First Impressions
Date: Monday, August 8th, midnight.
Location: Aunt and Uncle's spare bedroom, Ma-on-Shan, New Territories, Hong Kong.
Cockroach count: 0
Pervert count: 0
After much turbulence, I finally landed in Hong Kong. Beautiful green mountainous islands covered in trees and mist greeted me. “This is it,” I thought to myself, “This is where it all began.” I’m not sure what I was talking about. I suppose it was just the thought that my parents had both been born and raised here. I looked out at the harbour and almost expected to see junk boats and ancient peasant boats with a little guy with a rice hat floating there. It was with a sort of slap in the face with reality when I saw giant steam cargo ships and ferries floating about instead of my fantasized junk boats.
Either way, I greedily feasted my eyes on it all. I could hardly wait to get off the plane.
I stepped off and the first thing that hit me was the humidity. Next, it was the stifling heat. I quickly took off my outer shirt and mopped the dew forming on my brow. It was like the sort of stuffy, humid, stale air you felt on the London Underground- only we weren’t in London . . . and we weren’t underground. It was like that everywhere.
Chinese people swarmed about me and I was overwhelmed with it all. Being in Australia and Saskatoon had left me with the impression that being oriental was somewhat of a novelty. Here, I was a fly on the wall. An extra. A majority. It felt weird but somehow, I liked it. I’ve always loved anonymity and for the first time in my life, I felt totally blended in.
Well, that was the airport crowd.
Soon after, I exited the baggage claim and met up with my aunt and uncle in the terminal. They went on and on about how much I’ve changed and how I used to have a round face and all that stuff. It was then that I noticed I was about two inches taller than everyone. It was like I’d traded in the giant 6 foot 6 people in Australia for a gang of munchkins. I’ve never felt so tall in my life before and I found myself awkwardly staring at the top of people’s heads.
After the airport, we headed across a bridge and then stopped to look at the Tsing Mao (or something like that) bridge. My uncle couldn’t get over the fact that it was built up of little cables all entwined to form a bigger cable which was then wrapped up with other cables and shoved into a giant metal tube to form an even bigger cable. Basically, the whole muscle fibre and spindle and fibrosil thing but in cable form. Impressive but not a new concept to me. Either way, I enjoyed how my uncle was so captivated by it.
Mostly, if Hong Kong doesn’t interest me, then I stare and get interested in the way my uncle and aunt view their city and the world. It’s like they think Canada is some sort of savage land with little more than saloons, teepees and the odd igloo here and there. I love it. Being underestimated always puts one at an advantage and I smile to myself as they stumble over each other to find the perfect English translation for a Cantonese word which I already understand.
Afterwards, we went to an excellent sea food dinner in the New Territories. They kept scooping food on my plate and I thought I was going to burst. "Here try the chicken! It's different from the Canadian chicken!" Chickens here have yellow mushy fat which must be why Chinese ppl can gobble it up and not get fat (yellow mushy fat has less saturated fats in it). Then they brought out the next dish which was a lovely steamed fish. I ate it up as my uncle scooped half of the poor thing into my plate. Only then did I notice I'd seen that kind of fish somewhere before . . . somewhere tropical . . . somewhere under water . . . somewhere like the Great Barrier Reef.
I turned to my uncle, "Um, is this a fish that lives in the corral reef normally?"
"Yes, why?"
"I can't eat it! It's probably endangered!!! Or they probably ruined the reef system trying to catch it!"
"Oh no no, don't worry. There's plenty more where that came from. There's lots of fish in teh sea."
"No there isn't! you don't understand!"
"No no no" he said with an impatient wave of his hand and smiled indulgently at me as if I were a little school girl. I gave up and figured it was too late to give it its freedom.
So I ate a reef fish and felt awful . . . but it was just so sweet! I'm ashamed to say it, but it was delicious.
A moment of silence for the endangered seafood which is now in my belly.
BURP.
Ahem.
Am currently in what will be my room for hte rest of the week. I'm not sure what's on the agenda for activites tomorrow but I hope it's not active as I'm already sweating buckets cus it's so hot here.
Well, good night. More about my OCD aunt and her Kleenexes and fans and towels and etc later.
