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.

Where do you want to stand when getting into the lift (3)

The restaurant staff reached over to collect our plates while we are still chatting to each other and eating our food.  Old grand ma cut in front of us in the taxi queue (being a Brit - Jon firmly stopped her from getting the taxi), people blocking the escalator (although I am not convinced sometimes it is not a bad thing to stand in both side of the escalator).  In some local shops - especially those shops around your neighborhood, it is considered very weird if you are acting too politely.  Welcome to Hong Kong!

Although I do not think people are obnoxious or rude, they are just thinking about what's the most convenient way to get what I want or get to where I want to go.  

Where do you stand after getting into the lift (2)

Chatting to friends who also relocated to Hong Kong a few years back, they have also discovered the mindlessly selfish act in many areas in Hong Kong. 

Door game - you walk toward the door and the person in front of you cannot be bothered to hold the door for you.  Most of them will sneak in quickly before the door shuts.  I think this is because people do not want to touch the door handle, rather than being nasty to people behind you.

Lift door game - your neighbor stares at his/her iPhone and press the "close" button to shut the door while you run towards the closing door.  I think Hong Kong people just do not want to show any affection to their neighbor, that's understandable.

Subway space game - people stuck at the door area refusing to move in.  Ok, I have no explanation for this - I pushed my way through to show them the consequence not to move in and create space for others.

Where do you stand after getting into the lift (1)

In Hong Kong subway lift, people do queue patiently.  The first couple of people got in the lift always take the space by the door, the people trailing behind have no choice but to walk further down in the lift.  I guess that is to make sure the first one in the queue is also the first one getting out of the lift.  "Scr*w the people queuing behind - I will never move in to the lift to make space for others!  I am the first one in the queue and I have the right to get out of the lift first".  

Building Site

The building site next to our apartment has been building for years - you see 5 or 6 people coming to work 8am sharp to do the work.  Including Saturday (the estate agent lied to us saying they don't work on Saturday).  The strange thing is in this super property bubble Hong Kong, this lot is in the prime location but has been in construction for years!?!?  We suspect the land owner might be using the loss over years due to delay in deliveries to write off the capital gain.

End of Seoul Excursion

There are again a couple of interesting things I observed in Seoul. People likes to drink hot drinks from the straw (inserted into the cup through the cup cover with a opening designed for sipping). Seeing a lot of young people doing that on the street while strolling. That's very strange, nope? Isn't the hot drink hot enough to burn your tongue? To me, the smell accompanying the warm (sometimes hot) fluid into my mouth is absolutely essential. Perhaps it is because the temperature is so low that they cannot afford to lose any warmth from an open cup?

I have also observed a single guy taking taxi by sitting in the front passenger seat (just like in Beijing). I understand it is a lot easier to give direction to the driver that way, however, it is a bit not proper. Taxi drivers are the service providers, not your friends. You are not getting the ride for free. I am not saying I don't want to be friends with a taxi driver, I just think that's a bit insensitive to do that.

Eating around in Seoul sometimes, I found that I am not very happy with the steel chopsticks and rice bowl. Stell chopsticks are slipery and heavy. Percise and hygenic maybe, but not elegant. It is always hard to pick up the rice bowl with steaming hot rice. You have to leave the ball on the table and scoop up rice with, again, steel spoon. I do miss the nice, earthy ceramic bowls and plates.

Interesting Hairstyle

Korean girls have very nice facial figures, high check bones and blemishless skin. Young girls like to have the straight-line fringe, cute. What puzzles me is that young guys also have the same hairstyle. Is it easier to maintain? It is not too bad on Korean guys though.

The other interersting hairstyle that is ubiquitous is the curly, black, ear-lope length hairstyle in middle-age women. You can see those everywhere, in the TV documentary of tofu making (the tofu factory owner has it), the street vendors, and the women shopping in the department store. Strangely, I cannot work out how Korean women pick the same hairstyle to wear when reaching certain age.

Really Like Taipei

We can see the "beware of the falling rocks, do not linger" signs everywhere we walked in Taroko. However, everyone is still strolling underneath the rocks, taking pictures. I think this is the national park's attempt to shed responsiblity if anyone is got injured.
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Maybe my Taipei folks would be very upset because I said Seoul is really like Taipei (I have no idea where this anti-Korean sentiment's coming about). Nevertheless, I have to say Seoul is very untidy and no-attention-details just like Taipei.

One thing very obvious is the lady's room. In other countries, used toilet papers are disposed into the toilet bowl. There is a small senitary bin that we can used to dispose napkins (some painfully clean places provides a small paper bag so you can wrap the used before disposing it). However, in Seoul, an open disposal box is placed right next to the toilet. By looking at the shapes of used toilet papers, your brain is filled with the vivid images of how people use them.

