Batgung - Uniquely Hong Kong

A Performance Enjoyed By All

Mr Tall — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0000

If you’re new to Hong Kong, you may have noticed that just about every Hong Kong kid seems to take music/art lessons. But most don’t take them at school, or at individual instructors’ homes or studios. Instead, their parents sign them up at for-profit organizations that serve as venues/clearinghouses for piano, singing, drawing and drama teachers to practice their necromancy – uh, I mean to apply their talents in passing along our civilization’s cultural heritage to today’s youth.

But since most of these businesses are shoehorned into small shop spaces and the odd corners of big housing estates, they have no grand halls sufficiently lavish to display the glories of their young clients’ gifts. Many of them therefore rent spaces to hold once-a-year American Idol-like free-for-alls in which each and every kid gets a chance to get up there and face down the spotlight. For example, Daughter Tall’s arts tutorial center has for the past couple of years booked the musty little hall deep in the basement of the Hong Kong Arts Centre.

The programs themselves are part church Christmas pageant, part talent show, part (semi) formal recital, and part unholy chaos, as we shall see . . . .

Allow me to share with you some of the highlights of Daughter Tall’s center’s showcase, which we attended last week:

The Not-So-Little Drummer Boy, whose exertions on the skins clearly had not been sufficient to work off all of those Twinkies. His performance was puzzling. An obviously studio-produced song was played on the auditorium sound system, and he just kind of drummed along. Isn’t the point of a drummer (other than to beat up hoodlums who rush the stage, a la ‘The Commitments’) to set down the beat himself? Oh well, at least the song in question was a competently-executed if anodyne cover by what seemed to be a British (!?) blues band, so it was not especially painful.

A song 'performed' by a choir of the tiniest tots, i.e. the just-turned three-years-old set. Not much singing went on (none, come to think of it) but occasional hand motions were made. This gig featured the whole range of stock behavior one expects, and frankly loves to see, from kids in their first performance: one kid crying his eyes out, another lifting her dress over her head, one spending the whole performance waving to Mommy in the audience, another wandering off the side of the stage and being hustled back into place by Teacher, and so on.

A violin rendition of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ identifiable only by the title in the program. Come to think of it, the poor boy playing it might well have been trying out a wholly different song. His accompanist, one of the arts centre’s employees, clearly suspected this was the case, evidenced by the glares of deep frustration and badly-disguised contempt she directed at our soloist throughout this number. Let’s just say she did not appear to be the model of patience and long-suffering one desires in a children’s music teacher . . . .

Long sets of beginner piano students playing their recital pieces. Not much need be said here, except that these miniature Lang Langs are awfully cute when they pop up and do their lavish bows after finishing their pieces. At least their teachers get that part down pat!

A ‘drama’ with environmental overtones. Not only did Daughter Tall have a big speaking part, as the oldest child involved she was granted the privilege of holding the single available microphone, and of shoving it into the faces of the tots responsible for the remaining lines in the play. All went well at first, with Daughter Tall demonstrating only a mild tendency to jerk the instrument away from others (and back to herself) just before they’d been able to finish off their bits. This rough equilibrium deteriorated, however, during the drama’s climax – a song about trees, or perhaps bunnies – during which Daughter Tall took upon herself both sole possession of the microphone, and the heavy burden of Singing Leader, culminating in the song’s final extended high note, which Daughter Tall screeched into the mike in the style of a six-year-old female Tom Jones. The audience went wild, but as her father, I can’t say this was an unmixed blessing.

The program ended with all participants lining up on the stage for a rousing rendition of ‘We Are the World’. After the first couple of bars, however, the kids threw off the shackles of bourgeois etiquette and began energetically pursuing a mass expression of civil unrest. The ringleader of the vanguard (her father notes with a heavy sigh) was again Daughter Tall, and a fervent revolutionary urge to liberate the microphone from the hegemony of the running dogs of fair sharing was again the historically deterministic cause underlying the assault on the rotting moral superstructure, if you know what I mean. Ah, well. We got some good video.

As the song ended, but the rioting carried on with no decrease in intensity, parents organized themselves into search-and-rescue parties and stormed the stage to reclaim their offspring, and smiles and head-patting ensued – until next year’s extravaganza, that is.

The kicker for these programs is that parents must not only sacrifice several valuable hours of their lives and spend them witnessing the desecration of the flowers of human culture, they have to pay for the privilege. Renting that hall isn’t free, and given that there’s certain to be a captive audience of parents and other relatives, a rather shocking three-digit/ticket price is charged. I suspect it ends up being a nice little earner for the arts tutorial center.

Hong Kong parents: any similar tales of your own? I guarantee you a sympathetic ear, assuming mine still function after last week . . . .

A love letter to Hong Kong air travel

Mr Tall — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:00:00 +0000

I will warn you: this whole article is a cliché: US air travel bad; Asian air travel good. Those of you who have traveled in both hemispheres will know all about this, and no doubt have your own stories, but I can’t resist telling mine.

