Thank you all for your comments for the burglary post. We have ordered fake surveillance cams. Going forward I will call the police when I see assumed banana thieves. I have installed a timer for one of the living room lamps, it goes on at 3am. Sticks are jammed into the sliding doors, window bars are ordered, although I hate them. Charles, we don’t live in Sai Kung, that would be too convenient :). We live on the seventh island, over the seventh hill. The police wrote a very detailed report, found fingerprints, and I hear helicopters flying over the hills behind our house. Still, I don’t think we will get our stuff back. APJ, women’s intuition is widely underrated. We Are Doomed, we were barely coming to know our neighbors when the burglary happened. They are as freaked as we are, and I hope everyone of us will be bit more careful going forward. Lime, Dubai wasn’t pleasant but it taught me valuable lessons.
Still it is beginning to be a home.
We have a car, but not yet a license to drive it on the seventh island. So, I took the bus to the third village north where they have a “supermarket” (cough… laugh… five short aisles stuffed to the ceiling). You learn to concentrate on the essentials (that’s a good thing), if you have to take the public bus home, still four very heavy bags had to be hauled home.
Once through the door, I cooked Chinese winter melon soup and Jamie Oliver’s beef stew with guinness (yep, I watched TV last night). Both were a first and both are keepers for cold winter days. I love Chinese winter melon. It’s completely tasteless on its own, but in a soup it takes on the flavor of the rest of the ingredients.
I got the second last winter melon slice in the snow-white supermarket. My competitors were seasoned Cantonese grandmas… I had to grab quickly. I cooked it together with pork spareribs, sliced smoked ham, ginger, and wolfberries. The recipe also calls for red dates, but I didn’t want to buy them because of bad Dubai associations… ok, the truth is I wasn’t sure they were needed. Still the soup turned out yummy. I am a big fan of soups, especially if it’s cold and wet. One of the strength of German cuisine is its soups or “eintopf”. Like most of the best dishes around the world it’s poor men’s recipes, but oh so good. I can’t get all of the German ingredients here (does anyone have a cheap and reliable source of celeriac in Hong Kong?), so I am going for local recipes. Winter melon soup was yummy.
Jamie Oliver’s stew had to cook for two hours in the oven. The original recipe puts it into a pie with puff pastry. I am not that English, so I just made the stew and salt potatoes to go with it. It was very rich, smooth, and just what I needed today:
2 large sliced onions fried to gooey, sweet perfection
half a pound of marbled beef
3 cloves of diced garlic
stick of fresh rosemary, hacked to small pieces
1 stick of celery or two
a diced carrot or two
mushrooms ( I took local Chinese ones, not the tasteless, white Holland variety) and half a dozen dried ones (soaked in hot water for an hour)
pepper, salt
1 tablespoon of flour
a can of guinness (even the five-aisle supermarket had it ?!?)
water so that all ingredients are covered with liquid
at 180 degrees Celsius (360 Fahrenheit) for two hours in covered (oven-proof) pot
Jamie, you are the man!
I will also start a new sourdough production. Bread selection in Cinderella’s supermarket is pitiful, stuffed with preservatives, and I won’t buy it. Expect pics of burned sourdough bread in the future.
It’s strange. I feel infinitely more secure here than I felt in Dubai. We moved in our house about a week ago. I love the house. It’s surrounded by jungle on two sides, the neighbors are nice, it’s comfortable but not pretentious.
I am sure we made a ruckus when we moved in. Hundreds of boxes, lots of men hoisting stuff up to the second floor. Everyone noticed that we arrived.
A few days ago, I hung laundry on the roof top terrace (sweeping views of the mountains and the sea). I looked at the banana trees of my neighbor at the hill behind my house. They looked beautiful. I heard a noise. I looked more intently. There were two men among the banana trees. One looked me straight into the eyes.
He was surprised and afraid. Then he and his mate hurried off, up the hill.
