The Sevens

Yesterday I got a glimpse at why people go to Cal football games. I went to a game back in freshman year and left half way through because I just couldn’t take all the school spirit that I had deemed “mindless”. So, after reading an article about how sports games are like political rituals for my Anthropology class I headed out with a group of exchange students to an actual large sporting event. The Hong Kong Sevens is a well known and widely watched rugby tournament where the games are only 14 minutes long and seven people play on the field. (It took me a little too long to get where the “sevens” in “HK sevens” came from). As students we got into Friday’s games for free, which is really very cool. We got a section of just HKU kids together and sat for the next five hours watching the games, watching the event goers, eating greasy overpriced food and drinking expensive beer. It was a really entertaining tournament to go to because there were just people from all over the world. There was certainly a majority of white people but the faux hawks, flags as capes and multitude of different accents made it clear that it was still an international event. People actually got really creative with their costumes with my favorites being either the men in the Viking outfits with their little speedo bottoms, the guys with the hula skirts and red white and blue hair or maybe the people in the gorilla full body suits. The games went by fast and I did my best to try to learn as much about rugby as I could but mostly, as usual, I took my stance as an anthropologist studying why people were doing what they were doing and being less of a participant. I watched the guys hoot at the cheerleaders, I watched the crowd slowly get more intoxicated and less focused on the game, I noted the reactions to the women’s rugby final and I compared the whole scene to an American baseball or football game. What can I say, after an amazingly fantastic burger at Shake em’ Buns and being around too many drunkenly stupid people, I retired for the evening to be in bed by midnight. Still, a good day and time to be in Hong Kong.

For some reason karaoke is big in Hong Kong. People rent out rooms (like the one in Lost in Translation) where you pay a fixed price and then get to use the room for what seems like as long as you want. Lorna’s friends are here and this merited a karaoke night. We ended up only being seven girls in a big room with a decent amount of English songs, three mics and seven non-alcoholic drinks. Perhaps predictably we shortly made the drinks alcoholic and proceeded to enter into the tipsy karaoke festivities. There was dancing, there was shouting and there was even stand-up comedy (thanks to up and coming star Ms. Lorna Khoo). I would say that we had as much fun as seven girls in a room for three hours singing songs could have. Celion Dion, Spice Girls, Madonna and Britney helped us through our first Hong Kong karaoke experience and we finished the night at a club in Wan Chai to get our first glimpse at what crowds the Hong Kong Sevens Rugby tournament would really bring. Oh, Wednesday nights…

Lamma

the turtles were sun bathing too

Easter Monday we ambitiously set out for another excursion. This time we went to Lamma island, Hong Kong’s third biggest outer lying island that has no cars and, thus, roads on it. It is only a half hour ferry ride away and then you are greeted by the various seafood restaurants that entice you to sit down. Peering into the tanks in front of these restaurants is pretty much like going to Sea World (aside from Shamu). You can pet squid, gawk at humongous fish, wonder why there are giant horseshoe crabs just chilling on the path and see the biggest shrimp you’ve ever seen. We skipped out on the seafood and began the “family trail” that took us to the other side of the island. The whole round trip would take about 1.5 hours to walk. Being a holiday, it was pretty crowded and so some of the hike was completed in baby steps. But it was a beautiful sunny day and we got to do lots of basking and eating (two very important things). The highlights have to be trying red bean ice cream popsicles (which we originally thought were strawberry), mastering the squat toilets at the beach, trying various pastries to ruin our appetite for our healthy vegetarian meal at the Bookworm café (I had my first real salad in months!), giggling at the random kids at the beach and the sights of the turquoise blue water from above. It was an easy escape from the city which I am sure we will have to do again.

Shrimp instead of Chocolate

the people who owned the seafood filled boats would use nets attached to long sticks to hand up their goods to the buys in the docks above

poor horse shoe crabs were stranded and a main attraction on the boardwalk, as you can see, they are mostly for show as they offer little meat for eating

As usual, I was not one of the navigators...

This Easter was kind of sad. It didn’t involve family or good food or candy or eggs or bunnies or baskets and certainly not Jesus. But, for the average day, it was a good day. A group of us went over to Sai Kung to do some hiking and eat seafood. Sai Kung is out in the New Territories (which is the biggest piece of land in Hong Kong about 1.5 hours from our dorms). I was really pleased that the hikes actually felt authentically natural. We did pass a herd of Hong Kong Adventure Club members (which I guess is cool such a club exists but I think a city survival club might be more practical for Hong Kong citizens). The best view looked over a reservoir and the untouched land masses(aside from the large golf course). The silence was the most startling part of the trip. You forget what it really sounds like when you are constantly surrounding by noise. We all paused and soaked it in until the first person couldn’t handle it and we marched along. That night we ate Chinese food on the water next to tables with tons of dogs sitting at the table like people. I watched as one lady rubbed her face into the dog before she took her bite of noodles. I thought of Molly Brown and Tucker and wondered how they would measure up against the promenade of other dogs. I also had the big realization that night that I don’t really like Chinese food. I am sorry, I tried.

