Junior Assistant Adjunct Professor Hailey

I just started a new job. It is part time and will never be full time, at least as long as my career holds out. You never know. A few years ago, my dancing career took a nosedive and I wondered what would happen. I had pretty much nothing to fall back on. I can always pick up gigs as a musician, but that never paid the bills. I used to do a lot of musical theater when I was younger. I doubt that pays as much today as it used to. And there is little to no demand for a coloratura mezzo-soprano who knows all the biggest show tunes around here. It kind of amazes me that I live in a time and place where dancers easily earn more than musicians.

I have been very slowly building up my academic CV. I am not at all qualified to be a professor anywhere in the world, but I have some experience as a substitute teacher of sorts at two or three different universities. When one of them offered me a low level, part time gig, I jumped at it.

My roommate and sister from another mister, Lily, is working on a master's degree at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. Through her, I met a professor who taught a dialectology class, among others. After substituting for her a few times, and more importantly, after she wanted to drop the class, I threw my hat in the ring. I have no doubt there were other, more qualified applicants for the position. What I had on my side was the recommendation of a tenured professor and the approval of several students. That those students had already taken the class and would no longer be my students seems to be irrelevant. One of the worst things about Wenzao, in my opinion, is that they put entirely too much stock into what their students want. That helped me get the job, so maybe I should like it, but it seems to me that the students should never be in charge of any school. They are the customers who pay to keep the lights on, but keeping them happy has to be one of the slipperiest of slopes. And the customer is rarely right.

As of August, I am a lecturer for the Department of Translation and Interpreting, College of International Culture, Education, and Foreign Affairs. That looks great on my CV, but it is a part time job and I only teach one class. Next semester, I will only teach one class. Next year, who knows. I could be invited to go away. Or asked to teach a single class again. In Taiwan, lecturer is about as low as you can get on the ladder and still be allowed to teach a class. In the United States, I might be called an assistant professor, though I am not at all qualified to be an assistant professor here. During my first semester in Minnesota, we used to call all the teachers professor, even if they were graduate students who were little more than teaching assistants.

As of September, students in this dialectology class went from being taught by a full professor to a part time lecturer. I would see that as a serious step down if I were them. This is not a general education class that students take to get an easy A. Almost everyone in the class needs it for their major, though I was surprised by how many different majors are involved. No one has complained about their new teacher, as far as I know. Then again, no grades have been posted yet.

The hardest part about teaching this class, so far, has nothing to do with the actual teaching. Standing in front of a group of mostly young people whose minds are sponges and want to soak up my wisdom, or at least the wisdom of the textbook, is easy. I like having a captive audience. It is all the paperwork that sucks any inch of glamor out of the job. Substituting for someone else is much easier. They did all the paperwork. All I had to do was teach the class.

When my sister used to teach at a cram school in Hong Kong, it took her maybe five or ten minutes to write up her lesson plans. At Wenzao, I spent about a month preparing, as well as a few extra hours the night before each class. The big difference between our experiences, other than one was after school tutoring for children and one is a university class, is that her school pretty much left her to her own devices. My school wants to know every move I am going to make, and they are watching me closely. I assume that if I do not screw this up, they might relax a little next semester. Or they might never really trust me. I am a foreigner who works part time. You never know.

Section 259, Subdivision 2

When your parents die, you tend to talk about it. A lot. I never expected that. We stopped talking to each other when I was 16. The more years that passed, the less I thought about them. When they died, I thought I would think about them a little and then move on. But quite a lot happened after their accident that forced me to think about them more now than I ever did while they were alive. All of their paperwork saw the light of day, revealing their deepest secrets. I learned that my grandfather left me his house when he died in 2006. If my real estate agent can sell it for the asking price, I will have a nice little nest egg, at least by today's standards. I have no intention of retiring in the next thirty years, and who knows how much anything will cost in the 2050s.

Then I was told that I was still on my father's life insurance policy. When that check eventually comes in, it will be nowhere near as much as the house. But it is free money. There are no taxes, fees, or commissions, and I will never have to pay anyone to install a kitchen sink in the life insurance.

In one final act of selfishness that backfired horribly against them, my parents accidentally gave me the greatest gift of all. And the biggest surprise. The life insurance was a tiny surprise. I never knew about it, though had I ever bothered to think about it, being on my father's life insurance policy almost makes sense. My grandfather's house came completely out of nowhere, but I always knew the house existed. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger. I simply thought my parents sold if off after he died. The biggest shock in all of this, and the one I never would have seen coming a million miles away, was that I was adopted.

This raises a great many questions.

Why did no one ever tell me? How did no one ever tell me? Maybe my parents were planning on telling me when I got older, but we had our falling out before it ever came up. In all those arguments, how did they never blurt out that I was adopted? Or maybe they did and I dismissed it as a heat of the moment interjection. Maybe at some point I said, “I wish I was adopted” and they said, “You were.” I would have never taken that literally. Call me old fashioned, but I think telling your child that she is adopted requires a sit down conversation. I have to consider the possibility that they were never planning on telling me.

Who are my biological parents? Or were. They could be dead by now, too. Why did they give me up? There could be a million reasons, most of which I would probably understand. But I still want to know. More curiously, why did the people I have always called my parents want to adopt me? They were never all that excited to have me around, and I always assumed I was an accident they had to live with because of their religious beliefs. But if I was adopted, that means they went out and acquired me on purpose, filling out multiple government forms in the process. That pretty much goes against everything I know about our relationship. Was my brother also adopted, and does he know? I suppose if he was, he would have also been told by now. But does he know that I was adopted? If so, did he always know? I have to doubt it. He never would have been able to keep that secret when we were younger.

This brings up the hardest question. Did my grandfather know? He almost had to. I can't see too many scenarios where your child adopts a child and you never know about it. If my grandfather knew, why did he never tell me? Maybe he was waiting until I was 18, but I think you should tell children long before then. He must have had his reasons, but what were they?

Most people are probably told about their adoption when they are still children. Or at least they should be. The most common issues adopted children likely face are feelings of rejection, not fitting in, and maybe being treated differently/not accepted by extended family. The people I always thought were my biological parents rejected me a long time ago, so learning that a previous set of parents rejected me even earlier is having no noticeable impact on my psyche. I survived, and was eventually relieved, when my parents disowned me. It turned out to be a great thing. Maybe losing the biological parents was also for the best. At this point, I have no information to make any kind of determination.

I never felt like I did not fit in, but that was more because of my grandparents than anyone else. They always treated me as if I was their granddaughter. There were never any issues in the neighborhood or at school from being adopted because no one seemed to know. Everyone probably assumed I was my parents' biological child. Anyone who may have known did an excellent job at keeping it secret.

I never had any issues with extended family because I never really knew most of my parents' relatives. I grew up with a brother, mother, father, and one set of grandparents. We were never a large family. My mother was an only child and her parents died before I was born. Her parents had siblings who lived in other parts of the country, so I rarely ever saw them or their families. My father had two sisters. They had a falling out over religious issues several decades ago. Things were rocky between my father and his parents for a while, but they patched all that up before I was old enough to know what was going on. My grandfather's family was mostly old and dead by the time I could get to know them. My grandmother's family came from old money “back east” and mostly had a problem with her marrying a jazz musician. Essentially, most of my extended family never had the opportunity to reject me because they had all rejected each other far sooner. The more you know about these people, the easier it is to understand how easily my parents disowned me. That family boat was rocking long before I started making waves.

How could I possibly be adopted when I have my birth certificate, which clearly lists my parents as the parents. Here is the funny part, and something I never knew about until I started down this rabbit hole: Once you are adopted, the state changes your birth certificate. The official government record that documents who you are and where you came from is falsified. And it is all completely legal. It has been standard operating procedure for over a century. Not only do they replace your birth certificate, they make it amazingly difficult to get a copy of the real thing. The best you can do is jump through a lot of hoops to maybe get pieces of information. Naturally, you have to pay the government for the privilege.

So what happens now? I was adopted in the United States, which never makes anything easier. Most countries have one set of laws. Realistically, one set for the rich and one set for the poor. In the United States, each individual state has its own laws. To get any information, I have to go through the state of Minnesota, rather than any federal database. In Minnesota, I can request any and all information about my original birth certificate. Within six months of that request, whichever government bureaucrat is assigned the case will “make every effort” to contact whoever is on the birth certificate.

This is where it gets tricky. The state has to respect the privacy of everyone who gave up a child for adoption. At the same time, they are usually the only way for anyone to find out who their biological parents are. They contact the parents or parent, if possible, and tell them the other shoe has finally dropped. Anyone who gives up a child has to know this is coming sooner or later. The parents then have 30 days to (1) tell the government to not disclose their information under any circumstances, (2) tell the government to go ahead and disclose whatever they want, whenever they want, or (3) ignore the state agency's request.

The biological parents also have the option to change their mind at any time, assuming no information has yet been disclosed. If they tell the state they want to remain private and the state tells me tough luck, the parents can fill out a new form days or decades later telling the state to go ahead and give me their information. At that point, the state has 31 days to inform me.

