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Date Posted: 12:41:31 09/03/01 Mon
Author: from air
Subject: NEWSLETTER1

air-Aaron-A.J.-airhead-old owl

As promised.... the first in a series of monthly (or weeky if I have too much to talk about!) installments.

THE NEWSLETTER!!!!!!

A tip for your own sanity.
1. Do not read this late at night.
2. Have a REALLY big cup of coffee
3. Take the sections of this that you want, but you probably don't want to read it all at once

I bought a note book so that I could record some of the things...as they happen! I think you'll find this quite, comical?!!! (it's not you:) )

First, I want to talk of the cost of living here. Cultural interpretations varry, almost as much as the well, price.

Fro example, pizza hut is treated as a fancy restaurant. You would be paying about 30$ for 1 pizza! Ouch!

Elaborating... barber-shops are incredibly expensive! (They take their hair VERY seriously) We saw a barber-shop where the cost of a haircut was 1400$!!!!! (All of these prices are in Canadian dollars. I translate everything. You'd be amazed at how quickly I can divide by five now:) ) Fortunatly we found a barber-shop quite close, the cost of a cut there was about 30$, average. The catch was that they didn't offer a cut without a shampoo! Talk about weird. So, for 30$ we had a cut and shampoo........an hour, fourty five minuites later... :)

Language.

Ah, yes... fun ...:) How about we start this off by saying that the general population's English is quite good. But, everyone makes mistakes:). We were quite shocked when we went to a fancy restaurant for a quick bite to eat, and found out that they were serving sauteed crap with minced vegetables! I assume that they meant carp or crab. Oh, well.

Exterior influence. You can find trinkets, tee-shirts and handbags, which represent a few major countries, with high influence in that area. America (duh), Korea, Japan, China, the UK, France, and you guessed it, CANADA!!!

Business.........is not as ushual. We all know of the lengendary pushy asian sales men. Big surprise, they're here too. Mostly they're from India. When I was walking down the street and I was pestered with pleas for me to buy a custom-made suit, and a rolex!!! I was thirteen! There were SO many salesmen that I was forced to chart my path carefully, and avoid any eye-contact with people who looked of ethnic Indian origin.

Land is very expensive here. Subway is commencing a vigorous expansion plan in Hong Kong. There are customers. There has to be. The first store opened right next to us (the closest mall)and we were talking to the owner of the chain, a friendly Scottsman. He explained that the cost to open a subway here (because of the cost of land) exceeds 2.75 million dollars, Hong Kong, plus the cost of paying employees, and rent. That's a lot of sandwiches buddy. Anyone hungry?

Even in malls there are 5 sales people to every one in Canada. Some of them are not very smart:). I was in the store. I took two steps out side and turned around to go back in, to get Tyler, and mom, less then five seconds later. I was greeted with, "Hello, Hi, Welcome" from two different salesladies!!! Oh well, I said, "hi" back.

They cater to the tourist, albiet dumb one. In a touristy district of Hong Kong there is a strip of stores which advertise, and in neon lights that this the goods they sell are tax free!!! Anything you buy in Hong Kong is tax free, and even if you're a tourist.....

Local Cuisine!!!

What culture could be considered a culture, unless they had a distinct form of cuisine?!! The Hong Kong residents are no exceptions, but to a foreigner, the food selection contrasts somewhat mor sharply with the comparison to other world foods. I'll elaborate.
1. There are lots of tea drinks here, hot, cold; the cold drinks often come with a cereal in them. (traditional cereal)
2. You can buy turtle soup
3. They have a "Canadian Bakery" I found this quite comical. The only thing that looked vaugely like North American food, were the chese cakes in the window labeled "American Style Cheesecake;" it looked bad.
4. You can buy ostrich.
5. Most people do their shopping in the markets (I'll talk about later) or in roadside shops. Here you can buy balls of deep-fried dough or you can enjoy a duck, chicken, or pig! They eat everything. The duck comes with it's skin and head on. The chicken, you can go to a store where they'll take the live chicken for you, and slit it's throught; then they'll stick it in a bag. The pig you can get, at any market. They'll give you anything from the nuckle of the pig (somewhat of a delicasy) to the heart! You name it, they'll cut it. The fish is unlike anyplace in the world, except mabye the fish market in France, or the Tsukijii in Japan (to James: wink). You've never seen an "The Barn" like this before ("We're fresh obsessed") here you can get most anything you want, fresh. There are prawn which hop about on an open pan (people buy them by the bag) which hop about, and bounce like crazy. They go everywhere, on the floor, no matter. My brother was almost hit by a flying prawn. Talk about unnerrving. Prawn is not the only thing that's fresh. There are fish, and eel. The eel are disturbing to say the least, and the fish follow closely behind. The fish ar scaled then cut in two. (The owners proudly display the innards) and the eel is cut in two, and placed in a styrophome container, alond with a few others. Their severed halfs continue to wriggle violently, and for a long time while they slowly bleed to death. They bleed far more then fish, so much, that the owners have to have an equal sized box under the eel, and a proper drainage system.

