Hong Kong: The Food

Perhaps the single most important thing to the Chinese is food. And boy is food everywhere. Corner shops with fast food packaged in open plastic bags with wooden skewers as hasty chopsticks; small cantina-esque restaurants cramped with tables, chairs, and people. All streets have at least one place for food, on each block. iSquare even has five or six floors devoted to restaurants.

Some of the best food comes from these simple, hasty places. For instance, I ate baby pigeon for the first time, and it was beyond incredible. It was the most succulent, tasty, moist food I had ever experienced. They give you a whole pigeon:
And, if you happen to be with many other people, they give you a whole freaking platter of baby pigeons all lined up together:
Honestly speaking, my first reaction was one of disgust. Baby pigeon? Really? But then I got to thinking what bird poops all over everything that can possibly exist; what bird knocks peregrine falcon eggs out of nests so that it can have the nest instead… I figured, this is some kind of barbaric karmic cycle here, but what the heck, I’ll give it a try.

The way this place roasts these birds is beyond me because the meat was so deliciously wonderful. It was like a trip to a new place full of delightful scents and sights. Anyone who thinks that he or she needs drugs to get a high is totally wrong. This is enough, by a long shot. Here’s the place… pardon the terrible focus.

But, more about these cantinas in general: there is a certain kind of way that they feel … it’s the restaurant embodiment of the Hong Kong lifestyle. Most of the restaurants have a section outside simply for the purpose of allowing the hasty feet of the Hong Kong people maintain their ever hasty feet moving forward. And the food is not like McDonald’s fast food or In-n-Out Burger. It’s the real thing:

But Hong Kong has its fair share of highbrow restaurants. The rich are rich and the poor are poor. The old way of serving Dim Sum with the carts being pushed around by women is long gone. The new way of Dim Sum is ordering off a piece of paper with boxes next to the Chinese characters. It’s pretty bad for people like me who speak Cantonese but do not understand the characters. And you never get to smell or see the food before you agree to pay for it. I don’t know if I like it that much, but there seems to be a wonderful amount of support from the residents of Hong Kong. Beyond these new Dim Sum style, the rich places for the immensely rich people in Hong Kong are in moderately accessible places. There’s one right around the corner if you want to shell out a couple thousand HKD. They also take brilliant care of you, switching plates elegantly after you finish whatever you were eating on it and serving delicious food like Peking Duck.

Peking Duck at Sha Tin 18

It’s a tradition amongst most if not all Chinese families to gather around a table for dinner. Food is so important that in the early 1800s, when the Chinese government allotted money for the development of a new and improved ship, the Chinese came up with a stone restaurant in the shape of a ship. That’s pretty much where Jumbo ships come from.

Moral of the story: We love to eat. But not just eat… we love to eat together.

Hong Kong, from the Eyes of a Chinese American

Hong Kong is where many people in my family make their home. It’s a face-paced, grueling, apparently soulless place. The people are constantly moving, whether from one rack of clothing to the next, or one stand to the next, in search of the best and cheapest items. Even the escalators are faster. It’s almost as though the whole society runs on spending and sleeplessness.

Except Hong Kong is more than what it first appears to the culture-shocked American. Instead of a heartless monster ever chugging forward, Hong Kong is a fortunate place full of opportunities to get started, and maybe even strike it rich, like the Yip side of my family. It’s full of undiscovered gold, figuratively speaking. While there’s no denying that the residents of Hong Kong are always hurrying from one place to the next – often shoving others heartlessly out of the way, Hong Kong is a place of beauty.

Over these next few blog posts, I will be revealing the wonders of Hong Kong. Stay tuned!

There and Back Again

I don’t know what to write anymore. I can’t. I tried writing in my journal. I’ve tried writing a post. Augh. This is the second post I’ve written today.

I can’t get over the fact that I haven’t had dinner yet, and it’s past 6:30.

I can’t get over the fact that the “dining hall” isn’t going to be a good ten degrees colder.

I can’t get over the fact that I won’t be bussing my dishes and making Isaac clean them for me… well I’m not technically making him, he does get paid for it.

I can’t get over the fact that I can’t hear cars whizzing by at the small hours of the morning.

I miss the noise already. I miss the intense estrogen.

I miss you.