If the state fails to locate the biological parents within six months of my initial request for information, there are two options. (1) If either parent listed on the original birth certificate has ever filed, at any point in time, the correct form telling the government to never disclose their information, then the state cannot tell me anything. Unless the parent files a new form to revoke the first form, or a court orders the birth certificate unsealed. (2) If neither parent has ever filed the nondisclosure form, I can petition the court for the information, which the court can either (a) reject, (b) release partial information, or (c) release all of the information if the court decides it is in “the best interests of all known persons involved”.

If I am allowed to learn anything, by either court order or all the appropriate forms getting filed properly, the state has 31 days after the last parent was notified to give me any information. If, after being notified by the state, only one parent consents to releasing any information, then I would only be told about that one parent. I think that would be infinitely better than nothing. Even if I could only talk to one of them, odds are they would tell me more about the other than the government ever could.

If either parent is dead and filled out the form allowing me to have their information, the state has 31 days to give it to me. If they are dead and filled out the form forbidding me to have their information, I can petition the court, where a judge plays that “best interests of all known persons involved” game. My first thought was that, if dead, why not tell me who they were? How would it hurt them? But then I remembered that money and power are of the utmost importance in American courts. If my biological parents turn out to be Rockefellers, there are a few billion reasons to keep me in the dark. Those are not the type of people who enjoy sharing their inheritance.

Unfortunately, there is no government form that says I just want the information and have no intention of invading anyone else's territory. If, in the highly unlikely event that my biological parents were indeed rich and powerful, there would be no way for me to let anyone know that I do not want anything other than information. My point of view is that if you grew up in that family and you had to put up with all their bullshit, you have more right to their stuff than I do. In the far more likely scenario that my parents are anonymous everyday slobs, I still only want information. Family dynamics are a precarious thing. I have no desire to make even more waves. I am more than open to getting to know any potential relatives I might have, but I understand completely if they are less curious. Whoever these people are, I am not part of their family. I am simply the result of some man ejaculating into some woman. At the very least, I just want to know who owns the womb whence I sprang forth.

Crimson Permanent Assurance

A lot of paperwork comes out in the open when both of your parents die at the same time. Wills are read, insurance policies are combed over, titles and deeds are inspected, houses put in trust get noticed.

I was not anywhere close to being in my parents' wills, which is fine with me. I wanted nothing from them at the end of their lives and would accept nothing from them in death. That is probably easier to say since they were never rich. I can only speculate about how strong my principles would be had they been billionaires. I have no qualms about taking possession of my grandfather's house because he gave it to me, not them.

Then came the insurance. My parents never had personal life insurance. Mostly because they were covered by their church. It started when my father started working there, and I was added right after I was born. Apparently, my father tried to remove me, but he was never the policy owner. The church was, and removing a child from a life insurance policy out of spite kind of went against their brand. I was what they call an irrevocable beneficiary. I could only be removed if I agreed. I never knew anything about it, so I never agreed to anything.

Since my mother died at the same time as my father, the only surviving beneficiaries are my brother and me. Since the church had no idea that my brother was our parents' favorite, they always had everything divided equally among anyone left alive. What all this means is that, yet again, my parents have unintentionally left me something, despite their best efforts. And since it is far less than a billion dollars, I don't have to struggle with redefining my value system. I suppose the sensible thing would be to put the money into fixing up my grandparents' house. But that would help it sell and then I would profit off my father's insurance. The second I was told a check was eventually coming my way, I decided to donate it.

The obvious question is to whom. There are plenty of great charities out there. I would prefer to give this money to an organization of which my parents would never approve. When it comes to charities, my first thought is always groups that help children, like the Children's Defense Fund or the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, or something about cancer, like Gilda's Club. But none of those would piss off my parents. They were pretty terrible at raising children, but they did not hate children. In fact, their church has done its fair share in helping children's charities.

Since they were Republicans, I could donate to the DNC, but that would be like flushing it down the toilet. Before Republicans went full crazy, Democrats were just the other side of the same coin. It is only a matter of time before Democrats fall off their own deep end. My parents would roll over in Hell if I gave their money to Democrats, but other than that, I would get no satisfaction out of it. Both the RNC and DNC are corrupt corporations that could best serve the nation by having a going out of business sale and shuttering their doors. I think I would rather set the money on fire and watch it burn than give it to any American political group.

I could give it to a Chinese political group. That would really make their heads explode. But Chinese politics are almost as corrupt as American politics.

I could just give it to some random homeless people, like Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy in Coming To America. My parents would never approve of that in a million years. They would say that handouts only make people lazy. I don't know about that, but I would worry about what the random homeless person did with the money. My culture has sufficiently programmed me to think that it would go to drugs or booze, when it could just as likely go to food and shelter. Or more likely, for all I know. I have no personal experience with homelessness. At the same time, I firmly believe that once you give something to someone, it is theirs to do with as they wish. How they use it is really none of my business.

Unfortunately for me, though fortunate for society, there are no homeless people around here. They almost have to exist. No country can be wholly housed. But since we are a bunch of heathen socialists, we don't let our fellow human beings die in the gutter. This country has too many safety nets for anyone to fall through the cracks, unless they are absolutely determined to do so. I have no idea where I could even find a homeless person.

I will probably go with something in the LGBT category. My parents were never the most homophobic people in the world, but they were hardly inclusive. They did not want to lynch gay people, but they never supported marriage equality. If there is a reputable charity that centers on young lesbian girls, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, that also sounds like a bad porn movie I saw once.

I think this might be one of those first world problems you hear about. Woe is me. However shall I give away this free money? But I want it to go somewhere useful. And I really want to be petty about it.

Lord Of the Land part 3

Choosing each apartment was a different experience. The Hung Hom estate has been open for six years, so we inspected the apartment, toured the grounds, talked to a couple of neighbors, and did everything you would do when renting or buying an apartment.

The Ma On Shan estate is not open yet, but is mostly built. We could enter the apartment, but it was unfinished, as were the landscaping and swimming pool. Since it is incomplete, they had show flats in Tsim Sha Tsui. Obviously, inspecting a show flat would be pointless, but we will be able to inspect the actual apartment once it is complete. We already bought it, but there are legal provisions in place if what we bought does not turn out to be what we get.

The Kai Tak estate is currently a construction site. We could not even set foot on the property. They also had show flats, as well as 3D models and a lot of artist's renderings. Buying an apartment that has not yet been built takes some imagination, but again, if they cannot deliver, we get our money back plus a little extra for our trouble. Some of the richest people in Hong Kong, including politicians, like to buy into new developments. They would never stand for getting robbed, and even though they spend far more than we did, the laws protect all of us.

We have six months from completion date until final inspection date, so Ma On Shan and Kai Tak are going to require two separate trips to Hong Kong. Fortunately, Hong Kong has to let us in no matter which direction the viral winds blow. The only problem is Taiwan. They never have to let us back in, though they most likely would. As long as Hong Kong does not go American, we should be OK.

The developers for the Ma On Shan and Kai Tak estates gave us books full of information on not only our apartment, but every other apartment on site. If, for some strange reason, I want to know the induction hob's brand and model number in Tower 3, 15F, unit D, I could. Even though our apartment is a different floor plan on a different floor of a different tower.

It is a Miele KM6115. I looked it up.

Since we bought the Hung Hom apartment from an estate agent rather than the developer, we only got information on our specific unit and the general estate. We know next to nothing about the other apartments, and since they are several years old, no one else does either. Until the owner puts it on the market.

Legally, the rights and responsibilities of landlords in Hong Kong are more or less the same as the United States. We have to provide a livable space and fix anything that breaks down enough to endanger that. Tenants are responsible for minor cosmetic issues. We can't evict them without cause, which are mostly common sense issues, and they have to pay rent on time. Everyone can haggle and negotiate for whatever they want in the beginning, but once a lease is signed, that is where the authorities look in the event of a disagreement.

Something different is the way Hong Kong handles utilities. Where I come from, they don't turn on the apartment's gas and electricity until you move in and pay the gas and electric company. Here, the electricity is always on. If the apartment is empty, you can turn off the breakers, but the electric company is always supplying juice. That means the owner has to pay the electric bill until someone moves in and takes over. Fortunately, utility bills, in my experience, are far cheaper in China than in Minnesota, mostly because of heat in winter and probably more than a little political bullshit. The water bills in both countries are practically nothing, but ironically, the Ma On Shan water price is slightly more than Kai Tak or Hung Hom, even though Ma On Shan is right next to one of the largest reservoirs.

One thing we will never have to deal with as owners is furniture. Since these are all family apartments, they will come unfurnished. Most families have their own furniture, and even if they do not, they all have their own tastes. The property management company at Hung Hom has a furniture package that renters can choose, but that has nothing to do with us.

How much to charge for rent was an interesting issue. When you look at websites advertising apartments for rent, you see essentially the same apartment at wildly different prices. As it turns out, the property management companies look it up on their spreadsheets and pick the highest number they can find. My first apartment in Hong Kong was in an independent building. I think that owner just picked the price out of a hat. When we were given a price range for comparable units in the Hung Hom estate, we told the property manager to go with the lowest number. That might have been the first time anyone told him to aim low.

