Lamma Island – Spiders and Electricity, Oh My

Yesterday, we went on a small hike with our Swiss friends, Christine and Eric, to Lamma Island. Lamma is an old hippie island, famous for its alternative lifestyle residents in the 70s and 80s. Now, it feels more like a quaint tourist destination than a spot for bucking capitalism and living the natural life.

After boarding the ferry in Central, downtown Hong Kong, the trip takes about 30 minutes. No doubt, the scenery is gorgeous. As we rode the waves and passed the tens of huge shipping vessels carrying empty containers back to China to be filled to the brim, I couldn’t help but think about what the islands must have looked like hundreds of years ago. In the time before behemoth apartment complexes and cargo ships. It’s still beautiful, but it must have been absolutely breathtaking.

Once you get off the ferry, you are in a small village, packed with shops and restaurants. The majority of visitors to the island are there for the seafood. Since some of us had recently had bouts with a stomach bug, we passed on the fare and instead took the 2 hour hike around the island. For Hong Kong, it’s a low grade walk, suitable for families. Not many hills, everything paved and happy.

Right away, we passed the island’s huge electricity plant, shown above. Hong Kong, and China in general, has energy troubles. It seems that there is just no keeping up with the pace of growth in this country. No matter how much energy is supplied, the factories need more. Thus, China is in a perpetual electricity crunch. So much so that in the hottest months, many factories had to shut down for weeks at time in order to conserve. Occasionally, there are power outages and it is a constant source of debate and concern.

Lamma is fighting a proposal to have wind turbines put on the island. Apparently, the haven of hipsters isn’t about to have a renewable energy source on its turf. Why? You may ask. Well, that’s easy. Wind turbines are noisy. They whir as they generate energy. The energy is popular, so is the renew-ability. The whirring, however, is not so palatable to the island’s populace, however small it may be.

Below is a picture of the largest spider I personally have ever seen. We noticed it hovering above our heads at tree level about 1 hour into the walk. Conquering my fear, I positioned myself directly underneath in order to snap a good shot. Basically, like any good journalist, I placed myself in the drop zone for the story. I hope you appreciate it.

Mainenence with Chinese Characteristics

When I left for my trip back to the U.S. three weeks ago, our air conditioner was broken. It had been for about two weeks. As I sit here typing, there are currently five men involved in the replacing of the air-conditioning unit.

This brings me to my topic: the little differences.

In most large apartment buildings in New York, there is a general maintence staff. If the toilet breaks, you call them. If a light doesn’t turn on, you call them. Refrigeration problem? You guessed it – you call them. Just one number for everything. Unless it’s a specific issue, you see the same people every single time.

So far, I have had a few things go wrong. The toilet was leaking – this involved at least 8 different people in different stages. First, we had the team that made sure the bathroom was not flooding. Once they ascertained that there was no immediate danger to the building, they contacted our landlord. Then, a representative of our landlord brought another two people along to inspect the toilet. At this stage, they were just making sure I wasn’t some nutter who likes calling in false leaking toilet alarms. That being done and the leak being verifiied, we moved into the “fixing” stage. This involved two separate visits: one for initial fixing, the other for final fixing with the correct equipment.

At some point, I thought about have refreshments set out for all of the visitors. Iced tea, anyone? Cookie?

As for the air-conditioning unit, I have lost track of all the people I have seen. The estimate is somewhere between 15 to 20 different individuals. And, no, this is not a bold-faced case of a gweilo who keeps seeing the same faces and cannot tell the difference. I swear to you, these are completely different people. Which makes me wonder . . . are meetings being held somewhere else about us? How can so many different people be involved and know everything about the situtation? Has there been a memo? And if so, why haven’t I gotten one?

My husband has suggested that it takes so many people to fix something because China has a shortage of viable jobs. They have to invent different levels of one job in order to make room for everyone to have a job. I thought that maybe in the jokes about screwing in the light bulb, we just got the nationality all wrong. Like the game of telephone – by the time it got to us, we heard Polish.

