hong kong
Canon DSLR falls in South China Sea
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 | Photos, posts | 1 Comment
So, our Canon 500DSLR has fallen in the South China Sea. It hit the water on Saturday, August 28, 2010 at around 5 or 6 p.m. Hong Kong time.
It was in my boyfriend’s backpack when he fell backward into the water as he tried to board a seadoo. The seadoo had suddenly lurched backward, carried up and back by strong, aggressive waves.
I was on the seadoo, my hand stretched out behind me, reaching for him when he fell backward. The seadoo was already revving its engine, ready to head toward a waiting yacht, 100 metres from the beach.
What was I doing on a seadoo? Why were we headed toward a yacht?
Let me tell you what happened. But first, some background so you can understand where I’m coming from…
I am not an outdoorsy girl.
I have always enjoyed being outdoors, exercising outdoors, and have even been an enthusiastic participant of such outdoor adventures like dragon boating, white water rafting (In Ottawa!), cave exploring, kayaking (In Hong Kong), and climbing up rather large mountains (all over China).
But I am not an outdoorsy girl. Really, I’m not.
It’s not originally me. I’m from Toronto. I live in the city. I used to spend my weekends at the mall. Sometimes, I’d go on road trips to LOOK at the outdoors. The trees and rolling Ontario hills were enjoyed from the comfort of my car. “Beautiful scenery! Lovely leaves! Oh, let’s roll down the window to get a closer look…”
But something changed when I lived in Beijing for a year. The people I hung out with loved doing crazy things outdoors. We hired drivers who brought us out to the rugged ruins of the Great Wall, hours away from the touristy hawkers where we crawled on our hands and knees over the wall’s rubble. We ventured into the Longjing Gorge and took great leaps of faith… and we climbed up as many mountains as we could (I was able to climb Huangshan, Changbaishan and Taishan) and down gorges (namely, the Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan) as far as our legs would carry us.
But let’s be honest here. I haven’t REALLY changed – have I? Because a large part of the motivation to do such things came from the people I surrounded myself with. When in Rome… The experience of overcoming such challenges, of pushing my physical limits, was exhilirating when I did it with the group. Alone, I fear I lose my outdoorsy spirit and I retreat to the malls.
In Hong Kong, the boyfriend has worked on getting me back outside, with nature, in the sun and heat, on the mountains and on the beaches, next to the trees and the wildlife. It has not been an easy transition.
Kayaking in Sai Kung with friends
Hong Kong is one of those places where there’s a crazy metropolis, buzzing with life at all hours of the day. You can get anything in this city – everything Chinese and everything Western – and you can also hop on a bus or a boat and in about an hour, you’ll find yourself facing some of the most stunning views of the South China Sea – blue-green water, lush mountains, sun and sand. In a word, it is truly awesome. And, I’ve enjoyed my time in the Hong Kong wilderness these months. I’ve hiked on the outlying islands, Lamma and Cheung Chau, and I’ve spent some time in Sai Kung, a 12,600 hectare country park north-east of Hong Kong Island.
This weekend, a friend joined the boyfriend and I for another hike. This time we set off for the deserted beaches deep in Sai Kung country park – and that, my friends, is the scene of the crime, the place where our Canon DSLR fell into the water.
We started our hike a little late in the day – which isn’t a good idea, considering we were headed deep into the park. But we wanted to sleep in and we wanted to have our dim sum breakfast. Aiya.
For those of you interested in taking this hike, here are the details…
Get to Diamond Hill subway station — take bus 92 to Sai Kung — At Sai Kung, take bus 94 into the park to Wong Shek Pier.
At the Pier, you can either hire a speed boat ($120 HKD one way) or wait for the slow ferry that will take another 45 minutes at least to get you to Chek Keng.
From Chek Keng, you’re supposed to follow the Maclehose Trail eastwards. Here’s where things went wrong for us. We reached the Maclehose Trail in good time, but the trail is a circuit. We could go west or east (left or right) and we asked some hikers on the trail which way to Tailongwan (Big Wave Bay). We were told to go left. This, I believe, was bad intel.
The path is supposed to climb the side of a valley, to a ridge where you can rest, and look out across the natural amphitheatre centred on Tai Long Wan. The path then winds down, to the hamlet of Tai Long, after which it’s an easy walk to Ham Tin, beside the southernmost beach.
Instead, we climbed up a mountain for about an hour, sweating and swiping at mosquitos. We couldn’t see the beach, but we pressed on. Hikers coming towards us assured us the beach was up ahead.
