Maccau

Okay two posts in a day is totally cheating. Sorry.

Last week we went to Maccau for a day. The city is known for gambling and prostitution, but I think it gets a bad rap. It was actually a very beautiful place with tons of stuff to take pictures of. We took a self guided walking tour out of the Lonely Planet which took us on about a three mile walk around a bunch of cool Portuguese architecture. We saw some amazing churches, a cool fort (complete with canons) that overlooks the city, the ruins of an old cathedral, and ended up in a Portuguese restaurant that was absolutely amazing.

After dinner we stopped in a casino for ninety minutes of gambling. I won $1000 HK on a slot machine in about twenty minutes and then cashed out. My jackpot more than paid for the day. It was only about $125 US, but there's something very gratifying about walking out of a casino with a crisp thousand dollar bill.

Pics are on Picasso.

Follow the Rock

This week was the last week of classes for the first Fall term. Most of us who are on the quarter system back home are now pretty much finished, as we arranged our classes so that all of them were crammed into eight weeks. This intense academic schedule has led to sort of a work-hard-play-hard type of situation for the exchange students who are all trying to get as much as possible out of school while still taking advantage of Hong Kong.

So when classes are out for the week, a tradition has developed to go straight from our downtown classroom to our favorite bars in the Wan Chai neighborhood, which is a 2$HK cable car ride away.

Wan Chai is a crazy place that often offends Western sensibilities. The watering holes vary greatly from raunchy strip club to sports bar to French, so you really have to be careful about which door you go through. Our system for avoiding awkward situations is simple: Follow the rock.

Several weeks ago we met up with a few friends at our normal starting position in a place called Heat. We start there because the guy from Anderson has befriended Heat's Aussie owner and somehow got the 2-for-1 drink specials expanded to the top shelf. (China bottom shelf is bad news.) Our wonderful friend from Irvine had been out walking around as she waited for us to get out of class and reported that there was classic rock being played around the corner at a place called Amazonia. After a rousing game of never have i ever, (where I learned that I am quite a normal guy) we left in pursuit of the Rock. What we found was quite possibly the most kick-ass cover band ever. Six Chinese guys, horns in the air, belted out songs that every American knows by heart in twenty minute sets. We sang along to Queen, Bon Jovi, GNR, AC/DC, and Neil Diamond to name a few. Before we knew it it was 5am, although I don't know who discovered this as the band was playing as though the night were still young.

Rituals and Context

Last week was Mid-Autumn Festival. This is a traditional Chinese holiday based on the lunar calendar that has been largely given up on the mainland but is still a big deal here in HK as well as in Taiwan.

On Monday there was a Mid-Autumn party hosted by the MBA office. It was your typical MBA gathering with future business leaders milling about with beer and plastic plates of food. I had interesting conversations with a finance guy from Germany, a women interested in ops and logistics from the mainland, and an American guy from non-profits. The food was fabulous as usual.

At some point during the party it was decided that it was time to light the lanterns, which is a traditional part of the mid-autumn festivities. I followed the crowd out onto the patio and observed while the Chinese students lit their disposable paper lanterns and walked around holding them on sticks. Everybody was so happy. People were smiling, laughing, and taking pictures of themselves holding lanterns. This was totally over my head. Don't get me wrong, lanterns are cool and all, but with absolutely no cultural context I had no connection to the emotional side of the ritual.

The following night we skipped class (mistake) and went to find the fire dragon ceremony. We'd heard that this was a famous performance that was culturally significant, and it sounded really cool. Every student on campus was going home for the holiday so the queues to get on the buses were incredibly long. We decided to take a cab into the city instead. We piled 5 deep into a cab and set out for Tin Hau, where we knew the fire dragon to be. We rode for about 15 minutes before hitting the gridlock. It was like Seattle x 2. We sat there for a long time. The driver sort of laughed at us when we tried to ask him about alternate routes that may not take as long. Everybody in HK was out, and the tiny size of the city was very apparent.

We finally made it to Tin Hau an hour later and stumbled into a carnival. In typical HK style there were thousands of people there. Again it was over my head. I'm not really sure what kind of carnival doesn't have rides or games or candy. A Chinese mid-autumn carnival apparently. Thousands of people were just milling about gathered around several stages with guys giving speeches or something. I assume they were speeches because there were no singers or magic tricks. There were also hundreds of lanterns hung overhead and a few very large lanternesque sculptures that were lit up. Every so often the full moon would peek out from behind the clouds and people would point and say stuff.

Eventually we realized that this was not the fire dragon ceremony. We asked someone where it was and he happened to be going there so we followed him. The fire dragon was made of what looked like very coarse rope. It was probably the length of a city block and was carried on poles by dozens of young men. The head also appeared to be made of some kind of rope and was very elaborate but not colorful at all. It wasn't actually on fire, which was too bad. It did, however, have thousands of lit insence sticks attached to it's head, back, and tail. To the sound of drum beats and a guy yelling into a megaphone, the fire dragon came running through an alley into a small square, and then circled and danced about. The huge crowd responded with cheers to the guy on the megaphone. I wish I could give a better description here but I have absolutely no idea what was going on. To me, the scene just looked like a bunch of happy people doing something odd.

On a physical level, I guess this is what rituals are. Lighting lanterns and eating cakes with your friends and family is in fact much less odd than bringing a tree into your home and covering it with bits of plastic and decorations that you normally keep in a box in your basement. This is what my mom has been trying to tell me when I poo-poo customs. (head scarf anyone?) It's not about the act. The act can be in fact silly. And that's just fine I guess.. If your into that sort of thing.

After the fire dragon we went to an awesome Hunan restaurant and the English guy paid the French guy $12 to eat a really hot Chinese pepper. The French aren't accustomed to such things. It was very funny.