Sharing my trip

So I've decided the best way to share my trip to Hong Kong with all my family and friends back home is to post it to this blog. Hope you all enjoy!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Hong Kong 2012, Part 5: Pork and Pride

Here's the link to Part 4...

(Side note: So evidently I've totally been living under the assumption that my Uncle Kan's first name is in fact Ken and his name is Ken Kan.  My family always called him Uncle Kan, so I figured they were saying Ken, a first name.  According to my mother, this is completely wrong.  Hooray for 26 years of ignorance!)

The next day we did have a very important agenda.  We planned to visit my grandfather's "grave" (and yes, the quotes are necessary) to pay our respects, so we grabbed a couple of items: water, flowers, and a wet cloth (the use of these items will become apparent later).  Of course, we had to get some food before we could make such a journey, so we met up with some friends to have lunch.  

Now I had been thinking about things I really wanted to eat while in Hong Kong, considering I hadn't been back in 12 odd years, and it wasn't like I was going to go back anytime soon.  So it was important that I made a list of all the things I wanted to eat before I departing back for the US.  One of these things was roasted suckling pig, with the skin melting with the fat of the baby pig and turning into a singular crunchy, delicious morsel. I'd had it before in Flushing in Queens many a time, but I wanted to have an authentic version from Hong Kong, because it surely had to be better (as everything else had been).

So when we arrived for lunch, and the persons ordering asked what I wanted, I jumped at the chance.  Now some of you may not be familiar, but in general at Chinese-style meals, you have one person who orders for the entire table and everyone shares each of the dishes ordered.  However, when there's someone special (like me, the gwai lo kid who doesn't speak Cantonese), usually the person ordering the food asks particularly what that person wants.  I had become accustomed to answering in generalities, saying that I would eat anything or that everything was good to me.  This was mostly true, and I generally felt that asking for things personally for me would be a little too selfish.  

However, one of my mom's adages is that when you're on vacation, you should enjoy yourself.  And I can't really disagree with my mother, can I?  So I told them that I wanted to have roasted suckling pig, or more specifically "the pig with the crispy skin."  Our friends obliged and I waited in anxious anticipation.

Of course we ordered other things, but I snapped a picture almost immediately when my pig came.

I know exactly 1 of these people
So the pig is actually the small dish in the right foreground, with the brownish reddish skin, looking like cubes of meat.  I was actually a little bit surprised, because I was used to just eating the skin, not expecting much meat on any of the pieces.  It was still infinitely delicious.  The skin was crispy and oily and amazing as usual, but the fat had actually mostly melted into the skin and meat, so the whole thing was like a crispy pork cube.  And yes, it was just as delicious as "crispy pork cube" sounds.

After lunch, we hopped into my Auntie Myna's van for the trip to my grandfather's grave.  Now I've already shown that "graveyards" in Hong Kong look like this...


However, I was a little surprised to see that my grandfather's grave looked like this:

That is a hole in a wall.  Yeap, that's it. 
Evidently, it was my job to clean the marble (water + washing cloth), and then place the flowers in the little container and add a little water.  So I climbed up the rickety little ladder they had and began to work.

Me washing marble

Me placing flowers
As I stood atop that ladder, cleaning the grave of a man I barely knew, I couldn't help but think about his perspective.  Now I'm not one to care for thinking about life after death; Whether we're dead and gone or live on in some magical plane really makes no difference to me.  But for this moment, I felt like that difference had a monumental effect on my perspective.

See, the last time my grandfather had seen me was when I was 12.  I was a half-spoiled, sheltered little child, with no direction and no ambition in my life.  I had nothing of my own, only the things my parents had pushed me to do, and all the normal mundane things of childhood.  I was a kid; Sure, I was smart, but that was expected.  He probably thought I was a nice little kid, immature even for my age at that time, but still just a kid.  That's all he knew about me.  He didn't know about all the time since then.  He wouldn't know anything about my switching to public school, he wouldn't know anything about my singing or my life in high school.  He wouldn't know about the things I did in college, or how my life has turned out now.  I'd be just a kid to him.

But in that moment, I thought about what if there was a way that we lived on, a way in which he could be aware of the things I've done.  What would he have said if he had seen me win 1st place in the state Science Olympiad competition?  What would have he thought about my choosing to go into teaching instead of business?  What would he have said if he heard I got into Cornell?  What would he have felt if he heard me sing?  Would he be happy?  Would he be proud?  These things, these legacies, seem so meaningless if I'm doing them for someone I barely knew, someone I barely met.  But if it's someone who has seen me grow up, even from afar, even from some mystery plane beyond our understanding, someone who has understood my journey and where I've been and where I've come from, I think it'd make me want to succeed even more.  