We finally began our descent and after more than 30 minutes, we reached a village! We were greeted by a beautiful blue wave painted on the wall of a village building. “Surf’s Up!” it read. But when we turned the corner, this is what we saw:
The village was deserted. The houses were boarded up. Stores were shuttered. Where was the beach?
We saw two paths. One went into the woods with no clear foot path. The other, blocked by 5 dogs sleeping lazily in the heat. If there are dogs, then there are people, right? We called out to see if anyone was around. No response. We took a few slow steps towards the dogs, inching forward. Then, we heard a low belly growwwwwl and two dogs suddenly stood up, ears perky, those little faces staring us down. (I would put a picture here, but there was no time to take one, you see.)
Okay, we thought, back away slowly. Slowly. Slowly. Anddddd TURN AND RUN.
We had no choice but to run the other way, into the woods. There was no path, but we couldn’t turn back and head the way we came. It was getting late and we would be hiking the mountain in the dark. We tried thinking where we had gone astray – we didn’t miss a turn, there was only one route here. We didn’t realize that we had turned west instead of east at the very beginning of the trail. Besides, it was too late to go back even if we did realize it at the time. So we went further and further into the woods, balancing over swampy grounds on makeshift bridges, navigating over rocks and massive, protruding tree roots. I let my emotions and fears get the best of me and inside, I was freaking out.
We could hear the buzz of speedboats in the distance, but we continued on for an hour through the woods, and still no beach.
“I’m scared,” I said out loud, but scared didn’t help. Finally, finally, FINALLY after about a total of 3 hours hiking we emerged and saw this:
We were on Tai Long Dong Wan, one of Sai Kung’s deserted beaches, one of the beaches we had planned to visit that day, but not via the route we took. The boys were enjoying the views, but I could not. All I could think about was how we were going to go home. I didn’t see any speedboats — just yachts. What to do?
Get on a yacht, of course.
I saw a man and his children playing on the beach. I approached him. “We were chased by dogs,” I said. “We’ve been hiking for hours. Do you know if there are speed boats here we can rent?” He said he didn’t see any speed boats….there was a bit of a silence…. and then:
“You can get a ride back to the pier with us.”
That is how I ended up on the sea doo. That is why the boyfriend was also trying to get on, when a strong wave knocked him back. That is how water got into the backpack and into the camera body and our lens (a Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM).
The really good news is that the camera still turns on, but the sensor cleaner is on a continuous cycle in an attempt to clean the body. Even when we turn the camera off, there is a constant click click click. There’s also water droplets visible in the lens.
Canon will call this week with a quote on repairs. Let’s hope the damage won’t break the bank.
Lessons learned?
1) Carry a compass. Or, get a handy GPS for hiking trails. Anyone have one of those?
2) Start earlier in the day.
3) Get a water proof bag for the DSLR, even if it’s in the backpack. Any suggestions on where and what kind of bag to get?
HK anger over tourists killed by gunman in Manila
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 | posts | No Comments
I’ve been on Hong Thai tours before, to mainland China and to Thailand. It’s a reputable company that runs decent, affordable tours to many locations in South East Asia. So when I turned on Al Jazeera last night and saw live footage of a Hong Thai bus on the screen, like many Hong Kong people I thought “that easily could have been me.”
A disgruntled ex-policeman, who had lost his job, armed himself with an M-16 assault rifle hijacked a bus carrying 25 people, mostly Hong Kong tourists. A In the end, after a 12-hour stand off with police, eight people were dead.
There’s a lot of anger here, with most of the local media calling the Filipino police incompetent.
There has been extensive, heart breaking coverage on Hong Kong’s cable news stations showing interviews with a victim identified as “Mrs. Leung” who was able to get off the bus alive. Sadly, her husband and two daughters ages 14 and 21 were killed. Her 18-year-old son was in intensive care in Manila.
“The Philippine government … I can’t accept this. Why did they do this to us?” she said.
“[The gunman] did not want to kill us. He only shot us after the negotiations failed,” she said, sobbing.
Leung, who had immigrated to Canada according to HK news agencies, described how she had stayed down in her seat, pretending to be dead. Her husband was already shot, lying on the floor next to her, and she thought about getting up from her seat and dying with him.
But, she said, “I thought about my daughters and if we were both gone, who would take care of them?”
She didn’t know at the time that her daughters had also been hit by bullets.
It’s seriously breaking my heart.
The Hong Kong Economic Journal criticised the Philippine police for not being able to get into the bus even after breaking windows and storming it.