This is just very strange, why is it everyone doesn't dispose the supposingly water soluable toilet paper into the bowl? Oh, maybe they have bad experience with clogged toilets so that everyone was trained to use the bin. But, would it be so hard to provide a bin with a cover? It was not really fun to sit on a toilet right next to the filled-up basket (imagine the small space in each toilet stall, there is no place to hide).

Another funny thing is about the man's room. I can constantly heard that loud, cleaning throat sounds coming out of the man's room. Man, this is very much like Beijing. Is it because people live in North have bad throat all the time?

Agatha Chrstie's England

I am a big fan of Agatha Christie's detective stories, read most of them in both Chinese and English. But seeing BBC's production of it is another thing. It is not easy to imagine those stiff-upper-lip, Eton graduates's life was like in the pre world war II London or Oxfordshire. Though human natures are pretty much not surprising in every culture (love, hate, desire and fear), the BBC series gave a fair images. No Brits myself, but I quite enjoy the England depicted in it.

Women dressed in puffy skirts and skin tight tops, the waists are so tiny almost like a part of their bodies have stayed in the age of 10. They look confident, flirtatious and humorous, regardless of their age (Miss Marple is the exception, but I think that's her camouflage). Men are dignified and calm, even when the killer was identified at the end, rarely the killer lost his/her cool. Everyone seemed to have a story but no one is telling (English is very private), suspension arises, hard to find any better setting for detective stories.

Scent of Woman

Al Pacino's "Scent of Woman" was one of my all-time favorite movies. Oh, I don't remember most of it, but I am going to talk about scent. I used to think the medieval Europeans must be mad, they would exchange a ounce of peppers for gold. They sailed into the uncertain angry sea in search of fresh exotic spices and fragrance. Who needs those stuff? Growing up in a Chinese family, my parents never used colong, perfume. My father smelled of ciggarrete, toothpaste (in the morning) and tea. My mom smelled a bit of sweat and light body odour. Our clothes smelled of detergent and camphor. The most exciting spiece we used in our foods are ginger and chillies.

After turning 30ish, I start to rediscover my body, It is perhaps we were so distracted to explore the surroundings when we're young that we had no time to see (really seeing) ourselves. Now we were to bored with the world, so we look at ourselves to find some entertainment.

I do not think I have strong body odor, but perfume has become something I must wear before going to work. It is almost a statement and a hint of my existence. It is part of the dress that day. Of course, it has a percentage of attention attracting purpose. I started to realise why those Europeans were obsessive with scent. Before all the chemical engineering makes fabricating smells easy, what they can do about creating a good smell? Right, colonize the tropical lands! Oh well, it is all economics, business men found it is lucrative to sell the spices and parfume, let's lobby the royal family to build a big ship, money can be a pretty strong motivation.

London Seems Strange

Standing in the Ginza crossing in Tokyo, autum is in Tokyo.
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Returning to London again, walking on the street, I suddenly find that people are bigger in size, women are not really paying attention to their looks (trainers with dressing suit? Oh My God, London is turning into American), and there are a lot of rubbish on the street. Look carefully, it is lacking attention to details everywhere. Most of the Victoria era buildings have been converted to modern dwellings, such as office or pubs or apartments. But the bathrooms or kitchens are just not completed (of course, they are not meant to be functioning that way when the whole living space was designed in 19 century). I cannot believe that I am getting used to Japanese standard so fast and I started to understand the culture shock hitting Irene when she first came to London. London is rough, yes. I walk on Fenchurch street feeling that I am really small and fragile.

My French colleague made an very interesting comments about women in London. He can feel their sexuality, very obvious, whereas you do not feel so much about it with women in Tokyo. I have to agree with him. In London, women are more like an open book showing their desire, wants and dont-wants. In Tokyo, women, though dressed very girly, are playing down their sexuality as much as they can. They are cute, but not sexy. Perhaps that's what a harmony, balanced, smooth social operation needs. It is just a bit of less fun, maybe that's why Japanese men have to find their lovers in Ginza with money.

Value Added Service

During our trip in the mountain, we were again discussing how Japanese family lives. With Irene in tow, we can have a great inside of everything. Again, breakfast topic was brought to table. Since most Japanese mothers wake up at 5am, cook the rice, nicely cut and arrange the veggies as salad and grill fish. The beautiful and ornated breakfast was presented in the table by 6:30am. Wow was their reaction, both my mom and Grace were sleep-in moms. Breakfast was usually a piece of cookies.

