Dad stumbles again. He's busy looking at China for the first time and not watching where his feet are going.
My parents arrive in Hong Kong, the first stop of a trip to visit their youngest son on the mainland. The first stop ever in Asia; they will see a different world. My plan to loiter here and visit friends coincides with their vacation and Justin decides to join us from Guangzhou for a day, so we have a mini-family gathering across the world from Canada.
Except that this isn't an ordinary family gathering. At home, parents are the venerable and wise hosts, to be respected. They invite us to their house and have us around their dinner table. Here, Justin and I are the ones with experience and the roles are reversed (except for the food. Mum and dad pay for dinner on their first night in town).
I notice the difference between us right away. I get off the escalators and start walking, part the crowd. The parents move at a snail's pace, turn their heads upwards, get stuck behind the masses.
"I'll always remember this street as my first glimpse of Asia," says my dad. The street is Lockhart Road in Causeway Bay, all lit up with signs and storefronts and crowded with vendors, an anywhere street in urban Asia.
Later, he stops my mum on the Mid-Level Escalators and says, "Look at those roof-tops." He points to the overlapping, haphazard, seemingly temporary shelters erected over the noodle stalls below us - a standard sight throughout the continent.
We take a bus to Stanley on the south side of the island and dad complains about the air conditioning.
"It's freezing!"
"Of course," I reply. "It's Asia." Bus drivers here take a perverse pleasure in blasting cold air onto the heads of their passengers. I've just learned to ignore it.
"Oh don't be so...!" and he smacks my arm. He doesn't appreciate my dismissive tone, which has been common for me in the past few days. Five months in Asia and I don't think about how culture and business and infrastructure are different from North America. I have just gotten used to how things work.
But my parents' insistence on being new gets me thinking. I shouldn't be dismissive. I shouldn't be jaded. I should walk off the escalator with my head up, looking.
So I stroll the streets, not with wonder - I've been here too long for that - but with an appreciation for what's there. From the southern hills, I see the majesty of the lights in a nighttime city. I see the sweat of a man holding a loaded-down push cart from rolling down the hill, one slip from certain disaster. I see the hysteria of a food stall.
I see marvellous Hong Kong, and all I need to do is look through the new eyes that my parents brought with them.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A Dose of the Familiar at the End of Asia
This blog has not been updated for three weeks. The reason: I traded in my backpacker label for the more relaxed one of house guest. I've been enjoying myself.
My transformation from rugged adventurer to sedentary lump resulted from increased sentimentality for Canada. February and the beginning of March saw bits of home sneak up on me, grab me by the throat and not let go. A memory popped up, other travellers had their tireless what-will-you-do-when-you-get-home conversations, or a piece of Canadiana would be adapted for local use and I would be temporarily obsessed.
An excellent example: my reaction to the presence of gravy at a Singapore food stall. The young woman behind the counter poured it all over a basket of fries and cheese and I got excited.
ohmygodOhMyGodOHMYGOD!, I thought. "Is that poutine?" I asked. She nodded.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! "How much is it?"
"$4.90 [about $4 Canadian]."
"Well, I've just bought these fries from another stall - crap! Stupid damn sweet potatoes! - but I'll be back tomorrow."
And I was back. I planned the entire next day in Singapore around buying an order of fries, cheese and gravy. I paid my money and ate the first poutine I'd had since last September. Months and months of rice and noodles and I didn't know that the stuff was missing from my life until it showed up at a food stall: a basket of grease; the promise of home.
Incidents like this one told me that I had to change my method of travel for the last month of my trip. Changing countries, changing currencies, changing languages: I needed something different than constant change. I couldn't travel alone, either; the solo routine wouldn't work anymore. I needed a dose of the familiar and an escape from my backpack.
That escape came from acquaintances in the region.
I first visited a friend in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where he had taught English for more than a year. The high speed train from Taipei, modelled on Japan's bullet train, took me south at a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour and, in the darkness of an evening arrival, only chunks of blurry neon told me where people lived.
Chris picked me up from the local metro station on his scooter - the two of us doubling on that little bike was reason for locals to comment and look again. Five minutes from the station, Chris opened the door and I found a home and a dog and a place to stay for a while.
I played tug-of-war with Toby, the white lab. He pulled and yanked and jerked the chew toy and galumphed to the corner where I threw it. He climbed onto the couch and stood over me to show that I wasn't winning, not really. He played in a way that the feral dogs of Asia never could.