“Their appalling professional standards and the lack of strategic planning made observers both angry and sad. This tragedy could have been avoided,” the paper said.
Both the Manila police commander Leocadio Santiago and President Benigno Aquino admitted mistakes had been made.
“We saw some obvious shortcomings in terms of capability and tactics used, or the procedure employed and we are now going to investigate this,” Santiago said on local television.
“There are a lot of things (that) resulted in a tragedy. Obviously we should be improving,” said Aquino, who took office less than two months ago.
One of the problems he emphasised was the way the crisis played out through the media, with the gunman allowed to speak on radio and watch events live on the bus’s television, giving him insights into police actions.
Here’s the latest from the AP.
Cockroaches
Thursday, August 5th, 2010 | posts | 4 Comments
I keep a very clean apartment, especially since I’m working from home a lot. But last week, we saw our very first cockroach in the kitchen when the boyfriend’s parents came to visit. (What a time to make an appearance, seriously!) And then we saw another, running across our kitchen table.
And then another between the kitchen and the guest bedroom.
And then another in the guest bedroom last night.
!!!!!
They come out in the evenings when we’re out and this week I’ve been coming home this way: opening the door very quietly…..AND THEN TURNING ON ALL THE LIGHTS IN A FLURRY, SCREAMING AND YELLING “COCKROACH! COCKROACH!” AS I RUN THROUGH THE APARTMENT LOOKING FOR THEM.
Enough.
Today I went to the store.
But where did these roaches come from?
Our apartment is new and we rarely open windows during this summer heat.
I did some investigating and found out that the boyfriend had left the windows open that same Wednesday when his parents arrived. (It’s not his fault. Repeat, it’s not his fault.) They must have come through the window that night. The security guard downstairs also told us that the very same night a new resident moved in upstairs. It’s possible the roaches were stirring during the big move and migrated to our apartment during that time.
It’s not uncommon to have cockroaches in Hong Kong. But it’s something I’m not used to. Let’s see if this stuff from the store works. :/
My latest on the rise of female smokers in China
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 | posts | No Comments
This story appeared this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Affluence prompts more women in China to light up
 |
| A female smoker browses a wide array of cigarettes and lighters on sale on a Beijing street.
Photo credit: Kevin Lee |
There is a smoking room in Zhang Pei Pei’s office in Beijing, China.
At any time of the day, men crowd the small space, lighting up and puffing away until they’re enveloped in a thick, cloudy haze.
But when Zhang has a craving for one of 10 cigarettes she’ll smoke each day, she doesn’t join her male colleagues. “There’s not one woman in there,” she says. “If I went in there, the men might not be too happy.”
Instead, she treks outside to light up, and if she looks left or right, will typically see other women doing the same.
It is becoming an increasingly common sight in China.
In a country of 350 million smokers, more than 60% of men, and 4% of women, are smokers.
But the latter percentage is set to rise, say experts at the World Health Organization. They estimate that 20% of women worldwide will be smokers by 2025, as compared with the 12% who smoke today.
Chinese health experts say the trend is exacerbated in China because of the country’s new affluence, which has brought about rapid economic, social and cultural change, particularly in cities and booming coastal regions.
But there’s been a simultaneous public health toll in terms of soaring incidence in obesity, diabetes, hypertension, lung and breast cancer, and cardiovascular disease rates. The Chinese are consuming more fat, more sugar and more salt.
And more tobacco.
China is already the world’s biggest consumer and producer of cigarettes, manufacturing 2.2 trillion smokes every year.
But women have traditionally shied away from smoking, largely because of cultural taboos.
No more.
“Women are becoming more independent. They’ve got more money. They listen less to their parents and teachers,” says Dr. Judith Mackay, a senior WHO policy advisor who has led anti-smoking campaigns across Asia. “It’s the right culture for the introduction of thinking wrongly, thinking that smoking is associated with emancipation. We have to make them realize it’s addictive. It is a [form of] bondage.”
In a bid to tap the female market, tobacco companies have started using colourful packaging and marketing long, slender and flavoured cigarettes labelled “low-tar” or “light.”
To the chagrin of her parents, Zhang began smoking five years ago because she was curious and indulging in a quasi-taboo activity seemed fun and exciting.
Menthol-flavoured cigarettes helped clear her mind and smoking quickly grew into a daily habit as a result of stresses at her job in the information technology industry.
“I started pulling a lot of overtime,” she says. “Smoking is a way for me to vent. It’s like all the pressure comes out of me, along with the smoke. It’s a great feeling of freedom to know I can do this.”
