china!

i just returned to hong kong yesterday evening after two weeks in mainland china. the first week was with the other etas, teaching (sort of) in a middle school just outside of guangzhou. it was really great to experience guangzhou from such a different side. the first time i visited (2 1/2 months ago) i saw the city as a tourist. this time, i got to see it as a teacher (sort of), spending a lot of time in primary schools and secondary schools. we didn't teach as much as i would have liked, but we did get a chance to teach a middle school class, and we did a few other presentations for larger groups on the united states (woooo). our group caused quite a stir at the school, but i think our impact was ultimately positive. after every class, we'd get mobbed by middle schoolers asking for our contact info, and occasionally our signature. it felt really great to be back in guangzhou, and the group did remarkably well together (although it felt more like study abroad than a work trip).

after the other etas headed back to hong kong, i took an overnight train to hainan, and spent a week in the town of sanya. sanya exists solely for tourism, which unsurprisingly, gives it a very strange vibe. the weather was beautiful while i was there, although sitting on the beach on december 21st is certainly a strange experience. i met another fulbrighter (john) randomly while there, who is living in the city of kunming, in yunnan province. he and i got along really well, and i think i'm going to visit him sometime in february or march. i didn't do a whole lot in sanya, which was great. highlights included a visit to hilton's beautiful private beach, eating lots of seafood (which is sadly all imported since china overfished the waters around hainan [sidenote: this blog could be much more cynical than it is]), and an adventure into the central mountains of hainan. john's mandarin was excellent which allowed us to meet many more local hainanese than i would have been able to on my own. it also was an inspiration to keep working on my mandarin.

dadonghai beach

the only photo i have of me from the trip. i hope my three faithful readers aren't offended by the topless shot...

speaking of mandarin, i'm still working on it, although it's slow going. i made the big decision yesterday to stop trying to learn traditional characters, and switch to simplified. in mainland china, a majority of chinese characters were simplified during the 50s and 60s to help improve literacy. the only places in which traditional chinese characters remain are hong kong and taiwan. i had hoped to make traditional characters happen, but it's just proving too difficult. hopefully this switch will help my writing. at this point, i know about 150 characters, but those are mostly simpler ones. as they get more difficult, the difference between traditional characters and simplified ones gets more pronounced.

my parents arrive in a few hours! it's been almost five months since i've seen them, the longest time we've been apart since i studied abroad in senegal. we'll be in hong kong together until the 30th, and then we're going to the philippines (cebu) for five days to relax on the beach.

it was really nice while in china to find that i missed hong kong, and was anxious to return. it made me realize how much hong kong feels like home, and how comfortable i have become here. it's still a pretty crazy, difficult, exhausting place, but my living situation is really comfortable, and i'm starting to feel like i have a really good feel for the city.

i hope everyone has a lovely holiday wherever you are in the world! to celebrate, here's a present from me to you, with a little help from yousendit:

um tom - caetano veloso

island hopping.

i hope the infrequency of my posting hasn't scared any of you off. i'm always shocked when i return to the blog to realize so much time has gone by. as i write this entry, i'm rapidly approaching the end of the first third of my time in hong kong. even in almost four months, i still have not resolved my mixed feelings for hong kong. i visited hong kong park today, although a park is hardly what i would call it. because there are so many people in this city, parks here are designed to move the maximum amount of people through them as possible. you can't bring dogs, there are few benches, and don't even think about sitting on the grass. everything is designed to be looked at while on the move. add to that the fact that every time you look up, you can see at least 50 buildings over 30 stories high, and you end up with a pretty un-park-like feel.

as i discussed in my last post, i enjoy hong kong most when i'm not in hong kong. hong kong is made up of 260 islands, many of which are largely undeveloped. 40% of hong kong's 460 square miles has been reserved for country parks, and only 25% of this area has actually been developed. this weekend i took advantage of these country parks, and spent one day on the island of cheung chau, and the next hiking through lantau island. this combined with a visit to lamma island last weekend has given me a pretty good sense for some of the more popular islands in hong kong. here's a map of hong kong (as a side note, all of these pictures are much bigger than they appear on the blog, so click for more detail):


i've circled the three islands, as well as mong kok and tai po (where the university is). one note is that the red dot for mong kok should be to the right of the k, not to the left of the m. i'm not sure why they placed it all the way out there. i wish it was that close to the water... (also, i just realized that the whole map is tilted a little bit. you get the general idea, though.)

