Plus, today we had a mission to fulfill. We were on a quest for a shirt.

It all started a year prior when one of my good friends visited Hong Kong. A pushy tailor had convinced my friend to come into his shop and get measured for a custom-made business shirt. My friend explained to him that he didn’t have time to wait for the shirt to be made as he was returning to Canada the next day, but the tailor assured him shipping it to Canada would be no problem. My friend left him the cash and left Hong Kong. When the shirt never arrived my friend sent the tailor an e-mail, only to be told that the shipping fees were too expensive and he had given up trying to send it, and that all my friend had to do was fly back to Hong Kong to pick the shirt up. Very funny.

Fast-forward a year, and my friend had nearly given up all hope. When he heard Chef and I were travelling to Hong Kong he kindly requested that we stop by the tailor’s shop to pick up the shirt. We were happy to help.

We hit the streets a little after 7 and started making our way around Jordan Road and down Canton. We didn’t know what time the tailor opened, but we wanted to first stop by the harbour and see how much a ferry to Macao would cost. The Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal building is located inside the China Hong Kong City mall at 33 Canton Road. There are a few companies you can choose from and we liked New World First Ferry, which cost each of us about US$20 one way (price varies). The ferries depart every half-hour. [Book tickets here]

After leaving the mall we rounded the southern part of the peninsula and back up Nathan Road on our way to the tailor. The shop was located inside Chungking Mansion.

Hearing the name “Chunking Mansion” conjured up images of an Asian/British royal estate in my mind, perhaps a former plantation or a residence for a visiting aristocrat. Arriving there could be no more shocking. The building is a decrepit eyesore, a haven for theives, drug dealers, scammers, and illegal immigrants. The place offers the cheapest rooms in Hong Kong, but trust me on this one, you get what you pay for. It’s also known for being a death trap in case of a fire so think hard before renting a room. Really, really hard.

We found the shop we were looking for but the tailor hadn’t arrived yet. Attracted by the sight of foreigners a swarm of other tailors emerged offering us their wares, but when we told them we were not in the mood to buy they became puzzled. We explained we were looking for the tailor who ran the shop my buddy bought his shirt at and the tailors gladly sold him out, telling us his name and when he would arrive. I departed with a stern warning, “We’ll be back to find him.”

Since we didn’t want to waste time waiting for him to arrive we figured we would check out the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong’s own “walk of fame”, located on the water near the New World Centre, the owners of which built the avenue and handed it over to the public in 2004. Over 100 stars are honored along the way.

Chef had been itching to buy some souvenirs to take home, and from everything we read the best place to do that was Stanley Market, down at the southern tip of Hong Kong island. We ferried over the bay to Central and walked to Exchange Square where we caught bus 6A. The bus route to Stanley is one of Hong Kong’s oldest, and I have to admit, the ride was a blast! You start off by taking a short tour of downtown and gradually climb higher and higher into the mountains. We sat on the upper deck of the bus which gave us an even greater feeling of being up high, the bus rocking to and fro as it narrowly avoids the cars below and the tree limbs above. The bus takes some crazy winding roads curving around Mount Nicholson and then hugs Violet Hill down past Repulse Bay and over to Stanley. It’s about a 45-minute journey.

Stanley

Both Repulse Bay and Stanley (賊柱 “Bandit’s Post”) were pirate coves; Stanley being a base for the notorious Cheung Po Tsai where legend has it a local cave used to house his treasure, and Repulse Bay serving as a harbor for other pirates until 1841 when the British “repulsed” them out. Both spots reminded me of my time in Hawaii; beautiful pristine beaches, quaint shops, tropical hotels, relaxed atmosphere, blue-green ocean, and jungle-covered mountains…justifying the high prices residents pay to live in the area. The sea looked so inviting I wish I could have had a chance to take a swim. By the way, most beaches are protected by nets to keep out the many sharks that inhabit the waters surrounding Hong Kong, so no worries.

The bus dropped us off at Stanley Plaza, and we decended a series of escalators through the plaza down to the water’s edge. The actual Stanley Market is tucked away in an alley behind the facade of main street. What we read was true, this is the souvenir capital of Hong Kong. There were so many shops and we had so little time. In any event, I picked up a few nick-nacks.

By this time the trip was wearing on Chef so we scrapped our plans to eat at Jumbo, the largest floating restaurant in the world, and instead return to Kowloon where we would decide what to do next.

After crossing back over the bay we once more sought out the tailor. When he heard foreigners were looking for him he welcomed us with open arms, hoping to make a sale. His hopes turned to fears when he learned the real purpose of our visit. He had told our friend to return to Hong Kong to pick up the shirt, and now we were here to claim what was rightfully his. He nervously checked the records, secretly wishing they were gone, and beads of sweat appeared when he found the transaction receipt. He ducked in the back pretending to search for the shirt. He knew he didn’t have it, and we knew it too. He told us he would have to consult with the other tailor, and we told him we didn’t have time to wait around for him, we would be back tomorrow. I think he dreaded our return.

