Scale of Crazy Traffic Behavior

It's hard to sleep when someone is singing "We didn't start the fire" on karaoke right below your room. So I bring you my official Scale of Crazy Traffic Behavior, a wide-ranging survey.

New York City: 3
Aggressive but generally under control. Decent infrastructure to keep things in check. 'No right on red' law, I never truly appreciated you!

West Palm Beach: 3
Not so bad, really, except there seem to be a lot of teens around with nothing to lose. If there's an accident, the Jaws of Life will probably be involved in the cleanup.

Providence: 2
Friendly and meandering, but also frequently dim-witted. Scary highways.

Hong Kong: 3
Other than the terrifying double-decker buses, very well-behaved. Walk means walk!

Guangzhou : 7
Frequently scary. 10 second Walk signs across 10 lane roads. Many major crossings without stop/walk signs. Disregard of crosswalks by cars. Some bike chaos.

Thailand : 8
Taxi drivers enacting speedway fantasies, but it all seems fun! Must be the hot pink cabs.

Beijing : 10!
My life has flashed before my eyes each time I neared a major road. Few seat belts in taxis. People leaping over railings into traffic, drivers accelerating towards hobbling old women... The WALK sign here means 'go ahead and walk if nobody is speeding through on a right or left turn.' Seriously: the lanes never stop completely! It's terrifying! I could go on and on. The level of risk everyone seems willing to take is quite stunning.

On the other hand, the city deserves props for incredible bike lanes on every street, as well as nice long, green, bench-lined parks for shade and outdoor exercise equipment. I can't imagine what they'd do without the bike lanes (which is why they're probably there – their cost-benefit analysts couldn't imagine, either). And I really can't imagine what the streets will be like, come August. Where will all those people fit?

So, that's a typhoon.

April, Shauna, and I spent their first day in Hong Kong walking around in a typhoon that introduced us to a whole new understanding of rain.

STANDBY SIGNAL NO. 1 is in force

STANDBY SIGNAL NO. 1

Tropical Cyclone Bulletin

Here is the latest Tropical Cyclone Bulletin issued by the
Hong Kong Observatory.

The Standby Signal, No. 1 is in force.

This means that a tropical cyclone now centred within about
800 kilometres of Hong Kong may affect us.

At 1 a.m., Typhoon Neoguri was estimated to be about 650
kilometres south-southwest of Hong Kong (near 16.9 degrees
north 111.7 degrees east) and is forecast to move
north-northwest at about 14 kilometres per hour in the
general direction of Hainan Island.


DISPATCHED BY HONG KONG OBSERVATORY AT 00:45 HKT ON 18.04.2008

Helloooooo?

I have really fallen behind in my blogging. I'm going to post a few of the bigger goings-on very soon. In the mean time, here are a few random pictures, accompanied by the shortest of short stories:

One Saturday morning recently, I was awoken to a loud noise. As if someone was surgically removing my apartment from the rest of the building. Turns out, they were! This is a photo of two men standing on the bamboo scaffolding on the 6th floor, using a drill. I took it with my head out of my bedroom window, bright and early. The apartment extraction continues to this day.
~ The End ~




Look at these nice people! My friend Charles shot a picture of me, Erin, and Mike after a party at the Blue House in Cheung Sha Wan, where the AiR artists are housed. We were feeling invigorated after a rousing afternoon of debating the ethics of community art. Hey, I'm wearing this same shirt right now!
~ The End ~






Erin and I went to Macau. We saw a dog W.C. there! It was a large cylinder in a public park, filled with sand. A tree grew in the center.
~The End~

On the Street Where You Live

Dance Hall I
Originally uploaded by redredredred

Deborah has already done a great job of describing the interior of the Expert Room, but the building in which it resides deserves mention. She lives in a relatively small high-rise for Hong Kong (when I ventured upstairs to find roof access I counted between eight and ten stories). It is currently encased in bamboo scaffolding and green netting. From Monday through Saturday, workers remove portions of the building in what appears to be a gradual and randomized process of destruction rather than construction. Rectangular pieces of drywall disappear from the stairwell daily. The stairways are slowly being chipped away, revealing the tangle of metal bars that provide their structural support. Saturday mornings bring the sound of jackhammers right outside the gate to the Expert Room and the sense that one has been unknowingly cast in a commercial for headache medicine. It's actually rather enjoyable--one never knows what will happen next.