Our goal is not to make a profit from rent. That is pretty much impossible. If you buy a ten million dollar apartment and charge $30,000 a month in rent, it would take 30 years to break even. Maybe if you own the entire building, you can make some money off rent, but independent buildings around here tend to have lower rents and the more expensive buildings are in estates that almost no single person could own. And only one of our apartments is ready for tenants. It will be more than a year before the Kai Tak apartment is habitable. Even if the property manager finds someone to move in on the first available day, that is still one year of no income whatsoever. The profit only comes from selling the apartment at the right time. The trick is finding the right time. Everyone assumes the Kai Tak estate will be worth far more after the neighborhood is fully developed, but it is still gambling. The Ma On Shan apartment is almost sure to increase in value, but there is no way to know if the neighborhood will ever become popular. The surest thing is Hung Hom, but since we did not get in on the ground floor, we will never make as much money from that one as we potentially could from the others.

Not that it really matters. We would like to make a few dollars eventually, but we did this to have a financial stake in Hong Kong. We are never going to get rich from any of these properties. To make any real money, we would have to sell them at the right time, buy something else at the right time, and then sell that at the next right time, repeating as necessary. For now, we have reached our goal. As long as we do not lose everything, I am satisfied.

Lord Of the Land part 2

Kevin, Lily and I, and the bank, now own three apartments in Hong Kong.

Apartment #1 is in Hung Hom, near the Whampoa shopping boat. It was built in 2015 and is up and running, ready for someone to move in. The property management company is already advertising. It is a 3 bedroom/2 bath with a large kitchen, by Hong Kong standards, tiny bedrooms, an open rectangle of a living room/dining room, and outstanding views of Kowloon Bay from the living room and all bedrooms. Since it faces east and has larger than average windows, there is plenty of natural light in the morning, except in the kitchen. No one can possibly build anything between the apartment and the bay, so that view will never be obstructed. Unfortunately, the only balconies are off the laundry room and kitchen, which face inward, toward the neighbor's apartment. Most of the newer buildings are designed that way, so no one can see everyone's laundry from the street. It makes the building look better, which probably increases the property value, so I have no complaints.

This is the largest estate we bought into, with over 4,000 units in two dozen towers. That might seem large, but it pales next to Hung Hom's largest estate, which has over 10,000 units in 88 towers. That was actually my first choice, mostly because I like the neighborhood, but the only apartments available were studios the size of closets and tiny one bedrooms. We knew it had to be at least 3 bedrooms to have any resale value. Instead, we went newer and smaller. As a private housing estate, it has all the usual courtyard/landscaping with water features, indoor playground, clubhouse, gym, a few outdoor swimming pools, underground parking for cars/scooters/bicycles and even visitors. There are a few restaurants and shopping on site, but since this is Hung Hom, the entire estate is surrounded by shopping and food. It is an easy walk to the Whampoa or Ho Man Tin MTR stations, and as a larger estate, there are usually taxis waiting on the main road. It is close to Route 5 and Route 1, which is both convenient for drivers and inconvenient because of the horrendous traffic. They are building a new highway to alleviate some of Route 5's congestion, but it will not connect to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. I have absolutely no idea about area schools and grocery stores, but the property management company does. I know about a ParknShop maybe a kilometer away, but there is probably something closer.

Apartment #2 is in Ma On Shan, surrounded by several country parks. It is in a brand new estate and will be ready for tenants in a few months. Several apartments were available, but we went with a 4 bedroom/3 bath with a small but nice kitchen, small bedrooms, large living room/dining room, and great views of Plover Cove. Since it faces west, the sunset over the mountains should be beautiful. The living room balcony looks like a great place to sit with a drink and enjoy the view. It is physically possible for someone to build something between the apartment and the view, but that would be a major construction project that takes years. As with the Hung Hom apartment, the laundry balcony faces the neighbors, but this kitchen has an outward window facing east.

This is the smallest estate we bought into, with 500 units in four towers and a few “houses” that are a block of 3 and 4 story apartments. It has less landscaping than the Hung Hom estate and fewer common areas, but they put in a couple of “Italian” water fountains. I have only been to Italy once, so I am far from an expert, but these fountains do not look like what I saw in Rome. There is a covered outdoor playground, clubhouse, a small but nice gym, a curved outdoor swimming pool, a smaller rooftop pool, and ample underground parking. Ma On Shan is in the New Territories and nowhere near Central, but it is one of those up and coming neighborhoods that developers hope will attract people who want to get away from the crowds. With any luck, rich people will move in and drive up the prices. I would not be at all surprised if this apartment brings the most profit after we eventually sell them. It is still in Hong Kong, so there are at least two shopping centers within 2 kilometers, one of which is connected to the nearest MTR station. The estate is close to two beaches, which is not a selling point in Chinese, for some reason.

Apartment #3 is in Kai Tak, near the old airport/now cruise terminal and about 3 kilometers from the Hung Hom apartment. The estate is still under construction and scheduled to open next year, with Phase 1 opening a few months before Phase 2. It is so new that Phase 3 has yet to be announced. Though it does not currently exist, our unit will be a 4 bedroom/3 bath with a nice kitchen, two small bedrooms and two master bedrooms, and a living room/dining room larger than all of the bedrooms combined. One of the master bedrooms will have an unusually large closet and the other will have an unusually large bathroom. Every bathroom will have a bathtub, unlike most Hong Kong apartments. The living room and all bedrooms will face south toward Kowloon Bay, though the view will probably not be nearly as good as the Hung Hom apartment. The master bedroom with the large bathroom will have both south and east facing windows, so that room should get plenty of natural light. The kitchen window will face west and might possibly have views of Symphony of Lights in Victoria Harbour. Maybe.

Phase 1 will have 350 units in two towers and four “houses”. Phase 2, with our apartment, will have 250 units in two towers. Since the old airport height restrictions no longer exist, every new development in the area is going for tall over wide. This is easily our highest apartment, by ten floors. By next year, the estate will have several gardens and water features, an indoor playground/clubhouse, a larger gym than the others, a large outdoor swimming pool with smaller children's pool and jacuzzi, and plenty of parking. Kowloon Walled City Park is a kilometer away to the northwest, Kwun Tong Promenade and the new cruise terminal are 2 kilometers to the southeast, and the Hung Hom Promenade is a little over 2 kilometers to the southwest. Kai Tak and Kowloon Bay are the closest MTR stations. This estate is also near Route 5, but farther away from the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. Kai Tak is largely under construction, but everyone assumes that it will be full of shopping and food just like every other developed inch of Hong Kong. If future trends are anything like current trends, it will mostly be higher end yuppie shopping, which I think has far less character, but is much better for property values.

Lord Of the Land part 1

Kevin and I went to Hong Kong on a bit of a business trip. As citizens, more or less, we can go back whenever we want. But since no one is actually a citizen of Hong Kong, we wanted to make sure we kept our citizenship while living in Taiwan.

As permanent residents, we have the “right of abode”, which means we have unrestricted access to enter, live, work, and vote in Hong Kong without visas or any other government approval. Since we live in Taiwan, we will lose that right if we stay out of Hong Kong for three years or more. At that point, we would be given the “right to land”, which retains the right to enter, live, and work, but loses the right to vote. Since Hong Kong will be going through a few political changes in the next decade, we both want to vote as early and often as possible.

The easiest solution is to simply take a trip to Hong Kong every once in a while. The three year clock starts from the last time we leave the country, not from the last time we lived there. But there are rumors that the current system will soon change and people will have to be physically present for at least three to six months at a time, similar to quite a few other countries. Rumors about the Chinese government making one change or another are a dime a dozen, but at the same time, they actually do make sweeping changes with little warning. While this particular rumor might never come true, it could also be officially announced tomorrow.

China also launched a bit of a pandemic in 2019. While it never really affected our ability to travel to and fro, the next one might. There could conceivably come a time when Hong Kong and/or Taiwan blocks entry even to those with the legal right to enter.

Lily does not have to worry about any of this. While she was on a work visa in 2016, she left Hong Kong long enough to lose the visa. Even though she lived in Hong Kong just as long as Kevin, and longer than I did, she only entered in 2016, according to the government. The previous years she lived there stopped counting as soon as she lost her visa. Since it takes at least seven years before anyone can even apply for permanent residency, she would not have been eligible until 2023, had we stayed.

Hong Kong is unique, as far as Chinese cities go. Anyone who is a citizen of any other Chinese city is a Chinese citizen. They can leave their city, or even China, for an entire lifetime and retain their Chinese citizenship. Unless they formally renounce it. But being a citizen of Hong Kong does not make one a Chinese citizen. As such, there are more than a few loopholes for people who want to retain their citizenship, but do not physically live in Hong Kong, for one reason or another. All of those loopholes involve spending money that benefits Hong Kong. A good number of people own businesses in Hong Kong while living elsewhere. As long as their business makes money, they are more than welcome in Hong Kong.

