21.9.13 - Close quarters with the Fire Dragon of Tai Hang

 

On Thursday night, when the moon was at its fullest and brightest all year, it was mid-Autumn Festival time. And we had a date with the Fire Dragon of Tai Hang.

We were expecting the dragon of western imagination - red-cloth, complete with big figure head whose mouth open and shuts, that dances and reels through the streets…though we did wonder what the (dangerous?!) twist on this would be when ‘fire’ is added into the mix.

Claire, our newest guest Sandie and I all headed out to Tai hang – no longer the tiny fishing village in which the tradition of Fire Dragon dancing stems – to find out, along with thousands of others. The myth runs that the villagers killed a serpent one night, but awoke to find its body mysteriously disappeared. Soon after, everyone began to fall ill – until a villager had a vision on the Buddha, who told him to hold a fire dragon dance. The story goes that the noise, fire, sulphur and firecrackers drove the disease out.

The tiny, twisting streets were packed with excited families, the children toting animal-shaped lanterns and festooned with glow stick hats, necklaces and bracelets. We arrived just before the show was due to start, but the launch place for the dance was crammed full. We muscled down the street, took a short-cut led by a local tourist guide and bagged ourselves a spot right up against the crowd barrier.

The crowds swelled, the lanterns proliferated, and a drummer on a mobile platform appeared, thumping out a frantic rhythm that echoed off the looming high rise buildings all around. And with almost no warning, there was a loud cheer near our vantage point. The attending police snatched back some tape that had been strung across a side street off to our right, through which the dragon careered at top speed, all aflame, swift-moving figures and drama.

The dragon was made up entirely of huge incense sticks stuck into a wooden body, held up at metre intervals by bamboo poles. The head was the same, bug curls of wood and incense sticks making out a snarling maw and crazed eyes. It was terrific, and looked alive as its body snaked back and forth across the road ahead of the bopping, tilting head. The beast was a jaw-dropping 67 metres long, and had 300 people holding it up. The burliest of these was saved for the enormous tail, that bristled like a flaming mace in the creature’s wake; and its bearer would run full pelt at the crowd, shaking the tail and roaring, causing squeals of fear and delight as the fire came within inches of startled faces. It came so close to us as we chased the tail at one point that a stick fell out and hit the deck in a shower of sparks at Sandie’s feet.

After a while, we headed off to avoid the crush – but on leaving got an unexpected treat. As we left, the dragon was let loose, and spilt out into all the warrens of tiny back streets, pursued by the cheering crowd. So as we walked away, we heard the drums fade and roll over us at intervals, and got the occasional glimpse of a burning body jogging by down a distant alley, or once the tail shaking around a corner from our vantage point on a road bridge.

The event ends, we hear, as this and 6 other dragons converge near the sea, and all are ‘drowned’ in the waves. If anything could beat our experience this Thursday, that would be it. Next year, next year…

15.9.13 - Moon cake manufacture - vital to tackling financial risk.

Very large picture today - but I couldn't think of any other way to do this justice. Spot the token white girl, anyone? [And spot her new FRINGE too :)]

We're coming up to mid-autumn festival, which is a fairly big deal here. To draw very crude comparisons, if Chinese new year is the Christmas equivalent, mid-autumn festival is like Easter.

And to mix my ham-fisted religious and cultural comparisons still further, there is a ubiquitous seasonal treat that Claire has described as the equivalent of the mince pie. The Moon Cake.

The only reason the comparison does not quite hold is that moon cakes are a huge thing here. The tube, bus stops and TV are all plastered in ads for the delicacy. These mainly consist of people cutting the cakes open or holding a pre-cut one and looking ecstatically delighted at what they find concealed within (as modelled below by me with one of Claire's creations).

And so when Claire got a group email at the lovely corporate-fun-filled HSBC that a free staff engagement event solely for her and her risk buddies workshop to learn to make moon cakes was on offer, she snapped it up.

She learnt to craft the frosted snowflake version.This consists of an astonishingly complex mix of 3 types of flour made into a marzipan like substance that is moulded into shapes, with sticky flavoured centres. The flavours on offer were sesame, green tea and red and green bean.

Claire was instructed in the art of rolling out and colouring the casing, stuffing it and wedging it into moulds. All in Cantonese. So mainly she learnt by mine, mimicking and being clucked at/having her hands slapped in rebuke by the bustling old lady who was overseeing the operation.

The cakes came out very well all told, so well done Claire for improvising...but the main entertainment value came from the concept of the event itself. Engagement in what? Knowledge of how to make a pink sesame flavoured hello kitty cake allows staff to spot risk better in what way
exactly? Is the surrounding literature ironic, or just genuinely relentlessly positive?

PS - this is not linked to the rest of the post, but I wanted to share my favourite ridiculous T-shirt of the week...a loved up looking Mainland Chinese couple, walking hand in hand, had matching pink and black versions of this T-shirt, with white sparkly writing:


F     C  K
All I need is u


Nuff said.