“What was that about?” I thought. Why are they hurrying off? Were they stealing bananas? Yeah. Ok. They were stealing bananas.
There were other strange little signs: a reclining chair in a different place on the terrace, strange marks in the wet ground in the garden.
Then yesterday in the morning I came downstairs. I was greeted by “We have been robbed!” Now all the little strange signs made sense.
They came in through the sliding door on the first floor balcony (easy to open), went downstairs, took two laptops, mobile phones, wallets, and a few backpacks to carry the loot away. Then they exited through the kitchen window. Ten days after we moved in. Welcome!
They had observed us for a few days, found the easiest way in, made a quick sweep while we were snoring loudly.
None of the loot was strictly mine. It belonged to little man (laptop and school backpack) and his father (laptop, mobile phones, wallets, backpack). Which makes me think. I am more paranoid. I had a strange feeling. I am more careful. My stuff was not lying around.
I had, and still have, a very good feeling about the house, despite the fact that burglars went into our house in the wee hours and robbed us while we were asleep.
But I also had a feeling of paranoia, a feeling of being observed since we moved in. Call it female intuition. So my laptop and my mobile phone were beside my bed, not downstairs, and my wallet was in a drawer, not lying open on the dining table. It was just a feeling, nothing concrete.
We called the police. Neighbors asked what was going on, and we learned that it is fairly common. Gangs of men come by boat from Mainland China to Hong Kong. They set up tent camps in the nature reserves and spy on houses in the more rural, out of the way areas of Hong Kong. We were easy picking. Just moved in, inexperienced, no curtains yet, sliding doors not yet secured. The economy is bad, Chinese New Year is coming up (gifts to give), thresholds are low.
Now we know that our neighbors have been robbed too (some of them several times).
The result is an arms race. How can we secure our houses? Neighbor up the hill has turned his house into Fort Knox. More locks, a security system, cameras.
I wish we could leave the doors open. I wish people would respect our belongings. The loss of money is bad, but worse is the loss of privacy and the hassle. Some people draw their curtains very tight. I wish I could leave the terrace door and curtains open and not worry.
In Dubai no one robbed our house, but much worse things happened. It’s the story of little man’s father, who had terrible experiences in his workplace. I am only the third party witness, but I think he could turn his experience into a John Grisham book… and it would become a bestseller.
Here in Hong Kong we called the police. We had no hesitation about calling the police. They came and asked us what had happened. They looked for and found fingerprints. We were the victims and had absolutely no fear to be turned into the culprits. In Dubai, after all what happened there, we would have carefully thought about the pro and cons of calling the police. I think we would have decided against it.
I feel infinitely more secure here, and that feeling of security makes me feel at home. I know who to turn to. Calling 999 means help.
The year in Dubai was not a positive experience, but it taught me what to be thankful of. Hong Kong is a much better place.
Once upon a time a grown-up (definitely not a young innocent maiden) returned to the land of the seven dragons at the tip of China at the beautiful South China Sea ( although I would not swim in it).
She found a house she fell in love in on first sight. First sight involves feelings, gut feelings. It was surrounded by lush, green hills and had a beautiful view. A rental contract was signed despite a few shortcomings of the house. Then, when the landlord was due to sign the contract, he claimed that he had received a better offer. Alarms bells rang inside cinderella’s head. She wondered if she should bite into the apple. She did, because the alternatives were not as nice. They didn’t have a garden, they didn’t have a view. Although she knew that the landlord was an evil knight, a contract was signed.
Today, cinderella had a third look. THE MASTER BATHROOM HAS NO DOOR. Honestly, I didn’t notice during the first two visits. Because in my mind it was not something I thought was important to pay attention to. I was counting on it. But today I had to pee urgently and when I wanted to close the door there was none. WTF?
It’s the only bathroom on that floor. It has a bathtub, it has a beautiful shower, two wash basins, and a loo. It does not have a door. Am I getting old? Am I too conservative?
