Message from Talei

Talei wishes me to put this on my blog:

Go Aussie Go!!!!!
She also wanted to put
fluro-coloured zinc cream
on the nose
but didn't have any
to hand.

I love that girl's sense of irony! She may be young but she's already a true artiste!

Crimes Against Nature

This is so cool. Keith (he of the spotless criminal record, strong moral code, candidate for sainthood, and teacher of mentally handicapped children) was arrested by Australian Customs.

And here is what he was arrested for:
Yup, ginseng tea. Keith had brought some in for a friend who is having thyroid trouble. Turns out he'd got AMERICAN ginseng tea which, apparently, is on the endangered species list ... and so he was hauled off.

Me? Like any good wife should, I said "You're on your own, Buster!" and dashed out of Customs for a smoke (hey, it was an 8 hour flight.)

Anyway, there's Keith, off in some Customs arrested room, going "But I didn't know it was an endangered species. I bought it at HK's Park and Shop Supermarket. It's everywhere there!" and then a nice lady Customs Officer comes in and says "It's everywhere over here too. I've seen it in all the supermarkets." and so the other Customs Officers go "OK, we'll just let you off with a Caution this time!" and they wrote out something impressive and official-looking, handed him back the offending object and let him go.

So, let that be a lesson to everyone out there: AMERICAN ginseng tea is an endangered species and so, no matter how much you see of it in supermarkets everyplace - probably why it's on the list in the first place - NEVER carry any through Customs EVER!!!

HK vs Macau!

As we all know, Hong Kong considers itself in competition with Tokyo and occasionally in competition with Singapore, or NY and London, and absolutely not - like, not ever, ever, ever - with that silly little Portuguese backwater out there somewhere else in the Pearl River Delta, called ... mmmm, what was it again? Oh, that's right! Macau.

Macau Island as seen
from Taipa Island

However, a few years back Macau let in Las Vegas and now it's all casinos and flash and rich and blowing HK out of the water in the seriously good entertainment stakes (serious International performers are choosing Macau for their concerts instead of us, which is annoying us considerably) and it's kinda getting our attention a little, although we'd never, ever, ever consider having any casinos here!

Stanley Ho's new place!

But since we have been in Macau for the past few days, I asked Richard and Gloria if they could see any differences between the two places and they came up with two things:

Macau has better food and worse manners!


Of course Macau has better food. Like, DUH!!! I mean it was a Portuguese colony for 500 years, and those Portuguesers are serious foodie-types! And there they were, back in 1513, just come from 100 years in Goa, which is another serious foodie-place, and they'd arrived having already developed their own unique Port-Goa fusion cuisine, and they're meeting with another serious foodie-type-people, the Cantonese! So what is bound to happen when you have three foodie-nations coming together and making a cuisine together? You get bliss, that's what!

HK however was British and the British only like food they ate as children; give 'em sausage and mash, fish and chips, spotted dick, figs newton and they're happy as Larry. Thus the sublime Cantonese foodie-ness was wasted on them. So, like I said, DUH!!! Of course Macau has vastly better food.

HK Traffic

As for the other one? Richard said that the main difference he noticed was that "HK has traffic lights everywhere and everyone obeys them, except at the pedestrian crossings. The crossings, sure, also have traffic lights only people cross whenever they feel like it ... and the cars always stop to let people pass. However, in Macau, there are no traffic lights and pedestrians are always too scared to cross the roads because it's like every driver feels it's his/her duty to kill every pedestrian they see around them!"

Which of these would you
prefer to have run over you?

Actually, I noticed that as well. In Macau, cars actually speed up when they see someone trying to cross the road.

Horrible manners those Portuguese!

What Kills Us This Week!

We are off travelling for a month so won't be blogging much and certainly won't be updating this Weekly Killers of HK Feature, so this is the last for a while.

Wasn't going to do it this week, only I must share the cutest thing that's just happened.

See, because the weather has been so foul recently and we're off downunder to winter-climes for a month, I haven't bothered to get my summer clothes out of storage. This means I'm still blatting around in the lightest of my winter clothes, despite it being quite hot this last week. And, yes, the vast number of my winter clothes are black! (so Darlinghurst, darling!!!)

Anyway, what's happened this week is that the Old "Tai Chi" Dears in our building (they're down in the Park every morning at 5 am doing their Tai Chi) have been shaking their heads when they see me, wagging their fingers side-to-side and saying "Mo black! Mo black!"

Then, just now in the lift, the Sweetest Old Dear, who doesn't usually speak a word of English, waggled her finger at me and said in perfectly phrased, perfectly modulated, Chinglish-free phonetically-learned English and with absolute seriousness. "You must not wear black in this weather. You will get heat stroke and die!"

Don't you just love it? Can you just see her there, hunting up this phrase, then practising and practising it until she got it down perfectly, and then, undoubtedly, riding up and down in the lift so she'd eventually catch me and get to say it to me.

