It’s been about a month now, but I’ve got this one incident in my head right now that I’d like to write down before it goes away forever. Normally, it wouldn’t be significant at all—you know, music on college campuses. Now this happening didn’t have to do with marketed music at all. It’s just one day, I walked out of the library, and the usually music-fee campus was alive with this impromptu drumming session.
Of course, it wasn’t impromptu in that some club booked the venue (Sun Yat-sen Plaza, like the small quad on campus), but what was happening was quite fun. Sitting around a coordinator were students on seats playing (percussion) instruments. They were all into it, and it was apparent that they were not all one group, because while the sounds coming out didn’t sound bad, they didn’t sound at the concerto standard either, and would have sounded terrible without the coordinator and the baseline of instruments near her.
In addition, there were empty seats (more than a few), and they all had instruments on them. Granted, they weren’t thousand-dollar pieces, but small hand drums and such. It became more apparent that anyone could join in as random people started sitting down.
So we sat down as well and had some fun banging away at our instruments for like ten minutes. It was more for fun than for meritorious art, so the quality of the actual sounds didn’t matter—it was just fun.
That was just one of a handful (like maybe three) times that I’d heard music blaring on campus. That was the first time I witnessed and participated in an impromptu drumming session as well, and it was a nice relief from class, which I went to immediately after.
So where did the music go?
I’ve heard of Cantopop (or any music for that matter) and I was surprised that the first time I heard it blaring was when I went to karaoke in Causeway Bay about a month and a half ago. In comparison, when I went to Rome, the first thing I heard was American pop blasting out of a storefront across the road from Roma Termini (train station). I heard Italian music coming out of the storefront a block and a half later.
I suppose it would be easy to blame it on the perceived lack of culture here. I don’t think this works though in this case, because even though you might not produce it, you can still enjoy it—I’ve heard my floormates listening to music in their rooms. It can’t be a public space thing, because it’s just constant chatter of students practically shouting over each other on campus. And it’s not like it doesn’t exist at all, because I know that there are plenty of concerts going on around here.
So I guess I don’t really know; I just wish there were more music.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Showing posts with label cultural iceberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cultural iceberg. Show all posts
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Phuket: Expats and Australians
The second day we had to wake up way early. We had scheduled a boat tour stopping at three places the day before. I’m still not completely sure where we ended up going, but it was definitely worth the money and the devotion of one full day.
At something like 7:40 a.m. we pushed ourselves out of the hotel’s front door. There, after a five-minute wait, came a minibus to pick us up and transport us to the boat dock on the other side of the island. Along the way, the bus gradually filled up to the brim with passengers from other hotels as well.
We got to the dock to find crowds of people there. It kind of reminded me of my hometown—it was 80% white, which, while not necessarily a bad thing, was definitely unexpected.
Snooping around and listening to the noise, it became clear that a great deal of them were Australian. There were some French and English people, but the Australians were so prevalent that one of my friends who is Australian herself told me that their stereotypical accent was annoying. I have often had the same sentiment as of late, I’ve noticed. Copious amounts of the word “like,” in conjunction with rising intonation at the end of every sentence—“They talk in questions!”—has really begun to irk me.
The boat that we loaded onto had three decks—the lowest and cheapest, the middle V.I.P. section, and the upper deck not reserved. As expected, the crowds flocked up to the upper deck, for the views, for the air, for whatever. We claimed the cheap seats that we were meant to claim, which was fine, because there was plenty of open space on the middle deck for fresh air and water viewing—or so I thought.
We arrived at the first stop about half an hour after disembarking. With white-sand beaches, there were plenty of lawn chairs (that turned out to cost money, so we moved), and colorful fish to go around. To get off the boat, we had to get onto smaller (motorized) boats to get to shore.
One of my friends bought bread for the fish (that they were selling onboard), and she shared it with us. Like little kids, we threw the bread into the water and watched the fish converge. I started with small niblets that were consumed quickly, but I ended up submerging the rest of my piece in the water, allowing the fish to take hits at it while I still held the other side.
My friends proceeded to have drinks out of pineapples while I consumed a can of Coke. They then posed with the tops on their heads like hats. The weather wasn’t overly sunny. In fact, it was more overcast in nature, and it seemed like it was going to rain.
I know that I have trouble with weather. I complain in rain, I know, and whine when the temperature is less than 60 degrees. The thing is that I have trouble predicting weather as well. The first time it rained while I was in Hong Kong, I stepped out of the front door of the hall with a short-sleeved shirt, short pants, and flip-flops. That day, I slipped twice, and bought an umbrella. The next day I slipped again and waterlogged my right foot in a wet shoe. At least the second day I had a sweater. In planning for Taipei, I figured that since the temperature said 29 degrees Celsius, I wouldn’t have to worry about rain. Wow, was I wrong. The first two days it poured like I’d not seen in a long time. There, I bought another umbrella (this time plaid). I guess in California, it has to be under a certain temperature to start raining, and if it’s about to rain, the temperature will first drop.
And it started to rain when we were back on the big boat, going from the first destination to the second. (The first I can’t remember the name; the second Maya Bay). All the people lounged on the upmost deck started coming down, and I had the pleasure of informing them that the seats around me were taken. When it stopped raining between the second destination and the third (Maya Bay and Phi Phi Island), they selfishly went right back up to their undeserved seats.
Also, sitting down on the boat took longer than necessary, specifically and definitely because people filing on wanted to get their hands on the buffet onboard before sitting down. They just couldn’t sit down and allow everyone else to sit down so that the boat could start going before they crowded the buffet trays. Oh well.
Maya Bay was amazing. With sheer cliffs surrounding the bay, except for one private beach area, the water was deep. The tour came with snorkeling equipment, so we went snorkeling around the bay, diving and encountering fish. The water was cold (though not as bad as my parents’ pool) and the fish remained systematically unfriendly, but the experience was amazing. I had snorkeled before, the latest that I can remember being in La Jolla Cove (near UCSD).
I also learned about some sea critters that I had no knowledge of. In the water, it felt like I was getting pinched all over, but not by fingers. My Australian friend enlightened me to the fact that those were sea lice, and that she has them back home. Apparently, I could feel only around a quarter of the bites plaguing me.
Between the second and third destinations, there was about an hour of travel time. Getting seasick inside, we headed out to the deck. The spacious room seemingly apparent earlier in the trip seemed to disappear under the crowds—and by crowds, there couldn’t’ve been more than fifteen people on the bow of the vessel. The three-to-four person benches were being occupied by but a few (large and) inconsiderate people. To onlookers, they gave haughty looks, like they deserved those seats. And maybe they did deserve those seats, because the four of us got a deal on that daytrip. The price advertised for the day was ฿2200 THB per person ($66 USD), but when the four of us asked for a discount (because the travel agents give them out left and right), they quoted for the four of us just ฿3600 total, or ฿900 per person ($27 USD). In short, anyone who didn’t ask for a discount got gypped. We resorted to standing along the edge of the boat with plenty of fresh air but not seats.
The last stop on that trip was a town on Phi Phi Island. It was most definitely a tourist town, but walking through it, hawkers weren’t nearly as aggressive back on Phuket Island. They only started if you walked into their shop, having of course shown interest.
Wondering what I bought in Thailand, then? Well I bought a few postcards to send back home, but also I got a few novelty-type t-shirts. One said Red Bull (as in the energy drink brand) in Thai along with the iconic logo. Originally, Red Bull is from Thailand and its English name is a direct translation from the Thai name กระทิงแดง, and not the other way around. The other was a Coca-Cola t-shirt in Thai. My friend going to India said that if she found an iconic logo in a foreign language on a t-shirt, she would post me one.
The town was more peaceful and quiet than Patong Beach, and when we went exploring, we ended up on a different beachfront and had to retrace our steps to get back to the proper beach (and eventually the boat). Along the way were multiple companies offering diving and scuba certification. If I had free time and unrestricted money, I would do that.
The journey back to the dock on Phuket Island was an hour and forty-five minutes. This was followed by a cramped minibus ride back to Patong Beach, with me keeping my knees firmly touching so that I was not nudging the guy on my left and so that I didn’t hit the gearshift on the right. (The driver sat on my right, as the country drives on the left for the most part).
That was a tiring day and a tiring night. We went through many more markets and I found myself buying like 24 fl. oz. of Thai tea from the neighborhood 7-Eleven. Going through the markets was much more fun than going through markets in Hong Kong and Mainland China because the semblance of those places (such as Stanley Market on the south side of Hong Kong Island) to Chinatowns back home (I’ve been to those of Los Angeles—Chinatown and Monterey Park, San Francisco, and Chicago), is quite high. However, in Thailand, the merchandise and the approach to salesmanship were so different.
That night, I did little studying. The next day, we flew back to Hong Kong. After the same minibus ride, we arrived at the small airport to find lines flying like rat-tails out of the entrances. After waiting and entering the building, we realized that it was because they do security checks upon entrance into the building, rather than after check-in, as I’ve seen in all other airports.
I ended up studying less than imagined on the plane because I was super tired. Though the test went alright, I wondered a mere day earlier what was with the plane that I was on. The airplane (an Airbus I believe) was billowing steam from the joints between the overhead compartments and the walls and ceiling. It became more disconcerting as it became so noticeable that people began taking pictures of it as it obscured the ceiling. Eventually it subsided and I was never so glad to land as I was during that flight.
It’s a shame that I didn’t get to travel more outside of Greater China, this trip has made me realize. No matter how much Taiwan tries to act independent and no matter how much Hong Kongers look down at Mainland Chinese habits, the fact of the matter is that the places are so much more similar to each other than to other east Asian countries, and for that I feel I’m missing out.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
At something like 7:40 a.m. we pushed ourselves out of the hotel’s front door. There, after a five-minute wait, came a minibus to pick us up and transport us to the boat dock on the other side of the island. Along the way, the bus gradually filled up to the brim with passengers from other hotels as well.
We got to the dock to find crowds of people there. It kind of reminded me of my hometown—it was 80% white, which, while not necessarily a bad thing, was definitely unexpected.
Snooping around and listening to the noise, it became clear that a great deal of them were Australian. There were some French and English people, but the Australians were so prevalent that one of my friends who is Australian herself told me that their stereotypical accent was annoying. I have often had the same sentiment as of late, I’ve noticed. Copious amounts of the word “like,” in conjunction with rising intonation at the end of every sentence—“They talk in questions!”—has really begun to irk me.
The boat that we loaded onto had three decks—the lowest and cheapest, the middle V.I.P. section, and the upper deck not reserved. As expected, the crowds flocked up to the upper deck, for the views, for the air, for whatever. We claimed the cheap seats that we were meant to claim, which was fine, because there was plenty of open space on the middle deck for fresh air and water viewing—or so I thought.
We arrived at the first stop about half an hour after disembarking. With white-sand beaches, there were plenty of lawn chairs (that turned out to cost money, so we moved), and colorful fish to go around. To get off the boat, we had to get onto smaller (motorized) boats to get to shore.
One of my friends bought bread for the fish (that they were selling onboard), and she shared it with us. Like little kids, we threw the bread into the water and watched the fish converge. I started with small niblets that were consumed quickly, but I ended up submerging the rest of my piece in the water, allowing the fish to take hits at it while I still held the other side.
My friends proceeded to have drinks out of pineapples while I consumed a can of Coke. They then posed with the tops on their heads like hats. The weather wasn’t overly sunny. In fact, it was more overcast in nature, and it seemed like it was going to rain.
I know that I have trouble with weather. I complain in rain, I know, and whine when the temperature is less than 60 degrees. The thing is that I have trouble predicting weather as well. The first time it rained while I was in Hong Kong, I stepped out of the front door of the hall with a short-sleeved shirt, short pants, and flip-flops. That day, I slipped twice, and bought an umbrella. The next day I slipped again and waterlogged my right foot in a wet shoe. At least the second day I had a sweater. In planning for Taipei, I figured that since the temperature said 29 degrees Celsius, I wouldn’t have to worry about rain. Wow, was I wrong. The first two days it poured like I’d not seen in a long time. There, I bought another umbrella (this time plaid). I guess in California, it has to be under a certain temperature to start raining, and if it’s about to rain, the temperature will first drop.
And it started to rain when we were back on the big boat, going from the first destination to the second. (The first I can’t remember the name; the second Maya Bay). All the people lounged on the upmost deck started coming down, and I had the pleasure of informing them that the seats around me were taken. When it stopped raining between the second destination and the third (Maya Bay and Phi Phi Island), they selfishly went right back up to their undeserved seats.
Also, sitting down on the boat took longer than necessary, specifically and definitely because people filing on wanted to get their hands on the buffet onboard before sitting down. They just couldn’t sit down and allow everyone else to sit down so that the boat could start going before they crowded the buffet trays. Oh well.
Maya Bay was amazing. With sheer cliffs surrounding the bay, except for one private beach area, the water was deep. The tour came with snorkeling equipment, so we went snorkeling around the bay, diving and encountering fish. The water was cold (though not as bad as my parents’ pool) and the fish remained systematically unfriendly, but the experience was amazing. I had snorkeled before, the latest that I can remember being in La Jolla Cove (near UCSD).
I also learned about some sea critters that I had no knowledge of. In the water, it felt like I was getting pinched all over, but not by fingers. My Australian friend enlightened me to the fact that those were sea lice, and that she has them back home. Apparently, I could feel only around a quarter of the bites plaguing me.
Between the second and third destinations, there was about an hour of travel time. Getting seasick inside, we headed out to the deck. The spacious room seemingly apparent earlier in the trip seemed to disappear under the crowds—and by crowds, there couldn’t’ve been more than fifteen people on the bow of the vessel. The three-to-four person benches were being occupied by but a few (large and) inconsiderate people. To onlookers, they gave haughty looks, like they deserved those seats. And maybe they did deserve those seats, because the four of us got a deal on that daytrip. The price advertised for the day was ฿2200 THB per person ($66 USD), but when the four of us asked for a discount (because the travel agents give them out left and right), they quoted for the four of us just ฿3600 total, or ฿900 per person ($27 USD). In short, anyone who didn’t ask for a discount got gypped. We resorted to standing along the edge of the boat with plenty of fresh air but not seats.
The last stop on that trip was a town on Phi Phi Island. It was most definitely a tourist town, but walking through it, hawkers weren’t nearly as aggressive back on Phuket Island. They only started if you walked into their shop, having of course shown interest.
Wondering what I bought in Thailand, then? Well I bought a few postcards to send back home, but also I got a few novelty-type t-shirts. One said Red Bull (as in the energy drink brand) in Thai along with the iconic logo. Originally, Red Bull is from Thailand and its English name is a direct translation from the Thai name กระทิงแดง, and not the other way around. The other was a Coca-Cola t-shirt in Thai. My friend going to India said that if she found an iconic logo in a foreign language on a t-shirt, she would post me one.