The Talls made a recent trip back to my ancestral homeland, i.e. the USA. Horrified by the recent surge in air ticket prices, Mrs Tall got us an itinerary for a sum that seemed, if not reasonable, at least not obscene. The only hitch: it required us to fly on a USA-based airline that has never been my favorite carrier. But given the price, and the convenience of the connections (they were good; I can’t deny), we went ahead and booked it.

Well, we arrived more or less intact at our destinations, and so did our luggage. If I were a bigger man, I suppose I might accept the airline’s managing to achieve this baseline of basic competency, and leave it at that. But to overturn the aphorism, Hell is in the details, isn’t it?

On only two legs of our six-flight itinerary were the Tall family seated together. The low point was a truly Kafkaesque episode on one domestic segment, in which the three of us were assigned three totally separate seats. Upon being issued this set of boarding passes at our gate (did you think we really could get our seats before that, even at check-in?), I pointed out to the gate agent that Daughter Tall is in fact just five years old, and that everyone might be happier if she could sit next to at least one of her parents. This charming exemplar of customer service snarled back ‘What, you think that’s my problem? How am I supposed to know she’s five?’ Whereupon Mrs Tall supplied, with some vehemence, our tickets, gate clearance documents, and so on, all of which included prominent advisories of Daughter Tall’s minor status, in huge type, bold face, boxed text in bright red, etc. We did eventually get a couple seats together, but really.

I’m determined not to allow this to turn into just another anti-airline rant – oh, what the heck, how about just a little more? The leg room on this airline’s transpacific airliners was the worst I have experienced, and that’s saying something. Check-ins on the US side, apart from the seating issues, were chaotic and hostile. The US government had just issued a new regulation limiting all bags to a maximum of 50 pounds, and at one airport (the same one as above, actually) the airline had situated a kind of battle droid of weight enforcement, complete with her very own scale, about halfway along the check-in line. She was weighing every bag, and dispatching passengers who were over the limit to the back of the line with send-offs such as ‘You wanna pay a hunnerd bucks for that? You wanna? Huh? Then get to back of the line and get your weight down!’ Note that this is more or less a verbatim quotation; and no mere text can convey the hostility and contempt in her tone of voice. People were being humiliated, not just annoyed.

But our problems were as nothing in comparison with three other incidents I’ll relate, all involving this same airline:

The gentleman sitting next to me on the Hong Kong-->USA leg of our recent trip looked even grumpier than me. We started talking, and I found out why. This entrepreneurial fellow lives in the USA, and runs several businesses that source products from factories in Guangdong. He travels to Hong Kong monthly, on this same airline, always traveling business class, so he must have super-platinum-wonder-customer status. He had booked a business class seat that day, just as always. And he had been bumped down to economy because business class had been overbooked. I’d never before heard of an airline treating one of its most valued and profitable customers like this.

My sister and her husband are moving from one state to another in the USA this month. A few weeks ago, they intended to make a short trip to their new city to track down short- to medium-term housing. Their original flight was canceled. They then boarded their next assigned flight, sat on the runway for an hour, only to find out the plane had mechanical trouble, canceling that flight, too. And their next flight (which was by now on the next day)? Canceled. They never made the trip, and ended up renting an apartment online.

We had a visit from a college friend and his family earlier this month. They also had chosen our now-favorite and famous airline. They turned up in HK a day later than expected. Why? They had gone to the airport to check in for their trip to HK in good time. They discovered, unbeknownst to them, that the airline had moved up the time of the initial leg of their itinerary by a significant margin. Still, they should have been all right, even after standing in the usual long check-in line. But they had e-tickets, so they had to handle their own check-in. They struggled with the scanner/weigh station for 10 minutes, but it turned out to be broken; they then moved over to another. My friend checked in successfully, and his bag was tagged and sent on. But when they scanned the next family member’s passport, they got a flashing screen: the other members of the family were now locked out from checking in, because a limit of 45 minutes before the flight’s departure had arrived. It did not matter that the airline itself had already been the cause of their untimeliness twice over, or that one family member had already checked in, been issued a boarding pass, and that his luggage had disappeared into the bowels of the airport. They had to turn around and go home, after being informed that they were fortunate they could rebook for a full day later.

Incidents like these, accumulating over the years, have admittedly left me quite irrational when it comes to air travel. I find it very hard now to find anything good to say about my native land’s representatives in the market (as this article so far demonstrates). Conversely, I am now so devoted to Asian airlines, especially the better ones such as Cathay and Singapore, that it’s likely I overlook or underestimate their flaws.

We’re actually not regular passengers on Cathay: our long hauls to the USA usually require a US carrier because of their destinations and complexity. But we do take Cathay every year or two for Asian trips, and over the years we’ve flown most of the other major Asian airlines as well. Again, I must try to avoid getting all soppy here, but my feelings of sheer gratitude when dealing with the better Asian airlines are so intense, it really is pathetic. Instead of Daughter Tall existence being intentionally overlooked, she’s greeted with an old-fashioned flying kit, with games, stickers, and other little presents. The planes are clean and smell nice, even if they’re not much more roomy, and they have individual entertainment systems (the movies on our USA flights were available to us only on 19-inch CRT monitors that were so decrepit they wouldn’t even hold the picture’s color). The flight crews are young, nubile, and totally out of bounds, because Mrs Tall is the single shining galaxy of lovelight in my universe.

