I am from bicycles and subways instead of Mercedes-Benz.
I am from the dining room converted into a nursery at the last minute, because my parents dared not to hope. Unlike the four others before, I came out alive.
I am from the garden at the canal. From long summer days spent running around the sprinkler, reading under the apple tree, and listening to my grandmother playing harmonica.
I am from plum cake with whipped cream and high cheekbones, from Martha and Richard.
I am from women, who take pride in their self-sacrifice, and men, who always blame others.
From “you have to work hard” and “don’t think too much of yourself”.
I am from the recital of crimes in the name of religion, and the Lord’s Prayer.
I’m from Berlin and the lands further East, potato soup and Königsberg dumplings.
I am from the attic that hid my grandfather, after he received a draft notice in 1945. I am from my grandmother’s fear, when two drunken Soviet soldiers rang at the door.
I am from four photo albums and two boxes filled with black and white pictures, carefully tucked away, next to the china set that’s too precious to be used. All carried by hand, piece by piece, from East to West, out of my grandmother’s house.
Thank you CeeCi for pointing me to this wonderful meme! If you want to do it as well, go here for instructions. The original poem this meme is based on can be found here.
I would like to thank the academy for giving the Oscar for the best foreign-language film to The Lives Of Others. From the moment this movie opened in German cinemas, I wanted to see it. There was never any hope that it would be shown in Hong Kong cinemas, so I waited patiently for it to show up in the “New Release” shelf of my local movie rental. So far it hasn’t. I knew that chances were slim. They have only a few German movies, one of them Run Lola Run is placed in the work-out section next to “Tighten Your Abs in 20 Days”.
But now, thanks to you, honorable academy members, they will have to buy “The Lives Of Others” for their “Oscars - Best Foreign Film” section … Thank you, thank you, thank you!
PS: Although I will reserve judgment until I have actually seen the movie, the actors in it, most notably Martina Gedeck and Ulrich Mühe, are well-known in Germany. Ulrich Mühe, who plays a Stasi agent in the film, is an accomplished theater and movie actor from East Germany. He played the lead role in the first theater play I saw in East Berlin after the fall of the Wall, an adaptation of Hamlet.
Here is an early classic that recounts my memories of visiting my grandma in East Germany, which sort of ties in with the theme of the film.
Oh, and Hong Kong won indirectly as well at the Oscars. The Departed is based on the script of Infernal Affairs, a very popular Hong Kong movie from 2002. So far, I have only seen “Infernal Affairs”, and I can certainly understand why Hollywood was attracted to the script. It has lots of elegant twist and turns that keep you guessing to the end. I haven’t seen “The Departed” yet, but am very curious about the differences to the Hong Kong version.
Yesterday, I was in need of comfort food. After a very long break, I went to the swimming pool again to take up my usual work-out routine. Afterwards I was utterly exhausted, my stomach was growling, and I also felt quite cold.
When I thought about what to eat afterwards, I immediately thought of soup. It’s comfort food for me, warming from the inside with lots of ingredients that melt to one wonderful flavor. It reminds me of home, of the soups my mom cooks, when it is cold outside. The beauty of most of the recipes is that they have very simple ingredients, but still taste great. And every family has slightly different recipes for essentially the same dish. I bet my chicken soup is different from yours :).
When the cold season begins in Hong Kong, many restaurants, which serve quite different fare during the summer are converted to Mongolian Hot Pot restaurants. They have special round tables with a sunken pot of stock in the middle, around which the diners sit warmed by the heat source underneath and the warm food. Thinly sliced meat, seafood, and vegetables are put into little wire baskets with long handles and cooked in the broth. After only a short cooking time, the food is ready, and is dipped in sauce before eaten. At the end, the fragrant broth is shared among the diners. It’s a fun way to share a meal with friends, family, or colleagues, when it is windy and cold outside.
But yesterday I was all by myself and opted for wonton noodle soup. All around Hong Kong, there are little fast food restaurants specializing in noodle soup and congee (rice soup) with different ingredients to choose from. Usually the décor consists of formica tables and plastic stools, and as much diners as possible are squeezed around a table. A left-hander like me can upset the seating arrangement of the whole restaurant. Yesterday however, I went to a more spacious establishment. Although the atmosphere was not as fun as in my favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant, the soup was very good. Thin noodles, spring onions, choi sam, and wonton with juicy bits of shrimp in a wonderful fragrant fish broth.
Every Chinese New Year, the bad ghosts of the old year are chased away with a big fireworks display above the Hong Kong harbor. This year, we joint the crowds and watched the fireworks outside. We could have watched it from our home, but I wanted my son to experience the special atmosphere and also get closer to the action to take better pictures.
