This will probably be my last blog before we head back stateside for the Winter holiday. I figured I should do something profound for a change rather than just give my usual rant on how things are in Hong Kong (although we did just get back from an awesome barbecue, special thanks to our friend Dan for organizing and all the others who showed up!). I am a philosopher, right? That means I should have some words of wisdom, otherwise the money HKU is investing in me is probably going to waste. That being said, here's a little commentary on my current-totally-unofficial opinion of the dynamic in classical Chinese philosophy.
Traditionally, we have the great thinkers of the Warring States Era being divided up into different schools, the three we're most familiar with being the Confucians, Mohists, and hodge-podge Daoists. Traditionally, we hold that these three schools (and probably about one hundred others) all held different, competing doctrines about ideal government/ethical structure and were constantly at one another's throats. Traditionally, we hold that the philosopher's necessarily disagreed with one another on many issues of significance.
Traditionally, we're probably wrong on some of these counts.
I'm not saying that the three schools should have gotten along perfectly. They definitely did disagree on some key points. What's interesting, however, is how much they all seem to overlap and not conflict on what were probably the most pertinent philosophical matters, particularly the issue of harmony and particularly if we interpret the philosophies with the most charitable (coherent) readings possible. On points of seeming disagreement, you often get two sides talking past one another. On points of genuine disagreement, is frequently on an issue that is secondary or not pertinent to the philosophical discussion at hand.
Take the Confucian-Mohist debate: The Confucians are all about the importance of socio-ethical roles, what makes them distinct, and how they relate. Part of this is a hierarchy in which goods are divided according to station. The Mohists are more about the "little guy", wanting all humans to be treated the same in virtue of being human (that means no elaborate state funerals, King Wu). They aren't trying to rock the boat socio-politically, and they're totally in favor of meritocracy, but they just end up being extremely frugal in comparison and have a focus on material benefit. The thing here is that there's nothing really in Mohism that pushes it to extreme ethical or economic socialism, and there's nothing in Confucianism that really rejects it. The main difference is that the Confucians have a system of rituals supposedly established to take care of human needs and the Mohists have a general principle of utility. Their goals end up not conflicting and both sides can mostly accommodate one another. It's that bit about how you're grounding your ethics and how flexible you can be that might make all the difference, but then both sides seem pretty okay with this as well.
Then we add in the Daoists who, despite their love of aphorism, seem to have some substantive points about the nature of things: "A guide that can guide; inconstant guide" and "Names that can name; inconstant names". What does this mean? That the world is constantly shifting and constantly in flux? There's nothing in Mohism or Confucianism that seems to really reject this point. Similarly, with the Zhuangzi text, you get this long discussion about the trouble of establishing any single standard and expecting it to work at all time for all people. Sounds anti-Kantian, right? It is, and that begs the question: Why would Confucians or Mohists commit themselves to a view that developed many centuries later in Germany? The Daoists seem to (indirectly) heap a lot of criticisms on the Confucians and Mohists that don't necessarily apply to them. They make very good points, but is it anything the Confucians and Mohists have to reject? Probably not.
The fact of the matter is that direct engagement has probably never been a trend in Chinese culture. Discretion has always been the better part of valor, especially in matters of competition. The boastful often meet violent ends, while the cautious often reap the benefits of conquest. It seems a more likely tactic that a lot of these philosophies would not outright challenge one another, so much as indirectly criticize or even assimilate points to bolster their arguments. It wasn't about winning the debate so much as winning followers; let the people choose the victor. This is probably why there was so much apparent disagreement: the many sides needed to distinguish themselves from one another and, thus, clung dogmatically to the aspects of their systems that were most distinctive, holding them up as signs while holding more similar values below. In some ways this may have been beneficial, as it probably allowed for the rapid development of increasingly sophisticated philosophical form. On the other hand, it probably limited the extent to which philosophy itself could flourish in that the breadth of discussion would have been narrower, despite an impressive depth.
All right, I think that's enough of a philosophical aside for today. I hope you've all enjoyed keeping up with us for the Fall semester. We look forward to writing more later in December or early January.
Peace on Earth, good will toward men (in the gender neutral sense),
Colin
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
How Colin Saved Thanksgiving
Ugh, it has been one long week. Sorry for the lack of updates, but we've been massively overworked to the point of bodily harm. Yes, bodily harm...
So last week I gave my presentation on the first half of my thesis. It went pretty well, despite a single attempt at show-stopping. I think everyone was relatively satisfied with what was discussed and, aside from some complaints about my translations, my supervisor was okay with it as well.
I have to say that being done with the seminar is a huge load off of my back, although it left me with a few revision ideas for my thesis that I've been driving in ever since. Still, I think I'm finally at a point where I can just stop and relax for a while. My work in Hong Kong is almost done and soon we'll be on our way home for a brief respite before the final leg.
Oh, speaking of legs, Carina's are all torn up. Yeah, this goes back to the bodily harm bit...
So last week included Thanksgiving. Originally, we'd just planned to have a small feast in the apartment but Carina's boss was all over the idea of having a big T-day dinner at her flat in Discovery Bay. She also offered to pay for the groceries. Well, who were we to refuse such generosity? We went over on Saturday (Thursday was my presentation) to help with preparation and cooking. Of course, by "help with" I mean "do all of". Cara's boss is a bit ADD and tends to flutter around rather than just sit still and focus. This includes grocery shopping (I don't mind telling you how hard it is to figure out where someone totally random will be in a supermarket).
Anyway, after purchasing the groceries (which included pretty much everything but the turkey), we were getting ready to take the bus up to the apartment. This is when the injury occurred. One second we're just getting the bags distributed so we can carry the 75 pounds of supplies, the next Carina's boss has started dashing for a bus that, by the way, just pulled up and showed no sign of leaving immediately. Well, Carina and I followed suit. Unfortunately, Carina had (bravely, I think), opted to carry some of the most awkwardly-shaped materials and, given the weird distribution of mass, ended up missing a step when running off the curb. She took a nosedive (or, rather, a knee and elbow dive) across the ground. It was a bloody mess, but she toughed it out and clambered aboard the bus with all of her groceries intact.
When we did get to the apartment (a five minute ride away), we immediately set to work on preparing the meal...well, after Carina's boss tried to clean her up a bit...awkward. Anyway, Carina did a great job of organizing everything, taking inventory, and getting us started on preparation. I, lacking any Thanksgiving cooking experience, was more than happy to follow along, assisting in whatever way possible (preferably with a glass of wine nearby. By the way, avoid carmeneres, they aren't that great). We ended up putting together green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, cranberry relish, and sweet potato casserole in addition to the turkey and stuffing (which, by the way, included the most onion I think I've ever seen Carina eat). I did a lot of the prep work and Carina did most of the measuring and putting together of stuffs. Carina's boss talked...at great length...whether I wanted her to or not.
Finally, after almost everything was prepped, we were at the critical moment of the great switch of the turkey from the oven to...everything else. Unfortunately, it was at this point that Olga decided she wanted to go out for a walk. Lovely. Well, we couldn't just leave everything to burn. I had one of two options: either abandon my post and leave Carina to fend for herself in the kitchen while I had awkward conversation, or I could actually try to hold my own in the kitchen. I chose the latter.
As Carina and her boss left, I checked the clock: I had ten minutes to keep checking on and basting the turkey while boiling the corn and making the sweet potato casserole as I loaded in the stuffing and green bean casserole to bake. Okay, I have this: corn should be finished boiling within 15 minutes, sweet potatoes in 20 and they'd already been in for 15. The green bean casserole needed 20-40 minutes to bake and the stuffing needed 30. The sweet potato casserole would only need about 20. No problem, piece of cake.
I started prepping the corn for the boil. At the five minute mark I checked the sweet potatoes (they seemed done) and swapped them out for the corn; I also gave the turkey another basting. I returned to the sweet potatoes and, despite them being blazing hot, I peeled them as quickly as I could, just barely finishing getting the last one into the mashing bowl at the second five minute mark. Phew! I opened the oven and checked the turkey: it looked like it needed a little more time. I basted it again and left it for another five minutes. I turned back to my yams and started taking a masher to them. Then it happened: hard potatoes.
Despite having boiled for over twenty minutes, the yams still weren't soft enough to mash easily. I tried pounding away, but the masher kept falling apart. I decided to take a more primal approach: I picked up the hard parts of the sweet potatoes and started crushing them in my hands. It was a little messy, but it got the job done. Five minutes later, the yams had been mashed and I'd poured in the other ingredients to make the casserole. I quickly washed my hands off and pulled the corn, then the turkey: perfect. I carefully set it on the counter and replaced it with the green bean casserole and stuffing before returning to my sweet potato casserole-in-progress. After mixing the ingredients together I spread it in the casserole dish we'd picked for it and placed the marshmallows on top to coat it. I checked the time and saw I'd regained about five minutes. Perfect. I poured myself some more wine and, after the five minute down period elapsed, I added my casserole to the oven.
Thirty minutes later (than expected), Carina finally managed to drag her boss home again. As she walked in, the look on her face read: "I am so, so sorry...now give me some of that wine." No worries, Love, I had everything covered. The turkey, stuffing, and sweet potato casserole all came out beautifully. For some reason the green bean casserole never set properly, but it was delicious all the same. We sat down, had a nice dinner, and enjoyed our quasi-Thanksgiving.
The End...of that part of the story.
Since then we've still had a lot on our plates. Just yesterday some American friends of ours hit us up to say they were returning stateside and wanted to know if we'd like any of their stuff. Um...yes, please? We hurried over to Hung Hom and returned with what I like to call "Christmas Come Early". We have about HKD 2000 worth of groceries in addition to our own toaster oven, a decent cooking pan, a water filter, and numerous other items that will no doubt serve us well here in Hong Kong. Did we luck out? Yes, yes we did...now, excuse us while we collapse from exhaustion.
Looking forward to seeing you all soon,
Colin (and Carina)
So last week I gave my presentation on the first half of my thesis. It went pretty well, despite a single attempt at show-stopping. I think everyone was relatively satisfied with what was discussed and, aside from some complaints about my translations, my supervisor was okay with it as well.
I have to say that being done with the seminar is a huge load off of my back, although it left me with a few revision ideas for my thesis that I've been driving in ever since. Still, I think I'm finally at a point where I can just stop and relax for a while. My work in Hong Kong is almost done and soon we'll be on our way home for a brief respite before the final leg.
Oh, speaking of legs, Carina's are all torn up. Yeah, this goes back to the bodily harm bit...
So last week included Thanksgiving. Originally, we'd just planned to have a small feast in the apartment but Carina's boss was all over the idea of having a big T-day dinner at her flat in Discovery Bay. She also offered to pay for the groceries. Well, who were we to refuse such generosity? We went over on Saturday (Thursday was my presentation) to help with preparation and cooking. Of course, by "help with" I mean "do all of". Cara's boss is a bit ADD and tends to flutter around rather than just sit still and focus. This includes grocery shopping (I don't mind telling you how hard it is to figure out where someone totally random will be in a supermarket).
Anyway, after purchasing the groceries (which included pretty much everything but the turkey), we were getting ready to take the bus up to the apartment. This is when the injury occurred. One second we're just getting the bags distributed so we can carry the 75 pounds of supplies, the next Carina's boss has started dashing for a bus that, by the way, just pulled up and showed no sign of leaving immediately. Well, Carina and I followed suit. Unfortunately, Carina had (bravely, I think), opted to carry some of the most awkwardly-shaped materials and, given the weird distribution of mass, ended up missing a step when running off the curb. She took a nosedive (or, rather, a knee and elbow dive) across the ground. It was a bloody mess, but she toughed it out and clambered aboard the bus with all of her groceries intact.
When we did get to the apartment (a five minute ride away), we immediately set to work on preparing the meal...well, after Carina's boss tried to clean her up a bit...awkward. Anyway, Carina did a great job of organizing everything, taking inventory, and getting us started on preparation. I, lacking any Thanksgiving cooking experience, was more than happy to follow along, assisting in whatever way possible (preferably with a glass of wine nearby. By the way, avoid carmeneres, they aren't that great). We ended up putting together green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, cranberry relish, and sweet potato casserole in addition to the turkey and stuffing (which, by the way, included the most onion I think I've ever seen Carina eat). I did a lot of the prep work and Carina did most of the measuring and putting together of stuffs. Carina's boss talked...at great length...whether I wanted her to or not.
Finally, after almost everything was prepped, we were at the critical moment of the great switch of the turkey from the oven to...everything else. Unfortunately, it was at this point that Olga decided she wanted to go out for a walk. Lovely. Well, we couldn't just leave everything to burn. I had one of two options: either abandon my post and leave Carina to fend for herself in the kitchen while I had awkward conversation, or I could actually try to hold my own in the kitchen. I chose the latter.
As Carina and her boss left, I checked the clock: I had ten minutes to keep checking on and basting the turkey while boiling the corn and making the sweet potato casserole as I loaded in the stuffing and green bean casserole to bake. Okay, I have this: corn should be finished boiling within 15 minutes, sweet potatoes in 20 and they'd already been in for 15. The green bean casserole needed 20-40 minutes to bake and the stuffing needed 30. The sweet potato casserole would only need about 20. No problem, piece of cake.
I started prepping the corn for the boil. At the five minute mark I checked the sweet potatoes (they seemed done) and swapped them out for the corn; I also gave the turkey another basting. I returned to the sweet potatoes and, despite them being blazing hot, I peeled them as quickly as I could, just barely finishing getting the last one into the mashing bowl at the second five minute mark. Phew! I opened the oven and checked the turkey: it looked like it needed a little more time. I basted it again and left it for another five minutes. I turned back to my yams and started taking a masher to them. Then it happened: hard potatoes.
Despite having boiled for over twenty minutes, the yams still weren't soft enough to mash easily. I tried pounding away, but the masher kept falling apart. I decided to take a more primal approach: I picked up the hard parts of the sweet potatoes and started crushing them in my hands. It was a little messy, but it got the job done. Five minutes later, the yams had been mashed and I'd poured in the other ingredients to make the casserole. I quickly washed my hands off and pulled the corn, then the turkey: perfect. I carefully set it on the counter and replaced it with the green bean casserole and stuffing before returning to my sweet potato casserole-in-progress. After mixing the ingredients together I spread it in the casserole dish we'd picked for it and placed the marshmallows on top to coat it. I checked the time and saw I'd regained about five minutes. Perfect. I poured myself some more wine and, after the five minute down period elapsed, I added my casserole to the oven.
Thirty minutes later (than expected), Carina finally managed to drag her boss home again. As she walked in, the look on her face read: "I am so, so sorry...now give me some of that wine." No worries, Love, I had everything covered. The turkey, stuffing, and sweet potato casserole all came out beautifully. For some reason the green bean casserole never set properly, but it was delicious all the same. We sat down, had a nice dinner, and enjoyed our quasi-Thanksgiving.
The End...of that part of the story.
Since then we've still had a lot on our plates. Just yesterday some American friends of ours hit us up to say they were returning stateside and wanted to know if we'd like any of their stuff. Um...yes, please? We hurried over to Hung Hom and returned with what I like to call "Christmas Come Early". We have about HKD 2000 worth of groceries in addition to our own toaster oven, a decent cooking pan, a water filter, and numerous other items that will no doubt serve us well here in Hong Kong. Did we luck out? Yes, yes we did...now, excuse us while we collapse from exhaustion.
Looking forward to seeing you all soon,
Colin (and Carina)
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Crazy Week
Hey-o!
You probably noticed the lack of update this week. Yeah, sorry about that. We've been busy...and sick...and busy.