Kevin and I thought about opening a store or restaurant, but those tend to go out of business quickly, and are almost impossible to get off the ground from a distance. If we were in town often enough to run a successful restaurant, we would not need to own a restaurant. We looked into investing in an existing business, but that would only help us if we were the majority owners. Eventually, we learned that owning land is just as good as owning a business, as long as Hong Kong gets their cut. But land in Hong Kong does not come cheap. The old adage “buy more land, they're not making any more” is not at all true in Hong Kong. They are literally creating more land out of the sea. But it is the opposite of cheap.

While Hong Kong may not stretch out very far, it rises up more than most cities. The vast majority live in either a private housing estate or public housing estate. Though every dwelling is generally called a house, almost everyone lives in apartments, many of which are in skyscrapers. Outside of the New Territories, there are few detached houses in Hong Kong. People who own their own houses mostly own apartments. Everyone else rents apartments. Someone else owns them. Kevin, Lily and I are now part of those someone else. We are officially landlords, or at least we will be as soon as we get some tenants. Lily did not have to participate, but as long as we were shopping, she wanted to join in. She stayed in Taiwan because the Qingming holiday only gave her a long weekend, and most of our business was conducted during the week.

Rather than do everything ourselves or go through an estate agent, we hired an estate solicitor. It cost more money upfront, but will probably save us a fortune in the long run. Not only is the solicitor supposed to know all the laws, rules, and regulations, but they have more experience than we do and they are physically in the country. Flying to Hong Kong every time something comes up would not be ideal.

One of the solicitor's first suggestions was that we buy multiple properties at the same time. We always knew we would have to own more than one apartment, but assumed that we would start with one and go from there. In Hong Kong, the stamp duty for first-time buyers is substantially lower than for everyone else. We were always going to get the discount rate with the first property, but got the low rate for everything since we turned in all the paperwork at the same time. We thought that was pretty clever, but apparently, most people do it this way. And just last year, the government lowered the minimum deposit rate for first-time buyers. The real estate market is not at its best right now and they want to motivate potential buyers. We figured we might as well take advantage of that. It is essentially a buyer's market. No one knows when that will change, but everyone knows that prices will skyrocket eventually.

Another useful suggestion was that we only buy apartments in private housing estates rather than independent buildings. Most estates are run by property management companies that handle rent, maintenance, security, and above all, paperwork. That means a small portion of the rent goes to the property management company, but doing all of that ourselves would be a pain in the butt even if we lived in the country. We will most definitely be hands-off landlords. Odds are, we will never meet any of our tenants.

Buying an apartment in a public housing estate is possible, but never really a good idea. It is a terrible investment since the government subsidizes public housing. There really are no opportunities for unscrupulous capitalists to gouge their tenants deeper into poverty. Becoming slumlords was never an option. Not only would we not want to, obviously, but people who rent in private estates tend to be middle class and more likely to go to the authorities when someone threatens their home.

Our solicitor also thought it would be a good idea if at least one of our new apartments was a first-hand property. In Hong Kong, that usually means a building that is still under construction. The downside to a new building is that no one can predict the future market or how many bugs have to be worked out of the system, while you can look at occupancy rates in an established building. The benefit is that Chinese people love everything new. Where we live, in Kaohsiung, new buildings are popping up like weeds. Apartments are staying empty for years because the supply outweighs the demand. In Hong Kong, new apartments are bought and sold before they are even built. Buying directly from the developer rather than an estate agent is supposedly easier, mostly because there is no middleman and fewer people who need to get paid.

Before we signed a single piece of paper, we had to ask ourselves if we could even afford to buy more than one apartment in Hong Kong. The answer, of course, was that we could not. Hong Kong is absurdly expensive, even in a buyer's market with tax breaks and government incentives. Fortunately, Hong Kong also has banks. Hong Kong, in fact, has many banks. I have no idea how many, but if Hong Kong is one of the world's financial capitals, there are probably more than a few. A bonus to getting a bank loan is that if any property developer screws us over, they are also screwing over the bank, which is partly owned by the government. In China, it is in your best interest to not steal money from the government.

New Driver's License part 2

After passing the written test, I took the driving test. This was always going to be the easiest part. I have driven in multiple countries, have a pretty good understanding of Chinese driving habits, and know the differences between what the law says versus how people actually drive. I'm not at all familiar with the streets of Kaohsiung, but that would never matter if the person administering the test told me where to go.

The real reason it never mattered was because the road test does not take place on the road. To demonstrate your ability to drive safely on the crowded and chaotic streets of Taiwan, you have to perform elementary maneuvers on a closed course with absolutely no other cars, pedestrians or distractions. It was kind of a joke. I could have passed this test during my first week of driver's ed in high school.

To get a license, you have to be able to drive in a straight line; stop at a fake red light; stop at a fake railroad crossing; go up a hill, which is more like a wide speed bump, stop at the top and go down; back up into an unusually large parking spot; parallel park into an even larger parking spot; drive forward on a curved road, and then drive backward on the same road, even though the written test clearly states that driving backward on a curved road is illegal.

It is impossible to turn the wrong way or hit anyone since it is a closed course. There are sensors all over the road. Running over one means losing a few points, as does not stopping at the right places or rolling backward downhill. The “hill” part is for manual transmissions. You have to stop on the hill without stalling or rolling backward downhill. I don't see how anyone can fail that part in a modern automatic.

I took the test in a manual transmission because the license limits the kind of car you can drive based on the kind of car you use on the test. Had I taken it in an automatic, I would only be able to legally drive automatics in Taiwan. Not that it matters. Most newer cars are automatics and I would be surprised if a single rental place in the country has stick shifts. But when I have to renew my international permit, it will be based on my license. If my Taiwan license is limited to automatics, my international permit will be as well. That could affect future driving on future trips out of the country. Assuming the police in those countries care. I prefer sticks, on the rare occasion that is an option, so it made the most sense that I would be licensed to drive them.

The test course looked like it was designed for SUVs. Everything was big and wide; often wider than the actual streets in Taiwan. You can take the test in your own car or you can borrow a 10-year-old Toyota Tercel. In a Tercel, those parking spaces are huge.

After passing the test, easily, they took me to the counter where my passport photo was laminated onto a card right then and there. I thought it was a temporary license until the permanent one could be printed, but that flimsy laminated cardboard is my actual driver's license. If I took it to the United States, every police officer would automatically assume it was a terrible forgery.

Just outside the main building, some people were taking their scooter driving test. So I watched. I thought the driving test for cars was a joke. A trained monkey could pass the scooter test. They had to drive in a relatively straight line, stop at a fake railroad crossing, stop at a fake red light, and make two right turns on the course. That was it. The hardest part for the people I watched was driving in a straight line. Everyone lost points when swerving into the sensors or putting their feet on the ground to stabilize themselves. Whenever anyone hit a sensor, there was a loud alarm that everyone could hear. Knowing how much Chinese people hate to lose face, that must have been the hardest part. But if loud noises are distracting, Taiwan driving is not for you.

I thought the tests were pretty easy, other than the terrible English, but I have heard that the failure rate is pretty high. That must be why there are driving schools all over the country. Apparently, there is at least one school across the street or very near every motor vehicles office. The only purpose of the driving schools is to show you tricks for passing the test. They have nothing to do with learning how to drive. You can even take the test at the school, which the government encourages. I assume to cut down on wait times, but I'm sure it is easier to pay the school a little extra to pass than it would be at the DMV.

Getting a driver's license in Taiwan has been an educational experience. Not because I learned anything about driving. I learned why the drivers of Taiwan are so objectively terrible. No one learns how to drive at any point in their lives. There is no driver's education in high school because you have to be at least 18 to drive here. The driving schools show them how to pass the test and the test has nothing to do with real world road conditions. People pass the test and learn how to drive by following all the mistakes everyone else on the road is making.

Just like China, there is no police presence on the road to discourage illegal behavior. No one in Taiwan or China knows that feeling of seeing flashing lights in their rear view mirror. There are cameras to send out fines to people who run select red lights or exceed the speed limit in the wrong place, which is odd since there are warning signs before every camera. It makes sense that they warn people to follow the law, but telling everyone where the cameras are only tells them where they have to behave. If there is no warning sign, you can run the right lights to your heart's content. You can drive on the wrong side of the road at night without any headlights and the police will never know. Until they are called after a collision. There are consequences to driving like a blind jackrabbit if someone gets injured, but if you make it home in one piece, you can do absolutely anything you want on the roads of Taiwan. And many people do.

New Driver's License part 1

Sooner or later, you have to get a driver's license. I had one when I lived in Hong Kong, even though I rarely drove in Hong Kong. I think I drove in Mainland China more than I drove in Hong Kong. But on either side of the border, you need a license. I also try to drive as much as I can whenever I go to other countries. An international permit only works in conjunction with a valid license, and I let my Minnesota license expire a long time ago. Having a Hong Kong license was the only option that made any sense. So even though I had no car and no real need for a license in Hong Kong, I got one. It was pretty easy.

I have no need for a driver's license in Kaohsiung. I have no car and have yet to drive at all in this city. I could rent a car with my Hong Kong license and international permit, though that would likely confuse the people at the rental counter. I can show a license and ID from Hong Kong, but if they want to see my passport, that would bring a third country into the mix. If I really wanted to confuse them I could show my Taiwan ID. But if I have a Taiwan ID, I should not be using an international permit and license from some other country. Hence my new driver's license.

