many people of various ethnicities going in and out, essentially got a comfortable feeling that it was not a dodgy business doing dodgy-surprise things].

We went into the window-less room, filled with more than 30 comfy chairs and ottomans, and people getting foot massages everywhere.  A strange community feel to the experience.  An upgrade option for only $50HK extra ($6.25 Cdn) was a shoulder and back massage, so obviously that was happening.  We had two men rubbing our backs and feet who had about 3 words of English between them.  Overall the experience was great, save for the bruises on my lower back (not exaggerating, have photos).  If you haven't tried reflexology before, the essence is that there are 'reflexes' in your feet for every part of the body.  By pushing on a certain part of the foot, they can tell what parts of your body are holding tension or injured, and supposedly release some of said tension or inflammation.  My biggest sources of pain were connected to my knees, lower back, and stomach/intestines (all typical problems for me).  Foley's biggest reaction was for the sciatic nerve (lower back).  Also a very impressive find. Considering these men knew nothing about us, they figured out our 'weak points' pretty quickly.

Have you ever had a massage where they make loud slapping sounds by hitting you with a slightly cupped hand?  These guys did that.  I was a little taken aback when that slapping found it's way down to my tailbone... I was being spanked!  I wasn't sure how to react to this, when out of the corner of my eye I watched Foley get spanked by his guy.  I took a mental picture, which I shall cherish forever.

Yum! Yuck.

Food.  It is inevitably one of the first questions people ask.  What do you eat there?  Can you find food that you like?...

Hong Kong is referred to as Asia's World City, because the entire world is present here.  This is true of people, as well as cuisine.  For example, Friday after class, myself and three classmates (friends!) went out for Indian food.  It was excellent.  Last weekend, Foley and I had a wonderful Thai meal just minutes from our new home. Essentially, anything you could want is here, and certainly some things you would not want as well.

To simplify this post, I have separated food into two categories: Yum! and Yuck.  I apologize in advance if I knock some of your favourite dishes, but this is just a quick summary of my tastes and experiences with food so far.

YUM!
Foods that are thoroughly enjoyed.

1) Dim Sum = YUM YUM!
Foley and I have gone out for Dim Sum several times already. Dim Sum (for those of you who don't know, because I didn't really until I came here) is simply chinese style dumplings.  They are stuffed with various meats or seafood (no seafood for me though... we'll get to that in the Yuck category).

This is my favourite type of dim sum, the Shanghai-style dumplings, which have some meat and soup inside... mmm.

2) Tohng Seui ("Sugar Water" - traditional Chinese dessert)

Wolfi and Tom - farewell dinner/dessert

Sign that I can't read...

Traditional Chinese Dessert

We went out on Friday with two new friends from Germany (Tom and Wolfi), to say farewell as they move on in their 3-month vacation.  We went out for a fairly traditional chinese dinner (delicious), then they took us to a place that neither Foley nor I would have ever walked into if they hadn't been with us.  I would tell you the name, but I can't... I can only show you the sign.  We were the only foreigners in the restaurant.  Very authentic Chinese.  Here the guys introduced us to this traditional chinese dessert of doughy-balls filled with sesame seeds, floating in a sugar water soup.  Sounds gross, but it was quite delicious.

3) Grocery store selection & home-cooking
I (as the housewife) can cook just about anything I could make at home (with approximately the same skill level, no improvements noted in that category yet).  Save for some puzzling absences (like BBQ sauce), we have been able to eat fairly similar to back home, using our tiny kitchen and local grocery stores.  Foley's absolute favourite is Sweet & Sour Chicken stir-fry.  He has made it quite clear that I can make this dish exclusively for the next two years and he will be content.  I, however, enjoy a wee bit of variety.

I find the rice selection hilarious.  The soya sauce has a similar sized section (yes, section) with 50+ varieties of soya sauce.  Vegetables and fruit selection is actually more similar to home than I expected (I don't know why, I have heard of this whole 'globalization thing').  It is notable that the carrots here are HUGE, even bigger than the corn (see photo).


YUCK.
Some of the less appealing foods.

1)  Dead Fish EVERYWHERE

Wondering through the fish market.

I still can't stand the smell or idea of eating seafood or fish... It's a childhood aversion that I have never gotten over.  This is quite tragic because this is supposed to be one of the best places in the world for fish and seafood.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I still hold my breath when I walk by shops with dried seafood 'snacks' on display.  It's just not that pleasant for me to sniff dried squid bits.  I do plan on expanding my tastes while living here, but I'm clearly not ready for that quite yet.

The way that fish are displayed and sold here is very different from home.  In my attempt to master tech-savy status, I have started a youtube channel (yeah me!).  Click on the following link to walk through a fish market with me for 54 seconds.  In the first 2 seconds, an escapee shrimp jumps the net and lands on my foot. [link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL4jPyZWJFs]

Please use your imagination for how these displays smell.  Can't wait for 35 degree summer days...

2) Preserved Duck

It's like beef jerky, but with ENTIRE duck carcasses!  What the?  Oh wait, but if you only really want the neck, head and the duck bill, that's an option too, of course.








3) Chicken Feet

Seems to be quite common, they're everywhere.  Chicken feet with toe nails still on 'em.  Apparently they are used in soup for flavouring, or they are eaten dehydrated as a crispy snack while watching TV (*gag*).  Although I give props for not wasting a single bitty-bit of the bird, I'll leave that delightful dish up to the locals.


I clearly still have some way to go in terms of being adventurous with food.  We've been playing it pretty safe so far.  I will be certain to post about food again the moment I try something crazy like snake or (gasp) FISH.