two lovers kissing

There's something delightful in a bowl of comfort food - a cassoulet from Carcossonne, the irish stew from a mum or grandmother, or the bowl of zhou, 粥. We call it congee. I found a small place in Tsim Sha Tsui, called Chui Fat, where the zhou is sublime. Thin slices of ginger lie at the bottom, sliced shallots on the top, hardy pork balls and a small sliced fish in a salted dish. Wonderful. And it's next to a comprehensive English book store, Swindon in Lock Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. Where I picked up a good copy of Geremie Barme's, In The Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture.

I'm contemplating going back again, for the zhou that is.

These lines are from Paul Weller in about 1971. They are in response to the young Hong Kong students, who at 20 years, still all dress in pink t-shirts and try to march in unison to cheesy songs with their hands in the Lou Reed, I Wish I Was A Sailor, And Lived A Thousand Years Ago, salute.

Two lovers kissing amongst the screams of midnight,

Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude.

Get in the cab man, travelling on buses.

We don't care about slashed seats on buses,

I say,

That's Entertainment.

The two young guys were circumspect but they had style in Festival Walk, Kowloon Tong.

不听我的，看

Festival lanterns

Yuanxiaojie, Lantern Festival, falls on the first full moon of the lunar month [22 September]. Families and children visit a park to hold lighted lanterns and view the lanterns on display, and answer lantern riddles written on the lanterns.

Many of the children held plastic lanterns in the shape of the car from Toy Story, or the little battery powered lady beetle, with flapping wings. The lanterns on display are elaborate and complex, weith rotating internal designs of tigers, and figures from Chinese history. The acrobatic troupe from Hebei province put on a classic acrobatic and flexibility display in the main park at Tin Hua, Victoria Park. Also the boys from the juggling school, showed off their improvision of switching hats as the Marx brothers did in their classic films.

These two shy festival goers had lanterns like an octopus. With their Dad they were quite boisterous and fun, then I asked to photograph them.

The round glutinous moon cakes, yuanxiao, are wonderfully sweet and filled with duck egg yolk. They are quite filling, haochi, delicious.

Followed by a brief meal of octopus, dried shrimp, garlic chives, cashews, and choy sum. With the obligatory Hanjing, the premium Beer of all China. Or so the label says. And who am I to argue.

This poem is titled, Parting at a wine shop in nanjing, by Li Bai.

A wind, bringing the willow-cotton, sweetens the shop,

And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share

With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off;

And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting,

Oh, go and ask this river running to the east

If it can travel farther than a friend's love!

Comrades and village life

I've been brushing up on the ideologies swirling through Mao Zedong's life at the time of the Cultural Revolution in China - 1966-1976.

Life was miserable, nasty and cheap for millions in all stratas of the Chinese life during the years. At one stage all staff members, more than 2,000 people, were sent to the provinces of Jiangxi or Hunan for remoulding their cultural ideology. Or when you had the Premier and Vice Premier of the State labelled as "revisionist" and they needed to publicly apologise for they did not understand the intricacies of cultural revolution. These moves paralysed China's foreign affairs and embassies abroad.

It made for a decade of unwholesome public madness that enveloped entire communities, villages and towns. To also understand the times, you could look at Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang. It's an interesting look at how people who go through extraordinary communal madness adjust to life after the subsidence.

Today I discovered a Marxist writer, Michael Hardt. He quotes Herman Melville, Frances Bacon, and Joseph Conrad in his tale of Empire. And Coetzee. He's also a fine and easily read writer. Very rare in philosophers on Marxism and national identity and empire.

Today's image is from the garden joining the old campus in hong Kong's Baptist University and the basketball courts.

Marriage, milk tea, and John Donne

Studies of families in Boading show that after 30 years of socialist principles in societal planning and structuring family life through acts such as the Marriage Law and the dissolution of ownership of property, the family structure was of better quality for people aged 50 and above than for their counterparts in Taiwan.
Taiwan broke away from China and pursued a more capitalist form of society. In measures of family networking, contact with children and extended family members, men and women aged 50 and above rated their satisfaction higher in all categories than those people in Taiwan.
All of those surveyed in Boading, a city of about 600,000 near Beijing, would have had their families before the introduction of the One Child policy in 1979. The survey was conducted in 1994.
The sociologists who conducted the survey now wish to survey again following the imposition of people who have been subject to the One Child policy and the move towards more capitalist approaches and the ownership of property and business enterprises.
Anyway Hong Kong is also an interesting case where the British colonial structures that were imposed since the 1860s have greatly influenced society and people's expectations. I only wish they could get a good cup of tea right, Twinings' Russian Caravan, with milk and a good sugar. Very hot. A Hong Kong Style Milk Tea is just not right. Neither is the Thick White Toast liberally doused with Peanut Butter and then criss-crossed with
sticky sweet Condensed Milk. Something is gang aft agley.
This is from John Donne, from nearly 400 years ago. it is good to hear again. Read the whole work aloud to someone. It's a good tale.
The Sonne Rising

She is all States, and all Princes, I,

Nothing else is.