lamma is a beautiful island about 30 minutes from central hong kong by ferry. there are two major towns connected by a concrete foot path. the island has a number of beaches, and many of the inhabitants are expats. lamma is definitely one of the more expensive places to live in hong kong, and as a result, a number of boutiquey stores have popped up in the main town of sok kwu wan. lamma is another reminder, though, that you're never as far as you'd like to be from hong kong development. the main beach is called 'power station beach' because if you happen to look right, you'll notice an enormous electrical power plant. as long as you angle your towel to the left and ignore the shadow it casts, the beach is really beautiful.

hi.

cheung chau is much more densely populated, with 30,000 people living in just 2.5 square km. the island feels much more chinese than lamma, and many of the small winding alleys in the town of cheung chau sell traditional herbal medicines and paper hell money (to be burned in memory of the dead) over organic quinoa. i wasn't crazy about cheung chau at first (still so many people), but heading south i soon found myself on an abandoned trail that hugged the rocky coastline. the trail was really rugged in spots, and even involved some spelunking through a cave the notorious pirate cheung po tsai once hid in.

first look at cheung chau.

trail in southern cheung chau.

i'm really obsessed with lantau. yesterday, i went on a 15 km hike that took me over two peaks (sunset peak at 870 m and lantau peak at 980 m). lantau peak is the second highest in hong kong, and afforded some phenomenal views of the penninsula as well as the not so beautiful hong kong airport. one interesting note on the airport. like much of hong kong, the airport is built completely on reclaimed land located (as you can see from the map) off the north coast of lantau island. reclamation projects in hong kong are a huge source of tension, as developers are running out of flat space, while others wonder whether victoria harbor (the body of water between hong kong island and kowloon) will even be here in ten years.

pretty normal photo for hong kong: huge area of reclaimed land, city area with a lot of skyscrapers, plenty of smog and lots of green.

anyway, the hike on lantau was definitely the best i've been on in hong kong, and maybe one of the better day hikes i've ever been on. the sky was unusually clear, and descending lantau peak with a view of po lin monastery (and the tian tan buddha) was really stunning. the 'big buddha' as it's more commonly called is apparently the largest, outdoor, seated, bronze buddha in the world. wooo. it was nice to arrive after a day of hiking, though, and sit down to a huge veggie lunch at the monastery.

looking back from sunset peak. all of these houses are rented by the monastery.

looking back at sunset peak from lantau peak (you can see the trail we hiked at the bottom of the photo).

approaching the big buddha from lantau peak.

as i'm still a little overwhelmed by the intense development/consumption/excess/insanity of downtown hong kong, it's been nice to find things to do with my time off work that get me away from the malls. i think i'll close by sharing a song i've had on repeat for the past two weeks. hope everyone is well.

little brother (electric) by grizzly bear.

and for no reason, me in a pumpkin:

i miss fall.

for some reason, writing has felt very difficult lately.

i've settled into what might be called a routine, although every day continues to be quite different than the previous one. my teaching schedule is finally somewhat consistent. i work three days a week in tai po, which is nice because it gives me a considerable amount of time away from campus.

i was walking home tonight after a pretty surreal halloween party put on by the RA staff on campus, and had one of those 'i am very far from home' moments. moments like these usually come out of nowhere and are rarely the result of exceptional circumstances. it kind of feels like an artificially constructed mental barrier comes crashing down, as one of eight thousand daily stimuli finally tips the balance. it's like that marble game where you have to gradually pull out the pick up sticks and then one stick causes all the marbles to fall. i really liked that game. anyway, my brain evidentally works like a poor simile. but in losing my marbles, i find that all of a sudden the reality of my situation comes flooding in in an intense and really emotional way. the interesting thing is that this is rarely a negative experience. in fact, tonight it made me smile. maybe it's like the gradual process of getting used to and ultimately blocking out a familiar noise, and then three weeks later, for no particular reason, hearing it again and realizing that it's been with you the whole time. maybe i live in my head too much. the point is, it's easy to forget how many barriers i (or anyone really) put up in a foreign place to maintain some sense of normalcy. try as you might, these barriers can only hold up for so long, though. when they do fall down, the sounds, smells and surroundings of a place can hit you all at once. i guess i find it kind of exciting.

it's strange to think that i will have been in hong kong for three months on saturday. hong kong still doesn't feel completely comfortable, i don't know if it ever will. there continue to be so many things about this city that surprise me on a daily basis, though, that keep life consistently interesting. the strange mix between mass consumerism on a scale i've never experienced and huge areas of national park mean that in 30 minutes i can find myself surrounded by any number of vastly different landscapes.