And then there are the airports. After the crowding, inefficiency (How can it take 50-60 minutes to get the luggage off a small domestic flight and onto a carousel? Must they round up a pack of mules before they can get started, or what?) and shabbiness of most of the US airports I’ve been through in recent years, coming home to HKIA is so refreshing, such a magic combination of airy elegance and futuristic efficiency, that sometimes I want to pitch a tent over by the window in the departures hall, and just stay for a spell. Yes, sometimes there are check-in lines; yes, occasionally you may have to wait five or ten minutes for your bags after you clear immigration (which, if you’re a Hong Kong resident, usually takes under five minutes itself); yes, the arrivals hall can be crowded, and you may forget whether you are meeting your party at ‘A’ or ‘B’ – but come on! Is there really a better airport anywhere, one that both gets the job done, and that manages to restore your enjoyment of flying itself? Singapore’s airport is nice, but its climb back to the top of the ‘World’s best airport’ rankings in 2006 (after HKIA sat there for half a decade) smacks of a boredom-induced shakeup. I’ve been through Singapore International several times, and I find it not much contest: HKIA is the goods. And HKIA was back on top in 2007, I might note.In any case, just look at those 2007 rankings: four of the world’s top five airports are in Asia. How many in the top 10 are in the USA?

And getting to and from HKIA is also a breeze, as MrB has so ably demonstrated.

My message, therefore, is for all Hong Kong residents: on these grounds (or not-grounds, given we’re talking about flying!), at least, let’s be happy with what we’ve got. The future of air travel in many parts of the world is uncertain, and conditions are worsening. But our little home retains a bastion of what flying used to be, and maybe a model of what it could continue to grow into.

Chinese Soup

mrb — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Soup doesn't get much attention in the UK. You might reheat a canned soup when you're too full for a proper meal, or mix powdered soup with boiling water when you're camping. But that's about it.

Things are different here – soup is a big deal. MrsB summed it up: “Don't drink soup? Then you'll get sick!”

The Chinese soup she's thinking is the soup that is served in homes here - nothing like the gloopy “something with sweetcorn” soup served in Chinese restaurants overseas. No cans or powders either. I think the average local mum would rather leap out of their high-rise kitchen window than be seen serving those to their family. A mother is measured by her soup, so there's more work involved than just opening a can.

First there's the choice of the type of soup, to best fit the drinker's current health. At the broadest level, that depends on the weather, eg cooling soups in summertime, and warming soups for winter. Soups are always served at a warm temperature, the 'warming' and 'cooling' refers to the chinese medicine view of hot and cold. The soup's ingredients (all fresh, of course) may also be tailored to help a specific condition – eg skin problems, a sore throat, or the infamous 'yeet hay'.

Next, and thankfully, there is also some consideration paid to what the soupee likes and dislikes. We went through a phase of having fishy-tasting soups. Sometimes there was an actual fish involved, other times there were dried seafood. Not my cup of ... soup, so we don't get those so often now. Pork, carrots and other things I wonder about always goes down well though. In fact I saw the remains of soup-making in the kitchen earlier today, so it looks as though we'll be having the pork & something soup tonight:

Best drunk on an empty stomach, the soup is often served just before dinner. That's not a must though – if you're getting home late you might find soup waiting for you. One of the common phonecalls you can overhear on the bus will be “Let me know if you're coming home tonight, and I'll cook you soup”, or with different undertones “I'm cooking your favourite soup. Are you coming home for dinner?”. MrsB let on that cooking good soup is seen as one way for a wife to prevent her husband from straying!

With so much riding on the quality of the soup, a good recipe is something to be prized and be proud of. Keep this in mind if you're invited to a friend's home for a family meal. When you are served soup, you won't go far wrong by asking for a second bowl. Show a bit of interest in the ingredients and their beneficial effects, and the mother will be in seventh heaven. (Just be careful not to go too far, or you'll start receiving thermos flasks of the stuff on a daily basis!)

If you marry a local person, you'll discover that the arrival of a new baby is a signal to ramp up the soup production, and also to zero in on ingredients that help new mums. Expect plenty of fish soup (lucky I'll never be a mum), and probably papaya soup too if there is breast-feeding underway. You'll also be served up a dose of the pig knuckle, ginger, eggs, and vinegar concoction that is meant to fortify the new mum. You'll smell that before you taste it though, as it hubbles and bubbles away for a long time before it is ready to be served.

MrsB also drank bird's nest soup for a while after each time she gave birth. Now, like me you're probably wondering how you get soup from this [1]:

Especially when you try a mouthful of birds nest soup and find it's what you imagine drinking from a spittoon must feel like. If you turn to the web to solve the mystery, you find your instincts were almost spot on: “A few species of swift, the cave swifts, are renowned for building the saliva nests used to produce the unique texture of this soup.” [2] (A second reason to be grateful I'm a man).

