Monday 2/24/03        First Impressions of China Peeps, Parrot Bar

 

            We were out at 9:30AM and first walked around the famous Tsim Sha Tsui—none of us really knows how to pronounce that.  The streets here have a lot of overhanging signs, and NO scooters—a major difference from Taiwan.  We went into the Hyatt basement level so they could do their visas, then got a snack at a streetside vendor, NohMiGau and noodles that looked like maggots.  We ate it in Kowloon Park.  Then got Mango Sago (“sago” apparently is the HK way to say tapioca pearl drink) and picked up the much-needed converter in an electronics store for 30HKD. 

 

            We met Jon’s college friend Orianne at Harbor City Mall and ate at a Dim Sum place inside.  The mall was quite empty and dead.  The dim sum place eh, ok but sloooow service and had somewhat of a harbor view.   I had higher expectations for HK, the dim sum capital of the world.  Orianne told us about all the sago places here and got us excited to show us a good famous place; she led us there and it was ShuLiouShan! 

 

Tangent:  ShuLiouShan is the chain all around Taipei (originated in HK) that we now boycott since they refuse to give us drinks without the gooey “harsmar” stuff on the bottom; when we kept asking why, they finally said “[because the juice is more expensive, so we can’t fill the whole cup with just juice and no harsmar].”  Since then we’ve been there only once, when we filled out their survey with obnoxious comments in our scrawly Chinese:                    

 

“[How often do you buy our new blahblah drink?]  --[We have never heard of this and we hardly ever buy any of your disgusting drinks.]”

            “[What is your salary?]  --[2000NT a month]”

            “[Occupation?]  --[Mango farmer]”

            “[Any other comments?]  --[Why cannot buy a drink without the disgusting harsmar on the bottom?]”

            We folded it into 1/32 of the page so it would take them a long time to unfold, gave it to the guy and dashed off down the street.  “Just when I think we can’t get any more immature…” I panted.

 

            Anyway.  We walked along the harbor, enjoyed some foggy views of the HK side.  Stopped in a random Teddy Bear World (I didn’t say anything, just kinda whimpered, and Jon sighed “Oh OKAY, let’s go in”), but it wasn’t great—the huge bears were scary-looking and they required a “visa” to get into the actual “world.”

           

            Jon and I had to head back for the first Fulbright conference dinner, though we weren’t hungry or eager to be social.  On the way back we spotted a pet store with some really freaky-looking dogs inside—their fur had been shaved everywhere except around their face and tail, where it was pouffed out to look like a lion’s mane.  We went up to the glass door, peering in, then went inside and I took several pictures from all angles while the store owners tried their sales pitch, then we abruptly left.  Yeah, we have no shame.

 

The dinner was in the conference center, we went up some escalators in a very plain academic-looking building and suddenly out of nowhere was this really nice restaurant.  It started with a bunch of speeches:  the director of the HK Fulbright foundation, the head of HK Baptist University, and one American Institute representative from each of Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong.   We were assigned to tables with our “theme” group.  Mine was medicine/health care, though the director kept referring to us as the “Chinese medicine” table.  Haskell was the only other Taiwaner with me.

 

            Food was pretty good.  There seemed to be more HuaChiau among the Chinese Fulbrighters and they seemed younger overall; there were about 40 of them, 8 of us and 3 from HK.   Then we split into topical discussion groups of our choice.  I chose “Being an American in China” after much debating (“Doing Research in China” would have the serious academics but maybe less talking and would end earlier, “What I Have Learned about Doing Research in China” would be lighter but people might go on and on…I gave up resigned to the fact that these people could talk on and on about anything really)

 

            During the discussion I got the general impression (how I love making big generalizations within the first few minutes of meeting people) that though the Chinesers were younger and hipper-looking (why were they all dressed up?  The flyer had said this was casual.  We Taiwaners were all in jeans and sneaks, they were in slacks and shoes) they were much more devoid of personality.  One guy never smiled and seemed to, how to put this, have a stick up his ass.  Another, I disagreed with everything he was saying.  We had the most inane, non-intellectual topic of the three, but in the whole hour I was the only one who cracked a couple jokes.  In short, they seem rather snhod  (Serious, No sense of Humor, Over-Dressed).  But my first impressions are almost always wrong, so here’s to hoping.

 

            Niclas was hyped up to go out and though I was kinda tired, I figured I needed to, to take advantage of being in HK, finally, after looking forward to it all these years.  The crowd was all Taiwaners and 1 HKer.  He led us the way to Parrot bar, a local spot with karaoke and where the staff’s English/Mandarin was not great.  We stopped again at the Star Ferry pier to see the night view but still foggy.  At Parrot got a long table because of the big group.  I was at first on the end opposite Shawna and Gin, then saw Dominika and Elana coming.  Picturing my face smothered in clouds of neverending cigarette smoke that was sure to ensue I quickly moved to the other end.  But it didn’t matter, because guys at the next table were chain puffing too. 

           

            We ordered pitchers of beer and they gave a good nuts/wasabi bean trail mix for free.  We kept trying to request karaoke songs (after they spent a long time digging out and dusting off their one tiny English folder) but they kept letting others, locals, sing theirs so we almost gave up.  As we were paying the bill they announced our Madonna song (Material Girl, the only one they had) was up so I dragged Gin, Jon and Nic up with me.  Instead of a TV screen we read handwritten words on sheets and a woman played along on a keyboard.  Ghetto!  Everyone clapped politely for us.