I've been doing a bunch of stuff for the department, including putting together a seminar presentation for this Thursday evening. Yeah, that's right. I'll be speaking before the people. Let's watch me make a fool of myself and then point and laugh over drinks. Looking forward to that! Seriously, though, I think it'll go pretty well. I've been working on this for quite a while and I'm in the dress rehearsal phase at this point. As long as my colleagues don't try to shoot me to pieces over my (probably unpopular) ideas, it'll be a good conversation.
I've also been revising my thesis so I can have a full draft together by the end of the month. I tacked on an introduction and conclusion, made some significant changes, and I now have a product that's roughly one hundred pages in length. This is officially the largest academic project I've ever done, and I don't mind telling you all that it feels awesome. I just hope it gets accepted so I can defend it and come home to relax a bit before my next endeavor.
Speaking of next endeavors, we submitted my application for Duke's PhD program last night (fees paid and everything). Now we just have to sit, wait, and hope for the best. If any of you believe in a higher power, now's the time to pray to it for me. I might even pray to a few myself, despite my agnosticism. I really need this position to carry on with my research effectively.
Finally, I've spent the past few days organizing and going through some..."official" stuff to help out a friend of mine in the department. Apparently it's stuff that guidelines are a bit fuzzy about, so I can't disclose the information here. I will say, however, that it has been both a rewarding and exhausting project, and I'm learning quite a bit for my potential future as a professor. I'm really just glad I can help someone out, though.
Carina has actually been even worse off than I am, though. Friday morning she woke up with what seems to be food poisoning and has been coping with it since. I also seem to have ingested something not so good for my gut, but my pain doesn't seem to be nearly on the same level that her's has reached. Fortunately, it's starting to get better. Unfortunately, it puts a damper on what kinds of food we can eat. With any luck this will be cleared up for both of us before Thursday. I have a lecture to give and the next night we have Thanksgiving plans. Come back next week to learn how that goes!
All right, proctoring duties call.
Colin-Man, away!
You probably noticed the lack of update this week. Yeah, sorry about that. We've been busy...and sick...and busy.
I've been doing a bunch of stuff for the department, including putting together a seminar presentation for this Thursday evening. Yeah, that's right. I'll be speaking before the people. Let's watch me make a fool of myself and then point and laugh over drinks. Looking forward to that! Seriously, though, I think it'll go pretty well. I've been working on this for quite a while and I'm in the dress rehearsal phase at this point. As long as my colleagues don't try to shoot me to pieces over my (probably unpopular) ideas, it'll be a good conversation.
I've also been revising my thesis so I can have a full draft together by the end of the month. I tacked on an introduction and conclusion, made some significant changes, and I now have a product that's roughly one hundred pages in length. This is officially the largest academic project I've ever done, and I don't mind telling you all that it feels awesome. I just hope it gets accepted so I can defend it and come home to relax a bit before my next endeavor.
Speaking of next endeavors, we submitted my application for Duke's PhD program last night (fees paid and everything). Now we just have to sit, wait, and hope for the best. If any of you believe in a higher power, now's the time to pray to it for me. I might even pray to a few myself, despite my agnosticism. I really need this position to carry on with my research effectively.
Finally, I've spent the past few days organizing and going through some..."official" stuff to help out a friend of mine in the department. Apparently it's stuff that guidelines are a bit fuzzy about, so I can't disclose the information here. I will say, however, that it has been both a rewarding and exhausting project, and I'm learning quite a bit for my potential future as a professor. I'm really just glad I can help someone out, though.
Carina has actually been even worse off than I am, though. Friday morning she woke up with what seems to be food poisoning and has been coping with it since. I also seem to have ingested something not so good for my gut, but my pain doesn't seem to be nearly on the same level that her's has reached. Fortunately, it's starting to get better. Unfortunately, it puts a damper on what kinds of food we can eat. With any luck this will be cleared up for both of us before Thursday. I have a lecture to give and the next night we have Thanksgiving plans. Come back next week to learn how that goes!
All right, proctoring duties call.
Colin-Man, away!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Hong Kong Cools Off...Kinda'
Hey, yo! What's up?
So Hong Kong entered into a bit of a rainy season this week (by "season" I mean two or three days) and, prepare for a shocker, actually cooled off a bit! Mind you, mid to high sixties in the morning and high seventies by noon is still entirely too warm for November, but it's a major improvement over the high seventies mid eighties weather we've been stuck with for the past, oh, three months. Yeah, it's a nice break.
One of the best parts is that this spring time weather means that there are fewer people out and about in the morning, as the locals break out their arctic coats to brave this frigid winter. Sorry, but I cannot help but be amused by the fact that shorts, T-shirt, and sandals weather for me is once again heavily-bundled weather for almost everyone else. Sure, I might look like a nut-job due to my stand-out-ness, but what do I care? The weather is finally sufficiently cool enough that I can wear clothes and not feel like I'm melting (and that's just when I'm standing around!).
Unfortunately, the weather isn't expected to last much longer. Come next week we should be back up to the seventies and eighties again, which means I won't be able to sleep under a blanket at night. Oh well, you enjoy these things as they make themselves available to you, and such pleasures are fleeting.
Speaking of fleeting pleasures, we have a new restaurant review for you folks. There's a little place near HKU that specializes in northwestern Chinese style food called "Ba Yi" (the restaurant, not the style). I first read about the place last year and noticed it had lots of great reviews. Apparently it's famous among the low to mid range restaurants and is frequently packed, requiring reservations on most nights during the prime dining hours. Fortunately, 9:00 PM on a Thursday is never really prime dining time, so after an enjoyable department seminar and several pints of beer a few of us sat down to give the famous food a shot.
Apparently, the staples of this food region are not the chicken and pork that we've become accustomed to (and sick of) over the past few months. Instead, sheep are a preferred protein source, and we enjoyed a nice pile of lamb dumplings and what was essentially mutton hash (we had hoped for the mutton skewers, but they were sold out). We also got to try another meat staple: camel. It was served in a manner similar to the mutton, ground up and spaced with a few diced vegetables interspersed. The hash was served to be rolled into the Chinese pancake (which is somewhat like a rice tortilla for those unfamiliar with the concept), and it made for an interesting and filling meal. Spicy and meaty, it wasn't half bad in terms of flavor.
Unfortunately, the meals are marred by a lack of vegetables and an over reliance on greasy sauces. Vegetables really are just used for flavoring and garnish in most Chinese dishes it seems, so it's not really a surprise that there were so few included. The overuse of oil also should not have come as a surprise but, based on all of the positive things I'd read about Ba Yi, I was surprised that they seemed to pour so much in that it left me with a stomachache with which I'm still coping. It's getting better, but I don't think I'll be dining at Ba Yi again anytime soon if ever.
Still, I don't want to discourage people from trying Ba Yi. It's not for me because I like lighter, healthier fare, but there are plenty of folks out there who enjoy rich, hearty meals. If you like spice, love lamb, and want to give camel a shot, then Ba Yi is definitely worthwhile. Plus they give you steins for your beer. How cool is that?
Other than that it's just been another busy week for us. Carina has started researching articles for her boss's projects...I'm helping. I really haven't had much to do myself aside from try to get things organized. Still nothing back on my thesis yet, and I'm pretty sure no one has even started working on a letter of recommendation for me. I'm sure it'll get done, but it's hard not to worry. I guess it's not so bad, though.
Well, I guess that's a wrap for now. Come by next week for more updates!
Viva la camel,
Colin
So Hong Kong entered into a bit of a rainy season this week (by "season" I mean two or three days) and, prepare for a shocker, actually cooled off a bit! Mind you, mid to high sixties in the morning and high seventies by noon is still entirely too warm for November, but it's a major improvement over the high seventies mid eighties weather we've been stuck with for the past, oh, three months. Yeah, it's a nice break.
One of the best parts is that this spring time weather means that there are fewer people out and about in the morning, as the locals break out their arctic coats to brave this frigid winter. Sorry, but I cannot help but be amused by the fact that shorts, T-shirt, and sandals weather for me is once again heavily-bundled weather for almost everyone else. Sure, I might look like a nut-job due to my stand-out-ness, but what do I care? The weather is finally sufficiently cool enough that I can wear clothes and not feel like I'm melting (and that's just when I'm standing around!).
Unfortunately, the weather isn't expected to last much longer. Come next week we should be back up to the seventies and eighties again, which means I won't be able to sleep under a blanket at night. Oh well, you enjoy these things as they make themselves available to you, and such pleasures are fleeting.
Speaking of fleeting pleasures, we have a new restaurant review for you folks. There's a little place near HKU that specializes in northwestern Chinese style food called "Ba Yi" (the restaurant, not the style). I first read about the place last year and noticed it had lots of great reviews. Apparently it's famous among the low to mid range restaurants and is frequently packed, requiring reservations on most nights during the prime dining hours. Fortunately, 9:00 PM on a Thursday is never really prime dining time, so after an enjoyable department seminar and several pints of beer a few of us sat down to give the famous food a shot.
Apparently, the staples of this food region are not the chicken and pork that we've become accustomed to (and sick of) over the past few months. Instead, sheep are a preferred protein source, and we enjoyed a nice pile of lamb dumplings and what was essentially mutton hash (we had hoped for the mutton skewers, but they were sold out). We also got to try another meat staple: camel. It was served in a manner similar to the mutton, ground up and spaced with a few diced vegetables interspersed. The hash was served to be rolled into the Chinese pancake (which is somewhat like a rice tortilla for those unfamiliar with the concept), and it made for an interesting and filling meal. Spicy and meaty, it wasn't half bad in terms of flavor.
Unfortunately, the meals are marred by a lack of vegetables and an over reliance on greasy sauces. Vegetables really are just used for flavoring and garnish in most Chinese dishes it seems, so it's not really a surprise that there were so few included. The overuse of oil also should not have come as a surprise but, based on all of the positive things I'd read about Ba Yi, I was surprised that they seemed to pour so much in that it left me with a stomachache with which I'm still coping. It's getting better, but I don't think I'll be dining at Ba Yi again anytime soon if ever.
Still, I don't want to discourage people from trying Ba Yi. It's not for me because I like lighter, healthier fare, but there are plenty of folks out there who enjoy rich, hearty meals. If you like spice, love lamb, and want to give camel a shot, then Ba Yi is definitely worthwhile. Plus they give you steins for your beer. How cool is that?
Other than that it's just been another busy week for us. Carina has started researching articles for her boss's projects...I'm helping. I really haven't had much to do myself aside from try to get things organized. Still nothing back on my thesis yet, and I'm pretty sure no one has even started working on a letter of recommendation for me. I'm sure it'll get done, but it's hard not to worry. I guess it's not so bad, though.
Well, I guess that's a wrap for now. Come by next week for more updates!
Viva la camel,
Colin
Friday, November 4, 2011
Dear Hong Kong Taxis...
...go die in a fire.
Oh, I'm sorry, I should be more polite.
Go die in a fire, please.
*NOTE: This was posted after an excruciatingly painful and frustrating week and should not be taken as a commentary on my genuine feelings toward the people of Hong Kong at large. As with comments about the US and any other country, these statements pertain only to a particular subset of the population. That being said, even those statements that are sincere should be taken lightly...for the most part. I apologize for any offense caused in reading this...unless you are, in fact, one of those Hong Kong cabbies who thinks it's okay to speed up when approaching a red light and almost hit people. Phew!*
Okay, yeah, this is going to be another one of my immature blog rants but, frankly, I think it's been earned after the week we've had (which Carina has been calling the Week from Hell; fitting for the time of year, no?).
It all started on Sunday when I finally succumbed to my most recent respiratory infection from the pollution and Heaven knows what else in the apartment thanks to Beanpole's inability to clean up after himself. As we move into the (barely perceptible) winter months of Hong Kong the air pollution seems to coagulate and you start to feel like you're just sucking down smog. It's gross both in terms of the damage to your health and the taste left in your mouth, yuck!
Anyway, so here I've been with a runny, swollen nose, itchy throat and eyes, and utter exhaustion for the past few days. Halloween comes around and Carina's boss has invited us over to her flat in Discovery Bay for dinner. Just a heads-up, Discovery Bay (DB) is the place for the beautiful people in Hong Kong, and by beautiful people I mean foreigners...except for us, obviously. I'm ailing, but I don't want to ruin this for Carina and, besides, maybe it'll be a good time even with my sickness. In fact, it was a pretty good time. We had some of the best food we've not cooked ourselves in a while and it was nice to be around some Halloween activities. They really go all-out in DB and the kids love it. Hell, we loved it, too.
Unfortunately my sinuses didn't, and I was miserable as soon as I came down from my high.
Fortunately, I've been healing pretty well and after that night I started to rapidly recover (although I'm still blowing my nose all over the place, and that's a little gross). Our bad juju seemed to transfer to Carina, unfortunately, and she has spent most of the week playing catch-up with work and school along with getting her visa information sorted out. This culminated in a random day trip to Macau (again) where we had some cocktails and not-so-great Thai food to celebrate her getting a visa. Hopefully this will all play out well in the end and she'll be able to start receiving a paycheck ASAP. Also, hopefully we won't have to blow any extra cash on Macau. We need that money for plane tickets.
That having been taken care of, Hong Kong's indeterminate spirit of ill-will seems to have transitioned back over to me for the morning. I woke up late and ended up having to navigate the taxi-infested streets of early morning HK. It's really disgusting how many people take cabs instead of public transport or, Heaven forbid, walk to where they need to go (which is usually only a few blocks away). In my frustration I decided to try a new route uphill to get above the pollution. The plan was to simply run up to a neighborhood I know and then turn off on a road that leads downhill into an area I usually run around.
Grr, and it would've worked too if it weren't for those meddling ill-conceived pedestrian walkway patterns!
Seriously, what is wrong with your city planners, Hong Kong? Why is it that if I want to cross a street in some places I have to vault over a railing just so I can cross a five meter gap? What is the point of that!? On the bright side, I got to practice my parkour, but that also really mucked up my timing...that and the fact that none of the roads are clearly marked and I totally missed my turn-off. Whatever, no big deal, I just ran all the way back downhill and found my usual path to run and make up for lost time...well, almost. I mean, navigating a maze of geriatrics does inhibit your ability to run at full speed.
Topping all of this off, of course, was the fact that whenever I wanted to cross the street this morning I had to dodge a taxi. This rule seemed to apply even when the cab had a red light and I had a green. This is not the first time this has happened, either, which brings me to the question of the week: What the Hell, Hong Kong!?
Seriously, do you people just not have the ability to wait five seconds for something? Do you have to crowd and wrangle every market, bus, and entrance? Is queuing so foreign a concept for you that you always need to be forced into lines to order yourselves, you can't just figure it out spontaneously? Do you not understand that a red light means "STOP" and that you should always give pedestrians right of way? Here's something for you: Red does not mean "GO". Yellow does not mean "GO". Only green means "GO".
Here's my advice to Hong Kong cabbies: grow a freaking frontal lobe and learn to exercise some patience and common courtesy. Your damn schedules and fares don't outweigh the value of human life. You drive up to me, threatening to hit me with your outdated deathtrap. Would you do the same to a little old lady? If you would, shame on you! If you wouldn't, still shame on you! A little old lady might have less resilience, but any human life is a human life. GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS!
Okay, okay, sorry. I just needed to take a moment to get that out. People ask what life in HK is like, though, and I tell 'em. This is what you deal with in HK: pollution, discourtesy, and an inability to engage with anything beyond the self or, at most, the immediate. Oh, that and rapid inflation. Pretty soon food will cost as much here as it does in the US, but most people will have far less money to use. Have fun with that.
