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Monolingualism as a badge of pride? A view of America from Hong Kong

Posted by expatlingo in America, cartoon, Hong Kong and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Monolingualism and the American bigot

A comic inspired by recent traffic on my Facebook feed from American relatives.

I saw the following sign at a Hong Kong public transportation interchange today. The sign includes three linguistic versions of “first class.” The sign can be read by Hongkongers/Taiwanese/Singaporeans (頭等), Mainland Chinese (头等) and English speakers.

Trilingual sign on Hong Kong's East Rail Line

Trilingual sign on Hong Kong’s East Rail Line

Hong Kong maintains a “biliterate and trilingual” policy, meaning that Chinese and English are both official written languages and that Cantonese, Mandarin and English are the territory’s main spoken languages (see more here). Government websites and forms are written in Chinese and English. Announcements on the MTR (subway) are in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

Because of Hong Kong’s policy, I have the chance to hear all sorts of public service announcements on local media. Through these announcements I have learned that:

  • Scattering of cremated ashes in designated Gardens of Remembrance is free of charge and promoted by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (as Hong Kong is rather tight on burial space). I am a proponent of cremation and yet, the word “food” following so closely after the mention of human remains gives me a start every time.
  • “Our hands are important” and thus we should take special care to keep them clean. Especially during this winter’s avian flu scare.
  • “We” should check our drains regularly during the rainy season.

Does it hurt anyone to see a trilingual sign, read a bilingual government form or listen to a PSA in a language they understand? I can’t imagine an instance when it does.

And yet, there is a small group of Americans who are dead-set against the use of any language other than English. For example, this quote was shared on my Facebook feed by several relatives from Utah:

“I will not be forced to learn a foreign language to accommodate illegals in my country.”

Because I’m too passive-aggressive to write a response on Facebook, I’ll rebut the nonsense here (in preparation for an in-person rebuttal after I’ve had a few drinks during this summer’s “home leave”).

“forced to learn” I see no evidence that anyone is being forced to learn Spanish. Do you work at the New Mexico Department of Licensing? Then you might be able to do your job better if you speak Spanish. But that’s skill tied to a particular job like any other. Learning a second language, like learning MS Access, can be frustrating and mildly painful, but is not permanently harmful and can be useful on a CV.

“foreign language” While English is the most commonly spoken language in America, there is no official language at the national level. After English, the second most commonly spoken language is Spanish, with 35 million residents speaking it as their primary language at home. (For more information on the topic of languages in the US, see this Wikipedia article.)

“accommodate” What is the problem with accommodating? There are many stores in the southwestern US with window signs reading “Se Habla Español.” It means that they have a staff member who speaks Spanish. They do it because it’s good for business. Similarly, when taxes are collected (using government produced forms) isn’t it helpful if those paying taxes can read the forms? I speak some Chinese and am always working to learn more, but I could not fill out a tax form that was only in Chinese.

“illegals” Assuming that all (or even a majority) of Spanish-speakers are illegally in America is bullshit (see here).

So what are we left with?

Bigotry and fear.

(Thanks to Dav Pilkey’s “Captain Underpants” young reader book series for the T-shirt quote in my comic: “Reading might offend you. Why take the chance?“)

Smoking: a tale of two Chinas

Posted by expatlingo in China, Hong Kong and tagged with , , , , , , ,

Part One: The fastidious smoker in Hong Kong

In an expansive and nearly empty public space — the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade — he stood boxed between metal barricades and a tall chain-link fence. An R2-D2-sized, bright orange trash bin was his sole companion in this smoker’s exile.

Smoking in park's "Designated Smoking Zone" in Hong Kong

He was surrounded by vacant green lawns and ventilated by the breeze off of Victoria Harbor, yet he remained strictly within the confines of the two-meter by two-meter plot officially allocated for public smoking.

He is one stunning example of both the strength of Hong Kong’s rule of law and the speed at which perception about public smoking has changed.

