Updates

We leave in three weeks time. Gulp. And I have done NOTHING to prepare except sell six dehumidfiers. Actually I am quite pleased even with that. Not a single box is packed, not a cupboard sorted. I appear to have let go of my control freakery and have gone to the other extreme of not giving a damn. But that’s a Gemini quality. Or else I’m in denial. Moving? Us? Noooo! Some mistake shurely. My attitude is that if my Hong Kong days are numbered, I ought to be out there enjoying myself and not worrying about sorting out the nonsense.

The five year old is a lot better. Post tonsillectomy he doesn’t snore any more or gag on his food which is something. He is now eating more and has gone back to nursery. But his voice has changed. It’s now higher and a bit nasal and I miss the big, deep booming voice of my little boy. When I hear the new high one it makes me look up and think, who’s this stranger at my table? More worryingly he definitely hasn’t stopped coughing. OK he may just have a cough. Perhaps it’s linked to Hong Kong’s appalling air quality. Perhaps it’s not a bad thing we are leaving. So we’re back to square one and off to see the doctor tomorrow.

How I abhor school projects! The 10 year old has returned from school with the “Hong Kong Skyline Project” and is expected to produce a scale model of a Hong Kong building. He has chosen to do Jardine House (aka House of a thousand a***holes!) where his paternal grandfather used to work. Take a look at this and guess how I’ll be spending the weekend….

Earlier this year the eight year old came home with instructions for an Egyptian project that would have challenged anyone twice his age. He was expected to build an Egyptian artefact, place it like a museum piece in an appropriately decorated shoe box, write about it and draw a map showing where it had been excavated. Marks would be taken off for evidence of parental assistance. My son chose an obelisk as his artefact. It could have been a lot worse, but show me an eight year old boy that could make an obelisk without parental assistance. So I helped a bit but tried to make it look like I hadn’t. I needn't have bothered. The resulting Y03 “Museum” was nothing more than an exhibition of parents’ fabulous Egyptian creations. Only one or two children had heeded the instructions and had produced rickety cornflake packet exhibits that were quite frankly substandard. As I went around I lavished praise and attention on those who had clearly done it all on their own. And then I asked some with breath-takingly perfect exhibits how they’d made a part of their model. “I don’t know,” said one, “My Dad’s an artist and he did it when I was asleep.” Don’t you just love children for their honesty!

An interesting development arose yesterday on the house-hunting front. Apparently our tenant is racked with guilt at the thought of this poor dispossessed family of six having to return to London without being able to move back into their own much loved house. I don’t quite get the guilt: we did sign a contract after all. Anyway, our managing agent thinks they might actually consider moving out. It’ll cost us of course, it always does. At the same time, the Pioneering Accountant who is currently in SW15 looking for a place for us to live come August, has found a house which he says makes ours look like a hovel and is going to get the managing agent to take our tenants to see it. We’ll sub the difference and pay their moving costs. They’ll also be able to extend the tenancy on the bigger place whereas we will be throwing them out smartly come August 2010. And if they don’t take the sweetener, we will move into the palace ourselves. My husband has described the new place in tones of such rapturous praise that I’m starting to hope the tenants stick to the letter of the law so that we can have it instead. All of a sudden I’m not to keen on my lovely home being described as a hovel, nor in fact on living in one.

Oh, and I've been given a lovely award from Brits in Bosnia (whom I'm fairly sure I've met in a previous life) for which I thankfully have to do nothing, except say thank you Brit!

VI IV – Remembering Tiananmen

Twenty years ago today troops and tanks entered Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations that had occupied the Square for 7 weeks. In the violence of the crackdown hundreds, possibly thousands of people were killed and many more were wounded. It is unlikely that a precise number of Tiananmen’s victims will ever be known.

Hong Kong is preparing to commemorate the anniversary with the annual candle lit vigil in Victoria Park this evening. They are hoping for as many as 100,000 activists to turn out although the bad weather forecast could lower the numbers considerably.

“Activists and former students who took part in the protests 20 years ago in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square will give speeches at the rally, interspersed with traditional remembrance songs and the laying of wreaths,” reports the South China Morning Post this morning. “The highlight will be a speech from Xiong Yan, formerly one of the 21 most wanted protest leaders who fled to the United States in 1992 and on Saturday stepped on to Chinese soil for the first time since then, when he entered Hong Kong.”

"A massive crackdown was launched on weblogs, websites and Fanfou, the Chinese generic version of the Twitter micro-bloging service. Authorities declared a 2national internet server maintenance day" covering most major online networking websites. The maintenance would take three days, they said." What a coincidence! What timing!

