Hello all, apologies to some of you who have been wondering if I was still alive. Perfectionism can mean I take a while to get started on things: I had to lower my quality control standards in order to get something down, so forgive me if it's not the masterpiece you were expecting!
So er.. I've been here for a while now. I flew into Hong Kong on the 21st and met my good friend Justin at the airport, before taking the snappily-named "TurboJet SeaExpress" over to Macau. It was like a small artificial island of supercasinos in the mediterranean, but with a lot of Chinese people and characters, written ones. They looked a bit out of place, especially when inhabiting decrepid Portugese colonial buildings. We met up with the Baha'is, and it was quite incredible to be on the other side of the world, with a load of total strangers, and yet again find them to be some of the most radiantly and actively altruistic people I've met. We stayed with some friends of Justin's, a very kind middle-aged couple who basically adopted us as their children for three days: taking us out around the island, providing us with beds, food and a lot of accumulated wisdom on Chinese culture and society.. it's come in very handy so far.
On Monday we went back over to Hong Kong. What struck me first was the almost absolute spotlessless - if I'd dropped something, I'm sure a cleaner would have appeared out of the wall, run up and caught it before it hit the floor. On the trains, next to the giant billboards there are signs surrounded by hearts which say "show you have a loving heart: offer your seat to others who need it". I began my old favourite pasttime of people-watching: the perfectly efficient metro system was full of the sound of Cantonese chit-chat and laughter, and although obviously in a rush, the people had a) a pint-sized portion of British-style inscrutability and b) a real Buddhist-style serenity, which I've never seen in a city before. I think it was one of the few cities where I could possibly feel at home.
We got the 27-hour train up to Beijing last Thursday/Friday, in the 'posh people and businessmen' class but it was really good fun - everyone was really open and talkative, and forgiving of my poor spoken Chinese. We made friends with a couple of software engineers, and on arrival they led us through Beijing's sprawling sea of people and shouting taxi drivers to book a hotel for us, for which we were quite thankful.
Bejing looked like a giant mesh of motorways, with industrial-sized buildings in between and a thick grey smog overhead, but I guess it wasn't the most beautiful part. Absolutely nobody could speak English there, and we had some fun trying to order something edible from the enormous menu, of which we could only understand the characters for 'meat', 'rice' and 'with'. We then split up to meet our different AIESEC host committees (AIESEC is the student-run exchange-type organisation which set up our work placements) and hung out with them for a few days which was cool.
Argh I don't have any time left. Will come back ASAP with my activities of the last few days!
2 comments:
"We could only understand the characters for 'meat', 'rice' and 'with'"
tut tut tut. I clearly remember pointing out "羊" (sheep) and "牛" (cow) on a menu during UDC. I do hope you've not forgotten them! It's good to hear what you're getting up to, and that you're enjoying it.
Do you know when abouts you're going to Kunming yet?
Take care, and have fun.
Alice (btw, how does this site already seem to know who I am?)
Haha yeah ok I was exaggerating, I do know the words for sheep and cow, but the hard thing is knowing the difference between 烧荷兰豆 and 木须瓜片! Fried Land River beans? Wooden photo films?
No as they haven't got back to me about my application yet.. It knows who you are because it's a Google site and you must be logged into your Google account.. though still a bit scary isn't it? Thanks, hope you are well, will probably write you a mail at some point!
By the way, apologies to people who tried to post comments before but weren't allowed: it should work now.
Post a Comment