Saturday, February 19, 2011

Education: Knowledge and Truth, East and West

Today's entry is, I believe, my first ever "requested" one. I guess that means I should make it really good with an extra helping of interesting, spiced-up with a pinch of awesome. Here it goes:

Let me begin by setting the stage for the uninitiated. Debates have been raging about what constitutes "knowledge" since the dawn of philosophy in the Western world, with the oft-lauded model of "justified, true belief" finding itself increasingly under fire in the modern era. Can you have a true belief count as knowledge without justification? Does it count as knowledge if the justification is somehow "flawed" by the standards of the outside observer? Can you ever really have knowledge?

A decent summary of these criticisms/fears/concerns comes from Edmund Gettier, who gives a number of counter-examples to attempts at justifying the JTB model of knowledge. I will not copy-paste them all here. Just click Mr. Gettier's name and it will take you to a nice Wiki link (I think Wiki is reliable just this once). The point of the Gettier cases is to elicit a response from the observer, specifically the response that even in cases where there is JTB, we hesitate to attribute knowledge to the subject.

Okay, I will give one example: You are driving through the countryside and see what you perceive to be a barn. That is to say that you come to judge the object as a barn, label it as a barn, and assume that you know that object is a barn. You claim knowledge! But hold on, Billy, we are not through yet. It turns out that you are driving through Fakebarn County, where there are a number of barn-like facades set up all over the place. Now, it just so happens that what you saw was, in fact, a barn. Your belief was correct and your justification was reasonable. Now knowing that it might have been a fake barn, however, do you still think you knew that it was a barn, or did you merely guess correctly? For that matter, is there a difference?

This is an issue that I take to be largely bound-up with a particular conception of knowledge that has its roots in classical Western philosophy (re: the Greeks). You see, the Greeks were not necessarily concerned with knowledge per se; they were concerned with absolute, normative truth (alethia). The interests of philosophers like Aristotle were largely concerned with getting things right; getting to the truth of the matter. Clearly, knowledge and truth are different: the former refers to a psychological state and the latter to a (the?) condition of existence. Nonetheless, by focusing on truth and using it as the target of knowledge, we come to see the beginning of the Western fascination with it.

Oh, to be sure, the Greeks did discuss knowledge on its own, a paradigm case being the Meno dialogue. In fact, that dialogue set in motion the very JTB model that modern philosophy continues to critically assess. The only real point of the Meno, however (at least in my opinion), is that having knowledge of something is better than mere belief. Even if the belief turns out to be true, you did not know that it would be so; you acknowledge the possibility of the inaccuracy of the belief. So the real prize here is certainty; nothing more and nothing less.

For example, if you have two potential guides, one who knows his way around the city and the other who does not, which would you prefer? Unless you are particularly adventurous, I am guessing you would take the former, the reason being that he is clearly capable (knowledgeable) of the city and can accurately guide you around it. Let me tell you what you might be missing out on, though: Suppose the second guide lacks knowledge but, by pure chance, is able to guide you around such that you get the exact same tour as you would with the knowledgeable guide. Is the tour itself in any way devalued, then? I can see no reason to say so, unless you are very OCD about your guide actually knowing where he is going and not just guessing. Still, you probably continue to feel more comfortable with the knowing guide. Why? My guess is that we tend to prefer a "sure thing" rather than a gamble, and knowledge means we should have certainty of whether or not we are getting that sure thing.

Now, that is my take on the Western tradition of knowledge, but there are plenty of others. A lot of people are opposed to this view of knowledge as a mere psychological state; they want it to have some greater "umph!" I have no idea what exactly they want from it, seeing as certainty is a pretty significant psychological state, but there it is. Well, that is not entirely true, I do have some idea. Linked with the Greek tradition, a lot of people seem to want knowledge to be a situation that accords with a very specific set of constraints. They want the "candidate for knower" to have a sufficient justification for his or her knowledge claim, to genuinely believe the claim, and the for claim to, of course, accord with the reality of things. Now, how you come to lay claim to this kind of ultimate knowledge is beyond me, since we are pretty much limited to our perceptions and intuitions, all of which are subject to the doubt of the aptly-named skeptic. Some people are less-demanding in the extent to which knowledge must agree with the reality of things, but they remain demanding all the same (ex: "no defeaters" models of knowledge).