Given the importance of soup, there's little surprise that restaurants here serve plenty of the stuff too. In an interesting cultural twist, a set lunch at a local restaurant that serves nominally “western” food will almost always include soup as a starter. You get a choice of red or white, and as Mr Tall explains, “ALWAYS choose the red soup”.

The most common soup you'll get with a set lunch at a local Chinese restaurant will be similar to the watery homestyle soups described above. If you're heading to a fancier Chinese restaurant, though, and especially if you're eating from the wedding/annual company dinner/fleece-the-tourist banquet menu, then expect to be served a bowl of shark's fin soup. Should you eat it or not? I think not, but at the table I'll just say I don't like it, and ask if anyone else would like my bowl. I can't see the attraction anyway, it just seems like eating noodles to me.

If you're here in winter, you might also try a bowl of snake soup [3]. If you're just visiting, don't worry that you'll order a bowlful by mistake. Snake soup is generally served in a small shop that specifically sells snake products – there are usually several cages of live snakes on display just to dispel any doubts. It is supposed to be a good 'warming' food for the wintry weather. Something interesting to try, but yes, it tastes like chicken...

MrB

References:
[1] - Photo of bird's nest from the Walk Camarthenshire website
[2] - Birds nest soup
[3] - Snake soup

Chinese New Year features

batgungAdmin — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:24:31 +0000

Since Chinese New Year is nearly upon us, here are some quick links to few CNY-related Batgung articles. You can learn how to handle giving out red pockets, here and here; and see what kinds of activities and special events are on tap here. MrB ruminates upon a particular CNY favorite here.

Happy CNY!

Hong Kong Smells

mrb — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:00:00 +0000

I can't see that as the HK Tourist Board's 2008 slogan, but it's still true - a visit to Hong Kong will give your nose a good workout.

The sensory extravaganza used to start when you stepped off the plane. There's a great line in James Clavell's 'Noble House', when one of the main characters flies into Kai Tak for the first time. As the plane door opened, they're told "That's the smell of money". I remember that moment too, but I don't remember anything that smelled like money... I think the human & industrial waste flowing into the nullah alongside the runway was a more likely source!

Visit Hong Kong today, and you'll find the new Chek Lap Kok airport positively fragrant. It doesn't last though. Hit the streets and there are smells aplenty.

Restaurants make a lot of them. Can you smell that sickly-sweet blast of warm air as you walk past a large restaurant's kitchens? Or how about the rush of steamy air from a small restaurant's noodle kitchen? And what's that? Ah yes, they've got a cauldron of beef brisket hubbling and bubbling away, adding its perfume to the air.

Snack foods are part of the experience too. Head into deepest Mongkok, and you may detect a stinky beancurd vendor - probably from several blocks away. Not one of my favourites - in fact any of the 'wok of boiling year-old oil' snacks I'd happily live without. Barbecued dried squid isn't too bad, and I quite like the smell of waffles from a little hawker's cart. The ones I like best are the wintry smells of chestnuts roasting in a grimy old wok, and sweet potatoes roasting in a repurposed oil drum.

In some parts of Hong Kong, whole areas have their own distinctive smell, usually when there's a bunch of similar shops grouped together. The dried herbs wholesalers on Queen's Road East are a good example. Now that buses are airconditioned and hermetically sealed, you can whiz past oblivious. But on the older draughty buses there used to be a whiff of liquorice as it drove by there. A couple of roads over is Des Voeux Rd West, dried seafood centre of the universe. It's another place you could pass through blindfolded, but know exactly where you are.

Back at home, high-rise living means yet more smells. Mealtimes, and you'll usually have a pretty good idea of what the neighbours are eating. Even if you don't want to. There are a few of the Chinese dishes I find especially pungent - anything that involves frying black beans or salty dried fish springs to mind. Take a deep breath after mealtimes, and you might be able to catch a few more hints of what's happening nearby. Hmm, is someone boiling up Chinese medicine? Let's hope they get well soon. And there's a happier smell, boiling ginger, bones, eggs, and vinegar, traditional food for new mums, and a sure sign of a newborn baby somewhere nearby.

What does your nose remember as its most memorable moment in Hong Kong?

MrB

Batgung banners collage

batgungAdmin — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:14:27 +0000

Chinese New Year activities in Hong Kong

Mr Tall — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:00:00 +0000

Another Chinese New Year has come around in Hong Kong, and it’s left me yet again with some mixed feelings. In that spirit, I’ve assembled a ‘thumbs-up/thumbs-down’ list of Hong Kong Chinese New Year stuff.

The flower markets. Perhaps the single most famous attraction in HK at CNY are its massive ‘Lunar New Year Fairs’, which everyone calls ‘flower markets’. The main event is held in Victoria Park in Causeway Bay, but there are about a dozen smaller flower markets scattered around the rest of Hong Kong. You can find a list of where they’ve been held in recent years at this Wikipedia page. All CNY flower markets will have hundreds of stalls selling fresh flowers, of course, but also lots of other CNY knick-knacks, foods, and so forth. I’m not a huge fan of the flower markets myself – I find them simply too crowded and claustrophobic – but obviously many other people think they’re great. If you’re looking to mainline your CNY holiday spirit, a flower market is definitely the way to go.