Princes doe but play us; compar'd to this,

All honor's mimique; All wealth alchimie.

Thou sunne art halfe as happy'as wee,

In that the world's contracted thus;

Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee

To warme the worlde, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art every where;

This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

Vacuum packed sports shoes

This morning I saw Frozen, a US film by Kevin Green. three students scam a free ride on an uphil chair lift inthe ski resort and are then left on the lift [which closes down for five days before the next weekend]. It's a well-paced story of how things can go wrong and the wrong decisions that will affect you later in your life.

Then on to lunch at the popular Tai Hing Everyday restaurant in Mong Kok. The lunch was pork shin, goose, and soy chicken with rice and the ever popular bok choy. The ubiqituous Hong Kong Style Milk tea is a nice reminder that the English "adminstered' the territory for nearly 155 years. Three pictures today. One of the plastic vacuum packed sports shoes on display, one of the Mong Kok railway station and another of the mackerel at Genfuku, in Kowloon Tong.

9/11 is Nat's birthday. 他是我的第二个儿子。He is my second son. When he was born he was a smiley baby.

Walking home with Emmy I asked about her home town. She's from Sweden, but her parents are originally from China. She speaks English, Swedish, Vietnamese, and is studying Mandarin. 我嫉妒. I'm jealous.

I haven't heard any news from the US on 9/11.

Shellfish and Asahi

Today was a full day -- two hours of Mandarin, two hours of China and Politics, and an hour of Understanding Mainland China and Hong Kong. Also time spent in the library with other students who will presenting on the ideologies of China and nationalism and how these have influenced China's foreign policy.

I'm going to have a quick Japanese meal and an Asahi before retiring. Although not on campus as the univeristy is dry ground.

I also spoke with my second son, Nat. He's deliberating over whether to spend time in Finland or Sweden on an international exchange. A real dilemma.

Two pictures today - one of me with the Soong Hall students. I don't think I stand out that much. I didn't wear the yellow shirt. And one of shellfish and slowly drowning scampi at the Night Markets in Temple Street. Despite the fragrant surrounds, the shellfish is fresh and the dishes are quite flavoursome. The beer, Yanjing, the Premium Draft Beer of China, has a light flavour of hops. Not bitter at all.

And then it's to bed. To be woken at about 2am by the returning domestic students. And my 10th floor mosquitos. I'll buy the repellant tomorrow.

This is from ee cummings. an American poet.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

He never used a capital. Like Cormac McCarthy doesn't use quote marks.

Looking backwards

Asked again if I'm a professor or a lecturer, many of the young students find it hard to believe that I'm doing an undergraduate degree. This is understandable given my greying, receding hair. But I do find study enjoyable.
Study here also enables you to look back on your life in Australia … step away from the daily push and pull of life. Although I do receive the Google Alerts for Shoalhaven City Council [wind storms in the city damaging council property]; a reminder that life doesn't leave you. It's just that you find a different perspective on how to look on developments and changes in your life.
Also talking with young students -- mostly from Hong Kong or mainland China -- it is a reminder that any are dealing with study, gaining life experiences, expectations of parents, looking to job opportunities in Hong Kong, and dealing with the demands of course study. And mostly they are achieving this in English, which is a complex little baby. I'm glad I won't have to conquer this language as an adult. Underneath this there is a desire to perform [much like many of the international students]; there is also a love of learning and the enjoyment of the value of discovery. They might not express it like this, but it is there.
I thought that today is a good time to reflect on my time away from the family. This is part of a brief poem from Carol Anne Duffy, a constant favourite. She is now the Poet Laureate for England. Following in the footsteps of many great poets, such as Ted Hughes and Andrew Motion. This one is for Jenne. I miss you more than I thought I would. And to explain for my three readers, Jenne has been forgiving and willing to let me go voyaging on this discovery.
If you do find the time, find Duffy's other poems, such as Warming Her Pearls. They are drops of delight in an otherwise global and increasingly financially cluttered world. Like enjoying a sweet sugary dusted Turkish delight made with rosewater.
This Shape, Carol Ann Duffy
This shape is a rose, protect it, pure, it's pure.
Preserve it. Already evening unfolds you
before me. Naked, entwined, standing
in a sheet against a wall. This shape.

