Trip to Taipei Every Month

I have reduced the time I work up to the end of April, and finally stop working. Spending more time traveling back and forth to Taiwan to look after my mom, and worked on the task to bring Dad's ash back to his hometown. Dad is finally properly buried in his family tomb (a number of trips to Meizhou in east Guangtong province to sort out the Fengshui Master and Tomb building, also dealt with the relatives that I have never met all my life - that needs to be recoreded in some other time). Now the remaining task is to help my mom to sort out the denture and get her shoulders fixed. Her both shoulders' rotator cup tendons were either torn or damaged. She has no strength in both arms, she needs assistance for changing clothes and taking showers. Over this year and last, I traveled back and forth almost monthly to renovate her flat and sort out doctors' visits. Although my brother lives 5 mins walk away, my mother seems happier to ask for my help.

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.

Update on August 14th, my garden dust pan is broken, I was thinking to get a new one. But an used dust pan was left at the dumpster the next day.

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.