The town was more peaceful and quiet than Patong Beach, and when we went exploring, we ended up on a different beachfront and had to retrace our steps to get back to the proper beach (and eventually the boat). Along the way were multiple companies offering diving and scuba certification. If I had free time and unrestricted money, I would do that.
The journey back to the dock on Phuket Island was an hour and forty-five minutes. This was followed by a cramped minibus ride back to Patong Beach, with me keeping my knees firmly touching so that I was not nudging the guy on my left and so that I didn’t hit the gearshift on the right. (The driver sat on my right, as the country drives on the left for the most part).
That was a tiring day and a tiring night. We went through many more markets and I found myself buying like 24 fl. oz. of Thai tea from the neighborhood 7-Eleven. Going through the markets was much more fun than going through markets in Hong Kong and Mainland China because the semblance of those places (such as Stanley Market on the south side of Hong Kong Island) to Chinatowns back home (I’ve been to those of Los Angeles—Chinatown and Monterey Park, San Francisco, and Chicago), is quite high. However, in Thailand, the merchandise and the approach to salesmanship were so different.
That night, I did little studying. The next day, we flew back to Hong Kong. After the same minibus ride, we arrived at the small airport to find lines flying like rat-tails out of the entrances. After waiting and entering the building, we realized that it was because they do security checks upon entrance into the building, rather than after check-in, as I’ve seen in all other airports.
I ended up studying less than imagined on the plane because I was super tired. Though the test went alright, I wondered a mere day earlier what was with the plane that I was on. The airplane (an Airbus I believe) was billowing steam from the joints between the overhead compartments and the walls and ceiling. It became more disconcerting as it became so noticeable that people began taking pictures of it as it obscured the ceiling. Eventually it subsided and I was never so glad to land as I was during that flight.
It’s a shame that I didn’t get to travel more outside of Greater China, this trip has made me realize. No matter how much Taiwan tries to act independent and no matter how much Hong Kongers look down at Mainland Chinese habits, the fact of the matter is that the places are so much more similar to each other than to other east Asian countries, and for that I feel I’m missing out.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Phuket: Pad Thai and Elephants
As of late, I’ve had to focus my time and effort into my studies, so my blogging has unfortunately not been as frequent as I like. As a result, I’ve begun to fall behind again.
Now two weekends ago, we managed to make our way over to Phuket, Thailand (ภูเก็ต). The name isn’t pronounced as crudely as it looks. As I was enlightened, the “h” in Phuket (as well as in “Thai”) denotes aspiration, think puff of air, rather than an “f” (or “th”) sound in conjunction with the “p” (or “t”). As such the “Ph” at the beginning as “p” like at the beginning of the word “pin.” Glad we got that one straightened out.
Secondly, Phuket is an island, according to my research. Telling my friends though was an uphill battle, as I had to contend with faulty logic in convincing them—example of which include: “I don’t think it’s an island because I don’t think it’s an island;” “But there’s buses going to Phuket”—ever heard of bridges?; and my favorite, “It doesn’t look like it on the flight map”—well I’m sorry, but small islands aren’t worth drawing as separate from the mainland when covered by a dot and lines—does Singapore look like an island on the flight map? As I would later find out, that friend didn’t know Singapore’s land mass consists of one main island and a number of smaller ones. And Australia is smaller than China, but only by about two million square kilometers. Cool.
Well we landed after four hours of flying from Hong Kong (I remember five hours from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.), and went through immigration. Like in Taiwan, the officers stapled our departure cards to our passports, but we went through without a hitch.
On the other side, I pointed out the stand of tourist maps saying “Welcome to Phuket Island” in English and when we went up to the taxi counter to get transportation to our hotel about an hour away at Patong Beach (หาดป่าตอง), there was a map clear as day showing the island formation. Without rubbing it too much into their faces, I gave them haughty looks for fun as they looked away in shame, realizing that their (faulty) logic had been to no avail.
We ended up in a minibus (smaller than Hong Kong minibuses) to Patong Beach and our lodging, the Patong Swiss Hotel. The whole ride was in the dark, but from what I could see (mostly buildings), it became obvious that we weren’t in China anymore. The funny thing was that this was the first time on the whole trip that we (myself included) had been outside Greater China. As I’ve just recently figured out, this was to be my last trip outside Greater China before going back to California.
The thing is, though, that despite the fact that we were in a foreign foreign country, there was more English on signs and in general than Thai (which by the way is quite aesthetically pleasing). Our minibus stopped midway at a storefront to collect our tickets, and after politely refusing their tours and excursions, I got back onto the bus.
Arriving at the Patong Swiss Hotel, I was exhausted. By this time, it was about 1:00 a.m. Hong Kong Time and about midnight local time. Ready to lie down, we checked in to find that they had given us just two beds for our five-person reservation. One person got sick though before the trip, so we arrived as four. So the first night we ended up sharing beds, though the next morning we were given two bigger rooms (and me my own bed). Like in Guilin, the showers were without curtains, which only meant to me that the cleaners would have more work (though I tried hard not to get water everywhere).
That first night, I studied for my Fine Arts final, which was to take place the day after we got back to Hong Kong. The rest of them went out exploring Patong Beach nightlife.
The first morning, I woke up in a rut. It was quite hot and humid (though admittedly not as bad as my first weeks in Hong Kong), and we had just come from sub-75 degree temperatures back in the SAR.
After getting ready, we went out the front door, and much to my amazement, the beach lay right across the (two-lane) street from the hotel. I hadn’t noticed it at all the night before! I guess I forgot that my friend booked us a beachfront hotel.
We walked a couple blocks along that street. What was expected were the large volumes of shops selling merchandise, particularly knock-off brands. What wasn’t expected was the large number of expats there—and I say expats rather than tourists because most men were hand in hand with Thai women (though I remain open to the interpretation that many of them could just be escort). It was odd to see such a large expat population, but on the other hand it wasn’t unreasonable since they, along with the large numbers of European and Australian tourists present, were the reason for all the English signage.
Walking by, the hawkers try to grab your attention—and they do it much better than in Mainland China and definitely better than in Hong Kong, where they don’t even attempt. There, they understood the value of the relationship in business. Rather than pulling you in by listing off their merchandise, they’d start by “Hello, where are you from?” or “My you’re handsome,” or something to that effect. I personally got a lot of “你好s.” One of my American friends who speaks Cantonese answered back: “I speak Cantonese” in English, to which I laughed.
We got breakfast at one of the many done-up venues. I got some authentic Pad Thai, which was delicious, and some (real?) Thai Tea, which tasted more like cold milk than anything else.
This is the only trip that I took this term that I didn’t really take to get any historical culture out of—no sightseeing, more fun I suppose (though I enjoy sightseeing).
So that day we actually got to ride (Asian) elephants. It cost ฿500 Thai Baht for a half hour (฿33 Baht = $1 USD), so that was like $15 USD. The experience wasn’t really like I’d imagined. I’ve ridden on horseback on multiple occasions (and my fair share of carnival ponies when I was under three feet tall), but never an elephant.
There was a platform to mount them that was a good ten feet in the air. Getting on was intimidating, as you were to step onto the elephant’s back to get into the seat secured on the elephant. The guide sat right behind its head, on its neck with his feet touching the elephant’s ears. To move left, the guide would shake the elephant’s left ear with his left foot, and to move right, the guide would shake the elephant’s right year with his right foot.
The whole thing made us feel oddly sad for the elephants, and remembering back the horses, I remember having similar sentiments, only to cast them off by saying that we aren’t the first to do this.
We were taking all over a muddy trail. The barefooted guide dismounted the elephant halfway and took pictures of us, this led the elephant back to the base with voice commands. At one point, the elephant began to make a wrong turn, and the guide hit its right leg hard with a sickle-looking rod, making a vicious sound and making us wonder what was going on.
I guess we couldn’t help but to feel sorry for the elephants. I guess you could hope that at least they are well taken care of and fed properly. As we dismounted the elephants, one put its trunk up on the platform. My friends petted it, thanking him (or her) for his (or her) service. I guess I was too busy taking photos, because as I reached my hand out after putting my camera away, it retracted its trunk and went on its way.
The rest of the day we went around the shops and played a modified (and more intense) form of Jenga at a bar. At night, we got Mexican food. Right after, I went back to the hotel to keep studying for my Asian Art History class.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Now two weekends ago, we managed to make our way over to Phuket, Thailand (ภูเก็ต). The name isn’t pronounced as crudely as it looks. As I was enlightened, the “h” in Phuket (as well as in “Thai”) denotes aspiration, think puff of air, rather than an “f” (or “th”) sound in conjunction with the “p” (or “t”). As such the “Ph” at the beginning as “p” like at the beginning of the word “pin.” Glad we got that one straightened out.
Secondly, Phuket is an island, according to my research. Telling my friends though was an uphill battle, as I had to contend with faulty logic in convincing them—example of which include: “I don’t think it’s an island because I don’t think it’s an island;” “But there’s buses going to Phuket”—ever heard of bridges?; and my favorite, “It doesn’t look like it on the flight map”—well I’m sorry, but small islands aren’t worth drawing as separate from the mainland when covered by a dot and lines—does Singapore look like an island on the flight map? As I would later find out, that friend didn’t know Singapore’s land mass consists of one main island and a number of smaller ones. And Australia is smaller than China, but only by about two million square kilometers. Cool.
Well we landed after four hours of flying from Hong Kong (I remember five hours from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.), and went through immigration. Like in Taiwan, the officers stapled our departure cards to our passports, but we went through without a hitch.
On the other side, I pointed out the stand of tourist maps saying “Welcome to Phuket Island” in English and when we went up to the taxi counter to get transportation to our hotel about an hour away at Patong Beach (หาดป่าตอง), there was a map clear as day showing the island formation. Without rubbing it too much into their faces, I gave them haughty looks for fun as they looked away in shame, realizing that their (faulty) logic had been to no avail.
We ended up in a minibus (smaller than Hong Kong minibuses) to Patong Beach and our lodging, the Patong Swiss Hotel. The whole ride was in the dark, but from what I could see (mostly buildings), it became obvious that we weren’t in China anymore. The funny thing was that this was the first time on the whole trip that we (myself included) had been outside Greater China. As I’ve just recently figured out, this was to be my last trip outside Greater China before going back to California.
The thing is, though, that despite the fact that we were in a foreign foreign country, there was more English on signs and in general than Thai (which by the way is quite aesthetically pleasing). Our minibus stopped midway at a storefront to collect our tickets, and after politely refusing their tours and excursions, I got back onto the bus.
Arriving at the Patong Swiss Hotel, I was exhausted. By this time, it was about 1:00 a.m. Hong Kong Time and about midnight local time. Ready to lie down, we checked in to find that they had given us just two beds for our five-person reservation. One person got sick though before the trip, so we arrived as four. So the first night we ended up sharing beds, though the next morning we were given two bigger rooms (and me my own bed). Like in Guilin, the showers were without curtains, which only meant to me that the cleaners would have more work (though I tried hard not to get water everywhere).
That first night, I studied for my Fine Arts final, which was to take place the day after we got back to Hong Kong. The rest of them went out exploring Patong Beach nightlife.
The first morning, I woke up in a rut. It was quite hot and humid (though admittedly not as bad as my first weeks in Hong Kong), and we had just come from sub-75 degree temperatures back in the SAR.
After getting ready, we went out the front door, and much to my amazement, the beach lay right across the (two-lane) street from the hotel. I hadn’t noticed it at all the night before! I guess I forgot that my friend booked us a beachfront hotel.
We walked a couple blocks along that street. What was expected were the large volumes of shops selling merchandise, particularly knock-off brands. What wasn’t expected was the large number of expats there—and I say expats rather than tourists because most men were hand in hand with Thai women (though I remain open to the interpretation that many of them could just be escort). It was odd to see such a large expat population, but on the other hand it wasn’t unreasonable since they, along with the large numbers of European and Australian tourists present, were the reason for all the English signage.
Walking by, the hawkers try to grab your attention—and they do it much better than in Mainland China and definitely better than in Hong Kong, where they don’t even attempt. There, they understood the value of the relationship in business. Rather than pulling you in by listing off their merchandise, they’d start by “Hello, where are you from?” or “My you’re handsome,” or something to that effect. I personally got a lot of “你好s.” One of my American friends who speaks Cantonese answered back: “I speak Cantonese” in English, to which I laughed.
We got breakfast at one of the many done-up venues. I got some authentic Pad Thai, which was delicious, and some (real?) Thai Tea, which tasted more like cold milk than anything else.
This is the only trip that I took this term that I didn’t really take to get any historical culture out of—no sightseeing, more fun I suppose (though I enjoy sightseeing).
So that day we actually got to ride (Asian) elephants. It cost ฿500 Thai Baht for a half hour (฿33 Baht = $1 USD), so that was like $15 USD. The experience wasn’t really like I’d imagined. I’ve ridden on horseback on multiple occasions (and my fair share of carnival ponies when I was under three feet tall), but never an elephant.
There was a platform to mount them that was a good ten feet in the air. Getting on was intimidating, as you were to step onto the elephant’s back to get into the seat secured on the elephant. The guide sat right behind its head, on its neck with his feet touching the elephant’s ears. To move left, the guide would shake the elephant’s left ear with his left foot, and to move right, the guide would shake the elephant’s right year with his right foot.
The whole thing made us feel oddly sad for the elephants, and remembering back the horses, I remember having similar sentiments, only to cast them off by saying that we aren’t the first to do this.
We were taking all over a muddy trail. The barefooted guide dismounted the elephant halfway and took pictures of us, this led the elephant back to the base with voice commands. At one point, the elephant began to make a wrong turn, and the guide hit its right leg hard with a sickle-looking rod, making a vicious sound and making us wonder what was going on.
I guess we couldn’t help but to feel sorry for the elephants. I guess you could hope that at least they are well taken care of and fed properly. As we dismounted the elephants, one put its trunk up on the platform. My friends petted it, thanking him (or her) for his (or her) service. I guess I was too busy taking photos, because as I reached my hand out after putting my camera away, it retracted its trunk and went on its way.
The rest of the day we went around the shops and played a modified (and more intense) form of Jenga at a bar. At night, we got Mexican food. Right after, I went back to the hotel to keep studying for my Asian Art History class.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Guilin: Everything but Seven Star
The second day started off really early. Our group was now half what it was yesterday (six versus three), but only two of us managed to get up when we decided. We had a Li River cruise to get to with a shuttle bus picking us up at 8:10 a.m., so in order to get out onto the street and get breakfast before then, we decided to be out the door by 6:30, meaning we had to be awake by 6:00.
It was cold in the morning with the air as fresh as ever. We walked a few blocks down the main street and turned into that sidestreet where we went before to get Guilin noodles once more--and once again, they were quite good. By the time we finished, it was still early, with about an hour and a half to go before needing to get back to the hotel.