According to the tobacco control office of China’s Centre for Disease Control, that feeling of freedom is costly: more than one million Chinese people die annually from tobacco-related illnesses, about one quarter of all smoking-related deaths worldwide. By 2020, the WHO estimates that toll could climb to 3 million.
“You can look at swine flu or SARS, but it’s clear nothing kills like tobacco does,” Mackay says. “It’s not like a mine collapse or a road accident where people are killed immediately and there’s a national response to it. This is a long term disease and there should be a national response to this, too.”
The Chinese government is taking tentative steps. It has banned tobacco-advertising on television and radio (but not billboards), while adding health warnings to cigarette packaging. Smoking was prohibited at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and at the World Expo in Shanghai. More than 200 million reminbi (roughly $30 million) worth of Expo-related donations from tobacco companies were returned after the nongovernmental Chinese Association on Tobacco Control pressed for the organizing committee to honour its promise of hosting a “smoke-free” event.
China was a signatory to the 2003 UN Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which obliges it to ban all tobacco advertising and smoking in all public places, while raising tobacco taxes, before January 2011.
But few believe those goals will be realized, including government officials.
“There’s a very long road ahead of us,” says Jiang Yuan, vice-director of the Centre for Disease Control’s tobacco control office. He adds that regulations banning smoking in indoor public spaces have only been adopted in seven provincial capitals.
There’s no way a prohibition will be achieved by 2011, adds Xu Guihua, vice-president of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control. “This goal needs related national laws and regulations. The result of China’s tobacco control and its progress highly depends on the Chinese government’s attitude and determination.”
That attitude may be predicated on a conflict-of-interest: China’s largest tobacco company is state-owned. Critics say that has prevented the government from raising prices. A 2009 tax increase was modest and absorbed entirely by the industry. A package of cigarettes now retails for as little as $1.50 in Beijing and Shanghai.
Nonsmoking campaigns appear the government’s preferred option, including a special appeal to women made during the release of the China Center for Disease Control’s annual tobacco report, which warned of the increased danger of developing tobacco-related illnesses and appealed to a woman’s cosmetic sense by asserting that smoking will bring on early signs of aging and damage the skin and teeth.
The report also cited data linking smoking to low fertility rates, miscarriages and infant deformities, noting that a survey of 1300 families indicated that 47.9% of pregnant women are exposed to second-hand smoke.
Those kinds of nonsmoking pitches may eventually sway the 30-year Zhang, who hopes to one day have a child. “But that time hasn’t come yet,” she says. “I want a healthy baby. So when it’s time, I will quit smoking for the child. It might not be easy, but it’s an important enough reason to try.”
HK Gvt to World Cup Fans: Consume snacks only when you are hungry. Do not snack for the sake of snacking.
Monday, June 14th, 2010 | posts | 1 Comment
The World Cup is usually a big deal pretty much anywhere outside of North America, where most friends are currently preoccupied with the NBA Finals.
In Hong Kong, an hour before World Cup games are to start, you’ll find locals hauling beer cases and bags of potato chips home from the local supermarkets.
For me, when you’re spending lots of time with Dutch and Swedish friends, the World Cup is all the more important.
Last week I watched the opening match between South Africa and Mexico, at a big event with about 80 Hong Kong football fans. Last night, I was in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s party-pub district, for the Holland-Denmark game. We were, of course, cheering for Orange. (The Dutchies won 2-0).
And apparently, we were also disregarding the Hong Kong government’s warnings for a healthy World Cup championship.
The government recently released this special World Cup announcement:
A spokesman for the Department of Health (DH) said today (June 10) that even though crispy snacks (such as potato chips and fried food) and alcoholic beverages could add to the World Cup festivity, it is important to maintain healthy eating, get sufficient sleep, avoid tobacco or excessive alcohol, and stay within the law in terms of the smoking ban.
It continues on to list bullet point tips on how to stay healthy during the World Cup. This was the best one:
Consume snacks only when you are hungry. Do not snack for the sake of snacking.
And more:
* Stretch and move around while watching the matches.
* Sit properly while watching the soccer match to avoid muscle aches afterwards.
* Strike a balance between watching matches and fulfilling your social commitments.
Filipino Nannies – second-class citizens in Hong Kong
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 | posts | 4 Comments
Her eyes were blood shot. She was heaving big breaths, her shoulders were shaking. Clenched in her hand was a wet, used tissue.
“I didn’t expect Hong Kong would be like this,” she told the judge.
“This” was to be a place where she could find work, make some money, and send that money home to the Philippines. “This” was supposed to be a safe place.