The situation provides a fitting metaphor for the city of Hong Kong, which seems to be constantly under construction and in many ways does not resemble the city I visited a mere three years ago. Landmarks such as the Star Ferry Terminal have disappeared and are now visible only in the form of nostalgic souvenirs at upscale design shops. Beautiful but dilapidated high rises that I recall photographing during my last visit are also gone, replaced by newer, taller, and brighter high rises. All but the most famous remnants of colonialism are tough to find unless you really know where to look and what you are looking for.

I am not a knee-jerk preservationist, totally opposed to new development in all its forms. Yet at the same time, I wonder where this is going. How much of this is truly necessary? At what point does it become irresponsible? Will the charm of the city's streets and the people who inhabit them be completely destroyed in waves of new construction? As Hong Kong's public spaces change, how will the customs and rituals formed within those spaces change? What will daily life look like? When will Deborah return home to find the contents of the bright and spacious Expert Room buried under a pile of debris and her next door neighbor hanging a daily load of laundry (giant white underwear and all) on bits of broken concrete?

What will be lost, and what will emerge from the rubble? Thankfully, there are organizations and artists here dedicated to examining these questions and more.

Ma On Shan Country Park

Hong Kong has amazing, well-kept hiking trails through the mountains just a short ride out of the city. Yesterday, Mike and I spent most of the day hiking from Ma On Shan Country Park back to Kowloon. We were in search of a river where we could shoot some video for a project we're working on, and the map of the New Territories had tons of little rivers all over the country parks north of the urban areas. We found some good possibilities while walking until we couldn't walk any more.

As I know from my other trip to the mountains here, the views of the city and the sea are stunning here. Because of incredibly thick fog, we didn't see anything more than 40' in front of us all day: never a single glimpse of the sea. Our limited view of the landscape was magical, though.

Here's some more pictures on flickr.

Usurper! Usurper! (or, Collaborator! Collaborator!)

Second Sight
Originally uploaded by redredredred

Deborah has gone above and beyond the call of duty as my hostess in Hong Kong. Not only has she graciously opened up the Expert Room for my comfort, convenience, and consumption of oatmeal during the last week, but she has offered me space on her blog to contribute a few thoughts about my experiences in China.

This, friends, is what the public humanities are all about. Further entries are forthcoming.

Rehearsal

I got to watch a run-through of Men Talk, a new dance the company will premier next week. The dance is theatrical, very funny, sprawling... The man with the sheet is my new friend Eagle, who is a guest artist with the company. Photo credit goes to Jasmine, who holds my hand through all the things I don't understand during the work day.

My eyes, my eyes!

Monday, the pollution in Guangzhou was bad enough to make my eyes burn as I walked downtown. A nice atmosphere for photography, though! Here are some pictures of the city between 6 and 7pm, plus a few of the dance company's great facilities. The interior shot is a downtown mall: the most typical Guangzhou/Hong Kong landscape.

As further encouragement

Just in case you haven't yet finished and mailed me that tender Brokeback Mountain interpretive watercolor (are those just tears on the page?), or whatever film you've chosen, here's a better photo of the inspirational drawing.

Jurassic Park Danger, or, shameless begging for those things I lack

I got this SWEET drawing in the mail yesterday.

Art is cheap to mail. Come on, people! Won't you please send me a drawing? An impression of your favorite mega-blockbuster, perhaps? Or the latest indie whatever? I know you've spent at least one long afternoon coloring The Bourne Ultimatum or My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Just a suggestion. Oh, and I also need some Emergen-C. Cranberry. My address is in Facebook, if you don't already have it.

Electric rooster

Here is the most amazing detail about the generally lovely arts compound where I stay in Guangzhou. Every morning, the upstairs neighbors drop some heavy, heavy things on the ceiling above my bedroom. This is alarming for several reasons:
1. I've developed a paranoia about shoddy Chinese high-rise construction.
2. These sounds are loud. The kind of sounds you feel. To be fair, the reverb coming off my "mattress" probably worsens the effect.
3. My room is on the 28th floor.
4. That's the top floor. Who is up there, and what are they doing?

