I just got back from Hong Kong. Kevin's boss owns a beautiful house at Clear Water Bay. Every summer or autumn he takes his annual vacation, and almost every summer or autumn, Kevin, Lily, and I stay at the big house. We started going there in July 2011, so this is our tenth anniversary. Though I missed two years. It made a lot more sense to stay at the big house when we lived in Hong Kong, but we seem to still be doing it anyway. It also made sense for boss man to want someone to watch his house while he was away, but now that he lives in Taiwan, who watches the house full time? I have no idea, but it was ours again this summer. Sometimes he goes away in September or October, which is often inconvenient and we cannot all go at the same time. This year, it was late June/early July. That worked out for all of our schedules.
It also made more sense to stay there when we were living in tiny box apartments. The big house is huge, by Hong Kong standards, with 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, an American sized kitchen with a real oven, and an outdoor pool deck with a nice swimming pool and hot tub big enough for six. Only the boss and his wife live there, but it is easily large enough to house eight comfortably.
Our current Kaohsiung apartment is larger than all of our previous tiny box apartments combined. We are three people in a space that could easily hold four. The kitchen has no oven, but it is a real, separate room kitchen; a luxury in Taiwan. Something the Clear Water Bay house has head, shoulders, and torso above our apartment is that pool deck.
I have always liked the swimming pool and hot tub more than the house itself. The big house has a better kitchen, but what we have at home is good enough. I can cook almost anywhere. Swimming requires a pool. My new gym has a swimming pool, but it is only open during the hours I am least likely to go to the gym. Plus, it was closed during the drought and mostly closed for the rainy season. All of my efforts to go swimming in Taiwan are thwarted at every turn, but the Clear Water Bay house is always there.
This is the rainy season in Hong Kong, just like Kaohsiung, but the rain behaves differently. Hong Kong and most of Taiwan are in a humid subtropical climate. Kaohsiung is tropical, though it looks nothing like Tahiti.
Almost 80% of Hong Kong's rain arrives during the summer, but it can and probably will rain at any time on any day of the year. Showers can arrive out of nowhere, last a few minutes, and disappear just as quickly. With a little experience, you can generally tell if the day might see rain or definitely will. In any event, bring an umbrella.
Almost 90% of Kaohsiung's rain arrives during the summer. During the rainy season, it will probably rain every day, though not necessarily all day. There is often a pattern of sunny mornings, gray afternoons, and rainy nights. Or sunny mornings, rainy afternoons, and gray nights. If it is raining in the morning, it will most likely rain all day. During the “dry” season, the sky is far more predictable. The clouds let you know if you can safely leave the house without an umbrella.
There was some rain during our Hong Kong trip, but not enough to keep me out of that pool. We have friends in Hong Kong who also enjoy a clean swimming pool. Most of them are just as undeterred by cloudy skies as I am. When we were younger, we threw a party or two at the big house. When you throw parties at someone else's nicer house in your twenties, they tend to get out of hand. You invite your friends and people you casually know. They invite their friends and people you have never met. Pretty soon, half the party is full of strangers. When you throw parties at someone else's nicer house in your thirties, you invite a few people over and everyone remains clothed and sober.
My personal rule in my advanced old age is to keep my clothes on as much as possible at parties, soirées, and general get-togethers. Under water, however, I have always believed that clothing is an abomination. One of the great benefits of having a private swimming pool on your own private pool deck is that you can wear whatever you want in the pool. But when friends come over, I am courteous enough to respect their customs. Chinese culture is big on modesty and not rocking the boat. Ironically, I have seen more public nudity in one year in Taiwan than ten years in Hong Kong. Political agendas aside, Taiwan is far more Chinese than Hong Kong.
Fortunately, the United States nuked the shit out of one of the Marshall Islands, which inspired a Frenchman to design swimwear that is both legally accepted in much of the world and does not have too much fabric to feel too restricting in the water. And it does not hurt that they go on sale every summer. Most of our guests at the swimming pool were Chinese, so there were more one-piece bathing suits than two-piece bikinis. And the men, for whatever reason, wore giant trunks that were longer than most shorts. Fashion has always been a strange thing to me, and I still find it odd that men's swimwear has enough fabric for a dozen bikinis, while women are legally required to shroud more of their bodies. Even more fortunately, we had no guests at the big house for most of the time we were there. That left me free to swim in the pool as naked as Salacia intended.
This trip was mostly a vacation, but the timing was pretty good. We bought a few apartments in Hong Kong a few months ago. One of them was in the final stage of construction. Kevin and I saw it before we signed anything, but it was unfinished. By the time we arrived in Hong Kong this time, it was ready for inspection, and Lily could finally see it. One of the other apartments was always ready, and the property management company found tenants while we were in Taiwan. We thought about going to see them, but collectively agreed that the family living there could probably do without a visit from the foreigners who own their home. I think never having to personally deal with us is one of the great advantages to having us as landlords.
There is a bit of a plague going around right now, which makes Hong Kong a good, though unadventurous, vacation spot. Hong Kong did exceptionally well in the beginning, especially considering the proximity of the epicenter and the ease with which people from Guangzhou could and did travel into Hong Kong, before they locked Hubei under the dome. There was a spike in July 2020, right after we moved to Taiwan. They had a few calm months before a smaller spike in December/January. The numbers have been pretty low since then. To date, around 200 people have died in Hong Kong. That is not so great for the families of those 200, but nothing compared to crime-ridden, politically corrupt third world countries like India, Brazil, and the United States.
Interestingly enough, Macau has zero deaths from this thing. They must have closed the casinos, which must have trashed the economy. I can go to Macau just as easily as Hong Kong, but without casinos, what would be the point.
Sunday, July 18, 2021
Sunday, June 6, 2021
Professor Hailey
I taught a university class last week. Obviously, as a visiting lecturer in a single class, I can't call myself professor. I can't even call myself a lecturer. You get no title for one day's work. If anything, I am that lady who came in that one time. Some of the students called me laoshi, but that was more about being polite than anything on my CV.