The procedure for getting a driver's license in Taiwan is pretty similar to Hong Kong. You take a written test, you take a driving test and they put your picture on a card. The practice is wildly different.

In Hong Kong, I took the written test in English. I figured, since it was offered, why not. I know English. It was easy. If you know basic rules of the road and a few China specifics, you can pass the written test. Just keep in mind that left and right are reversed in Hong Kong. That part is easier for people from the United Kingdom of South India and Australia Africa.

The driving test was pretty much like the driving test in Minnesota. You drive around, go where the guy tells you to go and don't hit anything. But the roads of Hong Kong are infinitely more dangerous than the roads of Minnesota. Being a good driver in Minnesota is nothing like being a good driver in Hong Kong. In China, defensive driving is not a suggestion. It is an absolute requirement if you want to live. Sooner than later, someone else on the road will go out of their way to kill you. You can practically fall asleep while driving in Minnesota, as long as you know what is in front of you. If you are not fully aware of everyone from every direction at all times in China, you will die.

In Taiwan, I started to take the written test in English. I figured, since it was offered, why not. I quickly realized why not. It is a computer test, so you don't see the next question until you have answered the last question. That was why it took me a while to figure out how messed up the test was going to be. Knowing the basic rules of the road was not an issue. The problem was whoever translated the questions into English does not know English.

The following are actual questions on the test.

True or false:

I make discover from two passenger whisper conversation are the drug dealer, to helping my country I must take at police stations therefor not allow them escape.

If true, it is my legal responsibility to detain dangerous criminals. I never signed up for that.

When green light say pass driver should attention of car and pedestrian illegal going in red light easily cause accidence.

This might seem like an easy one, but the correct answer is false. Drivers should not pay attention to anyone running the red light, according to the driving test. Maybe this explains why no one does.


Multiple choice:

If car driver is found snack on road will punished (1) find number plate will detaine 3 month (2) find roadway safety lecture (3) find roadway safety lecture number plate will detaine 3 month.

This could be interpreted as saying that eating while driving is illegal, but I looked it up and it is not. Holding your phone while driving is illegal. Eating is perfectly acceptable. But apparently, it is illegal to find a snack on the road.

If driver wish uphold national honor, promote social state ability, family happiness (1) say no on them (2) drive after serious accidence with car (3) double passenger fee.

What? I like to think I am pretty good at translating Chinglish into something legible, but I have no idea what this means.

I stopped taking the test after the national honor question and asked the clerk if I could start over again in Chinese. She was surprised that I did not understand the English, but agreed that it would be better to start over than to fail and have to wait a week to take the test again.

The Chinese version was straightforward. Anyone who knows basic rules of the road and a few Taiwan specifics can pass the test. And none of the questions on the Chinese version mentioned snacks.

New City

We moved again. By we, I mean Lily, Kevin and me. We were in the Yau Ma Tei apartment for six years. It was a good apartment, definitely better than anything any of us ever had in Hong Kong, but it was time for a change. For several reasons.

Kevin's company relocated out of China. They were talking about it for a long time. Long enough that some of us were starting to think it would never happen. But it eventually did. That left Kevin with the option of moving with his company or staying put and trying to find a new job. That was a big decision that required a few conversations. He probably could have found a comparable job in Hong Kong, but he wanted to keep climbing his ladder rather than start at the bottom somewhere else. As a Canadian in China, he does not have as many options in the corporate world as he would if he were Chinese. He speaks the language, understands the culture and has the legal right to live and work in Hong Kong, but he will never be Chinese.

Lily wanted to stay in China, but she also wanted to support Kevin. Once upon a time, she had a pretty good job in Hong Kong. But then she went back to Canada when her father died. That cost her the job and her work visa. In the eyes of the government, that meant her first day in Hong Kong was when she got her new visa, even though she had already lived there for several years. She kind of got screwed on that deal.

I voted to leave China. Not because of anything Hong Kong ever did or said. She has always been nice to me. I was ready to move because Kevin's company went to Taiwan.

One of life's greatest adventures is moving to another country. I recommend it wholeheartedly. But it is definitely not for everyone. You have to be an open minded person. You have to be curious about other cultures and the crazy shit they do. You have to be ready for change. The single biggest mistake any expat can make is to want the new country to be just like the old country. That's not the way it works. You have to adapt to your new home. It is not going to adapt to you. If you are ready, willing and able, living in a completely different country can be a highly educational and rewarding experience. If you are set in your ways and hate change, moving to a different country will kill you.

Having said that, Taiwan is a similar culture to China, and I already speak the language. So it's not really that much of a change. It is absolutely a different country, but almost like moving from Toronto to Milwaukee.

The biggest difference between moving to China and moving to Taiwan was what I knew about each place ahead of time. I knew pretty much nothing about Hong Kong before I moved there. I knew the basic Chinese to British to Chinese history. I knew they had strange food and their people were different from my people. I knew what most Americans know about China, which is pretty much nothing.

I'm far from an expert on Taiwan, but at least I visited a few times before moving. I understand the culture. Living in China helped a great deal. I can't necessarily explain why the people do things the way they do them, but their ways are familiar to me, and I took some of them as my own years ago. An easy example is that no one around here wears shoes in the house. Where I come from, we wore the same shoes everywhere, even the bedroom and bathroom. When I tell my Chinese friends that, they wonder what is wrong with my backwards culture. I can understand their disgust. No matter where I live in the world from now on, I will never wear shoes indoors again.

The biggest pain in the butt to moving to a different country, other than dragging all your crap from one place to another, is all the paperwork. In Hong Kong, Kevin and I are as close to being citizens as you can get. Legally, no one is actually a citizen of Hong Kong. You are a citizen of whichever country you hold citizenship and you are either a permanent resident or a temporary resident of Hong Kong. Kevin and I are permanent residents, while Lily was a temporary resident. The main difference is what they call the right of abode. Kevin and I can legally live, work and vote in Hong Kong without any visas or threat of deportation. It is also easier to buy property. As a temporary resident, Lily needed a visa to work in Hong Kong and could not vote in elections. The government could also kick her out of the country for any or no reason at any time, though that is rare, unless you blow things up or go on a murder spree. When anyone with the right of abode leaves Hong Kong for three years, their status is automatically changed to the right to land. That means that after three years, Kevin and I will still be able to live and work in Hong Kong without visas, but we will not be able to vote and will not be as eligible for all those free government handouts. We will also lose the option of becoming Chinese citizens, which neither of us were ever going to do since we would have to renounce our Canadian and American citizenship. My country has a lot of problems, systemic and temporary, but a US passport is far more useful than a Chinese passport in most of the world.

To move to Taiwan, we all had to start from scratch. Kevin moved for work, so his company got him a work visa and alien resident card, which is pretty much the same as the Hong Kong Identity Card. He had to sign a piece of paper and other people did everything for him.

I have gotten a few job offers from Taiwan over the years. I always turned them down because I lived in China. That would have been a long commute. But I spent the last year mostly unemployed. As soon as Kevin's company formally announced that Taiwan was happening, I looked at my options. The job I got in Taiwan just might turn out to be a lot better than the unemployment I had in China. With a job, I also got a work visa and alien resident card. The biggest difference with Kevin is that I had to do all the paperwork myself, which was really not all that complicated. I went to the government office, gave them a lot of paperwork and a little bit of money, then went back later to pick up the card. I don't know if it was easy because Taiwan made it easy or if it was easy because I have experience getting work visas in several other countries.

Technically, I taught ballet to little girls for the past two years. But that was always a part time job and not something I would ever put on my resume. I had to say goodbye to my students, but they are young and will get over it far faster than I will. They have probably already forgotten me.

Lily's situation is a little different. She spent the last four years teaching English in China. That makes it sound like she was a teacher, but she worked in a cram school, which is more like babysitting than teaching. Actually learning English was not a priority for the school or parents. The school was there to make as much money as possible. The parents used the school to keep their children occupied until they got home from work. If the children's test scores improved a little, all the better. Lily considered herself a babysitter/tutor.

But she enjoyed working with the children. Taiwan has a similar cram school system, and as a young woman from an English speaking country, she could probably get one of those low paying, part time cram school jobs. She had other ideas.

Lily is now working on a master's degree in early childhood education. As it turns out, Taiwan has two schools where she could do this without really being able to speak much Chinese. One of those schools is 350km from our new apartment. The other is about a kilometer and a half. It was an easy choice.

With a student visa, she cannot legally work in the country. That means Kevin and I will be paying her bills for the next two to three years. Or, more likely, she will eventually find a job and get a work visa so she can work and go to school at the same time. Fortunately, tuition will not be one of those bills. Taiwan invests heavily in education and they love people who want to study education in order to educate future generations. With scholarships from both the university and the government, Lily should not have to pay a dime on classes or books.

Since we are all starting over, we are all foreigners once again. We were always foreigners in China, but at least Kevin and I were de facto citizens. In daily life, that never really made much difference, but when going through the airport, it was terribly convenient. Hong Kong International Airport is known for their long lines, though they move quickly. As “citizens”, we could avoid them completely. At Taoyuan International Airport, we are foreigners in every sense of the word. I have no idea if we will be here long enough to get any perks, which usually takes about seven years. In the meantime, we have to fill out forms, wait in lines and keep our visas up to date. None of us can vote or live here unrestricted. For now.