I guess Guilin Riverside Hotel is pretty centrally located in the city. One of the main symbols of the city, Elephant Trunk Hill (象鼻山) was just a few main streets to the east, so we headed out there. used in many a Chinese movie, this rock formation is unique in that its face has a large hole in it, so that one side looks like an elephant and the other side looks like its trunk.
My friend couldn't see it, but in my opinon, it's like observing constellations--just take it as it is and know that it's not bad to have just a bit of imagination. If you recall, water levels are low at the moment in Guilin, so Elephant Trunk Hill wasn't quite like the pictures. And in a ploy to make more money, viewing spots along the city streets have been blocked by copious amounts of foliage, so the entrance fee of ¥30 CNY per person to the viewing areas within the park becomes imperative.
This entrance fee is by land I guess, because as we were walking to the gate, we got offered by one of the many, many people looking for money a boat ride to see Elephant Trunk Hill from the river. And at ¥30 for the two of us, so ¥15 each, it was a good deal.
The boat that we were taken on had a flat bamboo bottom and was powered by a loud motor. Set up for passengers were simple chairs on the deck. He dropped us off and waited for us on an island in the middle of the river as we took pictures--and that's all we could do without entering the park--take pictures.
Heading back to the hotel, we saw our friend who had just woken up. He was heading over to the Guilin noodles place for breakfast as well and looked like he was going to make it well in time for the shuttle bus to the Li River Cruise.
On the shuttle bus, we met a couple from San Francisco. They were in the process of travelling all around the central and east Asia. Already they had gone to Azerbaijan and some other places that I can't remember. They came in through China along the historic Silk Road and explored several communities around Urumqi in Xianjiang. Already they had been exploring China for a month or two and had a month or two left until arriving in India where they had family.
We happened to book the English tour, which meant that the hour-long bus ride to where the boat was docked, somewhere down the river, was narrated by an English-speaking tour guide. Ours was named Eda in English, though everyone called her Shopping, since her Chinese name was something like Sha-ping in Pinyin.
She gave us some history behind Guilin and explained to us some of the ethnic minorities. One of which, for an extra price, we were going to see.
Our boat sat around one hundred people, with the upper deck for viewing and VIPs with a third level opened mid-way through the cruise for additional viewing. The seats were organized linearly on either side of rectangular tables on either side of the boat. There were eight seats per table.
The boat ride lasted about four hours as we went from near Guilin to Yangshuo, a tourist town. The water leve was noticeably low, for as a majority of the journey the bed of the river was visible from above. In addition, the river was crowded with boats full of tourists much like ours, and for the majority of the cruise we were riding the tail of the boat in front of us.
Though the weather was sunny, it seemed that there was a haze in the air that distorted the iconic mountains. Looking back through my photos, it's prettier now that when I was actually there. Along the cruise, we saw various named sights such as Nine Horses and Five Finger Hill, as well as the scene on the ¥20 CNY bill whose name I can't remember.
Just like on land, people (on boats) were trying to sell us stuff. The would dock alongside the moving larger boats and advertise their goods. People could open their windows on the main deck to buy stuff. People like me on the upper deck could reach down to grab some goods. I bought a fruit from a guy on a small bamboo boat. It cost me ¥5 and when I bought it he took out his big cleaver and cut off much of the thick skin surrounding what I was to discover was a highly seedy, albeit ripe and sweet, citrus fruit.
Check out the pictures of the Li River cruise for more on that. Most of the pictures speak for themselves.Oh and there were lots of animals to be seen from the boat.
Arriving in Yangshuo, we were bombarded with hawkers. For the next part of the tour, we were to meet half an hour later on the other side of the town at the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sha-ping had to make sure we met in front of the correct one, because half a block further was a look-alike KFC. During that half-hour, we strolled around the town. It was noticeably done up and had a variety of ATMs as well as a McDonald's with a private pond. I ended up buying a piece of rice put into a vial and decorated into jewelry. What was so special about this grain of rice was that the guy was able to write my whole name on it.
As the second part of the tour came around, I realized how glad I was to have stayed for the extra day. The first stop was a rural village way outside the city. They had just about finished harvesting their rice and as such their rice patties had grounded stubs of what remained in the fields instead of flooded terraces.
We were shown onto a historic bridge that was built by a scholar in memory of someone in a story I can't quite remember. From there we could see Lion's Head Mountain, which from the right angle took very little imagination to see. Also on the bridge, we were away from boat traffic, meaning the water was calm enough to get the reflections of the mountains in the water.
Heading back to the bus, the tour guide Sha-ping bought us tangarines that were quite sweet. While I was eating mine, I found myself having to get out of the way as a farmer with two bulls came through. My two friends didn't feel anything special about it they say, because one's been in Iranian villages and one's been in many a Taishan village. I, however, saw something in it than they did because it was just so different and so much more charming than anything I'd ever been to, seen, or done.
Continuing on, we went to see one of the ethnic minorities. It was obviously there for the tourists, as many members of these ethnic minorities live urban lives. Many are not discernable from Han members of society. I can't find the official name for these people, but Sha-ping kept referring to them as the Drum people.
This leg of the trip entailed a bamboo boat ride (four for our group to be exact). They had the same single layer of bamboo keeping us afloat, and with the river being so shallow, the people maneuvering the boats weren't so much rowing as pushing the boat with a long piece of bamboo making contact with the riverbed. After asking, we were allowed to try our hand at it, and, as expected, it required a lot of upper body strength to propel and a lot of practice to steer accurately.
As part of the entertainment, a woman from the Drum people sang serenading songs on the boats. According to Sha-ping, they have a courtship tradition in which young men and young women sing to each other, at which point the young woman gives the young man this ball-shaped ornament (for lack of a more precise word) to be worn around the neck. Our entertainer had five to give away as souvenirs, and to get one, one of my friends serenaded her with the old Iranian national anthem, which was anything but romantic.
Down on the other side of the lake, we alighted. Farmers had their water oxen out for us to intereact with. (I heard some people on the Li River cruise call them 水牛.) After a little walk to get there (and some pictures of the scenery), we were given bits of lettuce to feed them. After making sure than no cow was going to charge me (the animals were all quite docile) and seeing that other people were doing it as well without issue, I tried approaching one of the calves to feed a piece of lettuce to. After the third calf turned my piece of lettuce away, the farmer informed me in Chinese (I don't remember his exact words) that I can't feed it to the calves because they only drink milk. It made sense.
So I fed it to a bull, and my friend attempted to get a picture of me doing it, though neither the bull nor I was in the picture in any reasonable form. I settled on petting a calf, for which I got a few decent pictures. In short, they weren't as soft as I would have imagined.
Heading back, we were given a demonstration of the fisher using pelicans to catch fish. In case you don't know, the fisherman puts a tie around the pelican's neck (it doesn't appear to hurt it) and it goes diving for fish. It catches them in its mouth but finds itself unable to swallow it. As a reward, the farmer gives the pelican smaller fish that it can fit through its reduced esophagus.
I later had a small discussion with some people about the ethics behind exploiting an animal for such pursuits. Though I didn't think it was completely moral per say (and I'd like to go vegetarian when I get back to UCSD), I compared it similarly to using dogs for hunting, also saying that people do much worse things to animals that exploit them much further, putting them in much more danger.
After we got back to shore, we were taken back to Guilin. From there, we walked to the train station, along the way enjoying a lot of street food.
I guess it's regrettable that we missed seeing Seven Star Park, which is one of the main things that Guilin is known for. But what we saw instead I think made the whole trip worth it. And the sisters the day before told us that if you go to Reed Flute Cave, Seven Star Park is just bigger and worse. I'd say that Guilin was my favorite trip so far in this study abroad experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
It was cold in the morning with the air as fresh as ever. We walked a few blocks down the main street and turned into that sidestreet where we went before to get Guilin noodles once more--and once again, they were quite good. By the time we finished, it was still early, with about an hour and a half to go before needing to get back to the hotel.
I guess Guilin Riverside Hotel is pretty centrally located in the city. One of the main symbols of the city, Elephant Trunk Hill (象鼻山) was just a few main streets to the east, so we headed out there. used in many a Chinese movie, this rock formation is unique in that its face has a large hole in it, so that one side looks like an elephant and the other side looks like its trunk.
My friend couldn't see it, but in my opinon, it's like observing constellations--just take it as it is and know that it's not bad to have just a bit of imagination. If you recall, water levels are low at the moment in Guilin, so Elephant Trunk Hill wasn't quite like the pictures. And in a ploy to make more money, viewing spots along the city streets have been blocked by copious amounts of foliage, so the entrance fee of ¥30 CNY per person to the viewing areas within the park becomes imperative.
This entrance fee is by land I guess, because as we were walking to the gate, we got offered by one of the many, many people looking for money a boat ride to see Elephant Trunk Hill from the river. And at ¥30 for the two of us, so ¥15 each, it was a good deal.
The boat that we were taken on had a flat bamboo bottom and was powered by a loud motor. Set up for passengers were simple chairs on the deck. He dropped us off and waited for us on an island in the middle of the river as we took pictures--and that's all we could do without entering the park--take pictures.
Heading back to the hotel, we saw our friend who had just woken up. He was heading over to the Guilin noodles place for breakfast as well and looked like he was going to make it well in time for the shuttle bus to the Li River Cruise.
On the shuttle bus, we met a couple from San Francisco. They were in the process of travelling all around the central and east Asia. Already they had gone to Azerbaijan and some other places that I can't remember. They came in through China along the historic Silk Road and explored several communities around Urumqi in Xianjiang. Already they had been exploring China for a month or two and had a month or two left until arriving in India where they had family.
We happened to book the English tour, which meant that the hour-long bus ride to where the boat was docked, somewhere down the river, was narrated by an English-speaking tour guide. Ours was named Eda in English, though everyone called her Shopping, since her Chinese name was something like Sha-ping in Pinyin.
She gave us some history behind Guilin and explained to us some of the ethnic minorities. One of which, for an extra price, we were going to see.
Our boat sat around one hundred people, with the upper deck for viewing and VIPs with a third level opened mid-way through the cruise for additional viewing. The seats were organized linearly on either side of rectangular tables on either side of the boat. There were eight seats per table.
The boat ride lasted about four hours as we went from near Guilin to Yangshuo, a tourist town. The water leve was noticeably low, for as a majority of the journey the bed of the river was visible from above. In addition, the river was crowded with boats full of tourists much like ours, and for the majority of the cruise we were riding the tail of the boat in front of us.
Though the weather was sunny, it seemed that there was a haze in the air that distorted the iconic mountains. Looking back through my photos, it's prettier now that when I was actually there. Along the cruise, we saw various named sights such as Nine Horses and Five Finger Hill, as well as the scene on the ¥20 CNY bill whose name I can't remember.
Just like on land, people (on boats) were trying to sell us stuff. The would dock alongside the moving larger boats and advertise their goods. People could open their windows on the main deck to buy stuff. People like me on the upper deck could reach down to grab some goods. I bought a fruit from a guy on a small bamboo boat. It cost me ¥5 and when I bought it he took out his big cleaver and cut off much of the thick skin surrounding what I was to discover was a highly seedy, albeit ripe and sweet, citrus fruit.
Check out the pictures of the Li River cruise for more on that. Most of the pictures speak for themselves.Oh and there were lots of animals to be seen from the boat.
Arriving in Yangshuo, we were bombarded with hawkers. For the next part of the tour, we were to meet half an hour later on the other side of the town at the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sha-ping had to make sure we met in front of the correct one, because half a block further was a look-alike KFC. During that half-hour, we strolled around the town. It was noticeably done up and had a variety of ATMs as well as a McDonald's with a private pond. I ended up buying a piece of rice put into a vial and decorated into jewelry. What was so special about this grain of rice was that the guy was able to write my whole name on it.
As the second part of the tour came around, I realized how glad I was to have stayed for the extra day. The first stop was a rural village way outside the city. They had just about finished harvesting their rice and as such their rice patties had grounded stubs of what remained in the fields instead of flooded terraces.
We were shown onto a historic bridge that was built by a scholar in memory of someone in a story I can't quite remember. From there we could see Lion's Head Mountain, which from the right angle took very little imagination to see. Also on the bridge, we were away from boat traffic, meaning the water was calm enough to get the reflections of the mountains in the water.
Heading back to the bus, the tour guide Sha-ping bought us tangarines that were quite sweet. While I was eating mine, I found myself having to get out of the way as a farmer with two bulls came through. My two friends didn't feel anything special about it they say, because one's been in Iranian villages and one's been in many a Taishan village. I, however, saw something in it than they did because it was just so different and so much more charming than anything I'd ever been to, seen, or done.
Continuing on, we went to see one of the ethnic minorities. It was obviously there for the tourists, as many members of these ethnic minorities live urban lives. Many are not discernable from Han members of society. I can't find the official name for these people, but Sha-ping kept referring to them as the Drum people.
This leg of the trip entailed a bamboo boat ride (four for our group to be exact). They had the same single layer of bamboo keeping us afloat, and with the river being so shallow, the people maneuvering the boats weren't so much rowing as pushing the boat with a long piece of bamboo making contact with the riverbed. After asking, we were allowed to try our hand at it, and, as expected, it required a lot of upper body strength to propel and a lot of practice to steer accurately.
As part of the entertainment, a woman from the Drum people sang serenading songs on the boats. According to Sha-ping, they have a courtship tradition in which young men and young women sing to each other, at which point the young woman gives the young man this ball-shaped ornament (for lack of a more precise word) to be worn around the neck. Our entertainer had five to give away as souvenirs, and to get one, one of my friends serenaded her with the old Iranian national anthem, which was anything but romantic.
Down on the other side of the lake, we alighted. Farmers had their water oxen out for us to intereact with. (I heard some people on the Li River cruise call them 水牛.) After a little walk to get there (and some pictures of the scenery), we were given bits of lettuce to feed them. After making sure than no cow was going to charge me (the animals were all quite docile) and seeing that other people were doing it as well without issue, I tried approaching one of the calves to feed a piece of lettuce to. After the third calf turned my piece of lettuce away, the farmer informed me in Chinese (I don't remember his exact words) that I can't feed it to the calves because they only drink milk. It made sense.
So I fed it to a bull, and my friend attempted to get a picture of me doing it, though neither the bull nor I was in the picture in any reasonable form. I settled on petting a calf, for which I got a few decent pictures. In short, they weren't as soft as I would have imagined.
Heading back, we were given a demonstration of the fisher using pelicans to catch fish. In case you don't know, the fisherman puts a tie around the pelican's neck (it doesn't appear to hurt it) and it goes diving for fish. It catches them in its mouth but finds itself unable to swallow it. As a reward, the farmer gives the pelican smaller fish that it can fit through its reduced esophagus.
I later had a small discussion with some people about the ethics behind exploiting an animal for such pursuits. Though I didn't think it was completely moral per say (and I'd like to go vegetarian when I get back to UCSD), I compared it similarly to using dogs for hunting, also saying that people do much worse things to animals that exploit them much further, putting them in much more danger.
