I think this is an appropriate way to temporarily conclude my “Skylines” blog. Where is the best skyline in the world?

I’ve been back in the States for a few days now, visiting my parents and friends before moving to grad school on the East Coast. At first the reverse culture shock was pretty drastic: coming from liveliness of the city that just had a typhoon, I arrived on a sunny, cool, clear morning in beautiful CA that was quiet, spacious, and not-so-populated-feeling. Almost the opposite of HK, except that the SF Bay Area is quite gorgeous at this time of year, perfect for both running and swimming, with blue skies, some clouds, and a healthy breeze.

There’s no getting around it: I’m sorely going to miss Hong Kong and all the people I met there, especially you Nic, as well as my hiking friends, students, and calligraphy class (even though I can’t understand most of the Cantonese except “houh leng”… I’ve still seen them every week for a year). And my Macau girls + D if you read this too

*** added a month later, in August***

Now that I’m living in the Southern US, I’m in even more culture shock, and as a temporary farewell to Hong Kong, I’ll just make a list of what I’ll miss most about it:

1. amazing company
2. the food
3. the sublime ease of public transportation
4. being so close to the ocean
5. the crazy hiking
6. my calligraphy class
7. my easy part-time job
8. okay… the shopping
9. my nice students
10. having softer skin from all the humidity

My boyfriend Nic is really into toy figures/models, which makes Hong Kong a kind of heaven for him. All the toy shops are scattered throughout Mong Kok and Wan Chai, so you have to go searching through all these tiny stores to find what you’re looking for. In particular, he’s been looking for Star Wars toys (we both happen to be big fans…).

Mong Kok: the Richmond Center, on Argyle street
Wan Chai: something called “toys street” which you can find on any map in an MTR station

hehe.

the rancor.

toys under the floor too….

Mandy’s shop, where Nic bought the rancor

By far, the best looking building in Hong Kong is the Bank of China Tower. On a nice day, you can go inside and take the elevator to the 42nd floor and check out this view:

The Peninsula hotel has been around Hong Kong for ages– it’s old style, fancy, and on the 28th floor, it has Hong Kong’s best restroom. You can walk in free of charge just to go take a look! After you get out of the elevator, it’s through some opaque doors opposite the fancy bar.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile, and after 10 months, I do have a list of favorite restaurants!

Note: everything is in Hong Kong Dollars (HKD). It’s about 7.7 HKD: 1 USD, so try dividing by 8 to convert, and it’ll be slightly less.

1. Ba She “Roast Entire Fish” restuarant
Price: $26-$40 HKD for a noodle bowl, around $80 for steamed fish
Healthiness: really healthy– fish stock, low oil/fat, and order veggies (choi) on the side
Location: Hung Hom
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=23365

Quality of food: This is the most delicious, cheap, and convenient place to go to. It’s a 5 minute walk away from my apartment. They make their soups with smooth circular rice noodles and a mild fish stock. Try the noodles with fresh beef and tomatoes (you’ll have to add the beef separately to the tomato dish). This is the last place I’m eating at while living in Hung Hom.

2. Sweet Dynasty
Price: $40 HKD for congee, around $20 for desserts, other dishes $35-60 depending what you order.
Healthiness: good for congee, perhaps a bit salty for other things, desserts are largely fruit based but there’s a huge variety to choose from including dou fu fa and tong yuen
location: Tsim Sha Tsui, 100 Canton Road
http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=3717&mapType=1

quality of food: It’s really relaxing and air-conditioned inside with nice decoration– this ambiance plus the wide variety of relatively cheap food makes Sweet Dynasty my favorite restaurant to go to in TST. It’s perfect for 2 ppl or large groups. The congee has a slightly sweet flavor, is very nourishing, and comes in many varieties (including ones with innards– but I prefer #217, which has pieces of chinese doughnut, preserved egg, fish, peanuts, mushroom, lettuce, and squid).