Now, I’m fairly certain that these people consider me the biggest idiot in the world. They have to send a translator along just so that they can communicate with me. That is a fairly big sign of my inadequacy in dealing with the situation. So perhaps I shouldn’t judge.

And, actually, at this point, we’re getting used to the sweating. It’s like having your own private sauna with a bed in it. Sweating out the pounds while you sleep. It could be all the rage on the dieting circuit.

At any rate, I find it more amusing than annoying. I like finding out about these small differences in culture. On the surface, they seem baffling, and I’ll probably never understand it. But you don’t go to China to have american experiences, then, do you?

Fendi, Gucci, Prada, Sis-Boom-Bada

I am not an avid shopper. That being said, I have no business even being in, little alone living in, Hong Kong. For one of the unknown facts about this city (at least to most Westerners), is that Hong Kong is the largest continuous shopping mall on the planet.

I have never seen so many shops in my life.

Picture the mall. I am talking about the behemoth, triple-level structures in most suburban areas across the United States; the ones that look like giant sports stadiums and hold an array of shops, eateries, and in some cases, carousels and roller coasters. Now imagine yourself walking through the mall to get to another mall, only this time the mall is in an open-air environment, surrounded by tall buildings with businesses and homes.

This, in a nutshell, is Hong Kong.

I have never in my life seen so many shops concentrated in one area. Not only that, but Hong Kong is home to more high fashion shops than even New York City or Paris or Rome or Milan or London. I’ve counted. In one day, it is possible to pass by three Hermes shops. Three. I’m fairly certain that I’ve only seen the ONE Hermes store in New York. Paris might have more, but I couldn’t stop eating chocolate croissants long enough to find out. (For those uninitiated to the world of fashion, Hermes makes famous silk scarves and letter ‘H’ belts and watches, among other things. Think of the fashion equivalent of Sesame Street when it is sponsored by a letter. In Hermes, today’s letter is always ‘H’.)

What’s more, I almost never see a woman walking down the street without a shopping bag. Or two. At any time of day, it is a parade of new bags. And I find myself wondering about these women. Do they work just so that they can buy expensive bags? What are they buying all the time? How many outfits and pairs of shoes can one person own? From the looks of it, a lot.

In the more ‘fashionable’ malls, you can even eat dinner at an expensive restaurant. I don’t mean that the restaurant is conveniently located in one of the shops either. In some places, the restaurant is literally smack in the middle of the walkway.

Office buildings all have shops in their lower floors. There isn’t a single place in the city that one can escape it. Even at the Peak, right there in back of the grand view of the harbor, there is a mini-mall.

If western values are infiltrating China, Hong Kong is definitely the entry point. The women in Hong Kong are by far the most fashionable women I have ever seen. And I used to work in the modeling industry, so I should know. But instead of looking cool and beautiful, all too often the effect of being head-to-toe in Prada or Chanel is that you simply look rich, not stylish. It’s like the 1950s in the US. Every woman looks like she is wearing a uniform, no matter how individual the outfit. They literally look like, and you’ll forgive me for this, China dolls. Perfect, polished, petite, fashionable dolls. Extra outfits sold separately.

And the men are almost as bad, only they are obsessed with cars and the latest electronic toys. Everyone here owns a Mercedes or a Lexus. If I were a luxury car salesmen, I would want to do business here. Occasionally, you can find a Mercedes shop in one of the malls. And, no, I’m not joking.

"We’re very good to our help."

It is not a completely unknown fact that servants, drivers, maids, nannies and other so-called “helpers” are easily available in Hong Kong. In addition, this help is extremely cheap. The Hong Kong government requires that you pay a monthly salary of around $3500 Honk Kong dollars to a live-in maid, or “amah.” For those of you unwilling or unable to do the math, that works out to roughly $500 US per month. Room and board is, of course, expected.

Most of the “help” comes from the surrounding, and impoverished, nations. They are Filipino or Indonesian, predominantly. Occasionally you find other nationalities doing this type of work, but it is rare.