My lips tremble on its delicate brim
and dare to gather the drops which fall.
Your milk swells my throat to the neck of a dove.
O stay. Rose with pearl petals, remain.

...

Sleeper, your body. This shape, extraoidrinary.
Creamy almond, star, o curled up chhild.
A tingling stir of blood in the blue departure
of evening. A naked foot sounding on the grass.

No picture. I'm posting this in the library. besides the whispering pink Hong Kong students.

Slouching towards Bethlehem

Chinese Foreign Policy since the Cold War is a vexing issue for Chinese watchers. Robert Sutter outlines arguments for two views: that China's leaders are working with a clear and coherent process to ensure that China's foreign policy is based on closer interaction with international bodies and relationships and that this will ensure that China's development and progress are ensured, while the other argument is that China's strategy is fragile and incoherent and could be jeopardised by international events that are outside of their control. Such as the black swans extolled by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

There is no such issue in Hong Kong. The city continues to thrive on the assumption that there is money to be made and there should be little if any government policy which inhibits the residents from pursuing their greater goals.

Tonight at 10pm walking down Nathan Road among the thousands of shoppers and people enjoying a meal in the many small restaurants, I was struck by the fact that people are still in business and pursuing their financial goals. Even though many parts of the city are somewhat degraded and showing their age. The escalator off Haiphong Road shows the image from a television showing models on the catwalk. The stairway is an advertising resource.

I also read today of Bob Carr's suggestion that the ALP offer a role to Malcom Turnbull [Member for Wentworth] in a Federal government. This is a sensible and different suggestion that is worthy of consideration. Australia needs robust and intellectual leadership where the consideration of climate change and social change to ensure that Australia reaps benefits from a busy and sustained mineral resources boom. Other nations would not think twice about reaping benefits that go towards the greater benefit of a small nation. Such paucity of forethought will lead to a meaner and less equitable nation.

Sha Tin

10,000 Buddhas above Sha Tin in the New Territories. It's a small Buddhist temple built atop the sloping hill side in 1957 by the Venerable Yuet Kai (月溪法師, Yue Xi). The golden Buddhas line the walk to the temple top, which includes wonderful sculptures of various Buddhist dieties. The Buddhas on the path are life-size and feature different faces and different positions and facial expressions. They smile down on your as you sweat your way through the sticky moist air on your way to the temple. Where there are in fact 12,085 Buddhas. I travelled with five other students and we had tea [hóng chá​, 红 茶] and soft drinks in the Buddhist canteen.

It's wonderful; the spiritual life of Chinese is a far greater and different flow through their life. The worship of their ancestors and their children, so it is more linear [zuótiān​, jīntiān​, míngtiān​, 昨天，今天，明天］than Western based spiritualities, where by a hierarchy is based on top to bottom with different levels attaining a closeness to God.

Sha Tin

10,000 Buddhas above Sha Tin in the New Territories. It's a small Buddhist temple built atop the sloping hill side in 1957 by the Venerable Yuet Kai (月溪法師, Yue Xi). The golden Buddhas line the walk to the temple top, which includes wonderful sculptures of various Buddhist dieties. The Buddhas on the path are life-size and feature different faces and different positions and facial expressions. They smile down on your as you sweat your way through the sticky moist air on your way to the temple. Where there are in fact 12,085 Buddhas. I travelled with five other students and we had tea [hóng chá​, 红 茶] and soft drinks in the Buddhist canteen.

It's wonderful; the spiritual life of Chinese is a far greater and different flow through their life. The worship of their ancestors and their children, so it is more linear [zuótiān​, jīntiān​, míngtiān​, 昨天，今天，明天］than Western based spiritualities, where by a hierarchy is based on top to bottom with different levels attaining a closeness to God.

Fashion and Meaninglessness

Frozen is a new Hong Kong film, describing the life of a young girl who grows up not knowing her mother. And the comic event of meeting Mum and finding her real dad. It's a bizarre mix of love, finding your own family, and strange science. I googled Frozen and the story of three snowboarders stuck atop a sky lift on the day before a five day lay off sounded interesting. But Frozen at Festival Walk described a young woman growing up with her mum having been killed in an accident when giving birth some 20 years ago. her father, a scientist, cryogenically keeps his fiance young and alive. But the daughter [living with her step dad] discovers the real truth after her "step" dad dies and she accidentally opens the cryogenic casket and Mum comes back to life after 20 years. The story is a bizarre mix of lost love, reverence for the disco days of the 1980s, bad clothes and haircuts, it also has some fairly standard music by the main lead actor.

But it was a good introduction to the the movie business of Hong Kong.

I also learnt that a young woman kept in a cryogenic state for 20 years, when she lapses gets some form of cryogenic retina, which causes them to turn a fluorescent disco blue. You should see the French film, Disco, directed by Fabien Onteniente, for a better take on the 1980s and disco dancing.