Kevin's thought about it was that Japanese mothers complicate simple matters so to show their value in the family. How typical MBA graduate answer.

Being Average

Taking a nap! The weather is really hot. Mom and Grace's family are coming to Tokyo tomorrow, yay!

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I started to realised that our clients and the IT company their employed are not composed of very shockingly brilliant people. You can be normal, ordinary and survive in the same company for more than a decade. Being smart, sharp and aggressive doesn't give you the edge to succeed in Japanese group. You need to be smart enough to show your intellengence in the right place and right time in order to climb up the ladder. Of course, being a woman doesn't help that much.

This is really unthinkable for me. In the company I work for now, the shining stars are all mean and impatient. They are admired for being able to deliver results based on their individual merit. At the same time, the venom of their teeth are ingored and sometimes falsely praised. I pity those who are less characteristics and less agressive, they are treated like shit. There is no corporatinve culture, everyone is trying to be a leader so he/she can show off how important it is to have this person around in the organization. It is truely impossible to hire person who has been in the same organization in the same position for more than 5 years. Something must be fishy, is he/she that unemployeeable? Obviously, this case has a different reading in Japan.

On the other hand, you cannot deny that Japan is still the second largest economy body in the world. They must be doing something right. I suppose they do not exploit individual's talent but rather taking the sweet time to get things work out in a group (you know how long it is to iron the politics when doing a project). There is no hero (even if you are, you will conform to become a less pronounced person in time), the organization has piority number one.

Vegetarian and Stability

I agonize everytime going out dinner with our Indian colleagues. They are not carnivorous, some of the Jain cast are even not allowed to eat anything grows underneath the ground (thus, potatoes and carrots are banned). Not all of them can drink alcohol. Musilum collegaues cannot take anything that's not halal. They are so used to the strong flavor and spice-filled foods. Tokyo foods which mainly focusing the delicated taste and original flavor of food ingredients is like drinking tab water for them. Sitting in a Japanese restaurant, they can only drink bland water and eat Salad. Even the salad dressing is not interesting, they require salt on top of the grounded daikon soy sauce.

Things are not any better if going to western style restaurant, they can only eat french fries (I didn't want to tell them that the oil might be made out of animal fat). Dining with them is like seeing them being tortured in an interrogation room. Not only that, they have to pretend things are fine to be polite with us.

However, I think that's the only way that India can sustains 9 billion of population with a large percentage of vegetarians. Ever since Chinese economic starts to pick up speed, the demands of seafood and meat has gone up hugely, the rich Chinese's stomach is like the blackhole sucking in all expensive delicacies that used to be consumed by Chinese other than Mainlanders. Resources are eaten away in a faster pace. It is truely worrisome, and perhaps it is a good idea to be a vegetarian. I guess I should pay my vegetarian colleagues more respect.

Strange Characters

I always think that I am quite a strange character comparing to my peer. However, as I grow olders, I have met more and more weird, quirky, eccentric people around me, then I come a realization that I am actually quite normal. Chatting with a friend in a train about Miyazaki Haoyo's work. I am a super fan of his work, I like his crazy and fancy idea about flying, imagination of the world after the 3rd world war, huge insect like beasts who suffered from the pollution. My friend alleged that he doesn't like any of his work because he simply felt scared by it. He doesn't like the idea that some human beings can turn into pigs (spirited away) and he hates the ugly-looking giganic cockroaches roaming around (village of wind). Grown up in Japan, he's never watched Ultra man because he is afraid of the beasts and Gozilla. Even til now, he cannot take those movies because it gives him creeps and nightmares.

Life should be safe and peaceful, he claimed, those movies which depict things cannot be normal in everyday life is not his cup of tea because it raised his anxiety and nervousness level. I am very amazed. Isn't that's why movie is movie? Movie makers create the world and situation that cannot be seemed in reality, it brings us an experience that we cannot easily obtained via our every-day life. Through movies, you can see the world from others viewpoint and, perhaps, understand what makes of this world a bit better. However, this doesn't interest my friend at all.

I am reading James Oliver's Affluenza (painfully repetitive, I think Oliver' failed to pinpoint the cause and outcome of "keeping up with Jonses" phenomenon sweeping of English Speaking world). Distress and anxiety are not middle-class's specialty, everyone has to some degree crooked mind and dark side of emotion. Oliver's stressed too much about why the multi-millionare screwed different woman every night is also a drug addict and bored all the time. (To be honest, that's the most interesting topic in the book to me). People with weak mind and low self esteem would have problems no matter which class they are in.