Spectators waiting in front of the Peninsula Hotel
Unfortunately, it started to drizzle in the evening. The rain was light enough not to bother us too much, but I was not able to take good pictures, and shot the video below instead.
The fireworks lasted twenty minutes, drew many Oohs and Aahs, and scared definitely all the ghosts away :).
Crowds Going Home
Afterwards, we walked along Nathan Road, the main thoroughfare in Kowloon. Normally, it is a very busy road with lots of traffic and pedestrians, squeezing by each other on the sidewalks, but on Monday night it was closed off for all motor traffic.
Get Moving!
It was wonderful to be able to walk in the middle of the road, take pictures, and not having to worry about traffic. We ended up walking quite a distance, and I shot little videos along the way, which make up the second part of the video.
Below is a video of a lion dance I recorded yesterday. We watched it together with friends, and the atmosphere was fantastic. The little boy in the golden costume was the star of the performance, and there were lots of other kids, who wanted to touch, feed, and taunt the lions. Please excuse the low quality of the video. I used a camera not a camcorder, and youtube reduced the resolution even further.
We also watched the fireworks display above the Hong Kong harbor. A video will follow tomorrow… I promise :).
Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year, and “Kung Hei Fat Choi!”, which means “Congratulations and be prosperous!” in Cantonese is heard and written all over Hong Kong. It’s the year of the pig in the Chinese Calendar. If you celebrate your birthday during the coming twelve months, and the age you turn can be divided by twelve, you are in fact… a pig. But don’t despair, the zodiac sign is a very coveted one. People born in the year of the pig are said to be intelligent, happy, and honest. Pregnant women all over China have crossed their legs and held their bellies, so that their babies will be born in the year of the pig.
Preparations for the New Year, have been going on for several weeks. Decorations with cute little piglets, red firecrackers, and auspicious sayings have been hung up. People have spring-cleaned their homes to sweep away any bad luck from the old year. And crowds have swamped special New Year markets to buy kumquat trees, narcissus, chrysanthemum, and other plants and flowers that symbolize luck and prosperity. It’s also advisable to pay open bills and settle debts, as well as end any quarrels before New Year’s Eve.
If you do business in China, like yours truly, you have also been struggling to close deals and get deliveries well before the Chinese New Year, as the whole country closes down for several weeks, some businesses for an entire month. Factories across the border in Shenzhen stop production, and their workers travel home to celebrate the holidays with their families. If you haven’t guessed already, Chinese New Year is not a good time to visit China, as the whole country is on the move, and there are huge crowds at border crossings, on trains, and at airports.
Like Christmas, the Chinese New Year is a holiday where the whole family comes together to celebrate. Usually, there is a family dinner on New Year’s Eve, and during the following days visits are made to relatives. My Chinese or married-to-a-Chinese friends are very busy at the moment. They have countless family dinners to attend.
But unlike Christmas, there is no mad scramble to buy presents beforehand, as it is custom to give little red envelopes with money, which are called “Lai See” in Cantonese. Married people give them to young unmarried persons and children. Giving Lai See is not a one-way deal, the giving person’s luck will increase in proportion to the number of Lai See packages and money he or she gives away. In Hong Kong, giving coins is not acceptable. It has to be at least a twenty Hong Kong dollar bill (US$2.60), otherwise you are a cheapskate… and luck during the coming year… forget it!
How do expatriates spend the holidays in Hong Kong? Most of them are already on the way to their home country or a holiday resort in Thailand or Bali. During many years, we have used the holidays to go skiing in Europe, but this year we will stay here, relaxing at home and doing little excursions. And of course, we will watch the big fireworks display above the harbor on Monday night.
A few days ago, I was talking to a friend about the change in communication technology that has happened in our life time. I still remember, when my parents got their first telephone. It was “fern” green and had a proper rotary dial. Many of our friends and relatives, especially the older ones, didn’t get one until much later. Whenever my parents wanted to set up a visit with a grandaunt of mine, they called the public phone directly in front of her house. She would come out to answer it …or not. It was a very long-winded affair to tell her that we would come. A few years later, even she was convinced that getting a telephone of her own was a good idea. She chose a grey one and spruced it up with a pseudo-baroque cover.
My grandma, who lived in East Germany, didn’t have a telephone, as only people deemed worthy could get one. Her neighbors downstairs had one, but she didn’t want to use it. She was sure that the Stasi would listen in to every call made to West Germany, and she was probably right. The only call we got from her was when my grandpa died. But she wrote us wonderful letters, which my mother still keeps.