I also took photos of two young couples, one in Kowloon station and another in Festival Walk [a monolithic mall in Kowloon Tong]. The first couple for the t-shirt extolling the virtues of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's ideas of a Black Swan, an idea on economic theory and the concept that theories can't cope with the single event that the economists and financial strategists can not foresee. Events such as the 200 global financial crisis, or the development of hysterical prizes for tulips in 16th century Holland. Or a hung parliament in Australian 21st century.

Tsui Hark and Wonderland

I blogged yesterday on the film making of Tsui Hark. Which is excellent. But today I pay the price. The Macbook allows you to change the region code of the DVD to be played. ON the fifth play the region code on the Macbook stays the same. Forever. In my technological haze didn't realise and I have Double Team, another Tsui Hark film, and The Element of Crime by Lars Von Trier, which I can't play as the region code is different. [If anyone knows a remedy for this on the MacBook, let me know.]

This afternoon I dined in Wonderland, a restaurant specialising in Japanese and Korean food on campus, with three young men who are undertaking their degrees at HKBU. Intelligent, hard working and thoughtful. We spoke of Rupert Murdoch, men marrying well below there age and income level, games, and courses at university. Also we spoke of the Australian Monarchy [which is quite difficult to explain] and the difference between electing a President or the Prime Minster and President of the People's Republic of China. We also spoke of the financial crisis, and the size of farms in Australia. This was a wonderful lesson in how the world is distorted through different cultures and and different lenses.

I'm playing them in a few games of ping pong soon. So we will see how the reflexes and stamina hold up. I hope the Yoga is good for table tennis.

Als if you get the chance read, http://www.thechinabeat.org/, and the article on how doctors are approaching the issue of aids positive in China.

I forgot to travel with Radiohead and also the level two Mandarin exercise books, which would have been very useful. I also forgot pictures of the family to show [and prove] to the international students that I do in fact have people in another part of the world that loved me [well, at least liked].

The library has been good I've now got Debussy's Clair De Lune [suite bergamasque]; this is sensational piece of music. tonight I ventured into Jordan and Yau Ma Tei. Not good places when the rain fall is monsoonal and the shoes are sodden.

I'm planning to see Frozen tomorrow at Festival Walk. The early morning show is only $35 HK [about $4.50 Australian]. The movie sounds interesting. As adventurous as Tsui Hark, I doubt. As well paced and shot as Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby, I doubt.

I couldn't get photos today in the torrential rain, while the other parts of the day I was in a tutorial or a canteen. Above is the cleaver I bought yesterday and also the Chicken Teriyaki [in low light] at Genfuku restaurant near the Seven-11 across the road from the Hong Kong Baptist University sports centre.

I also held the umbrella up for a grey skirted Buddhist nun while crossing Jordan St. I wonder if that will give you better points for the approaching life in a non-European afterlife? Probably not.

Tai Chi and dried fish

In Junction Park, Lok Fu, there are many elderly men and women who practice a stylised tai chi [it's not Tai Chi, but a warm up stretching and movement]. The instructor stands at the end of the basketball courts and uses a small loudspeaker to convey the moves to the many elderly who line the courts and surrounding park areas

There are also plenty of plodders, shakers and quakers. They move around the park about 6.30am and into their morning routines to get the body moving.

I walked to the park this morning and while there I took a place next to the step platform and went through a strenuous yoga routine, including lunges, downward facing dog, cobra, Chaturanga, one-legged pigeon pose, Dandasana, wide-legged forward bend, Triangle, Warrior 1, and intense forward bend. Judging from the looks there is not too much knowledge of Yoga and some of the Asanas. The best thing is the local council has paved the area around the step platform and children's play equipment with soft matting, which is great for yoga in the park. The joggers kept on lapping while I went through the sequence.

Sweat plus in the humidity at 7am.

Before lunch I went to Shanghai Street to buy a small cooking pot [Kruger - Germany, Aluglass-Induktion, aluminium and non-stick, $100 HK] so I can cook some small meals in the dorm kitchen rather than eat out every night.

On the way there was a small shop selling dried fish, mussels, and shrimp [like Ikan Bilis in Indonesia]. They also had there dates or prunes on the footpath drying in the sun. Only they were about 15 cms away from the busy Shanghai Street. Also the photochemical smog in Hong Kong is quite thick. So I don't hold much hope for the health benefits of dried fruits from this venue.

Now it's reading Chinese Politics: State, Society and the market, and the less intriguing China Counting: How the West was lost, before classes start tomorrow.

I don't know if I should do Ananda Balansana [happy baby pose] while in the park.