I went out on the town with Chris and his Czech roommate and his roommate's friends. They lived in town and went to the local bars. They knew how to avoid tourist trap restaurants. They showed me how local ex-pats and Taiwanese lived.
Chris and I watched television shows and movies. North American humour got me laughing and the bright lights of Hollywood made sense to me.
I lived more like a real person here, not like someone who stayed for a while then moved on to see the next thing. I dropped my backpack in the back room and forgot about it.
This life didn't end with Taiwan; my next flight took me back to Hong Kong, where this whole thing had begun.
My best friend, Dennis, seemed determined to reintroduce me to the life of a working, settled person and, that first Saturday in town, he took me out to party with his co-workers on their weekend at the bars of Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai. We hit Balalaika with its bust of Lenin, its freezer room full of vodka and its fur coats; an Italian restaurant where Ravi, the bar manager, served me a waterfall shot, which nearly singed what remains of my hair; and Agave where we had margaritas better than I've had.
We talked about issues that matter to working people: politics, jobs, families. We avoided the standard, machine gun traveller questions of where-you-from, where-you-been, where-you-going. Well... I didn't avoid them but my point is that I got to talk about those other topics too. I didn't have to limit my conversation to one-word answers and lists. "Canada." "I've been to Mainland China, Vietnam, Cambodia." "I'm going to the rest of Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore." I was grateful to spend time with these civil servants.
As I chatted and laughed, I began to realize that the benefits of living a stable life in Taiwan and now in Hong Kong ran deeper than simple novelty. I would go back home in a handful of days to be faced with North American culture and more white people than I ever remembered being in one place. I would be faced with serious culture shock.
"It was harder for me going back to Canada," said Dennis of his own trip through South East Asia a few years ago. "Give yourself extra time to adjust."
Perhaps, though, spending time outside the transient world of a backpacker would save me the difficulty. Someone last night referred to Hong Kong as "a good departure point" at the end of Asia. This town is a hybrid of west and east. The crowds and open-air markets and Chairman Mao knick knacks remind me that I'm in Asia, but the caucasians in business suits and the almost limitless North American and European cuisine also give me a taste of home.
To start, Taiwan and Hong Kong were only meant to indulge a fancy for friends and the familiar. To end, they might have become essential to move me from the road to home.
My transformation from rugged adventurer to sedentary lump resulted from increased sentimentality for Canada. February and the beginning of March saw bits of home sneak up on me, grab me by the throat and not let go. A memory popped up, other travellers had their tireless what-will-you-do-when-you-get-home conversations, or a piece of Canadiana would be adapted for local use and I would be temporarily obsessed.
An excellent example: my reaction to the presence of gravy at a Singapore food stall. The young woman behind the counter poured it all over a basket of fries and cheese and I got excited.
ohmygodOhMyGodOHMYGOD!, I thought. "Is that poutine?" I asked. She nodded.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! "How much is it?"
"$4.90 [about $4 Canadian]."
"Well, I've just bought these fries from another stall - crap! Stupid damn sweet potatoes! - but I'll be back tomorrow."
And I was back. I planned the entire next day in Singapore around buying an order of fries, cheese and gravy. I paid my money and ate the first poutine I'd had since last September. Months and months of rice and noodles and I didn't know that the stuff was missing from my life until it showed up at a food stall: a basket of grease; the promise of home.
Incidents like this one told me that I had to change my method of travel for the last month of my trip. Changing countries, changing currencies, changing languages: I needed something different than constant change. I couldn't travel alone, either; the solo routine wouldn't work anymore. I needed a dose of the familiar and an escape from my backpack.
That escape came from acquaintances in the region.
I first visited a friend in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where he had taught English for more than a year. The high speed train from Taipei, modelled on Japan's bullet train, took me south at a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour and, in the darkness of an evening arrival, only chunks of blurry neon told me where people lived.
Chris picked me up from the local metro station on his scooter - the two of us doubling on that little bike was reason for locals to comment and look again. Five minutes from the station, Chris opened the door and I found a home and a dog and a place to stay for a while.
I played tug-of-war with Toby, the white lab. He pulled and yanked and jerked the chew toy and galumphed to the corner where I threw it. He climbed onto the couch and stood over me to show that I wasn't winning, not really. He played in a way that the feral dogs of Asia never could.
I went out on the town with Chris and his Czech roommate and his roommate's friends. They lived in town and went to the local bars. They knew how to avoid tourist trap restaurants. They showed me how local ex-pats and Taiwanese lived.
Chris and I watched television shows and movies. North American humour got me laughing and the bright lights of Hollywood made sense to me.