It was 2PM and although we were having fun, so far Hong Kong had turned out to be rather lackluster for us. We always kept plan B with us just in case, and since we were tired of Hong Kong and didn’t have anything better to do we decided to put it into effect. We went back to the ferry terminal and purchased two tickets for Macao. The best was yet to come.

Next up: Macao

I was so excited to finally travel out of Taiwan and visit other parts of Asia, and Hong Kong had been a must-see on my list for ages.

I had already booked a flight through China Airlines travelling from Taizhong to Hong Kong for a reasonable price, and I was in the middle of processing the second ticket for Chef when the website suddenly rejected my purchase. Turns out you can’t buy two tickets using the same credit card on separate transactions….Even if you call. Even if you made a mistake/have an emergency/want to add family members/want to book the entire plane/etc. *sigh* Taiwan. Complimentary troubles come with every order. That was probably the first indication this vacation wasn’t going to go as planned.

Chef braved a trip into Taizhong by himself to buy a ticket from a travel agency which ended up costing more because of the added booking fees, but at least we both had a ticket on the same flight. The morning of April 25 we packed our bags and I prepared for my first trip off the island of Taiwan. Boarding time was 4:10PM. Since I still don’t know how to call a taxi for a pick-up I decided to use my scooter to shuttle us there, which is always a challenge when you have luggage with you.

Taizhong airport is close to my house and easy to find, and I parked my scooter in the special scooter lot, arriving at 3:10PM. I had passed by the airport once or twice before, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this small. In fact, it’s the smallest international airport I have ever been to. When it was built as an air force base in 1966 it was the largest in the Far East at the time, but even with the addition of passenger facilities in 2003 it still doesn’t look like much today. I mean, have a look for yourself. The terminal is no longer than 400 feet wide, with a whopping 2 boarding gates.

An hour and a half passed by pretty slowly. When boarding began our passports were checked for departure and it was out to the tarmac, up a step ladder, and into the plane.

What happened next was the strangest taxi pattern I have ever taken. The plane took a long route on what seemed more like a road for cars than for a passenger jet; past vegetable gardens, a golf course, military fortifications, and fighter jet hangars. It was taking so long it felt like we were just driving to Hong Kong. We finally approached the runway, aligned for takeoff, and took to flight.

From the air I was able to get a good look at Taizhong harbor and the neighborhoods surrounding where I live which, as a Taiwanese friend put it, looks like a chaotic mess as opposed to the orderly neighborhoods of the United States. A little while into the flight we were served a meal, which takes the prize as the worst airplane food I have ever eaten. In typical Taiwanese fashion, the grease-soaked chicken skin was left on the meat, and for an appetizer we were given what I think was pig parts. Everywhere we went Chef would beg me to ask the servers what ingredients were in the food we were eating, so I asked the flight attendant just to humor him, as I have no idea what she said was in the food. My vocabulary is no where near the level of understanding words like “paprika” or “tripe”.

Arrival

Hong Kong isn’t that far from Taiwan so the trip only took about an hour and a half. Although the distance isn’t that great, the weather was completely different. We left a very sunny Taiwan and arrived at a dark, fog enshrouded Hong Kong. The airport is located on Chek Lap Kok island, and I felt a little sad that I wouldn’t get to experience a landing at the infamous Kai Tak airport.

I was very impressed by the Hong Kong international airport. It is the costliest airport in the world, has been named the best airport for the last five years, and is considered one of the major construction achievements of the 20th century. Taiwan certainly had nothing like it, and I was amazed by the number of different airlines and countries represented by the jets, as if they were coming to present tribute to Queen Victoria.

We disembarked from the jet and headed to immigration by way of an automated people mover. At immigration, the first thing that struck me as odd was all the white people. Having lived in Taiwan for the past five months I had grown accustomed to being surrounded by Asians, and seeing another white person was somewhat of a peculiarity. Suddenly I was surrounded by so many white people it didn’t feel like I was in Asia at all. They were mainly speaking English, with accents I was very familiar with such as the Californian valley accent. For some strange reason I felt like either them or I didn’t belong here.

The terminal building is very big and spacious, second in the world only behind the Beijing Capital International terminal (which is nearly twice as big), and stood in stark constrast to the tiny one we left behind in Taizhong. I was so happy to see a Burger King again I had to take a picture in front of it. Chinese Olympic Fuwa also decorated the terminal, and there was even a clock counting down to the opening ceremony.

The airport is located next to Lantau Island, which is the biggest island in Hong Kong but is mainly a place of mountains and jungles except for the new Disneyland. To get downtown from the airport, you can take a taxi (cheaper only if with a party of 3 or more people), the airbus (slow), or the airport express. The best thing to do is to buy an Octopus card. For HK$300 (US$40) you get 2 single Airport Express journeys and 3 days of unlimited travel on the MTR, which is what we opted to buy.

The journey to the city aboard the airport express takes only about 24 minutes. It’s a comfortable ride, similar to the airport express that services the Narita airport in Japan, with big cushy seats and televisions for news. On the way there, I pulled out my iPod and listened to one of my favorite songs by Twins called 兩個好. For the last year I had listened to that song and it always brought images of Hong Kong to mind, and it seemed rather unbelievable to me that I was finally IN Hong Kong listening to the song. I smiled all the way downtown.