Arrrgh,
Colin
Oh, I'm sorry, I should be more polite.
Go die in a fire, please.
*NOTE: This was posted after an excruciatingly painful and frustrating week and should not be taken as a commentary on my genuine feelings toward the people of Hong Kong at large. As with comments about the US and any other country, these statements pertain only to a particular subset of the population. That being said, even those statements that are sincere should be taken lightly...for the most part. I apologize for any offense caused in reading this...unless you are, in fact, one of those Hong Kong cabbies who thinks it's okay to speed up when approaching a red light and almost hit people. Phew!*
Okay, yeah, this is going to be another one of my immature blog rants but, frankly, I think it's been earned after the week we've had (which Carina has been calling the Week from Hell; fitting for the time of year, no?).
It all started on Sunday when I finally succumbed to my most recent respiratory infection from the pollution and Heaven knows what else in the apartment thanks to Beanpole's inability to clean up after himself. As we move into the (barely perceptible) winter months of Hong Kong the air pollution seems to coagulate and you start to feel like you're just sucking down smog. It's gross both in terms of the damage to your health and the taste left in your mouth, yuck!
Anyway, so here I've been with a runny, swollen nose, itchy throat and eyes, and utter exhaustion for the past few days. Halloween comes around and Carina's boss has invited us over to her flat in Discovery Bay for dinner. Just a heads-up, Discovery Bay (DB) is the place for the beautiful people in Hong Kong, and by beautiful people I mean foreigners...except for us, obviously. I'm ailing, but I don't want to ruin this for Carina and, besides, maybe it'll be a good time even with my sickness. In fact, it was a pretty good time. We had some of the best food we've not cooked ourselves in a while and it was nice to be around some Halloween activities. They really go all-out in DB and the kids love it. Hell, we loved it, too.
Unfortunately my sinuses didn't, and I was miserable as soon as I came down from my high.
Fortunately, I've been healing pretty well and after that night I started to rapidly recover (although I'm still blowing my nose all over the place, and that's a little gross). Our bad juju seemed to transfer to Carina, unfortunately, and she has spent most of the week playing catch-up with work and school along with getting her visa information sorted out. This culminated in a random day trip to Macau (again) where we had some cocktails and not-so-great Thai food to celebrate her getting a visa. Hopefully this will all play out well in the end and she'll be able to start receiving a paycheck ASAP. Also, hopefully we won't have to blow any extra cash on Macau. We need that money for plane tickets.
That having been taken care of, Hong Kong's indeterminate spirit of ill-will seems to have transitioned back over to me for the morning. I woke up late and ended up having to navigate the taxi-infested streets of early morning HK. It's really disgusting how many people take cabs instead of public transport or, Heaven forbid, walk to where they need to go (which is usually only a few blocks away). In my frustration I decided to try a new route uphill to get above the pollution. The plan was to simply run up to a neighborhood I know and then turn off on a road that leads downhill into an area I usually run around.
Grr, and it would've worked too if it weren't for those meddling ill-conceived pedestrian walkway patterns!
Seriously, what is wrong with your city planners, Hong Kong? Why is it that if I want to cross a street in some places I have to vault over a railing just so I can cross a five meter gap? What is the point of that!? On the bright side, I got to practice my parkour, but that also really mucked up my timing...that and the fact that none of the roads are clearly marked and I totally missed my turn-off. Whatever, no big deal, I just ran all the way back downhill and found my usual path to run and make up for lost time...well, almost. I mean, navigating a maze of geriatrics does inhibit your ability to run at full speed.
Topping all of this off, of course, was the fact that whenever I wanted to cross the street this morning I had to dodge a taxi. This rule seemed to apply even when the cab had a red light and I had a green. This is not the first time this has happened, either, which brings me to the question of the week: What the Hell, Hong Kong!?
Seriously, do you people just not have the ability to wait five seconds for something? Do you have to crowd and wrangle every market, bus, and entrance? Is queuing so foreign a concept for you that you always need to be forced into lines to order yourselves, you can't just figure it out spontaneously? Do you not understand that a red light means "STOP" and that you should always give pedestrians right of way? Here's something for you: Red does not mean "GO". Yellow does not mean "GO". Only green means "GO".
Here's my advice to Hong Kong cabbies: grow a freaking frontal lobe and learn to exercise some patience and common courtesy. Your damn schedules and fares don't outweigh the value of human life. You drive up to me, threatening to hit me with your outdated deathtrap. Would you do the same to a little old lady? If you would, shame on you! If you wouldn't, still shame on you! A little old lady might have less resilience, but any human life is a human life. GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS!
Okay, okay, sorry. I just needed to take a moment to get that out. People ask what life in HK is like, though, and I tell 'em. This is what you deal with in HK: pollution, discourtesy, and an inability to engage with anything beyond the self or, at most, the immediate. Oh, that and rapid inflation. Pretty soon food will cost as much here as it does in the US, but most people will have far less money to use. Have fun with that.
Arrrgh,
Colin
Friday, October 28, 2011
"Great Clod"? I Thought He Said "Great Clog"!
A bit of Daoist humor to start us off (read Zhuangzi if you don't get it).
Carina has been helping me with my anger management. So far, it's going phenomenally. In fact, it's going so well that I was able to control myself when I encountered the latest abomination of hygiene in the flat.
As you all know by now (all four of you), we have a flat that we share with two other parties who I have code-named "Beanpole" and "Leetleman" for the sake of anonymity (and my own amusement). Leetleman has not posed any real problem for our living conditions in the almost 1.5 years I've been in Hong Kong. He's polite, unintrusive, and leaves a relatively small footprint (figuratively and literally) in this apartment.
Beanpole is another story.
As his name suggests, Beanpole is rather thin and, by Asian standards, rather tall. Despite being almost half of a head higher than I am, he still reacts bizarrely to my presence, almost as if I'm some lumbering demon. Unfortunately, this seeming fear is not accompanied by any kind of deference. Rather, it seems to be accompanied by a considerable amount of defecation.
Aside from hogging most of the apartment resources (bandwidth, water use, pots, etc) he has a tendency to leave things far filthier than they were before he so much as touched them without any consideration for the rest of us. Aside from leaving the kitchen a burnt mess he also tends to leave the bathroom in a state worthy of being condemned for health violations. He was clearly the one who left feces on the bathroom floor last (Leetleman was not even in the apartment at the time), and today he has added a new chapter to what I have started thinking of as the "Poop Saga": a clogged toilet.
Now, ordinarily a clogged toilet would be an easy fix. You just buckle down, grit your teeth, and plunge the damn thing. There are several problems with this approach: 1) we have no toilet plunger, 2) there isn't so much a clog as an inability to flush due to the sheer amount of toilet paper that was used. It's as if he used half of a roll of toilet paper just to wipe himself a few times. So much for saving the forests. The least he could do is help save the human immune system.
Of course, I figured that I might be able to solve the problem by just using something to hold the toilet paper back and flush it in increments. The problem with this approach is that there's just too much TP to contend with and, of course, there is still the poop in the bowl to contend with. Since we have a non-modern toilet, it's only equipped to flush about every fifteen minutes. I estimate that, even if my plan were feasible, it would take several hours to get rid of all the waste. So much for that idea.
I guess that tears it. I'll have to go somewhere else to use the bathroom, at least for today. I really don't know what to do about this problem, but I find it physically revolting. It's like mummy poop or something. It's really gross, and I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it. The problem is I have nowhere to throw up!
I guess I'm off to the university. I can use a clean bathroom there.
Smell ya' later,
Colin
Carina has been helping me with my anger management. So far, it's going phenomenally. In fact, it's going so well that I was able to control myself when I encountered the latest abomination of hygiene in the flat.
As you all know by now (all four of you), we have a flat that we share with two other parties who I have code-named "Beanpole" and "Leetleman" for the sake of anonymity (and my own amusement). Leetleman has not posed any real problem for our living conditions in the almost 1.5 years I've been in Hong Kong. He's polite, unintrusive, and leaves a relatively small footprint (figuratively and literally) in this apartment.
Beanpole is another story.
As his name suggests, Beanpole is rather thin and, by Asian standards, rather tall. Despite being almost half of a head higher than I am, he still reacts bizarrely to my presence, almost as if I'm some lumbering demon. Unfortunately, this seeming fear is not accompanied by any kind of deference. Rather, it seems to be accompanied by a considerable amount of defecation.
Aside from hogging most of the apartment resources (bandwidth, water use, pots, etc) he has a tendency to leave things far filthier than they were before he so much as touched them without any consideration for the rest of us. Aside from leaving the kitchen a burnt mess he also tends to leave the bathroom in a state worthy of being condemned for health violations. He was clearly the one who left feces on the bathroom floor last (Leetleman was not even in the apartment at the time), and today he has added a new chapter to what I have started thinking of as the "Poop Saga": a clogged toilet.
Now, ordinarily a clogged toilet would be an easy fix. You just buckle down, grit your teeth, and plunge the damn thing. There are several problems with this approach: 1) we have no toilet plunger, 2) there isn't so much a clog as an inability to flush due to the sheer amount of toilet paper that was used. It's as if he used half of a roll of toilet paper just to wipe himself a few times. So much for saving the forests. The least he could do is help save the human immune system.
Of course, I figured that I might be able to solve the problem by just using something to hold the toilet paper back and flush it in increments. The problem with this approach is that there's just too much TP to contend with and, of course, there is still the poop in the bowl to contend with. Since we have a non-modern toilet, it's only equipped to flush about every fifteen minutes. I estimate that, even if my plan were feasible, it would take several hours to get rid of all the waste. So much for that idea.
I guess that tears it. I'll have to go somewhere else to use the bathroom, at least for today. I really don't know what to do about this problem, but I find it physically revolting. It's like mummy poop or something. It's really gross, and I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it. The problem is I have nowhere to throw up!
I guess I'm off to the university. I can use a clean bathroom there.
Smell ya' later,
Colin
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Like a Phoenix
Okay, first of all I'm sorry for the late blog post. I usually try to keep these things going weekly, usually over the weekend, but we got a bit caught-up in personal projects over the reading week and I lapsed in getting this out to you guys. I have self-reprimanded and putting this up now that I have both time and focus.
So, yeah, it has been a crazy busy week and there weren't even any classes to attend. HKU gives its students a week off for midterm preparation. That sounds like a nice vacation, but since there is always work to be done Carina and I took the time to pick up the pace on some back-burner projects, first and foremost of which was cleaning the apartment. I cannot tell you how much better the kitchen and bathroom look now that I have sterilized, sanitized, and scrubbed them as much as I could bear (which, for the record, is a lot). Gone are the muck-covered floors, ant-riddled counters, burnt stove tops, and foul-smelling commode. Well, I mean, the physical objects are still there, but they're clean now. So, yay, go me. The only problem that we can't seem to get rid of is a clogged kitchen sink. We took a plunger to it the other day and that helped the water flow, but it still isn't doing a terrific job of draining. On the bright side, Beanpole seems to be gone for the week. That means keeping things clean should be less difficult. On the other hand, the less-dirty but bathroom-intensive Leetleman (that's his new nickname) has returned. That means strategy will be required when waiting to use the toilet.
Oh, speaking of which: Yes, I am feeling better. If you don't know what I'm talking about be thankful.
Blah blah blah, cleaning has kept us very busy. What else has been going on? Oh, right, I gave my first presentation on my thesis material. Granted, it was really just a trial run and only three people attended, but it was an appreciated opportunity to give a lecture on the material I've been working out for several years and I received a positive response with some really helpful feedback on how to clarify a few points for the next presentation. That's right, I'll be giving a department-wide seminar on part of my thesis at the end of November (Thanksgiving, in fact). I realize that this may upset some people who have strong beliefs about how T-day should be spent, but I hope everyone can understand that (1) Thanksgiving isn't recognized as a holiday in HK, and (2) that there is a schedule I need to help fill-out and fit into for the sake of everyone else. I'm really looking forward to it. I just hope I don't go too far over or under time.
Carina has been really busy with her own projects. She'll be taking her second exam today (hopefully another smashing job) and has spent the past few days going through the required readings and lecture recordings. I don't know how she deals with all of it, considering how dull the material is. A lot of it just seems like common sense, too. Then again, I suppose there are people out there who are not of sufficient intuitive capacity to be teachers, hence the rote learning. Still, she's been putting in a lot of time and effort and you have to respect that. I've also been helping her along with her behavior-change project, mostly by trying not to get angry and recording when I get annoyed/angry/RAWR. I'm not typically an angry person, but I am very passionate about a lot of issues that are neglected or trounced upon here in Hong Kong. As a result, I sometimes feel perpetually annoyed and this can make me a real pain to deal with. Carina has been helping me manage my anger with this project, though, and I think the results will be pretty good. I have for certain felt better as of late and been less angry, finding constructive outlets for my vexation. I hope I can still give her enough data to work with.
I imagine it has been nice for her having a week off from being dumped-on by her boss, too. Since HKU has been out of session, her boss has been on a bit of a break which means less work. In my opinion, this has been a blessing since it lets Carina get around to doing her classwork. Granted, said work is terribly boring, but it does need to get done.
All right, I feel like I'm rambling now. I started writing a story again this morning and I might be all written-out for the day. Yet, as with the cleaning, my thesis, my running, and all other projects, after some downtime I'll be up and raring to go again; from the ashes, folks. For now, though, I'm going to pass out before class.
Hugs and kisses,
Colin
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Disgusting.
Hey, sports fans! Ready for your weekly-ish blog post? I bet you are! Who's a good audience? Yes you are, yes you are!
Okay, sorry, just had to get that out of my system.
Oh, before I forget, for those of you keeping tabs Carina has started another solo-project blog that's really awesome at http://makeofmyself.blogspot.com/. It's a really well-done layout that she put together herself (including the favicon). Right now she's doing a series of fall-related posts, including lots of fall-themed recipes, crafts, imagery, stories and, my favorite, Halloween stuffs. Go and give it a look, it's much more interesting than my posts!
All right, I guess I do owe everyone a post as well as an explanation for the title. For the folks who have been keeping track of the game, you know that I'm not exactly thrilled about the living conditions in Hong Kong. Usually I kvetch about the quality of life (cage-dwelling, pollution, overcrowding) that is present throughout the city. Although I usually do this through my own lens, I don't always talk about what I have to deal with personally and uniquely. Well, here it goes: poop on the floor.
Yes, you read correctly. Today I walked into the bathroom to wash my hands after attempting to clean off the communal stove (an impossibly sticky task), when I noticed an extremely offensive odor. At first, I assumed it was coming from the commode. I flushed it, assuming it would remove the stench. As I looked down, however, I noticed a brown smear around the base of the toilet. I started to kneel down to take a whiff and make sure it was what I thought it was, but I only needed to lower my head slightly to confirm my intuition. Gross.
Now, poop on the floor is probably something that everyone has dealt with. You have all probably known a small child, (un)domesticated animal, or geriatric relative who has "accidentally" defecated on the floor. I get it, that kind of thing happens. It should be tolerable. Unfortunately, none of those excuses apply here. Our flatmates are both adult students in university. Someone is probably thinking, "Well, college kids do crap on the floor, you know." Yes, yes I do know that. That behavior can usually be explained by stupid partying, however, and neither of our flatmates is exactly the party-going type. So...excuses? Yeah, none.
