A Difficult Choice

Published
by
cecilie
on August 26, 2008
in Cantonese, Cards, Home and Piles
. 9 Comments

                                                       KIDS…. 

                                                  … versus DOGS? 

Of the many blessings of Hong Kong, one is the ease with which one can acquire a servant. Sorry, did I say servant? How terribly politically incorrect of me. I meant “helper.” Maid, amah, whatever you call them - I can’t see that their function has changed an awful lot since they were called servants. So that’s what I call them. 

Like many island dwellers I have to spend an awful lot of time away from home every day. I normally leave at about 11 and get home at 22.00, and 11 hours is just too long for a dog (Piles, not the one pictured above) to be by himself. So naturally I have a servant to come and take him out twice a day. But arghh, now this worthy, intelligent and indispensable woman has buggered off to the Philippines for three weeks, and I have to leave later and come home earlier … except I can’t because then how am I to put dried dog food on the table?

I was just thinking today as I, stabbed by the relentless daggers of bad conscience, hurried toward the ferry pier, how much easier it would be if I could just call Piles and say I was on my way home. The problem is, he’s just too dense to pick up the phone. Also his fingers aren’t really up to scratch.

I used to sneer at people with children (the incessant crying, the nappies, the transformation of young parents, I mean parents of young kids, from normal people to one-topic cretins (not my friends of course - if they were I would drop them)) but now I’m not so sure.

All right, dogs are of course: More faithful. They never complain. And although Piles, unlike Lasi (pictured above) doesn’t greet me super-enthusiastically with wagging of the whole body but more with a curt nod when I get home of an evening, at least he’s not standing there with a sagging nappy full of poo hurling some ghastly mashed vegetable substance at me. Dogs are much less hassle, they never ask awkward questions and never embarrass you by suddenly bursting out: “Mummy, why did that man stick his tongue into your ear while Daddy was in the kitchen?” 

Dogs never complain about the food you serve them, or that they’re bored, or pretty much anything. They can sometimes give you a  Look but that’s by and large the extent of their passive-aggressiveness. They never disappoint you by growing up to be a customs inspector or chartered accountant and they seldom hang out with bad crowds. 

Then again, they never grow up. They hardly ever learn how to speak, let alone read and write. You can’t leave them a note telling them to take the rubbish out - instead they’ll eat the rubbish.

All right, so you can, like the memorable story about the New Zealander I read about in the South China Morning Post a few years ago, go away  on holiday for a week and leave out bowls with dog food marked “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday” etc. and hope for the best. In his case “the dog, apparently unable to read, had gobbled it all up by Tuesday and kept the neighbours awake by non-stop barking until they called the police.” You see where I’m going with this? Unable to read!

 And the thing about dogs being so understanding and picking up on your mood - I don’t know. Recently, for example, I’ve been sad because of my mother’s death, but I can’t say I’ve got much sympathy from Piles apart from the usual curt nod and maybe some wistful stares - probably because I’ve been feeding him up to five minutes later than normally.

Dogs never say they hate you and wish you were dead, and they never seem to be embarrassed at being seen with you in front of other dogs. They never jump from the 27th floor when you ask them to do the homework. They are house trained at four months old, and you don’t have to worry about breast-feeding them in the toilet of The Peninsula. But they also never grow up to be a good conversation partner, and they never, ever learn how to play cards.

If you have a husband and two kids like Gweipo for example, you’re set up with card partners for life. Dogs? You’re lucky if they learn to sit, stay and fetch an idiotic stick. (What they’re doing with the stick when they bring it back is thinking: There you go, now make sure you don’t lose it again.)

And another thing about dogs - no matter how politically incorrect and morally defect you are, you can never, ever sleep with their friends. So what’s the point? Having a dog makes you marginally less guilty than having a child, and if you know they’re with the servant you don’t spend every waking moment worrying about them. Other than that it’s the same awful responsibility with feeding, picking up poo and making sure they don’t bite people. 

So yes, I should have had children when I was a teenager; then I would have had good conversation partners, card playing partners and not least: Trustworthy people I could rely on to take care of my dogs, free. 

 

 

 

Differences - Causes To Wonder

Published
by
cecilie
on August 25, 2008
in Beauty, Hong Kong, Norway and Travel
. 1 Comment

Here are some of the differences between Hong Kong and Europe (”Europe” meaning Norway and a tiny piece of Britain called Heathrow) as noticed through a haze of zen-like indifference during my sojourn to Trondhjem, Norway, 13 to 23rd of August 2008.

1. Toilets. Hong Kong has a brand new airport with great, snazzy little trollies for carry-on luggage in the departure zone. Why oh why, then, aren’t the toilet cubicles designed to accommodate them? Well, you can get them in, but it’s a question of going into the cubicle, pulling the trolley in and lifting it up, draping it across the toilet bowl before you strecth over it and lock the door, standing on tiptoe. A lame design if there ever was one and not completely dissimilar to the thinking of the current administration.

On the other hand, Heathrow’s Terminal 5 has no trolleys at all! Insane!

2. Olympic Games. After about 5 days of Olympic Games here in Hong Kong, it’s really strange to get to Heathrow, glance at the covers of British papers and discover that not all Olympic athletes are Chinese. Indeed, that not everybody in the world is Chinese.

3. Air, water. Norway has both of those.

4. Children doing their stuff. Near my old childhood home there’s a folk museum full of old buildings from all over the country.

There’s a lot of grass, and one day I saw some schoolkids about 10 years old pour into the area, followed by two teachers. I had to stand and watch for a long time, for the kids were a beautiful sight to behold. As soon as they were through the gates, they started running around on the grass, doing cartwheels, handstands and somersaults.

The teachers stood  calmly talking to each other while the kids zipped around in complete exuberance and abandon. Some of them lay on the grass talking seemingly in deep earnest, others just ran. But mostly they were using the grass for gymnastic purposes with style and grace.

I couldn’t help thinking about a similar scene in Hong Kong: The kids would have been in school uniform and made to stand like robots, the teachers running hysterically around, shouting into megaphones. “Don’t touch the grass, you will DIE!” “It’s dirty!” “For your own safety, don’t move!” “Stand still, two and two together!” etc.

But of course, there wouldn’t be any grass in the first place.

Then I went to a nearby cafe to have a really bad sandwich and read the newspaper … and it cost more than HK$ 110.

Vive la difference.

A Beautiful Funeral

Published
by
cecilie
on August 23, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 5 Comments

 

This painting is of my childhood home. It is probably from around 1902 when the house was first built by my mother’s grandfather. Naturally it has seen some changes over the years, but by and large the place still looks the same. I’ve just spent a week in it, arranging, going to and finishing my mother’s funeral. That’s the kind of thing they never taught you in school. 

My mother was always rabidly anti-Christian (in fact rabidly anti anything that smacked of fascism) and so my three siblings and I decided there would be no priest, no sermon and above all, no moth-ridden organ played by a moth-ridden organ player. Instead we burnt a CD with beautiful classical music, by Norwegian and other performers my mother had loved. 

It seems to be that in Norway, most funerals are conveyor belts: People pile into the chapel to asthmatic organ music (Christian), listen to some vicar droning on about Jesus for ten minutes and leave. 

Because this was our mother, and with our father’s funeral, ruined by a stupid priest, in semi-fresh memory, we decided to make it a beautiful celebration instead. Of course there were tears, but because we’d briefed the guy from the funeral parlour so well,  laughter was the prominent feature of that ceremony. Who couldn’t chuckle when they remembered my mother’s incessant knitting of jumpers whose sleeves were always a little too short or too long? Who didn’t laugh at hearing, after a lifetime of being force-fed fruit and vegetables by my health-conscious mother, that in her later years she admitted not to liking vegetables at all? Nor fruit?

When an old woman who wanted to die so she wouldn’t have to suffer any longer is finally allowed to die peacefully, there is no point in crying and wailing. My mother’s funeral should be, and was, a reason for celebration and remembering good stories. Who would have thought that my super law-abiding mother often wrote me sick-notes when I was in high school so we could sit in the kitchen and drink sherry, talking about life? 

Now I’m completely parent-less, an orphan in fact. That is a strange feeling. I just hope that anybody who’ll have to bury a parent will choreograph the ceremony so that they can look back on it with joy and pride, like I do. Joy because it was beautiful, dignified and worthy of my mother’s memory, and pride that half of the people turning up for my mother’s funeral were in fact friends of her children, friends who often came to her house to see her even if we weren’t around, because she was such a damned good host who always made everyone feel welcome - a woman whom the younger generation always felt they could talk to about important things. 

Yes, I’m satisfied. Sad, but satisfied.

In her last two years my mother did a lot to support  the tortured moon bears in China, (you know, the ones that spend 20 years or so in a cage with a tube in their gall bladder to enable Chinese geezers to feel like Da Man) and she asked in her obituary for donations to this cause rather than flowers. That was her style.

I hope everyone can log onto www.animalsasia.org and read about the moon bears, and maybe make a donation occasionally if they feel like doing something good for someone. 

Cheers.

 

 

News from The Insect World

Published
by
cecilie
on August 17, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 6 Comments

Yeah, so my mother died and I had to go to Norway and yesterday morning I was stung by a wasp (I was in fact woken up by being stung by a wasp) right below my eye so I look like a cross between a panda and a badger and when I look out of my right eye all I see is a big, beige mound. So I’m pretty vexed.

Dire Warning

Published
by
cecilie
on August 14, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

 

If, on the other hand, they are not found, they will be taken behind the toolshed and shot immediately.

Goodbye, Little Elsa

Published
by
cecilie
on August 12, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 13 Comments

My mother is dead now. It happened a few hours ago. She wanted to die because her life wasn’t a life anymore, just a kind of existence in constant suffering. Therefore I don’t feel sorry for her or for myself. But it’s a strange thought all the same - yesterday I had a mother and now I don’t.

I sent her a long fax in the hospital which my sister read to her - don’t know if she heard it or not. They say hearing is the last thing to go.

I knew it was only  question of hours when my sister told me my mother looked yellow and plastic-y. Now she doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of being totally dependent on others anymore. If she is anywhere now, she won’t be hooked up to an oxygen tank, that’s for sure.

Don’t smoke, people.

So I won’t be blogging for a while.

Loopy Complaint

Published
by
cecilie
on August 9, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 12 Comments

Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it, says the old adage.  And it wouldn’t be old nor an adage if it wasn’t a true, old adage.

Yesterday I was having lunch in Sportful Garden (that’s right) Restaurant in Wan Chai, one of those nouveau yam cha restaurants with “creative” decoration - padded walls in brown and white plastic tiles of various sizes.

The food was overpriced and really bad; I ordered spring rolls filled with lotus root instead of pork thinking it would be healthier, but they were drenched in so much oil it’s still coming out of my eyes and nostrils. I still feel full, though, so saved two meals there.

Anyway, being an upmarket establishment they had classical music of unknown origin wafting around the room - possibly to calm those seasick from looking at the wall pattern. There were some violins, a tinkling of piano - very pleasant. Except … that was it. It was a half classical music melody going round and round in a never ending loop. After 15 minutes I couldn’t concentrate on my paper - i had to listen to that particular place which came around every 30 seconds signalling the beginning of a new loop. It was like Chinese water torture and combined with the greasy spring rolls it really made me want to puke.

I asked a waiter if they didn’t have any other music as the half melody was driving me insane. “Yes of course,” he beamed, skipping off to follow my beck and call. new music came on and - it was Kenny G. One half of a Kenny G melody, going round and round and round and round and …

A Pastoral Lament

Published
by
cecilie
on August 8, 2008
in Beauty, China, Environment, Government, Hong Kong and corruption
. 12 Comments

Wah! This is the kind of sight that makes it worth while living in the countryside. My eyes look upon this kind of scene every day - except when there’s a typhoon or, like today, pissing down, of course.

There are so many things I don’t understand about human nature, and this is one of them: How some people can look at this vista and have one thought in their mind: “I could cover that with concrete and make a lot of money out of it.”  Forget about the buffalo, that would have been stoned to death by locals before the concrete-pourers even got there.

Yes these good-natured, slow-moving creatures who only think about eating grass, rolling in mud and procreating (no, not the locals. The buffalo!) are enemy number one here in Pui O; subject of villagers’ hatred and target for stone throwers.

I could think of a few others who deserve to have stones thrown at them more than these magnificent cud-chewers, namely the triads, the burglars and the young car drivers who thunder through the 30-zone at 70 km per hour, squashing village dogs as they go.

But I suppose it’s safer to take out one’s aggression on docile herbivores.

It’s ironic that the people who work hardest to have the buffalo removed (in tandem with that patron saint of property developers, the HK government) (”cows are dangerous! And … they eat grass!  And, oh, they walk slowly! Yes we must kill them, it’s for your own safety. And their own safety!”) are the people who stand to gain most if they could only clean up the place, open up more grass land for the buffalo, tame some of them and charge tourists to come and look at “farming the Chinese way” and experience riding on the placid bovines. For example.

Instead it’s concrete ahoy, hurtling towards a bright future where Pui O will also look like Tsuen Mun like every other rural area of Hong Kong does now; a safe and ordered place where there is no scary wildlife and no troublesome vegetation. And certainly no tourists. That’s the way to make money.  

Be My Friend And Shut Up

Published
by
cecilie
on August 6, 2008
in Hong Kong
. 9 Comments

Ahhrghh the MTaahhrghhh.  As if the crowds, every square millimeter of surface being covered in ads that look worse than all other ads and the incessant announcements in three different languages weren’t enough, now the management has started another inane campaign to reduce accidents on the escalator.

They had one last year too. “Escalator safety is easy to learn and easy to remember. Hold the handrail, stand firm, and don’t walk.” Blah blah, every few seconds, making the already not pleasant experience of heading to or from a sardine-packed metal tube under the ground even more unbearably irritating.

But this year’s campaign really takes the cake. Not only have they increased the frequency of the voice quacking “please. hold. the. hand. rail.” from once every five seconds to about 50, but they’ve come up with the idea that a slogan is going to bring down the pesky accident rate, up by 38% from last year.

The slogan is: “Be my friend and hold me tight.” Fantastic! Now we’ll finally see people paying attention to those handrails.

No, actually I think the accident rate is up by 38% because of the campaign. I think people throw themselves down the escalators on purpose, to get away from the nagging voice. But really. Be my friend and hold me tight?

You’d think the MTR was the government to come up with something like that. Oh, hang on …?

 

 

One World - Two Guys (warning: Contains traces of product placement)

Published
by
cecilie
on August 3, 2008
in Environment and Government
. 6 Comments

No, nothing about the Beijing Olympics this time. Just relaxing with the SCMP on the ferry home; yes that’s right, I finally caved and got a Vodafone USB modem. Now I’ll never have to go to Pacific Coffee again, with its mountains of plastic cups, plates and cutlery being thrown away every day.

Talking of which: In said SCMP, in one of a series of articles called Earth Champions, there’s an interview with Sir Crispin Tickell,who’s been warning the world about global warming since the 70’s. He talks about changes everyone can make, such as “choosing the right lightbulb” and “cutting down on travel.”

Hear, hear, and we can also use organic detergents and soaps, walk to work and use a fan instead of air conditioning, quite right. But a little further down the page there’s a column in what should be called “morons roam the earth,” about a sheik who sent his Lamborghini from Qatar to London for an oil change.
Well it only cost HK$ 354.000 which isn’t much more than some of our lesser paid civil servants take home in a month, but I mean: Qatar? You’d think he’d have his own oil?