Kowloon

We disembarked at Kowloon Station, located in the area known as Union Square which is currently experiencing construction of what will become the third tallest building in the world (based on roof height). I looked at my watch. It was 7:30PM which was a little later than I expected, but I made a quick calculation in my head as to distance and walking speed and figured Chef and I could reach the harbor by the time the nightly light show started, and we wasted no time setting off.

We walked down Austin Road and took a right turn on Canton, following it past the fancy shops at Harbour City, the largest mall in Hong Kong. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the luxury of a mall that features the most expensive brands New York and London have to offer, and it was immediate eye-candy for the two of us newcomers. I also took an interest in the locals who were window-shopping besides us, noticing the differences in attitude, dress, and appearance of the Hongkongers as opposed to the Taiwanese.

We reached the Hong Kong Cultural Center at the water’s edge just on time (8PM) for “A Symphony of Lights”, a 15-minute long spectacular show featuring 44 illuminated buildings on both sides of Victoria Harbor. I have never seen the likes of it. In this world there are a few man-made displays of wonder that are worth seeing, and this is definitely one of them. It looks like the skyscrapers are some giant species of bioluminescent coral that is jutting out from the bay, attracting a multitude of colorful ships that swim around it in fixated curiosity.

After the light show was over, our next objective was to cross the bay and head to Pacific Place where we would catch the premier of a film at Asia’s most technologically advanced theater.

Behind us stood the clock tower that used to overlook the Kowloon-Canton railway station, bathed in pale light and rounding out the minutes while Olympic Fuwa played in a nearby garden. A row of small shops borders the bay and flanks the Star Ferry Terminal which bustles with activity during operating hours.

Entering the terminal building you have a choice, you can turn left for services to Wan Chai, or right for ferries to Central. When I looked at the map, both endpoints seemed equidistant from Pacific Place (we should have taken the subway actually), so for whatever reason I chose to take the Central line. We swiped our Octopus cards at the turnstyle and filed into place at the boarding area. Through one of the dock windows I was able to get a good look at the bay and a red-sailed junk bobbing in the ocean in front of the futuristic skyscrapers. I was awestruck by Hong Kong in all its glory.

After a few minutes I caught sight of our ferry chugging its way toward the dock, struggling like a duck trying to maintain its heading in the churning waters. As it neared the port, sailors in blue uniforms tossed ropes to and from the vessel, reeling it closer to the dock. The passengers carefully boarded the ship as the gangway was sliding to and fro with the motion of the waters beneath them. Chef and I found a seat near the back and the ship was released from its moorings.

The crisp ocean air blew through the windows and across my face. Who knows how many pirates took this same journey across the harbor they considered a safe-haven so many years ago. I never knew the waters were so turbulent, but despite the rocking of the boat it’s a very relaxing ride to the other side. The trip only takes about 9 minutes. Star Ferry has been operating for over 120 years and is now a part of everyday life here, so much so that a change in the fare led to the 1966 riots in which over 1,800 people were arrested.

Hong Kong Island

After crossing Victoria Harbor to Central we took a look at the map again. Because of my travel experience I was in charge of leading us around, and I usually prefer walking compared to other forms of travel because it’s good for you and it allows you to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. However, I’m used to walking. Chef isn’t. After a few steps towards the mall Chef couldn’t take it anymore, and he yanked out an emergency whistle and blew as hard as he could, sending a passing taxi screeching to a halt in the middle of the road. The automatic door flung open. To my surprise Chef cautiously began inquiring about the rate.

“Get in the car!”, the driver yelled.

I jumped in after Chef and the taxi driver began a tirade how Hong Kong isn’t like mainland China, how the taxi drivers won’t cheat you, and how he can’t chat with a customer about prices in the middle of a busy street. I was just amused by his Cantonese-British accent and the fact that we were driving on the left side of the road.

The taxi driver was right, the fare was reasonable and we arrived at Pacific Place at 9PM, a good 50 minutes before the movie started. We toured the mall a bit and both of us got the sinking feeling that Hong Kong has an overwhelming air of superiority to it. The shops are upscale and the people dress like movie stars or high-powered executives. I remembered what my Hong Kong-born coworker back in Florida had told me, that he moved to America because Hongkongers were too stuck-up. Perhaps he was right, but I was willing to give Hong Kong a chance.

Chef used to work at Starbucks so we stopped at a local shop for a drink of nostalgia. As I stood in line I kept wondering if the Chinese girl at the counter could speak English. Of course she was fluent, but I am so used to frightened Taiwanese unwilling to serve me because of their poor English skills that I was surprised she handled me like any other customer. I was even more surprised by the bill. We rested up a bit before the show.