This, by the way, is not the first of a long line of offenses. Since I moved into this flat over a year ago I've had to deal with a filthy, bug-infested, half-broken kitchen, a washing machine that floods said kitchen half of the time, and a bathroom that constantly smells of urine. They never clean any of the communal areas themselves and I frequently find myself doing all of the sweeping, swabbing, and disinfecting. Just call me Jeeves. If I lived with a crazy cat lady, this might make sense. I expect more out of university students living on their own, though. Maybe they should go back to their mothers and suckle at the breast and have their diapers changed. I could have been sent locusts, floods, or earthquakes...but, no, I was given these flatmates. Good God, sir, was that fair?
Oh, that may be going too far. First of all, I'm an agnostic. More importantly, I really only think it's the one guy (the other is rarely ever here). Still, to cover all of my bases I sent an e-mail to the flat owners today, requesting that they forward an attached message to the other tenants as neither has given me his contact information. I suppose they could excuse themselves by saying that we are rarely ever around at the same time. That's a good excuse, although I wish that I never had to encounter them or their feces...or their leftovers strewn across the kitchen and bathroom. What does he have, seizures? In that case, why is he living on his own!?
Okay, enough with the frightening flatmate stories (for now), I can give some positive news, too. Carina and I had a pretty busy week. Carina was swamped with work, and I've been heavily researching my future projects and preparing for my lecture. Oh, did I not mention that? I'll be giving a mini-lecture this Friday on the first half of my master's thesis. I'm limited to thirty minutes for this first presentation, but I'm going to try to get as much in as I can. I'll be presenting the full version on Thanksgiving (gobble gobble), so I can have up to an hour for that. That'll let me wax poetic but, for now, I need to keep it nice and tight. I've been rehearsing with Carina, who's been really nice to let me bore her to death, and she has been giving me suggestions for how to be more concise without cutting content. Let's hope it goes well!
Much love,
Colin
Okay, sorry, just had to get that out of my system.
Oh, before I forget, for those of you keeping tabs Carina has started another solo-project blog that's really awesome at http://makeofmyself.blogspot.com/. It's a really well-done layout that she put together herself (including the favicon). Right now she's doing a series of fall-related posts, including lots of fall-themed recipes, crafts, imagery, stories and, my favorite, Halloween stuffs. Go and give it a look, it's much more interesting than my posts!
All right, I guess I do owe everyone a post as well as an explanation for the title. For the folks who have been keeping track of the game, you know that I'm not exactly thrilled about the living conditions in Hong Kong. Usually I kvetch about the quality of life (cage-dwelling, pollution, overcrowding) that is present throughout the city. Although I usually do this through my own lens, I don't always talk about what I have to deal with personally and uniquely. Well, here it goes: poop on the floor.
Yes, you read correctly. Today I walked into the bathroom to wash my hands after attempting to clean off the communal stove (an impossibly sticky task), when I noticed an extremely offensive odor. At first, I assumed it was coming from the commode. I flushed it, assuming it would remove the stench. As I looked down, however, I noticed a brown smear around the base of the toilet. I started to kneel down to take a whiff and make sure it was what I thought it was, but I only needed to lower my head slightly to confirm my intuition. Gross.
Now, poop on the floor is probably something that everyone has dealt with. You have all probably known a small child, (un)domesticated animal, or geriatric relative who has "accidentally" defecated on the floor. I get it, that kind of thing happens. It should be tolerable. Unfortunately, none of those excuses apply here. Our flatmates are both adult students in university. Someone is probably thinking, "Well, college kids do crap on the floor, you know." Yes, yes I do know that. That behavior can usually be explained by stupid partying, however, and neither of our flatmates is exactly the party-going type. So...excuses? Yeah, none.
This, by the way, is not the first of a long line of offenses. Since I moved into this flat over a year ago I've had to deal with a filthy, bug-infested, half-broken kitchen, a washing machine that floods said kitchen half of the time, and a bathroom that constantly smells of urine. They never clean any of the communal areas themselves and I frequently find myself doing all of the sweeping, swabbing, and disinfecting. Just call me Jeeves. If I lived with a crazy cat lady, this might make sense. I expect more out of university students living on their own, though. Maybe they should go back to their mothers and suckle at the breast and have their diapers changed. I could have been sent locusts, floods, or earthquakes...but, no, I was given these flatmates. Good God, sir, was that fair?
Oh, that may be going too far. First of all, I'm an agnostic. More importantly, I really only think it's the one guy (the other is rarely ever here). Still, to cover all of my bases I sent an e-mail to the flat owners today, requesting that they forward an attached message to the other tenants as neither has given me his contact information. I suppose they could excuse themselves by saying that we are rarely ever around at the same time. That's a good excuse, although I wish that I never had to encounter them or their feces...or their leftovers strewn across the kitchen and bathroom. What does he have, seizures? In that case, why is he living on his own!?
Okay, enough with the frightening flatmate stories (for now), I can give some positive news, too. Carina and I had a pretty busy week. Carina was swamped with work, and I've been heavily researching my future projects and preparing for my lecture. Oh, did I not mention that? I'll be giving a mini-lecture this Friday on the first half of my master's thesis. I'm limited to thirty minutes for this first presentation, but I'm going to try to get as much in as I can. I'll be presenting the full version on Thanksgiving (gobble gobble), so I can have up to an hour for that. That'll let me wax poetic but, for now, I need to keep it nice and tight. I've been rehearsing with Carina, who's been really nice to let me bore her to death, and she has been giving me suggestions for how to be more concise without cutting content. Let's hope it goes well!
Much love,
Colin
Friday, October 7, 2011
Gearing Up for Getting On
Quite an interesting week. With the passage of all the typhoons and monsoons Hong Kong has returned to its normal, boiling climate that pushes us to the brink of exhaustion. Yes, the combination of heat, humidity, and rampant pollution are often incentive enough to stay indoors and shun the world outside. That's right, Hong Kong streets! We shun you! ...Well, except for my morning workout, but that's to be expected.
Speaking of morning workouts, the city will be hosting several races in the not-too-distant future and, although I have no intention of paying the exorbitant entry fees, I have seen more people out and about in the early hours training. Mind you, this amounts to all of three people that I see only occasionally, but that's three more than I usually see. It's amusing to me, since I go out and run circles around these guys and I'm not even interested in doing these race events. I sometimes think that this is the difference between my motivation to run and other people: for most, the goal of running is to run the race; for me, running is living. I can forsake the race event, but I can never turn away from life.
Still, I admit that I can be very competitive. Like I said, I do run circles around these guys and, frankly, I get a bit of a kick out of it. In their defense, they're probably marathoners who would easily outlast me. Respect.
So what else has been going on? October began without much fanfare. Halloween is acknowledged in Hong Kong and some places use it as a publicity tool but even the US, wherein there is sometimes fierce opposition to referring to Halloween as a "holiday", treats the event with more prestige. All right, Carina and I will make our own Halloween, then...we just have to figure out what we'd like to do.
I ran my first "graded" tutorial sessions this week and, to my relief, they went pretty well. It's a very rewarding experience to teach others, especially since I feel like I'm really challenging and educating rather than simply droning on about my own ideas for hours on end. Most of my students are more than happy to participate and very candid in their responses. I have a few that I wish would be less reserved, but I don't want to dock points based on personality. I have the whole semester to evaluate them, so I'll see how they progress and then judge them from that vantage point.
This Thursday was also a great time for us. We had a "spirited" seminar concerning cosmopolitanism and liberal egalitarianism that gave us some interesting ideas about the current socio-political discourse that the world has engaged. It seems that equality is often cited as the core value of our discourse, but seldom is practiced. Capitalism is a wonderful example of this: ideally, everyone is on equal footing and then benefits based on his or her merit; any benefit coming from chance is somehow justified in this system as it could have just as easily befallen anyone else. Realists toward capitalism will dismiss this as rubbish, and probably rightfully so: it is hardly an egalitarian doctrine; simply claiming that all people theoretically have equal footing at the beginning is neither sufficient nor accurate. The same can likely be said for most institutions.
Mind you, this is not to suggest that egalitarianism is a total farce. On the contrary, it is something for which we can and probably should strive. At the same time, this should not preclude the real benefit that we do gain from inegalitarian treatment of others. I do not treat a rude person the same way that I treat a polite person; I do not, indeed cannot, love a complete stranger in the same way I do my wife. We are primates, limited in our ability to show concern and acknowledgement of others beyond a particular pool on some significant levels. Even if we could, it does not follow that we necessarily would or should. Should I love a murderer in the same way I love my brother?
Perhaps what we should offer to all humans is a kind of treatment in virtue of their being human; I would call this humaneness, as I suspect many would. I will treat humans humanely (perhaps humanly) and use this as the basis of my love and respect for all, while giving differentiated levels of love and respect based on particularities. I will hire the person best-suited to the job; I will love my family more than strangers. It seems inevitable, and it also does not preclude kindness toward those "outside" these special circles.
Some might suggest that this is evidence of a real egalitarianism, as I am treating all humans with a baseline of love and respect, but I would say that even this is inaccurate. I am simply treating all humans consistently, just as I would treat all horses consistently, or all trapezoids consistently. I may have a stable full of horses, but only a select few are of a temperament that is pleasing to me, and so I spend most of my time riding and caring for them. Nonetheless, I know that there is a particular way to treat horses, and so with this in mind I treat all of the horses similarly in this capacity. Even more basically, I treat all squares and squares and never as circles; to do otherwise is not only inconsistent, but geometrically wrong.
The point is that you can talk about things like human rights and policy without any reference to equality. As with justice, it's another one of those buzzword virtues that we constructed for political discourse. Of course it has great value, but that value does rest on something more basic.
Sorry for the mid-blog rant, but I've been very philosophical lately. With my thesis tightening up, I've decided to give a presentation on my research. I'll be doing a practice run in two weeks and I already have a presentation put-together. I still need to practice and make it look nice, but I think it's going to go well. After the dry run, I'll be giving a department seminar sometime in November. Wish me luck!
Today we've been mostly just resting and catching our breath. Like I said, it was a busy week and Carina has been smothered with work proofing and revising grant and visiting professor applications, as well as working on her behavior change project. With any luck I'll be getting much better at managing my temper over the next month. I'll let her add more description about that if she wants.
All right, we're off to destroy zombies with flaming peas and defeat golems with magic rings.
Much love,
Colin
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Typhoon Nesat
Well, Hong Kong finally got some rain in the form of Typhoon Nesat. Let me tell you, it has been brutal: I slipped and fell while running.
As any good North Carolinian knows, severe storms require precautionary measures. When we have a hurricane on the coast, we assess the danger well ahead of time and maneuver as prudence dictates. We stock up on batteries and non-perishables, check our first-aid kits, fill our bathtubs with water, and move into the safest room in the house to wait out the storm (unless we evacuate). Some of us may even board-up our windows depending on the situation.
Here in Hong Kong, with the exception of how far in advance people prepare, the same actions are usually taken in response to the presence of a typhoon. The major difference is that a typhoon seldom reaches even Category One status when compared to a hurricane.
If you look in the news you will see that Nesat has left a pretty devastating path through the Philippines, killing at least twenty and injuring many more. The amount of structural damage is estimated to be around USD 2.3 million. The thing to remember is that the average structural integrity of a building in the Philippines does not necessarily equate to that of a building in Hong Kong. That is to say, these skyscrapers are much more adept at taking a beating.
Oh, and what a beating they've had: 80 km/h winds! Do you know how harsh 80 km/h is? Less than 50 mph! I understand that in some areas winds almost got up to 75 mph which puts them at the low end of a C1 hurricane, but that was not the case for most of Hong Kong Island. For most of Hong Kong, winds barely even reached light gale force. Ah, and now the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds...
Nevertheless, our pessimistic flatmate (codename "Beanpole") decided to take matters in his own hands and set about making the apartment as safe as possible. He shut and taped-up all of the windows and has been listening to the live-stream about the typhoon all day (also sucking bandwidth). I took the liberty of undoing most of his handiwork when the humidity in the apartment became unbearable and took to enjoying the first real sight of extended rain that we have had so far.
I think it's hilarious. In North Carolina even the possibility of snow is cause for schools to shut down, and that's a laughable practice. To shut things down for rain, though? I know that there are potential landslide areas in some regions, but for the most part Hong Kong gets drizzles, not downpours. This "typhoon" has been no exception. The only semi-gale I encountered was when I was out running this morning. The best part? That's not even what made me fall! The city's poorly designed sidewalks with no traction basically had me hydroplaning on foot all morning; I'm better off just running in the street. Mind you, not like there's any traffic. One drop of rain and most people shut themselves up in doors until it all passes. What a joke.
Oh, there was one casualty that I should mention: our fun. We were planning on going to several discussions this evening but, due to the phobia of wind and water, everything has been closed down...despite alternating periods of sun and cloud. So, yeah, it has been a pretty boring day and being left with nothing to do hasn't exactly been fun. At least the temperature is down.
Trivia: Apparently "Nesat" is Cambodian for "Fisherman".
As any good North Carolinian knows, severe storms require precautionary measures. When we have a hurricane on the coast, we assess the danger well ahead of time and maneuver as prudence dictates. We stock up on batteries and non-perishables, check our first-aid kits, fill our bathtubs with water, and move into the safest room in the house to wait out the storm (unless we evacuate). Some of us may even board-up our windows depending on the situation.
Here in Hong Kong, with the exception of how far in advance people prepare, the same actions are usually taken in response to the presence of a typhoon. The major difference is that a typhoon seldom reaches even Category One status when compared to a hurricane.
If you look in the news you will see that Nesat has left a pretty devastating path through the Philippines, killing at least twenty and injuring many more. The amount of structural damage is estimated to be around USD 2.3 million. The thing to remember is that the average structural integrity of a building in the Philippines does not necessarily equate to that of a building in Hong Kong. That is to say, these skyscrapers are much more adept at taking a beating.
Oh, and what a beating they've had: 80 km/h winds! Do you know how harsh 80 km/h is? Less than 50 mph! I understand that in some areas winds almost got up to 75 mph which puts them at the low end of a C1 hurricane, but that was not the case for most of Hong Kong Island. For most of Hong Kong, winds barely even reached light gale force. Ah, and now the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds...
Nevertheless, our pessimistic flatmate (codename "Beanpole") decided to take matters in his own hands and set about making the apartment as safe as possible. He shut and taped-up all of the windows and has been listening to the live-stream about the typhoon all day (also sucking bandwidth). I took the liberty of undoing most of his handiwork when the humidity in the apartment became unbearable and took to enjoying the first real sight of extended rain that we have had so far.
I think it's hilarious. In North Carolina even the possibility of snow is cause for schools to shut down, and that's a laughable practice. To shut things down for rain, though? I know that there are potential landslide areas in some regions, but for the most part Hong Kong gets drizzles, not downpours. This "typhoon" has been no exception. The only semi-gale I encountered was when I was out running this morning. The best part? That's not even what made me fall! The city's poorly designed sidewalks with no traction basically had me hydroplaning on foot all morning; I'm better off just running in the street. Mind you, not like there's any traffic. One drop of rain and most people shut themselves up in doors until it all passes. What a joke.
Oh, there was one casualty that I should mention: our fun. We were planning on going to several discussions this evening but, due to the phobia of wind and water, everything has been closed down...despite alternating periods of sun and cloud. So, yeah, it has been a pretty boring day and being left with nothing to do hasn't exactly been fun. At least the temperature is down.
Trivia: Apparently "Nesat" is Cambodian for "Fisherman".
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The week of busyness
This week has been crazy for both of us! We just didn't seem to spend that much time in the apartment.
Monday: I had a test, which meant studying in the morning and then going up to the university so that Colin's adviser, Chris, could proctor my exam for me. Luckily it only took 15 minutes and I got a good grade. Colin had Chris' class that he's TAing for. This felt like the least busy day this week. That night I got an email about a last minute interview from a friend, so I had that to look forward to the next day at noon.