The result of such an approach to knowledge, however, is extremely problematic for our approach to education. If the object of education is to generate this kind of knowledge, then we are going to be very narrow in how we think about the problems we will be addressing. If we narrowly limit the scope of what constitutes justification, we risk cutting out a number of perfectly reasonable means of coming to conclusions that are, according to the extent of human understanding, correct...but might have employed an unorthodox method of getting there. It also means limiting the goal of learning merely to propositions: I know that the solution/truth of "2+2" is "4". What more do you want, then? I mean, sure, we definitely want our students to be able to understand the general theory behind arithmetic, but is that about seeking truth or something else?

My suggestion is that what we are really looking for with knowledge is not truth itself, although I can understand why we would love to find it, but rather understanding. When we are attempting to teach students the fundamental theorems of calculus, we are not simply teaching them an accepted truth, but a skill set as well. We are teaching them how to do something as much as we are teaching them that something is the case. If you just want to teach "thats" to your students, fine. We can use rote indoctrination for that and limit our students to "knowing" a few facts...but they never know "why" this is so or "how" to do any of it. What I suggest is that coming to knowledge, as much as it is about certainty, is also about a state of concept mastery: You can claim to "know" that "2+2=4" when you accept it as true; you "know" math when you understand the "hows" and "whys" as well.

This view of knowledge is more akin to knowledge in the classical Chinese philosophical tradition, where the term "zhì " means not only knowledge, but can also be glossed as "wisdom" and, my favorite, "understanding". You see, the Chinese philosophical tradition comes to discussions of knowledge from a different understanding of the world. Oh, the Chinese were very concerned with natural patterns (look at their agriculture), and the basic psychological state they were concerned with was about drawing distinctions of whether or not something was so. This capacity, however, was not discussed or analyzed in terms of the Greek alethia, but in terms of the distinguisher's ability and simply whether or not something seemed to be the case; the obsession with absolute truth was largely avoided.

Furthermore, a lot of the philosophy was socially-oriented, and this meant that there was a lot more variability of subject. For example: How do you know the right place to live, let alone the right place? How do you know the true nature of humans? How do you know how things should be done? These are questions we continue to ask, with more and more people taking a very liberal, sometimes even pluralistic approach in their responses (Mill, Rawls, Okin, Myself). The ultimate conclusion a lot of philosophers of the era seemed to come to was that there might very well be no one set truth to all things (although maybe there were better solutions to the questions than others), and there are many points in texts where zhì can be translated as understanding just as easily as knowledge...sometimes it even makes more sense!

In no text is this more apparent than the Zhuangzi, wherein the eponymous character and possible writer discusses the distinction between "big knowledge" and "little knowledge". You can have lots of bits of little knowledge, like where you generally like to live, how to carve cups out of gourds, etc, but they do not amount to big knowledge. Little knowledge can be valuable, because it can provide a number of significant technical skills. It is, however, limited to specific instances all the same. Big knowledge comes in viewing the world more holistically and seeing the myriad possibilities for all things. It comes in realizing that we are not bound by particular customs and conventions merely because "they are so", and that there are nigh infinite possibilities for existence. In coming to peace with these realizations, one comes to the mastery that is the big knowledge.

Now, let us return to the situation of what we call knowledge in our education system. When we are teaching our students, are we trying to provide them with little knowledge or big knowledge? I think the answer is "both". We want to provide them with specific skill sets, such as how to add "1" and "1", but we also want them to understand broader theories. Then, we want them to take these broader theories and see how they fit into an even bigger picture, ultimately leading to a more holistic view of a subject. We are not just teaching them facts, which are certainly truths to the best of out knowledge, but also helping them to see that the world and all of the studies in it are broad indeed. In doing so, we create a unity of knowledge that takes on the disposition of conceptual mastery and psychological certainty. This, to me, seems to be the object of education and the genuine object of knowledge.

