We're home

26 hours and a lot of bad plane food later. And found this lovely message on our dining room table.

Hong Kong Dollars

Hong Kong. Here we are. And all I seem to be able to do the entire time I am here is hum “Magnificent Seven” by the Clash.

Gets you up and gets you out
But how long can you keep it up?
Gimme honda, gimme sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong kong dollars and indian cents
English pounds and eskimo pence

This place is moving. There is a lot going on and most of it involves making money. Be it selling luxury brands to foreigners or cheap veggies to locals. Commerce is everywhere. Hong Kong dollars are changing hands.

It’s a weird place. (And to be clear, I’m OK with weird.) It’s not China and it’s not the UK. It’s kind of lost somewhere in the middle. Only, it’s not in the middle like the median, it’s like the mean. Wait, is that what I actually mean? (pun totally intended). There are parts that are 100% China and then there are parts that are 100% UK (or at least 100% western). There aren’t so many parts that truly feel like both at once. So, on average, you may feel like you’re somewhere that’s kind of Asian and kind of Western, but only because you see both extremes in 1 day.

Things that I notice that are different in Hong Kong from Beijing and Shanghai:

• I regularly feel under-dressed
• HK is first city on this trip where it feels like the local Chinese are at a disadvantage to the expats
• Drivers abide the law (corollary: I no longer live in fear)
• Nature is everywhere
• People speak English (another corollary: I feel less like a dolt for speaking no words of the local language)

Some highlights of our time here:

• Cliché, but true, taking the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor is awesome (as are the views from the bar at the Peninsula hotel)



• Walking back down from the Peak through the rain forests… this city makes no sense, it’s built on an out-cropping of rock that is covered in jungle. But, hey, who am I to judge?



• Wandering through crazy markets, day and night



• The busy streets of Hong Kong (really make you feel like you’re in a movie)



• Watching the Wimbledon men’s final in a tiny sports bar at 1 AM

And one lowlight: Walking down the very busy, very touristy Nathan Street in Kwoloon (a district of HK) and being asked about every 5 seconds if I wanted to buy a “rolex” or get a custom suit made or buy some “luxury goods.” Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I ended up practically running down the street shouting “no!” at anyone that even looked at me. I am not cut out for this stuff. Maybe it’s time to go home….

Back to the amazing city of Shanghai

What is it with China? As amazing as this country has turned out to be (and that’s pretty damn amazing, let’s be clear), there are some old, almost Kafka-esque habits that die hard and are driving me c-c-c-crazy. Like you can’t take pictures… anywhere. I’m not just talking about “please don’t take flash pictures of our priceless heritage relics in the form of paintings” … I get that. I’m talking about being yelled at for taking pictures in all of the following venues: the residence of a Chinese hero from the outside, a new major architecture project (again from the outside; a place that should be screaming for publicity), a restaurant, a store where we wanted to take pictures of something we were considering buying… you get the idea. Drives me wacky.

Anyway, had to get that off my chest. Now back to the amazing city of Shanghai.

I left you last as we were on our way to an acrobatic show with our new friends, Linda and Wuan. It was quite a show. Imagine people doing things that make you applaud in awe recoil in disgust at the same time. I mean, seriously, are bodies meant to do that? I don’t think so. But the fact that they can spin about 20 plates at a time while walking across other folks heads is pretty impressive.


We followed that up with dinner at a crazy “hot pot” restaurant (yes, it is literally a pot of hot stuff (both in temperature and spice level) that you throw things in to cook): think “fondue” but with way less 1970s décor. The restaurant was on the 7th floor of an ugly building. We never would have found it and never would have been able to order if it weren’t for Linda and Wuan. We ate like kings and drank big bottles of local beer. Yummm….



Our last day in Shanghai was a marathon. Really felt like we short-changed this city by only giving it 3 days, so we took the last day very seriously… too seriously, perhaps, as we collapsed in exhaustion at 10 PM. Here’s a run-down:

• We started at the most complete “classical Chinese gardens” in the country, Yu Yuan, which we decided reminded us of the temples in Beijing (all things imperial are starting to run together here) … so we were in and out in about 20 minutes. At this point, I again start to wonder if I’m there’s a cultural desert in my soul.
  
  (yep, looks like imperial architecture to me...)
  