3. Dao Heung (A “Cheers Super 88″ dim sum restaurant)
Price: If you get a big group to go, you’ll probably spend between $40-60 HKD for the dim sum and this means you’ll come out completely stuffed– it’s worth breakfast and lunch!
Healthiness: well, depends on what you order.
Location: many locations throughout HK, but here are two on Nathan Road. One is near the Jordan MTR stop, and the other is near Mong Kok MTR exit E (then you make a right, going south on Nathan Rd).

Quality of food: My first Cantonese teacher took our class here, and we’ve been coming back ever since. The quality of the dim sum is pretty consistent throughout the chains, and they have a huge variety of things to choose from. I really like the taro filled jin doi (chinese doughnut ball), taro filled hedgehog shaped buns (very cute), rice noodled filled w/meat (cheung fan), fen guo (chiu chow style clear dumplings w/veggies inside), and their siu mai (shrimp/pork thing) and hah gau (shrimp dumpling) are particularly good.

4. Sushi One
Price: $60 minimum purchase for ‘half price sushi after 10pm’ (best deal)
Healthiness: great, except for the tempura
Location: 23 Ashley Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui

Quality: My boyfriend introduced me to this one The trick is to wait for “half price sushi” after 10pm– but usually you have to get there early to line up and wait for a spot! This is by far the best quality sushi I’ve had in Hong Kong– best variety, taste, presentation, including “A5 seared beef” which is raw but only slightly singed w/a blow torch first. Another first: live ark shell (some kind of raw crustacean).

5. Crystal Jade
Price: It’ll probably be around $80 HKD for a meal when sharing with others.
Healthiness: Very good
Location: I usually go to the one in Tsim Sha Tsui’s Harbour City mall, or in Central’s IFC mall.

Quality: They make their own noodles from scratch (the type of noodle: la mian) and these are usually ordered in soup with some meat or delicious wontons. You should also try their xiao long bao (Shanghai soup dumplings), but be careful, their skins are quite thin so the juice leaks out sometimes. You should wait 2-3 min for them to cool then pick them up with your chopsticks and have a spoon ready in your other hand to place it on. Then bite carefully and suck the juice out lastly, dip in vinegar and enjoy!

5. i caramba!
price: $70+ (expensive…)
healthiness: well… depends…
location: various, including Discovery Bay, Central/ mid-levels, and Wan Chai

quality: It’s expensive but the best Mexican food I’ve tried here so far. And as a Californian, sometimes you just gotta satiate that craving for guacamole, taco shell, cheese…

18. Please feel free to comment on ways that you and/or the Fulbright program may impact the way that the people and society of the United States is perceived abroad and on mutual understanding between the U.S. and other nations and their people. Feel free to relate stories, anecdotes, or experiences that would illustrate this. (2,500 characters maximum.)*

Many Chinese people are perplexed when they meet me because they can’t tell what my ethnic background is– I have a tan, but I don’t look quite Chinese; I’m fluent in English, but am conversational in Mandarin. For fun, I usually ask them to guess where I’m from. If they don’t get it in 3 guesses, I tell them– I’m mixed– zhong mei hun xuer (China-America mixed blood). My father’s family is Chinese, my mother’s family has European roots, but we all consider ourselves American. Encountering me tends to bring many assumptions about ethnic background to the surface, as unfamiliar people try to interpret my external appearance and guess my upbringing. Some of the most unexpected guesses have been “Indian” and “African,” while the most commen have been “Pilipino” or “Southeast Asian” or “South American.” My interactions with students, locals, and new friends inspire reflection on “who” may be/look like an American, as well as how “Chinese” an American (or South American…) might become (through not only looks, but also language and cultural understanding), all in the contexts of curiosity and general goodwill. This year I’ve embodied a more complicated illustration of the “melting pot” metaphor that popularly describes ethnicity in the United States.

Last time I saw Shanghai in the rainy winter, this time… in spring sunshine Some of the new places I visited included Jing An temple. It’s a bit strange, like a great deal of Shanghai architecture– a new structure made to look old, encircled by skyscrapers.

