I realize that I have been terribly remiss in updating this site. I do, however, have some valid excuses. The first is that it was the end of my semester and I was cramming Chinese into my increasingly storage-capacity-challenged brain. The second is that I have been having a slight health dilemna involving a sexually transmitted virus (my academic expertise in viruses should have made this an ironic natural next step). Now that everything has calmed down a bit, I would like to pick up where I left off and comment on the Christmas season in Hong Kong.
Having spent my youth in the freezing cold of the Northeast of the United States, I have come to associate the month of December and the holiday of Christmas with nose-chilling, finger-aching, butt-numbing weather. Perhaps with a dash of snow. Throw in a few icicles for fun.
Although most natives of Hong Kong would view the snowy Christmas scene with a slight aversion verging on horror, I am enamored. The best things about being cold, now that I have been gifted with a bit of perspective, is that you can warm up by taking a hot bath, drinking a cup of hot beverage, and/or sitting by the fire that you just spent an hour crumpling up newspaper to kindle. These are beautiful things. The irony is, of course, that I never appreciated any of these things to their fullest until I no longer had them.
Case in point. Last year, a few days before Christmas, we went to see the Pops at Carnegie Hall. It was a sentimental journey of my own making. I wanted, in my last Christmas in the States, to have a picture-perfect holiday. This, I decided, included sitting through the Pops’ Christmas concert. Which was, by the way, incredible. My husband, however, not being of the same mind about cramming in one final Christmas with all the trappings, spent the evening watching the percussionist in absolute amazement. “Look at him go! He can do symbols as well!” he whispered excitedly.
Once the concert was over, it was around 10pm. Of course, there were no cabs to be found as they were all taken. We decided to walk the scant 20 or so blocks back to our apartment building. For the scenic route, we took 5th Avenue to look at the lights. It was absolutely freezing. For those of you unacquainted with New York City, 5th Avenue acts as a natural wind tunnel, vying with any street in Chicago as the windiest in the world. The wind chill factor that you see on the evening news is a valid, scientific proof. All it takes is a nightly walk in late December on 5th Avenue to become a believer in the negative effect of the wind on your average body temperature. And no amount of down padding is going to help.
By the time I got back to the apartment, I had bitched about my stupid idea to dress up in a skirt, the fact that I had forgotten my fuzzy, wool hat, how the boots I had on were not made for walking, and that 20 blocks was a ridiculous amount of blocks to have to traverse back to the warmth of indoor-heating. Christmas cheer my ass.
Now, however, I think of this scene – and due to the miracle of time and space – I am wistful. I am nostaligic for freezing my ass off. This is what cultural shock can do to a sensible person. After spending a lifetime wishing for warmth, I am now longing for cold. The human being is a strange creature indeed.
Hong Kong at Christmas is a bit strange for someone like me, however. It’s hard to get used to the sight of Christmas trees without snow, surrounded by lush greenery. Hell, orchids are still blooming in the garden outside our apartment building. Everyone you go, the entire city is now decked out in its best Christmas finery. Wreaths, bows, ornaments, even snowflakes – which I find incredibly amusing since there is literally not a snowball’s chance in hell here.
The fact that this is not, really, a Christian place also makes the holiday a bit more odd. Christmas, it seems, for most people in Hong Kong, is more about bonuses and presents than the concept of giving. However, people do tend to see it as a family gathering day, so that’s similar.
But, in the end, I just couldn’t conceptualize Christmas here, so we booked a trip to Cebu for the day itself. I may as well be lying on a sandy beach if I cannot sip cocoa next to the wood furnace. And I have almost forgotten about the date as well. It’s not the 18th of December, and I haven’t even started my Christmas cards yet. So, in other words, this is your Christmas greeting.
Shengdan Kuaile! Xin Nian Kuaile!
Hong Kong is rainy this time of year. . . .
17 06 2008Well, I’m back from Hong Kong. After living there for nearly 3 years, you would think that I would be able to remember what the weather is like in summer. Luckily, I packed an umbrella, because we definitely needed it. It rained everyday. Actually, rained is a pleasant way of putting it for some of the days. At one point, we encountered a “black rain” day. Basically, this means run inside and stay there, and don’t come out until we tell you to. The rain was so bad that it made news headlines for days afterward, with dramatic pictures and roads completely washed away. It turns out that the Midwest is not the only place being drenched. (Though Hong Kong is mostly prepared for this in a way that the poor farmers simply cannot be.)
In the next few days, I’ll be retelling and reliving my trip in snippets on this site, with accompanying pictures.
In a stroke of luck, I managed to be in Hong Kong when an outbreak of bird flu was occurring. Thus, I got a firsthand experience and access to things that I wouldn’t have dreamed of back in Berkeley. This will help my dissertation project as well as my thinking through the issue of public health, prevention, and the cultural significance of disease surveillance. What fascinated me the most was that no one local seemed all that worried. People still purchased fresh chickens, people still went to the markets, and life went on as normal. Only with a lot of dead chickens in one market in Sham Shui Po.
Stay tuned for more. . . .
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