I lived more like a real person here, not like someone who stayed for a while then moved on to see the next thing. I dropped my backpack in the back room and forgot about it.
This life didn't end with Taiwan; my next flight took me back to Hong Kong, where this whole thing had begun.
My best friend, Dennis, seemed determined to reintroduce me to the life of a working, settled person and, that first Saturday in town, he took me out to party with his co-workers on their weekend at the bars of Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai. We hit Balalaika with its bust of Lenin, its freezer room full of vodka and its fur coats; an Italian restaurant where Ravi, the bar manager, served me a waterfall shot, which nearly singed what remains of my hair; and Agave where we had margaritas better than I've had.
We talked about issues that matter to working people: politics, jobs, families. We avoided the standard, machine gun traveller questions of where-you-from, where-you-been, where-you-going. Well... I didn't avoid them but my point is that I got to talk about those other topics too. I didn't have to limit my conversation to one-word answers and lists. "Canada." "I've been to Mainland China, Vietnam, Cambodia." "I'm going to the rest of Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore." I was grateful to spend time with these civil servants.
As I chatted and laughed, I began to realize that the benefits of living a stable life in Taiwan and now in Hong Kong ran deeper than simple novelty. I would go back home in a handful of days to be faced with North American culture and more white people than I ever remembered being in one place. I would be faced with serious culture shock.
"It was harder for me going back to Canada," said Dennis of his own trip through South East Asia a few years ago. "Give yourself extra time to adjust."
Perhaps, though, spending time outside the transient world of a backpacker would save me the difficulty. Someone last night referred to Hong Kong as "a good departure point" at the end of Asia. This town is a hybrid of west and east. The crowds and open-air markets and Chairman Mao knick knacks remind me that I'm in Asia, but the caucasians in business suits and the almost limitless North American and European cuisine also give me a taste of home.
To start, Taiwan and Hong Kong were only meant to indulge a fancy for friends and the familiar. To end, they might have become essential to move me from the road to home.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
A Real Fine City
Air conditioning hits me full in the face as I enter a souvenir shop across from St. Andrew's Cathedral. I find the flag I'm looking for , but there's also a coffee mug that catches my attention. It reads "Singapore is a Real FINE Place."
The mug is blue and carries a list, pictures circled and crossed out in red, of the various offences in the city and their associated fines. No Spitting, $500; No Chewing Gum, $500, No Urinating in Lift, $500. Though there are more, these examples get to the heart of Singapore: it's a place that likes rules and order. One piece of tourist kitsch has summed up an entire municipal attitude.
At least they can laugh about it, I think to myself.
I leave the shop and get to thinking about what I'll find on my day's walk. My route goes through Chinatown, a place the world over that evokes very specific sights and sounds and smells. The clatter of humanity. The grunge of not enough time in the day. The stink of deregulation.
Will all of those things be there in a city where littering is punishable by a $500 fine? I catch the metro to get my answer.
Outside of Outram Park station, I turn onto Eu Tong Sen Street and know I'm in Chinatown. A big red arch with Chinese characters rests over the passing cars - that's about it. Otherwise, I am on a street like any other in Singapore. There are multiple lanes of traffic, office buildings and department store, coffee shops.
I find my way to the incongruously named Smith Street and think, this is better! Shops are crammed together and filled to overflowing. Red lanterns string their way overhead from one side of the traffic to the other.
Something, however, is still not quite Chinatown about this Chinatown. A monolithic office building stares across at the Chinese merchants; Oriental Plaza is just around the corner, full of niche clothing stores. I have yet to smell anything that requires me to re-straighten my nose hairs.
I duck into one of the shops, hoping. Lots of places in any other Chinatown - Hong Kong's, for instance - will have dried birds nests and snakes on sale, among other things. Not here. Vitamin C and Calcium are on offer in sterile glass cases. The place is brightly lit. Dinge is nowhere.
I keep walking. My feet take me to the pedestrian haunts of Trengganu and Pagoda Streets. The path between the stalls allows four or five people to pass and not once do I have to say, "excuse me" or use my elbows to get anywhere. Tables and chairs at restaurants do not have that ragged, abused look; they're all new and shiny. There are still no stinks to report.
I buy a pair of chopsticks and three silk ties just to say I got them in Singapore's Chinatown, then walk a few blocks and have a coffee in another crisp shopping mall. It's called China Square Central. The cappuccino is very good and I sip slowly, then catch the metro back up-town.
