Hello all,

Here in Hong Kong, we have just celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival (OK, it was last weekend, but it's taken me a little while to get my bloggin' act together). I'm amazingly busy for someone with no job and no "right to work," since I won't have a Hong Kong Identity Card until at least February. Among other things, I met a sea captain named Ah Gan (pronounced A GUN, as in "don't move, I've got a gun," but he doesn't, or at least I hope not). Ah Gan works for some bazillionaire guy, but when he's not chauffering the bazillionaire around the ocean, we meet up at this floating restaurant called Jumbo and eat things I can't pronounce or understand (and I'm sure it's better that way), and we try to teach each other our languages. He's much better than me -- I'm trying to help Ah Gan learn the past and future tenses in English, he's helping me count to 10 in Cantonese. The first things he always does when I say anything is laugh. Is this a good sign?

About the Mid-Autumn Festival: The Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Lunar calendar which is full moon. Got that? Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays (Chinese New Year is the other) and it is legal holiday in several countries. It was a holiday here on Saturday (so Allison didn't get a day off -- thanks for nothing) because people traditionally work Monday through Saturday.

Asian family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. Moon cakes are made of ground lotus and sesame seed paste, egg-yolk and other ingredients. They sell these moon cakes everywhere (even Starbucks). We tried many varieties and did not care for any of them, unfortunately. They seem to be an acquired taste, like, oh, eating tin foil, or gargling with hummus, maybe.

Along with the cakes, shops sell colored Chinese paper lanterns in the shapes of animals, and more recently, in the shapes of airplanes and space ships. Other customs include burning incense, planting sweet-olive trees, lighting lanterns on towers, and fire dragon dances which we saw!

Moon worshipping dates back to the ancient Xia, and Shang Dynasties (2000 BCE-1066 BCE). The festival also commemorates a 14th Century uprising against the Mongols. Because the Mongols did not eat moonckaes (and I understand why!), the rebels wrote the call to revolt on pieces of paper and embedded them in cakes that they smuggled to their compatriots.

Enough about the history! We went to the festivities at Victoria Park. They had traditional dancing, singing, opera and these volcano-like things that had a light show going on. There was a place to hang fish, or other animal-shaped wishes. Here is the link to our pictures (cut and paste into the internet window!)

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=hggnkpd.6m74lq7h&Uy=-ytm20j&Ux=1

Then we went in search of the fire dragon. It was quite a draw and the streets were packed. The idea is to make a lot of noise and burn incense to scare away the ghost of the dead. When we finally saw the dragon, our eyes stung and we could hardly breathe due to all the incense. It was a long long long thing of wire and straw with burning incense stuck it –anyone thinking fire hazard??? However, those next to us thought the most amazing sight was Allison in a skirt, perched on my shoulders, trying to film it all! I think a lot of people in Hong Kong posted photos of this crazy Western couple on their blogs. We took some video of the whole festivities posted on YouTube -- A Hong Kong Chronicles first! Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo3YYZXN1pA

Hope you are well! We are getting ready to go to Shenzen, China, in a week -- I'll tell you about it next time.

All best thoughts,

David Ratner

Photo for episode 2

Welcome to episode 2 of the Hong Kong Chronicles!

Lost in Translation:
Hong Kong continues to be amazing – our relocation coordinator (provided by Allison’s company, sort of a guidance counselor for expats) told us we’re still in our “honeymoon period,” when everything is new and fascinating, and later we’ll be annoyed that the taxi driver can’t understand us and we can’t buy relish. Oh, well! Right now it’s very adventurous. One thing that's really challenging, though, is Cantonese. It’s a tonal language, and to my American ears many of the tones sound the same. To give you an example, the word “si” can mean poem, market, try, history, matter, or time, depending on how you pronounce it, and how high or low your voice is when you say it. My language tape is always saying things like, “be careful, make sure you say jowp, which means rice -- don’t say, jowp, which means death.” I think I’m saying something like “please drive me to the station,” and I’m actually saying something like “your sister resembles a yak.” At least, based on some of the looks I get . . .

Right now, I’m working on this sentence:

Doy mmm tchoo,

Aww mmm seck gong kwongtawngwah,

Lay-ee seck mmm seck gong yingmun?

