The Magic of not taking Minibus

It drizzled, and then sprinkled, with clouds taking over the sky. The morning sun didn’t show up as everyday and seemed likely to hide till dusk. Without an umbrella, I stroked with all my strength towards Kowloon Tong, where my class wound start in 15 minutes, meanwhile managed to keep either one foot on the ground, so that few splash of mud would kiss my shoes and pants. Several minibuses which bound for the school passed by, but I resisted the temptation of taking one. And finally I made it, resting on the chair, sipping my hot milk tea and witnessing the coming of the lecturer.

It was one of my great times after came to study in Hong Kong, a time for my head running away from suppressing the unabatedly popping up assignments and my fingers relieving from clicking on smart phone to read my friends’ new tweets.

On my way to class, the romantic movie I saw the night before conjured up in mind. The pictures of the characters’ encounter and reunion lingered, while their smiles deepened, and their love tosh echoed. All of a sudden, I became the protagonist in the movie, frozen in the classic dramatized dilemma “to live or to die”.

Soon after, rain dropping on my face sobered me. As I walked on, the fragments of memories were timid and slipped away. By the roadsides, branches of shivering remainder of Chinese redbud came out of nowhere. Under the trees, two paralleling streams of pedals wound down in front; and in my heart, I sensed the blossoming of empathy for beauty and beyond.

The school is not far from my home, just 1.9 kilometers away and 15 minutes by walk. Although taking a minibus might give me an advantageous five minutes and a shelter from rain, I preferred to walk, given that the minibuses contoured over a delicate park. Furthermore, during the 15 minutes’ walk, my mind could roam in the sparkling of ideas and odor of flowers washed by rain.

However, raising high the value of time, how to quickly bustle for work seems an essential starter lesson for us twenty-something in Hong Kong, as we were told for times, millions of dollars evaporated when we yawned. And it seems that the more we submerge in academic or business stuff, the less time left for us to recognize the distance stretches between what we want and us.

The massive grid of traffic repeals us from walking even for a short distance. Thousands of minibuses shuttling, dwindles our last intimacy with nature, and the sparse time we have for musing and pondering. Being a twenty-something in Hong Kong, by no means, would I give up walking to take a short-distance minibus.

No country for the poor: bride from mainland lost home after divorce in Hong Kong

Except for several holes and cracks in the soles, Zhang Cuihua’s velvet shoes go well with her freshly washed Chinese outfit.

“I put two pieces of newspaper in the shoes to avoid the cracks rubbing my heels. I’ve no money for a new pair for three months. Only $600 of the government relief left for meals after I paid off the rent,” Zhang said, lifting up her shoes to point out the cracks.

Zhang Cuihua, 58, hardly had a smile throughout the interview.

In these same shoes, Zhang, at her 58, walks to Sham Sui Po everyday to gather with a large group of Hong Kong’s poor for a $10 meal. “I was almost starving for months before I found the charity for cheap lunch. I used to wait in McDonalds near the place I lived for other’s leftovers. Most workers there knew me already,” Zhang said.

Zhang is part of the flood of less educated mainland brides who marry older Hong Kong men in the hope of living in the developed world after spending the first five years of marriage in the mainland in order to qualify for the one-way permit to Hong Kong.^①

According to the Hong Kong government, the number of Hong Kong males marrying females from the mainland has increased during the past two decades. Now, more than 22,000 mainlanders each year register marriages with Hong Kong citizens.

However, many of them end up divorced. Zhang was divorced by her husband, 29-years older than her, at the end of 2006, and she now lives a world away from her rich fantasy of Hong Kong. Speaking no Cantonese and suffering from a long history of psychotropic drug abuse, Zhang has been incapable of finding a long-term job.

“I can hardly remember what kind of person I was before I came down in the world.” Zhang mumbled with a trace of tears in her eyes.

Zhang varies where she sleeps, sometimes staying at government shelters for street sleepers, sometimes living in low-rent cage rooms, and sometimes sleeping in 24-hour restaurants.

Zhang said she was lucky since she didn’t  have children.

“Some of them became prostitutes after being divorced in Hong Kong. We used to live in the same neighborhood in Shenzhen, where was quite close to Hong Kong, easy for our husbands to visit us in the first five years of our marriages; the single mothers have no choice, otherwise, they can’t afford to feed their kids^②,” Zhang said.

Zhang Cuihua has her shoes worn out but no money for a new pair.

Zhang is reluctant to go back to the mainland for fear of losing face. Zhang said she was eager to get a permit to live in public housing offered by the government.“The officers told me it would be soon realized^③,” added Zhang.

“What the homeless people need are more than apartments to stay overnight. They lack shelters in their hearts so that something has to be done to give them emotional support in getting out of poverty,” said Wang Shengwu, a social worker in the charity Christian Concern for the Homeless Association, where Zhang and the other two divorced mainlanders eat their $10 meals.

“The apartment and assistance from the government won’t benefit them if they can’t build up their inner strength. After they used up the relief, they have to know what to do next,” Wang said.