i've been hiking a lot recently, which has really greatened my appreciation for hong kong. most of the trails here are concrete, which is a bummer, but the way the city is built on what must have originally looked like a pretty unforgiving landscape is stunning (not stunning beautiful, but stunning how is this possible). the land itself is incredibly hilly, making the hundreds (probably thousands) of 30 story buildings that pop up out of nowhere look really unnatural.

i learned last week that mong kok is the most densely populated urban area in the world. there are 130,000 people per square km. i don't think i can really even process what that means. it's a lot. imagine leaving a concert venue all the time.

i think i'll stop there. i seem to have been affected by a writing style that my students often use. rather than write a linear, intro-thesis-topic sentences-conclusion essay, many students have a very circular way of writing. it's certainly indicative of the religious and cultural views of much of china. while it often doesn't make a lot of sense in an argumentative essay (at least to me) there's something really interesting about the way it can be used to convey meaning.

i've been listening to a lot of early sufjan stevens recently. it makes me nostalgic. i hope you are all doing well. take care.

this doesn't have much to do with hong kong.

just had to share this, my favorite song from the new radiohead album:

reckoner by radiohead.

get ready for a photo heavy post

i think i'm going to divide this post into two sections. the first is about mong kok, one of my favorite places in hong kong, and the second is about my recent trip to china.

mong kok is located about 15 minutes by metro from downtown hong kong. the reason it appeals so much is because it's the closest fit to what i expected hong kong to be like before arriving. i was initially pretty discouraged by hong kong as most of the downtown area is full of big malls and white people drinking. mong kok, though, is one busy market after another, with a lot more happening, and a lot fewer expats. the goldfish market sells everything from turtles to sting rays to large tropical fish. there's a great fruit and vegetable market, and of course, the requisite tourist junk market. below you'll find a few photos of mong kok at night.

mong kok from above

one of many busy streets

i had a pretty light work week this week [surprise] so i headed up to guangzhou, the capital of guandong province. here's a map:

canton and guangzhou are the same thing. you can also see shenzhen (city I visited a few weeks ago) and macau (city I visited six weeks ago)

i really loved guangzhou. the only problem was that because this week was national week the streets were more insane than they usually are (which is really saying something), which made walking around pretty exhausting. on top of that, most tourists leave the country for national week, so after a day of wading [literally what it feels like as i stand a head above most everyone else] through crowds, i'd return to an empty hostel. the hostel itself was located on a beautiful island in south west guangzhou. the island was originally a concession given to european traders in the 19th century, so the architecture has a distinct colonial european feel. with the multiple parks and gardens and wide footpaths i could easily forget i was even in china. it made it a nice place to return after the insanity of guangzhou proper. here are a few photos:

a little overexposed, but this is the shamian island central walkway

guangzhou skyline

guangzhou old town

one of dozens of alleys selling traditional medicine ingredients

one such store. notice the starfish in the upper left

a bucket full of live scorpions [for traditional medicine]

near the scorpions, more animals (even chipmunks!) in a small space than i have ever seen

a video of central guangzhou - neon lights are big in china

and because i appear in none of these photos, a completely unrelated photo from the horseraces (maybe next time you'll get more than my back):


well, congrats for making it this far. i'm proud of you. so proud, in fact, that i have a little reward:

song of the week: the penalty by beirut (video courtesy of la blogotheque - skip ahead to 1:20)

i putong [my] hua-king shoes...

ok, this one doesn't even make sense. maybe it's a sign that i should make more relevant titles/insert depeche mode lyrics.

before you come to any conclusions,
try walking in my shoes.

if you haven't noticed, there's no real theme to this week's post.

i went to shenzhen [pronounced shen-jen (which ruins previous blog title sadly...)] a few weekends ago and came back with arrested development and planet earth box sets and this photo of one of the central plazas:


needless to say, i'm hoping to make it farther into china next time (shenzhen seems to play a similar role for hong kong residents as tijuana does for those from southern california, except shenzhen has 13 million people).

i had my first primary school classes today and spent most of the time comparing heights with students standing on chairs. not even the coordinated clapping drills could get them to pay attention. hopefully next week i'll actually get to do some teaching.

i started teaching myself mandarin (putonghua [put-ong-wah]) a few days ago using rosetta stone which has been really fun. i've even been able to try out a few phrases on my students.

the winds have turned. shenzhen's smog has settled on hong kong. it's pretty gross.

i'm going to the horse races (the jockey club, along with hsbc, seems to own much of hong kong) this weekend. more on that soon.

song of the week: a postcard to nina by jens lekman.

so many op-shenzhen hong kong...

bad puns back by popular request. this one is particularly rough, though.