But that's not the amazing detail I promised, just a momentary lapse into negativity. Here's what I really wanted to say:

I am saddened by these noises less for the momentary panic they cause than because they prevent me from being awakened (awoken?) by the COMMUNITY ALARM! Yes! Every morning, around 8, the bells of a grandfather clock sound through a PA system. And there is a snooze feature! They come back twice more, several minutes apart.

I love this. As much as it's an obvious intrusion of a bureaucratic structure into one's personal life (a reflection of so much else), there's also something really natural about being awoken to a sound coming from outdoors, rather than right next to your head. It comes from the distance and seems gentle and benevolent, probably because everyone seems to ignore it.

This is the view from my window.

Dog day at Cheung Sha

On my way into China last week, a customs beagle confiscated my apple. (As if my produce didn't come to the Special Administrative Region from the non-Special one, in the first place!) But I'm in Asia, where there's this whole philosophy of yin/yang working, and to this principle I owe the pleasure of my afternoon with two small dogs at Cheung Sha. The universe tooketh, and then it gaveth, through the agency of dogs. (Sorry. I'm really mixing my systems of belief now. I blame it on my morning yoga class in what is actually known as the yin/yang style, taught in English and Cantonese. My head spins at the hybridity.) Dogs and I took long walks on the beach, lounged on rocks, ran in the rain, and collaborated on a short film. (See post below.)



In tribute to them, I treat you all to a photo essay. After following a herd of cattle down the beach (don't ask - I don't know), the little blond fellow even sat below my chair at the amazing outdoor South African/Mediterranean restaurant on the beach.













































I'm working hard on the art of the candid self-portrait.

The Young and the Restless, a short film

The Young and the Restless, a short film
Video sent by indoorcat

You'll notice that we adhere to the practices of Dogme 95. (And I want you, film aesthete reader, to know that I was planning on making that silly reference before I realized what a fabulous pun it would make.) We also maintained Aristotle's dramatic unities, but I can't find the joke in that one. Can you please self-complete this post by imagining I've made some clever reference to winning the Palm d'Or at you-know-what? Thanks.

In Guangzhou, finally!

Dongfeng Park
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

This week, I went to Guangzhou to visit the dance festival for the first time. I love this city! It's huge: 9 million and sprawling. I haven't seen the old parts of town yet (which are, what, 900 years old?), but I'm staying in the old part of the new part (meaning 1960s construction, I think).

The neighborhood is expansive and comfortable - several parks, wide streets lined with beautiful trees, on a scale that reminds me of Chicago. (Yes, I know that's weird.) A Chicago without traffic lights, that is! It's weird to cross so many lanes on foot without a walk sign! Luckily, I haven't found the rumors of chaotic driving to be true in this neighborhood. The fact that cars drive on the right, unlike Hong Kong, certainly helps me feel oriented. Here are the flickr pictures.

One downside of the city is the pollution. Wow. Yesterday, I missed my return train to Hong Kong. (By "missed," I mean I was only 9 minutes early, not the required 10. I forgot how much worse the English signage is in this station, and I ran all over trying to find my gate.) I was required to purchase another ticket (a new definition of customer service!) and ended up with two hours to kill before I could return to Hong Kong. In the outdoor waiting area, the air was gross! Thick, dirty smog. Also, people smoked everywhere in the city, including in the cubicle next to mine. However I feel about returning to the U.S., my lungs will be thrilled.

The Pinkie

Last February, my right pinkie became swollen and remained so for a few months. Exhibit A is to the left. What was wrong with it? Nobody at Health Services knew. (I just accidentally typed "Heath Services." Creepy.) It was only a mild annoyance, anyways, a decommissioning of one of the marginal fingers.

Why am I mentioning this now? Because it's back! And it's February again! What's up with this seasonal joint disorder? And will I need to rely on Chinese medical services for any reason? Will I come home with a mere 9 fingers? Exhibit B, below, observed in front of Times Square, Guangzhou. (Who knew they would have Times Square in both Hong Kong and Guangzhou? Weird!)


My most medically-knowledgeable (aka only) friend here thinks it must be arthritis. I'm leaning towards gout.

