It's my last evening in Hong Kong--this has certainly been a fun vacation. I had enough time to both view all the sites and relax. Sadly, I must return to the harsh wilderness of grad school, filled with afternoon naps and ultimate frisbee :)
Thursday I visited my brother's factory in China, where they manufacture all the robots. There were several assembly lines at the factory--the workers were fabricating all kinds of plastic goods, though mainly toys. The workers, mostly women, are poorly paid, though given that room and board are provided, the conditions seem reasonable. Whether it's a better life than the farm workers (growing bananas and sugar cane) we passed on the car ride to the factory is probably a matter of personal preference rather than absolutes (though what do
I know).
iRobot arranged for a driver to take me on a day tour of southern China. My driver was very friendly, and though she spoke 15 words in English, and my Cantonese consisted of only greetings, our liberal use roman numerals successfully conveyed ideas. The first stop was the Boama Gardens, a national touristy locale, where they had ink pads of 18th century Emporers and bronze statues from BCE on display. Next stop was Guangzhou cultural center and local neighborhood. The center had works on display from local artists and I bought a landscape painting for my 'rents. (I bargained the price down to two-thirds of the original.) The nearby neighborhood was very poor--school had just let out, so I saw a lot of activity. Most people ignored me, but some gave me the weirdest look, as in "what the heck are you doing here?!" Given China's homogeneous society, it is pretty easy to stand out.
The last stop was a huge mall and outdoor market in Guangzhou. The outdoor market had one strip where shop after shop was just selling fabric, beads, and buttons. Two stores augmented these items with designer tags. Yes, they were selling the tags themselves. if you ever wondered how that $5 knock-off got its brand name on it, here's your answer: China. For the only time on this vacation, I had trouble finding dinner at the mall because of my vegetarianism--dinner was Gatorade, an Asian pear, and the most disgusting corn I've ever had. I sat down to eat the corn, and this guy decided to shoot a photo of me every time I bit into the corn. Maybe I was eating it wrong or something...
On Friday I came back to Hong Kong, and went to Orthodox services. I discovered later that there were non-ortho services as well, but being the newbie that I am, I went to the first ones I could find--the Orthodox. Unsurprisingly, the Shabbat prayers, tunes, and customs were the exact same as in the US--it was quite easy to follow along in the very standard ArtScroll prayer book. (I noticed two women relegated to the balcony of the synagogue; as elsewhere, the place was dominated by men.)
After services, I stayed for Shabbat dinner. Unfortunately, I was the only person at the table that was not fluent in conversational Hebrew. The guest of honor was Israeli Knesset member Shaul Yahalom, so much of the dinner conversation occurred in Hebrew. Most of the time I knew the topic of conversation and not much else--I can tell you that disengagement was not discussed.
Yesterday we attended a Hong Kong First Division soccer match. Happy Valley tied Xiangxue Sun Hei 1-1. (Marc and I rooted for Happy Valley of course, since we couldn't pronounce the other team's name.) Saturday night Marc's coworkers and I haggled at the Temple St night market. Today I finally had dim sum at Maxim's Palace, based on Chu's recommendation. And then I crossed the last item off the "to-do" list by buying a Lan Kwai Fong shirt at Ben&Jerry's. And so ends my Hong Kong adventure.
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