Am I qualified to teach a university class? Not in the least. And yet, I did so in Hong Kong two or three times. That was because the actual professor of that class wanted someone to come in and explain to her students how screwed up the educational system is in the United States. I was the only American who could communicate with her students that she could find on relatively short notice. Rather than teach the class, I simply talked about my experience with American public education and answered, or tried to answer, about a million questions. I was nothing more than a guest speaker.
On another occasion, I spoke to a different class at the same school about American politics. This was at a time when American politics were considered the most divisive they had been since the Civil War, and yet, compared to today, seem like a quaint and innocent distant past. While I have no interest in discussing American politics with Americans, it can be an interesting subject in a classroom full of Chinese students. Absolutely none of them regurgitated a single talking point from any of their favorite “news” shows. They only used their own words and were open to actually discussing the subject. I don't remember exactly how much I was paid, but I remember thinking that an American teacher would love to get that much money for so little work.
My tenure as a professor in Kaohsiung was something different. An actual professor at my sister's school had to go out of town for a family situation. Rather than cancel her dialectology class that day, she asked me if I could be her substitute. Reasonably, I pointed out that I am neither a professor nor lecturer, have no teaching license or certifications, and have not taken a dialectology class since 2015. I assumed that the university had some form of substitute teacher system in place. Surely, they must do something other than cancel a class whenever the professor is unavailable. But looking at my own time as a student, I cannot remember ever having a substitute teacher after high school. When the professor was out, class was canceled that day.
As a substitute “professor”, all I really had to do was follow the real professor's lesson plan. The book does most of the work if you read the unit, and most of the students came to class prepared. But the lesson plan was written by and for their professor. As someone new and different, the class had a number of questions for me. Fortunately, no one asked if I was at all qualified to teach the class. They probably assumed that since I was standing at the front of a class at their university, I must have the right to be there.
Dialectology is the study of dialects, obviously, and a fascinating subject. I don't know the first thing about most of the languages on this planet, but the one or two languages I know have a wide variety of dialects. Chinese dialects are so varied that some people consider them separate languages. If English has anything in common with Chinese it is the vast number of mutually intelligible, and sometimes unintelligible, dialects around the world. Just as someone from Alabama might have difficulty understanding someone from Scotland, someone from Xinjiang might have difficulty understanding someone from Fujian. The dialects can be wildly different, but the languages are the same, more or less. The people from Xinjiang and Fujian can read the same words, as can the people from Scotland and any literate people from Alabama.
My students for the day were well aware of the differences in Chinese dialects. While they all learned Chinese in Taiwan, many of them had traveled to various parts of China, where almost no one speaks Taiwanese Chinese. Even the few who have never set foot out of their home country have seen movies and TV shows filmed in a hundred different dialects. With so many Chinese people on the planet speaking a language that has existed for thousands of years, the variety of dialects is completely natural.
What the students all seemed surprised to learn was that English has almost as many different dialects as Chinese. They know that it is spoken everywhere the British subjugated the native people, but they also know that it is a new language. When watching English-language movies and TV, they mostly see American shows with actors who learned how to speak in the most generic of General American accents. Even the British and Australian actors on American TV are trained to use a General American accent. Someone with a good ear for accents and dialects can tell you where most of the top Chinese celebrities come from. Despite the hundreds of Australian actors in American movies and TV shows, Americans point to Crocodile Dundee as an example of an Australian accent because everyone else had to master General American. When I was in junior high school, I took a theater class on the Mid-Atlantic accent. I think that one is pretty noticeable, but no one uses it anymore.
Since I am from Minnesota, I speak with a slight Upper Midwestern accent and occasionally use words and phrases like boughten, spendy, skol, you know. This means that when I say dot and daughter, the vowels sound the same, as do bot and bought, stock and stalk. To people in other parts of the United States, those vowels have different sounds. Pin and pen sound completely different to me. Mary, marry, merry all sound the same. Roof has a shorter vowel sound than boot, casserole is hotdish, couch is sofa, cola is pop. To most Americans, Minnesota means the characters from Fargo, but that was obviously an exaggeration of how they speak up north. Most Minnesotans sound like Dakotans. And those of us with theater training can use General American if necessary.
To my Chinese students, everyone who speaks English sounds the same. Just as the students all sound the same to English speakers. To me, they sound Taiwanese, which is a world away from Hongkonger. I'm starting to hear a difference between northern and southern Taiwan, but that could be my imagination. Too many people in Taiwan grow up in one part of the country and go to school in another part. After school, they might go back or stay. All the movement around the country makes it much harder to pinpoint accents and dialects. China is much easier. When you meet someone from Shanghai in Xiamen, you know they are from Shanghai right away.
But the biggest surprise in teaching the class, hands down, was the use of cell phones. Back in my day, phone use was strictly forbidden in most classes. Today, it is their most useful tool. Almost none of the students bought a physical copy of the textbook. They all had it on their phones. It took me a while to get used to everyone staring at their phones when I asked them questions or read bits from the book. As an American, my first thought was that there is no way to know if they are looking at the book or just screwing around on their phones. But I got over that pretty quickly. This was a university class. Every one of them had to earn their right to be there. Though not exactly the most prestigious university in the country, it is competitive enough that coasting through is not an option. This was not a general education class. To most of the students, it was required for their major. Paying attention was in their best interest. Of course, that is true with most classes, but these were not American students. Announcing your laziness and stupidity are not considered cool in Chinese culture.
A few days later, the actual professor told me that the students liked having me as their substitute teacher. Of course, that could simply be a case of something new and different to break up the routine. She asked me if I would be willing to substitute again, if needed. There is no way I could ever make a career of this, especially since I already have a career that takes up a good deal of my time. But I can see myself in front of another class again someday.
Am I qualified to teach a university class? Not in the least. And yet, I did so in Hong Kong two or three times. That was because the actual professor of that class wanted someone to come in and explain to her students how screwed up the educational system is in the United States. I was the only American who could communicate with her students that she could find on relatively short notice. Rather than teach the class, I simply talked about my experience with American public education and answered, or tried to answer, about a million questions. I was nothing more than a guest speaker.