The woman was a foreign domestic helper, a nanny, who had recently filed charges against her employer for assault and attempted rape.
She was called to be a witness in the case, and today was the second day of cross-examination.
Her former employer’s defense lawyer exhaustively went over previous statements and testimonies to point out discrepancies in her recounting of the events.
Foreign domestic helpers, mostly from the Phillippines, Indonesia and Thailand, spread out across Hong Kong's public spaces on Sunday, their day off.
In this Hong Kong courtroom, interpreters murmured translations simultaneously. Beside the nanny, sat a woman who spoke Tagalog and English, and beside the nanny’s former employer, a man repeated the court’s proceedings rapidly in Cantonese.
There are approximately 140,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong. Most of them are domestic helpers, maids and nannies, who make the move to Hong Kong for a higher salary than they could ever make at home.
That salary is a minimum of $3,580 Hong Kong Dollars a month, about $460 USD.
The foreign domestic helpers must live-in with their employers. If, for whatever reason, a helper’s employment is terminated, she must find another job within two weeks or leave Hong Kong.
Advocates for migrant workers claim this is a form of discrimination, since this rule is not enforced on other foreign workers. Such a limitation, they argue, essentially silences many migrant workers who suffer abuse at the hands of their employers, but are too frightened to come forward because they don’t want to lose their jobs.
Once, during dinner with some family friends, I observed the way a domestic helper is treated in the home. The helper was responsible for taking care of an 8-month old baby in the house. And even though the helper will hold the baby, feed the baby, play with the baby, she is invisible. During dinner, she ate her food in the kitchen while the rest of us ate at a table in the living room.
I suppose, if you’ve hired help, you are paying a domestic helper for a service. You are not paying her to become a part of the family.
But for many families in Hong Kong, I think it’s easy for them to forget that these helpers are human beings.
This is a city where dog strollers are abundant; where volunteers take to the street daily to ask for a donation in the name of animal rights; and where ads in subway stations Photoshop cats and dogs so they are standing upright, and a caption in Chinese reminds us that “animals have rights, too.”
Sure. But what about the rights of domestic helpers? This issue is not in the minds of most Hong Kong people.
In 2008, the Mission For Migrant Workers handled an average of four clients a month who had filed physical or sexual assault complaints with the police.
There aren’t a lot of charities advocating for the rights of these people, but next week, I’ll be visiting Bethune House, a shelter for battered foreign domestic helpers.
Low Voter Turnout in Hong Kong Spurs Government Propaganda, Calls to Trust Constitutional Plan in 2012
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 | posts | 1 Comment
I just saw this commercial on the television today.
My jaw dropped because I really had no idea what the ad was about, until the very end. Take a look.
Government propaganda.
The ad was released this week, just a day after a failed by-election here in Hong Kong, in which five legislators asked the city’s residents to show their support for democratic reform.
There was a lot of noise as they campaigned on the streets, shouting into megaphones, handing out leaflets, and canvassing at dim sum restaurants in the morning hours.
Alas, there was not a lot of voting going on.
Just 17% of Hong Kong’s eligible voters came out, less than 600,000 people.
It was enough to get the five legislators, who hail from two pro-democracy parties, voted back into the Legislative Council.
But what a disappointment.
You can call it voter apathy, but to me, this is the latest example of how Hong Kong residents are becoming more complacent and too comfortable with the decisions made by Hong Kong officials in line with the mainland Chinese government.
As long as Hong Kong continues to have a steady economy, stronger political ties to China and the steady disintegration of civil liberties is fine by most.
It was also extremely disappointing that Hong Kong’s chief executive, Donald Tsang, made it a point not to vote in the by election. He stayed at home all day as a small group of the movement’s supporters rallied outside the estate.
The by election was co-ordinated. The five legislators had who stepped down from their elected positions in January, forcing a referendum. They called it a symbolic push for “electoral reform.”
Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, a member of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee told the Hong Kong Standard that the low turnout was a vote against confrontation:
“I think this should be something that all the politicians should think about. The end does not justify the means. … In Hong Kong, if you want to fight for democracy, you must use the right means, then the people will be with you.”
Of course, the organizers of the movement, hailed it a victory.
Audrey Eu, a spokesperson and one of the organizers of the movement, compared the voter turnout to the July 1 rally of 2003 when 500,000 marchers took to the streets to protest Article 23.
The Hong Kong government cannot ignore the result, she said.
But I think they can.