Car Shopping

Hong Kong, as anyone who has ever set foot off the boat knows, is a giant shopping mall. There are performing arts here and a museum there, but pound for pound, this city has more shopping malls than any place I have ever been. I can walk ten minutes from my apartment and be at a famous night market, a famous street market, a famous produce market, a 1 million square foot shopping mall with over 100 shops, a 15 story mall, a mall with 450 shops and at least 70 restaurants and/or food stalls, and a dozen smaller shopping centers.

In addition to clothes, shoes, electronics, jewelry, toys and umbrellas, people in Hong Kong can buy cars. Why anyone needs a car in Hong Kong is beyond me. The MTR is efficient, reliable and goes everywhere, buses go wherever the MTR does not, and failing everything else, taxis are abundant and dirt cheap. But I have borrowed cars from time to time, so I suppose knowing people who have them is not such a bad thing.

Cars made in China are not generally considered the best in the world. That might be why most of the dealerships sell imports. Most of the cars I see driving around are Japanese – Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, or German – Audi, BMW, Volkswagen. The British cars tend to be on the more expensive side – Jaguar, Land Rover, Bentley. Luxury cars in general are popular here. I have seen more than a few Italian and French sports cars. Why, I will never know. I understand wanting to go fast, but none of the other cars in Hong Kong will ever allow you to speed from one red light to the next. Imagine how frustrating it would be to drive a Maserati in bumper to bumper traffic. Oddly enough, outside of Ford, I never see any American cars.

One of my friends with a car wanted to buy a new one. The previous one is over ten years old. It still runs perfectly well. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In Chinese culture, if you drive an older car, you must be poor. The last thing Chinese people want is for anyone to think they are poor, even if they are. Especially if they are. Keeping up appearances is very important around here. Maybe that is why Mercedes is the second most popular car. You might have to make payments for the next twenty years, but at least complete strangers will think you have money.

The most popular car, according to sales figures, is Toyota. That has less to do with appearance and more with the fact that Toyota makes reliable and affordable cars that will last long after everyone pretends it is time for a new one. My friend likes Toyota, and could never afford a Porsche, so we made an appointment.

I don't know if you have to make an appointment to buy a new car in Hong Kong or if you can simply walk in, but you definitely need an appointment to test drive something. Space is limited and the dealers we went to had enough space for a few cars in the showroom. The cars you actually test drive are parked somewhere away from the dealership. In Hong Kong, Toyota sells at least a dozen different passenger cars, while the showroom only had the top five. Had we gone without an appointment, not only would we not have been able to test drive a Corolla, we would not have even seen one.

Amy wanted a Corolla because it was HK$100,000 cheaper than a Camry. The 20-year-old salesman we dealt with wanted to push the Camry. Amy was adamant about the Corolla. She saw almost no difference between the two cars, other than the price and a few bells and whistles. The salesman really wanted her to buy a Camry. We could understand that. The Camry had a higher price tag, so the salesman would get a higher commission. But we made an appointment to drive a Corolla, so he could not say there was nothing available on the lot. He did talk about the Camry the entire time we looked at the Corolla, though.

I got a weasel vibe from this guy right away. This was a name dealership with nothing but new cars, yet he acted like a used car salesman. It probably did not help that we are both women. This may be 2019, but there are still entirely too many men who think women are decorative. If you are a woman on Earth, you get used to men talking down to you. It gets worse when those men are younger. The salesman was probably more than 20 years old, but he was too young to be selling something as expensive as a car. A major red flag was when he did not want us to look at the engine. Neither of us are auto mechanics. I wanted to take a look anyway. What I don't know about car engines could fill a stadium, but I can tell the difference between an Alfa Romeo and a Yugo.

The biggest road block, other than the salesman's terrible customer service, was that he arranged for the only Corolla on the lot to have a manual transmission. He assured us that all the Camrys were automatic. We knew what he was up to right away. Especially since 90% of new passenger cars sold in Hong Kong are automatics. He rightly assumed that Amy would not be able to drive the stick shift. Why he thought she would just buy a different car because she could not test drive the one she wanted is anyone's guess. Cars are not socks. You don't just get whatever is available if they don't have what you want. The salesman was shocked and dismayed when I said that not only could I drive the car, but I am licensed to do so.

I told Amy everything she wanted to know while I drove the Corolla. The salesman tried to interrupt me at least once every half second, but I never let him. In Chinese culture, a Chinese woman is always supposed to listen to a Chinese man over another woman. But Amy was born after 1800 and we were definitely on the same side.

Traditionally, you sit down with the salesman after a test drive and talk turkey. Even if you don't want to buy the car, it is considered polite to listen to the sales pitch and go through the motions. The salesman tries to talk you into buying a car today and you say you will think about it; both parties knowing that it will never happen. This particular salesman annoyed both of us enough that we did not bother. As soon as the test drive was over, we told him that we were not interested and walked away. There was nothing wrong with the car. Had Amy wanted to buy one, they would have magically found an automatic. But there was no way in hell she was going to buy so much as a key chain from this guy.

A few days later, the salesman called Amy and asked if she had changed her mind. He also tried to sell the Camry yet again. He was such a terrible salesman that she did something you are never supposed to do in Chinese culture. She just came out and told him that she would never buy anything from him under any circumstances because of the way he treated her. He called her again a week later and she told him she was going to call his manager, which she never did, unfortunately, and that she would call the police if he ever called again. He never called after that. Her grandfather would say that the younger generation is out of control. I say everyone should be more blunt around here. The customer should never have to put up with bullshit just because of tradition.

Toyota was out. There are other Toyota dealerships around here, and Amy wanted either a Toyota or a Honda. So Honda was next. I suggested getting a Mini Cooper since they are easy to park, but she wanted to go Japanese.

The Honda salesman was the polar opposite of the Toyota salesman. He was older than us, genuinely polite, not at all condescending, willing to answer questions and, best of all, he had the car Amy booked. The only new Honda for sale that was not an SUV/van or sports car was the Jazz. They have the Civic, but it is a “high performance” version. To me, the Honda Civic is a basic sedan. In Hong Kong, it is more expensive.

When we went to the dealership, not only did they have a Jazz available, as we reserved, but it was an automatic transmission and the salesman never tried to sell Amy anything else. She did not want an SUV or van, which was 65% of what they sold, and even though sports cars make for higher commissions, this salesman seemed to understand that most people do not buy a car that costs three times as much as their first choice.

Amy could drive the Jazz. I also took it around for a spin. It is not the most powerful car in the world, but it handled well on turns and was easy to park. Something I have noticed over the years is how much smaller the windows are getting in cars. When I was a child, there were large windows in every direction. They are getting smaller every year with more safety features. To compensate, newer cars have digital displays on the dashboard. If you cannot see out the back window in reverse, you simply look at the display. I don't like that at all. I want to face the direction I'm driving. Going backward while looking forward seems counterintuitive to me. I should probably get used to it because those windows are only going to get smaller. Pretty soon, there will be nothing but safety walls in every direction and display screens instead of windows.

The Jazz has larger rear windows. It has the dashboard display just like everyone else, but I could actually look out the window while I was backing up. I liked that. Amy did not care. She will adapt to the display right away.

Another thing I noticed was space. Cars in China, whether made in Japan or Europe, always had sparse leg and headroom. I have driven more than a few cars where I had to move the seat back as far as it could go. I am not exactly a basketball player. I can't see Kareem renting an older car in China. With the newer cars, I actually had to move the seat forward. Even the backseat in the Jazz had enough legroom.

Best of all, the Honda Jazz sticker price was HK$20,000 less than the Toyota Corolla.

Now I just need to find an excuse to borrow it.

A Tale of Two Teachers

It was the best of classes, it was the worst of classes. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.

I started teaching ballet to little girls last March. It has almost been a full year. That is pretty amazing. To me, at least. When I took the job, I assumed I would do it for a month, maybe two. It was something temporary to put a few dollars in my pocket.

Before this, I had absolutely no teaching experience. I am also not a ballerina. There are a million reasons I was never qualified to do this job, but here is the big secret that everyone in Hong Kong, and probably most of China, already knows: none of the after school teachers around here are qualified to teach. The qualified teachers teach in the actual schools. Those of us in cram schools or buxiban or tutorial schools, whatever you want to call them, are simply foreigners who are young enough and look right for the job.

My sister, Lily, has been teaching English at a cram school for almost three years. For a real teacher in a real school, three years would still be a rookie. Lily has been at her school longer than any of the other foreigners. That is because in the cram school business, foreigners come and go quickly. You would think schools would not want to hire foreigners since they are not steady employees and require work visas and a ridiculous amount of government paperwork, but schools want white faces because that is what the parents want. In the case of English, the assumption among parents is that someone who was born and raised in English will know it better than someone who learned it as a foreign language. Clearly, these parents have not been reading Facebook. The irony is that Lily, and every other foreign teacher, is not actually teaching their children English. The purpose of a cram school is to help students pass tests. It has nothing to do with actually learning how to speak, read and write English. Parents know this and don't care. Some students take English classes at their regular schools. This is where they are supposed to learn the language, even though almost all of their teachers in their real schools were born and raised in China and learned English from Chinese teachers.