On another occasion, I spoke to a different class at the same school about American politics. This was at a time when American politics were considered the most divisive they had been since the Civil War, and yet, compared to today, seem like a quaint and innocent distant past. While I have no interest in discussing American politics with Americans, it can be an interesting subject in a classroom full of Chinese students. Absolutely none of them regurgitated a single talking point from any of their favorite “news” shows. They only used their own words and were open to actually discussing the subject. I don't remember exactly how much I was paid, but I remember thinking that an American teacher would love to get that much money for so little work.
My tenure as a professor in Kaohsiung was something different. An actual professor at my sister's school had to go out of town for a family situation. Rather than cancel her dialectology class that day, she asked me if I could be her substitute. Reasonably, I pointed out that I am neither a professor nor lecturer, have no teaching license or certifications, and have not taken a dialectology class since 2015. I assumed that the university had some form of substitute teacher system in place. Surely, they must do something other than cancel a class whenever the professor is unavailable. But looking at my own time as a student, I cannot remember ever having a substitute teacher after high school. When the professor was out, class was canceled that day.
As a substitute “professor”, all I really had to do was follow the real professor's lesson plan. The book does most of the work if you read the unit, and most of the students came to class prepared. But the lesson plan was written by and for their professor. As someone new and different, the class had a number of questions for me. Fortunately, no one asked if I was at all qualified to teach the class. They probably assumed that since I was standing at the front of a class at their university, I must have the right to be there.
Dialectology is the study of dialects, obviously, and a fascinating subject. I don't know the first thing about most of the languages on this planet, but the one or two languages I know have a wide variety of dialects. Chinese dialects are so varied that some people consider them separate languages. If English has anything in common with Chinese it is the vast number of mutually intelligible, and sometimes unintelligible, dialects around the world. Just as someone from Alabama might have difficulty understanding someone from Scotland, someone from Xinjiang might have difficulty understanding someone from Fujian. The dialects can be wildly different, but the languages are the same, more or less. The people from Xinjiang and Fujian can read the same words, as can the people from Scotland and any literate people from Alabama.
My students for the day were well aware of the differences in Chinese dialects. While they all learned Chinese in Taiwan, many of them had traveled to various parts of China, where almost no one speaks Taiwanese Chinese. Even the few who have never set foot out of their home country have seen movies and TV shows filmed in a hundred different dialects. With so many Chinese people on the planet speaking a language that has existed for thousands of years, the variety of dialects is completely natural.
What the students all seemed surprised to learn was that English has almost as many different dialects as Chinese. They know that it is spoken everywhere the British subjugated the native people, but they also know that it is a new language. When watching English-language movies and TV, they mostly see American shows with actors who learned how to speak in the most generic of General American accents. Even the British and Australian actors on American TV are trained to use a General American accent. Someone with a good ear for accents and dialects can tell you where most of the top Chinese celebrities come from. Despite the hundreds of Australian actors in American movies and TV shows, Americans point to Crocodile Dundee as an example of an Australian accent because everyone else had to master General American. When I was in junior high school, I took a theater class on the Mid-Atlantic accent. I think that one is pretty noticeable, but no one uses it anymore.
Since I am from Minnesota, I speak with a slight Upper Midwestern accent and occasionally use words and phrases like boughten, spendy, skol, you know. This means that when I say dot and daughter, the vowels sound the same, as do bot and bought, stock and stalk. To people in other parts of the United States, those vowels have different sounds. Pin and pen sound completely different to me. Mary, marry, merry all sound the same. Roof has a shorter vowel sound than boot, casserole is hotdish, couch is sofa, cola is pop. To most Americans, Minnesota means the characters from Fargo, but that was obviously an exaggeration of how they speak up north. Most Minnesotans sound like Dakotans. And those of us with theater training can use General American if necessary.
To my Chinese students, everyone who speaks English sounds the same. Just as the students all sound the same to English speakers. To me, they sound Taiwanese, which is a world away from Hongkonger. I'm starting to hear a difference between northern and southern Taiwan, but that could be my imagination. Too many people in Taiwan grow up in one part of the country and go to school in another part. After school, they might go back or stay. All the movement around the country makes it much harder to pinpoint accents and dialects. China is much easier. When you meet someone from Shanghai in Xiamen, you know they are from Shanghai right away.
But the biggest surprise in teaching the class, hands down, was the use of cell phones. Back in my day, phone use was strictly forbidden in most classes. Today, it is their most useful tool. Almost none of the students bought a physical copy of the textbook. They all had it on their phones. It took me a while to get used to everyone staring at their phones when I asked them questions or read bits from the book. As an American, my first thought was that there is no way to know if they are looking at the book or just screwing around on their phones. But I got over that pretty quickly. This was a university class. Every one of them had to earn their right to be there. Though not exactly the most prestigious university in the country, it is competitive enough that coasting through is not an option. This was not a general education class. To most of the students, it was required for their major. Paying attention was in their best interest. Of course, that is true with most classes, but these were not American students. Announcing your laziness and stupidity are not considered cool in Chinese culture.
A few days later, the actual professor told me that the students liked having me as their substitute teacher. Of course, that could simply be a case of something new and different to break up the routine. She asked me if I would be willing to substitute again, if needed. There is no way I could ever make a career of this, especially since I already have a career that takes up a good deal of my time. But I can see myself in front of another class again someday.
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Burn You Up, Burn You Down
Way back in the olden days of January, I joined a gym near my house. I did not join for the gym. That part of the building was unimpressive. I joined for the swimming pools. Specifically, the lap pool with a dozen lanes, the ample hot tubs, and the water massages.
Before the swimming pool, I would jog or ride a bicycle every morning. I was thinking about buying my own bicycle since I always use the city bikes that are parked all over town. Having my own bicycle would save me NT$40 a day, and even though the city bikes are well maintained, anything I bought would probably be a better quality.