So what exactly does this mean for, say, a math teacher? It means that what he is attempting to articulate is not a set of facts (although we might say that such a set is part of what is being taught, even if it is merely a tool), but a way of doing something, a mathematical dào. In teaching the Pythagorean theorem, he cannot simply show the student a set of proofs and a general equation; the student, especially the new student, will not know what to do with this. The teacher must instead show the student how the theorem functions in conjunction with the theorem that what is going on is and will always be so (geometrically speaking, anyway). Here we have a coming together of theoretical and practical ability that leads to a conceptual mastery or, as I call it, genuine knowledge.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

CNY Parade, Part 2

I know that it's been a while, but I did promise to post the rest of the parade pictures, so here it goes:

After Thailand came....




The girls kinda frightened me with their wigs and makeup. No seven year old should have to be put through that. I guess if they really want to... I wasn't one of those girls. No really - ask my mom.

The second group juggled hourglass shaped ... tops?... on ropes. It was pretty cool. Some of them could toss them really high and catch them. Their strange costumes on the other hand? All I can think is... SPACE BUNNIES! If Barbarella had worn a bunny suit, this would have been it... with more cleavage.




And then the LSU Tiger's dance team appeared. Why? No idea. I missed getting a picture of the mascot somehow.




The HK Rope Skipping Club came by. They seemed to range from 7 to about 15 years old and some of them were really good. Colin was relieved to see that they were instructed to stop skipping and just walk for a while after they passed us. The parade would have been a really long affair for those kids if they had to jump rope the entire parade route.




Macau had the next float. It was obviously paid for by the tourism committee, as was the Thailand float, but ended up being much more commercial in nature.




The Drumcats were a percussion group from the Korean Entertainment INC. Girls drumming in leather pants and boots with revealing tops (considering the culture). Enough said.




The next presentation that walked past was a group of children that dressed to represent the city. Starting in the bottom right corner and rotating clockwise: The first, second and third pictures are representing the buildings of the city. Some are more vague (in the first picture) and some are more distinctly represented, like the Central Plaza (second picture), the Two International Finance Center (shiny building on the left of the third picture and also the 4th tallest building in the world) and the Tsing Ma Bridge (also in the third picture). The fourth picture (top left hand corner, for those who are lost) shows little girls in pink who are wearing signs with street names on their heads. As a point of interest, if you look really closely, you can see that the girl waving in the bottom right hand corner of the picture is "Queens Road" (Colin and I live on Queen's Road West).




The Hong Kong Jockey Club had a large group of kids dressed as jockeys and the second best design of float for the night. The official New Year's Race was the morning of Saturday, 5 February.




The Shanxi Drum Troupe had an awesome performance. They were very charismatic and the crowd responded really well. They were from mainland China as part of the international performing groups.




The seventh float in the series was produced by the Vegetable Marketing Organization.

After this, I must most sincerely apologize for the picture quality. I was worried as I took pictures that I wasn't getting enough light to be able to see anything, so I realized at this point I could put my camera on "Night mode." Night mode is wonderful because it's like using low light film - the camera takes in more of the light so that you can see more in your photo. Night mode is terrible for moving subjects that aren't well lit ... which I didn't seem to really notice until it was too late.




The Kagoshima Ogionsa All Ladies' Mikoshi group from Japan performed next. I'm not exactly sure what they were performing, but they were certainly putting on a cultural show. The lanterns and standards were beautiful.




Then they carried in this woman on top of what we thought was a float. It had a scale model of a pagoda and the woman was really into the fan dance she was doing. The photo is a little blurry, but you can see it on her face. She's really excited.