The theater at the far end of the mall was refurbished and opened as an AMC at the end of 2006. It features a state-of-the-art sound system, spacious French leather seats, a box office that imitates a futuristic hotel check-in counter, and an aqua bar. The whole thing looks more like a starship to me than a theater. [click here for some awesome pictures]

After the movie ended the real show started when a man and woman in our aisle began a shouting match using English and Cantonese. The woman kept yelling, “Do you want to fight?”, and I can only imagine what the man was saying. The movie ended about 11:30, which coincidentally is also the time the last ferry heads back to Kowloon. It was too late to try and catch the boat and I was worried we would be stuck on this side of the harbor which would make it harder to find a cheap hotel. We were both very weary and wanted to find a place to stay quick. Thankfully the subway had not yet shut down so we made our way downstairs, caught a train to Kowloon, and traversed the long walkways of Tsim Sha Tsui station.

Nine Dragons Nightmare

We exited the station at midnight and set about looking for a place to stay. The first thing Chef and I encountered was a group of scary-looking Africans hanging out in a giant gang near the Mirador and Chungking Mansions. When I say scary, I mean that Chef is African-American and he was asking me to protect him. I’m sure they are harmless, but for safety sake I told Chef to get behind me as I put on my Clint Eastwood face and New York attitude. An Indian lady jammed a nearby hotel’s business card into my hand, but I had already decided we weren’t staying around here for the night.

Although most businesses were closed by now the streets were still busy, but this time with people coming from or going to local bars and clubs. Perhaps because a number of people would be unable to drive home an army of taxis lined the boulevards.

After wandering rather aimlessly for about 10 minutes we came upon a Holiday Inn, and we were so ready to get into a comfortable room. To our relief the young woman at the counter told us there was a vacancy. “How much?”, I asked.

“HK$1,560”

I opened my wallet and looked at how much cash was inside. I had exchanged 6,000 Taiwan dollars at the airport which I had figured would be more than enough to care for two-and-a-half days of fun. It equalled only HK$1,422. I looked at Chef wide-eyed. This was a Holiday Inn, right? This was a Holiday Inn we were talking about, right? Of course, then came the embarrassing departure. You know why it’s embarrassing? Because you knew when you walked in the door the receptionist sized you up and knew you would walk out. She was right.

It was about 12:30 and we were a little dismayed. My spirits picked up as we passed by a local jazz club where a beautiful young Chinese woman was singing inside, and I decided to snap a photo through the window. As we walked away I reviewed the picture and burst out laughing. To my surprise she had seen me and gave me a “peace” sign. We turned around and as we passed the club again I flashed the “peace” sign back with a smile. She erupted into laughter which brought her performance to a screeching halt.

We continued on past fancy sounding hotels, like “Royal Garden”, “Shangri-La”, and “Intercontinental”, all too pricey for us to room in. We then did some more aimless wandering until we just couldn’t take it anymore. My backpack was weighing on me and my feet really hurt. We decided to take a rest somewhere until we could figure out what to do next.

There’s a 24-hour McDonald’s that overlooks Toyo Mall and we were both a little hungry so we stopped in, got a bite to eat, and took a look at the map. An employee pushed a broom past us, noticing I had set my backpack on the ground.

“Sir, I wouldn’t leave that there.”

“Oh?”

“Tourists have set their bags down and thieves come by, snatch the bags, and take off through that door.”

I looked suspiciously around the restaurant and moved my backpack to a safer location. As I looked over the map I was at a loss as to where to go. It was past 1:30AM and we needed to get a good-night’s rest. Chef had the idea of just paying a taxi to drive us around town all night long, which might have been cheaper than staying at the Holiday Inn.

At about 2AM we left McDonald’s looking for a “last resort” resort. Young women stationed outside clubs encouraged…well, tried to force us to go inside by questioning if we were men or not. We caught a cab with no particular destination in mind, ending up near London Plaza at the intersection of Austin and Nathan roads. We shuffled our feet down to Jordan Road and there saw an advertisement for a hotel around the corner. It was worth a shot.

We trudged down a dark alley, into a creepy looking building, up a very small and seemingly dangerous elevator, and arrived at the address indicated. A security gate was blocking the door. We knocked. A lazy-eyed and one-armed man answered and in a thick Cantonese accent asked us to come inside the bedarkened lobby. He had a vacancy, and it was super cheap. That’s all we wanted to hear. He led us down a cramped hallway and to a small door, shoving an electronic key into a slot with his good arm, which brought the lights inside flickering to life.

Our mouths dropped open.

“Rathole” doesn’t begin to describe our room. The innkeeper disappeared down the hall and we closed the door and made sure it was locked. Our room consisted of a dingy washroom with a showerhead pointing into the toilet bowl, a TV that didn’t work, and two single beds jammed together as if one and stretching from wall-to-wall in every direction (and I don’t mean the beds were big). After I checked for bedbugs and placed towels over the pillows so our faces wouldn’t be in contact with them we both collapsed on the beds and dreamed of Holiday Inn.

It was 2:30AM, and the innkeeper had reminded us checkout time was at 7.