I have invited my parents to visit. My Dad can’t walk a lot, so the bathroom on the floor where he sleeps should have a door. Although my Dad is pretty cool about such things, if need be he pees against a tree, my Mum on the other hand…
The neighbors seems nice, the view is stunning, it’s located a bit out of the way… over the seven hills… I hope no seven dwarfs will knock on my door asking to have a pee.
Thank you all for your kind Christmas messages. We arrived in Hong Kong a couple of days ago after being stuck in a snow storm in Beijing for more than six hours, where we transferred. We were the lucky ones, others had to camp in the transit lounge for several days. Apparently, it was the heaviest snow fall in Beijing in 60 years.
I am busy house hunting, but yesterday I squeezed in a visit to M. at the quarantine facility.
His “jail” cell is very nice, but of Hong Kong proportions: a small glass closet with shelving and several boxes to cozy up in along the walls. The employees are very nice, and M. seems to be ok, just a bit bored.
Oma, Opa, little man, and I are gearing up for the big festivities. Today we bought a tree, and thanks to Opa’s negotiating skills for a very good price (”I may be old but I am not stupid, young man. On the 24th you have to sell them all at half price anyway. I give you twenty Euros, not more.”), gifts for little man are carefully hidden away, and tomorrow we will pick up a goose for our Christmas dinner from a farm outside Berlin. We are all set.
A Peaceful and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!
In writing it looks so innocent, but in reality rain is a wonder and at the same time an extraordinary problem in the desert. It has been raining non-stop since yesterday, and in non-desert places the non-stop drizzle with a little bit of wind would be nothing to write home about, but here it is.
It’s the first drench in more than half a year. It made all the dusty plants turn into a vibrant green. Nature is a marvelous thing, wondrous, and so efficient and adaptable.
On the downside, the birds who where in heavy flirting mood just a few days ago huddle together on my window sill looking sad and cold. The swimming pool will overflow in less than half an inch. The streets are lakes. And drivers who have never heard of aquaplaning lie in the hospital. No drains in the desert. All these new, shiny buildings, built with 60 billion (or was it double that amount?) of debt, seem to soak up the the rain, not repel it.
Tomorrow the movers will come, and pack up our stuff. They may have to swim.
Censorship is a strange thing. The newspapers write that the economy is picking up. Word on the street is that Dubai owes roughly 10 billion to various Japanese companies. They built the metro. Maybe that’s why only a handful of stations have opened. The Koreans finished the tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai, but they have stopped work on a bridge crossing the Dubai Creek. I don’t think the news will get better, it will get worse. Next to go are the fancy restaurants and shops.
My Bavarian Beauty will travel to Beirut. A Lithuanian girl wanted to buy the automotive marvel, but didn’t get a loan. Local banks have no money to lend. So a Lebanese man bought her for his son in Beirut. Cash, no questions asked. I think he got a very good deal. I would have loved to bring her to Hong Kong, but her steering wheel is on the wrong side.
We will be in Berlin in a couple of days, where it is forecasted to be -10 Celsius. That will be a mighty change to the system.
I have been thinking about sayings. They are sometimes right, more often wrong, and they stick in our minds. Maybe more in German minds. The German language is full of them and we use them in everyday language at least five times a day. They are a poetic form of stereotypes.
I am sure you have heard of Dubai over the last few days. I could have told you the first time I visited this place, and that was more than a year ago. It was obvious. Maybe it was only obvious to people like me, middle-aged, lived through the Asian crisis (by far not as many empty high-rises than here), and never prone to believe in snazzy advertising (highest skyscrapers, man-made islands in weird shapes etc, etc).
Last night we were sitting outside, drinking French wine and one of the few friends I made here was saying that the last seven years in Dubai were hard, but she would not want to miss them. It taught her things that she would never have known had she stayed in her country of birth (small, European, democratic, with a functioning legal system).