However, the down side of reading this book is that I started to trying to analyzing why my friend is so strange. Marketing Character syndrom?

What are They Doing There?

Sorry, there is no picture provided because I really do not know what is going on in the 9 sqrt feet space.

I still continue my loud pee protest in any toilet in Tokyo. I refuse to use the "sound queen" to play the flushing sound in order to disguising my peeing noise. I pee as loud as I can in train station, office, client site or restaurant. What is the point of covering your sound of having a relief? Everyone makes sound when peeing, do you think if you cover the sound, no one is going to realise that you are peeing in the toilet? Phony. I cannot stand it. Of course I am not saying that I am OK with Mainland China ladies who can pee in public, but I think Japanese ladies have taken this resentment of we are all human and we need to pee and poo into an annoying level.

The other thing I cannot tolerate is that those delicated, cute Japanese ladies spend very very long time in the small space. The flushing sounds continue, what are they doing there? Washing themselves or pick their noses? There is always a long queue in the ladies room around noon time, which makes me angry.

Age is Important?

My late bloomers. They are supposed to blossom in May. The buds swell up and bursted into beautiful lilies overnight.
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When watching Japanese News, whenever there is a unfamiliar face coming to the screen, on the side of the frame, it always writes the name of the suspect/government official/ordinary person being interviewed. Follow the name is the famouse "san" or "kun", which is the title (it is very impolite to address another human being with his/her name only, regardless how young. The "kun" is the formal title for kids).

What is more interesting is it indicates the age in a bracket. I do not remember seeing this in other culture. Not only the TV news, after the 3rd or 4th time meeting a new Japanese friend, he (usually guy friends) would not suppress his curiosity and throw the age question.

Age, the number actually gives you a pretty good idea of interviewee's education background, experience, and what stage of life he/she is in . In other words, it sort of creating an 3D image of a person in your mind. It is one of those many niceties in Japan.

To Be or Not to Be

Listening to my Tokyo friend's match making arrangement stories is quite a fun thing. There are a lot of unspoken rules and etiquette in this whole process. For example, although you are starving to death, you cannot initiate the thought of going to dinner since the guy should take the lead of the whole activity, such as what and where to eat.

Since the date is fabricated and artificial, the guy is often very afraid of showing too much aggression such as agreeing to a dinner. My friend had only tea and a small piece of cake from 4pm to 8pm, when they finally bid each other farewell.

What's more, the converstaion topics are very limited. She asked what he usually does when he's free, he said he likes to take vitamins. How strange yet so politically correct, you won't expect him to say the truth such as I am a odaku and like to read AV mangas when I have free time.

Tokyo Babe

Finally we were settled in a yakiniku restaurant after a long walk...

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Meeting up with Isabel, Richard and their 2 year old son in Tokyo. I didn't realise that I have a lot of Toronto friends in Tokyo until Eric and Iris came visiting me. However, it is quite difficult to go around with a baby in tow, picking which restaurant to go is always a hassle, we can only walk around the city and Isabel has to wait outside in cold with the baby buggie.

Isabel doesn't like Tokyo too much as a mother. She doesn't know the language and has no family/friend's support. She was locked up at home with the baby all day long. She was so amazed how unfriendly Tokyo people are toward babies. While struggling to move the buggie up or down stairs in the subway, no one can be bothered to give a hand. Which is quite unthinkable for people from North America. She is also suprised how Richard's male colleagues don't help out much with the baby chores at home. All these make her very unease in Tokyo.

Irene explained that people in Tokyo expect the mother to take care of the baby at home, not on the street. If you are moving around with a toddler, you'd better know how to handle it on your own.

Fruits in Taiwan

While we were traveling, Auntie Feng and I were talking about how much we miss the Taiwanese fruits. I think that's the advantage of growing up in a tropical weather, we are so used to all kind of cheap, sweet, juicy fruits. It is so hard for people growing up in North America or northern part of Asia to understand.

For example, the Laichee and Dragon eyes are totally different, yet my Tokyo office colleagues in my previous company couldn't tell the difference.

Taiwanese fruit farmers were very creative, they did a lot of strange grafting, they put together apple and persimmon, the resultig persimmon tastes so sweet and crunchy. They created a type of pineapple with all the sweetness without a trace of sharp sourness. They also put togher the budda fruit with pineapple, strange but super sweet and easier to eat then traditional budda fruit. Speaking of Guava, there are so many different kinds of them. However, it is so hard to explain to my westerner friends what they are.

I love fruits, I am thinking to replace my moring coffee with fruit/veggie juice after I got myself a juicer!