Most of the girls come to Hong Kong for the sole purpose of saving money to send home to their families. They don’t usually have husbands or children themselves and if they are extremely lucky, then someone will marry them while they are here. On any given weekend night, you can see young, attractive Asian women on dates with older, decidedly unattractive, western men (usually in their late 40s to early 60s and either fat or balding). In their own respective countries, these men would be hard-pressed to find such accommodating women. Here, they are practically rock stars.

A young man in my Mandarin courses from Boston tells me that it’s terrifically easy to pick up a date. To the point that it’s actually verging on being hassled. And I have seen the eyes of hungry women devouring my own husband. Alas, we don’t wear wedding rings, which leaves his marital status open to interpretation.

What I really want to commentate on is the fact that most tai-tais (or wives) treat these women like disposable garbage bags. They are there to clean up and that’s it. Women here are constantly complaining about their “help.” Some of them, as gleaned from several reports in the papers here, even go so far as to burn them with irons, underpay them, and slap them around. Talking with some of the girls who provide this “help,” it becomes clear that they are frightened of falling into the wrong hands. For most, this means a traditional Chinese family. Specifically, mainlanders.

Mainland Chinese women have a notorious reputation here among Filipinos and Indonesians. They are not to be trusted with their help. They have mad tempers and throw hissie fits on gargantuan scales. Now, this many just be rumor, but let me tell you a little – and painfully true – story.

Across the hall lives a Chinese family. They have a live-in amah and two horrible little dogs (forever yapping and peeing in the hallways). When we first moved in, I always heard the tinkling of a bell, like on a dog collar, which is how I knew when the amah was taking the dogs out for a walk. (Sidebar – I have NEVER seen the owners take the dogs out.) One day, while riding in the elevator with her, I noticed that I still heard the tinkling of a bell. No dogs. I looked down at her wrist and she was wearing a DOG BELL. When I asked, she told me that it was so her employers wouldn’t be surprised by her sudden appearance. I was shocked, and horrified, and slightly amused, by the story.

Now, I’m sure that some people actually treat these women well. I know that the people I know do. However, it makes me wonder just how far from indentured servants these girls really are. I mean, the size of their rooms is so small you can barely sit down in them. And our maid’s room, I am informed, is BIG by comparison.

Trying to supplement her income, one of the more outspoken maids was just jailed for selling a $10 HK lunchbox in the park. To the government’s credit, it didn’t prosecute her, just arrested her. And the rigmarole that these girls have to go through just to obtain a visa to permit them to sometimes become abused, is amazing. If there was an easy way to get into the country illegally, I’m sure that Hong Kong would have a happy Filipino base. Just like all of the Spanish maids in NYC that are making a bundle charging $60 US an hour and getting paid in cash-ola. Viva la resistance!

Long live capitalism and an unequal system. Lord knows I can’t iron my own clothes. If I had to make a living like that, I’d have starved by now. As an amah, I’d suck.

This is China – are you sure?

This past weekend, we went to Shenzhen to a golf resort called Mission Hills. If anyone reading this is a golf enthusiast, you will already be aware of exactly what and where this place is. For everyone else, let me explain.

Mission Hills is a behemoth golf-complex located just across the border from Hong Kong in a place called Shenzhen, in Guangdong Province. It has 180 holes, or 10 full courses. It’s like Disneyland for golfers.

The thing about golf courses is that they all look alike, really. If you were standing smack in the middle of the photo above, would you have any idea where you were in the world? The markers are all the same; you could literally be anywhere in the world that has a golf course. In other words, you would never know that this is China just by looking at the surroundings. There are, however, other tell-tale signs.

First, to get there you have to cross the border into China from Hong Kong. Although Hong Kong is officially a part of China, there is still a heavily patrolled border crossing. Here’s how it works:

1. You take a cab from downtown Hong Kong to the main border crossing for Shenzhen. Once there, you get out of the cab and get on a yellow bus. The yellow bus is for border crossing only.