After we got back to shore, we were taken back to Guilin. From there, we walked to the train station, along the way enjoying a lot of street food.
I guess it's regrettable that we missed seeing Seven Star Park, which is one of the main things that Guilin is known for. But what we saw instead I think made the whole trip worth it. And the sisters the day before told us that if you go to Reed Flute Cave, Seven Star Park is just bigger and worse. I'd say that Guilin was my favorite trip so far in this study abroad experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Escape to Peace and Quiet
Though I’ve been in places and cities with many more people concentrated in areas much smaller, Hong Kong seems dense enough for me to miss the relative lack of people back home—in Thousand Oaks or on campus in La Jolla.
There’s always constant noise just going on. I don’t know if this means that the city is just getting to me or if I just need a break and more time to adjust, honestly. I don’t even live in the center of the city, but out my window, I see all the cargo ships coming in and out, frequently honking their horns at each other.
In the depths of the night, local students yell across the halls to each other in Cantonese about stuff they couldn’t possibility save until the morning—an occurrence whose impact I’ve mitigated through the use of earplugs. They also go talking in class as the professor tries to lecture, which has prompted me to sit closer to the front but to no avail.
I don’t know what it is about here that makes it so loud, but I’m ready to get back to a place where the whisper is valued and everyone was taught indoor voices versus outdoor voices at a critical age.
Though I still very much enjoy living here, the noise and constant commotion has gotten to the point where the rush for food at lunch annoys me. Despite the fact that there are a handful of seats in the canteen at such times, the crowds themselves and the fact that everyone has to talk louder just to be heard over everyone else make me order my food to go.
It’s all very trivial, I know, but it’s been bugging me.
So to escape (partially) from the crowds, which on a small campus are nearly everywhere, I’ve found solace in a couple of places. In front of Main Building there is hardly a soul. Sometimes I’d see a faculty member and more often I would see a janitor keeping up the grounds by sweeping leaves.
The other is the courtyard in front of the Journalism building (I believe it’s officially named May Hall). In the morning there, I’ve seen people practicing taichi, but during lunch hour, there is hardly anyone occupying the many benches and several tables. Instead of the often crowded and more often noisy Global Lounge, I sit out in that courtyard to work and study and write blog posts as my battery permits.
And so I escape in part—escape from noise and commotion; escape from those oppressing crowds as I ready myself for chit-chatty lectures and yelling in the halls.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
There’s always constant noise just going on. I don’t know if this means that the city is just getting to me or if I just need a break and more time to adjust, honestly. I don’t even live in the center of the city, but out my window, I see all the cargo ships coming in and out, frequently honking their horns at each other.
In the depths of the night, local students yell across the halls to each other in Cantonese about stuff they couldn’t possibility save until the morning—an occurrence whose impact I’ve mitigated through the use of earplugs. They also go talking in class as the professor tries to lecture, which has prompted me to sit closer to the front but to no avail.
I don’t know what it is about here that makes it so loud, but I’m ready to get back to a place where the whisper is valued and everyone was taught indoor voices versus outdoor voices at a critical age.
Though I still very much enjoy living here, the noise and constant commotion has gotten to the point where the rush for food at lunch annoys me. Despite the fact that there are a handful of seats in the canteen at such times, the crowds themselves and the fact that everyone has to talk louder just to be heard over everyone else make me order my food to go.
It’s all very trivial, I know, but it’s been bugging me.
So to escape (partially) from the crowds, which on a small campus are nearly everywhere, I’ve found solace in a couple of places. In front of Main Building there is hardly a soul. Sometimes I’d see a faculty member and more often I would see a janitor keeping up the grounds by sweeping leaves.
The other is the courtyard in front of the Journalism building (I believe it’s officially named May Hall). In the morning there, I’ve seen people practicing taichi, but during lunch hour, there is hardly anyone occupying the many benches and several tables. Instead of the often crowded and more often noisy Global Lounge, I sit out in that courtyard to work and study and write blog posts as my battery permits.
And so I escape in part—escape from noise and commotion; escape from those oppressing crowds as I ready myself for chit-chatty lectures and yelling in the halls.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Speed and Agility
The first time I ever caught a fly was in Carpenteria, California. My hometown, Thousand Oaks, California, lies halfway between downtown Los Angeles to the southeast and Santa Barbara to the slight northwest without about forty miles to each destination. Carpenteria is just a bit before Santa Barbara and sits as one of those prototypical California beach cities.
My hometown is not a beach city. It’s about seven to twelve miles inland with the closest passage to the sea in the western end of Malibu. Carpenteria, as my description would imply, sits on the coast, and with a small population and great weather, it’s one of my favorite getaway destinations (though I haven’t been there in quite awhile).
Compared to the big cities of California (I count four or five), the pace of life is quite slower—in a good way. Instead of having to fight for a parking spot (or in better-planned areas drive through seas of parking lots), it’s not difficult to find somewhere to park close to where you’re meant to be.
Even walking on the streets, the speed of ambulating that I had grown up with in my suburb was noticeably faster than in Carpenteria. Before I realized this, I would nearly run into people before learning to just slow down. Later we would find a conspicuous magazine in a convenience store on how to grow marijuana most efficiently, but that’s beyond the point and a different story entirely that did not involve any illegal activities.
Though I enjoy slowing down, because, hey, who doesn't, I can most definitely live a fast-paced life. In high school I would go off of five-and-a-half to six hours of sleep a night and frequent fifteen-hour days to get everything done that I had to do.
Hong Kong itself is known for having such a lifestyle. It’s funny though that they may be busy in work, life and what have you, they are some of the weirdest walkers. I’ve always believed there was a correlation between how busy you were at any given period of time and how fast you walk, but I’ve been finding reasons since day two to revise that theory.
First off, I’ve been stuck behind many a slow businessman (as indicated by his or her suit) and many more pairs of people who do not allot any room on either side to pass.
In general, people walk funny here. People think that I dwell on what’s not important, but in reality, I’m spiting back what everyone already knows. Back in the United States, most all crowded places I’ve been to have followed the pattern of walking on the right. It works as well for cars at it does for people to just have one side of the road or path, respectively, and stick to it. It just makes traffic flow better, and in the case of cars especially, it makes everything safer.
So of course, I followed suite. Seeing everyone walking on the right and walking past each other on the right makes you do so yourself, so I thought something similar might apply for Hong Kong. Here, traffic moves on the left as established by the British, so I thought people might walk on the left, just as common courtesy.
I know something as small as common courtesy is highly variable among regions, so when people didn’t really prefer to walk on one side or the other, at first it was irksome, but then I just learned to accept it. I now walk past everyone on the right, just like back home—and it doesn’t cause any more chaos than there already is during busy passing period at HKU or crowded tubes in the MTR.
What is irksome though, is that there seems to be missing any sort of courtesy when on narrow stairways or narrow paths in general. Back home, if you walk side-by-side with someone on a path that fits only two people abreast and someone is approaching from the other direction, you go single file so that the other person can get by without an issue.
Here though, I’ve walked down many a stairway where the people going the opposite direction do not bother to make room for you to pass by on either side, in which case, since I can’t just disappear, I just stand. I don’t know what else I could do honestly. As I found out at the beginning of high school, I’m skinnier walking straight forward than turning to the side when I have my backpack on my shoulders.
One of two things would happen. The first is that the person about to walk into me attempts to file towards the other side. The other is that this merging is only partially successful, in which case I get knocked on the shoulder for not making room that I really could not make.
Just another item in the sub-surface iceberg.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
My hometown is not a beach city. It’s about seven to twelve miles inland with the closest passage to the sea in the western end of Malibu. Carpenteria, as my description would imply, sits on the coast, and with a small population and great weather, it’s one of my favorite getaway destinations (though I haven’t been there in quite awhile).
Compared to the big cities of California (I count four or five), the pace of life is quite slower—in a good way. Instead of having to fight for a parking spot (or in better-planned areas drive through seas of parking lots), it’s not difficult to find somewhere to park close to where you’re meant to be.
Even walking on the streets, the speed of ambulating that I had grown up with in my suburb was noticeably faster than in Carpenteria. Before I realized this, I would nearly run into people before learning to just slow down. Later we would find a conspicuous magazine in a convenience store on how to grow marijuana most efficiently, but that’s beyond the point and a different story entirely that did not involve any illegal activities.
Though I enjoy slowing down, because, hey, who doesn't, I can most definitely live a fast-paced life. In high school I would go off of five-and-a-half to six hours of sleep a night and frequent fifteen-hour days to get everything done that I had to do.
Hong Kong itself is known for having such a lifestyle. It’s funny though that they may be busy in work, life and what have you, they are some of the weirdest walkers. I’ve always believed there was a correlation between how busy you were at any given period of time and how fast you walk, but I’ve been finding reasons since day two to revise that theory.
First off, I’ve been stuck behind many a slow businessman (as indicated by his or her suit) and many more pairs of people who do not allot any room on either side to pass.
In general, people walk funny here. People think that I dwell on what’s not important, but in reality, I’m spiting back what everyone already knows. Back in the United States, most all crowded places I’ve been to have followed the pattern of walking on the right. It works as well for cars at it does for people to just have one side of the road or path, respectively, and stick to it. It just makes traffic flow better, and in the case of cars especially, it makes everything safer.
So of course, I followed suite. Seeing everyone walking on the right and walking past each other on the right makes you do so yourself, so I thought something similar might apply for Hong Kong. Here, traffic moves on the left as established by the British, so I thought people might walk on the left, just as common courtesy.
I know something as small as common courtesy is highly variable among regions, so when people didn’t really prefer to walk on one side or the other, at first it was irksome, but then I just learned to accept it. I now walk past everyone on the right, just like back home—and it doesn’t cause any more chaos than there already is during busy passing period at HKU or crowded tubes in the MTR.
What is irksome though, is that there seems to be missing any sort of courtesy when on narrow stairways or narrow paths in general. Back home, if you walk side-by-side with someone on a path that fits only two people abreast and someone is approaching from the other direction, you go single file so that the other person can get by without an issue.
Here though, I’ve walked down many a stairway where the people going the opposite direction do not bother to make room for you to pass by on either side, in which case, since I can’t just disappear, I just stand. I don’t know what else I could do honestly. As I found out at the beginning of high school, I’m skinnier walking straight forward than turning to the side when I have my backpack on my shoulders.
One of two things would happen. The first is that the person about to walk into me attempts to file towards the other side. The other is that this merging is only partially successful, in which case I get knocked on the shoulder for not making room that I really could not make.
Just another item in the sub-surface iceberg.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Hairdye and Contacts
I work with the latter but not the former.
I guess just thinking about how studying abroad is thought to change your perspectives and make you more mature, more open as a person, and more knowledgeable about the world and about different cultures, made me think that it would to well for me to evaluate my own.
A little to late, you say? Better late than never, I'd say.
Socialization is a funny thing, because as most people know, we are all born with a clean slate. We learn before we take our first breath of air. We learn social convention (some better than others). We learn a language or two natively. We develop who we are as individuals. We begin identifying ourselves and conform to that prototype.
I am no different, of course, and as a person, I have been learning throughout my life and will continue to learn until I die, I suppose. Who am I though? I'm not so sure I know this myself, actually. Here I find that in some ways I am so mature in many ways, yet so immature just based in the fact that I have lived on this planet not two decades yet. Growing up, I've learned through experience more than through dictation how to be have; what to say and what not to say; what people expect of me--and as a result, what I expect of out myself.
Whereas I was spoken to for a while in Cantonese when I was young, my parents always spoke English to each other, and my no conscious decision of my own, I picked up the latter but not the former. In a very immature way, it still boggles my mind that people can think efficiently in a language besides English, my language, and it's always been funny to me to hear little kids speak their native foreign languages. Some things will never change.
I know who I am as an individual, and yet I don't. I'm quick to acknowledge my ancestry, but never would I tout it nor say that I identify myself as Chinese before American, Californian, or even Chinese-American. I find it mildly annoying that some people try to identify themselves by their ancestry as if it is more than residual, because for while some it is, for more it is not. I understand that at anything and everything that I do, I will never be the best of the best, though I will not stop trying. I know that no matter how much I learn and no matter how much I experience, I know but a small fraction of the infinite universe of what there is to know.
I identify myself as Christian, because of how humbled I am by the world and because of the comfort of knowing of a higher power and the solace I find in knowing that nothing I do is really for myself. I identify myself as liberal (in the American sense) because I know that not everything in the world can be done by (fictitiously) saving money, nor solved by asserting superiority on the international front nor on the domestic battlefield. Because who are we to judge others and assert our righteousness in faith, lifestyle, or personal choices that ought to remain personal?
I identify myself as a heterosexual man, who wears darker-colored clothing and finds it better to cut hair shorter than leave it grow, who has been brought to the realization of the subconscious lowering of his voice yet still does it, who finds a woman more appealing with a voice higher than lower.
I see and observe the people here and notice that, while they possibly share more genes with me than many of my classmates back home, they are so different. The girls most all dress like guys and the guys most all talk like girls. But that is, of course, my judgment, and who am I to say anything without making sure that the listener knows its but my opinion, and that while I will defend my own, I still respect all well-founded opinions because what's right is as simple as a consensus of the minds.
If everyone's wrong, then everyone's right. If everyone's a winner, then no one is.
While I won't go so far as to say that I've never thought about it, I've never used hairdye, even as the majority of my classmates went bleaching their hair blond in fourth grade. As much as I say I prefer contacts over glasses because contacts maintain better peripheral vision, the reasons number beyond that.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I guess just thinking about how studying abroad is thought to change your perspectives and make you more mature, more open as a person, and more knowledgeable about the world and about different cultures, made me think that it would to well for me to evaluate my own.
A little to late, you say? Better late than never, I'd say.
Socialization is a funny thing, because as most people know, we are all born with a clean slate. We learn before we take our first breath of air. We learn social convention (some better than others). We learn a language or two natively. We develop who we are as individuals. We begin identifying ourselves and conform to that prototype.
I am no different, of course, and as a person, I have been learning throughout my life and will continue to learn until I die, I suppose. Who am I though? I'm not so sure I know this myself, actually. Here I find that in some ways I am so mature in many ways, yet so immature just based in the fact that I have lived on this planet not two decades yet. Growing up, I've learned through experience more than through dictation how to be have; what to say and what not to say; what people expect of me--and as a result, what I expect of out myself.
Whereas I was spoken to for a while in Cantonese when I was young, my parents always spoke English to each other, and my no conscious decision of my own, I picked up the latter but not the former. In a very immature way, it still boggles my mind that people can think efficiently in a language besides English, my language, and it's always been funny to me to hear little kids speak their native foreign languages. Some things will never change.
