Tuesday 2/25/03 HK
Night Markets: Feels Like We’re
Back in Taiwan
At
breakfast I met Chinesers Kevin (tall lanky hoppa I think) and David (tall
lanky white dude) who’s from southern CA and we found out we knew someone in
common from his hometown. Breakfast
bad. Coffee strong.
Sat through a panel of speakers as my body tried to
decide if it was tired from lack of sleep or wired from nuclear-powered coffee
(Niclas fidgeting next to me:
“That was strong coffee.”) Then
split into our theme groups.
In
mine was an acupuncturist, oops sorry a Chinese medicine practitioner, a guy
doing rural health, a just-graduated from Midwest college girl doing patient
choice who I liked best by the end, and a Stanford grad Asian girl in public
policy. Haskell, and me. We weren’t getting much done on our
“presentation.” Had a break for a blah buffet lunch in a room off
the NTT cafeteria. I asked Sophia
what year she graduated from Stanford and excited she said, “Last year! Why, do you know someone?” I said, “Well, from ‘98” and the
let-down in her voice: “Oh.” No attempt at playing the Name Game
there.
After, we filmed the intro of our
presentation using Aaron’s digital camcorder, since Haskell wouldn’t be here
for the actual presentation. That
was pretty fun. We panned the
camera on only his head and had him say, “Prepare for an exploration on the integration of Eastern and Western
medicine in Chinese society”; when he said “Eastern” Sonya held up her
acupuncture’d hand to his left cheek, when he said “Western” I held up a bottle
of pills to his right. His bald
head glowed and he looked very Star Trekky.
Our
group then took a visit to the Chinese Medicine College building where we sat
down with two researchers there to discuss their school and our projects. I was sooo zoned and still somewhat
jetlagged from my trip to the U.S., had under 5 hours of sleep, and was
struggling right in front of them, downing the tea they gave us, which didn’t
help. It ran half hour overtime,
THEN they offered us a brief tour, but worried about Gin waiting for me I said
I had to go, so I left first.
Back
in the room, every day when back in the room after Fbt stuff is over, I plop on
the bed in relief. Don’t know what
it is—just relief to be away from the scholarliness or something. We two were on our own tonight so we
decided to check out Temple Street Night Market and Ladies Market. We ran into Shawna and asked her to
come with. The biggest pain is the
long walk each time from NTT to the MTR station, and coming back too. Got two mosquito bites on my leg so
far.
The
night markets felt the same as Taiwan except
no scooters and almost no food carts.
Not so impressed. The wares
were probably better though. We
looked forever for food, I was longing for JuaBing and NaiYoBing, but none
here. Decided on a seafood
restaurant with lots of live seafood outside it. Couldn’t read the menu (words looked different, names
unrecognizable) or communicate well with them and got a raw-ish meat dish, “fried” tofu that was mushy, and
the only good thing, a noodle prawn dish.
Each paid 70HK. Quite
disappointed. On the way we’d been
harrassed by an Indian guy holding a big “Curry House” sign and I now said,
“Maybe we shoulda followed him.”
Tried
to inspect the fake bags to see if they’re really better than Taiwan’s, but
realize I’ve never inspected Taiwan’s closely so I can’t compare. Looked at Chinese dresses, Qipaos, one
looked pretty nice but lady insisted I was a 36 when she measured my hips (OVER
my jeans). I was indignant and
said I was a 34, I own a Qipao and it’s a 34, I’ve never worn anything 36
in my life, the tag is supposed to be bust not hip size, and how can she
measure me over my jeans? She said
Fine, then try it on and you’ll see.
I looked around, people passing left and right. Here? She said just come aside and try it on over your shirt and
jeans. Was she some kind of incompetent? Qipaos are supposed to be form-fitting,
that’s why people get them tailor-fitted.
Gin and Shawna offered to hold up their jackets to cover me but
disgusted I just said Forget it and moved on.
At
a cart we saw electric converters, the same one Gin bought yesterday—but for
6HKD! She was quite PO’ed about
that. I said “Maybe these don’t
work.” But she wasn’t convinced.
We
stopped for a long time to check out shades and Gin and I each got a pair,
bargained him down from 69 to 40 each.
I couldn’t decide for the longest time between two pairs so Gin took a
digital pic of me wearing each one; then the choice was easy. Photos are a lot more honest than
mirrors.