The five legislators and their supporters are protesting the government’s “constitutional plan” for 2012. Hong Kong officials have hailed the plan as a means to broaden the scope of political participation and incase democratic elements in the 2012 elections.
But members of the Democratic Party say otherwise. They argue the plan fails to bring in dual universal suffrage — for the elections of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive — by 2012. They have demanded that the functional constituencies — a professional or special interest group involved in the electoral process — be abolished.
Eligible voters in a functional constituency may include persons as well as other designated legal entities such as organizations and corporations.
Al Jazeera has a succint video report on this:
…And a short but interesting exchange on comments on Youtube regarding the vote:
One Hong Kong resident seems to heed the government’s call to “trust” in them:
to say that I m disappointed at this demorcatic movement! We never had DEMOcracy UNDER British occupation! & I do not think imposing western system which is still at its infancy, to an ancient civilization like the Chinese would ever work! 5000 years of ups & downs, from dynasties to the cultural rev’ then Tian’men! China is a seasoned veteran in politics, policy & systems! I believe China is heading in the right direction & I have faith in it’s governing!
While another resident expresses disappointment:
i am born in Hong kong, the low voters turnout is a disappointment. For shame. the Chinese communist government is the biggest disgrace to Chinese people, i am proud of the 5000 years of Chinese history, the past 50 years, unfortuantely, we have not seen progresses in democracy, freedom and equality in China.
Brewing Chinese Medicine
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 | posts | 4 Comments
When you’re sick, do you go to see your Western doctor? Do you ride it out at home, in bed, under a blanket, with a book in one hand and a kleenex box in the other? Or do you seek out alternative medicine like acupuncture and naturopathy?
Can brewing herbs on your stove top help you recover faster than a bright orange Tylenol Cold pill?
Chinese medicine brewing on my stovetop
When I’m dealing with a cough and cold, I usually try to fight it on my own. I believe our immune systems should be given the chance to fight the viruses. This builds up your natural defenses. Reliance on pills and antibiotics can sometimes leave the body even weaker, even more susceptible to minor viruses.
While traditional Chinese medicine is considered an alternative practice in the West, here in Hong Kong, it is pretty mainstream. I’m not entirely convinced that it works. But I’m open to different approaches towards health.
Chinese medicine claims to be thousands of years old. It is rooted in the careful study of how nature, the cosmos, and the human body interact.
Western pills and antibiotics attack specifically what’s wrong with the body. If you have a cough and cold, Western medicine will deal with those symptoms. Chinese medicine, as I understand it, has a more holistic approach. Chinese doctors will see what’s wrong with your body overall. Usually, you’ve fallen sick because something in your body is out of balance. Traditional Chinese medicine works to balance your body out, bringing your body back in harmony with nature.
As you know, I was sick all weekend with a stuffy nose, sore throat, cough and lots of phlegm.
The lineup
So on Monday, I decided to seek out a famous Chinese doctor in my Kowloon neighborhood. A couple of locals had suggested we see him. His office, on a busy road not far from home, is in a Chinese herb store called 长城，which literally translates into “Long Wall” but is the name the Chinese use for “Great Wall” as in The Great Wall of China.
Dr. Chan sits at the back of this store. Not in a private room, but behind a desk, in clear view from the street. In front of him, a long line of patients wait every day for his counsel. From around 8:30 a.m. until around 9 at night, there is a line.
If it spills out on the street, as it often does, you’ll have to stand. But once inside the store, you can take a seat on a stool. Every 10 minutes or so, you’ll move up a seat, until you’re in front of Dr. Chan himself.
I waited an hour to see Dr. Chan on Monday morning.
When seeing a Chinese doctor, you don’t tell him your symptoms right away. You put your hand down, palm facing up, on a little cushion on his desk. He’ll lightly clasp your wrist and start telling you your symptoms.
“You are stuffed up. You’ve been having allergies,” he said to me.
“Yes, yes. Cough and cold,” I said. (I couldn’t help it. I was so eager to tell him what was wrong with me.)
“There’s a lot of dry fire in you,” he said. “You’ve been feeling bloated recently?”
“Yes, yes….”
“You’re not sleeping well.”
“That’s right… But it’s the phlegm that’s really bothering me. It’s green!”
“Yes, you’re very dry, clogged up. Let me see your tongue.”
[I stick out my tongue]
[The Doctor scribbles on a sheet of paper for a few minutes.]
And then, just like that, it was over.
I took his prescription and handed it over to the men behind the counter.