I know who I am as an individual, and yet I don't. I'm quick to acknowledge my ancestry, but never would I tout it nor say that I identify myself as Chinese before American, Californian, or even Chinese-American. I find it mildly annoying that some people try to identify themselves by their ancestry as if it is more than residual, because for while some it is, for more it is not. I understand that at anything and everything that I do, I will never be the best of the best, though I will not stop trying. I know that no matter how much I learn and no matter how much I experience, I know but a small fraction of the infinite universe of what there is to know.
I identify myself as Christian, because of how humbled I am by the world and because of the comfort of knowing of a higher power and the solace I find in knowing that nothing I do is really for myself. I identify myself as liberal (in the American sense) because I know that not everything in the world can be done by (fictitiously) saving money, nor solved by asserting superiority on the international front nor on the domestic battlefield. Because who are we to judge others and assert our righteousness in faith, lifestyle, or personal choices that ought to remain personal?
I identify myself as a heterosexual man, who wears darker-colored clothing and finds it better to cut hair shorter than leave it grow, who has been brought to the realization of the subconscious lowering of his voice yet still does it, who finds a woman more appealing with a voice higher than lower.
I see and observe the people here and notice that, while they possibly share more genes with me than many of my classmates back home, they are so different. The girls most all dress like guys and the guys most all talk like girls. But that is, of course, my judgment, and who am I to say anything without making sure that the listener knows its but my opinion, and that while I will defend my own, I still respect all well-founded opinions because what's right is as simple as a consensus of the minds.
If everyone's wrong, then everyone's right. If everyone's a winner, then no one is.
While I won't go so far as to say that I've never thought about it, I've never used hairdye, even as the majority of my classmates went bleaching their hair blond in fourth grade. As much as I say I prefer contacts over glasses because contacts maintain better peripheral vision, the reasons number beyond that.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Friday, November 6, 2009
The Cutlery Dilemma
The other day, I picked up a fork and knife for the first time in quite a while. I dropped more food than I’m proud of on myself and thought it might be worth mentioning, at least for a little laugh.
In case you couldn’t tell by that last statement, I use mostly chopsticks here for eating and was a little more than surprised when I found out that a certain skill of mine had been regressing as I became more attuned to the alternative.
Back home, I always use forks. Though I eat a good amount of pseudo-Chinese food at home, if I’m given the choice between a fork and chopsticks, the fork always wins out. At restaurants, I’d never go so far as to ask for a fork if chopsticks are the only things sitting on the table, but I definitely had a preference.
So what do I prefer now? I don’t think I really care; I just know that I need to work on my fork skills when I get back home to mitigate the potential for embarrassment.
As for the food here, I must say that for the expectations set out for it, it hasn’t been so great. The food itself is fine, but it’s nothing different from Chinese food back home. The only thing that seems consistently good is street food. The only problem with that is I have trouble finding convenient street food, or street food period, in Hong Kong. I know it’s out there, and I know I like it, it’s just that in Mainland China it’s so much easier to get street food and it’s so consistently cheap.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
In case you couldn’t tell by that last statement, I use mostly chopsticks here for eating and was a little more than surprised when I found out that a certain skill of mine had been regressing as I became more attuned to the alternative.
Back home, I always use forks. Though I eat a good amount of pseudo-Chinese food at home, if I’m given the choice between a fork and chopsticks, the fork always wins out. At restaurants, I’d never go so far as to ask for a fork if chopsticks are the only things sitting on the table, but I definitely had a preference.
So what do I prefer now? I don’t think I really care; I just know that I need to work on my fork skills when I get back home to mitigate the potential for embarrassment.
As for the food here, I must say that for the expectations set out for it, it hasn’t been so great. The food itself is fine, but it’s nothing different from Chinese food back home. The only thing that seems consistently good is street food. The only problem with that is I have trouble finding convenient street food, or street food period, in Hong Kong. I know it’s out there, and I know I like it, it’s just that in Mainland China it’s so much easier to get street food and it’s so consistently cheap.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Point of No Return
Two months in I stand; two months in I see. Like a ship halfway to its destination, I know I have so much behind me now and yet there’s so much in front of me as well. In a way it’s misleading. I don’t really want to go back at the moment. I look forward to my return, just not this December, not in two months. However, in no way am I home scot-free. My experience here still has the very real possibility of being a naufraga in the same way that I don’t know if I’ll still be alive tomorrow. It requires constant maintenance, and more often than not, it’s an uphill battle.
I arrived August 21, confused, dazed, and fresh off a thirteen-hour flight without sleep. My passport was then used just a few times. Upon entering the country, I was given a student entry stamp on the page opposite my student visa. The square, black stamp looked to take up most of the page to my surprise. The airport gave false impressions of Hong Kong—not false as in better or worse, but false as in different. Getting off the train on Hong Kong Island, I was greeted with lots of noise, winding roads, and my first experience seeing traffic move on the left.
With time, I adjusted. The sweltering heat and humidity lessened slightly as my tolerance increased. The bus system that once confused me became manageable and I could successfully ask to get off the minibus in Cantonese—a skill than increased to requesting stops in specific locations. I found where the better food is and how to deal with copious amounts of rice.
I guess you could say that I’ve now plateaued culturally. While there still is room to grow, there will always be, and I will continue to progress, just slower. As I went from being nervous, I can now say I’m quite the opposite. Whereas at first I missed home and was counting down the days to go back, I find myself now trying to maximize the rest of my time here. I’ve lost count and already I want to do this again somewhere else next fall semester, money and time permitting, of course.
So where am I to go from here? I’ve not yet reached the top of the mountain, though I’ve been to the Peak twice. My finals schedule is starting to shape up, though I don’t care for it to end. With my eyes perpetually towards the future, I’ve decided to take the time to enjoy the present.
To this effect, I’ve begun a project that won’t be done until the end of the year. The idea hatched as I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for my Introduction to the Arts of Asia class to research for a paper. The topic was hand scrolls, which have an aesthetic to them that requires observation beyond that of any western painting I’ve seen.
To read a hand scroll properly, you roll it open section by section, right to left. At several meters long, each tends to tell a story, accompanied often by deeper meaning. Many are accompanied with poetry, but the use of motifs and themes allow the artist to tell the story in an abstract fashion. By story, I mean journey, and there is usually a path in the scroll guiding the reader’s eyes through this journey.
For this art paper, we were to observe Qiu Ying’s 清明商河图 or “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as it is usually translated. We were to compare this Ming Dynasty scroll to Zhang Zeduan’s original of the same name, which was painted during the Song Dynasty. I won’t get into the specifics, though it is clear that Qiu Ying’s is not merely a copy of Zhang Zeduan’s.
To aid my paper, I bought a scaled reprint of the hand scroll at the museum’s bookstore, realizing later that it was in postcard format—fifteen postcards to be exact. Later I realized that this painting, divided into sections by the creases into postcards, being a journey, could be parallel to my journey here.
So I decided to cut apart this scroll replica into the postcards that were on the reverse. Sending them all back to my home in California, I addressed them as such, and stamped them all. As a representation of my journey here in Hong Kong, I’m sending them off from fifteen different post boxes, noting the location and its significance, as well as the date and time at which I sent it.
When I get back home, hopefully all fifteen will have arrived. At that point, I’m going to reattach them back together. This scroll reprint, in postcard/booklet format will then show the journey to the city center of Kaifeng on the front and my journey to Hong Kong on the back.
There are now four weeks of instruction left, so with deadlines looming and a push for more travels to look forward to, I shall resume my studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I arrived August 21, confused, dazed, and fresh off a thirteen-hour flight without sleep. My passport was then used just a few times. Upon entering the country, I was given a student entry stamp on the page opposite my student visa. The square, black stamp looked to take up most of the page to my surprise. The airport gave false impressions of Hong Kong—not false as in better or worse, but false as in different. Getting off the train on Hong Kong Island, I was greeted with lots of noise, winding roads, and my first experience seeing traffic move on the left.
With time, I adjusted. The sweltering heat and humidity lessened slightly as my tolerance increased. The bus system that once confused me became manageable and I could successfully ask to get off the minibus in Cantonese—a skill than increased to requesting stops in specific locations. I found where the better food is and how to deal with copious amounts of rice.
I guess you could say that I’ve now plateaued culturally. While there still is room to grow, there will always be, and I will continue to progress, just slower. As I went from being nervous, I can now say I’m quite the opposite. Whereas at first I missed home and was counting down the days to go back, I find myself now trying to maximize the rest of my time here. I’ve lost count and already I want to do this again somewhere else next fall semester, money and time permitting, of course.
So where am I to go from here? I’ve not yet reached the top of the mountain, though I’ve been to the Peak twice. My finals schedule is starting to shape up, though I don’t care for it to end. With my eyes perpetually towards the future, I’ve decided to take the time to enjoy the present.
To this effect, I’ve begun a project that won’t be done until the end of the year. The idea hatched as I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for my Introduction to the Arts of Asia class to research for a paper. The topic was hand scrolls, which have an aesthetic to them that requires observation beyond that of any western painting I’ve seen.
To read a hand scroll properly, you roll it open section by section, right to left. At several meters long, each tends to tell a story, accompanied often by deeper meaning. Many are accompanied with poetry, but the use of motifs and themes allow the artist to tell the story in an abstract fashion. By story, I mean journey, and there is usually a path in the scroll guiding the reader’s eyes through this journey.
For this art paper, we were to observe Qiu Ying’s 清明商河图 or “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as it is usually translated. We were to compare this Ming Dynasty scroll to Zhang Zeduan’s original of the same name, which was painted during the Song Dynasty. I won’t get into the specifics, though it is clear that Qiu Ying’s is not merely a copy of Zhang Zeduan’s.
To aid my paper, I bought a scaled reprint of the hand scroll at the museum’s bookstore, realizing later that it was in postcard format—fifteen postcards to be exact. Later I realized that this painting, divided into sections by the creases into postcards, being a journey, could be parallel to my journey here.
So I decided to cut apart this scroll replica into the postcards that were on the reverse. Sending them all back to my home in California, I addressed them as such, and stamped them all. As a representation of my journey here in Hong Kong, I’m sending them off from fifteen different post boxes, noting the location and its significance, as well as the date and time at which I sent it.
When I get back home, hopefully all fifteen will have arrived. At that point, I’m going to reattach them back together. This scroll reprint, in postcard/booklet format will then show the journey to the city center of Kaifeng on the front and my journey to Hong Kong on the back.
There are now four weeks of instruction left, so with deadlines looming and a push for more travels to look forward to, I shall resume my studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Beijing: A Question of Scale
Going back to Beijing and when we arrived, the gigantic airport was imposing but not impressive. As we scuttled through the terminal in an attempt to leave the airport it was noticeably empty. Don’t get me wrong; empty airports are good airports, and any day I’d take a flight in or out of the closer and smaller Burbank Airport over the larger and more crowded Los Angeles International Airport.
Designed and built by the same company that did my one of my favorite airports, Hong Kong International Airport, it shared much of the same features. The airport was noticeably efficient—we got our luggage quickly and lines at immigration were relatively short.
It’s architectural merits were there, with large and simple imposing columns with red being the main color of the place (with a slotted white ceiling). I personally didn’t like it looked, and from a glance it was evident that the terminal, built in preparation for the Olympics, was designed to impress. With a big country comes a polished capital airport. I could feel the might of China above my shoulders.
In contrast, flying into Washington Dulles Airport (which I’ve done once), I can’t say I felt the same. The airport was dingy and if I remember correctly we had to do an avoidance maneuver before landing which required us to ascend, loop around, and descend again. The terminals, while not shabby, were in no way impressive. It was designed for utility and though I have no idea how efficient it is, no one had in mind the wish to make an architectural statement or anything.
And therein lies one of the biggest changes I saw in Beijing in going back after two years. Starting at the way-too-big airport and ending at the way-to-big airport (where we spent hours bored because of a lack of decent coffee and a surplus of closed stores), Beijing was noticeably more secure than just a few years ago, and whereas some would cite Communism and extreme maintenance of the peace as the reasons behind this very apparent security, I, having been there before the Olympics, can say that this is not the way it’s always been.
After the Olympics and also due recently to National Day, security has been ever higher. Whereas I’ve met people who couldn’t point to China on the map (as they tried), now China’s has the world’s attention. I guess with great fame comes great responsibility. With China’s human rights record in question and the recent ethnic conflict in the west, China understands that it has enemies and understands that it has more real threats than before.
Two years ago, we went through airports in a snap. We walked through metal detectors without hesitation and even if one us beeped, rarely were we asked to stand for wand-waving or what have you. Mind you, that trip two years ago sent my family and I through four Chinese airports.
This time around, on leaving from Beijing, I beeped the metal detector because they didn’t require belts to be removed. Fine, whatever. A female officer did the whole wand-waving business and then proceeded to frisk me thoroughly. Through exit immigration, the officer alternated his focus between my passport picture and my face about five times. A friend of mine got whisked into a side room for potential questioning because her British passport looked suspicious somehow, though she was let go after six officers eyed it with a magnifying scope.
And that’s not the only place security is tight. China knows about domestic terrorism as well, don’t worry. The entire subway line, which expanded from two lines before the Olympics to God knows how many now and expanding still, has security personnel with x-rays to have you scan bags before entering the system. China’s vigilant and it shows.
But not everything was bigger this time. For one I would like to make a point now validated to me because of this trip. If you can do it, explore and sightsee yourself rather than with a tour group.
Two years ago, my family and I went to China in a tour group. It was super convenient. They loaded us onto a bus and shuttled us around and provided us with food for a real decent price. The thing is though, going to new places is not all about sightseeing, I’m convinced.
Yeah, I still see the sights and then some like the average tourist. The thing is though that when you get whisked away in a tour bus, you lose the opportunity to see real life—something that really doesn’t take more time to see.
This time around, we rode the subway to get to most places. We took a tour bus with Mainland Chinese people to see the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. In addition to the subway, we had to take a bus to see the Summer Palace.
Just being on the subway, you get to see the people. Mixing in with the locals and commuting with the businessmen, you really see some of the more innate aspects of culture—what is different and what is the same. I can’t even begin to describe how much I learned about Beijing this time around than the last time.
One thing that we did that was way off the tourist path though, I’m glad we did. The hotel was just a few subway stops away from the Temple of Heaven, so we decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the subway. Along the way walking back alongside the main road, we peered into a side street. Feeling in the mood to explore, we ventured back into there. It was like a street full of vendors catering to locals. There were home supply storefronts as well as a guy selling lamb skewers to mention just a few. Walking even further we walked by the home fronts in one of the many hutong not mentioned or marked on maps. There was nothing the average tourist would want to see, but in my opinion it was all part of the experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Designed and built by the same company that did my one of my favorite airports, Hong Kong International Airport, it shared much of the same features. The airport was noticeably efficient—we got our luggage quickly and lines at immigration were relatively short.