The fireworks. Hong Kong puts on a huge, 20-25 minute-long fireworks extravaganza on the evening of the second day of every CNY. They shot out right over the harbor, and if the weather’s reasonably clear it’s quite a sight (unfortunately many years it’s misty at CNY, so the effects are muted a bit). If you try to go up to the harborfront to see the show, you’ll definitely run into huge crowds, but I would recommend giving it a go if you’re new to Hong Kong. If you have a flat or office with a harbor view, or connections to someone who does, all the better!

The temples. If you’re interested in Chinese traditional religion, or are simply up for quite a spectacle, CNY is an excellent time to visit one of Hong Kong’s many Taoist or Buddhist temples. They are heaving with people looking to prepare themselves for the new year’s events and eventualities.

The CNY parade in Tsim Sha Tsui. I’ve never been to this myself, but I’ve seen highlights on TV, of course. This year’s parade clips featured a series of gyrating young females in a variety of no-doubt wholly authentic, but never the less skimpy, national styles of dress. I started thinking the whole event was crying out for a determined, extensive Batgung investigation next year. But then I talked to one of my colleagues, who has tried to see the parade both of the past couple years. She said people start lining up ridiculously early to try to get a view, so it’s nearly impossible to find a space on the street from which one can actually see anything. Both years she and her family left out of frustration and boredom long before the parade had ended.

The food. Oddly enough, given Hong Kong's well-deserved reputation as a gourmand's paradise, I find that Chinese New Year in Hong Kong is just not a great time for eating. For one thing, several of the traditional CNY dishes, such as the turnip and taro cakes (i.e. lou baat gou and lin gou, respectively) get pretty tiresome after just a couple servings, and if you're on the family-visitation circuit like me, you see them plenty. Also, since most families are busy moving around trying to carry out their official CNY visits (i.e. bai lin) mealtimes are often a bit chaotic, and you end up eating catch-as-catch-can. The only really good, serious meal is the CNY's eve dinner.

Visiting Hong Kong during CNY as a tourist. In the past, when asked if CNY was a good time to come to Hong Kong as a tourist, I’d answer with a fairly emphatic ‘No!’ Shops and restaurants were closed for at least three solid days, and the city felt strange and empty – everybody was illegally parked out in the public housing estates visiting Grandma (see above).

Well, these days nearly everybody’s still out in the estates during the CNY holidays, but quite a few people (unfortunately for them, perhaps) are stuck at work. The number of restaurants and shops that now open right off on the first day of the new year is quite amazing compared to the complete shutdown of just a decade or so ago. The common explanation for this is that the Asian financial crisis/overall HK economic meltdown of the late '90s/early 00's motivated many restaurant and shop owners to try to boost revenues through the reckless, desperate act of staying open for 364 or 365 days a year, instead of just 363. The bad economic times might indeed have been a catalyst, but I suspect there may have been quite a reservoir of pent-up demand, too. If you've done the rounds of bai lin to relatives’ overcrowded homes year after year, the prospect of getting out to a decent restaurant by dinnertime sounds like a kind of salvation. In any event, given the combination of at least decent things to do, and the more general availability of the usual services and amenities Hong Kong has to offer, CNY now seems like a quite interesting time to show up and have a look.

If you're interested in reading more about one of Hong Kong's CNY customs -- giving out red pockets -- you can do so here and here.

Wedding banquets in Hong Kong

Mr Tall — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:00:00 +0000

I attended a colleague’s wedding banquet recently. In the run-up to this event, I was reminded of how many little questions can pop up for expats who may be going to their first banquet in Hong Kong. It’s actually fairly easy to answer such questions because Hong Kong wedding banquets are pretty much all the same. So I hope these general tips make your banqueting more enjoyable and gaffe-free.

I’ve been given an invitation. Do I need to RSVP? Short answer: yes, especially if you’re not planning on attending. The couple will be busy negotiating with a restaurant or hotel over how many tables they’ll need to pay for, so getting a reliable guest list is pretty important.

Before you reply, though, take a careful look at your invitation. Is the invitation just for you? Often, especially if the wedding in question is a colleague’s, you won’t necessarily be expected to bring a guest along with you. If you do want to take someone along, be sure you make this clear when you reply.

Your invitation envelope will be full of interesting stuff. In addition to the invitation itself, it’ll likely include a ‘red pocket’ with a bit of cash in it, and a coupon redeemable for cakes at a local bakery, so don’t just toss all this stuff without looking it over!

What gift should I give? Give money. Although you may find a few Hong Kong couples who follow the western tradition of having gift registries, and who are therefore expecting to be showered with lovely, tasteful objets to furnish their love nest, I’ve yet to meet any. Most HK newlyweds would much, much prefer you just gave them either one of those adorable bank-issued wedding-specific money orders, or just cash in a red pocket. Most people here simply don’t have the space for a lot of platters, vases, cutlery and knick-knacks. Above all, don’t give a clock, since the Chinese name for clocks sounds like something you wish it didn’t.