I had been watching them, for the last hour, putting together bundles of herbs for eager patients who handed over 100s of Hong Kong dollars at a time. The expensive items, showcased behind the counter, I recognized as ginseng, shark’s fin, bird’s nest, and dried sea horses. These things sold for thousands of American dollars and (minus ginseng) are not without controversy.
Using parts of endangered species like sea horses and sharks is fueling a black market in which poachers hunt these endangered species.
In Asia, a surging demand for shark fin soup among this continent’s booming middle class is driving many species to the brink of extinction. Last year, a report released at the U.N. found that up to 73 million sharks are killed each year, primarily for their fins.
60 minutes reported on this, acquiring gruesome footage in which sharks are literally being butchered alive. Writhing in pain and swimming in a gushing pool of its own blood, the shark’s fins are hacked off and then the fin-less shark is dumped back into ocean waters. The animal sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor where it dies.
Watch the report here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/06/60minutes/main1099368_page4.shtml
As for me, I wasn’t purchasing any shark fin. What went into my package, I don’t know, but the herbs were musky and looked like bundles of hay-like twigs, dried bark, and dried fruit peels…
It cost $225 Hong Kong dollars, about $30 USD.
When I got home, I followed the doctor’s instructions, which were specific to my needs. I received 3 package of herbs, one for each day.
1) Boil one package in 6 (rice) bowls of water in a pot on the stove top for about 50 minutes. Check at 30 minutes to make sure it hasn’t boiled dry. I boiled mine uncovered so that I wouldn’t have to drink so much of the stuff.
2) Discard herbs. Pour the soup into a bowl, let it cool a little, and then drink it. Don’t drink on an empty stomach. Best to drink it in the morning.
3) The store guys threw 5-6 Chinese candies in my bag; dried plums. I thought they were being nice. It turns out, you need to eat these candies while downing the soup, because it tastes pretty horrible.
The soup came out a dark, dark black. It was bitter and it smelled bad. But I gave it a shot. An update at the end of this week on whether it was effective or not.
The China Bug
Saturday, May 15th, 2010 | posts | 1 Comment
HONG KONG — I arrived safely back to Hong Kong Friday afternoon, after a week-long research trip in Zhejiang. I got a lot of work done. Met a lot of people, made a lot of contacts and learned so much. There’s still so much to do.
But before I continue, the first step is getting my health back.
I’m sick. It started off, like it always does, with a sore throat. Then sneezing. A stuffy nose followed. And then, the coughing.
It is truly amazing how strong the mind is. The symptoms began to surface last Monday, just days into my trip. But I surpressed them. There was just too much work to be done and I didn’t have time to have my body fail me. Tylenol Cold pills kept my runny nose and sore throat at bay as I went out for interviews.
On Friday, after getting to the Wenzhou airport for my flight home, I began to let my guard down and my symptoms, like a sudden hail storm, hit me hard. The worst part is the green chunks of phlegm I’ve been coughing up.
Every time I go to mainland China, I get sick. In Beijing, I put off going to see the doctor, thinking I could fight a simple cough and cold on my own. It got so bad that I developed bronchitis and had to go to the local hospital. Not something I want to repeat.
I can’t say what it is that got me sick. Was it the busy schedule? The pressure I put on myself to get the story? The air? The garbage? The wholewheat/handsanitizer/toocleanforChina Canadian in me? I’m just not used to it, I suppose.
The next trip will be better. For now, sanitized Hong Kong is very much a relief for me.
And oh, there’s plenty of quality whole wheat bread to be found here. You’ve just got to pay 22 -30 Hong Kong dollars (about $3-$5 USD) for it.
A visit to Hong Kong’s Long Island
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 | posts | 4 Comments
It’s no secret that Hong Kong is smoggy and polluted. One look out my window every morning and I can tell how bad the air is for the day. Never mind the 14 stations that are part of the air quality monitoring network set up by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department. More often than not, it’s grey out there and that’s my clue to keep the windows shut and to bring a scarf with me when I head out.
So, as I establish new routines here in this city, I’ve decided hiking on weekends will be a weekly exercise. There must be clear skies and fresh air to be found along Hong Kong’s coastlines and on the surrounding islands south and southwest of Central Hong Kong.
This past weekend, I visited the small island of Cheung Chao – 长洲 – just 12 km (40 minute ferry ride) from Hong Kong. The name literally means “Long Island.”
The Cheung Chao village is sandwiched in between coastal hills at both the northern and southern ends of the island. In 2007, according to government documents, there were over 23,000 people living there.