The Japanese also brought the JR Kyushu Shinkansen Balloon, which looked like the front end of a plane. It was very random.




Another very commercial float by the China Travel Service (Holdings) HK Ltd was next.




As the parade started to wind down, the floats became more frequent. We finally got to see the New Year's Rabbit float. We thought it was strange that it wasn't at the end, like Santa Claus on Thanksgiving. This float was accompanied by a "Lion Dance" which might have been more aptly described as a "Bunny Dance."




The next float was another commercial float presented by China Telecom.




A broadway song was performed by the John Burroughs High School Powerhouse from the United States. I believe they were one of the groups performing live broadway shows during the first week of CNY.




Disneyland Hong Kong presented a float called "Celebration in the Air." I thought it was quite well done and tried to get good pictures for all of the Disney fans at home. :)




One last marching band sponsored by the Hong Kong Special Region Drum Corps & Marching Band Association marched past before...




...the Hainan Provincial Tourism Administration's float, promoting tourism to the tropical Hainan Island of China.




A group of strangely dressed people carrying large candy-shaped standards walked past. They reminded me of Alice in Wonderland a bit, but I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be with the Hainan float or not.

At this point it was getting late and, as groups had stopped coming along the parade route, Colin and I thought the parade was over. Apparently we missed the last float, advertising Ocean Park Hong Kong. We hopped aboard the metro along with quite a few drunken people and made our way back home.

That's the end of the parade photos. We hope you all enjoyed them. Once again, if you click on the photos you can see larger shots of them and leave us a comment. :)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Confessions of an Internet Junkie (I)

It has been a while since we last updated this blog, hasn't it? I figure we owe you good folks a post and, although I don't have much to add about Hong Kong (except for my learning that the closest you come to turkey in gravy here is snake soup), I can talk about what I've been up to other than working on the third chapter of my thesis (making progress, woot!).

Anyway, I figured that I would start up a new segment for filler / to let you know that we're still alive here. The topic is about one of my addictions: the Internet. As most of you know, I am a philosopher. As a philosopher, I have this horrible addiction to information. As information is readily available on the Internet, I have become addicted to one thing via another.

Wow, philosophy is a gateway drug. Who knew?

At any rate, I want to use these segments to talk about my various thoughts and feelings that come up from my slack-erm-researching the Internet. Sometimes it's enlightening, other times depressing, and still more times it's just amusing.

Today's subject is a pretty serious one, though: comment sections. I know that most of you are probably at least vaguely familiar with these. After all, you either leave comments on this blog or at least are aware that an option to do so exists (hint-hint). What you may not be aware of is the fact that, unlike the tame comments you'll find around here, there is some pretty horrible stuff out there.

I would know, I used to contribute to it.

My problem started back when I was an undergraduate at Duke. Actually, scratch that. My problem started back when I was about twelve years old and was given my first computer with Internet access. Back then, I used to frequent websites that dealt with video game strategies and would end up arguing with other commenters (users) about the content of, well, the comments. The debates ranged from mild to outright vicious but, all in all, it wasn't exactly that terrible. Just a bunch of thirteen year olds typing in all-caps on the Internet. Nothing too harmful and eventually I outgrew that sort of thing...well, the arguing. Yeah, I still visit gamer forums. We can't all be uber-1337 and get through games on hard mode the first run through with one life and basic equipment on our own, you know.

But I digress. My comment addicition did not return until half-way through my tenure as a Duke undergrad, when I started reading the articles and comments of the Duke Chronicle Online. I will not link to it here because, frankly, it's not exactly a spectacular publication...then again, neither are the Daily Tar Heel or the Technician. They're college newspapers, what do you want? See, I should have thought of that before I got sucked in, but I made my mistake all the same...