After I joined the gym, I mostly swam every morning, and ran or biked maybe once a week. Buying my own bicycle was no longer a priority. Though I did miss riding along the river in the morning. I love swimming, but the pool was indoors, so riding a bicycle outdoors was always a nice change of pace. And the more I thought about it, the more convenient the city bikes were. When I want to use one, I go to any one of a number of stations, scan it out with my MRT card, and return it to any station when finished. Every bicycle has a locking system, but parking and security are not much of an issue when you only have it with you while riding. I never have to oil chains, find a place to keep it, and best of all, I have never had to fix a flat tire. NT$40 is literally spare change. I have no idea what coffee costs, but NT$40 could buy two bottles of water from 7-Eleven.
Then everything changed. As it often does. The current drought closed the swimming pool, which upset pretty much every member of the gym. Almost no one went there for the exercise equipment. Everyone was in it for the pools. Since we were all members, and we had all paid our fees in advance, the gym was in a sticky situation. Giving everyone their money back would probably destroy the gym financially, and doing nothing was not an option. Taiwanese culture encourages complaining, even more than Chinese culture. Since most of the members were in a high enough tax bracket to usually get what they want, legal action was on the table. The government that forced the gym to close the swimming pools probably would have sided with the members over the gym.
Fortunately for all concerned, they were already working on opening a new facility. The timing of the drought was not ideal, but droughts rarely are.
About two years ago, the company that owns the swimming pools started building a new gym. Everyone agreed that the gym in the pool building was a waste of space, but there was no possible way to add onto the building without the neighbors volunteering to abandon their properties. Instead, they built an entirely new building on a separate site.
The new gym is maybe one hundred times larger. That sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, but the old gym was tiny and the new one is pretty big. The gym above the swimming pool was no bigger than a standard business hotel gym, with two treadmills, two exercise bikes, some light free weights and a couple of yoga mats. The new gym is five stories, with an entire floor of treadmills and exercise bikes, including a few recumbent bikes. It also has a wide variety of machines for each muscle group, including more than a few machines I have not figured out how to use yet.
Most importantly, there is a swimming pool. It does not have as many lanes as the old pool, but it is long enough for laps. Unlike the old pool, it is outdoors, which might be a challenge in an environment like Taiwan. The fewer hot tubs are smaller and indoors, and segregated by gender. I like that part. Unfortunately, the pool and hot tubs are just as closed by the drought as the old pools. When they designed and built it, there was no drought. By the time the gym opened, they were not allowed to use enough water to fill them. They look like they will be nice to use someday.
The old pool was a quick walk from my apartment. The new gym is a quick drive. So far, there is more than enough parking. That will probably change as membership increases. But I have already found a solution to a future problem that may or may not ever occur. My apartment is close to a river. Along the river are a series of parks with bicycle paths. One particular path can take me from practically my front door to within a block of the gym. There are city bicycle stations all along the river and one in front of the gym. Since the city bikes are free for the first 30 minutes, I can ride to the gym for the same price as walking, and get there much faster. At this point, I see no reason to buy my own bicycle.
Since the new gym is much larger, so are the showers and locker rooms. At the old pool, every member could put a lock on any available locker and leave it there indefinitely. Not having to drag all your crap in every day was pretty convenient. At the new gym, all lockers are expected to be empty by midnight. I have no idea what they do with anything anyone leaves overnight, but I have decided to follow their rules and not find out. Carrying a gym bag to the gym is a pretty standard activity.
Something I could not help but notice right away was the amount of public nudity at the new gym. At the old pool, you could hang out in the locker room all day and never see anything more scandalous than someone in a bathing suit. Everyone kept things in their locker, showered in the shower cubicles and changed in the changing cubicles. At the new gym, there are no changing cubicles. I would assume that most Taiwanese, being a fairly modest and shy people, would change in the showers. Instead, everyone changes at their lockers. And since the segregated saunas are adjacent to the locker rooms, some casually walk from one to the other as naked as dolphins. When I lived in China, I used to say that if you were a 12-year-old boy with the super power to turn invisible, China would be a disappointing place. As it turns out, a Taiwanese gym would be just as good as a 1980s teen movie.
At the old pool, no towels were allowed beyond the locker rooms. I never understood that rule. At the new gym, using towels with the machines is encouraged, though most people walk around without one. Gym etiquette is a little different here than anywhere else I have worked out. Rather than let a towel catch your drippings, everyone lets whatever comes out of their bodies onto the machines. But there is always a spray bottle full of isopropyl alcohol near every machine. Instead of wiping off a machine after use with a towel, everyone sprays alcohol on the machine before use. A wide variety of disinfectants have been pretty much everywhere since the last SARS outbreak, and no one thinks twice about spraying and/or wiping surfaces on a regular basis. I don't know anything about the gym's maintenance schedule, but I have seen employees practically hose down machines with alcohol when not in use.
With the loss of the old swimming pools and the addition of the new gym, I went back to jogging or riding a bicycle outdoors in nature every morning, or at least the closest thing we get to nature around here. And now I go to a real gym at night. Someday, I will be able to swim at night, or in the morning, but for now, I climb onto strange machines and push weights around while listening to music on a telephone. Just as nature intended.
Before the swimming pool, I would jog or ride a bicycle every morning. I was thinking about buying my own bicycle since I always use the city bikes that are parked all over town. Having my own bicycle would save me NT$40 a day, and even though the city bikes are well maintained, anything I bought would probably be a better quality.
After I joined the gym, I mostly swam every morning, and ran or biked maybe once a week. Buying my own bicycle was no longer a priority. Though I did miss riding along the river in the morning. I love swimming, but the pool was indoors, so riding a bicycle outdoors was always a nice change of pace. And the more I thought about it, the more convenient the city bikes were. When I want to use one, I go to any one of a number of stations, scan it out with my MRT card, and return it to any station when finished. Every bicycle has a locking system, but parking and security are not much of an issue when you only have it with you while riding. I never have to oil chains, find a place to keep it, and best of all, I have never had to fix a flat tire. NT$40 is literally spare change. I have no idea what coffee costs, but NT$40 could buy two bottles of water from 7-Eleven.