***

Smoking rates in Hong Kong are among the very lowest in the world at 11%, down from 23% in 1982 (Hong Kong’s Department of Health). Acceptance of smoking bans in public spaces is generally high.

Part Two: The Chinese “non-smoking” hotel room

Recently, a friend visited Mainland China for business. He has traveled to China many times and speaks decent Mandarin. He was not surprised when, upon entering his mid-market “no-smoking” hotel room, he inhaled the scent of stale smoke.

He called the front desk to complain and they promptly sent someone up to his room.

A porter arrived, entered, collected the room’s several glass ashtrays, and exited.

The room was now deemed to be non-smoking.

***

Smoking rates in Mainland China are high (Gallup) and what smoking bans do exist are often ignored. Further,

“there’s actually a popular myth that tobacco harms other nationalities, but not Chinese people.”

(I wonder what marketing genius at the state-owned China Tobacco Corporation planted that seed in the public’s mind.)

In May, officials banned smoking in Beijing’s Forbidden City. Wind of change?

Smoking in Tiananmen Square
Related post: “Lord of the Flies” in mid-air, or “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em”

Three tellings of 六四

Posted by expatlingo in read and tagged with , , , , , , ,

In Hong Kong yesterday a Cantonese speaking construction engineer visited me to schedule work. He spoke as much English and Mandarin as I spoke Cantonese, so it was a conversation laced with body language.

He said they’d come back “luk sei” (六四, six four, meaning June 4th), the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He said it again, “luk sei,” and laughed awkwardly. He asked if I knew the significance of the day. I nodded. He pretended to spray bullets from an imaginary machine gun to be sure I got the point.

Tonight in Hong Kong, as every year since 1989, there will be a candlelight vigil to remember the events of June 4th 1989. A record number of 180,000 are expected.

*****

(Published by The Associated Press, originally photographed by Jeff Widener)

In mainland China five years ago I asked my Mandarin tutor if she knew about 1989′s famous “Tank Man.” I had heard that many in China were not aware of the image of the man with the bags blocking an advancing line of tanks.

She told me that she did know about this photograph. She told me that it illustrated the great restraint the People’s Liberation Army displayed when dealing with the Tiananmen protestors. She said, the PLA could have simply ran over him or shot him, but they didn’t, they carefully tried to maneuver around him.

Today in mainland China there will be no official commemoration. Students across the border from Hong Kong in Shenzhen have been warned not to wear “mourning clothes” and that any on or off campus demonstrations will be clamped down.

*****

Last night I finished reading Ma Jian’s “Beijing Coma,” which tells the story of the build up to June 4th from the eyes of a fictitious Beijing University student. He remembers the 1989 protests as he lingers in the comatose condition. A condition he fell into after being struck in the head with a bullet in the early morning hours of the hardliner’s June 4th crackdown against the student protestors.

In his retelling of the protest, he lingers for pages over the inner workings, camaraderie and turf wars of the student movement. Knowing the outcome, working through the long read to the ultimate bloody end is as harrowing as it is gripping.

While remembering the past he also hears snippets of the changes sweeping through China throughout the 1990s. He hears about the deaths/imprisonments/lives abroad/money-making of his Tiananmen Square student compatriots. He learns of the crackdown on Falun Gong, the arrival of pagers and computers, the return of Hong Kong and then Macau to mainland China, and the demolitions transforming Beijing in advance of the Olympics.

It is a long, but worth-while read.

Some choice quotes are worth sharing (the book was translated into English by Flora Drew):

On opposition in China

“The whole world is watching us. The government wouldn’t dare use violence.”

“Fighting the government will get you nowhere. It’s as pointless as throwing eggs at rocks.”

“There’s nowhere to hide in this country. Every home is as exposed as a public square, watched over by the police day and night …”

On the student-erected “Goddess of Democracy”Goddess of Democracy

“She rose majestically from the middle of the Square, directly opposite Chairman Mao’s portrait, staring resolutely into the distance, her mouth tightly pursed. When I looked up at her, I felt a renewed sense of courage.”

