Odds and Ends

A few days ago, I read the book "In the Shadow of the Noonday Gun," a collection of short stories about Hong Kong back in the 80s. A super interesting read, I finished it in only a few hours. Hong Kong was a very different place back then, basically run by gangs, corrupt police force, the whole nine-yards. I recommend the book to everyone who is curious about pre-China Hong Kong.

The Noonday Gun, mentioned in the book's title, is referring to the gun below, which is fired every day at noon from a point in Causeway Bay. The amazing thing is, I have never heard it, even though we live so close. So, I doubt anyone else hears it either unless they go visit the site just for the shooting, and a lot of tourists do. The book describes why the gun is even there, so I will let you read to find out :)

But, inspired by the book, today's post will be a collection of short paragraphs (Ha!) each describing a different event from the past few days, with accompanying photos. 

Chinese Resourcefulness

While the Native Americans might be good at finding a use for everything they have, the Chinese are resourceful, solving problems with everyday objects. Now, whether these quick fixes are safe and/or lasting is another story. But, in that hour of need, the Chinese will figure out how to solve the problem, using exactly what they have, hence this drain that was not funneling water properly. The cement had worn away, leaving a directionless drain that was splashing water everywhere. The solution is a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, placed in position to direct the flow of water correctly. Ingenious! Unfortunately, I doubt this fix will last through our next heavy rainstorm, as the bottle will likely get carried away. (You really have to see the volume of water that comes down during a heavy rain). But, until they can get a road crew over there to fix the problem, this quick fix will do! In America, this problem would remain a problem until a permanent solution could be wrought. But, in the meantime, people get splashed! Nearby this fix was a beautiful flower that had both pink and yellow flowers in a cluster. I've seen flowers that have different colored petals, but have you ever seen a flower with half of the cluster in one color and the other half is another? Can you identify this flower, mother? 

My Sun and Stars

Over the weekend, Drew's office moved locations. So the Friday prior, their old office owners sent the employees about 8 fruit baskets. Was this a nice goodbye gift? Thanks for not getting pissed that we didn't renew your lease? This is a great example of reciprocity that is Oh, so important in China. Gift-giving is the way business is done. You give a gift when someone new arrives. You give a gift when someone leaves. You give a gift when you close a deal. Always gifts. Even my language partner has given me several gifts, for no reason, just in the short time we have been meeting. They included my first lychees (which are now one of my favorite fruits) and a bookmark of a famous Chinese lady. I reciprocated with pink rabbit hair pins for her 3-year old daughter and chocolate truffles. 

Anyways, the fruit that Drew got to take home from the fruit basket was a dragon fruit (a vividly pink outside with a white with black dots mild tasting inside. I believe I showed a pic of it in one of my first blogs) and a starfruit. I was unaware that the skin of starfruits are incredibly bitter, making the fruit inedible if left on. As you can see in the picture below, I did leave the skin on at first. But a quick bite soon showed me the error of my ways. The pic is my re-creation of a line from Game of Thrones, one of our favorite shows. In the first season, Khaleesi calls her husband her "Sun and Stars" while she was the "Moon of my Life" to him. See! Drew is my Sun and Stars :) The following photos are the lobby of the new building his office moved into as well as the view from Drew's new stand-up desk. Much better than his old office, let me tell you. 

Chinese Artistry

If you have ever tried to draw a Chinese character, the title of this short paragraph is very obvious. The characters are intensely detailed, and each stroke is defined in order. Left to right, top to bottom, inside out. Very particular. Another example of such artistry I discovered while waiting for my bus after a Mandarin lesson. These construction workers are re-doing the road lines, designating where a bus stop is. If you look closely, you can see the artists at work here. One guy is pouring white paint from a bucket into a rectangular metal mold held by the other guy. The second guy holds the mold a few inches above the street, and moves it in perfectly straight lines to guide the paint the other guy is pouring. The two men worked in complete synchronization, for the flow of the paint had to match the speed of the guider's movements. Yes, there were chalk lines drawn on the ground for the guider to follow, but that was all! A third guy followed behind the painters and sprinkled this magic powder on the paint that somehow made it dry instantaneously. Seriously. I watched the guys work, then they picked up the construction cones, and immediately a bus came and drove over everything. No! I almost cried out! The paint! But the bus drove away with not a touch of white on it! In the US, we have automated trucks to re-draw road lines. But try making a truck that can copy a Chinese character easily. Ha! A stencil is the only other approach I can think of, but there are too many characters used on the roads for that to work, I suppose.