But like many of the outlying islands, Cheung Chao wasn’t always so populous. It was once a small, sleepy fishing village and a pirate’s cove – a place with renegades of the South China Sea could stash their booty. In the late 1800s, the fishing industry boomed. Trade and commerce picked up, and there was much to fish for. More recently, the island has become an attraction for tourists and Hong Kongers looking for some fresh air.
Stepping off the ferry dock on a Saturday afternoon, I was a bit surprised. First, by the modern conveniences available to visitors just steps from the boat: A Park and Shop grocery store and an HSBC ATM machine. !!!
And then, by the funeral procession that began.
I turned around, startled by the sound of a wailing oboe. And then, family members of the deceased came off the ferry all dressed in white. White, as opposed to black, is the colour of mourning in Chinese culture.
Apparently, a traditional Chinese funeral requires that immediate members of the family wear cheap, un-dyed white clothes; white shirts and pants for the men and white skirts for the women. Over the clothes, family must an outer garment made of thin, hemp sack cloth. The women must wear one corner of the sack like a hood. Men usually put on white headbands.
The clothing is the manifestation of poverty to symbolize that the family has sold everything to pay for an elaborate funeral.
Whether it was because the deceased was originally from Cheung Chao, or not, I’m not sure. But the island definitely has good feng shui 风水. It’s really important to the Chinese that their dead are buried in a comfortable place. On the hike, we noticed a small grave on the hillside facing the ocean. Indeed a nice place to be at rest.
* * *
After observing the procession for a few minutes, we entered the village square, where I noticed a long line up for the island’s famous fish ball. Of course, we had to have some.
Juicy, flavorful and cheap!!! Just about $1 USD for a skewer.
Further into the village, there was plenty of food for sampling. We headed toward the beach and ended up eating our way over there.
The beachfront was small, but clean and sandy.
We passed by this ancient stone carving that’s said to be over 3,000 years old. Its not known who made these drawings. Archaeologists believe the images might be sea monsters.
The fishermen in Cheung Chao and Hong Kong’s surrounding islands were and have continued to be superstitious about the sea’s powerful waves.
There are temples scattered around Cheung Chao paying tribute to various deities.
This was all fascinating, but we wanted to see those powerful waves that those fishermen so feared. From the beach, it was a 20 minute uphill climb through a forest of green trees.
The air smelled of flowers and grass and the sea.
Finally, we stood on a plateau of red granite to see this:
We spent much time staring out into the sea, listening to the mantra of crashing waves along the coastline, and even sat down for some meditation. A few months ago, back in my New York apartment, I was able to feel vibrations coming from what I believe to be my third eye. I have not been able to duplicate the experience, until Saturday, when I sat down on a Cheung Chao cliff side overlooking the green waters.
All that meditation made us hungry.
So, we made our way back down and ended up in a labyrinth of alleyways where the locals of Cheung Chao live. It was dinner time and we could smell stir fried vegetables and the pungent aroma of shrimp paste – an island specialty – being added to the flaming woks.
We peeked through windows to see flat screen televisions, modern tiled kitchens, people lazing on sofas and outrageously spoiled pets – something I’ve noticed to the extreme in Hong Kong…ah, a subject for an upcoming post for sure!
And then, before we knew it, the labyrinth ended and we were out by the docks again. This time, we followed the sounds of clanging dishes. It was dinner time and fresh seafood was screaming “Eat Me!”
So we did.
At the end of May, Cheung Chao’s famous “bun festival” begins. It’s a religious festival, marked by ceremonious prayers and processions that are supposed to bring health, wealth and happiness to the island. What’s great about living in a city like Hong Kong is that such religious festivals survived under British rule, whereas many such practices were banned and lost during the Cultural Revolution in mainland China.
The part of the festival involving the buns is one of the most popular and secular activity, however. The Bun contest not only involves the eating of white, fluffy sweet buns, but also a great physical demonstration in which contestants scramble up towers to grab the topmost bun.
Why do they do this? Well, like many Chinese traditions, this is supposed to bring good luck. The winner is especially blessed with good fortune for the year.
Not so in 1978. Apparently, the bun contest got a little out of hand more than 30 years ago when a tower collapsed injuring over 100 people. The Hong Kong Government banned the contest after that, but after much lobbying by the festival organizers, the festival got a reboot in 2005 provided the towers were supported by metal scaffolds and that participants used safety harnesses.
I’ll have return to Cheung Chao to witness this myself in a month’s time.
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suzannebma[at]gmail[dot]com
Suzanne Ma is a multimedia reporter
currently based in Hong Kong.
She is the recipient of
the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship.
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