Then everything changed. As it often does. The current drought closed the swimming pool, which upset pretty much every member of the gym. Almost no one went there for the exercise equipment. Everyone was in it for the pools. Since we were all members, and we had all paid our fees in advance, the gym was in a sticky situation. Giving everyone their money back would probably destroy the gym financially, and doing nothing was not an option. Taiwanese culture encourages complaining, even more than Chinese culture. Since most of the members were in a high enough tax bracket to usually get what they want, legal action was on the table. The government that forced the gym to close the swimming pools probably would have sided with the members over the gym.
Fortunately for all concerned, they were already working on opening a new facility. The timing of the drought was not ideal, but droughts rarely are.
About two years ago, the company that owns the swimming pools started building a new gym. Everyone agreed that the gym in the pool building was a waste of space, but there was no possible way to add onto the building without the neighbors volunteering to abandon their properties. Instead, they built an entirely new building on a separate site.
The new gym is maybe one hundred times larger. That sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, but the old gym was tiny and the new one is pretty big. The gym above the swimming pool was no bigger than a standard business hotel gym, with two treadmills, two exercise bikes, some light free weights and a couple of yoga mats. The new gym is five stories, with an entire floor of treadmills and exercise bikes, including a few recumbent bikes. It also has a wide variety of machines for each muscle group, including more than a few machines I have not figured out how to use yet.
Most importantly, there is a swimming pool. It does not have as many lanes as the old pool, but it is long enough for laps. Unlike the old pool, it is outdoors, which might be a challenge in an environment like Taiwan. The fewer hot tubs are smaller and indoors, and segregated by gender. I like that part. Unfortunately, the pool and hot tubs are just as closed by the drought as the old pools. When they designed and built it, there was no drought. By the time the gym opened, they were not allowed to use enough water to fill them. They look like they will be nice to use someday.
The old pool was a quick walk from my apartment. The new gym is a quick drive. So far, there is more than enough parking. That will probably change as membership increases. But I have already found a solution to a future problem that may or may not ever occur. My apartment is close to a river. Along the river are a series of parks with bicycle paths. One particular path can take me from practically my front door to within a block of the gym. There are city bicycle stations all along the river and one in front of the gym. Since the city bikes are free for the first 30 minutes, I can ride to the gym for the same price as walking, and get there much faster. At this point, I see no reason to buy my own bicycle.
Since the new gym is much larger, so are the showers and locker rooms. At the old pool, every member could put a lock on any available locker and leave it there indefinitely. Not having to drag all your crap in every day was pretty convenient. At the new gym, all lockers are expected to be empty by midnight. I have no idea what they do with anything anyone leaves overnight, but I have decided to follow their rules and not find out. Carrying a gym bag to the gym is a pretty standard activity.
Something I could not help but notice right away was the amount of public nudity at the new gym. At the old pool, you could hang out in the locker room all day and never see anything more scandalous than someone in a bathing suit. Everyone kept things in their locker, showered in the shower cubicles and changed in the changing cubicles. At the new gym, there are no changing cubicles. I would assume that most Taiwanese, being a fairly modest and shy people, would change in the showers. Instead, everyone changes at their lockers. And since the segregated saunas are adjacent to the locker rooms, some casually walk from one to the other as naked as dolphins. When I lived in China, I used to say that if you were a 12-year-old boy with the super power to turn invisible, China would be a disappointing place. As it turns out, a Taiwanese gym would be just as good as a 1980s teen movie.
At the old pool, no towels were allowed beyond the locker rooms. I never understood that rule. At the new gym, using towels with the machines is encouraged, though most people walk around without one. Gym etiquette is a little different here than anywhere else I have worked out. Rather than let a towel catch your drippings, everyone lets whatever comes out of their bodies onto the machines. But there is always a spray bottle full of isopropyl alcohol near every machine. Instead of wiping off a machine after use with a towel, everyone sprays alcohol on the machine before use. A wide variety of disinfectants have been pretty much everywhere since the last SARS outbreak, and no one thinks twice about spraying and/or wiping surfaces on a regular basis. I don't know anything about the gym's maintenance schedule, but I have seen employees practically hose down machines with alcohol when not in use.
With the loss of the old swimming pools and the addition of the new gym, I went back to jogging or riding a bicycle outdoors in nature every morning, or at least the closest thing we get to nature around here. And now I go to a real gym at night. Someday, I will be able to swim at night, or in the morning, but for now, I climb onto strange machines and push weights around while listening to music on a telephone. Just as nature intended.
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Walk Through the Fire
Taiwan is in the middle of a drought. The news is calling it the biggest drought in 50 years. But they always say things like that. Every single year, they dramatically announce that one day in January is the coldest day of the year, even though the year just started, and the coldest day of every year is always in January. If some white supremacist “patriot” assassinates Biden, it will be the biggest American assassination of the 21st century. None of the cable news channels will point out that it was also the first presidential assassination of the 21st century.
I would be amazed if the US Secret Service reads this blog, but just in case, I want to point out how ironic I would consider it if Biden were assassinated. Then a black woman would become president. That is not exactly what the white supremacists want, but are any of them astute enough to figure that out? To be safe, they could take out both the president and vice president. That would be dramatic enough to get them the attention their parents obviously never gave them as children. But then the speaker of the house would become president. All those brave patriots might want to hold off on the killing spree, at least until the next election.
Whether our drought is the most dramatic event in the history of the world or a bit of an inconvenience, it has people talking, complaining, and vowing to make changes. Though most of the country is a subtropical forest, the entire west coast was deforested generations ago. The east coast still gets more than enough rain every year, but almost everyone lives on the west coast, and for reasons a lot of people do not understand, there is no system to transfer water from east to west. There used to be a time when the large mountain ranges between the coasts hindered transportation, but 21st century technology must have a way to get water around mountains.
Taiwan is entirely responsible for turning the lush west coast into steel and concrete, but other countries, mostly China and the United States, are responsible for the lower rainfall every year. But as long as today has record profits, who cares about tomorrow, right? We moved to Kaohsiung during typhoon season, so we saw plenty of rain when we first got here, but it has rained little since. It was only when people started talking about the drought that I noticed how seldom it was raining. Since I came from Hong Kong, I liked how I could leave the house without an umbrella. Typhoon season is coming up, so people are expecting more rain soon, but it will have to pour like there is no tomorrow to flood the drought. We need a large typhoon with all of its water to hit us directly, rather than simply pass by and give us its wind.
