Blending In As A Local

When I tell the taxi dri­vers here the name of the street I want to go to (pro­nounced from mem­o­ry because the names are too com­pli­cat­ed to under­stand), they don’t always know how to get there. That’s why I always have the name of a pop­u­lar land­mark in close prox­im­i­ty mem­o­rized, and when I men­tion this, it usu­al­ly gets me where I want to go. Sometimes I get a part-time cab­bie though, who does­n’t even know where this land­mark is. That’s when they ask me how to get there, or what else is around, or if it’s close to such-and-such-a-place adja­cent to such-and-such-a-street. Somehow, they assume that I’m a local.

Which is odd, because I know I have an English accent when I speak Chinese, so I assume most peo­ple can tell I’m not from around here. When I was here five years ago, most peo­ple said they knew I was­n’t from Hong Kong before I even opened my mouth. Something about the way I looked or dressed or act­ed.

Guess I’m fool­ing some­one now.

Hong Kong Food Diary: Week 2

Soft shelled crab

Thumbnail: Banana cream pie
Thumbnail: Fried white Chinese carrot cake
Thumbnail: Banana pancake
Thumbnail: Barbecue spare ribs
Thumbnail: Stewed Chinese cabbage and spare ribs
Thumbnail: Cauliflower with pork
Thumbnail: Stir fried Chinese broccoli with garlic
Thumbnail: Chiu Chow Congee
Thumbnail: cloud ears, tofu, Chinese mushrooms, and glass noodles
Thumbnail: Canoe congee with calamari
Thumbnail: Deep fried banana
Thumbnail: Deep fried fish
Thumbnail: Fish balls and pork rice noodles
Thumbnail: Iced Horlicks
Thumbnail: steamed fish with black bean sauce and minced pork
Thumbnail: French toast
Thumbnail: Fried eggs with preserved pickles
Thumbnail: fried noodles with bean sprouts and bbq pork
Thumbnail: Fruit bowl
Thumbnail: Green tea tiramisu
Thumbnail: Ham and mozzarella sandwich
Thumbnail: Honey and lemon tea
Thumbnail: King fried noodles
Thumbnail: Minced beef roast congee
Thumbnail: Mixed Chinese vegetables
Thumbnail: Fried noodles with bean sprouts
Thumbnail: Noodles with shrimp
Thumbnail: Oil fried ghosts
Thumbnail: Oil ghosts in flat noodles
Thumbnail: omelette with Chinese onion and bean sprouts
Thumbnail: Paninin
Thumbnail: Pho
Thumbnail: Pho garnish
Thumbnail: Pigs blood congee
Thumbnail: Plain big flat noodles with peanut and sweet sauce
Thumbnail: Pork chop, wings, and fries
Thumbnail: Pork and preserved egg congee
Thumbnail: Pork jerky
Thumbnail: pork knuckles, ginger and eggs in black Chinese vinegar
Thumbnail: Stewed preserved Chinese cabbage with spare ribs
Thumbnail: Sea salted chicken
Thumbnail: Bean sprout shrimp omelette
Thumbnail: Small pizza
Thumbnail: Smoked fish patty
Thumbnail: Soups and noodles
Thumbnail: spare ribs with black bean and red pepper
Thumbnail: Steamed fish
Thumbnail: Stir fried chicken with string beans
Thumbnail: Stir fried glass noodles with shrimp
Thumbnail: Fried tofu with Chinese onions
Thumbnail: Chinese vegetables with fatty pork
Thumbnail: Vietnamese coffee
Thumbnail: Vietnamese sandwich
Thumbnail: Vietnamese spring rolls
Thumbnail: Winter melon and pork bone soup
 

My cousin brought over some Japanese apples that cost $90 HKD ($15 CAD) for a pair. They were light green and quite large, but they did­n’t taste that unique. My uncle believes the cost comes from the way the apples are grown: all the branch­es but one are cut from the apple tree, so all the nutri­ents go into one apple.

I’m so glad my fam­i­ly knows how to eat; I get to par­take in all the amaz­ing food they buy or cook. Even snacks — cook­ies, can­dy, ice cream, and drinks — are of a par­tic­u­lar qual­i­ty. I’m won­der­ing how much weight I’ve gained so far.

Other weeks in my Hong Kong Food Diary

Sum Sum eating dessert

Finding Love For Two Bachelors

The fact that my dad and I are the eli­gi­ble bach­e­lors in the fam­i­ly means we get a lot of advice around the din­ner table. They bring up avail­able women. Friends of friends, daugh­ters of dance part­ners, or this-per­son-I-know.

It’s strange to come upon the sud­den real­iza­tion that my dad and I are at the same point in life. Does that make me old, or him young?

They ask us our tastes: Looks? Personality? Older or younger? I say, “Money”, but they know me well enough to know I’m jok­ing. A joke to hide my answer, for to reveal myself in this way is to expose a cer­tain vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. So they side­step the ques­tion and ask me if I’m after any­one, think­ing that if I describe a per­son I’m inter­est­ed in, they’ll be able to fig­ure out what I’m look­ing for. It’s com­pli­cat­ed, I think to myself, so only reply with a “No”. They ask me if there’s any­one after me. “No”. That’s even more com­pli­cat­ed.

Last week, my grand­moth­er asked me how old I was. “28”, I told her. “Already! You’re almost 30. It’s time for you to get mar­ried.” She says if I stay in Hong Kong all the girls will be after me because I have some kind of gen­tle­man schol­ar look. My dad too; he’s the man’s man, who’s always been fun and pop­u­lar. And we have Canadian pass­ports. Apparently, we’re in demand.