Tomorrow, Guangzhou. Today, Repulse Bay.

and then, a return to this:

Lamma Island

The harbor at Yung Shue Wan
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

Saturday, I took the ferry to Lamma Island. It's about 25 minutes by boat from Central Hong Kong, but very different feeling. Lots of expats, no cars or buses, hippie hemp stores, plus Chinese seafood restaurants. (And one famous for its pigeon!)

My camera battery died as soon as I stepped off the dock (and, sadly, no Stephanie to share hers with me!), so I didn't get many pictures. I spent the afternoon wandering around and reading The Fortress of Solitude on a rock at the beach. I miss Brooklyn, but I don't miss the winter!

Thanks

Dear friends, thank you so much for your messages! Every morning, I wake up early and go to Starbucks, where the internet is good, excited to have new messages to read. This is one of my favorites, so far:

hi aunt debby
max here again. hear me. i'm going to bed now. good night.

love,
max x0x0x0x0x0x0

(Don't worry, I promise I won't paste yours in for all the world to see!)

Love,
Deborah

Chinese New Year Update

Crowd control at the temple
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

Well, I've slogged aimlessly through my first Chinese New Year. I'm not proud of myself - I wasn't much of a joiner - but I got through another solid of week of no plans. There were lots of pretty lights to look at, with the added bonus of children in brightly-colored satin costumes on the train. I watched the big parade from an Indian restaurant up the block from the real action. With good food and fellow foreign observers, it was pretty fun and cozy!

The next night, I did go all the way to the waterfront for the fireworks display. I watched them from a crowd looking up into the sky but not out over the water: there was a tall construction wall just in front of us, blocking our view forward. How symbolic! And lots of police. They had to face us, so they missed all the fireworks.

The display was very similar to the last few NYC 4th of July displays, with the addition of what some red sparks that seemed to be roughly in the shape of Chinese characters, plus an attempt at Olympic rings. Here are my fireworks pictures in Flickr.

Over the week, I also spent a lot of time wandering around after dark, taking pictures. Such a nice way to pass an evening! Here's the full set.

In praise of the Broadway Cinematheque

I've just spent another pleasant evening at the Broadway Cinematheque. I've seen three films here since I arrived. (Don't worry, mom, the student rate is about $5 USD.) Besides showing the best selection of independent films around, they have an amazing dvd store called Kubrick with the most incredible selection of films from around the world. The first time I walked in, I thought I had died and gone to heaven: here were all of my favorite movies, plus things I meant to see but never did, plus who knows what else!

I bought two movies, which I thought were on DVD. Oops. They were VCDs. Never heard of that, but now I know that they're basically lower quality than dvd, no extras, and fit on two cd-roms. That explains why they were only $3 each. Fine with me! I'm desperate to have a reserve of things to do at home when the internet goes down. What would happen if I had to feel bored?

Anyways, I came home with Volver and Me and You and Everyone We Know. Did you, whoever you are, have a discussion with me this year about Knocked Up and the lack of womens' perspectives in the movies? Almodovar makes all the American chick flicks, as well as all those popular novels that inevitably deal with incest, look just pathetic... I'm not saying there aren't a whole lot of other things going on in Volver besides a female POV, just that it was striking to see a whole world of women, with the men playing the bit parts for a change. I'd like to see him re-do P.S., I Love You. (Or is P.S., I Love You already some weirdly twisted - or untwisted - remake of an Almodovar film?)

I should mention here that I haven't seen P.S., I Love You. And I can't, yet, because it's not showing in Hong Kong: its taunting ads are plastered all over the MTR stations, but I can't figure out the opening date.

To return to my original theme: I went back tonight to see Sweeney Todd. While I was lingering in the bookshop, browsing sadly among the books on contemporary German dance in Chinese (drat!), I learned that they also have a nearly-free DVD lending library! I'm now a member, and I can get two dvds at a time for up to 7 days. I'm so psyched! I checked out Night and the City (Dassin) and Summer Interlude (Bergman). I'm feeling ambitious!

Let's talk some more about me.