time continues to move very quickly over here. last friday we finished up orientation with a long, powerpoint heavy induction ceremony and officially became members of the faculty. on monday, i had my first classes. so far, all i'm doing are a few one hour one on one tutoring sessions, and two longer small group writing and speaking sessions. commitments will gradually increase, but this week has been very quiet. next week, i start as a TA in an experimental teaching methods class.

it's really great to see the enthusiasm these students bring in to the tutoring sessions, and i love hearing all of their varied stories on how they ended up getting to hong kong. most of the students that come see us are first years from mainland china, because their english isn't as good as those coming from hong kong.

i continue to enjoy celebrity like status on campus, due to my height and the logical next conclusion that i must personally know kevin garnett and lebron james. as of yet, i'm happy to deflect the attention, but it's just another reminder that you really don't appreciate anonymity until it's gone.

more action, less words.
- i got a six month multi entry china visa! i'm planning on visiting shenzhen this weekend.
- i went to a great beach on an outlying island this week. it was hard to believe i was still in hong kong.

hap mun bay.

- i eat a tub a week of super chunk skippy. i'm never quite sure how it happens.
- last week i sprinkled my eggs with what i thought was salt. it was msg.

yesterday sarah, matthew (a friend of sarah's stopping over on the way to dubai) and i visited victoria peak for some fantastic views of the (apparently) number one rated skyline in the world. the weather was perfect, and there was a great breeze, but 9 pm is a difficult time to take photos. these are the best two.

i'm pretty proud of this photo. precariously placed 10 second self timer...

that's all for now. hope everyone is doing well. b4n.

song of the week: other than the entire m.i.a album, i'd have to say 'the courtesan has sung' by sunset rubdown.

i can't work with 'macau'

i always find that the first two days in a new place seem to last as long as the next two weeks. predictably, the last week has flown by. the good news for you, dear reader, is that in the past few days i've finally gotten used to the time change and will no longer subject you to semi-coherent/sane rambling blog posts.

maybe you're bummed about that. maybe you're not.

life within the university tends to be pretty quiet. we have a teaching related seminar in the morning, and cantonese class in the afternoon. i've really enjoyed cantonese, although two hours a day is really exhausting. interestingly, the pronunciation of words in cantonese is very similar to that of french, so i'm finding my accent to generally be pretty good (lots of euille, eu and ou endings).

because we only have four hours of class each day, i've had plenty of opportunities to get off campus and explore hong kong. last weekend, i visited hong kong island with a few others and checked out the hk nightlife. the island is unlike anywhere i've been before. covered walkways traverse the entire city, making it possible to shop for an entire day without ever having to touch the ground. the island itself is very hilly, which has resulted in the construction of an outdoor (and very long) escalator through the busy shopping/restaurant district of lan kwai fan. i'm just hoping that they set up stores along the escalator soon because having to get off it to shop really slows me down.

i've also spent a fair amount of time in tsim sha tsui, another fun area just across the bay from hong kong island. it's a little seedier and cheaper than hong kong island, but still has some great entertainment options. on friday, sarah (another ETA) and i went to a 30th floor bar with stunning views of the hong kong skyline.

more action, less words.

- it's hong konger, not hong kongian.

- i came back on thursday to find my locks had been changed. no explanation was given.

- MSG is in a lot of food, but is only listed as 'flavor enhancer.' it's frustratingly hard to avoid.
- dim sum isn't as good as i wanted it to be.

i spent saturday and sunday in macau, a group of two islands about 40 miles west of hong kong. it's one of two special administrative regions of china, the other being hong kong. macau is very different from hong kong as it was a portuguese colony until 1999, whereas hong kong was a british colony until 1997. macau has become very well known in the past five years for its gambling/casinos (the us consulate general told us that as of last year more gambling money goes through macau than las vegas).

me, sarah and emilio (sarah's friend from undergrad) on the ferry to macau.

sarah and emilio usually look more normal, but i didn't in the other photos (please refer to 'ben is beautiful'), so this one gets posted.

having now been to macau (and having never visited las vegas), i find this [the previous statement about gambling money] very hard to believe. there were definitely enormous, overwhelming, pretty gross looking casinos:

emilio and i in front of the lisboa casino (still under construction at the top)

but there were only a few of this size - most of them were quite small and spread out. surprisingly, i actually found macau to be a much more historically and culturally rich experience than hong kong. a lot of the older buildings in hong kong have been bulldozed to allow for more shopping malls, whereas in macau, most of the old town has been left untouched - the casino strip is built on a reclaimed piece of land on the south part of the main island. what this means is that much of the old town still retains its portuguese feel. i've never been to portugal, but sarah said that the architecture and cobblestones reminded her a lot of lisbon.