“Chairman Mao was smiling wryly at the Goddess of Democracy, whose eyes were at the same level and were staring straight back at him.”

“In the last glow before dark [on the eve of June 4th], I watched the crowds rush frantically back and forth between Chairman Mao’s portrait and the white Goddess of Democracy.”

On the night of the crackdown itself, as the Army stormed central Beijing

“I got everyone to cry out to the troops, ‘The People’s Army loves the people! The Chinese people don’t shoot their fellow countrymen!’”

“But the girl in the red skirt was unscathed. She continued to walk towards the guns that were pointing straight at her. Then, when she was just two or three metres away from them, a shot was fired .. Her left foot stepped backwards, her arms and body tilted forward, then she lost balance and crumpled on to the ground.”

“As the smoke cleared, a scene appeared before me that singed the retinas of my eyes. On the strip of road which the tank had just rolled over, between a few crushed bicycles, lay a mass of silent flattened bodies. I could see Bai Ling’s yellow-and-white-striped T-shirt and red banner drenched in blood. Her face was completely flat. A mess of black hair obscured her elongated mouth.”

On China since 1989

“As society changes, new worlds and terms keep popping up, such as: sauna, private car ownership, property developer, mortgage and personal installment loan. … No one talks about the Tiananmen protests any more …”

“Ten years ago, I escaped from the nation’s political centre and retreated into my home [in a coma]. But soon my home will be a shopping centre. Where can I retreat to then?”

*****

Please also see this riveting series of photographs posted by The Atlantic on last year’s anniversary: Tiananmen Square, Then and Now.

United in Mutual Revulsion: Spit and Shoes

Posted by expatlingo in cartoon and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comic on spitting and shoes

It is amusing how horrified we can be about the behaviors of others, while turning a blind eye to our own horrifying habits.

Spitting is an entrenched habit of many in Mainland China. Entering the elevator in my Chinese high-rise apartment, I was often greeted by a slick of opaque spit in the corner. Fortunately, in my present home of Hong Kong, a SARS-related aversion to germ-spreading has wiped out most public spitting.

A spitter has explained the logic behind the habit to me: essentially, since the air is so polluted and your phlegm captures this pollution, why would you dream of swallowing it? Far more healthy to eject this filth. I can understand the logic. (The logic, however, would still work if a tissue were employed between a person’s mouth and the ground.)

While I have yet to established my own ‘cleansing-through-spitting’ practice, my time in Asia has completely cured me of the habit of wearing shoes indoors. For years my mother tried to convince us to remove our shoes inside. We mainly ignored her: what a pain to unlace our sneakers just to cut down on vacuuming.

Now I cannot bear to enter a house with my shoes on. I find it mildly revolting when others march in with their filthy outdoor shoes on.

After all, who would want to track all that hacked up pollution (dog shit/car oil/mud) back into their homes?

Heaven is a Hong Kong junk trip

Posted by expatlingo in Hong Kong and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Watching the boats bob in Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, I swallowed two small pink pills to combat sea sickness. With the thick smell of “harbor” in our noses — diesel exhaust, fish and petrol — we boarded the “junk.”

Day-long boat trips around Hong Kong are commonly called “junk trips” after the old wooden boats that still putt around various harbors and typhoon shelters. Despite this, many “junk trips” take place on large luxury yachts. 

The weather report for the day was poor and the junk company chose a conservative destination: Clearwater Bay. Making our way swiftly past Hong Kong Island’s built-up North Point and Taikoo neighborhoods, we rounded the eastern-most edge of Kowloon and started spotting small fishing villages flying bright triangular pennants. Several of these villages were located on solid ground, but one was a purely floating village of small boats lashed together in rows.

Moments later, passing the cliff top perch of the Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club with its perfect green lawns, reminded us that we were still in modern Hong Kong with its yawning income gap.