Hong Kong Security chief Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong has stated that exiled Tiananmen dissidents are not on the Immigration Department’s surveillance list ahead of the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.

So how would he explain the fact that only yesterday Xiang Xiaoji, a former leader of the student protests who has spent the past 17 years in exile in the US was denied entry to the city and was put on a flight back to New York? June 4 student activist Wuerkaizi spent last night in a restricted zone at Macau airport after being denied entry to the city and Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot was also turned away recently.

The US consulate has intervened and stated that Washington “regretted the government’s decision to block Mr Xiang’s entry, particularly in the light of the city’s well-known reputation for allowing freedom of expression.” Meanwhile HK Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has made himself unpopular with the controversial suggestion that people should make an “objective assessment” of the events 20 years ago in light of China’s economic development.

Bah! Quite hard to be objective when people you love and principles you stand for have been shot by troops or crushed by tanks. I find it worrying that Xiang Xiaoji was allowed into Hong Kong for the 10th anniversary commemoration in 1999 and yet ten years on, the authorities have turned him away. Does that indicate that Hong Kong is growing less liberal as it leans more and more to Beijing?

In a statement Xiang Xiaoji said the best way to honour the Tiananmen dead was to continue the fight for democracy on the mainland. Hong Kong’s annual commemoration of the protesters made the city a beacon for democracy in China.

I hope that will continue to be the case. And as I write I’m considering I ought to dust off my own radical student past and go and be one of the 100,000, even if I do get a little wet.

Photo credit: AP Jeff Widener

Wednesday Morning Hikes

I’m going to miss my weekly hike. Starting at 7.15 each Wednesday morning we have hiked through all weathers. I joined the group in January and it was cold enough to wear several layers plus a lightweight jacket. We’ve walked our weekly route through rain and fog, sometimes unable to see more than a few metres in front of us. I like it that way. Whilst you don’t get to enjoy the view you also don’t see the steep steps rising up and up ahead of you.

Now it’s getting hot and humid. Even the lightest clothes cling uncomfortably. And yet we persist. Always the same route, it takes us an hour and 40 minutes. There are those who walk faster, go ahead, others stop to catch breath and gulp water.

We talk, more or less out of breath, as we climb the many concrete steps. All current or one time GSIS mothers we have lived through the dramas of the school’s planned move to Ma On Shan during campus renovation, fierce parental opposition, a proposed attempt to replace the Board of Governors and the eleventh hour solution of an alternative decanting site on Hong Kong Island. It’s a social walk. Perhaps if we didn’t talk so much we’d walk faster.

There are ten or so who hike regularly but it is rare for everyone to be there, usually there are between four and seven walkers. This morning there were four of us and we walked through grey cloud, chattering like sparrows, unable to see far in any direction. Just as we made it home the heavens opened. We had a narrow escape.

Waking early on a Wednesday I always regret having agreed to go. The others are expecting me and will be waiting. I hate the thought of those rugged steps that rip the breath from you and make me curse and gasp. But when you return to the bottom you can finally stop knowing you’ve done your body a good turn and it’s over for another week. It is shortly after 9am, the morning lies ahead and you are exercised and bursting with feel good hormones. It’s a bit like banging your head against a brick wall: fabulous when you stop.

Two weeks ago there were only two of us: me and the super fit B who had a baby only five months ago. Had I not been there to slow her down, she would have skipped up Mount Butler like a mountain goat.

When we reached the top B was not even slightly out of breath and had barely raised a sweat while I was beetroot red and puffing. Every Wednesday we see the same Chinese man practising his Tai Chi. It is possible he walks up every day but we can only vouch for Wednesdays. This time, as the views were clear he offered to take photographs for us. I had my camera with me but he looked at it disdainfully and suggested using his and emailing us the pictures. Not sure I wanted to give out my email address to this charming stranger, I declined and said my camera would do fine.

So here we are, B and I atop Mount Butler with views over Hong Kong harbour and the Southside behind us. And in case you didn’t realise, I’m the red faced, sweaty one under the hat next to the gazelle that is my fit friend.

Shenzhen

Shenzhen was one more place I was keen to see before we leave. To understand why you must try and appreciate what Shenzhen is to Hong Kong: Shenzhen is fake paradise, the land of cheap copies, cut price tailoring and Made in China all within an hour of Hong Kong Island. Whatever it costs in Hong Kong it will be a tenth of the price in Shenzhen.