It’s architectural merits were there, with large and simple imposing columns with red being the main color of the place (with a slotted white ceiling). I personally didn’t like it looked, and from a glance it was evident that the terminal, built in preparation for the Olympics, was designed to impress. With a big country comes a polished capital airport. I could feel the might of China above my shoulders.
In contrast, flying into Washington Dulles Airport (which I’ve done once), I can’t say I felt the same. The airport was dingy and if I remember correctly we had to do an avoidance maneuver before landing which required us to ascend, loop around, and descend again. The terminals, while not shabby, were in no way impressive. It was designed for utility and though I have no idea how efficient it is, no one had in mind the wish to make an architectural statement or anything.
And therein lies one of the biggest changes I saw in Beijing in going back after two years. Starting at the way-too-big airport and ending at the way-to-big airport (where we spent hours bored because of a lack of decent coffee and a surplus of closed stores), Beijing was noticeably more secure than just a few years ago, and whereas some would cite Communism and extreme maintenance of the peace as the reasons behind this very apparent security, I, having been there before the Olympics, can say that this is not the way it’s always been.
After the Olympics and also due recently to National Day, security has been ever higher. Whereas I’ve met people who couldn’t point to China on the map (as they tried), now China’s has the world’s attention. I guess with great fame comes great responsibility. With China’s human rights record in question and the recent ethnic conflict in the west, China understands that it has enemies and understands that it has more real threats than before.
Two years ago, we went through airports in a snap. We walked through metal detectors without hesitation and even if one us beeped, rarely were we asked to stand for wand-waving or what have you. Mind you, that trip two years ago sent my family and I through four Chinese airports.
This time around, on leaving from Beijing, I beeped the metal detector because they didn’t require belts to be removed. Fine, whatever. A female officer did the whole wand-waving business and then proceeded to frisk me thoroughly. Through exit immigration, the officer alternated his focus between my passport picture and my face about five times. A friend of mine got whisked into a side room for potential questioning because her British passport looked suspicious somehow, though she was let go after six officers eyed it with a magnifying scope.
And that’s not the only place security is tight. China knows about domestic terrorism as well, don’t worry. The entire subway line, which expanded from two lines before the Olympics to God knows how many now and expanding still, has security personnel with x-rays to have you scan bags before entering the system. China’s vigilant and it shows.
But not everything was bigger this time. For one I would like to make a point now validated to me because of this trip. If you can do it, explore and sightsee yourself rather than with a tour group.
Two years ago, my family and I went to China in a tour group. It was super convenient. They loaded us onto a bus and shuttled us around and provided us with food for a real decent price. The thing is though, going to new places is not all about sightseeing, I’m convinced.
Yeah, I still see the sights and then some like the average tourist. The thing is though that when you get whisked away in a tour bus, you lose the opportunity to see real life—something that really doesn’t take more time to see.
This time around, we rode the subway to get to most places. We took a tour bus with Mainland Chinese people to see the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. In addition to the subway, we had to take a bus to see the Summer Palace.
Just being on the subway, you get to see the people. Mixing in with the locals and commuting with the businessmen, you really see some of the more innate aspects of culture—what is different and what is the same. I can’t even begin to describe how much I learned about Beijing this time around than the last time.
One thing that we did that was way off the tourist path though, I’m glad we did. The hotel was just a few subway stops away from the Temple of Heaven, so we decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the subway. Along the way walking back alongside the main road, we peered into a side street. Feeling in the mood to explore, we ventured back into there. It was like a street full of vendors catering to locals. There were home supply storefronts as well as a guy selling lamb skewers to mention just a few. Walking even further we walked by the home fronts in one of the many hutong not mentioned or marked on maps. There was nothing the average tourist would want to see, but in my opinion it was all part of the experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
To Extend or Not To Extend
That is the question, isn’t it?
It’s something that I knew that I would have to decide sooner and later, and I have to say that though I have come to it, I can’t help thinking the decision was made before me.
I applied to study here for one semester in substitution for one quarter back home. I chose not to file the departmental preapproval form for extension, in hopes that that would force myself to come back home for the latter two quarters of the year.
The reason for doing this was that because this university runs on two semesters per year and UCSD runs on three quarters per year, my substitution of two semesters for three quarters would delay my graduation substantially, making me miss several required classes that are only offered once a year.
So I found out after I was accepted that I can actually petition to bypass that preapproval to allow me to study here for a full year. I realize that to graduate on time though, I can’t.
Though when I arrived, I practically began counting down the days to when I leave, I’m growing to love Hong Kong. Though I still look forward to going home, I still want to make sure that these next ten weeks (yeah, I only have ten weeks left here) are the best.
In Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment, I’m most definitely at the sixth stage, where I’ve fully accepted my host culture. After this last trip to Beijing, I realized that my Mandarin isn’t half bad, and I’m ready to put my Cantonese learning into a higher gear.
In some ways, it is a race to the finish line, with me trying to get my travels in, learn languages, and get good grades at the same time. Right now, I’d rather be the turtle though rather than the hare, and unfortunately I presently feel like the latter.
Ready, set, go.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
It’s something that I knew that I would have to decide sooner and later, and I have to say that though I have come to it, I can’t help thinking the decision was made before me.
I applied to study here for one semester in substitution for one quarter back home. I chose not to file the departmental preapproval form for extension, in hopes that that would force myself to come back home for the latter two quarters of the year.
The reason for doing this was that because this university runs on two semesters per year and UCSD runs on three quarters per year, my substitution of two semesters for three quarters would delay my graduation substantially, making me miss several required classes that are only offered once a year.
So I found out after I was accepted that I can actually petition to bypass that preapproval to allow me to study here for a full year. I realize that to graduate on time though, I can’t.
Though when I arrived, I practically began counting down the days to when I leave, I’m growing to love Hong Kong. Though I still look forward to going home, I still want to make sure that these next ten weeks (yeah, I only have ten weeks left here) are the best.
In Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment, I’m most definitely at the sixth stage, where I’ve fully accepted my host culture. After this last trip to Beijing, I realized that my Mandarin isn’t half bad, and I’m ready to put my Cantonese learning into a higher gear.
In some ways, it is a race to the finish line, with me trying to get my travels in, learn languages, and get good grades at the same time. Right now, I’d rather be the turtle though rather than the hare, and unfortunately I presently feel like the latter.
Ready, set, go.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Class and Refinement with Animals
A couple weeks ago we went to the opening races of the Hong Kong Jockey Club in Happy Valley near Causeway Bay. There, you could bet on a horse and lose some money, be it through said gambling or booze.
I went because I thought it might be something of an experience—and it was, just not the one that I imagined. It happened the Wednesday before last and was advertised by the International Student Association here as an event worth going to because horse racing is a favorite pastime of Hong Kong.
Whereas I can see the Jockey Club’s influence everywhere here (because as a non-profit they charitably get money from the people who lost it on horses and give it to organization. I know that their name is plastered on a building or two on the HKU campus, as they probably donated funds to help build it. That’s all fine and dandy.
The theme for the night was gold, and if you wore gold, you’d get entered into a raffle for a special prize. I didn’t wear gold. I only saw a handful of people wearing gold.
From what I read, it was to be a classy event, but with two pitchers of beer (buy one get one free) for HK$120, most of the people on the ground level were drunk, many of which having bought a couple pitchers for themselves.
From what I saw, there were hardly any locals in sight. The crowdedness of the expats and tourists made me think it was more for expats and tourists than being a pastime of Hong Kong.
I went because I thought it might be something of an experience—and it was, just not the one that I imagined. It happened the Wednesday before last and was advertised by the International Student Association here as an event worth going to because horse racing is a favorite pastime of Hong Kong.
Whereas I can see the Jockey Club’s influence everywhere here (because as a non-profit they charitably get money from the people who lost it on horses and give it to organization. I know that their name is plastered on a building or two on the HKU campus, as they probably donated funds to help build it. That’s all fine and dandy.
The theme for the night was gold, and if you wore gold, you’d get entered into a raffle for a special prize. I didn’t wear gold. I only saw a handful of people wearing gold.
From what I read, it was to be a classy event, but with two pitchers of beer (buy one get one free) for HK$120, most of the people on the ground level were drunk, many of which having bought a couple pitchers for themselves.
From what I saw, there were hardly any locals in sight. The crowdedness of the expats and tourists made me think it was more for expats and tourists than being a pastime of Hong Kong.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
A Friend or Two
At the moment, I’m not advertising that I’m keeping this blog to my new HKU acquaintances and friends. I intend for it to be read by people back in the states who would be more open to taking what I say with an open mind and realizing that I intend my narratives to be a reflection of my raw thoughts and impressions and less a forum for bias and slant (though I realize the words are often the same for both purposes). Now I’ve tried searching my name in Google and this blog pops up pretty close to the top; I’ve posted the address in my Facebook profile, so maybe they will find it. At that point I shall not ask them not to read it, but hopefully my thoughts will be understood as thoughts to which I am entitled, whether positive or not.
So I arrived at my hall in the late evening and ended up going to bed at 9:30 (Hong Kong time). I didn’t have a pillow and I didn’t need blankets. I felt so alone in my hall those first few days for a few reasons. As I arrived at the beginning of the weekend, I was not able to register for Internet until Monday, which left me without an outside world and a way to reach back to California. Though all of the local students had already moved in, they were seldom visible as they were on the second day of their ten-day hall orientation. (Long, right?)
I met a few of them, as I mentioned before. More recently I met another who went by the notable name of 99, pronounced “nine, nine” and not “ninety-nine.” He was friendly, telling me how to use the copy machine and something else that has, at the present, slipped my mind. Another I met in a hallway but he continued onto his room without allowing me to introduce myself. Fair enough.
I slept okay. It was humid and hot, ceasing little in intensity at night, and as harsh in the late evening as during the early afternoon. I must have woken up four times during the night, each time forcing myself to go back to sleep. Finally at 6:30 a.m. I woke up hungry, knowing that little, if anything would be open. However, I knew there was a 7-Eleven on the ground floor that I had seen coming in, so I went to go find it again. Instead I was met by the night guard who spoke to be in precipitous Cantonese. I replied in English and she realized she was faced with one of those students.
Now I expected that since classes were in English, students would speak good English, and that staff members would speak decent English as well. But similar to the woman checking me into my room some ten hours prior, I found myself struggling with, the night guard was of poor English competence. I would not judge these staff members so harshly if I were going to a school whose primary language were not English, but I was not, so I expected some English.
She managed to get out a “Hungry?” while pointing to her stomach.
“Yes,” I answered properly and deliberately for maximum comprehension.
She led me outside and pointed at the 7-Eleven. “7, 10,” she said explaining the hours. Then she faced me towards the restaurant and said “7 and half, 9 and half.”
I thanked her for her explanation, though the hours were pretty conspicuously posted on the signs outside both establishments. There was also a vending machine there (that only took big coins) and a Hang Seng Bank ATM, where I tried my HSBC card at with successful results. I went back up to the fourteenth floor of my hall. It was still as humid as ever.
I came back down in an hour to eat at the restaurant (locals style it “canteen”) that was meant for HKU students and staff pointed out earlier. I went down the steps into the restaurant and ordered some Congee (like oatmeal but with rice instead of oats) which came with a side of noodles. It was a lot of food and of decent quality for $16 Hong Kong Dollars (about $2 USD).
As I was eating three students came in with some very American clothing. They had advertising contributors to specific events (such as Honda being the presenting sponsor of the Los Angeles Marathon). One of the students had a blocky “M” on the front of his T-shirt that looked more like an upside-down “W” than a right-side-up “M” and I thought Michigan (as in the university).
After the ordered their food and sat down, I introduced myself and subsequently moved to their table. It turned out that they are from Minnesota (hence “M”) and had gotten to Hong Kong a few days before I had.
It was good to meet some other international students. The sounds of Cantonese were all too easy for me to zone out (as I have trouble really understanding the language at the moment), so it was easy for me to ignore the local students all together.
They told me how they were out partying practically every night prior and were trying to figure out where to go that day. And for that I could admire their boldness. I feel utterly lost when I venture into Hong Kong outside of the university (still as I write this post) and think that they were either being very brave or very stupid for going around town partying. I feel that I would have trouble finding my way back to my dorm after dark, and I don’t even know how it would turn out if I were even partially incapacitated.
So I found out that two of them were from the Faculty of Social Science (like me) whereas the third was actually a student from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (which I would find out is pretty far away).
I left on basis that I was going to meet my HKU buddy for that tour she had offered me for that day. I went up to my room and called her, leaving her a message. When she didn’t call back, I just lay in bed watching movies that I had brought from home on my laptop.
She ended up calling at 1 p.m. asking me to meet her at main campus at 4. I was to take minibus 8 or 28 to get there, but I had no idea how the buses operate in Hong Kong, how long it takes to get to main campus, nor even what main campus looked like. So when the bus arrived I verified that it would be going by HKU in broken Mandarin, deposited my coins, and sat down.
Like other buses, you have to ring the bell (or pull the cord) to tell the driver to stop, but out of all the minibuses (which seat 16 and are painted a dirty mint green) I have taken, only one has had some non-verbal way to alert the driver. As I found out, you have to verbally ask the driver to stop. Those little buses are loud and I continue to be impressed that the driver can hear the requests over the angry sounds of the engine.
The journey went smoothly (though the minibus did not) and I arrived at HKU main campus and descended the bus at the proper stop (with the driver’s help) like half an hour before my buddy was set to arrive.
Waiting under this awning spanning the path of the West Entrance, the humidity was as present as ever and I could feel the presence of the sun beating down on me without the direct light of the sun. Bored, I studied the campus map in front of me. It looked pretty simple. There didn’t look to be too many buildings. The roads and pedestrian paths among the buildings didn’t appear straight, though, as the campus is on the side of a hill.
When my buddy arrived, I was relieved to start moving again. She tried to call me by my Chinese name (which very few people know) but I insisted on my English name. I asked her how to properly pronounce her name, but she misunderstood my question to be inquiring her English name. So she explained that she goes by her Chinese name. I rephrased my question and she taught me how to say it properly, afterwards commenting on my poor Cantonese ability, to which I just laughed.
She showed me around campus, which was bigger than I imagined. The map was totally useless to those not acquainted with the campus, and I found myself gawking at the presence of the almost senseless routes that we needed to take to get to where we wanted to go. There was no way that I was going to remember this all right away. I was shown where the Global Lounge is (from where I’m writing this now), as well as the location of my Faculty and Main Library, among other buildings and locations.
Still afraid of getting lost, augmented by the almost illogical campus layout, I ventured straight back to my hall, where I knew what floor I live on and from the elevator where my room is. And there I stayed (except for bathroom breaks and showers) until the next morning. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go down to the canteen and all (though I truly didn’t) but I wasn’t hungry for dinner, and something about the humidity in my room relaxed me as I went to bed at 7.
I still don’t know how to pronounce my HKU buddy’s name properly.