Setting anchor in Clearwater Bay, we goaded each other into entering in the cool, dark water that smelt vaguely of sewage.

Clearwater Bay as seen from the shore on a different day out.

Clearwater Bay as seen from the shore on a different day out.

As we swam, dark clouds moved swiftly across the mountains and directly overhead. A succession of us swimmers scurried up the ladder and headed for cover just as the rain billowed down on us. Huddling in the weather-proof, enclosed bottom deck, we opened the wine and looked nervously at lightning sparking across the sky through the rain-coated, narrow boat windows.

Within an hour the rain had passed, leaving the surrounding mountainsides a vibrant green. The sky, while still overcast, glowed from the edges in a way that highlighted the smooth, glassy-still, black water. The two nearby public beaches were empty and there was not another boat in sight.

Feeling wonderfully relaxed from the glass of post-lunch Prosecco, my friend and I plunged off of the lower back deck. She chose a graceful dive and I a far less glamorous foot-first entry.

Swimming, I started over-thinking the shark nets that ringed the public beaches. We were on the ‘wrong’ side of those shark nets and looking into the dark sea below I couldn’t shake David Attenborough’s “Planet Earth” narration from my head: “The shark relies on surprise.” The documentary’s accompanying image of a Great White rushing up from deep beneath a seal with its jaws wide, was insuppressible.

Screen shot from BBC's Planet Earth, "Shallow Seas" episode.

Screen shot from BBC’s Planet Earth, “Shallow Seas” episode.

This line of thought is ridiculous since there has not been a shark attack in Hong Kong since 1995. (See this great write-up of the shark attacks that did occur in the early and mid 1990s by Phil at Hong Kong (& Macau) Stuff here.)

But irrational shark-fear coupled with the plastic rubbish floating past, meant that further swimming lost out to another glass of wine while admiring the view off of the top deck. Old and new friends from around the world (a group of women had clubbed together to hire the boat) relaxed in swimsuits while talking about music, Ted talks, and the places we’ve lived.

Being a Bond enthusiast, my ecstasy level hit an absolute peak when Adele’s theme from Skyfall started playing on the boat’s sound system.

Sublime.

And I wasn’t queasy for a moment.

Image from Skyfall (Source: The Telegraph)

Image from Skyfall (Source: The Telegraph)

I love Hong Kong.

Land Granny, the Heavenly Bureaucrat and other tiny deities

Posted by expatlingo in Hong Kong and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In shopping mall filled Hong Kong, districts still exist where altars to gods outnumber coffeehouses. Wandering haphazardly around the New Territories, I’ve randomly stumbled across and photographed many tiny deities. While they added a touch of local color to my explorations, I have only recently become more curious about who they are and what they represent. This week I finally took the time to do some research and discovered that these little god figurines front some fascinating back-stories.

Land Granny and her partner, the ‘Modest Heavenly Bureaucrat’

Looking as warm and caring as Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, this pair of tiny gods can often be found around Hong Kong’s villages. I spotted this particular set at an altar beside the Tin Hua Temple in Lam Tsuen.

Land Granny and Tu Di Gong in Lam Tsuen, Hong Kong

Initially, I simply assumed they were symbolic ancestral relatives used in a generic form of ancestor worship. A very silly assumption on my part! With more careful sleuthing, I’ve discovered that they are “Land Granny” (Tu Di Po/Tou Dei Po 土地婆) and “Earth God” (Tu Di Gong/Tou Dei Gung 土地公).

According to Wikipedia, Earth God was historically revered by common people who relied on the land for their livelihoods:

[He was] not all-powerful, but was a modest heavenly bureaucrat to whom individual villagers could turn in times of drought or famine.

So he is a simple celestial administrator; he can’t win wars, but he can make sure your agricultural balance sheet remains in the black. Beloved by many, the Earth God is often simply called “Ye ye” (grandpa).

