Islanders

Living on the island you see the familiar faces all the time. The coffee shop girl works in the supermarket cashier as well. Or the street sweepers are also the neighbors. Islanders normally have 2 or 3 jobs. They are more advanced than the slashies. A lady makes amazingly tasty cakes, it is light and airy, with very delicate and fine cream. The only way to order a cake is to meet her at the clothes shop next to the 7-11, where she works.

Modern China, ShenZhen

Although I am going to talk about ShenZhen, picture is from Shantou.

In recent months, we traveled to ShenZhen quite frequently for some medical examination. The health/hospital authority in Hong Kong is too busy, some check-up requires 6 months or longer wait. ShenZhen provides the cheap and timing alternative, going through the boarder is pretty simple, almost like going through the subway turnstile. Because we live on the island, it takes roughly 2 hours to get to the boarder. After going through the boarder, you can feel the whole different vibe. ShenZhen is less clinical , more young people around, more varieties of food choices, and everthing relies on your mobile phone. You almost feel the whole city is built around mobile phone, payment is the most obvious thing for visitors. Restaurant people only needs to focus on delivering the food and clean the table, ordering and payment are handled by the phone application. Similary, in the hospital, registration and payment are also done via mobile phone. After seeing the doctor or any examination, the diagonsis and report are sent straight to your phone. There is no paper involved, there are people around to ask questions if you get stuck. The hospital runs smoothly and efficiently - people are like cattles being herded by the mobile phone's instruction, the hospital administration workflow is controlled by the system, humand intervention is reduced to the mininum. I guess that's how the system can cope with large volume of outpatients. Similar experience in opening a bank account, you fill in the form online through your phone, a machine is available to validate the ID and link the ID to your bank account. The bank card was issued at the same time. The whole process took less than 30 minutes. Only 3 people in the counter, helping 4 customers to open the bank accounts including me around the same time. The phone number is your ID, your bank, your credit and your validation of being part of the system.

The magic dumpster

My next project material.

We picked up another piece of funiture this weekend before the typhoon hit us. The dumpster near us is magical. Things turn up when we need them. For example, we were thinking where to borrow some chairs for our party next weekend, there were a few folding chairs turning up the next day. When we first moved in, we need some curtains -after some temporarily measures, 2 sets of bamboon blinds were thrown to the dumpster. We picked up a number of chairs, side table, lamps, even 2 fridges for brewing beer. I also pick up quite some dying plants and try to resucitate them. It is always fun to have a new plant adding to my collection.

3 days in Shantou/Swatow (汕頭）

I have to go to my dad's home town to reconfirm the details of Dad's funeral in Early August. Dad's ash has traveled with me back to Hong Kong last year. I promised dad I am going to take him back to his homedown. Hence, we planed a 3 day trip to Shangtou, which is only 156 km away from Meizhou. The high speed railway in China is pretty easy to take. Shangtou is the trading port for a few hundred years, it has developed a special food culture. It is also close to the sea, seafoods are the important source of protein. Locals pays special attentions to the freshness and umami taste of fishes and prawns. The most straightforward way is to marinate the fresh seafood in raw garlic, soy sauce and chillies. Any seafood you can imagine can be put into the marinate, clams, prawns, cray fishes, crabs. The marinated meats are transparent and juicy. Unlike the shashimi type of raw fish, it doesn't require aging to tenderize the fiberous connective tissues and to concentrate the flavour, it is purely the freshness of the seafood. Of course you taste the soy sauce and condiments at the beginning, but at the end, the more you chew, the more of the sweetness and seafood taste appear. Marinated seafood is one thing, there is another type of raw fish which is just fresh water fish, thin sliced up and mixed with finely chopped lemon leave, ginger, corianders, thin-sliced garlic and pickled radish. Suprisingly you can still taste the fish at the end. In lots of south east China provinces, eating beef is normally frown upon because of the farming culture (cattles are the main source of the prowing power in farming) and religion. Not in Shangtou. Shangtou developed this beef hotpot culture to the extreme. First of all, the beef was extremely fresh, some shops proud themselves by having meat delivered from the slaughter house to your table within 4 hours. Secondly, Shangtou chef cut away or select the best part of the beef, such that the meat are tender and juicy after 2-3 seconds in the light broth. They are so confident the meat can be so tender that they even cut the meat slice with the grain rather than against it. You can almost just eat the meat without any saurce. Apart from the famous beef hotpot and raw marinated, there are so many different other choices for breakfasts and lunches. Fresh pig entrails to make the soup in the morning, steam rice rolls for lunch. It is not a problem to eat non-stop for 3 days in Shangtou.

Birds peck through my worm farm netting

I suspect the black-collared starling helped themselves with the black soldier flies from the bucket, they broke the insect net to get to the worms. I thought they are my friends!

