Missing Manila

Shelly is in the Philippines this week, and I'm wishing -- at least briefly -- that I was unemployed again. If I weren't working, I probably would have tagged along on this trip and taken advantage of Shelly's paid-for hotel room.

I miss Manila even more because, when I spoke with Shelly this evening, I found out that Kyle at Italianni's was trying to set a place for "Sir" and that everyone at Shelly's old job site had been asking about me. It would have been nice to get back to see friends.

More impressive is that when Shelly walked into the spa she had visited about once a month for a year, they greeted her by name, despite the fact that she hadn't been there in eight months.

Our old neighborhood has changed, too, with the big construction projects taking place on either side of our house both completed. I would even be able to sleep past 7:15 a.m. now that the construction has finished!

A Vegetable

I suppose this sign at our local ParknShop supermarket is technically correct...


(For anyone who actually follows that link and wants to know how much stuff costs in Hong Kong, divide the Hong Kong dollar prices by 8, and you'll be pretty close to the US dollar price.)

Come on Down!

Through the magic of the Internet, I managed this past weekend to watch Bob Barker’s last “The Price is Right!” episode. I hadn’t watched TPIR for years, but had good memories of watching the show when I was a kid. It was the highlight of a sick day.

A number of things caught my attention while watching the show.

* Bob Barker was born in 1923, which makes him 83 years old. He looks really good for 83.

* Bob is amazingly popular with people who are in their early 20s. All but one of the contestants on his last show looked like they were in college – which they probably were, considering that one of the contestants said he had camped out for five days to get on the show.

* The set doesn’t seem to have changed much since I was a kid. It’s still all reddish and orangish with some decidedly low-tech sets.

* It was fun. Not so much fun that I would watch it every day, but fun all the same.

The other thing I noticed is that while I may have been good at pricing at one point, I have been overseas for too long to do it well anymore. Now if there were a Hong Kong version …

Welcome to the Blog, Shelly!

She hardly made a big deal about it in her debut on the big blog, but I wanted to welcome Shelly aboard. I think she is worried that I will never blog again. I might have said something like that to her, but it was mostly because I was in the middle of an extremely busy week at work. (In fact, I still have two stories to write this week, and then my schedule will ease up considerably for a couple of weeks.)

I've spent the past week-plus editing thousands of words written by lawyers in India, China, Singapore and Korea. I know more about foreign investment in India than I thought I ever would. I've also managed to get out of the office a few times this past week for interviews for my own stories, as well as conducting a dozen or so interviews by phone with people from around Asia. I am looking forward to a slow down.

But it will only be a brief slow down, as I'm heading to Vietnam in about three weeks. I'll be there for a week and a half, though a long weekend of that will be holiday with Shelly in Danang. She's in Singapore now, and is heading to Manila later in the week, and we're also planning on a holiday in Indonesia in August, so we're looking at a busy summer.

That busy summer will probably involve quite a bit of volunteering at church, because the congregation today had shrunk from our normal 200 to about 40. The Church of All Nations is connected to the Hong Kong International School, so a lot of the members are connected to HKIS. As I learned this morning, HKIS teachers, students and expat wives desert Hong Kong in droves during the summer. Given that it hit 34 degrees (93F) in the city today, I can't say I blame them. Pastor Dale and his wife are in Oregon for their summer holiday, where they apparently get cold at night. Can you say jealous??

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh what a Drip it is

Posted by Shelly

One negative symptom of summer in Hong Kong is leaking air conditioners. When I pay attention I can dodge the wet spots on the sidewalk,


but at least once a day I will still get hit with a big wet splat. Earlier this month, it was nice to see the this flyer posted in our apartment’s hallway reminding people that it is rude to let their aircon drip.


However, earlier this week it was not so nice to receive a personalized note in our mailbox informing us that we are part of the group of annoying drippers.


We have turned on the air-conditioners, crossed the street, counted up to the 7th floor and studied our apartment. We can’t see any water leaking from our units, but as we don’t want the government coming after us, we will be getting in touch with our landlord.

Fashion Trends

Posted by Shelly

When I lived in Tokyo in the 80s I was told that fashion starts in Tokyo and Paris and then works its way east and west. Fortunately some trends don’t make it across the Pacific (6 inch tall platform boots were a rage in Tokyo in the 90s). I have been watching the Asian fashion scene since arriving in Manila last year. In Manila, pink was the in color. Last winter in HK knee-high boots with long shorts were popular. If there was fringe on the boots it was even better. Now, the look of choice is thigh length shirts with a gathered hem (every time I see one I think of the velour shirt with an elastic waistband that I had in elementary school).


They also put gathered hems on skirts.


If you can trim the outfit with lace and an oversized handbag it is ideal. The final result is a very shapeless baggy look.

When I was in China two weeks ago, I casually commented to two Shanghaiese women that I liked Shanghai fashion (1950s inspired sleeveless sundresses with full skirts) better than HK fashion. I was a bit surprised with their quick reply – “Of course, and the women from Shanghai are more beautiful too.”

Chinglish

I recently went to an exhibit at the Hong Kong Museum of Art called "Chinglish." It was a particularly interesting exhibit for me because of the way it explored the use of language in a multi-cultural place like Hong Kong. Hopefully nothing in this post is terribly interesting to you, as the exhibit has already closed. I was there on its last weekend.

This was all modern art, and sometimes it was stretching the definition of "art." One exhibit was video of people in Japan (mostly Japanese, but also some foreigners) saying "I love you" in Cantonese. Some were very confident about their pronunciation, others much more shy. Another exhibit played audio of phone calls from Hong Kong to Japan and Korea, showing what happens when two non-native speakers of English talk to each other on the phone. Another exhibit involved video cameras and a big screen. You walked into view of the camera, and a bunch of computer-generated Chinese characters followed you around the room. I don't recall the point of this one, but it was pretty cool to watch kids try to outrun the characters.


A group of pottery exhibits illustrated the how often the word "man" or "men" shows up in English through a bunch of pottery figures of people. This one was called "Menopause."


My favorite exhibit was one which showed how words can have different meanings. The exhibit was actually a room, decorated with wallpaper which, from a distance, appeared to be a beautiful white and blue design similar to what you'd find on Chinese dishes.


But when you entered the room and looked at the wallpaper up close, you saw that it was anything but beautiful. If you're easily offended, you should kind of just skip past this next photo. In fact, I'll wrap this post up right here, so you can easily avoid it.