I've always been content with the things I've done.  I've always made decisions about my life for myself.  I've rarely considered how others would view my life decisions; I wanted to be successful for me, never for anyone else.  But in that small moment, I really wanted to know if he was proud of me.  I really wanted to know if the things that I've done, if the choicest I've made, have been good enough.  I'd like to think he agrees with me.  I'd like to think he's proud.  I'd like to think that.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Hong Kong 2012, Part 4: Bet You've Never Had a Bathroom Affect You Like This.

Here's the link to Part 3...



So the following day, we actually had an agenda.  One thing that I had expressed interest in (hat-tip to my friend Rob for the suggestion) was to get a custom-tailored suit in Hong Kong.  My parents were at first very apprehensive about buying me a suit ("When are you ever going to wear it?") but then they came to their senses, realizing that it's not about when you're going to wear a kickass suit, but instead it's about having a kickass suit.  We laughed heartily at this apprehension later, but that's another story for another time.


Of course, we needed food first, so my Auntie Myna decided to take us to City Hall.  Uhhh, yeah, it made no sense to me either.  However, you won't guess what was inside City Hall...

Yeap, that says Maxim's Cafe
... but another restaurant owned by our family!  This one happened to be a Western-style restaurant, so we ordered things like pan-seared fish and baked chicken with soup and bread.  

Now I must lament that I do not actually have a picture of my kickass suit.  I do however, have a picture of the street outside of the tailor, so there's that...

In case you didn't believe I was in Hong Kong...
The tailor was an old man who thoroughly enjoyed laughing at my non-Cantonese-speaking-ness, so at least he had a great time taking my measurements while I stood there awkwardly attempting to laugh at his jokes (I'm hoping they were jokes).  After he had his fun, he told us to come back for re-fitting in a couple of days, after which he would fully prepare the suit and have it prepared a couple weeks after.

At the time, I was with my dad and my Uncle Ken (Auntie Annie's husband, for those who want some sort of connective family tree representation), and we had to kill some time waiting for my Auntie's Myna and Annie and my mom.  Thus, we decided to go sit down at a local eatery and get some coffee. 

One must steathily take creeper photos, lest one be discovered
I don't particularly care for coffee, so I was expecting another long session of sitting and awkwardly listening to Cantonese conversation.  My eyes lit up with joy, however, when my father suggested I order this...

That first bite was like a bomb of deliciousness went off in my mouth, killing everyone.

... a curry beef bun!!!!

I love curry beef buns.  Even when I'm Stateside in a Chinatown in any city anywhere, I look for curry beef buns as my snack of choice.  This curry beef bun, however, was sooooooo much better than all the ones I've ever had in the US.  I don't know what it was, but it was just 100x spicier and 100x tastier than the bland ones we usually get.  I swear I ate the whole thing in less than 4 bites, and I probably could've done it in 3.

As you can see in the picture above, the place we were in was quite packed, with many tables housing multiple parties.  This is pretty commonplace in Hong Kong, where you'll go eat in a little place like this and have a stranger join you at your table, simply because there is no other space.  However, it gives you an idea as to the size of the place, and thus slightly informs the state of condition of the rest of the establishment, particularly the bathroom.

Now a lot of the bathrooms in Hong Kong are dirty.  They almost always smell, and the level of cleanliness would almost be considered "unacceptable" by US standards.  It's just something you learn to deal with when you're traveling, and I've been abroad often enough that I can handle some pretty filthy conditions.  This level of dirt in this bathroom, however, can only be described by one word that I have never used to describe a bathroom before:

Petrifying

The bathroom was petrifyingly dirty.  Now, you're probably wondering, "Well that's an interesting word, I wonder why he chose petrifying?"  Let me inform you.  

When I opened the door to the bathroom and stepped in, I stopped.  It's not like I just hesitated from the level of filth, I actually stopped.  I wasn't even thinking about just not using the bathroom, walking out, pretending like it never happened, and praying to Jesus that I could hold for the next hour or so.  I actually just couldn't move.  The choice of peeing and not peeing left my mind, and my options became stand in this spot forever or call for help.  And I was super tempted to call for help.

After being fully overwhelmed, I decided to put a positive spin on it, thinking "Hey, at least I don't have to take a dump, that would be a day-ruiner right there."  Thinking of it that way, things really didn't seem so bad, and that change in attitude went a long way to me getting over the level of dirtiness.

And with that, I think I'll end this part.  Much as I'd like to continue, the next part involves visiting my grandfather's grave, and it doesn't really feel right writing about that with three paragraphs about the filthiest bathroom of all-time preceding it.