It started with one opinion column: "Do Away with the Shamanism Major". It was a poorly-argued critique of Duke's dance major by a conservative nut [NAME OMITTED] that I knew from several of my philosophy classes (I have never known anyone so obsessed with John Locke who was also so severely lacking in knowledge of his work). At any rate, being the liberal-minded, multi-culturalist (oxymoron as that sounds) that I am, I responded to his article with what most would refer to as "scathing criticism" of his argument...it was also to vent my personal frustration toward a human being who was, for all accounts and purposes, a pretender in the realm of philosophy (we're not dogmatists, or not supposed to be, we're knowledge-seekers). I chose the pseudonym "Jormungand" for my first posts and, from then on out, that was my identity on the Duke Chronicle comment sections.

When there was a Pro-China response to the Pro-Tibet rally? I was there. When there was the dead-horse beating of the "Duke Lacrosse Scandal"? I was there. When there was a criticism of Durham as a "dangerous place infested by hispanics and black people"? Oh, you'd better believe I was there (I abhor racism, classism, and many other -isms, but you already knew that).

Eventually, the often ad hominem verbal sparring that took place on those Chronicle forums began to consume a good chunk of my day. My morning would begin with a light breakfast, my orkout, and then the rest of breakfast as I spent about an hour commenting and responding to comments. I was still getting all of my work done and staying healthy, but it was pretty obvious that this thing was starting to consume me...and make me even more opinionated than I already was...although maybe that was a good thing, still not sure about that.

At any rate, eventually I did wake up to a fact: no matter what I said or how well I argued my point, it really didn't matter. I wasn't resolving any international crises on those forums and, due to the anonymity of the Internet, no one knew who anyone else was; there wasn't anything immediately personal about the discussions. To other users, I was just some jerk at my laptop...and, of course, that was pretty much how they were to me. When I graduated in '09, I said, "No more." I stopped commenting on the Chronicle and left others to their petty arguments. There was really no more point to it (although I understand a fellow by the name of "Ed Rickards" who graduated decades ago still posts there, heckling writers and other posters. I guess you can do that when you're retired and unable to enjoy life otherwise).

So that was that. I quit commenting cold-turkey and I have no regrets about it. Sure, sometimes I see an article that infuriates or excites me and I post it up on Facebook, but I don't have nearly the same reactions as I used to on those other forums. I don't get consumed by it.

That hasn't stopped me from reading the articles and their accompanying comment sections, though. I have the CNN.com newsfeed on my iGoogle page, and I still look up what's going on in the world...then I scroll down and read what a bunch of Internet trolls have to say in response. The responses are usually petty, but I still read them. I guess it's just a fascination with human psychology on my part. And, sure, most of the comments are immature and deplorable by most standards. I'm used to seeing "X deserves to die," or "Y is a fag," or "Obama is a secret Muslim" (didn't need a variable for that one; it's always the same). I see these and, of course, I think, "What a bunch of morons." Then I realize that most of these people probably just post to vent or get a rise out of others, and the ones who post seriously are the kinds of goose-stepping morons (thank you Mr. Connery) that we should probably keep our eyes peeled for but are, by and large, all bark and no bite...except for their words.

So that wraps up today's post. As I sit here, sickish in bed, I know that I will probably pull up another article shortly after posting and, after reading its content, scroll down and read the myriad comments posted below. I know my eyes will be assaulted with stupidity and inanity, but that's okay; I'm used to it. What makes it all worth it is when you muck through all of that garbage and, eventually, find a gem or two in the mess that are either so bad they're funny, or they show some genuine, intelligent, humane insight. I see those latter kind and think, "Good for you...now, just let it go. Don't get sucked in like I did."

Monday, February 7, 2011

Pizza Hut: The Rebuttal

Hello everyone. Since I was called out, I figured I'd say my piece.