• We then ran to the other side of the Huang Pu River to get a view from the tallest building in Shanghai. Which has a glass-bottomed observatory on the 100th floor. Amazing views combined with a teeeeeny bit of vertigo.
• Had a coffee in a beautiful old café deep in an office building on the Bund (yes, you can get to the buildings if you risk your life to cross a construction area). (It was shortly after this that I got yelled at for taking photos of a tile mural on the floor of a bank lobby … clearly a risk for state security)
• Jumped in a taxi to visit Shanghai’s self-proclaimed “cultural street.” Note to self: may not be good idea to take Chinese government at their word about what is and what is not a cultural street. This one was quite dull and even our key destination, the famous film café – where you can watch old B&W movies from Shanghai and sit on big red velvet couches, was basically closed as it was being used for a model shoot. Sounds sexy as I write it down. But it wasn’t. It just meant that there was no where to sit and no one wanted to serve us non-models a drink.
• So we headed back downtown to the People’s Square (which indeed did have a lot of people in it) and the fantastic Museum of Urban Planning, where they had an enormous model of what Shanghai will look like in 2020. Let me just say this: it’s enormous. We have nothing that even comes close in the US or Europe. And this is just one of their many, many major cities.
  
• To end our Shanghai experience we had reservations at a famous restaurant, Fu 1088, in an old mansion in the French Concession (we can walk from our hotel). Every table has its own room, we were told. We imagined we’d be dining in the old library, with candlelight and silk wallpaper. How romantic, we thought. Well, as just about everything in China thus far, it was different than we had imagined. Not worse, just different. Yes, we were alone in a room. But the room was huge and it was between the reception and the kitchen, so folks were walking through it constantly and the noise and smells from the kitchen filled it. The lights were bright and there were no candles to be seen. At first, we both winced a bit at it all. But then our own personal piano player (yep, just him, us and the kitchen staff) started to play - he was amazing – and we fell into the mood. We drank a bottle of wine from their extensive wine list (for China that means more than 2 bottles, 1 red and 1 white) and said goodbye to Shanghai.

Beware: trendy, hip, modern, new

Welcome to Shanghai. The beautiful city. The people are beautiful; the clothes are beautiful; the buildings are beautiful. But beware: if the guidebook says a street, a restaurant, a café or a bar is either trendy, hip, modern or new… you should avoid it. What they really mean is “it looks exactly like home and probably is next to a Starbucks so you don’t actually need to go there because once you get there you won’t even know you’re in China anymore.” I’ve already made the mistake twice since we got here (all of yesterday). I thought “new” and “hip” meant I’d see the cutting-edge side of Shanghai. Turns out that nothing avant-guard comes out of guidebooks. Right. Probably should have guessed that….

So… Shanghai. What can I tell you? If Beijing is Rome, Shanghai is Florence. If Beijing is London, Shanghai is Paris. That is, if 80% of the major monuments of Florence and Paris were under major construction at the same time. As it turns out, the World Expo is coming to Shanghai in 2010, and as you may remember from the last Olympics, the Chinese take their “preparing to host world events” really damn seriously. So our “romantic stroll along the Bund” (the riverside park that is lined with amazing art deco architecture … or so we’re told) became “watch out for that jack hammer! Woah, there is no sidewalk here and that dump truck is backing up! Is that a pretty building under that scaffolding? Is there a river behind that 20 foot wall?”

"Ahhhh, the Bund....."

And just as I was cursing all things Shanghai, a young Chinese couple asked me to take a picture of them (Really? In front of this crane? OK…). We started to chat. Turns out she’s an English teacher. They’re from Tsing Tao (a city of 5 million … not just a beer!). They took us to an amazing tea house for a traditional tea ceremony. I saw tea do things I never thought possible. Many of the teas we had were hand-rolled: little tiny globes that were pieces of individual tea leaves rolled with other herbs or flowers inside. One of the teas we tried was a flower that had been hand-stuffed with other flowers and then sealed shut. When you added hot water it “bloomed” and 5 other type of flowers floated out of it. Amazing. Gone are the days that I felt chic ordering peppermint tea. That’s just so … basic.

Today I strolled around the French Concession (the part of the city that the Qing Empire – the last empire of China – “conceded” to France, as the Empire was weak and corrupt and need the money from the rents). It was hot and humid. Oh, yes, and beautiful. For a minute, I felt like I was in the Village in New York. And then I saw a woman pluck, gut and butcher a chicken in about 1 minute flat on the sidewalk. Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

(Tango lessons in a park in the French Consession, Shanghai)

Tonight we’re off to an acrobat show and Chinese dinner with our new friends. Who needs monuments?


Oh, and just for the record.... it still looks pretty great at night, despite all the construction.