Tuesday: Colin had his first tutoring session and I had to prepare during the morning for an interview up at the university in the linguistics department. Emailing resumes, getting there on time without asthma attacks to make all the makeup and getting well-dressed worth it, arranging schedules for after interview... Finally, I got up to the interview which went very well. I was offered a full-time position on a two month trial basis with the option of extending it after that. Olga is an interesting person - very intense. She's always got a hundred and one things going through her mind and her to do list would put many listers to shame. She expects good work done independently and in good time. Granted, she said this from the perspective of the people that work for her now.... so she expects it in a reasonable amount of time. After my interview, I met up with Colin for a few minutes before his tutoring group, which also went very well. It was a little unexpected, but he was pleased with his group of students.
Wednesday: I had to get up early to go to immigration to get my Hong Kong ID (a city ID card can get you so many benefits). They open at 7:45, so I was there at 7:30. After waiting in line for an hour so that the building could have a fire drill, it took 2 minutes to get the card. By the time I got home, Colin was ready to head to the university, so up the hill we went. He printed my resume off for me and went to class while I started the employment process of trying to get a work visa via university sponsorship. Brand new HKID in hand along with my resume and passport, we started working it out with the department of humanities. Not long after all of that was finished, Colin made it out of class and we ate a quick lunch before the next two classes that we're both auditing/sitting in on. That's a 1pm-5pm venture, followed by coffee for an hour of more, so we didn't make it home until 7:30 at which point my not-quite-yet employer had already put a journal article in my inbox for proofreading, which I put 3 hours in on.
Thursday: I had a skype session with my professor back at NCSU from 8 to 8:30 and then put another three hours into the journal article before Colin and I had lunch with our friend Donald. Luckily, we met him at the Thai restaurant at the bottom of our building, so I could work all morning. After a quick lunch, I left the boys to talking while I completed another journal related assignment. In the afternoon, I started feeling ill, so Colin went to this week's lecture alone.
Friday: It's Friday morning and I can only imagine what Olga might have for me today. She said she would probably send me a more complete draft today to be proofread one more time. Colin's starting to feel what I felt last night and has a tutoring session today from 4- 5:30 and it's date night. It might be a good time to actually do some grocery shopping for this week so that we have food for the weekend. We spent all week up at the university eating at Oliver's Super Sandwiches, which is a lovely change, but doesn't need to become a habit.
How busy has your week been?
Monday: I had a test, which meant studying in the morning and then going up to the university so that Colin's adviser, Chris, could proctor my exam for me. Luckily it only took 15 minutes and I got a good grade. Colin had Chris' class that he's TAing for. This felt like the least busy day this week. That night I got an email about a last minute interview from a friend, so I had that to look forward to the next day at noon.
Tuesday: Colin had his first tutoring session and I had to prepare during the morning for an interview up at the university in the linguistics department. Emailing resumes, getting there on time without asthma attacks to make all the makeup and getting well-dressed worth it, arranging schedules for after interview... Finally, I got up to the interview which went very well. I was offered a full-time position on a two month trial basis with the option of extending it after that. Olga is an interesting person - very intense. She's always got a hundred and one things going through her mind and her to do list would put many listers to shame. She expects good work done independently and in good time. Granted, she said this from the perspective of the people that work for her now.... so she expects it in a reasonable amount of time. After my interview, I met up with Colin for a few minutes before his tutoring group, which also went very well. It was a little unexpected, but he was pleased with his group of students.
Wednesday: I had to get up early to go to immigration to get my Hong Kong ID (a city ID card can get you so many benefits). They open at 7:45, so I was there at 7:30. After waiting in line for an hour so that the building could have a fire drill, it took 2 minutes to get the card. By the time I got home, Colin was ready to head to the university, so up the hill we went. He printed my resume off for me and went to class while I started the employment process of trying to get a work visa via university sponsorship. Brand new HKID in hand along with my resume and passport, we started working it out with the department of humanities. Not long after all of that was finished, Colin made it out of class and we ate a quick lunch before the next two classes that we're both auditing/sitting in on. That's a 1pm-5pm venture, followed by coffee for an hour of more, so we didn't make it home until 7:30 at which point my not-quite-yet employer had already put a journal article in my inbox for proofreading, which I put 3 hours in on.
Thursday: I had a skype session with my professor back at NCSU from 8 to 8:30 and then put another three hours into the journal article before Colin and I had lunch with our friend Donald. Luckily, we met him at the Thai restaurant at the bottom of our building, so I could work all morning. After a quick lunch, I left the boys to talking while I completed another journal related assignment. In the afternoon, I started feeling ill, so Colin went to this week's lecture alone.
Friday: It's Friday morning and I can only imagine what Olga might have for me today. She said she would probably send me a more complete draft today to be proofread one more time. Colin's starting to feel what I felt last night and has a tutoring session today from 4- 5:30 and it's date night. It might be a good time to actually do some grocery shopping for this week so that we have food for the weekend. We spent all week up at the university eating at Oliver's Super Sandwiches, which is a lovely change, but doesn't need to become a habit.
How busy has your week been?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
A Good Week
This week hasn't been super exciting, but it's been good.
Colin met up with his adviser and is starting to get some of the details he needed about completing his project here. He's also gotten his first taste of being a TA. Students have been filling his email all week and about half of them didn't follow directions. He finally sent out a class-wide email explaining the process again (to good reception from his adviser).
The two of us have been attending two classes given by Chad Hansen, one of the big names in Chinese philosophy. Great classes. One is on Chinese Humanism and the other is a comparative of Western Rule of Law and Chinese 'fa'. They've both been providing us with some good food for thought. We've also attended the coffee sessions after class, which have led to us meeting a study abroad student from the US, Larry. We had a great meal with him last week. Very funny and articulate.
I've been trudging away at my classwork as well. This week we discussed students with behavioral and emotional disorders (BED to those in the teaching world). There was a lot to learn about an extremely heterogeneous group of students that I'll no doubt encounter in the classroom. Next week is my first test, so we'll see how I'm retaining it all.
I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. Saturdays are usually lounging/working days for Colin and I. We don't usually plan too much, particularly since Friday nights are date nights (good food) and Thursday or Friday nights are lecture nights with the department. This week, we're going to be meeting up with a couple we made friends with in the airport on our way to Hong Kong. Jodi and Jennifer are both professors on exchange/sabbatical trips to the Hong Kong Institute of Education and they brought their adorable daughter, Beatrix, with them. She's really verbose and articulate for a two year old (I originally thought she was four or five!). We're looking forward to walking around the neighborhood and park and eating Thai with them.
Have a good weekend!
Colin met up with his adviser and is starting to get some of the details he needed about completing his project here. He's also gotten his first taste of being a TA. Students have been filling his email all week and about half of them didn't follow directions. He finally sent out a class-wide email explaining the process again (to good reception from his adviser).
The two of us have been attending two classes given by Chad Hansen, one of the big names in Chinese philosophy. Great classes. One is on Chinese Humanism and the other is a comparative of Western Rule of Law and Chinese 'fa'. They've both been providing us with some good food for thought. We've also attended the coffee sessions after class, which have led to us meeting a study abroad student from the US, Larry. We had a great meal with him last week. Very funny and articulate.
I've been trudging away at my classwork as well. This week we discussed students with behavioral and emotional disorders (BED to those in the teaching world). There was a lot to learn about an extremely heterogeneous group of students that I'll no doubt encounter in the classroom. Next week is my first test, so we'll see how I'm retaining it all.
I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. Saturdays are usually lounging/working days for Colin and I. We don't usually plan too much, particularly since Friday nights are date nights (good food) and Thursday or Friday nights are lecture nights with the department. This week, we're going to be meeting up with a couple we made friends with in the airport on our way to Hong Kong. Jodi and Jennifer are both professors on exchange/sabbatical trips to the Hong Kong Institute of Education and they brought their adorable daughter, Beatrix, with them. She's really verbose and articulate for a two year old (I originally thought she was four or five!). We're looking forward to walking around the neighborhood and park and eating Thai with them.
Have a good weekend!
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Little Red Dot
You know the track-point buttons on Thinkpads? In Chinese they are referred to simply as the "little red dot." Funny, eh?
Okay, Carina has been a bit slack with updates and I am STILL waiting for feedback on my thesis. In the midst of applying to graduate school (namely Duke) I am also in a bit of a lull. I figured I would use this time to be productive with a blog post for the folks back home.
We have been back for over a week now and more or less readjusted to life in Hong Kong...at least as much as we are ever going to adjust. I am still waking up well before the sun is out so I can have a decent run. Today I made the mistake of sleeping in (5 AM rather than 4 AM) and had to do some considerable dodging of little old ladies. Yep, they're still clogging up the sidewalks.
The good news is that we're doing fairly well logistically. Carina activated her visa when we took a day trip to Macau. The trip cut into our budget, but it was a cheaper option than, say, flying to Thailand again. Unfortunately, we scheduled the trip for early in the day and wound up on the casino side of Macau. This meant nothing was open until right about when we were going to leave. Bummer. Well, at least we had a nice walk through a very nice ghost town.
Things in the department are par for the course as well. This semester's seminar series has already begun (without much fanfare, sadly) and I'm back on my fame for asking questions and taking notes. Even if I don't use any of this information in my thesis, I love to learn. Besides, it's free air conditioning!
We've also been hitting-up the new Thai restaurant next door. It's not Thai quality, but it's about what I'd expect from a mid-range Thai restaurant in the US. I guess we have an Indochine substitute for our time here. Here's to hoping it fares better than the Indian restaurant did (their modest prices should help).
Oh, right, and the reason for the title to this post: I'm getting Cara a new laptop as an early Christmas present. There are some great deals for HKU students on laptops right now and I used my status to pick up a new machine that should fulfill all of her needs and more. I even picked up Adobe CS 5.5 at a heavily discounted price. I like to think this is part of being a good husband...and I'm curious to see how AMD's Llano chipset works out.
So thumbs-up for a decent first week back in Hong Kong.
With any luck, my supervisor (Chris) will be giving me some feedback today on my thesis. I mean, it's doubtful, but a boy can hope. I also need to ask him about a recommendation for my graduate school application. Hopefully my TA'ing for him will sway him to do a few favors for me...
Okay, Carina has been a bit slack with updates and I am STILL waiting for feedback on my thesis. In the midst of applying to graduate school (namely Duke) I am also in a bit of a lull. I figured I would use this time to be productive with a blog post for the folks back home.
We have been back for over a week now and more or less readjusted to life in Hong Kong...at least as much as we are ever going to adjust. I am still waking up well before the sun is out so I can have a decent run. Today I made the mistake of sleeping in (5 AM rather than 4 AM) and had to do some considerable dodging of little old ladies. Yep, they're still clogging up the sidewalks.
The good news is that we're doing fairly well logistically. Carina activated her visa when we took a day trip to Macau. The trip cut into our budget, but it was a cheaper option than, say, flying to Thailand again. Unfortunately, we scheduled the trip for early in the day and wound up on the casino side of Macau. This meant nothing was open until right about when we were going to leave. Bummer. Well, at least we had a nice walk through a very nice ghost town.
Things in the department are par for the course as well. This semester's seminar series has already begun (without much fanfare, sadly) and I'm back on my fame for asking questions and taking notes. Even if I don't use any of this information in my thesis, I love to learn. Besides, it's free air conditioning!
We've also been hitting-up the new Thai restaurant next door. It's not Thai quality, but it's about what I'd expect from a mid-range Thai restaurant in the US. I guess we have an Indochine substitute for our time here. Here's to hoping it fares better than the Indian restaurant did (their modest prices should help).
Oh, right, and the reason for the title to this post: I'm getting Cara a new laptop as an early Christmas present. There are some great deals for HKU students on laptops right now and I used my status to pick up a new machine that should fulfill all of her needs and more. I even picked up Adobe CS 5.5 at a heavily discounted price. I like to think this is part of being a good husband...and I'm curious to see how AMD's Llano chipset works out.
So thumbs-up for a decent first week back in Hong Kong.
With any luck, my supervisor (Chris) will be giving me some feedback today on my thesis. I mean, it's doubtful, but a boy can hope. I also need to ask him about a recommendation for my graduate school application. Hopefully my TA'ing for him will sway him to do a few favors for me...
Friday, August 26, 2011
Return to the Empire...
or was it Jedi Strikes Back?
Either way, we have returned to the land of Hong Kong, the fragrant port. When they named it the "fragrant port" I imagine that they smelled something similar to what we did when getting off of the bus from the airport last night - dried seafood in hot and highly humid air. Ahhh yes, back to Hong Kong.
On the up side this is a fairly short stint for us - only about 3 months. We'll do our best to keep you updated on our goings on and travel plans from here.
One new really great thing is that we got back to the apartment last night and the bed was already set up for us with sheet and everything. A BED! For those of you who did not get the impression that we were bedless before, just know that sleeping on the floor on a mattress that makes you wish it were just hard concrete is not a pleasant experience, even for a day. It's also not pleasant for 4 months. I think this new bed (a bunk with a double mattress on the bottom - pictures forthcoming) is going to greatly improve our experience in Hong Kong.
Please feel free to leave us a comment. :)
Either way, we have returned to the land of Hong Kong, the fragrant port. When they named it the "fragrant port" I imagine that they smelled something similar to what we did when getting off of the bus from the airport last night - dried seafood in hot and highly humid air. Ahhh yes, back to Hong Kong.
On the up side this is a fairly short stint for us - only about 3 months. We'll do our best to keep you updated on our goings on and travel plans from here.
One new really great thing is that we got back to the apartment last night and the bed was already set up for us with sheet and everything. A BED! For those of you who did not get the impression that we were bedless before, just know that sleeping on the floor on a mattress that makes you wish it were just hard concrete is not a pleasant experience, even for a day. It's also not pleasant for 4 months. I think this new bed (a bunk with a double mattress on the bottom - pictures forthcoming) is going to greatly improve our experience in Hong Kong.
Please feel free to leave us a comment. :)
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Yeah, I Know....
Over a week and still no post, right? I know, I know, we are supposed to be more on top of things right now. Sorry about that. As our first tour in Hong Kong as a couple draws to a close, things have been pretty hectic. We have been filing for visas, visa extensions, submitting thesis drafts, attending seminars...just a lot going on.
The good news is that things are getting done. Carina's dependent visa was filed and they will be sending the visa acceptance form in a little less than two months (awesome). I also filed for my visa extension with no problems, aside from a two hour wait, and I will be picking it up 13 May. Usually I would make more fuss about the time spent standing in line at the Immigration Center, but I have been trying to improve my outlook on life and lower my stress levels. I took it as a great opportunity to be around people who spoke the two languages I understand: Mandarin and English. It was nice to be able to follow conversations again. It was also a great opportunity to watch some adorable kids play with their parents and older siblings. I complain about crying babies a lot, but nothing helps to redeem a city in my eyes more than watching the joyous bond develop between parent and child. Call me a sap if you will; I will take the label happily.
Still, it will be great to head home in the not-too-distant future. Carina and I have been missing access to quality food ingredients and a decent cooking space (bending at a ninety-degree angle to reach the counter is killing my back!). It will also be great to be away from all the pollution and crowded sidewalks. Speaking of the latter, here are two sites I dug up today while continuing my investigation into why Chinese people simply will not get out of the way:
Some of the comments are a bit NSFW, but the article and the comment thread are (in this man's opinion) hilarious and a wonderful encapsulation of what I deal with on a daily basis. I may have to try that head-scratch-feint technique.