To the Fun of the Last Four Weeks

In less than twenty-four hours, I will be no longer be here. By four o’clock tomorrow, the halls will be void of laughter and happiness. The doors will be bare and the rooms will be naked. The quiet slapping of flip-flops against the staircase at the midnight hour to get a drink of water, the whispers of late night conversations across hundreds of miles away, the sporadic excitement at the sight of slightly edible food…No more will I walk down the familiar hallways. No more will I see the same faces every day. No more will I walk the ten minutes from King/Scales House to tennis or to town or the five minute walk to class.

I’ll miss everyone I’ve met. No matter where you are, know you are loved by someone with a happy laugh and a smiling face. I really don’t want to cry and I really don’t want to make any one cry… but I want to. I want to cry for the happy times we’ve had and the happy times we’ll have when we’re away again without each other. I want to cry for the times I’ll look around and say, “Maybe I’ll walk down to the courts with Andreea and play some tennis,” and I’ll realize that Andreea doesn’t live a few doors down anymore. I’ll realize the courts won’t be perpetually open for anyone to play. I’ll realize the courts aren’t a mere seven minutes’ walk away.

And I’ll miss it. I’ll miss saying hi to you in the hallway. I’ll miss walking down to class with you. I’ll miss running on a tennis court. I’ll miss squidging the courts to play. I’ll miss being the target for wannabe tennis players (I reserve the right to insult you all :-P). I’ll miss sleeping over with nine people in a room with five fans running and no prospect of sleeping at one AM even if I’m making everyone come down to tennis at nine. I’ll miss the intense concentration of nerdiness and estrogen… well not so much the estrogen.

I LOVE YOU ALL! Thanks to Crystal, Liz, Laura, Alex, Jackie, Shelly, Ottilia, Bethany, Angela, Sophia, and Sam for being amazing! I absolutely loved being here for the past four weeks!

*loves*

Let’s Reflect

Six days ago, my family and I left for Palm Springs, California, about two hours’ drive from LA. I’ve heard people call the desert there beautiful. And I’ve heard all sorts of majestic things about it. I’m so very sorry to say though, it barely caused a ripple in the vast pool of beauty I have. The highlights were: being on that one mountain at 22ºF (approx 5.5ºC below zero); Joshua Tree National Park; shopping.

The mountain was called San Jacinto I think, and we went up this spinning gondola to the very top where there was snow absolutely covering everything and a giant eatery full of scary looking pizza. The most frightening part was the gondola. I spent half of the ride up convinced that the outer shell was moving and the thing I was standing on wasn’t. Perhaps it was just a mechanism not to freak out that the thing I was on actually wasn’t concrete and completely solid, but it was quite scary because I couldn’t clutch the window bars in fear when we passed over a tower object. It was captivating though. Despite being in a biting wind and having sunk in snow up to my knees and being completely and utterly frozen-cheeked, I loved it. I’ll call it “The Majestic Trees on a Gigantic Rock”. The Trees being trees and the Gigantic Rock being the mountain itself. It’s amazing how the fault line can create such awesome scenery. The breathless almost-vertical drops whose slopes approach undefined fell away into shocking white as snow flew up to meet it. And the snow. That was the best part! Especially the part when I found a tiny little baby tree fighting its way out of the ground in the cold surrounded by untouched snow.

That was fun. When I walked out to it, in snow no one had stomped on and forced all the massive piles of fluff to squish, every step was encased in the cold. It takes a lot of thigh power to get back up to “normal” level only to have that foot sink down. You never want to put too much pressure on it, but it just happens.

Joshua Tree National Park. I liked the Skull Rock even though the only thing that made it look like a skull was the fact that it had eye holes. That’s it. And I liked the tour we got from the over-excited Park Ranger Dar (my first thought when he introduced himself as “Dar” I thought, hmm, interesting, his name means “to give” that just goes to show how Spanish is rubbing off on me, I’m even thinking about doing seven classes next year just to take Spanish IIII). But I must say, in a competition between the forest I live in and the one Dar lives in, mine wins. We have better trees, flowers, cacti, animals… everything. And my valley is so much cooler than his valley. Yet I still manage to take about a million pictures. I fell in love with the way the clouds slid across the sky painting a picture of the different shades of white and grey. The best part of Joshua Tree was the end, when we just caught the view with a few rays of sunshine poking through the darkening sky just kissing the mountainside.