The Trip to Pizza Hut

While I'm okay with admitting that I did want to go to Pizza Hut, let's set the story straight: I told Colin I would agree to not ask him to go to McDonald's if we could at some point go to the Pizza Hut we'd seen the sign for on the way to the grocery store. He agree, heartily (as he likes to avoid McDonald's as a whole). I, myself, was very curious to see how pizza would be done. Most of the pizzas that we find around here are a little tomato sauce with indistinguishable toppings and sometimes a little cheese on top of regular sandwich bread (think Bagel bites minus the bagel with less cheese and goodness knows what for toppings - scary). Plus, I have found that creating food here that isn't boring to be a challenge, though that is a topic for another post. So when I mentioned to Colin as we approached on our way to the grocery store that he had not yet taken me as promised, he offered and so we went.

Before we continue with our Pizza Hut experience, you should know that restaurants around here (and I do mean the nice, but cheap enough to eat at ones) tend to, at best, look like an old run down Waffle house at night on the inside. Hard seating, dim lighting, tables crammed together with mostly seating for 2. You can never tell what you're going to be charged extra for. The food is often greasy and any meat that you order will come with what seems like more than a normal helping of gristle attached to all sides of the actual meat, which is small. Of course, this is a reality that is hard to avoid even when purchasing meat. I purchased some inexpensive chicken leg steak, thinking it would be easy to skin and prepare, rather than buying the prepared and mostly tendonless,fatless breast meat. How very wrong I was. The leg steaks were almost entirely dark meat (not usually bad, but really tough and having poor taste even when marinated in this case), full of fat between each muscle, but luckily boneless. They even took the cartilage out, but trying to clean it was like being back in anatomy dissection, though by the end it just felt as if I had stuck my hands in lanolin. Really. That is the quality of meat that is most often served in restaurants here.

At any rate:

The Good

We walked through the mall to find ourselves at the entrance of a nicely designed modern looking restaurant and were seated by a hostess and a waitress in nice, clean-lined black wear. The menu touted that it was gourmet and the waitstaff was dressed to leave that impression. The seats were padded, cloth-covered booths (rather than plastic covered chip board); the table had a nice table cloth and with silverware and napkins awaiting us with a plate. It was almost like eating in a sit-down style restaurant at home. This was really nice in and of itself.

The menu touted such "gourmet" choices as finely crafted salads, the aforementioned lobster bisque in puff pastry, "ocean and land" (aka surf and turf) options, a full line of pasta meals,none of which came served in a large lasagna style tin pan (these weren't the pasta options that Pizza Hut is serving in the US - they were beautifully presented dishes that looked to be served in decently healthy portion sizes); and even a crab and lobster pizza. Very interesting. They also had the usual pizza supreme, stuffed crust options. The dessert menu tempted Colin quite a bit. He even requested that if we go back we get the "European sampler". (So he didn't seem so upset that going back wasn't a possibility.)

The pizza - yum. So very nice. Soft golden crust, decent and not overly spiced tomato sauce, warm gooey cheese and peperoni (which is hard to find poorly done). It was the best quality cheese that we've encountered here. It is so hard to find good cheese here and once you do, you realize that you're going to be paying ~12USD for a product that you'd pay 4USD for in the US. It has been explained to me that Asians on a whole tend to be lactose intolerant, so I guess this is the result. It was delicious.

The salad - pretty good. The salad was a romaine and cabbage mix with peppers, zucchini slices and chicken served with a balsamic vinaigrette. The romaine and cabbage were wonderful, especially after not having lettuce for more than a month. I thoroughly enjoyed the zucchini, but left the peppers to Colin.

The Bad

The chicken on the salad. Yes, folks, this was as bad as Colin made it sound. Truly. I took a slice of chicken that looked to be normal sized, but when I put it in my mouth, I realized it was fatty. So with the next one, I trimmed the fat off both sides of the meat, but then half of the portion was gone. Needless to say, I left the rest of the meat to Colin and just enjoyed the crunchy goodness of the veggies.