The markets and the road-side shops are not clean. At all. We would never buy there, and none of them would ever pass North American Health & Safety regulations. They would all be shut down. This is quite apparent, you don't have to look hard.
1. They smoke cigaretts openly, while they cut the meat.
2. They handle money, and do not have any acess to running water.
3. There are signs which beg you to "help us keep the rats to a minimum." My mom took a picture.
4. There are bugs. This is bad. Hong Kong is one of the coackroach capitals, of the world.

Conclusion: We buy in the supermarkets:)

In one of these supermarkets you can buy "corn flake cookies." They are thin and they cost 5$ canadian for 100 grams. Those are expensive cornflakes!!!

Cleanliness?

Hong Kong is one of the cleanest places that you'll ever see. Labour is cheap, and imported from the mainland. This is remarkable (that they can remain soooo clean because it's very difficult to find a garbage can!!! Forget a recycling bin.

While Hong Kong is clean, it's water and air qualities are bad. The water has many harmful metals in it, and the water I don't think is treated. If it's cold outside you can get cold water. If it's not hot. It is unsafe to drink the water, and even though we boil our water (like the locals) I have my doubts. You can't fiter the metals by boiling water. As for the air quality... when you're in the downtown core, you breathe fumes. There is poor ventalation because of the looming skycrapers (remember Hong Kong almost has three times the population of Toronto. Toronto=3 mill Hong Kong=8) The grime seems to saturate your body (people spit the buildup of pollution off their tounges) and the incessent humidity doesn't help. Skin disease is very high here. (along with lice, perhaps that's why the haircut came with a wash) There is a breakout of Malaria. I've already had my stage-one shots, (three stages) but my brother and my parents have not. It's nice to fire up you're barberque at the end of the night and have a nice hot shower. Hey, what's that burning smell?!!:)

Fortunatly, the rurals aren't so bad. Thank god we live there. It's worth all the bussing and transport (on the mtr) and the walk and the time to get here.

I think I'll talk about KG5 later. Instead I'll chose one of my favourite discussion topics instead. TOILETS!! (Where did you go on the March Break.....THE TOILET!!!) ;) to all the hillfield students.

Toilets. By, Aaron Hackett.

ahem.

1.You can only get there if you politely ask for a "Toilet," washroom, and bathroom are universally unidentified. Remember this. Though I haven't tried the "lou" or the "lavatory" or the "necessarium" (for all you romans) or the "latrines" but I'll get to that.

2. People do not endorse public toilets here. I was horror-struck when I came out of Jurrasic Park Three (after watching some hillariously funny chinese acting in the prieviws) and realized that there wasn't any toilet that I could use. I gasped for air. Then I saw it. Salvation! A rather ordinary door, but a door which had a picture of a man on it, I sprinted down the hall, braced myself for impact, did a triple spin half lux, arc backflip and landed at the door in one graceful motion. I turned the nob. It was locked.

I considered crying, but I knew that I had to brave the waters.

I'm not done my story yet, I hope you're still reading:)

Then it hit me like a ten ton truck. There must be some method to this madness. I spun around. *gunfight music, texas style* There he was. Smiling confidently. He knew I had to come to him. He twirled the bathroom key, and asked me if I wanted a drink. I dashed and tried to grab it from him. Finally, with a promise to return I snatched the bathroom key. Upon the exit of the "toilet" he was waiting. We bought a meal.

This tradegy could happen to you. Please generously give money to csdrt20@hotmail.com:)

You thought you could get away that easily?!! I'm not done yet:)

The traditional chinesse toilet consists of an un-elevated hole in the ground. I do not know how to operate it. Sit, or squat? Modern technology....mutter....

There's alot more to say, but I've been typing for over an hour, and I'm just going to try and summerise these last few things. (weekly would be wise)

Kariokee!!!! It's huge here.

I MUST wear a speedo for school, it's part of the uniform.

For those of you who don't know this I was offered a beer.

People are very vocal here. On the subway a 37-year-old man told my brother that he is very handsome, and should go to Hollywood. He also told my dad that he was very srong and asked him if he was going to have anymore children. ("I've already lost my coloured hair on the ones I have")

The pointy shoes which can criple you're feet are still very popular in Hong Kong but in a newer, less-damaging form.

You're probably out of java now, and I'm out of beer, so we'll call this a wrap.

Love you!

(If you're my relative):)

If you're not, (cya!)

aaron

next issue more on KGV

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