Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Ryan in China Again part 2

Ryan & I talk on the phone every day, sometimes more than once a day. We put Skype on our computers before he left, but he doesn’t have the internet connected yet, so we’re still using the phone. We don’t know what kind of internet connection he’s going to have there. We know China likes to censor the internet, so news sites, Google and blogs are out, but Skype should work, maybe. There’s never a problem with his phone. There is always a signal, so I suppose the government doesn’t mind if people talk to the outside world. They just don’t want anyone going online and reading about the outside world.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Hong Kong Typhoon




Typhoon season is here. The biggest typhoon in a dozen years hit Hong Kong late Monday night/early Tuesday morning. Typhoon Vincente was a category 4 typhoon, the second highest category. But Hong Kong gave it their highest storm warning, category 10. Winds over 88 mph canceled flights from the airport, closed the ferries and closed government offices. The airport reopened by the end of the day. The last I heard, about 130 people were injured. I haven’t heard about anyone dying so far.

Vincente was slamming into Mainland China by Tuesday afternoon, causing massive flooding and doing far more damage than in Hong Kong. There was flooding in the New Territories, but the rest of Hong Kong made out ok.

I haven’t noticed any damage to any permanent buildings, but lots of scaffolding and those temporary sheet metal walls they put up for construction were torn down or just blown away. Quite a few trees were knocked down. I never realized how many trees there are in Hong Kong, until they started tumbling down.

They turned some MTR stations into shelters just before the typhoon hit land. I’m not sure why the MTR can’t operate during typhoons. It’s underground. Maybe there is an issue with flooding, but then turning them into shelters would be a disastrous idea.

I’ve seen more than a few storms in Hong Kong. It always seems to be raining around here. But this was demonstrably worse. You could tell it was going to be different from the usual summer storm long before the wind pounded the buildings or the rain stabbed the pavement. Typhoons give off a charge in their air, not quite electric and not like a rain storm. You just know it is coming, similar to a tornado, but different.

I was at home when it hit. That’s probably the best place to be. I live in a tall building by Minneapolis standards, but average in Hong Kong. Tall buildings might seem like a bad place to be during a typhoon, but everything here is built to withstand higher wind speeds than anything ever recorded. A shelter underground might seem safer, but my building felt safer. With mostly views of the other buildings around us, there’s no great place to watch storms out the window, but it felt perfectly safe. I’m glad I didn’t have to spend the night in an MTR station.





Sunday, July 15, 2012

Staying in Hong Kong

While we were in Minneapolis, we talked a lot about whether we should even go back to Hong Kong. I wasn’t ready to leave for good. I think it’s too soon. I’m not done yet.

Ryan’s not very happy in Hong Kong. It’s been harder for him to adapt to the culture. Most of him wanted to stay in Minnesota, but all the jobs are in China.

The club in China where Ryan’s band played wants them to come back, for a lot longer this time. Nobody in Minneapolis is very interested. He wants to go because it’s a good opportunity for his band and the money is pretty good. I don’t want him to go because he will be away from Hong Kong for too long. He’ll make a lot of money, but that’s the only good thing about it as far as I can tell. He’s not going back to Disneyland, which means no steady paycheck and no visa to live and work in Hong Kong. Not having a visa won’t matter while he’s not in Hong Kong, but it will make a big difference when he comes back from China. He’ll have to get a job that can provide a visa, and there’s no guarantee that Disneyland will take him back.

I also don’t like the idea of a group of young men living away from their girlfriends in a foreign country. These are not Sunday school types. These are rock musicians who enjoy alcohol and getting into trouble. Spending your nights getting drunk is bad enough, doing it in a country where you don’t speak the language and the police are automatically suspicious of you makes it worse. Some of the guys in his band are into more than just booze, and China doesn’t have the most tolerant drug policy. I want to say they need adult supervision, even though they’re all adults. I would feel a lot better if they had a chaperone.

One thing I don’t have to worry about is Ryan sleeping around. He’s not interested in Chinese women and he’s never been much of a lady’s man. He doesn’t know how to flirt and he’s never asked a girl out on a date in his life. We met as friends and it evolved from there. He never had to put the moves on me. He’s also deathly afraid of catching some disease, so hookers are out of the question.

One of the only ways I could get him to come back to Hong Kong with me was to let him go work in China. It was either that or he stayed in Minneapolis. Then I would have had to choose between staying with him or coming back to Hong Kong by myself. China is a much shorter flight.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Going Home part 4

We’re back in Hong Kong. We had a great time in Minneapolis. We saw most of our friends & family and spent a lot of time getting up to date with the old neighborhood.

The last time we were home, the Metrodome roof had just collapsed again. They spent millions of dollars replacing it, even though the whole place is going to be torn down in a few years. We first left for Hong Kong during a terrible winter when it snowed every day and there was very little sun. While we were back, it was sunny & warm every day, and a little hot from time to time. It’s mostly hot in Hong Kong, but it’s more humidity than heat. Summers in Minneapolis get hotter than anything in Hong Kong. We just don’t have that unbearable humidity.

Nicollet Mall reminded me what a shopping street can be like when people are polite to each other. Hong Kong has more than enough shopping streets, but they’re all overcrowded and full of cheap trinkets, and the people selling the cheap trinkets are usually pretty aggressive when they see white people.

Nicollet Mall is a clean street with friendly people who won’t try to rob you blind. The prices are the same for everyone, no matter what color your skin is. There’s a great farmer’s market during the summer with the freshest produce you’ll see anywhere, and the skyway is the greatest thing in the world when it’s too hot or too cold. Hong Kong has a very limited selection of fresh fruits & vegetables.

It was nice to eat the foods I grew up with. Hong Kong has some great food, but there isn’t much variety outside of Chinese food and Chinese food claiming to be international. The best thing about food in Hong Kong is that it’s dirt cheap. The prices in Minneapolis almost shocked me at first, but the variety and quality more than make up for it.

This was the first time we could legally drink in our hometown and Ryan made full use of the bars and clubs on Hennepin. I don’t care about bars in any country. We’ve been legal in Hong Kong, Rome, Amsterdam and Macau. The novelty has worn off for me.

I missed all my American friends when I was in Hong Kong, and it was great to see everybody. But I found myself missing my Hong Kong friends while I was in Minneapolis.

People talk about culture shock whenever you move to a different country. I guess I experienced some of that when I first went to Hong Kong. It’s a very different culture in every way. There’s also reverse culture shock when you go back to your home country. I didn’t feel that. It’s different, but it was pretty easy to get back into my old habits. I suppose it helps that Minneapolis is the friendliest city in the world.