The service - about a D+. We were promptly seated and served water, but did have to wait a little longer than usual to order. Once we did the food came promptly, but then waiting for the check took quite a while. Colin (kindly) says it was 15 minutes, but we waited a bit longer than that from the finishing our meal to getting our check. The bus-boy and -girl came by and picked up our plates in a timely fashion and after we'd sat there for another 10 minutes we were again served water (which was kinda confusing). We never saw our waitress after our food was served and when I asked one of the passing management staff if we needed to wait for our check or just pay at the front, she huffed and then brought us a check grudgingly. She was fairly rude, grabbing receipts and money. If we return, we'll go to the front desk when finished rather than suffer the poor treatment of the management.

Overall, I'd give this restaurant a B+, when compared with the other restaurants here that I've experienced. Quality of the food (other than the chicken) was pretty good and the atmosphere was pleasant. The service, other than the strange thing with the check, wasn't too bad.

I'm, perhaps a less harsh critic when it comes to things like that. Colin would eat worse tasting food if it was less fatty and complain less. For me, it was a pretty good trip. Perhaps we'll go back for the creme brulee that Colin is so tempted by. :)

Pizza Hut (aka Gourmet Garbage)

*SNARK WARNING: I went overboard with parenthetical asides in this post.*

All right, I know I am going to catch flack from Carina for the title of this post, but I feel that our lovely readers are entitled to a review of yesterday's *ahem* gustatory experience. Oh, what an experience it was...

Ever since scoping out our little slice of Hong Kong, Carina has been threatening to request a meal at one of the fine, "American" dining locales nearby: McDonald's and/or Pizza Hut. The optimistic part of me wanted to believe this to be an idle threat, but the realist in me knew that it was only a matter of time before permission was asked and, damn it all, the curious cat in me wanted to know whether such restaurants (I use that term loosely) were better or worse than their USA counterparts. After all, I had been to a McDonald's in Paris and, ironically, it was probably some of the best food I had there given the price (sorry, Paris, but the Belgians in general rock you, sock you, pick you up and drop you any day of the week in terms of culinary expertise). Maybe it would be the same here in Hong Kong.

Of course, we all know what happened to that curious cat.

Yesterday rolled in and we finally broke down and went to Pizza Hut. It had been a pretty long day and, frankly, I wanted to do something nice since all of our favorite bakeries have been closed the past week for the Lunar New Year. Carina wanted to go and the philosopher in me (i.e. me in general) was curious. I figured, what the heck? We can give it a shot. Well, here is what we hit:

The Good

I have never been a big fan of Pizza Hut, although I do have fond memories of the free pizza you got for that Book-It program back in the day (I am over twenty and married, I think I am entitled to use that phrase now). I remember the dingy little pizza houses with the greasy pizza buffets that would be left open with greasy old pizza for tian knows how long.

No such thing at HK Pizza Hut.

No, at HK Pizza Hut you are brought into what appears to be a mid-level restaurant complete with cushioned, booth seating, air-conditioning, a reasonable degree of cleanliness (hard to find around here), and *drum-roll* a full and extensive menu. I kid you not. HK Pizza Hut has an extensive menu of what appear to be quality dishes. It is no secret that Pizza Hut has been expanding their menu for some time, especially with the inclusion of more pasta and salad dishes. You will never, however, find some of the interesting, "European" (they are very emphatic about dividing the rest of the world from China around here; what does that tell you?) dishes served, including lobster bisque served in a puff pastry, chicken penne, or a full dessert platter. Not only that, but the pizza options are also pretty amazing here. Lamb and prawn pizza? That sounds decadent.

We ended up ordering a "regular" ("small" in the US of A) stuffed-crust pepperoni pizza with tomatoes and a chicken garden salad. I have to say, I was impressed with the presentation of the salad which looked about as it did in the menu. The pizza was...well...a pizza. I have to say, though, that it was about the highest quality of cheese we have had here in some time (a big deal for Carina, although I am not a cheese-head; the Steelers' loss stings). It was also not as greasy or crappy as you will get from a US Pizza Hut, so major points there as well. Suffice it to say that it was a nice break from the crappy restaurant food around here.