As is often the case, there will be some changes made because of this drought. Rather than think ahead, the people in charge of this country, just like the people in charge of every country, react to the complaints of their constituents more than they anticipate a disaster and solve it before anyone threatens to vote for someone else. Taiwan has handled this virus issue much better than most countries. But not because the leaders had the foresight to expend considerable resources on a future emergency that might never come. Taiwan's leaders were fully prepared for SARS 2 because of experience gained from SARS 1. If American leaders are smart, they will learn from their current situation and prepare for the next one, just as Taiwan did. If history is any indication, one political party will show the other who is the boss, and screw over the people.
One of the best things about Taiwan is that one political party does not dismantle everything done by another party. If the people in charge now can find a way to prevent future droughts, the other parties will keep everything in place when they take over. But first, someone has to find a way to prevent future droughts.
I would be amazed if the US Secret Service reads this blog, but just in case, I want to point out how ironic I would consider it if Biden were assassinated. Then a black woman would become president. That is not exactly what the white supremacists want, but are any of them astute enough to figure that out? To be safe, they could take out both the president and vice president. That would be dramatic enough to get them the attention their parents obviously never gave them as children. But then the speaker of the house would become president. All those brave patriots might want to hold off on the killing spree, at least until the next election.
Whether our drought is the most dramatic event in the history of the world or a bit of an inconvenience, it has people talking, complaining, and vowing to make changes. Though most of the country is a subtropical forest, the entire west coast was deforested generations ago. The east coast still gets more than enough rain every year, but almost everyone lives on the west coast, and for reasons a lot of people do not understand, there is no system to transfer water from east to west. There used to be a time when the large mountain ranges between the coasts hindered transportation, but 21st century technology must have a way to get water around mountains.
Taiwan is entirely responsible for turning the lush west coast into steel and concrete, but other countries, mostly China and the United States, are responsible for the lower rainfall every year. But as long as today has record profits, who cares about tomorrow, right? We moved to Kaohsiung during typhoon season, so we saw plenty of rain when we first got here, but it has rained little since. It was only when people started talking about the drought that I noticed how seldom it was raining. Since I came from Hong Kong, I liked how I could leave the house without an umbrella. Typhoon season is coming up, so people are expecting more rain soon, but it will have to pour like there is no tomorrow to flood the drought. We need a large typhoon with all of its water to hit us directly, rather than simply pass by and give us its wind.
As is often the case, there will be some changes made because of this drought. Rather than think ahead, the people in charge of this country, just like the people in charge of every country, react to the complaints of their constituents more than they anticipate a disaster and solve it before anyone threatens to vote for someone else. Taiwan has handled this virus issue much better than most countries. But not because the leaders had the foresight to expend considerable resources on a future emergency that might never come. Taiwan's leaders were fully prepared for SARS 2 because of experience gained from SARS 1. If American leaders are smart, they will learn from their current situation and prepare for the next one, just as Taiwan did. If history is any indication, one political party will show the other who is the boss, and screw over the people.
One of the best things about Taiwan is that one political party does not dismantle everything done by another party. If the people in charge now can find a way to prevent future droughts, the other parties will keep everything in place when they take over. But first, someone has to find a way to prevent future droughts.
Friday, April 9, 2021
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
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.
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.
Monday, April 5, 2021
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.
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.
Monday, February 22, 2021
Year Of the Ox
My first New Year in Taiwan was not all that different from New Year in China. Technically, they both last 15 days, from New Year's Day to the Lantern Festival. In China, banks and schools close for the first three days, and people count the weekend before or after as part of their holiday vacation, even if they always get weekends off. In Taiwan, banks and schools close on New Year's Eve, the first three days, and a few extra days to make it a true vacation. Since the main days were on the weekend this year, the days off were the Wednesday before New Year's Eve to the following Tuesday. For some people, that gives them a full day to prepare and a day or two to wind down after all the hoopla has passed.
On Thursday, New Year's Eve, I went to dinner at a friend's house. It was a big family dinner, but guests are always welcome at Chinese dinners. Despite being New Year's Eve, it was nothing like a party atmosphere. We ate an entirely too large meal and played some card games. This particular family is fond of gambling, so more than a few bills changed hands. I won more than I lost, but I did not win too much to ever get invited back.
As often happens, this family was surprised that I can speak their language. Inevitably, I was asked how long I have lived in Taiwan. Everyone is amazed when I tell them I have only been here for nine months. Then they are less amazed when I point out that I moved here from China. At that point, most people just want me to tell them that I like Taiwan better than China. That is a big issue around here.
Another difference between what I think of as a New Year's Eve party was that it ended long before midnight. I was home before 22:00. Rather than a rowdy New Year, I knew it was midnight when I was reading on the sofa and heard an invasion's worth of fireworks outside. The year of the rat was now the year of the ox.
Friday, New Year's Day, was temple day. You are supposed to go to your local temple and honor your dead ancestors. I have none in Taiwan, and my grandparents would have considered burning incense and leaving food on a table as strange. My grandmother would say, “Dead people don't need to eat. That's a waste of perfectly good food.” But anything left at temples is donated either to the monks or to whichever organizations they sponsor. Nothing is wasted. Burning fake money for the dead, on the other hand, is just silly.
Dinner was with another friend's family. No gambling this time, but more than enough food for several families. The first day of the new year is when older family members give red envelopes to younger family. Generally, adults give to children, but older adults can also give to younger adults if they are not married. I was surprised when a few people gave me red envelopes. I am definitely not married, but older than most people of red envelope age. It was more of a welcome to our home on this special day kind of thing.
One of the biggest differences between China and Taiwan was made the most obvious on this day. In most of China, it is pretty illegal to light your own fireworks. Big cities like Hong Kong have enormous, organized public shows. In Taiwan, anyone can blow things up in the street. And they do. There were explosions all week, but nothing as loud or constant as on New Year's Day. Taiwan also has a large stray dog population. I don't know how they react to a week of fireworks.