But they also want to make sure we’re not get­ting involved with the wrong type of women. Someone who will take our mon­ey once we’re mar­ried, or force alimo­ny once they trap us with chil­dren. They tell us to keep an eye on each oth­er. I say that my dad does­n’t need my approval if he wants to get mar­ried, but I don’t need his approval either. So they tell us to bring our girls to meet them, to be sure they’re okay.

I won­der; is love this easy for oth­er peo­ple? Something oth­ers can con­trol, when I can’t con­trol it myself?

Nan Lian Garden and Chi Lin Nunnery

Nan Lian Garden

Perfection Pavilion

Thumbnail: Banyan Grove
Thumbnail: Coy
Thumbnail: Garden grass
Thumbnail: Garden overview
Thumbnail: Lotus pond
Thumbnail: Lotus pond
Thumbnail: Nan Lian rocks
Thumbnail: Trees
Thumbnail: Pavilion bridge
Thumbnail: Petrified wood
Thumbnail: Silver strand
Thumbnail: Small trees
Thumbnail: Small tree leaves
Thumbnail: Small tree roots
Thumbnail: Tree weave
Thumbnail: Unique tree
Thumbnail: Gift shop
 

Nestled in the con­crete jun­gle that is Hong Kong is Nan Lian Garden, a new­ly-built park that fea­tures dis­tinct green­ery and build­ings. The archi­tec­ture was mod­eled after clas­si­cal Chinese build­ings, and con­struct­ed using wood that is inter­locked in a way that no nails or glue are need­ed. One thing that I noticed was that it was very qui­et inside the gar­den grounds, when most of Hong Kong has the con­stant sound of traf­fic (unless you’re on a moun­tain). It turns out that sound-damp­en­ing bar­ri­ers around the perime­ter have been erect­ed to cre­ate the peace­ful atmos­phere. It’s quite amaz­ing to see sky­scrap­ers so close and all around, when there is such a calm place here. There must be a tremen­dous amount of labour involved in keep such a place, as guards, gar­den­ers, and grounds keep­ers were always around. I wish Julie was there; she would appre­ci­ate the hor­ti­cul­ture so much more than I could.

There’s a dress code, des­ig­nat­ed eat­ing areas, and vis­i­tors aren’t allowed to take group pho­tos, so as to not dis­turb oth­ers try­ing to enjoy the sur­round­ings. More places need to imple­ment rules like this.

Unfortunately, the areas of scale mod­els and exam­ples of inter­lock­ing wood were not allowed to be pho­tographed. I tried to do so sur­rep­ti­tious­ly and shoot from the hip when the guard was­n’t look­ing, but the pho­tos did­n’t turn out.

Chi Lin Nunnery

Lotus garden entrance

Thumbnail: Lotus pond
Thumbnail: Shrine
Thumbnail: Bronze piece
Thumbnail: Incense holders
 

The Chi Lin Nunnery is a Buddhist tem­ple direct­ly attached to the Nan Lian Garden. Most of the areas were off-lim­its for pho­tog­ra­phy, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, a pic­ture is the only way I could describe the many colours and stat­ues in each of the shrines. One thing to note were the many bowls of fruit at each shrine, unlike Taoists or oth­er non-Buddhists, who also offer meat because they’re not veg­e­tar­i­ans.

It’s inter­est­ing to see peo­ple kneel­ing by each shrine and bow­ing their heads three times, even when they’re not Buddhist. Sort of like mak­ing the sign of the cross when enter­ing a church, I sup­pose.

Comfort In Each Other

I’ve been get­ting to know one of my aunts.

Aside from annu­al hol­i­day par­ties where the fam­i­lies would gath­er, we nev­er spoke. But then again, I nev­er spoke with any of the “grown-ups“1, as they offered lit­tle of inter­est to some­one my age.

We’ve become sound­ing boards for each oth­er. She tells me about how she’s approach­ing my grand­moth­er’s treat­ments — the types of ther­a­py, the med­ica­tions, deci­sions on when to go to see the doc­tor — and I tell her about my rela­tion­ships with my mom and dad.

I find it quite amaz­ing that she’s so aware of the influ­ence of Chinese cul­ture in her life. She seems to be adapt­ing to the gen­er­a­tion gap and cul­ture dif­fer­ences, or per­haps keep­ing them in mind, when it comes to treat­ing her own Canadian-born daugh­ter, which is far beyond what my par­ents were capa­ble of. Until I real­ly start­ed talk­ing with her, I believed that all Chinese par­ents were the same; too blind or too stub­born to under­stand how to raise first-gen­er­a­tion Canadian chil­dren.

It amazes me how strong she is. She’s the one who makes sure my grand­moth­er eats, drinks, takes her pills, sleeps, and walks. The one who cleans up after grand­ma when she has to go, but can’t make it to the bath­room in time. She dropped every­thing — her hus­band, her daugh­ter, her real estate prac­tice — to be here indef­i­nite­ly, and has tak­en charge of all my grand­moth­er’s care.

I tried to tell her that I admired her for every­thing she’s doing, but she would­n’t let me con­tin­ue. She’s hav­ing a hard time keep­ing it togeth­er, and is afraid that grand­ma may see her cry­ing and real­ize how seri­ous her sick­ness is. I wish I could give her some relief, a hug even, or just 15 min­utes to let it all out. I guess there will be plen­ty of time for that soon enough.

For now, we have each oth­er.

  1. The par­ties were a chance for adults to sing and talk, so the kids did their own thing. [↩]