To be continued…

Coming up: Hong Kong

Chef listened intently as I briefed him on the dangers of the passage.  “You may lose a limb.  The natives are a fierce bunch…if they catch you offguard you will be trampled to death for sure.  Avoid anyone and anything bigger than yourself.  Stay with me.  If you get lost in the wilderness I have no way of finding you, so don’t fall behind.  Are you sure you are ready for this?”

“I’m sure.”, he replied.

“Then our journey begins.”

Our mounts were raring to go, ignorant of the trials that lay ahead and which we would cast them into.  We departed from the village of Sand Deer and continued past the Well of the Dragons.  At this point an imposing mountain range guards the way to the island’s center, and our steeds labored onwards and upwards.  From the peaks we got a clear view of the Eastern Sea, on the other side of which lay our destination.  At this point the journey starts to get treacherous, with frequent tempests and uneven ground that can throw you from your mount, as well as dangers from the numerous natives who inhabit these parts.

After crossing the Eastern Sea, we passed the monoliths that mark the way to center, and then it was over the bridge and through the cavernous tunnel which always drips with water.  Upon emerging, a fantastic view of the wilderness Utopia revealed itself, and we knew we had arrived.

The journey had been an exhausting one and I knew a place where we could rest; a castle tower situated on the border.  It’s the first of such castles you encounter on a journey coursing from west to east.  Tired visitors we were, our spirits picked up when we were greeted by natives.

We trekked to the top of the tower where a large banquet was being served. I feasted on local dishes while Chef poked at his meal with disdain. Chef is a master when it comes to the kitchen, and the dish set before him was quite unlike anything he was expecting. His well-trained tastebuds wouldn’t allow him to stomach the meal.

After we descended the tower stairs and departed from the castle grounds, we found our steeds well rested for the remainder of the journey. They needed all the strength they could muster, as night was falling and we were heading into the thick of the jungle. We followed the path further into the wilderness, lighting our torches to guide the way, and reached the end of the trail where a great caravan usually rests before snaking its way out of the valley. This was the heart of the island. From there we headed northeast, around the great lake where geysers spew and at the center of which lies a hut village only accessible by canoe. There was one more spot I wanted Chef to see.

We finally stopped at the edge of a clearing and got a good look around. Thousands of natives had gathered for the nightly festivities. Chef and I dove into the fun. Strange culture as it is, the natives display their goods at the market during the night, and there is certainly no lack of customers. This area of the jungle seems to come alive only after the sun has gone down. Everything can be found here, and the food is both wonderful and strange. Any visitor to the island must experience this scene to truly understand the people.

After Chef and I had our fill we saddled up once again for the long journey back. It was a satisfying trip, but there was plenty more adventures to be had. The next one would take us off the island and over the great sea.

To be continued…

Chef got his first taste of Taiwanese traffic as the bus driver nearly killed every last passenger on the road from Taoyuan to Taizhong.  From Taizhong it was a comedy of errors trying to get a taxi to drop him off at the right place, as the streets and alleys are so confusing not even the locals know their way around (If you want to avoid a similar situation, I seriously advise handing the cab driver a map in Chinese with the route indicated).  Chef sent me an S.O.S. to no avail.  After interrogating passersby they were able to locate the outpost I have been living in, however I was nowhere to be found.  I had received the signal and had gone on a rescue mission to find him with the help of a Guatemalan guide, but after our search turned up empty I returned home, only to find Chef waiting to greet me at the front gate.

Chef’s body was anxious for a good night’s sleep in the makeshift bed I had prepared on the floor, yet his mind was too excited to rest.  Eventually after talking into the morning hours he was able to snore the night away.

The next day I saddled up my scooter and invited Chef on a tour of the area, including the villages of Shalu, Wuqi, Longjing, Qingshui, and all the way to the outskirts of Dajia.  He jumped on the back of my steed and we headed out.  Two foreigners, one white and one black, navigating the back streets of Taiwan guarantees head turns from the local villagers.  The looks I get are pretty strange, as it’s rare for a white man to be seen in these parts, but the looks Chef got were all the more unusual.

When we finally arrived in the outer reaches of Dajia, I gave my steed a rest as Chef and I visited a watering hole.  The activities of the locals fascinated Chef, and as I had already grown accustomed to them he pointed out things to me I do not usually pay attention to.  He seemed particularly captivated by the untamed hairstyles some men and women were sporting, and the more he was surprised by it, the more I laughed within.

Upon returning home I acquired a ride from my Guatemalan companion for Chef to use, as my steed was exhausted from hauling us around all day.  It would have been too much of a strain for my scooter to carry both of us on a regular basis, and besides, I had my own schedule to take care of and I was hoping Chef would explore the island on his own.

The next day, as is my routine, I went to study the culture and language of the inhabitants of the island along with a team of international explorers.  I left Chef behind to fend for himself.  Needless to say, he didn’t wander far from base camp.  I planned to take him into the heart of the wilderness the following day, into the treacherous expanse of Taizhong.

Time would tell if both of us would make it out alive.

To be continued…

http://picasaweb.google.com/pandagator

Teacher: So the word here is to hug (抱).  Is it your custom to hug?