Just to note, I just changed the time zone of my blog, which incidentally affected previous posts. As a result, any posts that I didn't publish in Hong Kong are slightly off in time and date.
So I arrived at my hall in the late evening and ended up going to bed at 9:30 (Hong Kong time). I didn’t have a pillow and I didn’t need blankets. I felt so alone in my hall those first few days for a few reasons. As I arrived at the beginning of the weekend, I was not able to register for Internet until Monday, which left me without an outside world and a way to reach back to California. Though all of the local students had already moved in, they were seldom visible as they were on the second day of their ten-day hall orientation. (Long, right?)
I met a few of them, as I mentioned before. More recently I met another who went by the notable name of 99, pronounced “nine, nine” and not “ninety-nine.” He was friendly, telling me how to use the copy machine and something else that has, at the present, slipped my mind. Another I met in a hallway but he continued onto his room without allowing me to introduce myself. Fair enough.
I slept okay. It was humid and hot, ceasing little in intensity at night, and as harsh in the late evening as during the early afternoon. I must have woken up four times during the night, each time forcing myself to go back to sleep. Finally at 6:30 a.m. I woke up hungry, knowing that little, if anything would be open. However, I knew there was a 7-Eleven on the ground floor that I had seen coming in, so I went to go find it again. Instead I was met by the night guard who spoke to be in precipitous Cantonese. I replied in English and she realized she was faced with one of those students.
Now I expected that since classes were in English, students would speak good English, and that staff members would speak decent English as well. But similar to the woman checking me into my room some ten hours prior, I found myself struggling with, the night guard was of poor English competence. I would not judge these staff members so harshly if I were going to a school whose primary language were not English, but I was not, so I expected some English.
She managed to get out a “Hungry?” while pointing to her stomach.
“Yes,” I answered properly and deliberately for maximum comprehension.
She led me outside and pointed at the 7-Eleven. “7, 10,” she said explaining the hours. Then she faced me towards the restaurant and said “7 and half, 9 and half.”
I thanked her for her explanation, though the hours were pretty conspicuously posted on the signs outside both establishments. There was also a vending machine there (that only took big coins) and a Hang Seng Bank ATM, where I tried my HSBC card at with successful results. I went back up to the fourteenth floor of my hall. It was still as humid as ever.
I came back down in an hour to eat at the restaurant (locals style it “canteen”) that was meant for HKU students and staff pointed out earlier. I went down the steps into the restaurant and ordered some Congee (like oatmeal but with rice instead of oats) which came with a side of noodles. It was a lot of food and of decent quality for $16 Hong Kong Dollars (about $2 USD).
As I was eating three students came in with some very American clothing. They had advertising contributors to specific events (such as Honda being the presenting sponsor of the Los Angeles Marathon). One of the students had a blocky “M” on the front of his T-shirt that looked more like an upside-down “W” than a right-side-up “M” and I thought Michigan (as in the university).
After the ordered their food and sat down, I introduced myself and subsequently moved to their table. It turned out that they are from Minnesota (hence “M”) and had gotten to Hong Kong a few days before I had.
It was good to meet some other international students. The sounds of Cantonese were all too easy for me to zone out (as I have trouble really understanding the language at the moment), so it was easy for me to ignore the local students all together.
They told me how they were out partying practically every night prior and were trying to figure out where to go that day. And for that I could admire their boldness. I feel utterly lost when I venture into Hong Kong outside of the university (still as I write this post) and think that they were either being very brave or very stupid for going around town partying. I feel that I would have trouble finding my way back to my dorm after dark, and I don’t even know how it would turn out if I were even partially incapacitated.
So I found out that two of them were from the Faculty of Social Science (like me) whereas the third was actually a student from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (which I would find out is pretty far away).
I left on basis that I was going to meet my HKU buddy for that tour she had offered me for that day. I went up to my room and called her, leaving her a message. When she didn’t call back, I just lay in bed watching movies that I had brought from home on my laptop.
She ended up calling at 1 p.m. asking me to meet her at main campus at 4. I was to take minibus 8 or 28 to get there, but I had no idea how the buses operate in Hong Kong, how long it takes to get to main campus, nor even what main campus looked like. So when the bus arrived I verified that it would be going by HKU in broken Mandarin, deposited my coins, and sat down.
Like other buses, you have to ring the bell (or pull the cord) to tell the driver to stop, but out of all the minibuses (which seat 16 and are painted a dirty mint green) I have taken, only one has had some non-verbal way to alert the driver. As I found out, you have to verbally ask the driver to stop. Those little buses are loud and I continue to be impressed that the driver can hear the requests over the angry sounds of the engine.
The journey went smoothly (though the minibus did not) and I arrived at HKU main campus and descended the bus at the proper stop (with the driver’s help) like half an hour before my buddy was set to arrive.
Waiting under this awning spanning the path of the West Entrance, the humidity was as present as ever and I could feel the presence of the sun beating down on me without the direct light of the sun. Bored, I studied the campus map in front of me. It looked pretty simple. There didn’t look to be too many buildings. The roads and pedestrian paths among the buildings didn’t appear straight, though, as the campus is on the side of a hill.
When my buddy arrived, I was relieved to start moving again. She tried to call me by my Chinese name (which very few people know) but I insisted on my English name. I asked her how to properly pronounce her name, but she misunderstood my question to be inquiring her English name. So she explained that she goes by her Chinese name. I rephrased my question and she taught me how to say it properly, afterwards commenting on my poor Cantonese ability, to which I just laughed.
She showed me around campus, which was bigger than I imagined. The map was totally useless to those not acquainted with the campus, and I found myself gawking at the presence of the almost senseless routes that we needed to take to get to where we wanted to go. There was no way that I was going to remember this all right away. I was shown where the Global Lounge is (from where I’m writing this now), as well as the location of my Faculty and Main Library, among other buildings and locations.
Still afraid of getting lost, augmented by the almost illogical campus layout, I ventured straight back to my hall, where I knew what floor I live on and from the elevator where my room is. And there I stayed (except for bathroom breaks and showers) until the next morning. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go down to the canteen and all (though I truly didn’t) but I wasn’t hungry for dinner, and something about the humidity in my room relaxed me as I went to bed at 7.
I still don’t know how to pronounce my HKU buddy’s name properly.
Just to note, I just changed the time zone of my blog, which incidentally affected previous posts. As a result, any posts that I didn't publish in Hong Kong are slightly off in time and date.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Some Notes Before I Go
Tomorrow, I leave for Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong, where I will spend the next four months studying and sightseeing. I’ll leave for Los Angeles International Airport at 6 a.m. for my first leg to San Francisco. From there I have a thirteen-and-half hour flight direct to Hong Kong. I’m all packed but not necessarily ready to go.
I’m still nervous as ever as I anticipate my long journey and longer transition. But already I am confident that I will quickly make Hong Kong my home away from home. At UCSD I served as an American student to help orient international students and in the same manner, HKU has set me up with a Hong Kong student to help me, now the international student, find my way. While I’ll mosey my way to the university from the airport, she has graciously offered to show me the campus the day after.
I arrive on August 21 and have orientation the following Friday, August 28. Class begins on September 1. Maybe by then I’ll get used to British English orthography and the metric system. Surely by then I’ll have bought blankets and a pillow.
Next time, I’ll be writing from Hong Kong.
I’m still nervous as ever as I anticipate my long journey and longer transition. But already I am confident that I will quickly make Hong Kong my home away from home. At UCSD I served as an American student to help orient international students and in the same manner, HKU has set me up with a Hong Kong student to help me, now the international student, find my way. While I’ll mosey my way to the university from the airport, she has graciously offered to show me the campus the day after.
I arrive on August 21 and have orientation the following Friday, August 28. Class begins on September 1. Maybe by then I’ll get used to British English orthography and the metric system. Surely by then I’ll have bought blankets and a pillow.
Next time, I’ll be writing from Hong Kong.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
A Parisian Prelude
Sorry it’s been over a week since my last post. I’ve been caught up in other projects, but now I’ve come to the realization that I’m leaving not too soon from now—in less than two weeks, and I’d need to finish of my pre-departure blog posts. So here it goes.
A Parisian Prelude
Here, I feel like we idealize Europe as a cultural center. It’s filled with excitement and emotion, romance and adventure. This was my first time going to Europe, and I was expecting all of the vibrancy that people talk about in Europe, only to find out that the only thing that I found to be how I imagined was that in France they spoke French and in Italy, they spoke Italian.
As something of a prelude to the much longer trip that I’ll be departing on in two weeks, I want to show how I handled this experience abroad and reflect upon how I see my home state now.
I departed on June 18 and left France for Italy on June 24. In that short week, I found that Paris (the only place we went in France) was not what I expected; however, I grew to like it.
We arrived at the Charles de Gaulle Airport and had to take the Metro to my cousin’s house in Neuilly-sur-Seine. It was one of the RER trains which are supposed to be faster than the regular Metro trains, but was just more creaky and old feeling in my opinion. What struck me first was that everywhere I looked there was graffiti. On the trains; some inside the trains; at the stations; on the buildings lining the corridors—Europe was not how I pictured it at all.
Not that there’s no graffiti in the United States or Los Angeles; however, in my humble suburb and the surrounding bedroom communities we have very little graffiti. Most of it is out of sight and the city maintains the graffiti patrol, which makes sure graffiti is quickly eliminated by water pressure or paint. And it works. Thousand Oaks is a very clean looking city.
The subway was very crowded. We must have been waiting at least 45 minutes at the airport subway station before the train came. By that time, the platform was packed and the coming train followed suit. The subway made its way down to the central station named Châtelet—Les Halles. It was kind of dingy at best and filthy at worst. We then took another line to get to my cousin’s place. The entire journey took almost two hours including waiting time. We were tired and jetlagged and from the Pont Neuilly station we had a 10-minute walk to her house.
She said she lived on the first floor, but forgetting how Europe labels the ground floor “0,” making our second floor their first floor, we found our way onto their rez-de-chausée and knocked on to their downstairs neighbor’s door (who we were told later was a crank). Only after we found the intercom and messaged them did we find that they lived on the floor above the ground floor. My cousin came down with a “didn’t you know?!” face and brought us up to her floor on an elevator fit for two-and-a-half moderately sized people.
Such was my first day.
Over the next five days, we moseyed our way around Paris and I grew to like it. The tourist areas had less graffiti and I got used to the big-city feel (crowdedness) of the subway. As soon as I got used to Paris, though, we were off to Italy—and a whole different experience.
A Parisian Prelude
Here, I feel like we idealize Europe as a cultural center. It’s filled with excitement and emotion, romance and adventure. This was my first time going to Europe, and I was expecting all of the vibrancy that people talk about in Europe, only to find out that the only thing that I found to be how I imagined was that in France they spoke French and in Italy, they spoke Italian.
As something of a prelude to the much longer trip that I’ll be departing on in two weeks, I want to show how I handled this experience abroad and reflect upon how I see my home state now.
I departed on June 18 and left France for Italy on June 24. In that short week, I found that Paris (the only place we went in France) was not what I expected; however, I grew to like it.
We arrived at the Charles de Gaulle Airport and had to take the Metro to my cousin’s house in Neuilly-sur-Seine. It was one of the RER trains which are supposed to be faster than the regular Metro trains, but was just more creaky and old feeling in my opinion. What struck me first was that everywhere I looked there was graffiti. On the trains; some inside the trains; at the stations; on the buildings lining the corridors—Europe was not how I pictured it at all.
Not that there’s no graffiti in the United States or Los Angeles; however, in my humble suburb and the surrounding bedroom communities we have very little graffiti. Most of it is out of sight and the city maintains the graffiti patrol, which makes sure graffiti is quickly eliminated by water pressure or paint. And it works. Thousand Oaks is a very clean looking city.
The subway was very crowded. We must have been waiting at least 45 minutes at the airport subway station before the train came. By that time, the platform was packed and the coming train followed suit. The subway made its way down to the central station named Châtelet—Les Halles. It was kind of dingy at best and filthy at worst. We then took another line to get to my cousin’s place. The entire journey took almost two hours including waiting time. We were tired and jetlagged and from the Pont Neuilly station we had a 10-minute walk to her house.
She said she lived on the first floor, but forgetting how Europe labels the ground floor “0,” making our second floor their first floor, we found our way onto their rez-de-chausée and knocked on to their downstairs neighbor’s door (who we were told later was a crank). Only after we found the intercom and messaged them did we find that they lived on the floor above the ground floor. My cousin came down with a “didn’t you know?!” face and brought us up to her floor on an elevator fit for two-and-a-half moderately sized people.
Such was my first day.
Over the next five days, we moseyed our way around Paris and I grew to like it. The tourist areas had less graffiti and I got used to the big-city feel (crowdedness) of the subway. As soon as I got used to Paris, though, we were off to Italy—and a whole different experience.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Who Do You Represent?
As this month-long hiatus suggests, I’m in the process of getting my work ethic back after a three-week vacation to Europe. I like to think this little trip to Europe was like a prelude for what I will come upon this fall.
Prior to this I had been out of the country three times—twice to Canada and once to China. My Canadian trips were a road trip and a cruise and China was a ten-day tour of Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai. Much in contradiction to my expectations, Italy was like China in ways I will get to in a later post.
This trip I went with my mom and my little brother. We went to France for about a week (Paris only) where we stayed with and visited family and then Italy for two weeks (Rome, Campania, Venice, and Tuscany), where we were truly on our own.
So over the next couple posts I have chosen certain events to reflect on from this trip. These first two events bring up a point that I have already mentioned early on.
Who do you represent?
In Italy we were checking into our bed and breakfast in Sorrento. We found the owner’s assistant at the check in desk. In Europe, as many people know, there are so many languages, even if one were to only count the official ones. Unfortunately, Italian was not one of the languages I had little knowledge of. Why would you go to Italy without knowing any Italian? Well we tried.
I have reading knowledge of Italian but my speaking abilities are highly constricted. In Italy I found out just to what extent they are. Don’t worry; they improved as we went along. Beforehand I made attempt during school, between classes and clubs.
The short story is that not all went as planned.
Anyways in Europe, because of the plethora of languages, multinational organizations, especially, have to translate from one language to another via a third because of the lack of bilingual translators in the needed languages.
So I spoke Spanish with the hotel owner—and because of her choice of words, I think her competence in the language was less than mine. She called the owner to get us a key.
Now my Italian receptive fluency is questionable as well, so I only picked up the gist of it. She said that you have some clients here, etc.—and then a pause. “…Giapponesi?” she mentioned to her boss. I look at her quizzically, ready to chuckle. She saw me and tried again “cinesi?...” I maintained my look. She was telling the hotel owner that we were Japanese, and then Chinese when I gave her my look.
I don’t know how it really matters what we are, but I suppose she felt inclined to suppose. After she hung up, she asked me, “¿De dónde sois?”
To which I replied, “Los Estados Unidos.”
“Oh. Lo siento. Son los rascos.”