My teaching job is less complicated. My students have no regular ballet teachers at their regular schools. I am not helping them cram for any tests. I teach what is essentially a hobby to children who have the spare time. That might sound like I have no job stability, but this is a rabidly competitive culture. Any parent whose niece or friend's daughter just won a ribbon at some dance competition is going to want their daughter to take dance classes. Because, obviously, their child would be so much better at it.

This brings up a question I get from time to time. Why are only girls allowed to take ballet lessons? They are not. This rule does not exist. Boys are more than welcome, but they never sign up. In almost a year, I have never had a single boy walk through the doors. Why is that? I don't know. Machismo, video games, peer pressure, lack of interest. At this young age, it could simply be a case of too many icky girls in the class. I might be better off with just girl students.

Lily teaches boys and girls of all ages, from first graders who write the letter R as if it were V, to seniors in high school stressing out over college admissions. Since her students come in for a specific test or a series of tests, they come and go almost as quickly as the foreign teachers. Some stick around since there will always be more tests in the near future, but most are temporary. She can't count how many students she has had in almost three years, but she can tell you that the troublemaker in each class is almost always a boy. At every age range, except high school, the girls are better behaved and more respectful of their teachers and fellow students. By high school, any student that still takes extra classes after school probably wants to learn. Or at least wants to do well enough to go to a decent college. Fifth grade boys would rather play with insects.

All of my students want to learn and please their teacher. At least until they drop out. When it comes to ballet, students give up quickly. That's a shame, but there are plenty of new students waiting in the wings. My school actually has a waiting list, so when someone drops out, their place is immediately filled. As long as the demand is there, I will have job security, even though I take a lot of time off for other jobs. It would be difficult for my school to find a young, white, female dancer with teaching experience who speaks Chinese and does not need a work visa to replace me. Somehow, I became their ideal.

Lily is easier to replace at her school. There are plenty of younger, white females coming off the boat every day. Her job requires no knowledge of Chinese. In fact, some schools want the teachers to only speak English. She needs a visa, which is actually in her favor. Getting a new visa for a new employee is always a hassle. Especially if they leave the country in a few months. Renewing a visa for someone who has already been government approved is infinitely easier. Schools want experience more than they used to. Her almost three years is better than the zero experience all the new arrivals have. Her school also expects her to work more than four hours a day. For too many foreigners, that is too much. Cram schools can spot the slacker foreigners a mile away. If you are only here to party, you will not last. Cram schools are big business. They are far more interested in how much money they can make than in how drunk foreigners can get.

One thing Lily and I have in common is the parents. Whether dancing or taking a test, every parent knows that their little angel is the best student in the history of the universe. Every little girl who does not know her left foot from her right is more graceful than a swan. Every little boy who eats chalk and thinks English words are written vertically is a genius. In fact, everyone's child is a magical genius. It is kind of remarkable that every single parent has a genius child with incomparable talent. The worst aspect of any teaching job around here is never the students or even all the government bureaucracy. Any teacher I have ever spoken with would agree that it is the parents. My solace is that, without any boys in any of my classes, I do not have to deal with little emperors. Just like the United States, China favors boys over girls. The difference is that a son is always his parents' favorite, regardless of birth order. A son with no brothers will be the sole inheritor of whatever his parents have, even if he has older sisters. This helps turn spoiled little boys into entitled young men.

Most cram schools don't let parents sit in the classroom, but for some reason, parents were used to sitting in on dance classes before I got here. I had to put a stop to that. The parents were too disruptive, especially since every one of them knew that their child was a great ballerina and I was making them learn the fundamentals. Even worse, I was not focusing only on their little angel. It was as if there were other students in the class.

The last straw was the parent who told me, in front of my students, that I was wrong and that she knew better. Just looking at the way she sat and stood, I knew she had no dance training whatsoever. I told her that if she could do a single pirouette, I would let her take over the class right then and there. She had plenty of excuses, of course. She was not dressed to dance, she had not warmed up, her schedule was too busy. Even some of the students rolled their eyes. A pirouette does not require pointe shoes or a leotard. If you can do one, you can do one in practically anything. Warming up is always a good idea, but far from required for a single pirouette. And if she had enough time to sit in on the class, and interrupt it, she had more than enough time to do one simple turn. I had another student, whom the parent considered inferior to her daughter, do a basic pirouette as I had taught her. It was not flawless, but it was good enough to prove my point. This class was a few decades away from flawless anyway. The parent huffed and puffed when I kicked her out of my class, but, revealingly, she did not take her daughter with her. From that point on, parents had to wait somewhere else. Where they spent their time was none of my concern, as long as it was out of my classroom. I was prepared to quit over my new rule. Amazingly, the school took my side. There are benefits to a waiting list and being harder to replace.

During the Lunar New Year, every school, whether cram, dance, state or other, closes for the holiday. Before the break, Lily got a few cards and small gifts from a few of her students. She says that is standard. This is her third New Year as a teacher, so she would know. Since this was my first New Year, all I knew was when the school was going to be closed. What I did not expect were the gifts, flowers and cards from every single student. I don't know if the difference is in the type of school, that I have fewer students or that I only have girls, but I like to tell Lily it is because my students like me more. Since we have no written tests, maybe they do.

High School Reunion1. The Great Suburban Showdown

Flying east on a plane
Drinking all that free champagne
I guess I saw this coming down the line
And I know it should be fun
But I think I should've packed my gun
Got that old suburban showdown in my mind

Sit around with the folks
Tell the same old tired jokes
Bored to death on Sunday afternoon
Mom and Dad, me and you
And the outdoor barbecue
Think I'm gonna hide out in my room

I've been gone for a while
Made some changes in my style
And they say you can't go home anymore
Well the streets all look the same
And I'll have to play the game
We'll all sit around in the kitchen chairs
With the TV on with the neighbors there

Out in the yard
Where my Daddy worked so hard
He never lets the crab grass grow too high
Oh, the place hasn't changed
And that's why I'm gonna feel so strange
But I'll have to face the music by and by

I've been gone for a while
Made some changes in my style
And they say you can't go home anymore
Well the streets all look the same
And I'll have to play the game
We'll all sit around in the kitchen chairs
With the TV on with the neighbors there

We'll drive into town
When this big bird touches down
I'm only coming home to say goodbye
Then I'm gone with the wind
And I won't be seen again
Till that great suburban showdown in the sky

© 1974 Billy Joel


I was thinking about that Billy Joel song a lot before I left for Minnesota. The details are different in my situation, but the spirit is the same.

I flew east, but flying west would have only been a couple thousand more miles. There was no free champagne. I think they only do that in first class, and first class from Hong Kong to Minneapolis is beyond my budget. But I splurged a little and flew business class on the Hong Kong to Chicago leg. My last flight before this trip was on a private plane, so 15 hours in economy would have been unbearable. I flew the Chicago to Minneapolis leg in economy because it is only an hour and a half, and since it was on an American airline, the business class price was absurd.

Naturally, dealing with two different flight classes on the same trip made it more complicated than it should have been. Ordinarily, I probably would have flown on Delta from Tokyo to Minneapolis. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International is one of Delta's largest hubs and they have flights spreading out all over the place, just not to Hong Kong. But Delta's business class rate was too high. Cathay Pacific was far more reasonable, but a different airline handled the Chicago-Minneapolis leg. I'm the one who wanted to do things a little differently, so I guess all the unnecessary complications were my fault. I need to learn how to just do what the giant corporations tell me to do.

I did not pack a gun on the flight, obviously, but I did bring my international driver's permit, just in case the opportunity to borrow someone's car presented itself, and my Hong Kong driver's license, because the international permit is only valid with a home license. On the flight from Hong Kong to Chicago, no one cared what kind of documents I had with me, as long as I had my passport. At O'Hare, they searched my bags like it was going out of style. All the Chinese must have confused them.

My Hong Kong driver's license looks like a library card. It would be ridiculously easy to counterfeit. Since we have a separate ID card, no one uses their driver's license as ID, so all that matters are that the names and numbers match. My international driver's permit looks harder to fake, but it has a lot of Chinese writing, as well as English. My Hong Kong ID is more high tech, and probably difficult to counterfeit, but it also has Chinese writing all over the place. The reason that confused the undertrained TSA agents in Chicago was because I do not look the least bit Chinese. Telling them that I live in China meant nothing. The first agent asked me if I was there on business. Apparently, that is the only way an American would ever live in China. The fact that I was taking a domestic flight from Chicago to Minneapolis probably did not help. Maybe it would have been easier with the international terminal TSA agents. I only dealt with them on the flight home, and they were not at all confused that I was going to China. They probably assumed it was for business. Of course, it would have been easier if they simply kept their dirty mitts out of my purse, but you know how dangerous ID cards are.