I sooo love these Elderly Darlings!

In fact, she's gone to so much trouble I now feel obligated to find something white to wear today out to the airport and then I can change back into my winter blacks in the toilets ... or something like that.

Anyway, that's my weekly ...

THREATDOWN

Wearing black in summer!

And let's check out HK Magazine and discover their ...

THREATDOWN

Wow, it's a Tuberculosis Epidemic!

If you recall, that was my threatdown from a fortnight back! I soooo beat them to it!

"What the Olympics Means to Me!"

Four years ago, Beijing threw out most of its public art as "not good enough" and, instead, asked a whole pile of famous Chinese artists to create art which represented what the Olympics meant to them personally. The result has been a range of sculptures now scattered all around Beijing for the Olympics.

Until today, I'd only seen photographs of this one ...

... which normally I'd find quite crass but here, unexpectedly, thought was simple and lovely, and this one ...

... which I thought was stupidly romantic but still beautifully rendered, and this one ...

... which I found kinda "too Nike" for my taste, and this one ...


... which was all sorts of "YAWN!!!"

But, as you can see, the range of ideas expressed was so wide and all were so beautifully fabricated, they made me wish so badly to see the others.

Well, guess what I saw today? YES!!! The little scale models for all 50 of these statues! Yup, China is currently touring them around the provinces. Want to see them too?

Love the asymmetrical balance
(All apologies to Lady R.
who hates me using that phrase!)

Mmmm, I was planning to upload the lot, but the computer is running so slow tonight I'll only do it until I get bored.

OK, let's divide them into sections:

ONES I TOTALLY LOVE

(And I'm sure it's only a co-incidence that they're based on the post-Modernist subversions of the pre-existing Classical Chinese sculptural traditions)

The Gate Guardians
as Classical Greek Gods
but in boxing gloves

The Beauty of Jia-lin
gets active

Classical Greece
meets
Classical China

ONES I GET, LOVE, BUT FIND VAGUELY INEXCUSEABLE

#1 "Then, after the Olympics, I'll sell it on to the Bruce Lee Museum"




#2 "What makes you think I got the idea from the figurehead on my Jaguar?"


#3 "Why, yes, I did go to the Botero Exhibition. Why do you ask?"


ONES I JUST FIND INEXCUSABLE!

#1 What Olympics?
I just needed an excuse to get her clothes off!





ONES I JUST LIKED FOR NO GOOD REASON

ONES I LOVE BUT DON'T QUITE GET

ONES I GET BUT DON'T QUITE LOVE

ONES I GET BUT DON'T LIKE

ONES I NEITHER GET NOR LIKE

However, just remember these are all giant statues so would impress by scale alone, so I deeply envy anyone who gets to see them all "in the flesh!"

And if you're one of those lucky, lucky devils, pretty please, I'd soooo love to see photos so if you're up there in Beijing in the next month, and get yourself any, please please please send them to me.

Sai Kung - This too is HK

Gloria says she had an image in her head of what HK looked like, but now she's here she finds it difficult to believe just how different from each other different parts of HK actually are; that there are such a wide range of HKs within this City SAR!

Well, here's a part of HK this blog hasn't shown you before: Sai Kung.

Sai Kung.
Doesn't this look Mediterranean?

Sai Kung is an old Tanka fishing village that we foreign-devil-types have moved into in numbers. It's pollution-free, kinda, and wayyy off the beaten track, with beaches and cheap boat mooring/anchorage, but still within an hour's drive of the city. Anyway, here are some photos so you get the picture:

Sai Kung.

OK, this is a joke!
That is actually NZ

This is Sai Kung

Keith points out his
dream block of land!

For reasons this blog is well aware - as in my post "Made in Indonesia" - I find the Tanka people fascinating. (Actually, I may download a stack of photos I took of Tanka faces so you can see for yourself!) They live on sanpans in various calm bays around the Pearl River delta ...

Tanka sanpan

... and everyday they go out fishing and, around sunset, they come into ports like Sai Kung and auction off their catch to the various seafood restaurants along the esplanade ...

The catch lies in water,
still alive,
in the bottom of these boats
"This is the one you want?"

And after the auction,
the nice relaxing cuppa tea!

These seafood restaurants are fabulous, just like all the seafood restaurants in all the Tanka fishing villages in the region! (You should try the ones in Po Tai! Mmm mmmh!)

Although there are seafood restaurants all along the esplanade and up and down the nearby streets, my favourite set are The Keys (Cheung Key, Leung Key, Chung Key etc) all together at the end, past the dolphins, right on the sea.

Past the dolphins
to the seafood restaurants

And here's how the restaurants keep the catch fresh ...

You point out what you want
and waiters get it out for you,
take it to the chef, and, within
minutes, it's on your table ...
maybe steamed in lemon grass.
Mmm mmmh!

So, there you go. If you, like Gloria, think HK is all high rise and traffic congestion, hope this has expanded your vision a bit!