Saturday, the second day, is when adult daughters go back to visit their parents. Traditionally, when a girl got married, she went from being her parents' property to her husband's property, so she spent holidays with her husband's family. The second day of the New Year was set aside so she could see her parents. China is a bit of a large country, so before planes and bullet trains, some daughters would only see their parents one day a year.
Taiwan is much smaller than China. You can fit over 250 Taiwans inside China. The fastest high speed train can get from one end of the country to the other in about 90 minutes. You can fly from Kaohsiung to Taipei in under an hour, but with all the time spent at the airport, the train is faster. Taiwanese women also put up with a lot less bullshit than Chinese women, so they don't need a special day to visit their parents.
I had another dinner with a friend's parents. She sees them all the time, but this was still a special day for them. The food was different on each day, but they were also with different families. One thing they all had in common was that they made entirely too much. I can appreciate being an invited guest into someone's home, but I can only eat so much. Chinese culture, much like so many other cultures, insists that you eat until you vomit. At least during special meals. A normal dinner on a normal day is typically pretty small. No matter the occasion, I simply do not eat all that much. I realize that I offend most hosts by not gorging myself, and they all assume I am eating less because I do not like what they have made, no matter what I say to the contrary, but I am selfish enough to think that I should have the right to determine how much I can tolerate.
By Sunday, the third day, no one really cared about the holiday anymore. There were plenty of fireworks in the street, but no more big family dinners. Probably because they all started celebrating on Wednesday. By Monday, it was business as usual, though banks and schools were still closed. Everything else was open and ready to make that sweet ox money.
The New Year ends at the Lantern Festival on February 26. I have no idea how or if anyone is going to celebrate that. It was always a big deal in Hong Kong. We will see what happens in Taiwan.
On Thursday, New Year's Eve, I went to dinner at a friend's house. It was a big family dinner, but guests are always welcome at Chinese dinners. Despite being New Year's Eve, it was nothing like a party atmosphere. We ate an entirely too large meal and played some card games. This particular family is fond of gambling, so more than a few bills changed hands. I won more than I lost, but I did not win too much to ever get invited back.
As often happens, this family was surprised that I can speak their language. Inevitably, I was asked how long I have lived in Taiwan. Everyone is amazed when I tell them I have only been here for nine months. Then they are less amazed when I point out that I moved here from China. At that point, most people just want me to tell them that I like Taiwan better than China. That is a big issue around here.
Another difference between what I think of as a New Year's Eve party was that it ended long before midnight. I was home before 22:00. Rather than a rowdy New Year, I knew it was midnight when I was reading on the sofa and heard an invasion's worth of fireworks outside. The year of the rat was now the year of the ox.
Friday, New Year's Day, was temple day. You are supposed to go to your local temple and honor your dead ancestors. I have none in Taiwan, and my grandparents would have considered burning incense and leaving food on a table as strange. My grandmother would say, “Dead people don't need to eat. That's a waste of perfectly good food.” But anything left at temples is donated either to the monks or to whichever organizations they sponsor. Nothing is wasted. Burning fake money for the dead, on the other hand, is just silly.
Dinner was with another friend's family. No gambling this time, but more than enough food for several families. The first day of the new year is when older family members give red envelopes to younger family. Generally, adults give to children, but older adults can also give to younger adults if they are not married. I was surprised when a few people gave me red envelopes. I am definitely not married, but older than most people of red envelope age. It was more of a welcome to our home on this special day kind of thing.
One of the biggest differences between China and Taiwan was made the most obvious on this day. In most of China, it is pretty illegal to light your own fireworks. Big cities like Hong Kong have enormous, organized public shows. In Taiwan, anyone can blow things up in the street. And they do. There were explosions all week, but nothing as loud or constant as on New Year's Day. Taiwan also has a large stray dog population. I don't know how they react to a week of fireworks.
Saturday, the second day, is when adult daughters go back to visit their parents. Traditionally, when a girl got married, she went from being her parents' property to her husband's property, so she spent holidays with her husband's family. The second day of the New Year was set aside so she could see her parents. China is a bit of a large country, so before planes and bullet trains, some daughters would only see their parents one day a year.
Taiwan is much smaller than China. You can fit over 250 Taiwans inside China. The fastest high speed train can get from one end of the country to the other in about 90 minutes. You can fly from Kaohsiung to Taipei in under an hour, but with all the time spent at the airport, the train is faster. Taiwanese women also put up with a lot less bullshit than Chinese women, so they don't need a special day to visit their parents.
I had another dinner with a friend's parents. She sees them all the time, but this was still a special day for them. The food was different on each day, but they were also with different families. One thing they all had in common was that they made entirely too much. I can appreciate being an invited guest into someone's home, but I can only eat so much. Chinese culture, much like so many other cultures, insists that you eat until you vomit. At least during special meals. A normal dinner on a normal day is typically pretty small. No matter the occasion, I simply do not eat all that much. I realize that I offend most hosts by not gorging myself, and they all assume I am eating less because I do not like what they have made, no matter what I say to the contrary, but I am selfish enough to think that I should have the right to determine how much I can tolerate.
By Sunday, the third day, no one really cared about the holiday anymore. There were plenty of fireworks in the street, but no more big family dinners. Probably because they all started celebrating on Wednesday. By Monday, it was business as usual, though banks and schools were still closed. Everything else was open and ready to make that sweet ox money.
The New Year ends at the Lantern Festival on February 26. I have no idea how or if anyone is going to celebrate that. It was always a big deal in Hong Kong. We will see what happens in Taiwan.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Membership Has Its Privileges
I wanted a pool photograph, but have surprisingly few.
This is the Bali villa where I stayed a few years ago.
I love to swim. Anyone who knows me, knows that about me. People who barely know me, know that about me. If you are a time traveler and want to warn me about something that is going to happen in the future, whatever you do, don't use my love of swimming as a way to convince me that we will know each other. That would be like telling me I can breathe a mixture of mostly nitrogen and oxygen.