His partner, Land Grandma, is often viewed as having a similar benevolent temperament, but is sometimes thought to negatively temper Earth God’s potential generosity. The particular representation of her above, however, looks like the archetype of a warm, loving and generous grandma and must represent the former, non-stingy, interpretation.

A Nuanced God of War

In the same area of Hong Kong’s New Territories, I passed by this jumble of roadside gods:
Lam Tsuen, Hong Kong

A partner-less Earth God can be seen on the right, but the scene is dominated by the red skinned “God of War” (Guan Yu/Gwaan Jyu/Kwuan Yu 关羽, 關羽 ). Having visited several temples at least partially dedicated to the “God of War,” I thought of him as a one-dimensional god of aggression. I was wrong again. Guan Yu was a real historical figure whose non-fiction life has morphed into a fictional tale of grandeur via the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” where he stars in such stories as “Guan Yu crosses five passes and slays six generals” and “Guan Yu attends a banquet alone armed with only one blade.”

Symbolically, Guan Yu represents loyalty and righteousness. He is widely worshiped by the Hong Kong police force. Unexpectedly, but because he also represents the “code of brotherhood,” he is also widely revered by Hong Kong’s criminal underworld who respect him from an “honor among thieves” perspective.

Guan Yu, it turns out, is a character much more interesting than a bluntly violent action figure; he is a nuanced symbol of strength with honor.

The Goddess of Mercy and Possibly Air Travel

Near the old police station that now houses the Ping Shan Heritage Trail Visitor’s Centre, I spied a tiny “Goddess of Mercy” (Guan Yin/Gun Jam/Kwuan Yam 观音, 觀音 ) perched on a tree stump:
Tai Shui Wai, Hong Kong

Guan Yin is a very widely worshipped bodhisattva who seems to have become all things to all people. The Goddess of Mercy provides compassion and unconditional love, protects women and children, champions the downtrodden, liberates souls from karmic woe, promotes fertility, aids fishermen, and may even protect air travelers.

The two small children who flank her hint at further interesting tales to be explored. They are two of her acolytes ”Dragon Girl” (Long Nü) and “Child of Wealth” (Shan Cai).

An utterly enormous version of Guan Yin is under construction in Tai Po district, but I prefer this modest tree stump representation.

*****

For now, I’ll conclude this random walk around the Chinese pantheon of gods.

Have I gotten something wrong? Please correct me. Do you have another interesting deity-related story to add? Please share it.

I heavily mined Wikipedia for this information. Let me know if you have a good book recommendation on this topic. Here are direct links to the relevant Wikipedia source articles:

Land Granny and Earth God

Guan Yu or God of War

Guan Yin or Goddess or Mercy

One to rule them all: Starbucks in China

Posted by expatlingo in China and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Starbucks in Forbidden City mock-up

Feet and fingers aching from Beijing’s winter air, I once went in search of the Forbidden City’s much-maligned Starbucks. As a former “friends don’t let friends go to Starbucks” anti-corporate Seattle-dweller, I’d read all the tut-tutting over the cultural inappropriateness of the coffee chain’s location within China’s former Imperial Palace.

After a 2003 conference in Beijing, I took a few extra days to see the sights. In the heart of the city, I wandered solo through huge, impersonal expanses of crushed ice and snow. Entering the Forbidden City, I passed through an unending series of unheated squares, palaces, gardens and halls until my bones ached with cold. I needed something hot. I wanted a coffee. I remembered the newspaper articles about the out-of-place Starbucks and started looking for it. It was not in any of the obvious places I had already passed through. I started circling through side halls and garden corners.

I could not find it. Despite the hand-wringing over its location being an ugly mark on historic China, I could not find it.

With red cheeks and a running nose I called it quits and ducked into one of the many shops selling pots of instant noodles. It was warm-ish inside and the walls were lined with rows of Big Gulp-sized buckets of noodles. I chose the “red” flavor and a woman peeled back the top and filled it with hot water. Carrying it to a long communal table, I sat on a metal stool and waited for the boiling water to soften the noodles and shards of dehydrated carrots. It was filling and warming, but a soft chair, newspaper and hot coffee would have been nice.