On the one hand I agree. I am glad I came here. We are healthy, not in jail, and still have the money to get out of here. Only one week to go. And it made me thankful. I know that I have been lucky. Your country of birth determines your fate in life. Dubai is full of people off much worse than me, trying to better themselves. I have the feeling that they will soon run out of time to achieve that.
So, I am watching German TV this morning, and one of the perks in Dubai is having a giant satellite dish on the roof that catches three German TV channels (illegally of course). It’s the ninth of November and twenty years ago the Wall was opened. But today, a pretty and young TV reporter stands at Bornholmer Strasse a former border crossing between East and West Berlin. I can see it’s cold, it rains, truly November weather in Berlin. She tells a story about the former border crossing, about the few pieces of Wall that are still standing, and the information post with audio in eight languages (she presses the Chinese button) about its history.
In my mind images of my mother and me enduring border crossings between East and West to visit my grandma twenty-five years ago pop up. None of them pleasurable.
Suddenly, this young reporter, trying to look cheerful despite the early morning rain (did I already tell you that November is not a good month in Berlin?). Says that she is VERY happy to have a guest this morning (camera moves a little to the left) the former sergeant (or was he general, and truly who really cares?) of the border crossing.
I am thinking… WTF?
Close up of a very spritely looking seventy-plus year old with white hair in dark green anorak (he still likes army colors).
Pretty reporter asks green anorak “What happened twenty years ago?”
All I could think of was again “WTF?”
Not enough that this cowardly career asshole is obviously enjoying a cushy state pension, he gets invited to comment to an anniversary that should have nothing to do with him.
While I looked around for the remote control to put an end to this farce, I am thinking… how can you… how in the world can you interview this guy… without throwing up on his army green anorak?
She looked younger than me, probably she never had to endure a East-West border crossing? Why? WTF? Why?
I stood on the Wall twenty years ago. It was like a dream then and it is like a dream now. I will never forget the joy and wonder when my teenage world came to an end. And I will never forget the totalitarian regime my grandma had to endure. Never forget my visits to see her. And the terrible border crossings.
My grandma was so beautiful. She had this wonderful wise smile. Unfortunately, she died four years too early to see it, but I think she would have been very happy.
Twenty years ago my English teacher at school was a little late. We sat around in front of the class room. We were not really surprised that he was late. He was someone who enjoyed the finer things in life, and eight 0′clock in the morning was not his most favorite time. Still, we loved him, because he was a a very good teacher (”You are not learning for the next test, but for life!”), and he loved Shakespeare.
He turned up half an hour late.
We: Mr. Streetcastle! (that was Mr. Strassburg’s English name) Why are you late again?”
He: Haven’t you heard?
We: No, what happened?
He: The Wall is open!
We (stunned with open eyes and mouth)
He: I can’t believe that you haven’t heard! I was up all night. I was in East Berlin with my bicycle. Everything is going to change now!
Of course we saw the many East German people in Hungarian embassies, of course we saw the many people walking through East German streets demonstrating, of course we loved Mr. Gorbachev, but somehow the ninth of November still came as a surprise.
We spun dreams of a wonderful future with Mr. Streetcastle for an hour or so, afterwards we sat through the rest of the school day, then wen went home to our families, and then most of us went to the Wall to see thousands and thousands of East Berliner to stream to West Berlin.
In the evening, my boyfriend and I tried to cross to East Berlin at Checkpoint Charly. Checkpoint Charly was one of the most famous border crossings between East and West Berlin, but West Berliner were not allowed to use it. It was reserved for Americans, foreigners etc. but we thought on this day, surely we could cross there, in the middle of Berlin, to the other side, to the heart of Berlin?
No. A green uniform stopped us. We took the underground train to another border crossing.
In the twenty years since then, a lot of people had to adjust their hopes, and change didn’t come easy for many of them. But hearing the many dreadful stories of East Germans trying to find freedom in their country and not getting it until twenty years ago made it all worthwile.
It’s a true day of celebration for Germany. And I hope you have a smile on your face and remember the joyful pictures you saw on TV that day, twenty years ago.