Which means, of course, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Cantonese, can we speak English?” And lots of times, people do speak English, thanks to those imperialistic Brits. Phew! I think people are glad not to have to listen to me butcher their language. Things I can (sort of) say, as of now, include:

good morning
please
thank you
excuse me
how are you
please take this throwing star out of my spleen.

Manilla Thrilla:
Allison had to go meet people for work in the Phillipines, so we spent a week there in late September! Wow! Fascinating country, and very hot and humid, even compared to Hong Kong! At the hotel our taxi was checked out by guards using mirrors to look for bombs under the car and we had our luggage sniffed by a dog and passed through a metal detector. We stayed at the Renaissance which is across from the biggest department store complex I have ever seen. A virtual shopper’s paradise, but again you had to pass through security to enter.

We saw stark divisions between rich and poor – on the road you might go down a highway lined by shack after shack, then turn onto a street with a water park and a beautiful golf course community with street names like Pebble Beach and Pine Valley (wonder where those came from?) Lots of bumps to slow us down and guards at various check points. In the capital, Manila, there were many extremely busy roads filled with cars, bikes, motorbikes, Jeepneys and people in a confusing swirling mass. Lanes seemed to be optional. School children of all ages walk alongside and through this mass. As we crawl and dodge along, we see various fruit, meat, fish stands. The Jeepneys are the most common form of transportation for short distances. They are like an aluminum elongated bus. They're decorated all differently so people know which one to jump onto – and they are packed. Occasionally, you will see one filled to the brim with eggs or coconuts. The pollution is so bad from the traffic that a lot of folks wear hospital masks or cover their mouths with a handkerchief. I can’t imagine it helps.

When Allison’s meeting were over, we were able to get out into the countryside for a couple of days, and we saw some truly beautiful places. We headed to Taal Volcano for the weekend. Taal is a lake with a volcano in it, and the volcano has another lake within it. It is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world -- an eruption in 1911 caused over 1,000 deaths. Its last eruption was in 1977, though it gurgled in 1991. We took an interesting little boat over past fish farms for talapia and milkfish and proceeded up the mountain on horseback. It was amazing – the earth was steaming. From the top you could see the lake boiling. The backdrop was lush vegetation everywhere. Back down we then went to a popular place where folks come up from Manila to picnic, and then rode back into town taking photos of fruit stands, pineapple fields and a truck full of pigs headed for market! See all our photos!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=hggnkpd.879zekst&Uy=-544kmc&Ux=1


That’s Macau, not your cow:
On October 1, 2006, we decided to check out Macau. Macau is a small area – the tip of a peninsula, and two little islands -- on the southern coast of China, about an hour from Hong Kong on a jet turbo ferry, which skids along the surface of the ocean! It was administered by Portugal until 1999 when it was handed back to China, and is a special administrative region like Hong Kong. It is the oldest colony, older than Hong Kong, established by the Portuguese in 1535. We stood in the fortress where a Jesuit priest blew up a Dutch armada with a lucky shot of powder keg! Portuguese was the only official language until about the 1980s but now most also speak Cantonese. Signs and menus are in Portuguese. Most travel to Macau to gamble, lounge in the luxury resorts, sight-see and buy furniture. We did lots of eating, a little sight-seeing and purchased some furniture. We were proud of our team approach to bargaining! See the pictures:

If you can't see the link, copy and paste the following directly into your browser:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hggnkpd.5epnazkd&x=1&y=lyi5ld


We visited Senado Square, very colorful with black and white tiles. Then to St. Paul’s, the ruins of an old Potugese church – the only thing that remains is the façade. Then to the fortress. We were on Hong Kong National Day and ran into the Hong Kong Harley Club parade! Then lunch at Fat something something –the oldest restaurant in town – Portuguese. Then some serious, hardcore furniture shopping, topped off by a dinner at Fernando’s – we just viewed the pigs but had delicious shrimp in sauce and feijoada (spelling?) a traditional Portuguese bean and pork dish. Yumm!

Another update in a month or so -- be well!
aw giu hoe wun!
I wish you good luck!

David Ratner