I suppose I should be happy that I was not strip searched or got to do one of those fancy full body cavity searches. “Better safe than sorry”, Americans say to rationalize their loss of liberty. But it is not safer. Getting x-rayed six ways to Sunday does not make you safe. Throwing away your $1 bottle of water so you can buy a $10 bottle of water inside the airport is not about safety. Four ounces of shampoo is not more dangerous than 3.4 ounces. Taking off your shoes does not make you safe. Profiling little old ladies so you can pretend you do not profile certain ethnic groups does absolutely nothing to make anyone safe. Making mothers drink bottled breast milk to prove it is not a super spy potion is not better safe than sorry. It is stupid. An argument can be made that wasting time on people who are highly unlikely to be terrorists takes time away from people who might need more scrutiny. It is not racist to realize that a 20-year-old man flying alone is more likely to do damage than an 80-year-old woman with her family.

Since moving to Hong Kong, I have flown to a few countries in Europe, East Asia, Canada, Israel, Mainland China and the United States. None of those flights presented any particular security challenge. Even the flights into the United States went relatively smoothly, probably because they all left from Hong Kong. It was always the airports within the United States that caused the most trouble. The Roman Empire was also unusually paranoid right before it fell.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 2/3/18

I have optioned my soon to be published international bestseller. That might be a little optimistic.

I have optioned my soon to be published reasonably well received novel. That also assumes too much.

I have optioned my soon to be published book. That is accurate. It is a book and it will be available soon.

The option part refers to the production company, Vast Entertainment. They have the option to put everything together to make a movie or not. The details are staggering, and require agents, lawyers and people with business degrees to hold meetings and conference calls before any legal documents are typed up and signed. From my end, it all seems far more complicated than it needs to be, but I'm sure it evolved from a century of lawsuits, misunderstandings, accusations, broken partnerships and a lot of hurt feelings.

The production company now has the option to buy the film rights. For the next six months, they can find a studio, producers, other production companies, power players with clout in the industry and/or miscellaneous financial backers to make a movie. Or they can turn around and sell the option to someone else. Or they can sit on it and do absolutely nothing. When their time is up, they can buy the rights, renew the option, renegotiate a completely different contract with me, or what happens most of the time, they can wash their hands of the whole thing. They would only renegotiate or renew if they were close to getting somewhere. Actually buying the film rights is a final step that would only happen if everything else falls into place. Buying the option simply lets them get all the right people together without worrying that someone else will buy the rights.

Somewhere along the line, they will decide what kind of movie this story should be, if they have not already done so. If they are looking at a feature, they will pitch it to studios, larger production companies and name producers. If they think it should be somewhere on TV, they will go to the networks and television producers/production companies.

A far more likely option, not to be confused with the book option, is that they will simply sell the option to someone else. This happens all the time. When you see a movie with three or more production companies in the opening credits, one of them probably bought the option from the original author and sold it to one of the other companies, who in turn might have sold it to another company or studio. Generally speaking, everyone in the actual filming of the movie/TV show only works for one production company or studio/network. Most movies today have multiple production companies attached because they need multiple financial backers, the producers/actors involved have vanity labels, and someone owns the book option that started everything.

In exchange for all that, I got a check. It was not an especially large check, but if any future movie ever enters principal photography, I get a much larger check. If a movie is released and makes a healthy profit, I get more checks based on a tiny percentage of net earnings.

People who know nothing about the motion picture industry have told me that this will make me rich. It will not. The only way this makes me a millionaire is if it gets developed and packaged and filmed and released and becomes one of the biggest box office hits of all time. That is unlikely. Most movies do not become the biggest box office hits of all time. In fact, almost all of them do not. This is not a story with planets exploding and computer animation creatures. It is about people without any power or influence trying to make their dreams come true. If it somehow became a hit, I would probably make more money from increased book sales than I ever would from the movie. My tiny piece of the pie is based on net earnings, which is nothing like the gross earnings that studios always brag about.

Before anyone can count all their piles of money, a movie actually has to be made first. That is pretty far down the road, if it even happens at all. Most options never get developed. Anyone who writes books to get rich is a fool anyway. And writing books hoping that they will become hit movies would be insane. That is like digging through garbage dumpsters to find a winning lottery ticket.

My motivation is to see what happens. The money is irrelevant. It's essentially free money. It is not entirely free since I can't sell the option to anyone else until it expires, but owning the rights is meaningless if you never sell the option. If everything progresses as everyone wants it to, I get more free money, but I mostly get to witness the process. I have seen how movies are made in front of the camera. I would love to see what goes on before the cameras roll.

Hailey's Novel Diary – 12/30/17

The final draft is finished. I have read it through, cover to cover, and I think it might be the final draft. I have to let other people read it before I know. Sooner or later, you reach a point where more rewrites are too much and it is all editing. It would be easy to keep writing until the hundredth draft. But that would be a mistake.

The next step is getting it published. That could take weeks, months or even years. There is no time limit with publishers, unless you are on their deadline. Then it better be finished on time. When you wait for them, they can take as long as they want. We all wait for them and jump through their hoops because the alternative is rejection. I would rather have to wait until 2020 for this book to get out in the public than for no one to ever read it at all. Ideally, 2018 would be better. I almost made it in time for 2017, but I took too much time off. At least I started and finished in the same year.

Several things can happen at this point. The most likely is that they tell me to go back and fix this chapter or that character. If/when they have notes, they will be specific. I fully expect notes about the length and/or ending. If it is too long, I have no idea what to cut out. I will have to read it through again and figure out what can go. If they want a different ending, I will have to stand my ground. I love the ending. Maybe there is a better way to end it. I'm sure a great writer could think of several different options. But I want it to end as written.

A worse option is complete and utter rejection. “This is not what we are looking for at this time.” Shopping around is not something I feel like doing right now. But I have an ace in the hole. Hollywood is sniffing around for the film rights. The odds of a movie actually getting made are extremely unlikely. I'm no bookie, but I would put it at 18,462 to 1, but movie adaptations almost guarantee book sales. Publishers are willing to take that risk.

The downside to optioning the book is that someone is almost guaranteed to want me to change the ending. It is not a Hollywood ending. The bad guys are not always punished for their bad deeds. The good guys do not always get a satisfying resolution. My ending is more realistic than a summer blockbuster. The ending of Pretty Woman is absurd, but it was a huge hit. The ending of Barton Fink is perfect, but it bombed. Studios, the public, filmmakers and authors never all seem to want the same thing.

Declare the Pennies On Your Eyes

Americans love to complain about taxes, especially during an election. Obviously, even 1% is too high if you don't want to pay anything, but there are people throughout Europe paying 40%, 50% or 60% of their income in taxes. I don't know any American who pays anywhere close to that. The average is somewhere around 15%, according to a one second Google search.

Taxes are like gas prices. Americans blame whoever the president is when gas prices go up, as if he sets the rates. When the national average went up to US$3/gallon, there was almost a revolution. At the time, gas cost about US$10 in Hong Kong, and that was not even close to the highest in the world.

When I lived in the United States, I paid around 20% in income tax, but I was single without deductions. The more deductions you have, the less you can pay. And anyone married with children is automatically at a lower rate. Then there are state taxes. Unlike smaller countries, the United States also has income tax based on your state. A few states don't have any income tax, while most are much lower than the federal rate. In Minnesota, I always paid around 7%.

Giving the government 27% of your income seems very high to people in oil rich Arab countries, but is pretty low for people in Sweden or Holland.

I don't live in Minnesota anymore, so I never pay state taxes. But I still get to pay federal taxes. That always surprises my non-American friends. All American citizens, regardless of where they live, are supposed to file taxes. Even if I never go back to the United States, for whatever reason, I am still legally required to file for the rest of my life. Now, if I really never went back, and did not mind them taking away my passport, I could simply not pay anything. They are never going to come and get me.

Like all Americans living in China, I get to pay American and Chinese taxes. Fortunately, the highest Hong Kong rate is somewhere around 15%. Since I am far from the richest person in Hong Kong, I pay a lot less. I'm usually closer to 8%.

That does not mean I'm currently giving 28% of my income to two different governments. The American tax rate is based on all income from anywhere in the world, but the Chinese rate is only based on whatever I earn in China. That affects the math, especially since I'm now earning an income in three different countries.

Since I am now working in Israel, I will get to list all of that income on next year's US tax return. And I get to pay taxes in Israel. Fortunately, China does not care about my Israel income and Israel does not care about my Chinese income. Only the United States wants a piece of everything.

The Israeli tax code might just be as complicated as the American system, but I have a few things on my side. I'm not an Israeli citizen, so I automatically pay a lower rate, and I don't live in Israel, so I'm in some kind of “specialist” category. I don't know all the details yet, but it looks like I can save myself a lot of hassle if I limit all future visits to under 30 days. If I ever stay for over 120 days, I will still be a foreigner who needs a visa, but I will be taxed like a resident.

I don't know if there is a moral to this story. I put myself in this situation. But it is funny that I will never be a billionaire, yet I pay more in income taxes than Donald Trump. I pay taxes in three different countries, yet I complain about taxes less than any American I know. I would much rather deal with all the bureaucracy every year than make so little money that I don't have to pay anything.