 

Shopping. I’m not normally a fan of outlet mall shopping, but thank god we went. It was actually the same day we were on a mountain, so, mind you, my legs were absolutely dead beat and my head was still thousands of miles above my body. I went in with a fiery determination to find more shoes. Sure, you might say that I’m a girl and I always want new shoes (which is also true, by the way), but I actually needed shoes. I needed winter-ish shoes that would last me through Flag in January and the cool mornings. That plus the fact that my ballet flats were so not umph any more. They were wearing down and I desperately needed a new pair. And I needed something to supplement my horrific abuse of my Pumas. First stop: Nike. Okay, so running shoes, training shoes, even walking shoes. But, I knew from past experience that Nike likes to steal other ideas, like Puma ideas even two-seasons-old Diesel ideas. I knew to expect that there would be some Puma or Diesel knock-offs there. And there were. Little did I know that the pair I snatched were better than knock-offs, they were actually original. Except for, you know, the asymmetrical laces that I saw that one “new guy” in fifth grade wearing. And those were Pumas. I know, I’m quite a loyal fan of Pumas.

Of course there were many shops in between, but a lot of them had lines outside. The first line I saw was the one into Juicy. I ask you, do you seriously have to spend over three hundred dollars to look like a hooker? Just hop on over to your little sister’s closet and get her smallest t-shirts, tear a few holes in it and wear that mini skirt that’s short enough to compete with the mini skirts sold by Junker Designs and you’re so good to go. Juicy isn’t even mildly cute. If they stood on their tip toes and reached with their middle finger, they would still be a good mile away from the “worth a glance” line.

Converse. Best shoes I have ever owned (besides my three pairs of Pumas, and those Anne Klein black heels). Not on a comfort level, but definitely on the goes-with-everything-and-anything-from-I-feel-like-shit-today-and-didn’t-know-what-to-wear-to-I-want-to-channel-that-one-actress-from-that-one-movie/show level. The only line I have ever waited in to get into a store. It took forever even though we were about two feet from the door. Something about the cash registers not being able to handle a lot of people because their software broke down and could only accept cash. It was worth it. I completed the Hunt for Shoes there. I now am the proud owner of three new pairs of shoes. I’m excited and a very happy camper. I also am reminding myself of Carrie Bradshaw.

Then, two days ago, we drove down to Phoenix. And we stayed at a hotel that is a part of The Luxury Collection. That’s right folks, I stayed at The Phoenician. Dripping in elegance and decadence and absolute over-the-top opulence (not really, I’m banking on St. Regis Bora Bora to be like that) it was like sitting in a hot tub full of bubbles and having everything you could ever possibly need and everything you don’t actually need catered right to you. The beds were like downy heaven. It wasn’t too soft, it wasn’t too hard, it wasn’t lumpy, it was perfect. The blankets were amazing too, probably why I stole them from my mother the first night we were there. The grass was green, the only place I have ever seen the grass so green. And the people! They were so nice! It was like they loved their jobs and they loved everyone who stayed there. Not even Westin treats you like that. The bellhop looked at our tag when we were checking in and said, “Well, Mr. Blank, it looks like your room is going to be at the Casitas.” And no, my last name is not Blank, I just don’t want to divulge my identity… quite yet… Back to my story. We hadn’t even checked in yet! We had just driven up the insanely long driveway to the Main Entrance.

But, as always, the best part of being away is coming back. Being back home, to see those I love who I’m not related to (unless you count in that weird and quite awkward family I’ve got outside of my family). I love being able to smell the familiar scent of home, even if it’s decorated with that unmistakeable chill of having been left alone for six days. That’s the depressing part. It feels like my house has missed being my home.

Oh, and I’ve begun writing Fanfiction again. This is what is born of long car rides and the inability to sleep more than thirteen hours in one day.

The Holidays

The days they say should be spent with your family. The days that are filled with joy and wonder. The days that have memories that carry you through the next year. The days that I will be spending with only three other people for the first time in five years. The days I used to look forward to that thirteen hour flight from Los Angeles across the deep blue Pacific to Incheon, South Korea, and the three hour flight from Incheon to HKIA. Hong Kong International Airport, the portal to one of my favorite places to be.