The maggots are getting bigger and fatter, the birds love them. I fed them with the rubbish local restaurants or fruit stale throw away. This is the bread skin collected from the sandwich shop. These need to be soaked in water or any liquid to turn into the mushy mud.

Dogs on the island

Fei Fei insists to come to our flat, she considers our place is her territory and needs to visit once in a while. She always waits in front of our door, patiently waiting for us to unlock the door, then running up stairs making sure she is the first one getting in. Dogs with owners are sometimes no on leash, just like Fei Fei, they are free to roam around the island. Fei Fei is the princess and is pretty famous on the island. There are lots of stray dogs on the island. Many Cheung Chau residents are dog lovers, hence, the strays normally got some volunteers to feed them regularly. Some grand moms would even chase the dogs asking "why you did not finish the food today? I will cook you some fish tomorrow for a change". Some people routinely having doggie treats in their pocket when walking around, just in case seeing some dog friends. Slowly I am joining this army of pack-some-doggie-treats. There is no cars or motorcycles on the island, the strays are pretty safe. Government run program "trap-neuter-release" was a big success in the south end of the island. These dogs were tracked monthly and have pretty long life span comparing to other TNR program dogs in other areas.

Color me beautiful

I am very against hair dye for a long time because of the smell, and the sensation of weird chemical burning the skin. I had to backdown these days since white hairs are coming out like mad. I dreamt about living with it and getting old gracefully, but it is easier said then done. The problem with white hair is that 1. they came out unevenly only at certain spots and 2. they are very unhealthy, weaker and dryer. Hence they make me look untidy and, worse of all, very old. So I had to have a conversation with my beauty advisor, deepseek suggested to use Hanna powder which is all natural and only colors the white hair, it has no impact on the black hair. I am pretty happy with the results despite I smell like old tea bag for a few hours.

Manipulative Fei Fei

Fei Fei is the windsurfing center dog, she was the youngest and the prettiest, knows how to behave such as standing quietly next to you, looking at you while you are eating. No one is going to resist sharing a bit of the food with a quietly begging pretty dog. She likes to wonder around the island and cleverly knows that she, as a female and the youngest, need protection along the way. She thus started to follow windsurfing members home. We were quite an easy pick, we love dogs, always bring treats to the windsurfing center dogs, and volunteer to take them for a walk. Fei Fei loves to walk with us, her goal is to follow us to our home where she thinks she is running the house - we figured it out because she always wants to get into the door before us. She sits at her favorite spot, drinking the water that was freshly poured for her, and gets a bit of treats from me. We enjoy Fei Fei's company, and we walked around the hiking trails, through the town center. Fei Fei likes to hang out in Town, she will wait patiently outside of the supermarket while I shop, she will hang out with us in the pub, waiting for us to take her for next walk. Sometimes she gets bored, she will walk home by herself, she is pretty famous on the island. Some islanders' dogs or cats are left along, they wonder around freely. These dogs are very socialized and never cause issues. Fei Fei is one of them, and has many friends. She hangs out with the stray dogs or visits her human friends to get treats. Fei Fei is very manipulative, she knows how to get out of the windsurfing center while it is locked up (there is a short fence that Fei Fei can always climb out), but we have never seem her climbing out of the fence. The only evident is that we see her strolling down the main beach after the center is closed. She sort of understands that if human knows how she gets out of the center, her only route of escaping might be blocked. She is the princess in the center until the new puppy arrived. The new puppy, Tiger, is energetic, playful and naive, caught everyone's attention right away. Fei Fei started to feel threatened and almost look depressed. She refused to go for a walk with us if Tiger is tagging along; even if she came for a walk with us, she always ran away half way through and ended up in our door step. We stopped taking the dogs for a walk, Fei Fei is getting lower in mood and lighter in weight after confirming that she is no longer the favorite dog in the center. She refused our doggy treats, and didn't want to eat any treats given by others in front of us. She knows how to emotional blackmail human!

Where is the windsurfing board (2)

Dragon boat festival - need to make some rice dumplings.

Jon left 30 mins before me, carrying a brand new 7.2 meter sail and walking to the no-man beach with bare feet. I arrived at the windsurfing center around 10:40, the rainstorm hit around 10 mins later. The storm was so strong that there is no visibility within 10 meters. The sky cleared up after quarter of an hour, I saw a little black dot showing up from the tip of the pennisula. Checking it out with the binocular, that's the orange Gaastra sail. Jon had sailed out the bay, thanks for the strong guts came with the rainstorm otherwise the litle bay was really sheltered from the southly wind. After a short break, I can feel another storm is coming up. I see Jon's sail was stuck by the cliff, pushing up by the offshore wind. I pulled out a kayak, setting out for a rescue. But I don't think there is a problem I just want to do a bit of exercise and join in the great windy day. As I have guessed, the rainstorm hit again, I was paddling so hard in the rain and wind, heading to the cliff to meet up with Jon. The rain and wind subsided as we both heading back to the shore, and it turned out sunny at the end.