This last Thursday, I spent Thanksgiving for the first time away from home. Instead, I went to my cousin’s place in New Territories with my aunt and uncle. This was actually my first major holiday away from home, and I was surprised at the sheer awareness of this event in Hong Kong.
Everyone back home is told that the day is to celebrate thanks for when the Indians taught the Pilgrims about North American agriculture (and then the Pilgrims proceeded to take the land). This is celebrated with a big feast, though it is uncertain if there really was such a feast in Massachusetts, less that it was in November. In short, it’s the thought and the people that count, not the historical significance.
And I spent my holiday with family, just not immediate family. My cousins are all much older than me (a fact that often makes everyone forget that we’re in the same generation). So I spent the holidays with my cousin and his family along with my aunt and uncle. Back in California, one of my other cousins came down with her family from the north side to the south side to spend Thanksgiving with my family.
With the time difference, we ate in Hong Kong first, and my family back home ate some twelve hours after (though sixteen hours is the time difference). I guess I don’t hang out with this family over here, because things were a little odd.
So I’ve only met this cousin a handful of times, with my contact with him having been limited since he hasn’t lived in California for quite a long time and, well, I haven’t lived outside of California until some three months ago.
On the other hand, I’ve met my aunt and uncle quite a few times. This summer, I saw them twice—once in France, and once in Northern California. So they probably think I feel pretty comfortable around them—and I do, just that’s not a reason to let down your decorum. And so when the food came out and everyone started digging in, I waited patiently. There are always leftovers at Thanksgiving, and I understand that you don’t want to act so hungry as to be rude nor so full as to show dislike for the food in front of you. I was just waiting for the clashing cutlery to subside, when my uncle told me that I wouldn’t be served here and I would have to serve myself—which I was planning on doing, just after everyone who seemed so hungry got what they wanted first.
Misjudging my actions and then commenting on them in such a face-threatening matter I thought was a faux pas, but then again, I guess I’m just not like him and don’t hold the same exact ideas of politeness. That’s not to say that people don’t come from all different walks of life (culturally speaking) in my family. I guess my uncle just thought that I came from the same as him.
The next morning, I called my family back home. I told them I would call at 7:00 p.m. their time, which would make it 11:00 a.m. Hong Kong time. So from 9:00 to 11:00, I practiced the piano, relearning Christian Sinding’s “Rustle of Spring” and starting on Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
When the time came, I called with my breakfast in hand (bought from outside the medical library). They were surprised I didn’t call earlier, and though I did tell them 7:00 pm., they expected me at 5:00. After that little hiccup though, it was good to see my family again. I’d video chatted with them often enough, but it was still good to see everybody.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Beijing: The Northern Capital
Reading week here in Hong Kong is similar to many universities’ fall break back in the States and Revision week here in Hong Kong is similar to many (though declining) universities’ reading week. Reading week was last week, with school resuming just this past Monday, and for about half of that week, I was in Beijing, some 1200 miles north of Hong Kong in Mainland China.
For those of you who don’t know (don’t be ashamed), Beijing (北京) is the capital city of the People’s Republic of China and literally means “Northern Capital” in Chinese. According to my reading, Beijing was named when it was fashionable for capitals in East Asia to be named literally as such. Kyoto (京都) means “Capital City” and Tokyo (东京) means “Eastern Capital” in Japanese. Nanjing/Nanking (南京) in the southern half of China means “Southern Capital” (and functioned as such for some dynasties). Seoul and Hanoi both have previous names that mean capital in some capacity.
My journey in the Northern Capital started in Hong Kong, of course. It was to be my second, the first having taken place in the summer of 2007, when my family and I had a China highlights tour. That was my first time out of North America. Now I was heading back, and while excited, I was of course wondering what to expect.
Having been there before, I expected I would see the normal tourist sites: the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square, to name a few. I wanted to make a point to see some new sites as well. Overall I hoped to get an understanding of Beijing more profound and more refined to surpass my first.
And I knew what I was expecting. Pollution, in a word, I thought—gray skies and spitting people, to name some more. When I went there in 2007, they were preparing for the Olympics by building venues such as the Bird’s Nest, improving and expanding the metro, and relaying many sidewalks around the city.
What I expected and what I saw overlapped to less an extent that what I thought as well. Buildings went from being unfinished concrete to painted; pollution, while still present, didn’t embed myself into my clothes. The lake-side hutong (胡同) that I saw over two years ago turned into a well-appointed bar-side lake district—but more on that later.