Other than that, work goes on as usual. My first thesis section is (hopefully) almost draft-worthy. I have now written over two hundred pages this academic year alone, only to be told that my thesis should not exceed eighty pages (one hundred pages maximum). Well, whatever; I can save the rest for my dissertation, I suppose. Also, Carina is well-set for recommendations to the MAT program she will most definitely get into. Sorry, hon, but you are a shoe-in. Accept the confidence. Squares and quadrilaterals, people...whatever that means.
Not sure how many more posts we will squeeze out here before the flight home, but I am hoping to get some more writing in. If nothing else, I just like keeping the folks at home up-to-date.
Much love,
Colin
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
You Know You are in Hong Kong When...
- any food you order is prepared by boiling with lots of salt
- you go outside in 70 F weather and people are wearing jackets
- there is a cat in every shop (and sometimes in-between, too)
- you can get Chilean wine for roughly USD 4
- there are so many people that you cannot get around a corner until the light at the cross-walk changes.
- everything is uphill
- the phrase "locally grown" means "from Australia"
- "milk" actually refers to a soy product, despite there being a cow on the carton (do not ask what cheese is made of!)
- dried seafood is the best thing around to smell (aside from your own armpits)
- demonstratives lose all meaning and value ("This is Game"? No, this is Engrish!)
- the customer is always wrong
- the sea glows in the dark
- you go out at any time of day or night and have to avoid little old ladies who, despite being less than four feet tall, manage to take up the entire sidewalk
- the "sidewalk" consists of the concrete slabs not occupied by random poles
- you can haggle for almost anything
- Sunday is random-and-largely-ignored protest day
- the national pastime is Tai Chi
- people who honk their car horns also drive and not the other way around (you have to be here to get it)
- you are a giant despite being only 5'7" and weighing 155 lbs
- being social is accidentally bumping into someone on the sidewalk
Sunday, April 10, 2011
A walk along the water
The weather (like in many other places of the world) has been up and down for the last month - some days raining and cold, some days sunny and hot. This weather was not conducive to doing anything. It has led Colin to rely on what he calls the umbrella method of inductive logic, which goes something like this: If Colin carries an umbrella, it will not rain. If Colin does not carry an umbrella, it will most assuredly rain.
Now they have settled out - sunny and hot. This makes the city exceedingly humid, but at least stable enough in weather to plan what to wear/carry with us.
It led to us taking a walk Saturday afternoon. We took a jaunt down to the park to stroll along the water and found families with lots of children and even some bikini clad girls sunning themselves on the circular green at the park. It was a lovely day, if not a bit too warm, and it was drawing everyone outside.
Our walk to the ferry docks includes passing a dog park, which was also quite full. Several corgis and dachshunds along with a variety of larger mutts and terriers were tramping around the rectangular grassy area set aside for them.
A brief note: when I mention grass, this indicates that everywhere else there is concrete. In fact, unless I mention grass or being inside a building, you should always suppose that we are walking on concrete.
We always take the route through the mall, because the traffic tunnel in the middle of our trek is a bit dodgy for pedestrians. It was also full, but that is normal. I teased Colin about stopping at KFC (very popular here, but not on the list of foods Colin eats - an me neither, particularly).
On the other side of the mall, we've reached the ferry docks. They're set about fifty yards apart and are made up of three and four story buildings, some of which have accesses to the different ferry levels and some of which just house small shops and tourist waiting areas.
On the boardwalk (again - all concrete - no actual boards) across from the second to last of these large ferry buildings is a beer stand. Many of the shops in this area cater to the British and Aussie tourists that are visiting Hong Kong or Macau. We picked up a StrongBow (British hard cider) before making our way back to the apartment for a Friday night dinner.
This week we had Carina's Hong Kong version of Philly Cheese Steaks (I had ground beef with onions and cheese; Colin had chicken with onions, peppers and cheese - not as big of a beef fan). Ice cream for dessert - a good night. :)
Now they have settled out - sunny and hot. This makes the city exceedingly humid, but at least stable enough in weather to plan what to wear/carry with us.
It led to us taking a walk Saturday afternoon. We took a jaunt down to the park to stroll along the water and found families with lots of children and even some bikini clad girls sunning themselves on the circular green at the park. It was a lovely day, if not a bit too warm, and it was drawing everyone outside.
Our walk to the ferry docks includes passing a dog park, which was also quite full. Several corgis and dachshunds along with a variety of larger mutts and terriers were tramping around the rectangular grassy area set aside for them.
A brief note: when I mention grass, this indicates that everywhere else there is concrete. In fact, unless I mention grass or being inside a building, you should always suppose that we are walking on concrete.
We always take the route through the mall, because the traffic tunnel in the middle of our trek is a bit dodgy for pedestrians. It was also full, but that is normal. I teased Colin about stopping at KFC (very popular here, but not on the list of foods Colin eats - an me neither, particularly).
On the other side of the mall, we've reached the ferry docks. They're set about fifty yards apart and are made up of three and four story buildings, some of which have accesses to the different ferry levels and some of which just house small shops and tourist waiting areas.
On the boardwalk (again - all concrete - no actual boards) across from the second to last of these large ferry buildings is a beer stand. Many of the shops in this area cater to the British and Aussie tourists that are visiting Hong Kong or Macau. We picked up a StrongBow (British hard cider) before making our way back to the apartment for a Friday night dinner.
This week we had Carina's Hong Kong version of Philly Cheese Steaks (I had ground beef with onions and cheese; Colin had chicken with onions, peppers and cheese - not as big of a beef fan). Ice cream for dessert - a good night. :)
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Not Dead Yet
Ugh, it has been a while since I posted last, so I figured I would pop up and let everyone know that I am still alive and kicking...just mostly at my thesis...and other philosophical scrawls.
Things have been busy lately, but not particularly exciting. As I close in on the final sections of my thesis draft, I am left wondering what comes next for us here. After I complete my project and defend, the plan is to head back to the States and begin working toward my doctorate which will, hopefully, be at a certain school I used to prowl around. Nothing is certain, though, and even if those plans come to fruition, there is still no way of knowing what will happen next.
Right now, all I know is that I am here in Hong Kong with my wonderful wife, working on philosophy, and frequently indulging in kitchen experiments that may or may not involve copious amounts of red wine. That is nothing to be unhappy about. Even though I do not want to spend the rest of my life here, I really am enjoying this experience and want to continue to explore Hong Kong. We still have a lot to see and do, and I am hoping to get Carina up and out of the apartment in the next few weeks so we can go out and adventure. Of course, that also means I need to sit still and finish my draft, but I think we can manage.
The good news is that we have a weekly seminar series coming up, so that should keep us stimulated on Thursday nights through the end of the semester. After that, the plan is to come back home for the summer. I am looking forward to that as well: It will be like coming up for air after holding my breath for almost five months.
Things have been busy lately, but not particularly exciting. As I close in on the final sections of my thesis draft, I am left wondering what comes next for us here. After I complete my project and defend, the plan is to head back to the States and begin working toward my doctorate which will, hopefully, be at a certain school I used to prowl around. Nothing is certain, though, and even if those plans come to fruition, there is still no way of knowing what will happen next.
Right now, all I know is that I am here in Hong Kong with my wonderful wife, working on philosophy, and frequently indulging in kitchen experiments that may or may not involve copious amounts of red wine. That is nothing to be unhappy about. Even though I do not want to spend the rest of my life here, I really am enjoying this experience and want to continue to explore Hong Kong. We still have a lot to see and do, and I am hoping to get Carina up and out of the apartment in the next few weeks so we can go out and adventure. Of course, that also means I need to sit still and finish my draft, but I think we can manage.
The good news is that we have a weekly seminar series coming up, so that should keep us stimulated on Thursday nights through the end of the semester. After that, the plan is to come back home for the summer. I am looking forward to that as well: It will be like coming up for air after holding my breath for almost five months.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Spreading the awareness... and understanding
Hello!
This month is Autism Awareness Month. I thought I would post a wonderful article from the author of Time Crafted, who has written over the past few days to help make a move toward acceptance and understanding.
http://aut.zone38.net/2011/04/01/awareness-understanding-acceptance/
This month is Autism Awareness Month. I thought I would post a wonderful article from the author of Time Crafted, who has written over the past few days to help make a move toward acceptance and understanding.
http://aut.zone38.net/2011/04/01/awareness-understanding-acceptance/
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Quick Update
Hello all!
Just a quick update.
1) Colin's on page 92 of his thesis and still going strong! He's into his fourth chapter (the last major chapter) and is hoping to have a draft completed by the beginning of the summer.
2) Carina's last graduate teacher agreed to write her a recommendation for her MAT application, which is really exciting.
3) Colin may let Carina buy a pizza again. This is very exciting because sometimes food gets really boring here.
4)Carina may or may not be getting hired by Colin's advisor as a research assistant. They're still working out the details, but it is the first real response for work that she has gotten locally. Let's all cross our fingers and pray it works out.
Note: These rankings do not indicate order of importance.
Just a quick update.
1) Colin's on page 92 of his thesis and still going strong! He's into his fourth chapter (the last major chapter) and is hoping to have a draft completed by the beginning of the summer.
2) Carina's last graduate teacher agreed to write her a recommendation for her MAT application, which is really exciting.
3) Colin may let Carina buy a pizza again. This is very exciting because sometimes food gets really boring here.
4)Carina may or may not be getting hired by Colin's advisor as a research assistant. They're still working out the details, but it is the first real response for work that she has gotten locally. Let's all cross our fingers and pray it works out.
Note: These rankings do not indicate order of importance.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Bangkok Honeymoon
I know this has been a long awaited post, so here it is. Our trip to Bangkok:
I enjoyed the flight to Thailand, but then I like flying. I'm not sure that Colin enjoyed it as much in transit to the Land of Smiles. But land of smiles it is, and Colin found his grin soon after we landed. Our flight had been delayed so we didn't get into Bangkok until around 1pm and we decided to eat lunch in the Airport. It's funny that we went someplace as "authentic" as Bangkok and then got Subway and Baskin Robbins for lunch, but there you are. It was the first time that we'd had turkey in months and ice cream is always a nice treat.
It took several maps and talking to several people that did not speak English to finally figure out what metros (called the BTR in Bangkok) we needed to take to get to the closest to our hotel. Once we got on the BTR Colin and I boggled at the green. GREEN! There were trees and grasses and plants. And they weren't all landscaped. But more than that - it was overwhelming. There was an overwhelming oxygen in Bangkok that is just lacking in Hong Kong. I have been told that the forest trails in Hong Kong give this effect as well, but I have yet to experience it.
The BTR stop Chong Nonsi was about five blocks from our hotel and easily walked. We stayed at the Luxx Hotel, which was lovely and modern. The floors were all dark hardwoods and everything form clean visual lines. It was also blessed with air conditioning. I've not yet experienced the serious heat of Hong Kong, but I am now prepared for what is coming in a month's time. It was humid and hardly ever dropped below 80 degrees our entire time there.
We were surprised to find on arrival that we got a complimentary breakfast each day of our visit. This was no ordinary continental breakfast of dry cereals and toast options. No No. This was your choice of eggs (boiled, omelette, scrambled or fried) with or without bacon AND sausage, cereal with chocolate or plain milk, your choice of fruit (banana, orange, pineapple, apple), either french toast or a croissant, a side of toast, a choice of fruit juice (tomato, pineapple or orange) and your choice of breakfast drink (coffee or tea). It was insanely huge and it caused us to not to have to eat a lunch meal both weekend days we were there.
After living in a tiny Hong Kong apartment with a mattress on the floor for a few months, the room itself was all the vacation we could have asked for. This hotel is particularly known for it's very modern bathrooms, which include bathtubs made like wooden barrels. Very relaxing.
The first night (Friday) after taking a brief nap, we headed to Siam Paragon, the most modern shopping experience in all of Bangkok. The food court (if it can be called that) was amazing. Yes, it did include a Burger King and KFC, but there was also a gourmet grocery, and sit down locations ranging from mid-level to expensive budgets. It was very impressive and we settled on Mexican (since we haven't been able to get that in Hong Kong either). The conclusion we came to after two days there was that if there is a style of food in existence, then the Thai can make it. After burritos and a shared margarita, we went to the basement of the mall complex to the Siam Ocean World Aquarium. We may or may not have pictures from this event. We discovered upon our arrival at the aquarium that the battery in Colin's camera was nearly dead and that he had forgotten to pack his charger. That being said, we did get a few pictures in before it died. This is also the reason for the video (2 posts previous to this). Colin had the bright idea of taking video with his iPod since we did not have the camera, which allowed us to get some images of our time there.
We had a very relaxing night of sleep and a HUGE breakfast (as described above) Saturday morning. Though one of the travel guides I had read said that people try to walk in Bangkok, but they should really just take a taxi, we decided to walk anyway. Colin and I are both keen on hiking, so why not hike through the city and get a glimpse of some real street culture. We hiked somewhere between four and six miles (our route not being the original intended and therefore not plotted for distance) from the center of Silom to Rattanakosin (see the map) to the Grand Palace. Along the way, many people offered to help give us directions and two of them tried to convince us that the palace was closed (one for construction and the other for a protest). This is apparently a common occurrence. I read that people will tell you this and sure enough they did, giving us their suggestions of other places to visit while in town. Nevertheless we persisted and found our way to the Grand Palace.
Luckily we had both planned to dress appropriately for our visit to this most auspicious location, which meant that we'd worn long pants and a long dress to walk 5+ miles in nearly 90 degree weather, but this saved us the trouble of having to rent appropriate clothing at the door. No shoulders, nothing above the knees, no chest were allowed to show and no holes in clothing permitted. We managed to get a disposable camera at one of the shops and so should have a few pictures (eventually) of our trip there. You can also see the video Colin took of our time.
One of the most fascinating things about the temples, burial chambers and buildings there is the sheer weight and volume of the materials used to build them. The walls of the buildings were all made of mirror, ceramic, or gold mosaics (each piece never exceeding the approximate area of a square centimeter) that were often layered and all of the roofs were made of ceramic tiles. I don't know if it is just the archaeologist in me that finds this amazing, but the sheer weight of the structures themselves means that the buildings must be exceedingly sturdy and well supported, and while they gave the impression of a gravity of permanence, they also were surprisingly delicate to behold. Perhaps it is the nature of the small tesserae or the intricate floral and geometric designs that they created, but it was an extremely impressive display of architecture and artistic craftsmanship.
We got to go into the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is actually made of a solid piece of jade rather than emerald. Photography and videography were not permitted in this temple as it is an active place of worship and considered disrespectful (even as a tourist attraction), so Colin and I sketched our impressions of different parts of the altar.
Colin's sketch is of the main structure that housed the Buddha and the Buddha itself.The drawings on the right are mine and on the left are Colin's. I drew one of the golden statues (in pencil) that form part of the processional of the Buddha and one of the two trees dedicated (in blue, seen sideways here). There are two trees that are dedicated, one in gold and one in silver.
After our tour of the Grand Palace, we dodged raindrops on our walk to Khao San Road. For some reason (and a lot of that reason had to do with maps that do not accurately depict the roads in this are of the city), it took us a good two hours or so to walk to and find Khao San Road. Let's just say it involved two torrential downpours, some arguing over how to read the map, asking directions of people with no common language to us, wandering in circles, some hair-pulling frustration and two fresh fruit smoothies.