Shoppers head over the border from Hong Kong in their thousands, armed with empty suitcases, wheelie shoppers and huge bags. The first time you go, it is hard to imagine what there is to get excited about. Seen from a distance Shenzhen is nothing but an ugly urban sprawl of concrete skyscrapers. And yet everyone talks about it: Have you been yet? When are you going to go? Whilst fundamentally sceptical that it would hold any appeal for me I was keen to see for myself, if only to gain the moral high ground and dismiss it all as worthless rubbish.

We headed for the border by car: two Shenzhen virgins, one relative novice and a veteran. We parked and took the MTR just one stop before buying our visas, having our swine flu health checks, passing passport control and walking across the border into….. a five storey shopping complex.

I had expected it to be filthy, dangerous and over-crowded. I expected there to be vendors pawing and clawing at me to get my attention and more importantly my business but I hadn’t expected it to be so much fun.

We headed first for a tailor and showed her a few things we’d considered having copied. I was non-committal taking the view if I left empty handed it wouldn’t really matter. If I found something fabulous then I might be swayed. The tailor took us to the fabric market, an Aladdin’s Cave of material. And bit by bit my high-minded resistance was worn down. Beautiful fabrics at RMB 25 a metre - £2.50! Add £20 for the cost of a tailor made dress and it’s a no brainer. Take your pick, why stop at one?

And of course the same thing could be said for bags, shoes, watches, jewellery. It’s hard to imagine the quantities and, dare I say it, the quality of the goods on view. Vendors call out, Missy, Missy! in anticipation of your interest in their shop. They usher you in and sit you down on a plastic stool, hand you a catalogue of designer bags to flick through. That one, you say, or Have you got Prada? And a man will disappear round the corner or rummage in a large hold-all and suddenly produce a large proportion of the latest collection of whichever designer you called for. In one shop when I explained what I was after, the man removed a panel in the ceiling and shinned up to retrieve a plastic bag full of the items I had described.

It becomes addictive. The atmosphere and the bartering go to your head and you start to justify absurd purchases on the grounds of their absurd prices. It’s a good policy to arrive with a list, to know your budget and to stick to both.

I expected to be tired, I expected to be bored. In stead I left feeling I’d had a great time, enjoyed every minute and picked up a couple of really good bargains. Of course the real test will be when I unpack the parcel that arrives next week from the tailor. It’ll be interesting to see what my copied dresses look like and if it's really true that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys….

Photo Diary

I shouldn't be here. It is 10.30pm on Sunday night and I am already short of sleep before the new week has even started.

The Pioneering Accountant has just left for a week in London where, I am hoping, he will find us somewhere to live. Without him and his unfailing ability to rise early each morning to get the children up and out, the coming week is going to be hard work.

And yet unrecorded days in these last hectic weels are like pearls slipping from a string. Once lost they are gone for ever.

So in brief, my week as a photo diary:

Tuesday. We attended the Beijing Evening at the ten year old's school. The children put on a wonderfully entertaining performance which included ribbon dancing, kung fu, sketches, singing and drumming. The trip had clearly been an amazing experience for all. I was close to tears as I watched my eldest boy reenacting in Mandarin a scene of bartering with traders at the Great Wall. He's been at this school for just over a month and yet seemed totally at home. We on the other hand snuck in and sat at the back for fear someone might actually notice us. Our stay is so fleeting that I am almost embarrassed to be seen at all and shy away from meeting other parents in case the lunacy of our brief stop-over is revealed.

Thursday. A public holiday - the Dragon Boat Festival at Stanley. We stood for hours on a jetty waiting to be transported to a junk from which to watch the races. It was cold and windy and when we finally got to the front of the queue we began to have second thoughts as the pier heaved dramatically on the choppy water. Clambering from ferry to junk was perilous. The ferry men assumed those with long legs could bridge yawning chasms of black water between the bobbing boats while small children and bags were tossed into the waiting arms of ships' hands on the moored junks. We saw some races, nibbled cold pizza and made a quick get away on a passing speed boat, arriving at the beach just minutes before the heavens opened. It was one of those events you have to do once. Once will do, however.

Friday. There was no school for the eight year old so he and I enjoyed the rare treat of a morning together and went and nosed around the Police Museum. It wasn't thrilling for him - lots of old photos and masses to read - but I loved it and lost myself in Hong Kong's history and the long running battles between police and the Triads.