So how much money should you give? If you’re attending the banquet, you need to give enough to offset the cost of your presence there, and maybe a bit more. These days, at a run-of-the-mill local restaurant, HKD500-600 should do the trick, but this number goes right up if you’re invited to a ritzier banquet at one of the major hotels. If you’re in doubt, ask a local friend or colleague, and you’re almost certain to get a nicely-calibrated reply.

Please also note that this sum is per person attending, i.e. a couple should automatically double this gift.

If you’re unable to attend the banquet, but have received an invitation and want to acknowledge the couple with a gift, HKD200-300 is probably enough.

What should I wear? You’re certainly not going to be out of place if you decide to dress up for a wedding banquet. But if you’ve got a long day ahead of you, with no time to return home to tart yourself up (a frequent Mr Tall dilemma), just looking respectable is likely good enough. In other words, a ‘business casual’ outfit will not be out of place at most banquets, although again if it's at a high-end hotel, it's likely to be more formal.

That is not to say, however, that even the most modest banquet will be an entirely casual affair. The members of the wedding parties themselves get seriously dressed, and brides change gowns at least twice during the evening.

What to expect at the banquet. Your banquet invitation will likely mention a time at which the dinner will begin, say 8:00 pm. This is an utter fiction. It’s much more likely the first morsels of food will appear an hour later than that. But the invitation may also mention that you’re invited to come early – even some time in the afternoon – to play mah johng.

So when do you actually turn up? If you’re a thoughtless jerk, you can show up at 9:00, and you can probably sit right down to the eats. But you’ll be missing out on a much more important event that precedes the dining: the photo-taking. From about 7:00-9:00 the bride and groom will do little other than take formal photos with arriving guests. If you miss your turn, it’s not the end of the world, but you will obligate the happy couple to come seek you out later in the evening to get a photo taken care of, and they’ve frankly got enough to do without you inconveniencing them in this petty way. So I’d recommend showing up at a reasonable hour – maybe around 7:00 or 7:30; no later than 8:00 – and just putting up with the inevitable delay as others take their photos, too.

The formal banquet program these days usually begins with a male/female team of emcees greeting everyone, and then showing a video with many adorable photos of the couple as children, in university, wearing mouse ears at Disneyland, and so on. Then there’ll likely be a short speech or two; if nothing else, the bride and groom will come on stage to thank everyone, especially ‘Mommy-Daddy’, and a tear or two may be shed.

Then it’s time to bring on the grub!

The menu at Hong Kong banquets is almost invariable: you begin with a roast suckling pig (look for ones with flashing red light bulbs in their eye sockets), then there’ll be a succession of dishes focusing on esoteric and expensive types of seafood – a vegetable dish with dried scallops, shrimp balls built up around crab claws, a tureen of shark’s fin soup, a steamed garoupa, and an abalone dish. Eventually the meal winds down with a roasted chicken, fried rice/noodles, and some desserts.

Dishes are served one by one, and everyone is given an individual portion by the waiter. You’re expected to finish what you’re served before the next dish comes along. If you don’t want to eat something, you can either indicate to the waiter that you don’t want a serving, or just take one and let it sit. It’s likely going to waste either way! Skipping courses becomes more and more common as the banquet goes on; by the time the rice and noodles appear, at some tables only a couple of people will still be eating.

In my experience, banquet food is disappointing. It’s usually not actively bad, but it’s frequently not quite up to the standard you’d expect from the level of restaurant you’re at, if you know what I mean.

About halfway through the banquet the wedding party will get up and go around the room en masse, and have a toast with each table. They’ll appear to be swilling away at big ol’ snifters of cognac – but it’s usually just watered-down Coke or dark tea. If anyone’s drinking the real thing – which is sometimes the case with some of the uncles and male cousins in the wedding party – you’ll definitely know it by this stage of the evening!

Toward the end of some banquets the younger set amongst the guests will compel the newlyweds to engage in embarrassing, sometimes sexually suggestive, games. Strings are passed through trousers and décolletages, couples are forced to pose in, ah, awkward positions, and so on. The last couple of banquets I’ve attended, however, had none of these shenanigans, and I’ve been told they’re becoming less and less common. Not a great loss, I’d say.

Finally, after the desserts are served, comes the moment that shocks every westerner at his first Chinese wedding banquet. It’s almost a cliché but, as Homer Simpson says, it’s funny because it’s true. That is, everyone simply stands up and leaves, just like that. There’s no lingering over drinks or standing about saying extended ‘see you so soon for lunch, darling’ farewells or exchanging air kisses whatsoever. You do need to shake hands with the members of the wedding party as you leave – just don’t give in to the temptation to mutter ‘That was an excellent message, Pastor’ to the bride’s father – and you’re out the door and hailing a taxi.

If you’d like to read more about Hong Kong weddings, you might want to check out my account of my own wedding to Mrs Tall. It gives you some idea of the other activities that the happy couple must endure throughout a very long wedding day. This discussion board thread has quite a bit of practical info about getting married in Hong Kong, too.

