I had two days off from school today for "Sports Days," a super-serious Field Day from I gathered. Except not all the kids play. When I asked my classes who was doing what, about a third of the students were playing three or more sports while another third was going to "eat." I asked if it was an eating contest and was told that no, it is not. I was invited to participate myself in the form of a teachers parade at 8am. I declined. I used my two days to shop. Sounds girlish, sure, but I recently discovered a hidden wad of Chinese cash in a previously locked bank account and there were some goods that I needed that weren't nearby.
Tuesday I shopped for cell phones. I've become the master of the art of haggling. I went to the big electronics district of Shenzhen and spent two hours going to every cell phone both, pointing at the Sony Ericsson K750c [K chee-bai-wu], and punching numbers into my old cell's calculator and let the negotiations begin. Earlier I had found a very pleasant shop that offered me yellow tea as I examined the phone and bargained. Once I confirmed they had the best price, I went back and haggled a little bit more and got a 256 meg memory card extra.
It was still expensive, but I think it's worth it. I now have a 2-megapixel camera in my pocket all the time. I can take street pictures without getting all self-conscious. It's really, really hard walking around with my monster of a camera taking incognito shots of the street life. It's been bothering me a lot that I've all but stopped taking photos.
Still in the wealthy mindset after finding so much cash, I walked my roommate to a secret area that Lily showed me a few weeks ago. It's hard to describe. Bai Shi Zhou, our neighborhood, is a land of paradox. If you walk five minutes one way, you're in Real China. Horrible housing, people staring, dirty food. Cross Shennan Dao road and you're in a make-believe Dutch village cum hotel that supports Window of the World, an amusement park sporting replicas of all the wonders of the world. The "Golden Gate Bridge" crosses by our apartment and the "Eiffel Tower" is clearly visable from the bus stop. So are some oddly placed Roman [or Greek] column ruins jutting out of the tree line too.
So anyway there's this little plaza, I don't know what else to call it, hidden behind a 7-11 [chee shir-ee in Chinese, and yes, the have slushies (!!!!!)]. There's a couple little yuppie stores, imported wine and what not, and then it opens up to a beautiful lake flanked by French and Italian coffee houses on one side and an uber-nice and expensive [$12 a plate!] Italian restaurant on the other. I grabbed a Hawaiian pizza and a hot chocolate. $4. That's big money here. Of course, this plaza is largely empty.
Cody at the Plaza-Type Thing
Place
Girl running through the
streets of Bai Shi Zhou
Then today. I've been beating myself up about not exploring the surrounding areas more. Most weekends I just want to go out at night, veg all day. I'm tired. Goungzhou is a huge city just north of us with lots of old culture, Macao is the Portuguese take on Hong Kong bred with Las Vegas, and Zhuhai is supposedly the most romantic city in China. All are an hour away. It costs about $20 round trip to get to each place, which has been my excuse.
So I went back to Hong Kong. I had a mission. I needed jeans. I can find my waist size here, it's just the Chinese like their pants all emo tight. It's bad enough for the boys, but the girls waddle about with their giant stilleto heals and tight, tight pants that hinder lateral hip movement. I had read in Frommer's that there was a district in Honk Kong that hosted factory outlets of clothing being shipped stateside.
I took down the info and made a late exit. I had forgotten how much of a hassle it is getting there. Our subway is tediously slow, for one. Then you get to Lo Hou station and there are a million signs saying "Hong Kong" without a strong directional command. And then you go through customs. You always forget to grab and fill out the little form first. So you get out of line, fill it out, get back in. This time I got in the "Mainland Chinese Residence" line because I'm now a Chinese resident and the "FOREIGNER" line was long. I got through with only a little hassle. Now you go through faux-bird flu IR screening and go through Hong Kong customs. Now change your money and buy a ticket on the train. Now RUN into the train and grab a seat so you're not standing for the next 45 minutes. As Reagan says, "even if it's a little old lady... this is a fight for life, man... just push her on out of the way, son."
Then ride. Ride. Ride. It's now been an hour and a half. You get to Kowloon. I get off at Hung Hom, the supposed paradise for not-skinny foreigners who want jeans at decent prices. I get out of the train station expecting this cornucopia to unfold, but alas, no one's heard of the names I'm dropping that I picked out of the Frommer's guide.
I ask five cabbies if they've heard of it. One has. "The factory?"
He drops me off. Everyone is standing outside the building and a police officer is talking to them. "Fire drill," I'm informed. I love that everyone speaks English in Honk Kong. I grab a bite to eat as I wait for my helpers to go back to work. I find a small restaurant, no English menu but the owner tells me that "I think chow mien is suitable for you." She brings me my plate, it has shrimp all in it. To jack up the price, of course. I'm rich 'cause I'm white, ya know? I pull my standard seafood lie and tell her I'm allergic to get out of paying the extra 10 HK$, giving the Internationally Recognized Hand Gesture of sudden choking death. It doesn't work.
Things kind of go downhill from there when I make it back to the building, Kaiser Estates, and note that absolutely none of the four downstairs corners has a clothing shop. Three of four corners, and even the second floor, support jewelry wholesalers.... but alas, TEFL teachers can't afford to dress themselves in jade with todays wages.
So I wander. Frommer's all but described the district as overflowing with cheap American surplus clothes, so I was bound to spot at least one, right? I walk for thirty minutes through alleys and roads looking before I stumble into a small store with jeans. Lots of jeans. I asked the man inside if he knew where I could find men's jeans and he ushered me inside, took my waist measurements, and started piling up jeans. Alas, Babylon!
Spring Field Store
"We have elastic! It's the latest fashion!"
I politely told my new friend that no, I would not like elastic jeans even if they are very popular in China. That, in fact, it was contrary to the very spirit of me having come so far for pants.
I'll skip all the small talk and waiting prior to me going into the dressing room and get right to it.
"Do you have a girlfriend," he asked.
"Wah bu yuu nu pengyou," I responded in Mandarin. I kept forgetting that even though they're Chinese, Mandarin is a second or third language for them.
"Ohhh! I have very beautiful girl in Shanghai for you! Do you want Chinese girlfriend?"
"Well...."
"How big is your penis?"
Let's stop right there for a moment. There wasn't a hint of abnormality in his voice. None. He might as well have been asking me where my hometown was. In my short acquaintanceship with this man I had detected earnestness, even likability... but not humor. It wasn't a joke. It was, to him, a very legitimate question. I quickly guaged the situation and realized I couldn't rightfully chuckle this one off. So I told him my best guesstimate.
He was genuinely concerned for his friends health and well-being. It turns out his question was directly related to whether or not he thought we would be physically able to copulate. He had very exaggerated [hopefully] notions on the comparative size differences between Asians and Caucasians. Luckily he changed the subject to my age.
My lesson two weeks ago with my students was about self-descriptions. If there's one thing that I had learned recently it was that the Chinese are a lot more self-aware and a lot less self-conscious than we are. I had many awfully cute girls describe themselves as "chubby" and maybe only one or two who really thought they were beautiful. I had truly ugly boys shout out 'UGLYYY!" as if their assigned role in this universe was to occupy one end of the bell curve. It wasn't in some American teen self-hating way, it was just an honest self-assessment.
"Ohh no, she is 40. You are much too young. Do you like fat girls? I have fat girl....."
Before I left he made me promise I would call him so we would have dinner when I come back to Hong Kong. He desperately wanted to set me up with one of four women that ranged from beautiful but fat to ugly but thin, for he was their proxy to all the young boys searching the industrial wasteland of Hung Hom for factory outlets...
A message to the mainland
Chinese: No spitting on
our trains!