2. You show your HK ID card to the border people, then they ask for your passport. They look at your Chinese visa and then stamp everything you have except for your forehead. Although sometimes I think that they would if they could.

3. You get back on the yellow bus and go to the Chinese side and their border patrol. Here, they look at your visa, take your entry card, and stamp everything again. I have noticed that they look at you and your passport more intently here, as if looking for something. Being an American, I wonder if they are just making a point with me in particular.

4. You get out of the immigration and find a cab. Here’s where the real fun begins.

Chinese people have got to be the worse drivers on the planet. No, really. I have been to enough countries to have a fair stab at this one. I have sat in the back of a taxi, cruising down the Champs Elysee at warp speed, while the driver watched a portable television in the front seat. I have watched helplessly as my Italian taxi driver almost killed 8 pedestrians. So, in other words, I know what I am talking about and Chinese drivers are the worst I have ever SEEN.

The rules of the road are this: do whatever you want when you want and for God’s sake don’t even think about using a turn signal – that’s cheating. Also, there are no lanes. Oh, they are marked, but they don’t actually count. There are no lanes in China, just hints of them. Philosophically, I might agree. But when you are whizzing down the road in a ton of metal, it’s a different story. There weren’t enough seat belts in the world for me and I was gripping the seat so hard that I had to pry myself off it at the destination.

At the golf resort, there are mostly, of course, Asians. Which is another way you can tell you are in China. And everyone has color coordinated golf outfits on, with matching shoes. They take this game seriously, people.

We had an event-filled weekend which began with a golf-cart accident and ended with one of our group member’s balls flying into the calf of another’s group’s caddy. (I should insert here that ALL players MUST have a caddy and that they are ALL women. I’ll leave the judgment on this to you, as I have my own feminist take on it which amounts to indignation. You should see these tiny women schlepping huge golf bags while the mostly-Asian men ignore them.) At one point, Barry even starting to throw clubs as if we were in a martial arts movie. After I missed a putt, I threw my club in imitation and cracked up the usually stern caddies. At which point, I whispered in Chinese that my husband was a little boy for the day. That sent them over the edge.

It’s nice to know that, like golf courses, people are similar everywhere.

Inaugural Post

Hello, and welcome to Asia as seen through the eyes of a thirty-two year old American woman.

First and foremost, this is not going to be a place where I drone endlessly on about my cats, my job, my boyfriend, my family life or anything else. Hopefully, and with any luck, there will be no droning at all. Whining, from time to time, no doubt, but nothing boring or unnecessary.

Let me start off by saying that I am incredibly lucky. I have an amazing opportunity in the palm of my hand. Here I am, living in Hong Kong, a truly world-class city by any standards. I am in the heart of Southeast Asia. Everything around me is new. The food, the people, the music, the language, the sights, the sounds, the smells. Everything.

In a lot of ways, it is like being reborn.

It’s the chance of a lifetime, the thing most people in their thirties and forties dream about. A chance to have a do-over, where you can reset the game of life and reexperience it from a fresh vantage point. Not that this is a particularly easy thing to do.

Since I have been here, I have found that there is nothing like moving to a foreign country to get all your personal demons to come out and play. However, there’s a lesson here, many of them. And if you are patient enough with me, I can take you on a vicarious ride through the most interesting places on earth. And if you are patient enough to read through my blubbering, you just might learn some new things yourself. Or, at the very least, hopefully you will be entertained.

I plan on doing a lot of traveling, and of course, I will be bringing along my digital camera to document what I see and do.

I’m not the first person to relocate to a new country. I’m aware of this. Also, I’m not the first person to experience these things either. But, using my long lost journalistic skills, maybe this won’t be that monotonous of a journey for either one of us.

And, hey, at least it’s not another kids site. I promise, I won’t even post any pictures of my kittens, adorable as they are. Because I realize that no one else on this earth is going to find them half as interesting as I do. And, hey, that’s okay.