Chinese medicine

mrb — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 01:00:00 +0000

Have you ever tried Chinese medicine? If you subscribe to the “the worse it tastes, the more good it does you” view of medicine, you’d expect miracles from some of the foul-smelling soups that get served up by Chinese doctors. Still, given that Hong Kong has the second longest life-expectancy in the world, it must be doing something right!

Even if you never visit a Chinese doctor, your stay in Hong Kong will still feel the influence of the Chinese medicine system. Your first encounter is likely to be when you notice the distinctive appearance of a medicine shop, or the smell from a herbal tea stall.

The medicine shops typically have a glass counter, with rows of little drawers on the wall behind to hold all the various plant and animal ingredients that go into Chinese medicine. If you pass by when a customer is in the shop, you’ll see the staff weighing out quantities of different ingredients onto a sheet of paper. These will be taken home and boiled for several hours until the water has reduced down to a concentrated infusion – if you live in a tower block in Hong Kong you’ve probably already had days when you can smell the neighbours’ medicine brewing.

The herbal tea shops have their big metal urns brewing popular recipes – kind of a fast-food variety of the medicines described above. Commonly served teas will include ‘yah-sei mei’ (24-flavour tea) and ‘gum mo cha’ (influenza tea). They are very bitter to my taste, but MrsB tells me it’s not uncommon to find people that like their taste.

The 24-flavour tea is a common choice if you feel you’ve got too much ‘yeet hay’. Now the literal translation is ‘hot air’, but rather than being a cure for our rambling prose, it refers to the Chinese medical ‘hot’, which is one of the main ways of describing a person’s state of health. You may also be described as being too cold, wet, or dry, each of which require their own type of medical attention. But too much yeet hay seems to be the most common imbalance, blamed for the appearance of common problems such as pimples and mouth ulcers. If you’ve got too much heat, the obvious answer is to find something cool. Despite the fact they are served hot, the teas mentioned above are considered ‘cool’ from a medicinal viewpoint, and are drunk to get you back in balance.

These cooling teas are known as ‘leung cha’, (literally ‘cool tea’). Other cooling drinks include Chrysanthemum tea and ‘suen mooi tong’ (sour plum soup – usually served chilled). You might have tried them already, especially if you’ve eaten a Korean barbecue, or Chinese hotpot meal. Since fried and greasy food is considered a prime source of yeet hay, something cooling is served at the end of the meal to set things back in balance. One bit of good news is that beer is also considered a ‘cooling’ drink, and is even called ‘gweilo leung cha’. So if you’re eating out and thinking whether you can get away with ordering another beer, impress your friends by muttering something about too much yeet hay, and being under doctor’s orders to stay cool.

When you’ve been here longer, it might strike you as odd how these medical terms are used in such a wide variety of circumstances: from doctors’ medicine, through self-medication with herbal tea, to mealtimes, and even to drinking beer? This marks a big difference between the Western and Chinese approaches. We tend to think of Western medicine only when we are ill, and then concentrate on fixing the one thing that is ‘wrong’. The Chinese approach is broader, not only considering the whole patient, but also considering the things that affect the patient, including food, drinks, and even the weather.

Probably as a result of this, Chinese medicine has gained a good reputation for tackling chronic illnesses, or illnesses where a patient feels ‘not right’, but can’t pinpoint a single problem. On the other hand, Western medicine seems better at providing quick relief to a given set of symptoms. A western friend who has asthma gave me a good example of this, when he told me how a colleague reacted to him using his inhaler. The colleague had tears in his eyes as he heard how easily the inhaler worked, and how it relieved the difficulty in breathing almost instantly. The colleague had also suffered from asthma for years, and had been visiting a Chinese doctor for some time. His asthma was slowly getting better, but he had nothing that could help him quickly reduce the suffocating feeling of a bad asthma attack.

How well does Chinese medicine tackle the chronic illness none of us can avoid – old age? Should we give Chinese medicine any credit for that long life expectancy we mentioned earlier? I haven’t seen any statistics, but informally I get the feeling that local seniors take more responsibility for their good health than people of the same age in the UK. If you visit a Hong Kong park in the morning (say 6am – 10am), and you’ll see groups of people dancing, doing exercises, or practicing Tai Chi. Or if you live near the hills, you’ll see retired people returning from their daily morning walk at about that time. MrsB also says that it’s usual practice for people to eat a much plainer diet as they get into their 50s and older, cutting down on meat especially. So yes, I’d say that the Chinese approach to health encourages a healthier old age.

Despite the potential benefits, it can still be difficult to take Chinese medicine seriously if you’ve been brought up on western medicine. Here’s part of a post from a western doctor in the US that I’d guess is a typical reaction:

But you know what? I don’t think I could stand take sitting for hours in a classroom with a straight face listening to someone talk about the flow of Qi (pronounced Chi). I'm sorry, but the way Chinese medicine explains itself is still too steeped in non-scientific silliness for me to completely embrace its teachings. Don't tell me my Qi is blocked - Talk to me in real biologic terms. It's not meridians, and it's not Yin and Yang. It's neurotransmitters and antibodies and cytokines and calcium channels and renal tubule function and LH and FSH and estrogen receptors. And if you dont know how it works, that's okay. I can handle that.