Me: Yes, Westerners love hugging.  One of my friends had just come from South America, where they like to hug and kiss you, and was visiting Japan.  When he met a friend there he ran up and hugged and kissed her on both cheeks.  She said her own husband had never done that before.

Teacher: [to Japanese student] Is that true?

Japanese classmate: Yes, we won’t hug eachother.

Teacher: When your husband comes home, or when he leaves for work does he kiss and hug you?

Japanese classmate: No, never.  We just wave at eachother.

Me: What about saying “I love you”?

Japanese classmate: We don’t say that.  My husband has never said that to me.

Me: What about your parents?

Japanese classmate: They’ve never told me they love me either.  And I never heard them tell eachother “I love you”.  This is just the Japanese way.

Me: What about if you have kids, won’t you tell them you love them?

Japanese classmate: No.  I’ll tell them, “You’re very cute”, or “You’re very smart”.

Me: Everytime my parents call, at the end of our conversation I’ll tell them I love them.

Teacher: [to me] What about hugging?

Me: Yes, I hug my dad, and my mom will kiss me on the cheek.

Japanese classmate: [cringing in disgust] You hug your dad?

German classmate: Sure!  Even male friends can hug, or give a pat on the back.

Canadian classmate: If you don’t say “I love you”, then how do you go on dates or marry?

Japanese classmate: [exaggerating] We just say, “Marry me”.

German classmate: Ha!  If you said that in Germany every man would run for his life!

Japanese classmate: My husband never told me “I love you” before we got married.

Korean classmate: Before we got married my husband HAD to say “I love you”, otherwise I wouldn’t have married him.  However, he hasn’t said it since we got married.  It makes me want to hit him.

Me: Japanese marriages sound more like business than love.

Japanese classmate: Yes!  That’s what it is.

Teacher: Taiwanese people don’t hug eachother either.  In secret, but not in public.  Okay let’s look at the next word: I apologize (抱歉)。

German classmate: I think Japanese people say “I’m sorry” a lot.

Japanese classmate: Yes, we do!  Even when it’s not our mistake, we will say “I’m sorry”.

Teacher: So for Japanese people it’s easier to say “I’m sorry” than “I love you”.

Japanese classmate: Right!

Me: Okay, when I come in tomorrow I’m going to tell all of you “I LOVE YOU!”, so you can feel what it’s like.

The first time I saw a Taiwanese drama, I burst out laughing when a young woman ran through the rain to catch her boyfriend, only to tell him, “I like you”.  It was a really heavy and dramatic moment with what I thought was such a light word.  Most of the time, if you hug a Taiwanese person they will stand as stiff as a board, unsure of how to react.  It’s fine for boys to hug boys and girls to hug girls in Taiwan, but it’s culturally looked down upon for young people of the opposite sex to touch eachother. I rarely see adults hugging or kissing.  This is quickly changing though, and Taiwan is becoming more and more “Westernized” with regards to open displays of affection.

Besides coming from the states where hugging is a part of life, I have Latin relatives and friends who absolutely require hugs.  It would be a major insult not to hug them.  Saying “I love you” is similarly a part of our everyday lives, and it astounds me that some Japanese can go through life without ever being told that phrase.

The main overriding factor in all of this is that Japanese people don’t want to stand out.  Anything that leads to other people looking at you funny is too much to handle.

Some more insights:

Japanese people don’t hold hands.

Japanese women walk behind the men and will carry their bags for them.

Japanese women like for their husbands to do all the ordering for them at a restaurant.

Japanese people will purposely lose to foreigners to give them face (Koreans may do the same).  We had a big laugh about World War II with that one.

Japanese people are very passionate about things like work, but are not very warm-hearted.

Japanese people have different dialects which are nearly mutually unintelligible.  Some Japanese believe parts of Japan are so different they can be considered as a different country with different people.

I also found out why Japanese people don’t offer their seats to people in need when on the subway.  If you are in need of a seat, people will look at you funny and you will be embarassed.  If you offer your seat and the person refuses, you will be looked at funny and will be embarassed.  So it’s best not to ask or offer.

Honestly, the more I learn about Japan the more I’m captivated by it.  Maybe next year I’ll take Japanese classes here at the University.

Fact: Hasn’t happened to me yet, but my friends have had moments where they felt they were going to die.

Not in Taiwan.  Taiwan’s health care system is superb.

Have to agree with that one.  Although, it’s even worse when you’re on a scooter driving *next* to the taxis.

Hmm…perhaps.

AND SCOOTERS.

If your Chinese is bad, absolutely.  Don’t even try asking for directions, just buy a map.

Not in Taiwan.

Well, in Taiwan the lines exist…it’s just that people love to cut in line.

Not in Taiwan.

Not in Taiwan.  For the life of me I can’t remember seeing a bootleg DVD stand here.  Certainly not as blatant as it is in Chinatown.

Not in Taiwan.

Not in Taiwan; prices are fixed here.  You can haggle at the night market if you want.

That’s a rule for anywhere in Asia.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Eh?  I forgot why this was an issue.  It’s not a problem here.