After seven years in operation, the Forbidden City Starbucks branch closed in 2007 because of a disagreement with the landlord over branding. Despite leaving the Forbidden City, Starbucks has only kept expanding throughout China and there are currently over 3,000 branches in “greater China,” that is including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Starbucks, unlike KFC or McDonald’s, tries to blend into the local area. For example, in Hangzhou last autumn I saw what is probably the most beautiful Starbucks in the world. Tucked away among the gardens and other tea houses, it’s a rather lovely sight:

Hangzhou Starbucks

Starbucks in Hangzhou, China

Hangzhou Starbucks signage

Starbucks sign “星巴克咖啡” (xīng bā kè kā fēi)

Starbucks is ever-keen to suit its products to the local market. Looking at the current seasonal offerings in China, one might wonder whether Starbucks is changing China or China is changing Starbucks:

Starbucks Dragonboat Dumplings

Dragonboat Dumplings (screen shot from Starbucks China website)

Red Bean Green Tea Frappuccino

Red Bean Green Tea Frappuccino (screen shot from Starbucks China website)

In Seattle, with its wealth of coffee shops, I’m still more likely to visit small stores like Herkimer or Fuel, but there have been many times in China, Macau and Hong Kong, when a soft chair and a Starbucks coffee have been exactly what I wanted. And from the growth figures, it’s exactly what many Chinese want too.

“Gau go gaau gau gau ge!” Song by The Police or Cantonese tongue twister?

Posted by expatlingo in languages and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Nine plastic dogs is enough!

Since Chinese New Year, I’ve been studying Cantonese with a small group of beginners. Our class consists of a few Brits, a few Dutch, a token American (me) and a token Beijinger.

As our instructor has guided us through a check-list of basic topics — taxi directions, food, shopping, family relationships, the weather, colors, etc. — the more distractible and deviant members of the group have slowly collected enough Cantonese homonyms to devise a mini-tongue twister:

九個膠狗够嘅 !

“九個膠狗够嘅 !” is pronounced like this in Cantonese: “Gau go gaau gau gau ge!” (with Jyupting tone markings: gau2 go3 gaau1 gau2 gau3 ge3). The meaning of this tongue twister is: Nine plastic dogs are enough!

Sticklers, please forgive us, we’ve picked a generic and imprecise measure word for “dog” but we did it in keeping with the spirit of the tongue twister’s “g” sound. Are there other errors? Please let me know!

This side-game has firmly stuck six Cantonese words in my mind and (I think) helped me to understand one Cantonese final particle — ge — more clearly.

Here is another Cantonese tongue twister that fills in a few more Canto vocab blanks: Go go go go gou gwo go go go go (click through for Youtube video).

Neither of these short sentences, however, can match the famous Classical Chinese tongue twister, “Lion Eating Poet in the Stone Den,” which uses the sound “shi” and only the sound “shi” (with varying tones) for 10 straight lines of poetry.

《施氏食獅史》
石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。
十時，適十獅適市。
是時，適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。
氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。
石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。
食時，始識是十獅屍，實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。

 ”Shī Shì shí shī shǐ”

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.
“Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”
In a stone den was a poet called Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

Do you study languages? Any great tongue-twisters or word games to share? Do you think The Police tune, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” was really just a secret Cantonese tongue twister?

Related posts:

My Cantonese is improving thanks to the NRA
My accidental Chinese language partner, the telemarketer
Getting into language character, or: I’ll wear a half-shirt if it will help my Chinese
Mini-bus language angst. To speak or not to speak…in Cantonese.
Milestones in a Foreign Language: “I went from talking like an evil baby to talking like a hillbilly”
Language Fails. My own failures of communication in French, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese.
China’s Pearl River Delta = Woe for the Chinese Language Student

Buoyantly free in rule-bound Hong Kong

Posted by expatlingo in Hong Kong and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,
A giant, inflated suckling pig lurks in the grass.