I love this yellow building!
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

From my corridor
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

My laundry returns to me in an amazing cube form
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

That's what we're all here for, right? I, frankly, am quite tired of my own company - me, me, me all day! - but I will persevere with the blogging.

I keep forgetting to take my camera out of the apartment, so here are yet some more pictures of home. This time, my favorite mango-colored building, followed by the engineering marvel of Bo Laundry, who label my receipts "Miss," and fold my laundry into the most perfect rectangular solid you've ever seen.

Travel woes

The news just told me that about 170,000 people are stranded at the train station in Guangzhou. Severe weather throughout China has caused huge travel delays leading up to the New Year. Here's more information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7212823.stm

I'm supposed to be on an 11AM train to Guangzhou tomorrow morning, but I'll be going into a different station than the one people are stranded at.

Update! I didn't go today (Tuesday), after some confusion during which I thought they told me not to come because of severe weather. Weather is supposed to be worse tomorrow, but I'm going anyways, if the trains run. Should be interesting. I'm even getting my own hotel room, since the Expert Room, Guangzhou Edition, isn't ready yet. (And what does that mean??) I am extremely relieved about this because the rooms there aren't heated, and it's in the 40s. I hope that the weather will have warmed up significantly by late February, when I actually start working there.

True happiness!

My new friend William showed me where to buy a box of these! And, he says there's another supermarket that sells American food in giant boxes - like two foot tall boxes of corn flakes. I can't wait to visit!

Makes me think of Fat Ammy's:

Stepping back in time...

... to last Sunday, when I moved into the Expert Room with Miranda's help. We dragged the bags upstairs and found that we couldn't get the gate to the apartment unlocked.

This first picture is the front gate of the building. It is demonstrating how cool and collected I am. After a few minutes of twisting and tugging at the key, both by me and a certified military expert, things are falling apart!




















Anyways, Celeste forgot to tell us about this secret button that actually opens the gate. Once we found her, things were fine. Here are a couple pictures of the Expert Room, or "ER," as it shall now be called:





Laundry censored!

Going to the movies!

I decided to go see My Blueberry Nights tonight. Wong Kar Wai will help me love Hong Kong, won't he? (Oops - I just read that the film is his "love letter to America.") Anyways, I was provoked to blog about this because I see that tickets purchased online include assigned seats. I wish they had this in NYC!

Also, Langham Place, where the film is showing, is a 15 story mall! According to Wikipedia, it includes:

Xpresscalators - The longest escalators within a shopping mall in the territory^[8]. A pair of them is located on the 4th floor leading up to the 8th floor, and another pair leads to the 12th floor. These long escalators have been designed to reduce the "horizontal drift" of shoppers, thus keeping them in the mall^[7].

I hope I can find my way back out of there!

A few photo highlights

In case you don't feel like wading through the hundreds of pictures I've posted on flickr, below are some of my favorite places and pictures from the trip, so far. These aren't necessarily the prettiest pictures - just some things I wanted to remember...

Long Arm

Long Arm
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

The Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery exceeds our expectations. We climbed a lot of stairs to see all the statues, but it was totally worth it. Plus, we had adventures with wild monkeys.

Abandoned fishing villages in the New Territories

Another beautiful abandoned building
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

Sidney, an anthropologist, takes us on an amazing hike through the parks in the New Territories, as well as Grass Island. We rescue a dandy Dutch soccer stadium architect, who hops a ride back to the mainland on our speedboat.

I love the shark's tooth over the center of this building. I was amazed how similar the plant life was to South Florida: melaleuca (brought to Florida and HK from Australia, I think), bougainvillea, feathery-looking pines, and banyan trees.

Grand Lisboa Casino, Macau: the world's most beautiful bathroom?

The most beautiful bathroom
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

Ok... this bathroom might come in 2nd to the Art Nouveau one at the John Brown House, but it's pretty amazing, isn't it? Miranda staged a whole photo shoot around the sinks. The Grand Lisboa Casino was full of spaces like this, plus the most amazing food I've had since I arrived.

Mock Front Desk

Mock front desk
Originally uploaded by Indoor Cat

We toured the Macau Institute for Tourism Studies, which included a working Mock Front Desk, including computerized check-in, sample door locks, etc. My childhood dream! Very Arrested Development, isn't it?