Not in Taiwan.  Sure, the kids will say something, but adults just look at you when you pass by.  No one has really bothered me.

Kids will point.  Adults will stare.  Girls will take pictures.  You get used to it.

Not in Taiwan.  There’s plenty of vegetarian dishes for Buddhists.  I have a friend who is a vegetarian and he does okay.

Ahhh…I just keep checking off the list of how many pig parts I’ve eaten so far.

Boy, that’s gotta be frustrating.  Hasn’t happened to me yet.

Waiters are no where to be found.

True.

Only if your Chinese needs work.  I haven’t had any more problems here than I did back in the states.

Huh?  Taiwanese complain all the time.  I feel sorry for the people working behind the counter.

Wow, if that’s true I’m never moving to the mainland.

Yeah, particularly the situation with animals here.

Taiwanese police…no comment.

Obviously.  Such is life.

Some look nice:

Others…Not so much.

(more…)

Or, more accurately, I have stopped learning any NEW Chinese. I’m spending a month or so on the Karate Kid method of language learning. I’m going to focus on the few things that I know, and I’m going to drill down on them until I know them with a nearly native fluency. I can’t say that I know how this is going to work, or if it rides contrary to all the scholarly thought on the matter, but I’m going to stick to my guns a bit and see what happens.

I’d love to hear from more advanced students on this matter. Did any of you just take a step back and review for a good long while? Inquiring minds want to know!

Here’s the man now:

One night, Aric and I went out with Amber and Clay (and a few other folks), and Aric shared a plan with us for an exposé on Bund  bars. He shared the details with Clay and I and together we hammered out a plan. The results of that plan can be found right here:

Social Experiment #1

And this is one of the things that I like about this guy. He’s not just a talker. He gets things done. He’s a wild card, to be sure. He’s a shot of tequila with your morning coffee and he’s dangerous. I miss that kind of unpredictability here at ChinesePod sometimes. He was always stirring the pot or poking a hornet’s nest. It’s hard to build a stable, multi-lingual, world-spanning corporation with a guy like that, but he’s rocket fuel on the launch pad. He’s a real gift to start-ups and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

I found the following phrase particularly challenging due to the time markers and I’d love to see other’s translations of the same thing. Anyone who can translate this AND tell me the movie it comes from gets a vintage Marvel No-Prize!

Here’s the quote:

“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”

Good luck!

Blasphemy, I know. How could I even suggest it? But there it is. I’m surrounded—SURROUNDED, I tell you—by non-Chinese-speaking people! All these years of practice… well, both of them… and for what? So I can order a Diet Coke one week a year when I go overseas?

Gah. What I really need to do, what we ALL need to do, is move to Shanghai. Who’s with me? Come on, we’ll start a ChinesePod commune. We’ll get one of those old houses with the courtyards and we’ll spend our days chatting in Mandarin. Poor tongue-tied expats will wander through our doors in desperate need of help after a solid linguistic thrashing by a native bully. We’ll train him like a kung fu fighter in a Jackie Chan film and send him back out there armed with useful phrases and a mastery of the dreaded 了. (It even LOOKS like a weapon! It reminds me of a kama.)

I keep trying to find places to use my limited skills. Just the other day I discovered that the independent auditor here at work is from China and I chatted her up but good. Of course, she’s still doing that thing where she tells me my Chinese is great… but she keeps talking to me in English.

I’ll wear her down. Just you wait and see. 我会！

I’ve been holding off on a major recap because there’s a secret I’ve been dying to share and I just don’t have the green light yet. It’s just going to have to wait a little longer. (Trust me, this hurts me more than it hurts you!)

So what do you want to know? Help me focus, people! Do you want to hear about the people at ChinesePod? How about the food I ate while I was there? I had a surprisingly good lunch over at the infamous BSR (Bad Service Restaurant) and helped Clay find his “Blue Steel” look.

OH! You know what I can tell you? Steve Williams (one of the CPod founders) and his wife just had a new baby! Congrats to them both!

What’s funny, and not a little strange for me, is that I’m finding words less useful since I started taking photos. There’s this saying about each one of them being worth a thousand words. Might be some truth there. Look at this one, for example:

There’s got to be some lingo-cultural explanation behind this whole “talking girl” thing. Best guess here? Anybody? I don’t know the answer myself, but I found that it tickled me when I saw it. It was just one of a million little moments that made it such a great trip.

However, if you’re one of the few folks who can’t access the Convo section on ChinesePod, or you just follow my Chinese language exploits through this here blog, I invite you to click on the picture above and see China through my eyes. I took over 3,000 photos while I was there, and I think these are the best of them. I hope you enjoy them.

But let’s talk language for a minute, shall we?

I spent entire days talking in Chinese. I sat in cabs and got where I wanted to go. I ordered food and drink. I chatted up waitresses and business men. I’m sure I sounded like a retarded fourth grader while I was doing these things, but I did it. I spoke and was understood. That’s nothing short of amazing, if you ask me, and I owe it all to the program here at ChinesePod. I’d rank myself as a low Intermediate learner at this point, but I felt an awful lot like a Newbie at times.