A giant, inflated suckling pig lurks in the grass.

The heavy-hand of Hong Kong’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) stunts the enjoyment of many of the city’s public spaces. LCSD guards have told us we couldn’t “frolick”, lean over railings (to better view the fish pond), or even sip from a juice box at Nan Lian Gardens. They have warned us away from the edge of a turtle pond in Hong Kong Park. By observation, I have deduced that their general policy is to discourage all of the sorts of things kids like to do in public open spaces.

No frolicking or running

Hong Kong Park sign

In striking contrast, the Moble M+ INFLATION! exhibit is a wonderland of freedom and bliss. At “Inflation!” the public is allowed to walk, skip or (even) run through what feels like a swiftly tidied up construction site — uneven surfaces(!), clumps of tall weedy grass (!), mud (!) — to see, touch and explore a series of huge, irreverent inflated sculptures.

The giant suckling pig!

Giant suckling pig

The "exit" to the suckling pig! with the ICC as backdrop.

The “exit” to the suckling pig with the ICC as backdrop.

Half-burried bodies and cockroaches!

Half-buried human and cockroach

The real surprise highlight is what appears at a distance as simply an inflated Stonehenge replica.

Jeremy Deller's "Sacrilege"

But which turns out to be a massive “bouncy castle” that everyone can (and does!) jump on:

Jeremy Deller's giant 'bouncy castle'

Old and young alike delight in running, jumping, sitting and falling all over the sculpture’s green, bouncy surface. It’s all smiles and just a few common sense restrictions:

Rule board at Inflation!

The whole experience is unexpected, mind-freeing, and fun.

Go now, before a net of rules is thrown over the whole thing. It’s on through June 9th at the West Kowloon Cultural District (which, fortuitously, is not managed by LCSD).

Sorry, I’m new to this! Notices for novice expats?

Posted by expatlingo in cartoon, expat life and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On my first walk around Mainland China, I should have hung this apologetic public notice on a placard around my neck:

New China Pedestrian Comic

As a new pedestrian in China, I initially looked for official painted crosswalks, waited for the biggest gap in traffic I could see (because no one yielded voluntarily), and then ran across the road at an unpredictably jerky fast-slow pace. A practice no other road-users anticipated and which caused a lot of confusion and honking.

Fortunately, with a little observation, I soon got the knack of stepping out into the traffic-filled roadways, walking at a steady pace, and marveling as the cars predicted my path and opened gaps for me.

Why am I flashing-back to a time I should have notified others of my ‘novice’ status? It’s the fault of this cartoon man’s guilty, sweaty, stupid grin:

New driver notice in Chinese

I pass this ‘new driver’ notice daily in the rear window of a white station wagon here in Hong Kong. He reminds me of my own red-faced — ‘sorry I didn’t realize…!’ — moments.

Thinking back, I can recall several times when a “sorry, I’m new here” notice could have been helpful. Here is but a small sample:

  • Being ‘over-friendly’ during my first weeks of English life and attempting far too much eye-contact with neighbors and semi-strangers.
  • Assuming that check-out clerks would bag my groceries in Holland.
  • Thinking that any Hong Kong Island ‘red’ taxi would happily drive me to the middle of nowhere in the ‘New Territories.’

What about you? What mistakes have you made as a novice expat that could have been softened by an “I’m new to this” notice?

*****

Notes: For those who are hooked on Chinese, I translated the ‘new driver’ sticker into both Cantonese and Mandarin:

新手駕駛: Novice driver (In Cantonese: san1 sau2 gaa3 sai.2 In simplified characters and Mandarin: 新手驾驶, xīn shŏu jià shĭ)

请多包涵: Please bear with me/I feel apologetic! (In Cantonese: cing2 do1 baau1 haam4. In simplified characters and Mandarin: 请多包涵, qĭng duō bāo hán)