9.9.13 - The [Pink Pool] Party at the End of the World

I imagine those (few) of you who have read all of these posts would think that by now I’d described the most decadent, indulgent, almost insultingly hedonistic elements of expat life in HK. Junks. Jetting away for weekends to paradise-kissed-spots. Gambling £20 a go in Macao. Dancing the night away in the openly red light district-esque Wan Chai.

I thought I’d probably seen it all too. Turned out that wasn’t right.

If I said to you,  “Party at a yacht club”, what would you think? I thought – posh. Sophisticated. Probably some fantastical old-boy-dress code (Boaters mandatory, all women must wear floral print, that sort of thing). Gin and tonics all round. A civilised, white table-clothed meal, with a chap playing the piano for entertainment.

On Saturday I went to party at the yacht club. But crucially, it was a pink-themed pool party at the yachy club. Which apparently makes all the difference.

I turned up in my pink, shiny stade francais top, thinking this would be risqué in a yacht club do. But once inside, I could see how tame it was.

A usually genteel setting, the pool had been filled with pink inflatables, and pink blow up flamingos and squeaking ducks were strewn around. The main drink on offer was pink.

But to begin with, it looked like just any party. Sit with friends, sink some beers, eat some buffet nosh. Standard – aside from having a sedate dip in the pool.

But then, I started to notice. Lots of the outfits were pretty outlandish. Pink full-body morph suits. Pink leopard skin catsuits. Pink bikinis which, when the tiny pink dresses covering them were shed, that were somehow more revealing than if their wearers had had nothing on at all.

No sooner had I noticed this than everyone started breaking all the rules around the pool – a place of many rules usually. Running (in heels. And that was two men). Bombing. Ducking. Jumping into a stack of 6 inflatable rings at once. Diving in the shallow end (5 head stitches for that man). And yes – some heavy petting.

As soon as some rules got broken, and the club-loud DJ set kicked off, it was like the sort of party you imagine might be held when an apocalyptic meteor strike was hours away. A few of the more striking sights: A slight girl, dressed as a sailor aside her pink microskirt, picks up one of the 6 foot plus blokes flirting clumsily at her in a fireman’s lift, and dumps him in the pool. A man dressed in 6 inch high hot pink heels, pink wig and tight-fitting pink dress dives flawlessly into the pool before raising his still-heeled foot out of the water like a synchronised swimmer. People you know to be top executives in big-hitting firms start miming things with a blow up flamingo that should never be mimed.

All in a city where a worker on the minimum wage would have had to work 26 hours just to get into the party.

I’m not getting preachy. Did I have a good time? Yes. Would I go again? Absolutely. But should you sometimes have a bit of a reality check on these experiences, and take a minute to acknowledge how extraordinary and – ultimately – unbelievably frivolous they are? Of course.

05.9.13 - Surprises? They're meat and drink to Hong Kong

No posts for a while – I’ve been busy at work (which for everyone’s sakes should probably never be a part of this blog); doing lots of running (150 miles in August…but pretty boring to talk about); and nothing unusual has happened.

So tricky to post. I was getting worried perhaps everything was getting a bit normal, that I’d run out of stuff to say entirely.

If that’s not a cue for slightly odd things to happen, things completely at odds with UK norms, I don’t know what is.

Meat

 

In the UK, if I said, “Things sold en masse in the workplace by outside companies,” what would come to mind?

Books via some work book club? Maybe cake? Or not very much – it’s not a prime place to do your purchasing, work.

This week, in the more local office in Olympic that Claire works in, she saw 10s of staff clustered around some enormous boxes in the tea point haggling loudly. She went over to investigate. On asking what they’re all doing, she was told in the sort of voice that suggests what else would we be doing, you idiot, the reply comes:

“We’re buying froze meat”.

So a chap with big freezer boxes comes into your office and sells off frozen chickens, bits of pig etc. Everyone buys a bit, then wedges it into the freezer box of the communal fridge until home time. Not a common occurrence but not unheard of, and quite the anticipated event. Of course.

Drink

 

In the UK, what charity activities would you think of if I said, “Stuff the whole county does at once for a good cause.” Wear jeans to work? Grow a moustache? Buy clip on noses, bathe in beans/custard/both and watch slightly crap comedy/singing all evening?

In Hong Kong, the big charity event that caused a stir this week to tug on the expat heartstrings was: Drink for Good. That’s right. How to get the wealthy expats to give a toss? Offer them a warm fuzzy feeling with their nightly booze!

60 bars took part, giving 5HKD (a princely 40p) to charity for every drink you bought. As if that wasn’t odd enough, this being the business-oriented HK, companies started to compete at who could be the best. But not who could give the most. Who could get the coolest bar? Who could get their branding most prominently displayed? Who could get the best drink deals? Whose charity sounded nicest?

Hey, I’m sure it raised a ton of money, and I had a nice time. But I’m pretty sure it didn’t raise as much as the bath of beans I mocked earlier. What would Terry Wogan think?

So just when you think life is 100% predictable and you have this HK thing sussed, things still surprise you. Cue some for