A little side episode story occurred going out last Friday after we checked out the Asian Jazz band that really played more blues than jazz (the keyboarder stole the show by playing with (almost) every apparatus of his body). We met the first batch of Lorna’s friends from Berkeley and all hopped over to Club Pi. This club is on the 38th floor of a building and was filled with what seemed were mostly locals. It was about fifteen minutes into our dancing circle that the DJ stopped the music, the lights came on and about 30 policemen flooded the club. We were told to keep quiet and to show our various forms of identification that we had. We were just waiting around for about fifteen minutes while we were asked for our passports and IDs (as if people carry their passports on them…). Once we were finally allowed to leave (I was surprised how easily so many people just stayed in the club dancing like the interruption had never occurred) I was definitely in a weird mood. I have never seen HK police before other than a random one on a motorcycle from time to time, so seeing thirty of them right in my face and barring my right to leave was a little upsetting. I guess they were searching for underage club goers and maybe checking the club’s alcohol license. But for me they were prying into my good time and oppressing my right to move. I was mad.

Pic: the amphitheatre where we frequently choose to haunt instead of crowding the street in front of "club 711".

St. Patrick’s Day

I think the day would not have been half as festive without a care package from my mom. A St. Patrick’s card that actually played me an Irish jig, pins that said the typical Irish sayings like “Kiss me I’m Irish”, “Erin go Braugh” and the Berkeley version “Go Green!” Emma, Lorna and Erin also got a taste of my mom’s celebratory box by getting their very own matching shirt. Although not really in tune with Hong Kong culture or the ex-pat scene in LKF, we still managed to wear our shirts out on Monday (I guess ignoring the Pope and the leap year) and tried to find an Irish pub to celebrate in. The night had its interesting moments as we tried green menthol beer and saw our very own Asian street “Elvis” who had his own podium on a vacant street. But, alas, for the most part it was full of bars with older people, too little Irish music and not enough corned beef and cabbage.

Humdrum

So, I feel like I’ve been neglecting the everyday on this blog as of recent. I guess I imagine reading about faraway places to be more interesting than Hong Kong but fail to realize that Hong Kong is a faraway place to you guys. I don’t know if I feel like Hong Kong is a home away from home just yet but it is strange to come back to it after other excursions and feel comforted by the familiarity and order of it all. Yet, I guess I still am tempted to lean toward writing about the out of ordinary as I choose to write about the past two holidays we have had here.

Pics: Yes the everyday consists of doing things like pilates with Lorna in our little rooms and going to local art exhibits about Hong Kong architecture...

Motion in Motion

Only in Vietnam

it starts pouring mid meal and the workers assemble the additional tarps for the street restaurant in less than two minutes (as you can see, we celebrated the first night with a few of the local beers)

the bizarre water-puppet show that would have been even weirder without the lovely music

the best representation of the motorbikes: in motion

Adele "the queen" in her fold up chair to the Chu Chi Tunnels

Emma would later get guilted into buying a banana or two from the woman who let her pose for this, perhaps a fair trade

the animals

Our homestay

the temperature differs greatly from south to north vietnam, since we were in the north, it was cold. The only solution to stay warm for the evening was to push all our matresses together and snuggle with each other. Success.

Li making us our massive crepe breakfast

we sit down for our appetizer of garlic fries that disappear in mere minutes

a peaceful moment reading our various books on Vietnam

side view of the house (garden and pig pen around the side)

Adele tries to prove herself as a Hmong man. She lifts the bamboo bundle one inch of the ground and we consider it a success. These small men carry the bundles over their shoulders over rivers like it is nothing- amazing.
next cover picture for the hit t.v. series: exchange students in Sapa

us and Li by the "hydroelectric" power plant

good things come in small packages and Li certainly held true to that saying

random I know but I just had to put it in because it was just so unexpected in the middle of Northern Vietnam (or was it...) it is just tobacco but it still amuses me. Needless to say, none of us tried the bamboo bong

The Indigenous Hmong People of Sapa

cross cultural fascination with big machinery

the big earrings the women wear symbolize whether they are married or not

no, this was not a posed shot. This is just like a pet dog, but bigger and with horns...

this baby is going to have serious back and neck problems when it gets older (this was the woman that "helped" me along the trek)

cutest little kid with his sugarcane stick

Trekking

a foriegn concept to me but it basically entails "hiking" for greater distances. Approx. 4-5 hours a day was where we topped out.
the narrow road of the rice terrace that we often walked on

Without our walking sticks we would not have made it. seriously, I doubt 75% of tourists could have done the trekking that we did. It was intense...

See the intensity in my eyes? I am stretching to prepare

"Climb every mountain" and "following the leader" were stuck in my head the whole time

for those of you who can't tell, this is a steep hill. I don't know why I am smiling.