My journey, as I said, started in Hong Kong, and a three-hour flight. We took the airport bus from in front of Queen Mary Hospital (whose canteen I frequent). The bus ride took about an hour, ending at Terminal 1. Going through the airport and experiencing the clean design coupled with efficiency that is HKG, I was reminded of the false impressions that the airport gave me when I arrived two months ago on August 21 (that fateful night).
Going through immigration, we used the “Hong Kong Residents” line and proceeded through smoothly. Security was simple and didn’t require us to take off our shoes (as we do in U.S. airports), though everyone’s belts set off the metal detector.
After waiting a couple hours in the airport, accompanied by coffee and expensive duty-free stores filled with elitist junk, we boarded our plane, flying direct to Beijing. The security video was double the length (once in English, the international language of air travel, and Mandarin). We had in-flight entertainment consisting of “The Brothers Bloom,” a recent movie with Adriane Brody and Rachel Weiss (with her good acting but bad accent).
Landing at the new Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport, we found ourselves walking for ages, passing through temperature checkpoint after temperature checkpoint (Swine flu/H1N1 alert still noticeably present), followed by Chinese immigrations, who let us through without a hitch.
We then had to take light rail to the exit of Terminal 3. The entire terminal was decorated with high red-and-white paneled ceilings supported by tall, cylindrical white columns. I personally like the design of Hong Kong International Airport better.
On the way to the airport express train, I picked up some renminbi (人民币)/Chinese yuan (元) from the HSBC ATM and we were on our way.
The airport express train was partially subterranean, but the parts of Beijing that I saw I didn’t recognize. Admittedly, it was dark, but the only thing that told me I was out of Hong Kong was the use of simplified Chinese characters (which I feel more comfortable with).
After transferring lines and getting off at the appropriate station, we had a bit of trouble finding our hotel. One of my friends speaks better Mandarin than I, but being more inclined to ask for directions that most men, I found myself asking everyone, including a different hotel’s bellhop where our hotel was. Finally, we found it on the backside of a building, still in Chongwenmen (崇文门) district.
Over several posts following this I hope to elaborate on and reflect upon my adventures in Beijing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
For those of you who don’t know (don’t be ashamed), Beijing (北京) is the capital city of the People’s Republic of China and literally means “Northern Capital” in Chinese. According to my reading, Beijing was named when it was fashionable for capitals in East Asia to be named literally as such. Kyoto (京都) means “Capital City” and Tokyo (东京) means “Eastern Capital” in Japanese. Nanjing/Nanking (南京) in the southern half of China means “Southern Capital” (and functioned as such for some dynasties). Seoul and Hanoi both have previous names that mean capital in some capacity.
My journey in the Northern Capital started in Hong Kong, of course. It was to be my second, the first having taken place in the summer of 2007, when my family and I had a China highlights tour. That was my first time out of North America. Now I was heading back, and while excited, I was of course wondering what to expect.
Having been there before, I expected I would see the normal tourist sites: the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square, to name a few. I wanted to make a point to see some new sites as well. Overall I hoped to get an understanding of Beijing more profound and more refined to surpass my first.
And I knew what I was expecting. Pollution, in a word, I thought—gray skies and spitting people, to name some more. When I went there in 2007, they were preparing for the Olympics by building venues such as the Bird’s Nest, improving and expanding the metro, and relaying many sidewalks around the city.
What I expected and what I saw overlapped to less an extent that what I thought as well. Buildings went from being unfinished concrete to painted; pollution, while still present, didn’t embed myself into my clothes. The lake-side hutong (胡同) that I saw over two years ago turned into a well-appointed bar-side lake district—but more on that later.
My journey, as I said, started in Hong Kong, and a three-hour flight. We took the airport bus from in front of Queen Mary Hospital (whose canteen I frequent). The bus ride took about an hour, ending at Terminal 1. Going through the airport and experiencing the clean design coupled with efficiency that is HKG, I was reminded of the false impressions that the airport gave me when I arrived two months ago on August 21 (that fateful night).
Going through immigration, we used the “Hong Kong Residents” line and proceeded through smoothly. Security was simple and didn’t require us to take off our shoes (as we do in U.S. airports), though everyone’s belts set off the metal detector.
After waiting a couple hours in the airport, accompanied by coffee and expensive duty-free stores filled with elitist junk, we boarded our plane, flying direct to Beijing. The security video was double the length (once in English, the international language of air travel, and Mandarin). We had in-flight entertainment consisting of “The Brothers Bloom,” a recent movie with Adriane Brody and Rachel Weiss (with her good acting but bad accent).
