chinese new year

we had this week off for chinese new year (or lunar new year as it's known outside of china) and rather than stay in hong kong, dhwani, sarah, sarah's friend jeffrey and i went to shenzhen to spend the holiday with a friend from the university and her family. shenzhen is the same city i visited early during my time in hong kong, as well as the city i must pass through to visit most anywhere else in china. tourists rarely stop there, and up to now, i'd had no real reason to. after spending a few days there with lusi and her family, though, i have a much more positive outlook on the city.

chinese new year is sort of like a mix between thanksgiving and christmas. most of the holiday is spent with family, watching festivities on television and eating ridiculous amounts of food. gifts are given in the form of red envelopes filled with money. anyone who is unmarried can expect to receive a red envelope from those that are married. lusi's family was incredibly accommodating, and although they spoke very little english, lusi's fantastic translating allowed us to have some pretty involved conversations. it was also a great opportunity for me to practice my chinese. i seem to be a pretty absurd spectacle to most chinese people, though. not only am i tall beyond comprehension, but i speak poor mandarin with a midwestern accent. in general, since the majority of older chinese people speak little to no english, i'm still encouraged to try to speak, since it's the only way we can really communicate anything.

a few highlights from the trip included eating some fantastic chinese food (much better than anything i've had in hong kong), making pork dumplings with lusi's family, a trip to the "countryside" with lusi's extended family (including a trip to the driving range!), lighting fireworks along an abandoned highway and getting kicked out of a 7-11 by chinese gangsters. it was so fantastic to be taken in by lusi's whole family, who were so warm and friendly despite the language barrier and our joining what is usually a pretty strictly family gathering. all in all, a great few days.

in other news:

- in the chinese calendar, each year is named after a different animal. last year was the year of the pig. this year is the year of the rat. i'm a rat. this should be a good year?
- i'm going to tibet in march! i'll be visiting friends in chengdu and kunming on either end.
- it's freezing in hong kong. the weather is colder than it's been in ten years. this is made even more complicated by the fact that no one in hong kong or china has heat. we've spent the last two weeks huddled around our space heater.
- almost recovered from the wild boar/monkey/chupacabra/badger ferret bite. last rabies shot is next saturday.

and some photos from china:

the first of many meals with lusi and her family.

the crew hard at work on their dumplings.

all alone at my station.

sarah and her sparklers.

dhwani and lusi in a strawberry patch.

at the driving range. i think i'm reacting to jeffrey hitting his ball backwards. (btw, we're all wearing the same clothes in all these photos, not because it all happened on the same day, but because it was too cold to change. never having heat changes the way you view things like showers or clean clothes)

maybe the most awkward photo of all time?

all of us together in the 'countryside'

a case for public health

a true story in four acts
'acts' used here in more of an ira glass kind of way

act 1

sarah and i had planned to complete the maclehose trail over the long weekend. the 100 km trail, hong kong's oldest, stretches from east to west new territories, starting in the stunning sai kung country park and ending in tuen mun. saturday began with a comparably light 16 km hike through some really fantastic scenery. the weather was perfect, the skies were clear, and sarah and i were making great time despite our predictably late start.

after an afternoon on the idyllic long ke beach, we hiked a few more kilometers and by 6 pm arrived in the small village of sai wan. less than 30 people live here, and as i learned at 4:30 am the next morning, it only really survives because of the traffic coming through on the maclehose trail. a few cafes and a small hostel were placed on either side of the trail, before it continued on to the nearby sai wan beach. we hadn't planned on hosteling and so we set up camp on the beach as the sun set.

sarah and i made a delicious pasta dinner on our brand new camping stove and with a little help from our excellent mutual friend melatonin, settled in at about 8:30.

act 2

at 3:30, having slept fitfully since the winds had picked up around midnight, i was awakened by a painful bite on my calf. i sat up yelling, expecting to find an animal sitting in my lap. i found nothing, although within minutes, my leg had swollen around a large bite across my left calf. in shock, i lay down, unsure of what to do next. sarah and i spent five minutes catching our breath, trying to figure out what the hell had happened, before i walked outside to look around. my hiking shoes were about fifteen feet from the tent, but with the clouds blocking out the moon and the wind whipping around the tent, i couldn't see or hear anything. it seemed that some animal, presumably large enough to get its mouth around my calf, had bitten my leg completely unprovoked while i was still inside the tent. at this point, the bite on my leg had swelled to the size of a baseball and i was having trouble walking.

sarah and i packed up our site as quickly as possible, and by 4 we were limping our way to the village of sai wan. neither of us had any idea of what to do, as we were easily 10 km from any major road. after arriving in the village, i asked sarah to start banging on doors, which she thankfully did. the first door she tried opened to reveal eight women sleeping on four bunk beds. the women were understandably shocked, but with limited english and chinese, we managed to track down another hiker staying in the nearby hostel who spoke excellent english.

by 4:30, jonathan had called 999, and after discovering that they had never heard of sai wan (keep in mind we're still in hong kong) he managed to describe to the fire department where we were. we learned that the nearest service road was about three km uphill from the village, and i was told that an ambulance was being sent with a few people who would help me hike out. having later seen who they sent, i have to wonder what jonathan told them.

act 3

at about 6 am, five fire fighters walked into sai wan with a stretcher. soon, two doctors followed, and after them came five more fire fighters, with a wheel chair and two more stretchers. i was very surprised, because while i was unable to walk, i certainly didn't need 12 people to carry me out. while most of the firefighters just walked alongside, a few of them were particularly helpful. through a combination of hopping on one leg, awkward wheel chair-ing, and intense stretcher work, we were able to climb the mountain out of sai wan and up to the service road in about an hour. for the first time since moving to hong kong, i was actually thankful that the parks and services department has put so much money into paving hong kong's hiking trails. getting wheeled out of the valley was a welcome improvement over the first 500m of hopping.

by 7 am, i was in an ambulance with sarah, driving to the nearest hospital. i naturally didn't have any form of identification, so used my student octopus card instead. after an hour of driving on windy roads, we made it to the tseung kwan o hospital in the southeast new territories.

act 4

having been checked in at the hospital, i quickly had some blood tests taken, and was given some antibiotics and antihistamines. at this point, my leg was huge, and i still had no idea what was going on. over the course of the next few hours, we weeded out spider, snake, stork (jonathan's proposal), lizard and most other venomous animals. other likely candidates were dog or wild boar. i had to tell my story to many doctors, all of whom had trouble comprehending why i had been bitten in my sleep through a tent. i still don't really understand how it happened. the most compelling case has been made for the wild boar. i also think it makes the best story. whatever it was, though, it had some nasty teeth, because my leg was pretty infected.

throughout the rest of the day, i was given a variety of drugs, and i slept for a long time. by about ten pm, over 16 hours after i had been bitten, the swelling had dramatically decreased, and the doctors had gotten back my blood tests, which came up negative across the board. exhausted, confused and mentally drafting this blog post, i limped to the desk to pay my bill.

epilogue
the reason for my title? grand total for two fire trucks, an ambulance, 12 rescue workers, a blood test, a weeks course of antibiotics and a day in a hospital bed : 12 US dollars.

PS. i still don't know what bit me. i'm taking suggestions, though.

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)