That being said, I’ll confess that I’ve spent too much time chatting with other users and not enough time digging into the lessons. Gotta change that, and fast!

How about you kids? How are you getting on out there?

Anyway, in the morning I depart for Shanghai! I’m not sure what the schedule will be like this week, what with it being Chinese New Year and all, but I’ll make sure to stop by the ChinesePod offices and remind them what I look like. (Poor bastards. Momma always said I had a great face for radio.)

I’ll make sure to pop back here while I’m away and leave periodic trip reports. There may even be pictures!

Stay tuned!

(Oh, and I haven’t had a single chance to, you know, study Chinese for weeks now. You may consider me officially nervous.)

Just about a year ago, I was in the ChinesePod offices for the first time. I happen to be there on Dave Lancanshire’s first day, in fact. (For those paying attention, that means Dave just had his one-year anniversary with the company. Look for a post in the Conversations section on this shortly.)

Anyway, Dave was trying to coax me into talking a bit to see how good (or bad) my tones were. Of course, I was terrified! This was a live test, people! This was not a drill! We were go for launch codes! Warning, warning! Danger Will Robinson!!!

Or… at least that’s what it sounded like in my head.

So I said the first thing that came into my head. It was a line from a recent lesson. I said, “我流血了!”

流血 • liú xuè • shed blood

And Dave’s eyes go WIDE. And I’m thinking… okay. My tones must REALLY suck. Damn, I thought I had that line pretty good! Oh, man, I’m in trouble! So I said it in English.

“I said, ‘I’m bleeding.’”

“I know what it means,” Dave said. “It just took me by surprise because that phrase can also mean that you’re… uh… menstruating. And since you didn’t have any visible wounds…”

Hehe.

You know that saying that “ignorance is bliss?” I’m not blissful. I’ve been studying Chinese for almost two years now (give or take a few months). I know just enough to be unhappy. I don’t yet know enough Chinese to be happy, either. I’m still experiencing my growing pains. But, gosh darn it, I want a Chinese name! When I get to Shanghai I want to have my name carved on the bottom of one of those little stampy things so I can sign my paintings with it!

Now… I’ve asked a few Chinese friends about this naming business and they always give me that feh-lan-ke thing that I can never remember how to type. It’s just a transliteration of my English name which, pardon me for saying so, but YAWN.

I want something that’s ME. Something that suits my personality, you know? I want something that tells a story. (Imagine that!)

So, let me show you where my thoughts have been running and tell you why.

First of all, my initials are FF. If you take that first F and flip it horizontally, you get something that looks a lot like a dragonfly. I like dragonflies a lot. That double-F/dragonfly image is actually how I sign my paintings. So when I stumbled across the character 非, I thought… HEY! That looks kind of close! And it’s even got that F sound! Maybe I’m onto something here!

非 - fēi - non-/not-/un-/

Hmmmm. Not sure how I feel about starting my name with a negative connotation like that. Unless… wait. Let me check some of the options for that second syllable.

克  - kè - gram/subdue/to restrain/to overcome/

Hey, now! That might be something! “Unrestrained.” Un-overcome. As in unstoppable. Yeah, I kind of like that! But, of course, when I put those two characters together, it doesn’t mean anything in any dictionary I try.

Still, that would be easy to remember, and not at all difficult to write. I’ll have to get a ruling on this.

But… isn’t this just the first name? Can I go around in China with just these two characters and not get confused with someone else? I mean… okay. Yes. The odds on another Italian-American who is both devilishly charming and absurdly reasonably handsome also being called 非克 are pretty slim. But there’s a lot of people in China! It could happen!

So what about surnames? Family names? The name Fradella is a slightly bastardized version of the word “fratello,” which means “brother” in Italian. Unfortunately, this is an utter nightmare in Chinese! They have a different word for every conceivable permutation of blood relation. I tried to find a word that just meant “brother.” Not older, not younger, not the brother of my sister-in-law’s husband. Just “brother.” Here’s what I came up with:

弟兄 - dì xiōng - brother

But, really… do I want to walk around being 弟兄非克？ Well… maybe!

Anyway, like I said — I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. What do you think?

It’s just the coolest little thing. I hear it more and more these days, and I’ve even begun injecting into my own conversations online and via Skype.

For those of you in the Great White North, this must be the most natural particle in the world. It’s roughly equivalent to your natural “eh?” I lived in Windsor, Ontario, for about six months and I became intimately acquainted with this expression. Though it’s not usually written down, the “eh?” particle in Canadian lingo usually falls at the end of a sentence that started with the companion particle, “Oh.”

For example:

“Oh, yeah, eh?”
or
“Oh,  let’s go get something to eat, eh?”

It softens the phrase a bit, making it more suggestive. Just like my beloved 吧。

To whit:

“啊，对吧?”
or
“我们去吃饭吧!”

Do pardon the lack of Pinyin, folks — I have no idea how to type it.

But how cool — and intuitive — is this particle?!