Special note to all you time travelers out there: You already know what to say to convince me because I will tell you later.
When I lived in Hong Kong, swimming pools were few and far between. My last apartment was a few blocks from a sports complex with a public pool. There was also a YMCA at the Cityview Hotel, but I have no idea if they had a pool. Farther south was Kowloon Park, which has an outdoor swimming pool. I always found that ironic since Chinese people hate the sun. Almost all swimming pools are indoors.
The problem with public pools in Hong Kong was never really the pools. It was the public. The first time you see a child standing at the edge of a pool, his mother holding his penis and pointing it directly into the pool so he can relieve himself, you think that is odd, and more than a little horrifying. The third time you see it, you wonder if this is some Chinese tradition for baptizing pools. Who needs a bottle of champagne when the urine of young boys is an infinite resource.
I try not to blame an entire culture whenever a single person does something insane. If we did that, where would it leave the United States? But I will definitely look for a different pool after I see it used as a piss bucket. When I saw a grown adult man use a swimming pool as a toilet, and not just for fluids, I vowed to never set foot anywhere near a Chinese swimming pool again. The only positive to any of these encounters was that I was not actually in the water at the time. I would still be in the shower if I had been.
My only safe haven for swimming in Hong Kong was the big house at Clear Water Bay. That was a private swimming pool at a private residence. The only people who ever used the pool were the owners, who probably never used it, and mostly me when we took our annual visits. The owner and his wife are an older couple who do not strike me as particularly active. For them, the pool is more likely a status symbol than a means of exercise. Having your own swimming pool at your house is something you can brag about in Hong Kong.
When I moved to Taiwan, I was wary of public pools. Taiwan is not in China, but the culture is more or less the same. Hongkongers say that Mainlanders act like wild animals, but Taiwanese say the same about both. I don't remember anyone in China saying much of anything about the Taiwanese. Unfortunately, we know no one in Taiwan who has their own private pool in the backyard. Or even a backyard.
There is a gym close to my apartment. The actual gym part is pretty half-assed, and they have yoga classes I have not taken yet, but I went to check out the swimming pool. The only way to swim without becoming a member is to pay a high visitor fee. I liked that because, in Taiwan, the people most likely to abuse the pool are least likely to pay the highest prices to get in. There are plenty of public pools around town that are far cheaper to use and require no membership. I paid too much to use the pool and immediately became a member.
The swimming pool has a dozen lap lanes, ranging from 1 meter deep to 5 meters. The weakest swimmers always stay away from the 5 meter lanes. No human alive today can touch the bottom of that one. There is a separate children's pool that does not come in contact with the lap pool, so I can easily ignore any shenanigans in the children's area. Next to the lap pool is a large hot tub area with two 10-person hot tubs, three 4-person hot tubs, and several individual hot tubs. So far, I have tested the larger hot tubs and a few of the singles. They all seem to have different temperatures and jet levels. There is also a shallow pool that is entirely too hot. Taiwan is a hot springs culture, and while none of the water here is from a natural spring, some of it is on the hotter than necessary side. Since all of the pools are indoors, in one large cavern of a room, even the coldest pools stay warm. The pool area is a bit of a steam room. Anyone not used to Taiwan's humidity might think the place is too humid, but I find it pretty mild. There are also literal steam rooms, segregated by gender.
Near the hot tubs are a wall of water massages. High pressure water drops down two meters. People sit or stand under them and let the water massage their heads and shoulders. I found the pressure too high and would never get my head anywhere near any of those jets, but older people love it. I have never seen anyone under 50 under those things.
Since this is Taiwan, there are more than a few rules. No shoes can be worn past the lobby. Between the lobby and the women's locker room, there is a smaller room where everyone can take off their shoes and put on their slippers. I assume the men's locker room has a similar setup. Not wearing shoes indoors is pretty common around here, and not wearing shoes in a swimming pool makes perfect sense.
Everyone has to wear bathing suits past the locker room. That seems reasonable. Taiwan is not exactly famous for its public nudity. But that also means parents who want to watch their children in the kiddie pool also have to wear bathing suits, even if they have no intention of touching the water. Everyone also has to wear swimming caps, which I could do without. That seems to be a nationwide rule. Taiwanese would be just as shocked to see a swimmer without a swimming cap as they would without a bathing suit.
Not only are no street clothes allowed in the pool area, which makes sense, but no towels are allowed past the locker rooms. I do not understand this one. When you get out of one pool or another, you have to go to your locker, dripping wet, before you can get your towel. This is probably one reason the locker room floor is always soaking wet. They have those rubber jigsaw pieces to keep everyone from falling down, but there is no dry floor anywhere near the lockers. This makes changing at your locker impossible, unless you want to get your clothes wet. Not that anyone in Taiwan would change in front of their locker. Everyone changes in private, and dry, changing cubicles. So to avoid any hint of nudity, we walk dripping wet to our lockers and get whatever we need, bring everything to a wet shower cubicle, bring everything to a dry changing cubicle, and then go back to the wet locker to put away whatever we want to leave at the gym.
The good news is that every member has their own dedicated locker. That means we do not have to bring a gym bag with us every time we go. Some people might keep a bag in their car, but since I walk to the gym, it is nice to have everything I need already there. No advanced planning is required.
The entire gym is open 24H, except during lunch. You can go there at 3 o'clock in the morning, but not at noon. I asked them when they clean the pools and was shown their maintenance schedule. The good news is that they clean the pool daily and completely empty it once a week. The bad news is that it is obviously not open 24H. Even the half-assed gym closes for cleaning. I don't have a problem with any of this. I think regular maintenance is a good thing. But maybe they should not advertise as being open 24H when, at most, they are open for 19.
The strangest part about the entire operation is that there is ample parking. That is rare in Kaohsiung. Unless, of course, I can walk to it. I don't need to park since I can walk from my apartment in ten minutes. This seems to be a theme in Kaohsiung. Overall, it is difficult to park in this city, outside of shopping malls and the main train station. But the places I can easily walk to always seem to have plenty of parking.
Friday, December 25, 2020
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