The Bad

There is a reason I tended to cook for myself even before Carina got here, even though all I really ate were oats and kidney beans. That reason is the fact that most places around here prepare foods in a manner that my body can do nothing with but convert to fat. The main issue is that there is pretty much no such thing as lean meat in Hong Kong and, if there is, it is served to you with the fat untrimmed and full of bones that, once you pick out and off, leaves you with little of the real protein.

Pizza Hut was really no different in this regard. The chicken salad I mentioned was well presented, and the yellow peppers were a welcome part, but it was also presented in what I call the "fancy" style (high on presentation, low on actual food content) and the chicken was really just chicken fat. Apparently only cooped chickens are used for anything in Hong Kong. I find this pretty pitiful, since Hong Kong actually imports most all of its food. You would think they could at least import higher quality meat for the price of the small salad (HK 48, ~US 6.5). The greens were good, but after eating the chicken off of that plate I felt like I had eaten something more akin to chicken-flavored gelatin. Funny, the cheap chicken breasts we buy at the meat market are better, and I can get a big bag for half the price of that salad.

The pizza fared better and, even though there is really only one place I ever want pizza from again (home), I have to say it was largely okay...except for the lack of tomatoes that 1) Carina explicitly ordered, and then 2) we were also explicitly charged for. I am really not surprised by this: service in Hong Kong is crap; service at US Pizza Hut is crap; it follows that service at HK Pizza Hut is really crappy. We waited about fifteen minutes for our check, during which time we probably could have (maybe should have) walked out without paying. I would chalk that up to it being busy, but the place was pretty empty and it was well past the usual lunch hour.

Judgment

So, how do I rate HK Pizza Hut? I give it a solid "C" on the Colin Scale. What? C sounds poor? Well, rest easy knowing that C means average and, all things considered, Pizza Hut pretty much balanced out around my expectations, exceeding some and being disappointing in others about equally. Would I go there again? In all honesty, probably not. The prices just are not worth the food quality in my opinion. The only things that might bring me back are if Carina asks and their specialty desserts (hey, where else can I get creme brulee around here?).

I am expecting a rebuttal from Carina on this post at some point, but I really do hope she does not take it too seriously or at all personally. I think it is good to try new things and, on occasion, old things in a new way...which I guess are totally new things in their own right. Like I said, I was curious to try the HK franchise too, and I will take my lumps as they come...so will our toilet, coincidentally.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Chinese New Year's Parade

Hello everyone! Colin and I went to the Night Parade held by the city for Chinese New Year. It was my first time over to the New Territories (aka mainland Hong Kong). We rode the metro over and then tried to find a good place to stand, which was harder than expected. We ended up choosing a location near to the start of the parade route, where most of the people were locals (and thankfully short) rather than tourist, who mostly seemed to be French (and tall).

Here's where we were on the parade route:


There were 13 floats, several marching bands, performances by groups from different countries and lots of little children dressed up as bunnies (adorable!).

So here it is:



Cathay Pacific had the first float. It came out about ten minutes before any of the other groups started along the track. Colin called it "The Pacing Float". Luckily as the night went on, the pace picked up.



Then this troupe of ballerinas danced through. So cute! The year of the rabbit has made for some adorable costumes.



The second float seemed to be sponsored by several jewelry and watch manufacturers.

Then...



... and ...





The third float was by the QTSA (Quality Tourism Services Association).



It had a cool looking rickshaw as the back of the float.

Then came Colin's favorite part of the parade:



The London School of Samba! They were even cool enough to be accompanied by their own marching band. v v



The next presentation was my favorite in the parade:



I loved the vibrant costumes and intricate displays. The children were sehr süß! I can't wait to take our trip to Thailand in March. :) This group had the best float and most elaborate costumes by far!


Well, folks, that is the first half of the parade. I'll post the rest soon. Don't forget to click on the pictures for a better look and leave us a comment or two!