Landing at the new Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport, we found ourselves walking for ages, passing through temperature checkpoint after temperature checkpoint (Swine flu/H1N1 alert still noticeably present), followed by Chinese immigrations, who let us through without a hitch.
We then had to take light rail to the exit of Terminal 3. The entire terminal was decorated with high red-and-white paneled ceilings supported by tall, cylindrical white columns. I personally like the design of Hong Kong International Airport better.
On the way to the airport express train, I picked up some renminbi (人民币)/Chinese yuan (元) from the HSBC ATM and we were on our way.
The airport express train was partially subterranean, but the parts of Beijing that I saw I didn’t recognize. Admittedly, it was dark, but the only thing that told me I was out of Hong Kong was the use of simplified Chinese characters (which I feel more comfortable with).
After transferring lines and getting off at the appropriate station, we had a bit of trouble finding our hotel. One of my friends speaks better Mandarin than I, but being more inclined to ask for directions that most men, I found myself asking everyone, including a different hotel’s bellhop where our hotel was. Finally, we found it on the backside of a building, still in Chongwenmen (崇文门) district.
Over several posts following this I hope to elaborate on and reflect upon my adventures in Beijing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Mid-Autumn and Shenzhen
Mid-Autumn Festival in Victoria Park
Shenzhen
Window of the World
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Shenzhen
Window of the World
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Mid-Autumn in Victoria
Known by some of my exchange-student friends as Mooncake Festival because of the lotus-seed mooncakes that are traditionally eaten (and now highly commercialized) on this holiday, Mid-Autumn Festival is traditionally the end of the harvest season, being held on the autumnal equinox (this year October 3).
From talking to people more familiar with this celebrating this day, they said that they’ve gone on the roof or in the backyard and ate mooncakes while admiring the moon. In addition, lanterns are brightly lit and more often than not hung as sky lanterns.
We saw this latter part, and likely the first part when we went to explore the festivities in Hong Kong.
Now promoted as a touristy event to behold, there were at least three Mid-Autumn Festival congregations around Hong Kong. Two were held in New Territories, but the one we went to was in Victoria park on Hong Kong Island, near Causeway Bay.
Actually, Victoria Park used to be Causeway Bay when it was a bay crossed by a causeway and today serves as a notable example of the extensive (and ongoing) land reclamation on top of being a recreation area. One day, my Cantonese teacher once joked, you’ll be able to walk to Kowloon (which is currently across Victoria Harbour), but this is a topic for a different post.
The festivities took up the entire park. There were plenty of carnival-style booths and PRC 60th Anniversary posters, as well as performances (in Cantonese) that we could not possibly see because of all the crowds.
According to one friend, an older local in passing said in Cantonese, “Why are all these tourists here!?”
Outside of the family-fun area were the actual families. In the open grassy area across the fence from the paved tennis courts sat families making their own lanterns, not minding the plethora of tourists (including me) taking photos indiscriminately.
Though a great evening, that night we apparently missed the fire dragon. It meandered among people and according to my friends it had some close calls with people. I’d like to think the operators (via poles attached to the underside of the dragon) knew what they were doing.
From talking to people more familiar with this celebrating this day, they said that they’ve gone on the roof or in the backyard and ate mooncakes while admiring the moon. In addition, lanterns are brightly lit and more often than not hung as sky lanterns.
We saw this latter part, and likely the first part when we went to explore the festivities in Hong Kong.
Now promoted as a touristy event to behold, there were at least three Mid-Autumn Festival congregations around Hong Kong. Two were held in New Territories, but the one we went to was in Victoria park on Hong Kong Island, near Causeway Bay.
Actually, Victoria Park used to be Causeway Bay when it was a bay crossed by a causeway and today serves as a notable example of the extensive (and ongoing) land reclamation on top of being a recreation area. One day, my Cantonese teacher once joked, you’ll be able to walk to Kowloon (which is currently across Victoria Harbour), but this is a topic for a different post.
The festivities took up the entire park. There were plenty of carnival-style booths and PRC 60th Anniversary posters, as well as performances (in Cantonese) that we could not possibly see because of all the crowds.
According to one friend, an older local in passing said in Cantonese, “Why are all these tourists here!?”
Outside of the family-fun area were the actual families. In the open grassy area across the fence from the paved tennis courts sat families making their own lanterns, not minding the plethora of tourists (including me) taking photos indiscriminately.
Though a great evening, that night we apparently missed the fire dragon. It meandered among people and according to my friends it had some close calls with people. I’d like to think the operators (via poles attached to the underside of the dragon) knew what they were doing.
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