That night, I read about the area of town where I'm staying. Bugis Village, on Rochor Road near Victoria and New Bridge Streets, used to be full of "rowdy sailors... transvestites and prostitutes", which ran contrary to the country's image. The current version opened in 1991 and, along with the Bugis Junction Shopping Centre, provides a cleaner alternative, glistening and exact.
My next day takes me to Little India. At the shopping arcade, the first shop I see is 7-11. Despite the encouraging fog of incense from somewhere in the back, the floors are covered in bright linoleum and the walls give shops here a contained look. It is more of the same, a striking uniformity.
Thinking over everything later, I realize that citizens have had to adjust their way of living to meet a common expectation in Singapore. Business attire and casual street clothes walk the streets far more than head scarves and fezzes and saris. Shopping malls satisfy the public need to purchase and push little knick-knack corner stores to the sidelines. Singaporeans live in a world of polished commercial pursuit and urban cleanliness.
People here have conformed to the rules. The city - and its expectations - defines them; they do not define the city.
I'm not complaining. Services and amenities that meet Western standards are wonderful. Clean streets are great. I just wish they didn't come at the cost of being able to buy a bird's nest in Chinatown.
The mug is blue and carries a list, pictures circled and crossed out in red, of the various offences in the city and their associated fines. No Spitting, $500; No Chewing Gum, $500, No Urinating in Lift, $500. Though there are more, these examples get to the heart of Singapore: it's a place that likes rules and order. One piece of tourist kitsch has summed up an entire municipal attitude.
At least they can laugh about it, I think to myself.
I leave the shop and get to thinking about what I'll find on my day's walk. My route goes through Chinatown, a place the world over that evokes very specific sights and sounds and smells. The clatter of humanity. The grunge of not enough time in the day. The stink of deregulation.
Will all of those things be there in a city where littering is punishable by a $500 fine? I catch the metro to get my answer.
Outside of Outram Park station, I turn onto Eu Tong Sen Street and know I'm in Chinatown. A big red arch with Chinese characters rests over the passing cars - that's about it. Otherwise, I am on a street like any other in Singapore. There are multiple lanes of traffic, office buildings and department store, coffee shops.
I find my way to the incongruously named Smith Street and think, this is better! Shops are crammed together and filled to overflowing. Red lanterns string their way overhead from one side of the traffic to the other.
Something, however, is still not quite Chinatown about this Chinatown. A monolithic office building stares across at the Chinese merchants; Oriental Plaza is just around the corner, full of niche clothing stores. I have yet to smell anything that requires me to re-straighten my nose hairs.
I duck into one of the shops, hoping. Lots of places in any other Chinatown - Hong Kong's, for instance - will have dried birds nests and snakes on sale, among other things. Not here. Vitamin C and Calcium are on offer in sterile glass cases. The place is brightly lit. Dinge is nowhere.
I keep walking. My feet take me to the pedestrian haunts of Trengganu and Pagoda Streets. The path between the stalls allows four or five people to pass and not once do I have to say, "excuse me" or use my elbows to get anywhere. Tables and chairs at restaurants do not have that ragged, abused look; they're all new and shiny. There are still no stinks to report.
I buy a pair of chopsticks and three silk ties just to say I got them in Singapore's Chinatown, then walk a few blocks and have a coffee in another crisp shopping mall. It's called China Square Central. The cappuccino is very good and I sip slowly, then catch the metro back up-town.
That night, I read about the area of town where I'm staying. Bugis Village, on Rochor Road near Victoria and New Bridge Streets, used to be full of "rowdy sailors... transvestites and prostitutes", which ran contrary to the country's image. The current version opened in 1991 and, along with the Bugis Junction Shopping Centre, provides a cleaner alternative, glistening and exact.
My next day takes me to Little India. At the shopping arcade, the first shop I see is 7-11. Despite the encouraging fog of incense from somewhere in the back, the floors are covered in bright linoleum and the walls give shops here a contained look. It is more of the same, a striking uniformity.
Thinking over everything later, I realize that citizens have had to adjust their way of living to meet a common expectation in Singapore. Business attire and casual street clothes walk the streets far more than head scarves and fezzes and saris. Shopping malls satisfy the public need to purchase and push little knick-knack corner stores to the sidelines. Singaporeans live in a world of polished commercial pursuit and urban cleanliness.
People here have conformed to the rules. The city - and its expectations - defines them; they do not define the city.
I'm not complaining. Services and amenities that meet Western standards are wonderful. Clean streets are great. I just wish they didn't come at the cost of being able to buy a bird's nest in Chinatown.
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