She meant it was our eyes. I guess it was relatively common. Being American (at least without semantic appendages) means being white to most people, including my now former roommate, he himself an Asian American. I guess despite our accents and the fact that we spoke American English, at least initially, we generally are seen as coming from China, or more frequently—Japan.
She had no trouble understanding that we were visiting from the United States. However, another incident, also in Italy, left me wondering just how educated some postal workers are.
Post offices in Italy double as currency counters. So we went into one in Amalfi (in the Campania region) to exchange some American cash for some euro.
We gave the clerk the American money and my mom gave her her passport, which she had to put in the system (probably for the police). Before she did that though, she went bill by bill and checked the security features. Reasonable, as she probably does not see American money every day (although she probably does during tourist season), it took some 25 minutes to count the money (six times) and verify security (with the assistance of two big binders and two additional employees). And in the end, they rejected our worn-out ten-dollar bill and asked us to take it to the bank instead.
Putting my mom’s passport into the system, she needed only to input the information exactly from the passport into the computer. Birthplace—Hong Kong; country—Giappone; I blinked twice. Hong Kong is definitely in China and not Japan. My mom kept saying, “Cinese, cinese” since Hong Kong is in China. And so she changed it to “Cine.”
Beneath she inputted nationality. Despite the fact that the passport has a big “USA” on top of the mugshot, she put in Cine (China). I pointed and said, “Stati Uniti” (United States). She smiled at me and then changed the nationality.
Erasing “Cine” (both in location of Hong Kong and nationality), she typed “Giappone” (Japan) twice—one in each spot. Before I could say anything she immediately submitted all the information. “Finito,” she exclaimed triumphantly.
I suppose she chose her judgment over the passport in front of her and my words to her. The good thing is we got our euro; however, INTERPOL won’t be able to find who exchanged a couple hundred dollars in Amalfi.
So I have postulated two scenarios for myself.
First, I will be accepted as an American exchange student. I will learn about my host culture with courtesy from my hosts, as they understand that I’m in unfamiliar territory. This is probably the ideal situation, especially considering I have about a month to brush up and learn Cantonese; and unfortunately I have made little progress as of recent.
The second is that the students will think I’m Chinese (culturally) and think it’s odd that I don’t understand the way things work. Perhaps I will not be afforded the courtesies host students afford to non-East Asian ethnicity exchange students.
I think that, at least in the university, my circumstances will fit into the first situation. As for travel abroad and any sightseeing I will do, it will be closer to the second…
Prior to this I had been out of the country three times—twice to Canada and once to China. My Canadian trips were a road trip and a cruise and China was a ten-day tour of Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai. Much in contradiction to my expectations, Italy was like China in ways I will get to in a later post.
This trip I went with my mom and my little brother. We went to France for about a week (Paris only) where we stayed with and visited family and then Italy for two weeks (Rome, Campania, Venice, and Tuscany), where we were truly on our own.
So over the next couple posts I have chosen certain events to reflect on from this trip. These first two events bring up a point that I have already mentioned early on.
Who do you represent?
In Italy we were checking into our bed and breakfast in Sorrento. We found the owner’s assistant at the check in desk. In Europe, as many people know, there are so many languages, even if one were to only count the official ones. Unfortunately, Italian was not one of the languages I had little knowledge of. Why would you go to Italy without knowing any Italian? Well we tried.
I have reading knowledge of Italian but my speaking abilities are highly constricted. In Italy I found out just to what extent they are. Don’t worry; they improved as we went along. Beforehand I made attempt during school, between classes and clubs.
The short story is that not all went as planned.
Anyways in Europe, because of the plethora of languages, multinational organizations, especially, have to translate from one language to another via a third because of the lack of bilingual translators in the needed languages.
So I spoke Spanish with the hotel owner—and because of her choice of words, I think her competence in the language was less than mine. She called the owner to get us a key.
Now my Italian receptive fluency is questionable as well, so I only picked up the gist of it. She said that you have some clients here, etc.—and then a pause. “…Giapponesi?” she mentioned to her boss. I look at her quizzically, ready to chuckle. She saw me and tried again “cinesi?...” I maintained my look. She was telling the hotel owner that we were Japanese, and then Chinese when I gave her my look.
I don’t know how it really matters what we are, but I suppose she felt inclined to suppose. After she hung up, she asked me, “¿De dónde sois?”
To which I replied, “Los Estados Unidos.”
“Oh. Lo siento. Son los rascos.”
She meant it was our eyes. I guess it was relatively common. Being American (at least without semantic appendages) means being white to most people, including my now former roommate, he himself an Asian American. I guess despite our accents and the fact that we spoke American English, at least initially, we generally are seen as coming from China, or more frequently—Japan.
She had no trouble understanding that we were visiting from the United States. However, another incident, also in Italy, left me wondering just how educated some postal workers are.
Post offices in Italy double as currency counters. So we went into one in Amalfi (in the Campania region) to exchange some American cash for some euro.
We gave the clerk the American money and my mom gave her her passport, which she had to put in the system (probably for the police). Before she did that though, she went bill by bill and checked the security features. Reasonable, as she probably does not see American money every day (although she probably does during tourist season), it took some 25 minutes to count the money (six times) and verify security (with the assistance of two big binders and two additional employees). And in the end, they rejected our worn-out ten-dollar bill and asked us to take it to the bank instead.
Putting my mom’s passport into the system, she needed only to input the information exactly from the passport into the computer. Birthplace—Hong Kong; country—Giappone; I blinked twice. Hong Kong is definitely in China and not Japan. My mom kept saying, “Cinese, cinese” since Hong Kong is in China. And so she changed it to “Cine.”
Beneath she inputted nationality. Despite the fact that the passport has a big “USA” on top of the mugshot, she put in Cine (China). I pointed and said, “Stati Uniti” (United States). She smiled at me and then changed the nationality.
Erasing “Cine” (both in location of Hong Kong and nationality), she typed “Giappone” (Japan) twice—one in each spot. Before I could say anything she immediately submitted all the information. “Finito,” she exclaimed triumphantly.
I suppose she chose her judgment over the passport in front of her and my words to her. The good thing is we got our euro; however, INTERPOL won’t be able to find who exchanged a couple hundred dollars in Amalfi.
So I have postulated two scenarios for myself.
First, I will be accepted as an American exchange student. I will learn about my host culture with courtesy from my hosts, as they understand that I’m in unfamiliar territory. This is probably the ideal situation, especially considering I have about a month to brush up and learn Cantonese; and unfortunately I have made little progress as of recent.
The second is that the students will think I’m Chinese (culturally) and think it’s odd that I don’t understand the way things work. Perhaps I will not be afforded the courtesies host students afford to non-East Asian ethnicity exchange students.
I think that, at least in the university, my circumstances will fit into the first situation. As for travel abroad and any sightseeing I will do, it will be closer to the second…
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Gist of It: General Orientation
The UCSD Programs Abroad Office held their mandatory general study abroad orientation for summer and fall departures this last Wednesday, and to my surprise it was more about cultural adjustment and health issues than anything else. As expected, the country-specific orientation focuses on our specific programs and the logistics of the whole thing. Hong Kong’s is set for May 16. Two things from this first orientation in particular that really stuck out were the “cultural iceberg” and Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment, both illustrated in the packets distributed at the meeting. Though out of the discussion I don’t believe I learned anything particularly new, the fact that it brought much possible elation about the whole experience back down to earth was probably necessary.
The cultural iceberg is a succinct representation of how we think about other countries and other cultures. The idea is that just as you can only see the top tenth of an iceberg, with the lower nine-tenths indiscernible from above water (Titanic, anyone?), most people only see the superficial aspects of culture and do not realize the other nine-tenths of a culture until later (maybe not until it’s too late?). To anyone that knows about and or feels a sense of belonging to more than one culture, this idea, possibly in a different metaphor, likely exists at a profound level. So above water is what we all see—in a word, pop culture: river dancing for Ireland, videogames and high technology for Japan, Shakespeare for England, ABBA for Sweden (thanks, Dad!), etcetera. It’s what our main interests are in as foreigners, as observers. The lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is comprised of things like “notions of modesty,” “ideals governing child raising,” “conception of status mobility,” “roles in relation to status by age, sex, class, occupation, kinship, etc.,” and many, many more. This lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is where we find fundamental differences in with our own culture, where we can easily explain a difference in culture through morality and ethics though the reality is much more complicated than that.
Despite this, in the classes I’ve taken, and not from orientation, I have learned that a big problem with studying “them” or “other” cultures exists in the notion that we consider ourselves to be normal, or relatively normal to others. An example of this is the common utterance “I don’t have an accent,” which is so common among people with many different accents that anyone who’s thought about it has to wonder, so who doesn’t have an accent? The only logical conclusion is that everyone has an accent, because linguistically speaking, no language, dialect, or accent is more neutral than another by human physiology. Therein lies the problem. In putting distance between us and them, we fail to see the similarities between people, instead emphasizing the differences. As cliché as it sounds, we are all more alike than we are different. And in the end we all share 99.9% of the same DNA, with scientific research showing that there is more genetic variation within (the artificially constructed) races than between them.
Therefore, while it was important that this iceberg theory brought our expectations regarding our cultural change to light, it is equally important that we not make a big fuss about all of this and simply open up to the host culture with an open and clear mind.
The second thing that stuck out to me was Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment. Though the concept is legitimate and well accepted, the illustration is accurate but comical, making us students studying abroad look bipolar.
It looks like radio frequency, with it constant ups and downs. As an emotional representation, the lows are emotional lows and the highs are emotional highs, representing different milestones in our study abroad (and subsequent reintegration into American society.
The points are as follows:
1. initial anxiety
2. initial elation
3. initial culture shock
4. superficial adjustment to host culture
5. depression-frustration with host culture
6. acceptance of host culture
7. return anxiety
8. return elation
9. re-entry
10. reintegration
So right now, I’m probably at number 1. Assuming this model is true, 1 is actually the only feasible stage I can be at, because I haven’t arrived yet. I’ll undoubtedly be in that stage through my 14-hour plane ride, and even in exiting their relatively really new airport.
Some colleges offering reorientation programs to students returning from study abroad
By Jean Cowden Moore, Ventura County Star, Monday, March 9, 2009
My father sent me a link to this article shortly after I found out that I had gotten into the University of Hong Kong program. It outlines stages 7-10 of the model and shows how some universities, such as California Lutheran University in my hometown, Thousand Oaks, California, offer and sometimes require reorientation programs to ease the transition back into American life. Outlined in the article are some details of why many students have trouble upon return, include seeing life in the United States as being wasteful and or fondness for their host culture abroad. In addition, any excitement held by the returnee, as pointed out in orientation, can be exploded onto one’s family and friends, causing them to lose interest in the experience, bottling up any nostalgic feelings with others’ annoyance at perseverance of the topic.
UCSD neither requires nor offers a reorientation program, but instead encourages students coming back to attend returnee group meetings, where students get to share their experiences with one another. Besides, everyone I’ve met has told me that studying abroad is supposed to be a positive experience, so these “support groups” after the fact wouldn’t be bad to take advantage of.
Just some thoughts…and thanks for reading.
*
The cultural iceberg is a succinct representation of how we think about other countries and other cultures. The idea is that just as you can only see the top tenth of an iceberg, with the lower nine-tenths indiscernible from above water (Titanic, anyone?), most people only see the superficial aspects of culture and do not realize the other nine-tenths of a culture until later (maybe not until it’s too late?). To anyone that knows about and or feels a sense of belonging to more than one culture, this idea, possibly in a different metaphor, likely exists at a profound level. So above water is what we all see—in a word, pop culture: river dancing for Ireland, videogames and high technology for Japan, Shakespeare for England, ABBA for Sweden (thanks, Dad!), etcetera. It’s what our main interests are in as foreigners, as observers. The lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is comprised of things like “notions of modesty,” “ideals governing child raising,” “conception of status mobility,” “roles in relation to status by age, sex, class, occupation, kinship, etc.,” and many, many more. This lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is where we find fundamental differences in with our own culture, where we can easily explain a difference in culture through morality and ethics though the reality is much more complicated than that.
Despite this, in the classes I’ve taken, and not from orientation, I have learned that a big problem with studying “them” or “other” cultures exists in the notion that we consider ourselves to be normal, or relatively normal to others. An example of this is the common utterance “I don’t have an accent,” which is so common among people with many different accents that anyone who’s thought about it has to wonder, so who doesn’t have an accent? The only logical conclusion is that everyone has an accent, because linguistically speaking, no language, dialect, or accent is more neutral than another by human physiology. Therein lies the problem. In putting distance between us and them, we fail to see the similarities between people, instead emphasizing the differences. As cliché as it sounds, we are all more alike than we are different. And in the end we all share 99.9% of the same DNA, with scientific research showing that there is more genetic variation within (the artificially constructed) races than between them.
Therefore, while it was important that this iceberg theory brought our expectations regarding our cultural change to light, it is equally important that we not make a big fuss about all of this and simply open up to the host culture with an open and clear mind.
The second thing that stuck out to me was Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment. Though the concept is legitimate and well accepted, the illustration is accurate but comical, making us students studying abroad look bipolar.
It looks like radio frequency, with it constant ups and downs. As an emotional representation, the lows are emotional lows and the highs are emotional highs, representing different milestones in our study abroad (and subsequent reintegration into American society.
The points are as follows:
1. initial anxiety
2. initial elation
3. initial culture shock
4. superficial adjustment to host culture
5. depression-frustration with host culture
6. acceptance of host culture
7. return anxiety
8. return elation
9. re-entry
10. reintegration
So right now, I’m probably at number 1. Assuming this model is true, 1 is actually the only feasible stage I can be at, because I haven’t arrived yet. I’ll undoubtedly be in that stage through my 14-hour plane ride, and even in exiting their relatively really new airport.
Some colleges offering reorientation programs to students returning from study abroad
By Jean Cowden Moore, Ventura County Star, Monday, March 9, 2009
My father sent me a link to this article shortly after I found out that I had gotten into the University of Hong Kong program. It outlines stages 7-10 of the model and shows how some universities, such as California Lutheran University in my hometown, Thousand Oaks, California, offer and sometimes require reorientation programs to ease the transition back into American life. Outlined in the article are some details of why many students have trouble upon return, include seeing life in the United States as being wasteful and or fondness for their host culture abroad. In addition, any excitement held by the returnee, as pointed out in orientation, can be exploded onto one’s family and friends, causing them to lose interest in the experience, bottling up any nostalgic feelings with others’ annoyance at perseverance of the topic.
UCSD neither requires nor offers a reorientation program, but instead encourages students coming back to attend returnee group meetings, where students get to share their experiences with one another. Besides, everyone I’ve met has told me that studying abroad is supposed to be a positive experience, so these “support groups” after the fact wouldn’t be bad to take advantage of.
Just some thoughts…and thanks for reading.
*
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