I have the same reaction, feeling that the talk of qi sounds a bit wacky. But do you need to know how it works, or just take the benefits when it does? I’ve tried to keep my skepticism on one side and try it, with varied results:

#1. Around 15 years ago I injured my shoulder. Shortly afterwards a distant friend recommended me to visit a Chinese doctor. They had me visit several times, gave me medicines to take, and performed Qi Gung to fix the problem. But the problem (the shoulder would dislocate easily) just kept on happening. Then around four years ago I visited a Western sports doctor. (I’m using ‘Chinese’ / ‘Western’ to describe the medical approach; both doctors were Chinese race). He determined that it was a mechanical problem, where the shoulder capsule was stretched and torn, and an operation would be needed to fix it. I had the operation and it’s been fine since.

#2. Mum is in her 70’s, and on an annual visit she complained of her frozen shoulder – a common complaint in women that age. We took her along to see an acupuncture doctor that several friends had visited and had good results from. He was upfront that he only treated a narrow range of problems, related to body pain. She had to visit several times a week over several weeks, but at the end of it she had most of her motion back and much less pain.

#3. When we were having problems getting pregnant, MrsB went along to see a Chinese doctor recommended by a friend as specializing in womens’ health. Shortly after a finishing a one-month course of medicine she was pregnant.

The successful visits came from having a strong personal recommendation (not a ‘friend of a friend told me’) from someone who has similar problems to us, and who is happy with the results. If you plan to try visiting a doctor it’s also wise to get an idea how long the treatment will last and the likely costs. Then reconfirm them when you meet the doctor. Otherwise if you just visit the Chinese doctor and ask if they can make you better, it can be like asking a barber if you need a haircut – the Chinese doctor always has the excuse that something is out of balance, giving an opening for less scrupulous doctors to need ‘just one more visit’.

So, back to the original question – have you ever tried Chinese medicine? If yes, how do you rate it?

Regards, MrB

The mixmyth revisited: mixed race children in Hong Kong

Mr Tall — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 01:00:00 +0000

As we’ve recently had a couple of interesting comments on my initial mixmyth article, I thought I’d post a follow-up.

Daughter Tall, my own nicely mixed daughter, is now four years old. Within just the past few weeks, we’ve had to confront the issue of her mixed race, as her biracial status has just dawned on her.

Her first step was realizing that Mommy and Daddy are, well, different in ways that go beyond one being a girl and the other a boy. She then concluded that Mommy is Chinese, and Daddy just is not. Eventually, the concept of ‘westerner’ came onto her mental stage. She insisted at first that she was only Chinese (not surprising, given that’s her context for most cultural references at this point). We didn’t make too much of this, but did remind her that she was both Mommy and Daddy’s little girl, so she was half western, and hence a ‘mix’. At one point, she burst into tears and hollered ‘I don’t want to be a mix!’, but that seems to have been a one-off reaction. She’s now aware that she’s different from most other Hong Kong kids, and for the moment this doesn’t seem to bother her.

Mrs Tall and I haven’t bothered trying to shield Daughter Tall from the reality of her mixed race because it’s pointed out to her so often. I have a great deal of sympathy for our commenter, who said she felt as if her daughter was often treated like a ‘science experiment’.

Bingo!

When the Family Tall is out in public, we’ve become accustomed to being the subjects of a standard form of examination. The examiner usually proceeds as follows:

A double take, then a long look at Daughter Tall.

A back-and-forth survey of Mrs Tall and me.

An even longer, less inhibited assessment of Daughter Tall’s face, with quick, periodic re-evaluations of Mrs Tall and me, to confirm which of Daughter Tall’s facial features comes from which of us.

An unpleasant epiphany, as our shameless examiner realizes that Mrs Tall and I are staring – rather crossly – at her, too, and likely have been so doing for some time.

I use ‘she’ consciously, as more women than men seem interested in evaluating Daughter Tall’s genetic makeup, though there are plenty of men who seem just as fascinated (more creepy, that!).

So, at this point, do we see an upside in the mixmyth?

Well, for one thing, Daughter Tall herself is delighted by her own bilingualism. She certainly enjoys criticizing Daddy’s Cantonese, although that has a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel challenge level that’s leaving her increasingly uninterested. Much more fun now is catching one of Mommy’s infrequent errors in English grammar or pronunciation.

I think it’s also doubtful she’ll be very uptight about being a mixed kid as she gets older and more aware of the implications of her racial status. There are so many mixed kids in Hong Kong that she’s really not all that special, and as we’ve amply documented here, in articles and comments, the stereotypes of mixed kids in Hong Kong are generally positive. What I hope she can avoid, as long as possible, is getting mixed up in the tedious racial identity politics that so poison the atmosphere at many schools and universities in western countries.

And maybe there’s a more tangible upside, if this recently-published book can be believed. Its title – Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People Are Healthier and More Attractive – probably tells us all we need to know about its contents, but I may try to find a copy anyway. Interestingly, its author – whose website is here, by the way – is not in fact of mixed race.

As always, reader comments are welcome on this subject! Tell us what you’re experienced if you or your kids are in the same boat.