Saturday. Our eldest was again at the University in Sha Tin so we drove off to discover Clear Water Bay. We found an enchanting beach, small, clean and relatively empty and sat on the sand while the three others stripped off and swam in the waves. It was hot and sunny and both of us were thinking, Damn, it would have been nice to have a bit more of this.

Sunday. Sailing for the two older boys on Middle Island. After lunch we packed suitcases for the PA to take to London full of stuff for our UK summer - sweaters, raincoats, wetsuits all of which we'll need before our sea freight docks. I remember doing this in reverse last summer, packing suitcases of stuff we'd need in Hong Kong before our container arrived. We ended the day with friends at Shek'O and ate supper at a round table for 11 with all the children chirruping with excitement.

As we arrived home I reached for my handbag to get the keys. No bag. Flashback of putting it on a wall behind the car while I loaded the boogie boards into the boot. Shek'O is a good half hour's drive from us along narrow winding roads. It is about as far away as anywhere on Hong Kong Island. And at 8pm on a Sunday night I had no desire to return. Except for the fact that my bag, passport, wallett and camera were all sitting there on a wall. At least I hoped they still were.

I drove fast with anxious thoughts of what I would do if the bag were not there. Where to start looking? The PA had to leave at 9.15pm so I didn't have much time.

It took me 22 minutes to get there. I was having fantasies about a F1 Hong Kong Grand Prix as I drove. And as I drew up to the space we had parked in but an hour earlier I saw my dear old bag waiting for me on the wall. Hallelujah!

Driving myself, crazy

The other day, in one of my blind panics that involves propelling the Flying Sofa around Hong Kong, and never quite managing to go the way I intended, I realised too late that I was in an Autotoll lane for the Aberdeen Tunnel. Realising my error, I drew up and, to show willing, feebly waved my HK$5 out of the window. There was no one to take it. The whole point of Autotoll is that the booths are unmanned. Instead, a large bus loomed into my rear view and honked impatiently. I had no choice but to cross the red light and drive on. When I got home I related the story to my eldest son who gasped and said, You’ll have to pay a fine Mummy. It’s about HK$5,000. I hoped he was wrong.

I have no GPS. If one exists for Hong Kong I could have done with it. An all too familiar scenario is to be driving along a busy expressway with a vague idea of where I am going but little idea how to get there. Up ahead I see a flyover crossing my road some 30 feet in the air. I recognise that I need to be up on that road but I have no idea how to join the dots.

In the early days I felt quite proud of myself for seizing the bull by the horns and getting behind the wheel of my car. One ex-pat earned my scorn with her admission that she didn’t drive on the left. Another that she was only prepared to drive in certain parts of Hong Kong. Me? I’d go anywhere – mostly unintentionally. As for arriving I was usually late, shaking with fright and bathed in sweat.

Just a couple of weeks ago I spent over an hour trying to find the way into Bonham Road via a spider’s web of Midlevels crossing roads, flyovers and underpasses. In desperation I phoned the Pioneering Accountant in the office and begged for help. With assistance from Google maps he talked me through it. When I finally hit Bonham Road I had to turn left. The address I needed required a right. I gave up in disgust and drove home.

By hesitating and dithering I have discovered parts of Hong Kong and the New Territories I had no intention of visiting. Each outing in the car has been an adventure and each time I went wrong I was sure I wouldn’t make that particular mistake again. Others maybe. The children quickly grew accustomed to my predicament and learnt to ask as a matter of course, Are we lost Mummy? Good gracious me, no! I would insist. We’ve been here before, haven’t we? Yes, Mummy, the last time we were lost.

The real dramas took place on journeys to the furthest reaches of the New Territories where the 7 year old was learning to ride. I took to following the school bus so we could learn the way. The bus driver was incredibly speedy and was armed with the requisite Autotoll. I had a hard job keeping up with him as he shot through the tolls whilst I fumbled for change and waited for the four cars ahead of me to find theirs too. On one occasion, the bus long gone, we took the wrong exit and found ourselves stuck in a tsunami of heavy goods vehicles heading for the border. I could hardly swing a U-turn whilst hundreds of one-way freight trucks bore down on me and yet we didn’t actually want to go to China. I nudged my 7 year old out of the car and told him to make sorrowful faces at an official. He returned to the car with a guard who arranged to have us led out of danger under police escort and flashing blue lights. The 7 year old was thrilled.

I taught the children how to use the “Maps” function of my iPhone. Sometimes we’d arrive at our destination without incident and with a degree of luck. Sometimes the battery ran out en route and left us floundering about in tiny back streets. But mostly I ended up snatching it from whichever incompetent was in the passenger seat and trying to read directions while I missed turnings and started to snap. And very occasionally but quite inexplicably, the road we were mistakenly following would turn back on itself and filter us onto just the route we’d been hoping for.

Once I’d got over barking at map reading minors it finally dawned on me that we could never actually be that far from home. Even in Kowloon you can see landmark buildings on Hong Kong-side. At best you will recognise the signs to where you want to go and at worst you’ll end up in a tunnel you didn’t mean to enter. But keep going long enough and you usually end up back where you started.

And when I grew over confident about where I was going I was stopped for speeding. The fact that I had neither HK I.D. nor driving license with me did not look good. I tried to explain to the baffled policeman that my driving license had been submitted in support of my application for a Hong Kong license. He in turn explained to me I was due to get three points and an on the spot fine of HK $450. I was busy being very polite while reaching for my wallet when he suddenly announced he was just going to give me a verbal warning and let me go. Your case was too complicated for him to deal with, crowed my HK passenger. It’s ex-pat women like you that the police are most afraid of as they always stand their ground. You got away with it!

A letter came recently headed Evasion of Toll. It stated that on such and such a date my vehicle had travelled through the Autotoll booth of the Aberdeen Tunnel without a valid toll tag. My hands began to shake. A driver who fails to pay the appropriate toll in full commits an offence, the letter continued. Please arrange the Total Outstanding payment as below within 14 days. Bang goes my fake Birkin, I thought to myself, I’m about to spend it on a fine. I looked again. The Amount Outstanding was given as HK$5.00 – the tunnel fee and not a cent more.

Take away the cost of the postage stamp at HK$1.40 and I think you’ll agree that a bargain tunnel crossing at HK$3.60 is something of a result.

When Mother does not know best

The prolonged spell of clear, sunny weather that has seen us lounging on beaches, eating outside and in the pool every afternoon came to an abrupt end this week with amber rain and thunderstorm warnings.

Whilst past weekends have seen us exploring the New Territories while our eldest learns to “Be a Storyteller” at HK Chinese University in Sha Tin, this week his teacher cancelled and the only NT excursion was to bring the five year old and me home from hospital. The boys’ sailing course at Middle Island was cancelled due to rain warnings and we found ourselves facing the prospect of a loooong weekend inside.

So what jollier prospect than to ride one of Hong Kong Island’s double-decker trams from end to end and see the sights?

This was the view with the window up.

And this was the view with the window down, little better and we got wet.

The children grew quickly bored (can’t think why) and we only made it to one end before giving up and heading home. I spotted Hong Kong’s Central library and an interesting looking market at Shau Kei Wan (neither of which I shall have time to appreciate) and marvelled at the steep sides of the escarpment that rise above King’s Road east of North Point.

The five year old is in considerable discomfort. He is eating virtually nothing now that the novelty of ice cream, milk shake and fresh smoothie has worn off and he grows visibly thinner by the day. He has stopped snoring and is sleeping for England but his breath smells vile and he is unusually quiet and still. To me it is clear he is weak from lack of food but nothing will induce him to eat and I find myself at a loss as to what to do. So much for mother knows best.

As rain pours down the windows and drips though the air con vents into the kitchen we play Carcassonne and Pictionary for hours between whizzing delicious fruits up in the liquidiser to tempt the ailing patient. He takes a sip, announces he’s full and his siblings gulp the rest.

As Sunday draws to a close, we have almost survived our confinement when WW III breaks out in the playroom. Son 2 has offended Son 1 in some way involving misuse of a piece of Pictionary paper. He gets clobbered by Son 1 and screams like a stuck pig. How many times in the last two days have we appealed to our eldest not to resort to violence? No-one is prepared for the pent up storm of fury released in a family deprived of fresh air and exercise for two days. The ten year old’s fuse has been lit and after he lands me a passing thump I too go off like a firework.

The Domestic God spends hours trying to reason with Son 1 whilst I state that it is being too soft on him that has created the monster that holds us all hostage with these outbursts. He's ten for goodness sake, what will it be like when he's fifteen? For the second time today I don’t know what to do so I put him outside the back door until he can be more civilised. It is no longer raining: you’ll be glad to know there are limits to my cruelty. However, it is the fear of mosquito bites that drives him inside repentant, apologetic and keen to make amends. We have a big hug and a chat and the whole family ends the evening listening to him playing his trumpet like an angel.