By this time it was already close to 5pm, so we directed our path toward a restaurant called Ethos. What wonderful food! We shed our shoes at the door and sat on pillows next to the low tables of the restaurant. We shared a local beer, discussing our impressions of the day and Colin's current philosophical project. I ordered the more middle eastern style pita and hummus and fresh veggie salad served with falafel and a lime tahini dressing. Sooo good. Colin order the more local cuisine of yellow curry, a curry soup full of freshly stewed veggies, including cauliflower, potatoes, snow peas, carrots, tomatoes and tofu. Yellow curry is one of the less spicy, more tourist friendly curries and while still involved a little heat was quite enjoyable. For dessert, we had hot chai with a multi-grain pancake served with banana, mango and cream.
Dinner took us a good two hours to eat and enjoy, meaning it was dark by the time we left the restaurant. We got turned around when walking through a protest (against censorship) and could not convince a taxi to take us back to our hotel (and not for lack of trying). It was very odd. In my planning of the trip, I read up on the customs of how to get around. I read that taxi were really common and not difficult to find. Tuk-tuks were even more common than taxis, but more of a rip off and, because of their open sides, exposed you to more traffic pollution. Water taxis/ferries were also available along the river. We attempted several times to get a taxi, but when we stopped and gave them our desired destination, they refused to accept us as fare and drove away. We decided to take a water taxi back to a dock near our hotel, but couldn't find our way to the river. Though a significant portion of the population in Bangkok speaks English, we ended up in a neighborhood that was too local/residential to find people that did. We ended up roughly communicating with two women in a closing restaurant that essentially played charades with us in order to give us directions to the river. Colin got really nervous as we continued to walk and not find the river, though we seemed to be headed in the right direction. Instead of finding the river, we found our way back to the Grand Palace, which was helpful as we finally knew where we were. Still no taxi would take us as fare and the traffic was picking up for its busiest hour as we tried to navigate crossing traffic. Strangely enough, most intersections have marked crosswalks for pedestrians, but no pedestrian lights to signal that they ever get right of way. As we nervously stood awaiting a break in traffic in the dark, a saffron-robed monk took Colin firmly by the hand (who took me by the hand) and led us into the traffic safely to the other side. He asked us where we were going and we explained our taxi problem.
We had debated taking a tuk-tuk, but had been wary of doing so. The monk convinced us this was the best course of action and, thus, we ended up taking a (very comparatively expensive) tuk-tuk ride that was worth every cent. Our driver was not the man whose picture graced the license to drive the tuk-tuk (seemingly younger by several decades), but was enthusiastic to take us to our hotel and knew where it was. The ceiling of the vehicle was strangely covered in spiderman logos. We got in as he finished his sandwich and he climbed in after us, finally turning to ask us how much we would pay him. Smiling (both with the grin of knowing the game I was about to play and the one that is customary when taking up a complaint in Thailand in order to ease the tension), I haggled him down 50 baht in his price before we began our journey. Colin has used the descriptors of "raucous" and "better than any roller coaster he'd ever been on including Space Mountain". It seems that every tuk-tuk driver in Bangkok wants to both be on his motorcycle (the most common form of transport for locals) and also be driving the Indy 500. He swerved and dodged and negotiated and corralled and gave way to and slipped through traffic in ways that I had not imagined those little vehicles could achieve. To our great amusement, about halfway through the trip the driver pulled over and stopped the engine. I started to worry (as we were nowhere near our hotel) that he was going to push for more money for the fare, but instead asked if we cared that he stopped for a drink of bean water. Not minding at all and being more confused and amused than anything else, we agreed and waited a few minutes for him to offer patronage to a place he knew. Bean water imbibed, we continued on our journey, finally arriving at our hotel. Colin had enjoyed it so thoroughly we ended up giving him the extra 50 baht he had wanted anyway, which made him laugh.
Sunday was much more laid back, being the last day of our trip. We breakfasted at our leisure and walked around the neighborhood a bit before heading back to Siam Paragon to try some of the desserts from the plethora of bakeries we had seen. The video features me eating fudge brownie cheese cake, while Colin opted for strawberry yogurt cake. By the time we got back to the hotel (early) our arranged transport vehicle (a black Japanese luxury-size sedan) was waiting to take us to the airport.
We had hoped that the flight back would not have the same delay as the flight there, because we were already supposed to be getting back at 8:30pm (and had another hour before we could expect to be home), but we had no such luck. Not only was our flight delayed, but after checking us in at the gate, we were informed that we needed to rush to a different gate that the flight had been moved to. So we rushed through the airport like that scene from Home Alone 2 and arrived to find an empty gate terminal that was locked. Many other people arrived rushing to the gate as well and found themselves similarly annoyed. We ended up having to wait about hour for the plane and did not make it back to the apartment until 10:30 that night.
While the flights at either end were slow and delayed, the vacation itself was terrifically wonderful. Both of us had been pushing hard to edit Colin's most recent chapter of his thesis and our general projects and had frankly just been cooped up in the apartment for too long. Getting away and taking the time to relax and enjoy a place helped us to unwind. And the food. Oh good gracious the food. You may have read about our previous entries concerning food, but let's just say there is a world of difference (and enjoyment) between the food cultures of Hong Kong and Bangkok. While eating in Hong Kong is an activity that is generally treated as a mere necessity, Bangkok allowed us to appreciate our palettes and vegetables proved to be the rule rather than the exception.
Overall the honeymoon was interesting, relaxing and extremely enjoyable. Bangkok has made our list of places to go again.
I enjoyed the flight to Thailand, but then I like flying. I'm not sure that Colin enjoyed it as much in transit to the Land of Smiles. But land of smiles it is, and Colin found his grin soon after we landed. Our flight had been delayed so we didn't get into Bangkok until around 1pm and we decided to eat lunch in the Airport. It's funny that we went someplace as "authentic" as Bangkok and then got Subway and Baskin Robbins for lunch, but there you are. It was the first time that we'd had turkey in months and ice cream is always a nice treat.
It took several maps and talking to several people that did not speak English to finally figure out what metros (called the BTR in Bangkok) we needed to take to get to the closest to our hotel. Once we got on the BTR Colin and I boggled at the green. GREEN! There were trees and grasses and plants. And they weren't all landscaped. But more than that - it was overwhelming. There was an overwhelming oxygen in Bangkok that is just lacking in Hong Kong. I have been told that the forest trails in Hong Kong give this effect as well, but I have yet to experience it.
The BTR stop Chong Nonsi was about five blocks from our hotel and easily walked. We stayed at the Luxx Hotel, which was lovely and modern. The floors were all dark hardwoods and everything form clean visual lines. It was also blessed with air conditioning. I've not yet experienced the serious heat of Hong Kong, but I am now prepared for what is coming in a month's time. It was humid and hardly ever dropped below 80 degrees our entire time there.
We were surprised to find on arrival that we got a complimentary breakfast each day of our visit. This was no ordinary continental breakfast of dry cereals and toast options. No No. This was your choice of eggs (boiled, omelette, scrambled or fried) with or without bacon AND sausage, cereal with chocolate or plain milk, your choice of fruit (banana, orange, pineapple, apple), either french toast or a croissant, a side of toast, a choice of fruit juice (tomato, pineapple or orange) and your choice of breakfast drink (coffee or tea). It was insanely huge and it caused us to not to have to eat a lunch meal both weekend days we were there.
After living in a tiny Hong Kong apartment with a mattress on the floor for a few months, the room itself was all the vacation we could have asked for. This hotel is particularly known for it's very modern bathrooms, which include bathtubs made like wooden barrels. Very relaxing.
The first night (Friday) after taking a brief nap, we headed to Siam Paragon, the most modern shopping experience in all of Bangkok. The food court (if it can be called that) was amazing. Yes, it did include a Burger King and KFC, but there was also a gourmet grocery, and sit down locations ranging from mid-level to expensive budgets. It was very impressive and we settled on Mexican (since we haven't been able to get that in Hong Kong either). The conclusion we came to after two days there was that if there is a style of food in existence, then the Thai can make it. After burritos and a shared margarita, we went to the basement of the mall complex to the Siam Ocean World Aquarium. We may or may not have pictures from this event. We discovered upon our arrival at the aquarium that the battery in Colin's camera was nearly dead and that he had forgotten to pack his charger. That being said, we did get a few pictures in before it died. This is also the reason for the video (2 posts previous to this). Colin had the bright idea of taking video with his iPod since we did not have the camera, which allowed us to get some images of our time there.
We had a very relaxing night of sleep and a HUGE breakfast (as described above) Saturday morning. Though one of the travel guides I had read said that people try to walk in Bangkok, but they should really just take a taxi, we decided to walk anyway. Colin and I are both keen on hiking, so why not hike through the city and get a glimpse of some real street culture. We hiked somewhere between four and six miles (our route not being the original intended and therefore not plotted for distance) from the center of Silom to Rattanakosin (see the map) to the Grand Palace. Along the way, many people offered to help give us directions and two of them tried to convince us that the palace was closed (one for construction and the other for a protest). This is apparently a common occurrence. I read that people will tell you this and sure enough they did, giving us their suggestions of other places to visit while in town. Nevertheless we persisted and found our way to the Grand Palace.
Luckily we had both planned to dress appropriately for our visit to this most auspicious location, which meant that we'd worn long pants and a long dress to walk 5+ miles in nearly 90 degree weather, but this saved us the trouble of having to rent appropriate clothing at the door. No shoulders, nothing above the knees, no chest were allowed to show and no holes in clothing permitted. We managed to get a disposable camera at one of the shops and so should have a few pictures (eventually) of our trip there. You can also see the video Colin took of our time.
One of the most fascinating things about the temples, burial chambers and buildings there is the sheer weight and volume of the materials used to build them. The walls of the buildings were all made of mirror, ceramic, or gold mosaics (each piece never exceeding the approximate area of a square centimeter) that were often layered and all of the roofs were made of ceramic tiles. I don't know if it is just the archaeologist in me that finds this amazing, but the sheer weight of the structures themselves means that the buildings must be exceedingly sturdy and well supported, and while they gave the impression of a gravity of permanence, they also were surprisingly delicate to behold. Perhaps it is the nature of the small tesserae or the intricate floral and geometric designs that they created, but it was an extremely impressive display of architecture and artistic craftsmanship.
We got to go into the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is actually made of a solid piece of jade rather than emerald. Photography and videography were not permitted in this temple as it is an active place of worship and considered disrespectful (even as a tourist attraction), so Colin and I sketched our impressions of different parts of the altar.
Colin's sketch is of the main structure that housed the Buddha and the Buddha itself.The drawings on the right are mine and on the left are Colin's. I drew one of the golden statues (in pencil) that form part of the processional of the Buddha and one of the two trees dedicated (in blue, seen sideways here). There are two trees that are dedicated, one in gold and one in silver.
After our tour of the Grand Palace, we dodged raindrops on our walk to Khao San Road. For some reason (and a lot of that reason had to do with maps that do not accurately depict the roads in this are of the city), it took us a good two hours or so to walk to and find Khao San Road. Let's just say it involved two torrential downpours, some arguing over how to read the map, asking directions of people with no common language to us, wandering in circles, some hair-pulling frustration and two fresh fruit smoothies.
By this time it was already close to 5pm, so we directed our path toward a restaurant called Ethos. What wonderful food! We shed our shoes at the door and sat on pillows next to the low tables of the restaurant. We shared a local beer, discussing our impressions of the day and Colin's current philosophical project. I ordered the more middle eastern style pita and hummus and fresh veggie salad served with falafel and a lime tahini dressing. Sooo good. Colin order the more local cuisine of yellow curry, a curry soup full of freshly stewed veggies, including cauliflower, potatoes, snow peas, carrots, tomatoes and tofu. Yellow curry is one of the less spicy, more tourist friendly curries and while still involved a little heat was quite enjoyable. For dessert, we had hot chai with a multi-grain pancake served with banana, mango and cream.
Dinner took us a good two hours to eat and enjoy, meaning it was dark by the time we left the restaurant. We got turned around when walking through a protest (against censorship) and could not convince a taxi to take us back to our hotel (and not for lack of trying). It was very odd. In my planning of the trip, I read up on the customs of how to get around. I read that taxi were really common and not difficult to find. Tuk-tuks were even more common than taxis, but more of a rip off and, because of their open sides, exposed you to more traffic pollution. Water taxis/ferries were also available along the river. We attempted several times to get a taxi, but when we stopped and gave them our desired destination, they refused to accept us as fare and drove away. We decided to take a water taxi back to a dock near our hotel, but couldn't find our way to the river. Though a significant portion of the population in Bangkok speaks English, we ended up in a neighborhood that was too local/residential to find people that did. We ended up roughly communicating with two women in a closing restaurant that essentially played charades with us in order to give us directions to the river. Colin got really nervous as we continued to walk and not find the river, though we seemed to be headed in the right direction. Instead of finding the river, we found our way back to the Grand Palace, which was helpful as we finally knew where we were. Still no taxi would take us as fare and the traffic was picking up for its busiest hour as we tried to navigate crossing traffic. Strangely enough, most intersections have marked crosswalks for pedestrians, but no pedestrian lights to signal that they ever get right of way. As we nervously stood awaiting a break in traffic in the dark, a saffron-robed monk took Colin firmly by the hand (who took me by the hand) and led us into the traffic safely to the other side. He asked us where we were going and we explained our taxi problem.
We had debated taking a tuk-tuk, but had been wary of doing so. The monk convinced us this was the best course of action and, thus, we ended up taking a (very comparatively expensive) tuk-tuk ride that was worth every cent. Our driver was not the man whose picture graced the license to drive the tuk-tuk (seemingly younger by several decades), but was enthusiastic to take us to our hotel and knew where it was. The ceiling of the vehicle was strangely covered in spiderman logos. We got in as he finished his sandwich and he climbed in after us, finally turning to ask us how much we would pay him. Smiling (both with the grin of knowing the game I was about to play and the one that is customary when taking up a complaint in Thailand in order to ease the tension), I haggled him down 50 baht in his price before we began our journey. Colin has used the descriptors of "raucous" and "better than any roller coaster he'd ever been on including Space Mountain". It seems that every tuk-tuk driver in Bangkok wants to both be on his motorcycle (the most common form of transport for locals) and also be driving the Indy 500. He swerved and dodged and negotiated and corralled and gave way to and slipped through traffic in ways that I had not imagined those little vehicles could achieve. To our great amusement, about halfway through the trip the driver pulled over and stopped the engine. I started to worry (as we were nowhere near our hotel) that he was going to push for more money for the fare, but instead asked if we cared that he stopped for a drink of bean water. Not minding at all and being more confused and amused than anything else, we agreed and waited a few minutes for him to offer patronage to a place he knew. Bean water imbibed, we continued on our journey, finally arriving at our hotel. Colin had enjoyed it so thoroughly we ended up giving him the extra 50 baht he had wanted anyway, which made him laugh.
Sunday was much more laid back, being the last day of our trip. We breakfasted at our leisure and walked around the neighborhood a bit before heading back to Siam Paragon to try some of the desserts from the plethora of bakeries we had seen. The video features me eating fudge brownie cheese cake, while Colin opted for strawberry yogurt cake. By the time we got back to the hotel (early) our arranged transport vehicle (a black Japanese luxury-size sedan) was waiting to take us to the airport.
We had hoped that the flight back would not have the same delay as the flight there, because we were already supposed to be getting back at 8:30pm (and had another hour before we could expect to be home), but we had no such luck. Not only was our flight delayed, but after checking us in at the gate, we were informed that we needed to rush to a different gate that the flight had been moved to. So we rushed through the airport like that scene from Home Alone 2 and arrived to find an empty gate terminal that was locked. Many other people arrived rushing to the gate as well and found themselves similarly annoyed. We ended up having to wait about hour for the plane and did not make it back to the apartment until 10:30 that night.