Footnotes:

①      The one way permits, are special travel certificates, mainlanders should acquire before entering Hong Kong if they intend to become permanent Hong Kong residents. For brides who would like to move to Hong Kong with their husbands, they can only receive the permits after their marriages survive the first five years’ time, meaning they can’t live with their husband in the first five years in Hong Kong.

See more:

Click to access sb-c.pdf

②      Citizens who have no income can enjoy $1890 monthly government relief, meaning mainlanders live in Hong Kong less than seven years can’t benefit from the this scheme.

See More:

主頁

③      Public housing scheme aims to help low-income families with housing need gain access to affordable housing. Families who qualify the government’s requirement can enjoy a 25%-50% rent fee reduction. The elders can enjoy faster permission to the flats. Most of the flats offered are in Kowloon and New Territory. However, residents who haven’t lived in Hong Kong for seven years are excluded.

See more:

Click to access B02.pdf

Click to access HIF2011.pdf

Hong Kong in figures: All about food

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1. As the Culinary Capital of Asia, Hong Kong hit a record high of over 370,000 visitors to its 2010 five-day Food Expo featuring more than 740 exhibitors from 22 countries and regions.
2. With one for every 600 people, Hong Kong boasts more than 11,000 restaurants and one of the highest per capita concentrations of cafés and restaurants in the world.
3. Till the end of 2009, the Hong Kong Government operated a total of 79 public markets and 25 free standing cooked food markets, with around 14 800 food stalls.
4. Each of the city’s seven million inhabitants consumes a yearly average of nearly 1.4 kilos of tea – almost triple the world average and more than any other Asian city.
5. Hong Kong has quickly become Asian’s wine capital since the scrapping of duties in 2008. In 2009, Hong Kong surpassed London to become the second largest wine auction center in the world after New York, with total auction sales of US $64 million.

References:

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/dining/restaurant-guide.html

http://www.brandhk.gov.hk/en/#/en/myHK/funfacts.html

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/events/consumer-fairs-food-expo.html

http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/

Snack “cures”

Having quit from a textile mill in her hometown, Guangdong, where she spent more than 20 years as a line-manager, Zhu Aihua, at her

Icecreams are sold in the snack store

49, changed into a shop assistant in a snack shop in Hong Kong to reunite with her family.

“I’d prefer the muffins packed in dozen. It offers a fair price and my son is so fund of it !” Zhu pointed at the fancy boxes piling up in front of the counter and introduced me warmly in standard mandarin. While leaning on the counter, she wore a sunny smile and looked into my eyes in a way that finally made me take it.

Six days in a week, at 3 pm, Zhu walks from her home two blocks away to the snack shop to relieve the shop owner for the next seven hours. The daily routine: mopping the floor, arranging the shelves and also acting as a cashier, for Zhu, earns her a much easier life than her first year in Hong Kong working as a waitress in a tea dining room, which allowed no time for her to take care of her ill mother-in-law.

“Though it all settled now, it was a huge shift for me in the beginning,” Zhu grinned with a sign, “I did plan for moving to Hong Kong for quite a long time, but with my Popo’s (mother-in-law in Chinese) sudden illness, it still turned out to be a bump.”

Working in the center of “snack mountain”, Zhu gradually picked up herself from the culture shock. Even if she doesn’t taste many of the snacks, she enjoys memorizing most of their names, sometimes making recommendations for customers and sometimes buying her son his favorite. As Zhu said, the job gave her not allowance, rather the happiness to be with her family.

“Curry City”: short cut from Hong Kong to Thailand

“Curry City”: short cut from Hong Kong to Thailand

Just in the center of Hong Kong, Kowloon City, where the old taste of Chinese culture lingers, the Thai curry with its spicy ingredient wins over the food agenda of the Chinese. For spicy food lovers, whenever you decide to regain the pleasure of eating heartily in Hong Kong and taste the authentic Thai curry, Kowloon City is the right place to go.

Standing in Kowloon city, in between Nam Kok Road and Nga Tsin Long road, the smell of Thai curry will greet you from every corner. And the types of curry range from Bangkok style green curry to Chiang Mai northern style red curry with plenty of lemongrass and roselle leaves. The curry in Kowloon, could satisfy the appetites of both the Thai food novice, who has never dived into the curry world or Thai food addict who boasting of being in Thai cooking school for numerous times.

The Thai restaurants, though centered all in Kowloon City and mostly enjoy a high food authentic, differ largely from one another in the overall dining environment. You could expect some restaurants offer you silver bows and cups washed as clean as at home, while others only treat you with the china cookery seemingly older than the cook. However, it could be an adventure for you to pick out your own choice since most of them sharing similar names, such as best selection of Thai food or the Best of Northern Thai food.  It is a tough job to tell the differences among the names with an empty eager stomach.

Apart from the curries, the restaurants there also provide other popular Thai food such as Tom Yom soup and Pad Thai, which could also serve as good alternatives for trying Thai food, while most of them could just arouse you of the sweetness of Thai food as well.  Once, you got tired of eating Siu Mei every day, why not just give yourself a break in the Kowloon City, enjoying the curry.

Old Kowloon,new home