Our fabulously welcoming and generous students in Wuhan took Lauren and I on a field-trip on a Saturday to “Yellow Crane Tower” （黄鹤楼), during an absolutely gorgeous, sunny spring day. It had loads of samples of calligraphy on stone.

It was made famous by a legend of a crane flying off into heaven carrying a man, and two ancient poems by Cui Hao and Li Bai concerning homesickness.

Besides the views and walking under bright green spring foliage, my favorite parts were:
(1) getting to ring a 21-ton bell for good luck
(2) finding an EXCELLENT book of all these calligraphized poems written about Yellow Crane Tower, replete with pictures of the calligraphy, and annotations (in Chinese) of the poems
(3) finding an old Calligraphy teacher standing in the shade by a small waterfall, with a broom-length calligraphy brush (sponge tipped) drawing poems on the paved ground. Our students went over to talk to him and I asked if I could try out his brush… so he let me… that’s the first time I’ve ever used one that big on the ground!

I’ve been a fan of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ever since I first saw it a few years ago–especially the fight scene in the bamboo forest with Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat. It didn’t hit me that I could actually visit such a place until a few months ago: wow– I’m in China– of course there are bamboo forests– how do I get to one?

So I started searching, and read a few blog posts about this beautiful place called “Anji Forest” which, according to said blog, was a 2 hr bus ride away from Hangzhou (famous for its poetic and romantic “West Lake,” and about an hour south of Shanghai by train). Like all bamboo forests in China, it claimed to be “the” site of where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed. I’m unsure if this is true, but it didn’t really matter, I just wanted to see what it was like to walk through beautiful, thick bamboo… I decided to go see it. Luckily, I know someone crazy enough to follow me, so this adventure was conducted with an escort. But since I was the only one who spoke Mandarin, the negotiating was all up to me… this made things interesting since I consider myself functional but not fluent.

We took a cab ride to the North Hangzhou bus station around 10am, and bought bus tickets to the city of Anji for 26RMB. This was the first time I’d ever ridden a bus (that wasn’t chartered) in China, and along the 1.5 hour ride, my mind was occupied by two thoughts: (1) it’ll work out, we’ll get there and (2) I have no idea where we are and I really hope all the transportation connects up. My sleepy escort took a nap, while I took pictures outside the window of the countryside:

bamboo poles stacked up:

countryside

We got to Anji around 12:30pm, and had to get on a second bus to go to the forest itself– “大竹海“ — the sea of bamboo. At first I thought the woman was saying, the next bus leaves at 2:05 pm. Actually she was saying, bus #205, and this very old smaller bus soon arrived. They had us get on and wait, but then moved us to a second bus going to exactly the same place– I’m not sure why.

Halfway through the ride, we drove over a dusty road only to find that a powerline was knocked out in front of us, just low enough to prevent us from driving through. The driver had a heated conversation with one of the construction workers. Meanwhile, to our right a petroleum truck drove UNDER the knocked out powerline, sort of brushing the top of it. Then the construction worker got on top of another truck and then, climbed on top, proceeded to grasp the powerline with is BARE HAND, and lift it up enough so we could drive through. My friend and I holding on to each other thinking, please don’t electrocute us, please don’t electrocute us… the guy drops the powerline as we’re halfway under, and it caught on the middle of the bus (AHHH!) but then he picked it up again and we made it the rest of the way under.

After breathing a huge sigh of relief, we drove on. This bus let us off in the middle of a village, and we got on another tinier bus. In Mandarin, the driver’s assistant asked, “Have you eaten yet?”
“No.”
“Do you want something to eat?”
“No, we’re fine, we just want to go to the bamboo forest.”
“Do you want something to eat?”
“No.”
The bus didn’t start moving until I said maybe, but then when we got to the “restaurant” I repeated another four times that we FIRST wanted to go see the bamboo forest.

Here’s what it looked like when we got there: