On An Aeroplane Over The Sea

From Studying Abroad in Hong Kong

This was a roller coaster at Ocean Park, a theme park in Hong Kong. Very, very tame rides. Asians frighten easily. It's science. But, the views were incredible.

This weekend I went to my first horse racetrack. The stadium is 1/4th mile long; the seats were at least half-filled the entire length. It reminded me of a casino because everyone was there to gamble and it reeked of desperation and empty hopes. There were losing betting slips scattered everywhere, and at the end of the night they came out with leaf blowers to blow them away. Many of the "professional" horse-race gamblers use hyper-obsessive techniques like monitoring the weights of the jockeys, examining how the horses walked before the race, and perusing extensive publications devoted entirely to predicting the winners of the races. From my short stay at the track, I found that there was no correlation between the favorites to win and the actual winners. But, the professionals would dismiss this as purely anecdotal.

One interesting thing is that Chinese people are afraid of the number four. If they paid attention, they should be afraid of seven, because seven eight nine. Nonetheless, there is a going theory that the number four horse enjoys abnormally good odds because even if it is a favorite to win, no one wants to bet on it.

I went to my first movie in Hong Kong. Despite the fact that people rarely hang out in their apartments and are always out shopping and eating, cinema is not a popular past-time in Hong Kong. I wouldn't be surprised if Sioux Falls, South Dakota had more theatres than Hong Kong. Anyways, one cool thing about the movies in Hong Kong is that you get to pick your seats, like you're on an airplane. I requested a window seat.

Also, they serve chocolate popcorn and fish meat balls. The chocolate popcorn is very similar to the 'Kettle Korn' they serve at fairs, in that it is sweet and salty at the same time. Pretty delicious, but I prefer salt and butter.

In other news, I changed my flights and will be spending Christmas in Colorado with my family and New Year's Eve in New York City.

On Second Thought...

A contrary view to the Slate article I linked to in my last post, which discussed the scourge of constant distraction and our mind's fixation on "seeking" appears in a Wired Magazine article.

"Most jobs don’t allow that [daydreaming on a three-hour walk], of course. That’s why I’ve begun to think that the “social” Internet has become a rough substitute. If your boss is trying to force you to focus on PowerPoint and Word documents, you might gravitate to mentally discursive, floaty experiences — the idle surfing of Facebook updates, Wikipedia entries, YouTube videos, casual games like Bejeweled. Maybe these things aren’t so much time sucks as desperate attempts by our brains to decouple from the go-go-go machine and head off on its own."

Mid-Life Crisis

I am thinking about buying a Corvette; I am halfway done with my semester in Hong Kong. Time has been passing much more quickly as I've settled into a routine with class, gotten used to campus, and am no longer continually buffeted by random Asian novelties.

I went to Taiwan a few weekends ago. My extreme nerdiness shone through on the flight back from Taipei, as I was excited about it being my first time on a Boeing 747, which is the airplane with two stories and a big hump at the front. I took a video of myself walking onto the airplane, which I don't really recommend watching, except for the ambient Chinese voices and funny stares from people realizing I'm videotaping them.

Taiwan was pretty cool. People are aggressively friendly. That is, they will come up to you, without provocation, and try to help you find something or get somewhere. Perhaps their behavior stems from their fixation with white people/English speakers/rugged good looks? For some reason, and I don't remember doing this, I ordered Kosher meals for the flights to and from Taipei. As an aside, Asian airlines are far more enjoyable than American ones. They gave me copies of the International Herald Tribune and Financial Times, served me a full meal, and checked back with me at least three times to see if I wanted more coffee, all during a one-hour flight. So, they came up to me with this Kosher certificate and asked me to inspect my meal as we were waiting to push back from the gate. Then, amidst a sea of Chinese/Taiwanese people, the lone six-foot (okay, 5'11") white dude, moi, gets served fifteen minutes before everyone else. And, everything was individually wrapped, so it was a noisy, messy ordeal getting everything open. I'm putting my best foot forward to assimilate fully into the Asian culture. That's why I buy Starbucks in the airports.

A highlight from Taiwan was visiting a tea house at a tea plantation in the foothills outside of Taipei. It was very foggy and wet, and it made the whole experience of drinking tea on a patio overlooking the lush hills of the plantation very surreal.

I got a job as an English tutor for a private family. Each week, they have me over for dinner, which their domestic helper cooks, and then I tutor their daughter for an hour. It is fun to hang out with the family in their home, which is much different than interacting with locals in restaurants or on campus. Last week, the daugher and I played piano, and the cousins were all pretty excited to have me around and had lots of questions for me. It is the most welcomed I have felt so far in Hong Kong.

The family I tutor for is relatively wealthy. However, for the two parents, two kids, and their live-in domestic helper, they have a mere 700 square feet in their apartment. The home is comfortable and well-decorated, but I don't know if I could adapt to such a cramped living arrangement.

We have a long weekend coming up. I don't have class Friday or Monday. Many people are traveling to Tokyo, Cambodia, Thailand, mainland China, and Taiwan. Unfortunately, I have to teach English on Saturday, and try to finish all of my law school applications. Having it as a nagging obligation while being over here in Hong Kong, along with my research paper, has been pretty frustrating. I hope that I will be able to relax after finishing them, but recognizing my own neurotic inclinations, I will more likely consume myself obsessing over potential acceptances/rejections.

Finally, some unsolicited psychoanalysis. Sometimes, I feel as though I am in a continuous state of restlessness and distraction. It is difficult for me to maintain focus on one activity for a long period of time. While trying to focus on something like studying Chinese, I'll feel an overwhelming urge to check my email or go get a drink or engage in any other inane distraction. After coming upon this surprisingly relevant article (which I likely read while distracting myself from whatever task I was supposed to be accomplishing), I decided to divert my fleeting attention into a necessarily longer-term activity: reading books. So, I still pull myself away from studying and other obligations just as readily, but I make an effort to avoid checking Facebook or surfing Digg, and instead try to read. I'm not sure if it is at all helpful, but I have gotten way more discretionary reading done in the last few weeks than what I'd normally accomplish in a year. I read "Brave New World," "The Stranger," and an eerie, very entertaining book, which I just finished, "Dangerous Laughter."

Post Cereal in Asia...

I worked for Ralcorp Holdings this summer and Post Cereal is one of their recent acquisitions. It is fun to see my summer office's address (800 Market Street, Saint Louis, MO) on cereal boxes in random Chinese grocery stores.

Today, I encountered what I consider to be an egregious failure in custom-tailoring cereal boxes to the region in which they are sold. They are pulling at the heart strings of the burgeoning wealthy at the local discount grocery stores by imploring: Let's Feed America Together!