While the flights at either end were slow and delayed, the vacation itself was terrifically wonderful. Both of us had been pushing hard to edit Colin's most recent chapter of his thesis and our general projects and had frankly just been cooped up in the apartment for too long. Getting away and taking the time to relax and enjoy a place helped us to unwind. And the food. Oh good gracious the food. You may have read about our previous entries concerning food, but let's just say there is a world of difference (and enjoyment) between the food cultures of Hong Kong and Bangkok. While eating in Hong Kong is an activity that is generally treated as a mere necessity, Bangkok allowed us to appreciate our palettes and vegetables proved to be the rule rather than the exception.
Overall the honeymoon was interesting, relaxing and extremely enjoyable. Bangkok has made our list of places to go again.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Importance of Thinking
*NOTE: Today's post is another that was either requested of me or that I felt I should write in response to a conversation I overheard and probably have absolutely no business inserting myself into...so, of course, I am going to write about it.*
Thinking is important. I know that probably sounds mundane if not downright obvious, but there is a reason I make this assertion. The fact of the matter is that any creature with a brain thinks on at least some level of complexity, and this ability to think allows for amazing possibilities. Thinking creatures are able to discern and make judgments; they are able to plan and calculate; they are able to form bonds with other things on a cognitive level. Naturally, this has led to the incorporation of thought into survival strategies for many species, such as complicated group alert systems by meerkats, tool-use by apes and otters, and the ability to learn.
Of course, not everything that goes on in the brain is what we would call thinking. There are plenty of reflexive programs that run through the brain, such as the command line your brain has to run to keep you breathing. Non-voluntary actions and knee-jerk reflexes are pre-programmed or conditioned / primed responses that constitute a different kind of mental process. Granted, no one has ever really given a sufficient, universally-accepted definition of what "thinking" is, but I think for the sake of discussion here we can say that things like jumping back when you step on something painful is not really an action you think about; it is a reflex.
Now, as humans we possess the double-edged sword of higher cognition, higher-level thinking, that many of our fellow species lack. The result is that we are able to think of things in the abstract, form and hold opinions and other ideas, and develop complex concepts such as language and culture that can be shared throughout the species. All of this is accomplished simply by putting our fantastically wired brains to use and, for the most part, can be done with very little effort on the part of the thinker. Consider the seemingly simple task of making a sandwich: for the well-adjusted human, this process takes little mental (and probably physical) effort assuming one knows the basics of how to make a sandwich, where the sandwich-making materials are, and what kind of sandwich one intends to make.
The key phrase here is "well-adjusted" and, as anyone who does think critically will point out, not everyone out there is well-adjusted. A social problem that is currently gaining more and more attention is that people seem to be doing less higher-level thinking and more lower-level thinking or merely abiding by simple conditioned or primed response. When we talk about the higher-lower distinction, we are talking about the difference between critical observation and analysis ("There is a rock, it is composed of materials X, Y, and Z; these are not materials commonly found in this area and the fact that it is sitting in this study near the shards of glass around the broken window suggests it was probably launched through it, causing the break.") and simple observation ("Hey, a rock. Hey, a broken window.").
Naturally, a decline in this higher-level thinking leads to decreases in innovation, capability to cope with difficult life situations, and an inability to develop competence in fields in which normal humans are clearly capable of developing competence (Else how could the fields have gotten as far as they have?). We can see these effects plainly.
The economy of Hong Kong is based largely on rent and distribution, not development and innovation. As a result, there is a huge wealth gap between the elite inheritors (yes, inheritors) of financial empires and the average fellow on the street, some of which are even forced to live in cage-dwellings (for info, a simple Google search brings a bounty of information: Hong Kong Wealth Gap). A good deal of this imbalance can be attributed to a refusal to critically examine the consequences of this rent-based economy by those who possess sufficient power and/or influence to do something about it. Their opinion? If it ain't broke (for us), we won't fix it.
Another issue is that a lack of stimulation or support often leads people down a dark path of psychological development, often running the road of depression into either suicide or an utterly unsatisfactory life. Studies on orphans have been a recurring theme in the history of psychological research, especially those kept in orphanages that did little to encourage the cognitive activity of their inmates. Google the Romanian Orphan Study, a now-infamous event in our world's history: following the fall of the Soviet Union, it was discovered that many Romanian orphans had been left neglected and, as a result, showed poor psychological development, unable to perform some basic life skills, and definitely not emotionally-developed. You know how your brain is full of wrinkles? Their brains were comparably smooth.
Then comes what I call the "I can't do it" generation. Doubtless, throughout history we have found ourselves in a world of people who denied that they could perform certain tasks because they were "too hard"; we may have even made that call ourselves at some point. The problem is that, in this era of standardized testing and teaching to said tests, U.S. public schools have been churning out students with a lack of critical-thinking ability, let alone a desire to think critically. I often find myself pondering over poorly-worded undergraduate responses to philosophy questions and wondering if mine were so bad when I was starting out. I check back and, as my own toughest critic, I can thankfully say, "No." Of course, that thanks also comes with some dread: If these are the philosophers of tomorrow, is our field doomed? What about other fields, like medicine and law? It makes one seriously consider alternative schooling. Check out the Wikipedia article on the supportive research for home schooling for some interesting information (of course, you should also check out the criticism of the supportive research to keep it fair and balanced).
All of these factors contribute to the terrible metamorphosis of people into "sheeple". This unnerving term refers to those who are unreflective, who refuse to employ higher-level thinking and defer wholly to the pre-processed responses given unto them to say on behalf of some propaganda machine (think of politics in the US). They are led along by some person or tagline that they will follow whenever and wherever. All of their decisions are already made for them; there is no higher-level thinking to be done, so just kick back, open a beer, and watch the big game. It sounds relaxing, right? So did soma.
What we are seeing from this drastic down-turn in critical thinking is a decrease in diversity of personal opinion, which leads to complacence with a system that may be harmful, which can ultimately lead to destruction not only for ourselves but for all of those we care about or may come to care about at some future date. If we do not begin to think, to really think, about ourselves, about others, and about all of the world around us, then we are quite probably dooming ourselves to a horrible fate that I cannot possibly begin to describe here.
Let me do away with this fire and brimstone for a moment, though, and return to a simpler matter at hand, and that is that people need to think to hang onto their opinions. Why? That is because your opinions are your world-views; they are how you understand and get along in the world to begin with. If someone takes away your opinions, they may as well be taking away your life, because they are certainly voiding you of your personality. Not really your life then, is it? A big part of this is that we have to start thinking, and we have to start thinking specifically about what we perceive to be the hard questions. That means we have to start examining our world, our institutions, and the subjects we are taught in school. That means we need to motivate ourselves to learn (and if the reasons I have given are not motivation, then I wonder what will motivate a person to learn) and we need to start making the connections between the many things we learn. That means not just learning that "2+2=4", but why that is the case and how to do addition in general. All that it requires is for you to stop and think. Really, it is not too hard.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Back from Thailand - Updates
Hello, all you lovely people in Internet-land. I suppose it has been quite a while since we posted anything here, and we are sorry for neglecting you. You like your updates, yes? Well, here are some updates.
I have been working day and night on my thesis and making a lot of headway, thanks largely to the brilliant editing of Carina and my friend and colleague Donald Sturgeon (who has blessed the world with the super-awesome Chinese Text Project). This has left us all very busy, along with the daily chores that need doing, but please do not think I have forgotten any of you.
In more exciting news, we recently got back from our honeymoon in Thailand (Bangkok, to be precise). It was a blast and we would love to go again some time. The bad news is that I forgot to bring the charger to my digital camera, so we have no pictures to upload at this time. We did pick up a disposable camera while there, so once we develop those photos we can show them off but, yeah, nothing at the moment. The good news is that we did not come back empty handed: I took video of our trip, and I am working on editing together a short film of the trip, including the highlights of the Grand Palace and our awesome food court experience at the Siam Paragon mall (we were there for a mere forty-eight hours, how much did you think we would cover?). I will also provide details from some of our other lovely experiences, and I know Carina has some points to add in.
That video will take some time to put together, though, and I do want to give you something substantial. To that end, I want to give a review of an article that Roger was kind enough to turn me onto: Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand. The article is by an interesting fellow out of Harvard Divinity named Chris Hedges, and it is a pretty well-thought, well-researched piece. Critic that I am, however, I have some points I want to shoot back to Hedges.
(SPOILERS: You really should read the article I am responding to first, otherwise what follows will probably make little to no sense!)
All right, I want to be fair in my response to this. Chris Hedges is clearly fired-up, and rightly so: things have gotten entirely out-of-hand in the US (okay, not like that is news to anyone); he is mad as Hell and he does not want us to take it anymore! But soft, Mr. Hedges. What is truly the source of the things that drive your ire? Let us take a considered look at his opinions.
First of all, I think we can see that what Hedges is most upset over is that he sees our “liberal” government as bending us over and forcing us to take it in the rear from the numerous hateful, criminal, and despicable groups he lists off in his diatribe. I can certainly sympathize with that: In a country where freedom is one of the most-prized values in life, said freedom has also been used as a shield to protect numerous heinous acts.
Yet is this the fault of liberality? Hedges, I think mistakenly, conflates ideals of multi-culturalism and tolerance with the “liberal agenda” which, for the record, neither philosophically nor politically full-on endorses the former ideal and only conditionally accepts the latter. Yet in our country we do have, or are at least supposed to have, protections against certain extreme behaviors (slander, libel, harmful acts, etc), and I do not think it is exactly the fault of liberalism that these things continue to rear their ugly heads. For that matter, it is not the fault of multi-culturalism (again, an entirely different doctrine), and it is only a form of tolerance (protectionism) that allow them to propogate. I am reminded of the US Supreme Court's 8-1 decision to allow the Westboro Church's protests at the funerals of military personnel (which, many including myself would agree, is detestable and flies in the face of protection from harm). The US Supreme Court, by the way, made that decision not on a liberal interpretation of the Constitutional First Amendment right to free speech, but a conservative one (see the opinions here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-751.pdf).
The fact of the matter is that the liberal does not haphazardly advocate blind tolerance; it is always a tolerance bounded by a protection of freedoms and, perhaps more importantly, a protection from harm. If Hedges wants to call out liberals, fine. He is not, however, calling out proper liberals, who have certainly not forgotten Popper's words, but merely those who lazily sing a doctrine all day without having any understanding of it. The conservatives are no better, for they also stick dogmatically to a doctrine that is pulling our entire culture down the metaphorical tube.
What disturbs me more, however, is that Hedges refers to the following as “toothless pursuits”: inclusiveness, multi-culturalism, identity politics, and tolerance. Somehow, these values are subordinate to justice which, to me, seems to be a concept that must inevitably be founded upon them. Susan Moller Okin has a wonderful critique of John Rawls's first pass at principles of justice (essentially justice as fairness), wherein she critiques the traditionally sexist (and in my opinion classist) institution of the family as being an inalienable factor in determining interests. If true liberalism is to be established, we have to provide a much more in-depth analysis of persons and their identities. For Okin, that included looking at women as individuals, but also as women...which means looking at men as men, children as children, and...wow, that really brings the whole Veil of Ignorance crashing down! It is the flaw of liberalism to assume that all are equal merely in virtue of being human, and that accommodation for inequality can always be made by a purely liberal system. It cannot, it simply cannot.
The fact of the matter is that we need the aforementioned “toothless pursuits” to even be able to instantiate a conception of justice. I do not mean that justice is subordinate to these ideals, as they are all subordinate to our needs as human beings and the natural laws that govern existence. What I mean to suggest is that, if we must break-apart and analyze the picture, we must still pursue this project holistically, else we will be unable to fit the pieces back together in the end.
Now, there are also a number of points in this article where I am totally with Hedges, especially where he calls out the abuse suffered by the worker from the higher-ups in big business. The businessman's seemingly inevitable hunger for profit drives corporate greed, and it is our government's unwillingness to intervene on behalf of the worker that allows this tapeworm to grow ever larger. Of course, it has been the Republican party, the conservatively-minded folk, that has been the biggest source of benefit to these blue-blooded parasites. The big contribution the liberal side has offered was: nothing. By nothing, of course, we mean that no aid has been offered to either the mice or the fat cats. Whether this is out of “tolerance” or out of a total inability to act is unknown to me. When I was a younger lad, I always viewed myself as a liberal, but not as a Democrat. The Democrats, I decided, were too disorganized to get anything done. Even if their numbers matched those of Republicans, they would certainly fall from lack of unity. To this day I still hold the same belief, and I find it wholly unsurprising that nothing has been done to stem the wave of unemployment, poverty, and abuses of Constitutional rights launched by conservative policies and unchecked by liberal practices. This, of course, is the problem with liberalism: It is to protect against significant harm, but when is the harm significant? We need some standards; we need some culture.
Also, we cannot deny that Hedges hits the nail on the head when he points out the rigging of US politics. After all, how many in Congress are genuinely middle-class or lower? How much say can a man who makes roughly $400 a week have in our national legislature? The answer is not much more than one thousand men who make the same wages. The fact of the matter is that the government can, does, and will continue to cater to the interests only of those in its monkey-sphere: Only those who “representatives” think of first will be considered and, since that is largely limited to an elite few, the rest of us are left out to dry.
Mind you, I am uncertain and skeptical of the purely democratic alternative view, wherein each man votes his own mind. Certainly there are a good number whose brashness would endanger us all (such as stocking up on KI pills to prevent radiation poisoning from Japan), and we do want to have those most-capable in charge. Certainly it would be impractical to take a vote from everyone on everything that the US sets out to do. Most certainly there are some who need to be shouted down because their beliefs and actions pose a danger to all of humanity. What is to be done is to find a way to tear-down the class elitism, the factioning, and the foolishness without tearing down the whole system. We also need to find a way to dispel the illusions perpetuated by the cattle-drivers in politics, endlessly pushing their bovine constituents through the polls and into the slaughterhouses. This country is in need of revolution, but not of the bloody sort. I would suggest education and civilization.
When we speak of things like tolerance, what do we speak of? Do we simply accept what some might call “fate” and allow ourselves to be dragged down with the ship? MLK Jr may not have spoken of tolerance (or he may have, Hedges's sources are unclear), but ancient Asian philosophies certainly do, and when they do they speak of it in terms of being a wholly physical act, not just a mental one. Nin is a concept from bushido, and it can be glossed as tolerance, endurance, and serenity. Specifically, it seems to refer to the idea of enduring pain with grace. Confucianism also speaks of such endurance; so does daoism. As we know, though, Confucians and adherents to the code of bushido did not have wholly tolerant views of the world: they allowed that there were institutions and values that could and should be upheld; they had a cultural backbone. Whether the exact points of culture they picked out, and how they adhered to them, are things we might disagree with, but the framework is one worth considering. We can and should tolerate some things: slow traffic, an annoying sibling, the construction outside the apartment. There are some things, however, that are not matters of toleration, but matters of rightness: hate, violence, suffering, etc. When we are confronted with such matters, our cultural values spur us to act against them. When confronted with a starving man, we tend to be moved by compassion (even when we do not offer him anything), and philosophers like Mengzi took this to be a sign of how the human passions could be drawn upon to develop a harmonious society. Xunzi elaborated on this, drawing upon cultural concepts and standards to help us learn how to channel these feelings and develop a refined sense of right and wrong. Were these people liberals? Probably not, but there is no reason their notions of tolerance are incompatible with the core elements of liberalism.
Hedges: Your words are loud and clear, but your target is incorrect. Your ire is not at tolerance, but at apathy. Do not call people away from tolerance, but call them toward action; call them toward humaneness.
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