But even in East Germany communication technology made a big difference. Many people were able to tune in to West German television, and tune in they did. One of the reasons why people in East Germany went to the streets to demand change was that they knew that the West was very different from the picture the politburo painted. However, not all was how it appeared on TV. When the wall opened, a son of East German friends told me “It’s nice in the West, but I imagined it to be much nicer. The commercials didn’t tell the truth.” Yeah, they never do.
With my parents living in Germany and us in Hong Kong, our family relies on communication technology more than ever. These days, we are addicted to Skype. It’s free and, even better, the grandparents can watch their grandson in action. A typical Skype call goes like this:
Grandpa in Berlin: Hi Cosima, How are you? Everything well?
Cosima in Hong Kong: Yes, you know, I had the flu, but I am fine now.
Grandpa: So good to hear. Can you please switch on the webcam. Grandma and I would like to see our grandson.
Cosima: Sure, hold on…
And then I chase my son for half an hour – at least - through the flat with my notebook and webcam in hand, while grandson shows his grandparents his latest toys, kindergarten projects, or just fools around.
Sometimes I miss getting handwritten letters, but then I am also very, very grateful for telephones, Skype, Messenger…
They let me communicate in real-time with much loved people living far away, and I am immeasurably grateful for that.
Lately, I have been bombarded with mail ads inviting me to visit the “New Macau”. One of them was a glossy brochure with smiling casino owner Steve Wynn on the title page. I can understand why he smiles. He is making tons of money with is newly-opened Wynn Macau Casino, and there is more to come.
Although Macau is only a one-hour ferry ride away, I haven’t been there for over ten years. On my last visit it was still a sleepy Portuguese colony with moldy buildings. Hong Kongers went there for Macanese food, most notably African chicken and egg tarts, and to gamble at the Casino Lisboa, a run-down building from the seventies. I didn’t go in, as gambling is one of the few vices I am not addicted to ;), and from the outside it didn’t look like a place where people just having a look would be welcomed. I guess I was also suitably impressed by news stories about triad activities. It was common knowledge that they smuggled in gamblers from the Chinese Mainland and managed the prostitutes looking for customers at the gambling tables.
In 1999, Macau was handed over to China, but the really important change happened in 2002, when the 40-year gaming monopoly given to Stanley Ho’s casino company expired, and five additional concessions and sub-concessions were granted, bringing in Las Vegas’ heavyweights Wynn Resorts, Las Vegas Sands, and MGM among others. The Chinese authorities wanted to abolish the seedy aspects of the gambling industry, and the US companies were drawn to the huge potential of the Macau gaming market. It’s the only territory in China were casino gambling is legal, and these days more visas are issued to Mainland Chinese to visit. Last year, Macau had 22 million visitors, not bad for a city that has 470,000 inhabitants.
Since the opening of the market, the number of casinos has already more than doubled to 24, and so has gaming revenue. In 2006, Macau’s gaming revenue reached US$6.9 billion, higher than Las Vegas’ US$6.7 billion for the first time. But there is more to come. All of the licensees are planning further investments for a total of US$20 billion. Just a few days ago, Stanley Ho opened his new Grand Lisboa Casino, a lavish building made to resemble a Fabergé egg, across the street from his old Casino Lisboa. Later this year, the Las Vegas Sands’ Venetian Macau is due to open on reclaimed land that will eventually house an entire “strip” of new casinos, hotels, retail space, and convention halls. The US companies hope that they can repeat Las Vegas’ success in bringing in non-gaming revenue.
Even if that doesn’t work they will make plenty of money with gaming alone. Chinese players love to try their luck at high-stake games. Unlike in Las Vegas, where slot machines bring in the majority of the revenue, in Macau it is VIP Baccarat.
Beat me, but I am not that curious how the “New Macau” looks like. Probably a lot like Las Vegas, which I have visited several times. I know for sure that I won’t stay at the Venetian Macau, because I have stayed at its Las Vegas’ sister hotel and was – dare I say it - not impressed. The room was lovely and the replica of Venice downstairs impressive, if you like that sort of thing, but the service was below par. A hotel where you have to queue for thirty minutes to check in, wait for two hours for your in-room dining meal, and wait another forty minutes for your valet-parked car is not five-star. The next time I stayed at one of the new Marriott Motels, I think it was the Residence Inn, for a much lower price. Check-in was prompt, the room was spacious and nice, and I could park my rental car right next to the entrance.
I am more curious about the old part of Macau than about the new. I wonder if they have removed the black mold from the Portuguese colonial buildings. Would be kind of cheap, if they haven’t.