approaching the ruins of the cathedral of st. paul

wandering through old macau.

well, that's pretty much all for now. i'm hoping to have some photos of downtown hong kong to post soon. last time i went in, my camera was acting up. today i got a great hong kong hiking guide as well, so i'm hoping to check out some trails as soon as it cools off a little (there's a 60 mile trail that cuts all the way across hong kong that sounds great). hope everyone is doing well. until next time, i'll leave you with my new feature.

song of the week: apple orchard by beach house.

just china settle in...

since i got no response to my pretty painful play on words in my first post, i thought i'd make another one just for zachary because i know it drives him crazy, especially since everyone knows we're related. anyway, i've been in hong kong now since the 3rd and only today can i say that i've regained some semblance of sanity. there's really nothing like an 11-hour time change to bring out a side of your personality you never knew existed.

i think i'll start by showing you some boring room photos with the promise that more interesting ones will come soon. perhaps they will even have people in them.

this is a view of the left side of my room. the right side looks the same (remember this room is supposed to be for two), except there's more of a mess, and no cutesy ikea lamp. sorry the photo is a little dark, but with the overhead lights on i feel like i'm in a hospital (side note, RAs here are called wardens).

this is the view from the balcony i share with another fulbrighter. the top photo looks to the left, where you might be able to pick out a little sliver of ocean. the bottom photo looks right, where you can see the bus stop where i catch buses into tai po.

so, it really hasn't sunk in yet that i live in china, because all told, hong kong is a really easy place to live. i’m writing this from my laptop in my dorm room, a luxury i’ve definitely not experienced when abroad before. i’ve gone into nearby tai po a few times to buy various dorm room necessities which has been very easy. public transportation is excellent, and most everything you'd expect to find in the US can be found here, although i must say they combine stores in a strange way: yesterday i walked into a pharmacy that sold your usual pharmacy items (shampoo, toothpaste etc) in one half, while the other half had big open crates of dried pig skins, fish and other dried meat delectables. the language barrier has probably been the most difficult to deal with. people speak little english, and since we’re very far from downtown hong kong (90 minutes, ugh) pretty much all signs are in cantonese (closer in to the city there's more english help). while in tai po yesterday i ordered lunch by pointing at the prettiest characters on the menu. as you can imagine, i feel pretty useless in those situations, and am desperately hoping that i’ll be able to pick up a few things over the next year.

i'd like to introduce a new section of the blog, called 'more action, less words' (for the us weekly enthusiast in all of us):
- because my dorm is built on a steep hill, I have to take three elevators to get to my eighth floor room.
- dorm security here is out of this world – there are security cameras everywhere, with security guards at the front of each dorm watching a wall of TVs.
- the campus is sub free, but the 7-11 on campus sells alcohol…
- there’s a climbing wall on campus!
- people in hong kong love paperwork, and have little time for those who don't.

anyway, i think i'll leave it at that. i'm definitely still getting settled in, and many of us are coping with our fair share of frustrations with the program. i, as well as others, are definitely hoping that since we're the 'pioneer group,' as they call us, that we'll be able to push back against some of fulbright's less popular restrictions. i hope everyone is doing well. if anyone is not getting their questions answered let me know, and i'd be glad to address them. i'm still getting a feel for this whole blogging thing - i seem to have settled on a pretty rambly blog personality - i suppose we'll have to see if it changes. until next time, take care, and if you feel so inclined, write me an email. id love to hear from you.

kong hon' in!

i just got back from portland today, and instead of packing for hong kong, i decided to set up this killer blog. after 12 days of traveling on the west coast, i'm wishing i had more time to relax before having to pick up and leave so soon for hk. i'm taking off on august 2nd, flying through lax and tokyo, and arriving in hong kong on the evening of august 3rd. i know very little about what to expect after i arrive, but that hasn't been too big of a deal as i'm focusing so much on getting everything together for the move.

you may be interested to know that this is my first ever blog post. so far (after four well crafted sentences), i'm finding blogging to be a pretty awkward experience. i feel kind of like a radio dj, completely unaware of how many people are listening. as a result, i feel like i can say anything because maybe no one is listening, but then i also know what it's like to listen to a really bad dj who thinks no one is listening. so because this is my first post, i'll pretend people are listening, and stop saying whatever comes into my head. welcome to my blog. maybe this is why i never had livejournal.

ps. does the title sound like 'come on in'? i sort of thought it did.