Night!
Location: Aunt and Uncle's spare bedroom, Ma-on-Shan, New Territories, Hong Kong.
Cockroach count: 0
Pervert count: 0
After much turbulence, I finally landed in Hong Kong. Beautiful green mountainous islands covered in trees and mist greeted me. “This is it,” I thought to myself, “This is where it all began.” I’m not sure what I was talking about. I suppose it was just the thought that my parents had both been born and raised here. I looked out at the harbour and almost expected to see junk boats and ancient peasant boats with a little guy with a rice hat floating there. It was with a sort of slap in the face with reality when I saw giant steam cargo ships and ferries floating about instead of my fantasized junk boats.
Either way, I greedily feasted my eyes on it all. I could hardly wait to get off the plane.
I stepped off and the first thing that hit me was the humidity. Next, it was the stifling heat. I quickly took off my outer shirt and mopped the dew forming on my brow. It was like the sort of stuffy, humid, stale air you felt on the London Underground- only we weren’t in London . . . and we weren’t underground. It was like that everywhere.
Chinese people swarmed about me and I was overwhelmed with it all. Being in Australia and Saskatoon had left me with the impression that being oriental was somewhat of a novelty. Here, I was a fly on the wall. An extra. A majority. It felt weird but somehow, I liked it. I’ve always loved anonymity and for the first time in my life, I felt totally blended in.
Well, that was the airport crowd.
Soon after, I exited the baggage claim and met up with my aunt and uncle in the terminal. They went on and on about how much I’ve changed and how I used to have a round face and all that stuff. It was then that I noticed I was about two inches taller than everyone. It was like I’d traded in the giant 6 foot 6 people in Australia for a gang of munchkins. I’ve never felt so tall in my life before and I found myself awkwardly staring at the top of people’s heads.
After the airport, we headed across a bridge and then stopped to look at the Tsing Mao (or something like that) bridge. My uncle couldn’t get over the fact that it was built up of little cables all entwined to form a bigger cable which was then wrapped up with other cables and shoved into a giant metal tube to form an even bigger cable. Basically, the whole muscle fibre and spindle and fibrosil thing but in cable form. Impressive but not a new concept to me. Either way, I enjoyed how my uncle was so captivated by it.
Mostly, if Hong Kong doesn’t interest me, then I stare and get interested in the way my uncle and aunt view their city and the world. It’s like they think Canada is some sort of savage land with little more than saloons, teepees and the odd igloo here and there. I love it. Being underestimated always puts one at an advantage and I smile to myself as they stumble over each other to find the perfect English translation for a Cantonese word which I already understand.
Afterwards, we went to an excellent sea food dinner in the New Territories. They kept scooping food on my plate and I thought I was going to burst. "Here try the chicken! It's different from the Canadian chicken!" Chickens here have yellow mushy fat which must be why Chinese ppl can gobble it up and not get fat (yellow mushy fat has less saturated fats in it). Then they brought out the next dish which was a lovely steamed fish. I ate it up as my uncle scooped half of the poor thing into my plate. Only then did I notice I'd seen that kind of fish somewhere before . . . somewhere tropical . . . somewhere under water . . . somewhere like the Great Barrier Reef.
I turned to my uncle, "Um, is this a fish that lives in the corral reef normally?"
"Yes, why?"
"I can't eat it! It's probably endangered!!! Or they probably ruined the reef system trying to catch it!"
"Oh no no, don't worry. There's plenty more where that came from. There's lots of fish in teh sea."
"No there isn't! you don't understand!"
"No no no" he said with an impatient wave of his hand and smiled indulgently at me as if I were a little school girl. I gave up and figured it was too late to give it its freedom.
So I ate a reef fish and felt awful . . . but it was just so sweet! I'm ashamed to say it, but it was delicious.
A moment of silence for the endangered seafood which is now in my belly.
BURP.
Ahem.
Am currently in what will be my room for hte rest of the week. I'm not sure what's on the agenda for activites tomorrow but I hope it's not active as I'm already sweating buckets cus it's so hot here.
Well, good night. More about my OCD aunt and her Kleenexes and fans and towels and etc later.
Night!
posted by Viv at 6:56 p.m.
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