The adrenal rush of walking past Customs into the origins of my family. The elation of seeing my ever-beaming grandfather standing there alongside my grandmother and a few aunts and uncles. The drained smile and tired eyes that don’t seem to matter anymore.

Last year, I was in Hong Kong twice. And now, I feel like I’m missing out. I’m not going this year. Not once. And I won’t be seeing my mother’s side of the family until next year. I won’t see my baby cousin, who I’ve only ever seen as a four or five month old. I won’t see my grandmother. I won’t see my grandfather. I won’t see my aunts and uncles and cousins. I won’t see the giant city I have come to love. I won’t see the place I call my second home. The place I walk around at night with my cousins down to the mall five minutes away. The place I cram myself into a slightly-smaller-than-queen-sized-but-slightly-larger-than-twin-sized bed with my mom. The place I lay on the Tatami and just smell the bamboo. The place I laugh. The place I cry. The place I almost invariably get sick.

Hong Kong. I lived there for a month eight years ago, and I’ve been dying to do that again. Being able to wake up every morning and see my grandmother. Or just walking out the door to say hi to my aunt and uncle, and going downstairs to greet my other aunt and uncle. Or walking five minutes down to yet another aunt and uncle’s house. Being so close to family, well it’s bound to instill arguments. But arguments are what shape us into who we are and what we do as a family.

I miss it. I miss the smell of Shark Fin Soup (yes, I know how harmful it is) floating from the giant pot of boiling water in the kitchen with my grandfather casting a keen eye over the Soy Sauce Chicken. Or my grandmother sitting at the kiddie table making wontons for that night’s dinner. Immersing myself in the culture I’m so close to loosing. Soaking in the glory of a big city across the world. Being able to understand a whole other language.

Sitting down in Kay Heurng for a late-morning breakfast of Tung Sum Fun and a glass of Hot Lemon Water. Or Cold Lemon Water, depending on the weather. This place, Kay Heurng has been around ever since my mother was younger than I am now. And we still go there. It’s a ritual of ours to go there at least twice in our visit. It’s on a one-way street with handy signs at the crosswalk saying LOOK RIGHT and LOOK LEFT depending on which side of the street you’re on, just to make sure you don’t go killing yourself. It’s nestled cozily on a street where the neon signs advertise for “Fu Wah Roasted Restaurant” and a “Rice Hair Beauty Salon”. It’s the bottom floor of an endless pile of tiny apartments directly above, the air conditioning units hanging precariously out the window. It’s on a street where the mannequins sport afro hairstyles and pale white skin.

I want to go back. I do. I’ve been wanting to go back ever since, well, ever since I got back.

The thing I’m looking forward to this year is not that accursed thirteen-hour flight and three-hour flight and more than twenty-four hours of travel. The thing I’m looking forward to this year is not getting off that plane and walking past Customs and straight through into the arms of my eagerly awaiting relatives. The thing I’m looking forward to this year is not walking down Tsim Tsa Tsui with my cousin. The thing I’m looking forward to this year is not going to Mong Kok Johng Sum.

The thing I am looking forward to this year is that I get to spend time with my sister. Time long lost since she’s been away at Stanford. Time lost and memories to be made.

Neon Signs down the street of Kay Heurng

the oh-so-white-and-black mannequin standing in a HK window

pedestrian crosswalk

Tatami

Two International Finance Center

Bank of China

The bed I shared with my mother

Gringo Pete Hotel

Yes, that is what the side of the hotel said. When I was in San Carlos not too long ago, we drove into town for the first time–having made it successfully through the labyrinth of driving through Hermosillo and vaguely recognizing Spanish phrase, and my parents speaking Spanish words as though they were another strange dialect of Chinese–and I think I almost died laughing at the sign. We used to make fun of Gringo-Spanish in my Spanish last year, and what do you know? It’s right smack here in San Carlos with a big sign proudly saying, hey you American tourists, you wanna stay at this [holey] hotel? We don’t have beds, but you can imagine it!

Needless to say, I was the only one laughing in the car. I think I almost peed myself. Partly because the parentals didn’t understand what I was laughing about, and partly because the name of the hotel was so damn funny.