Month: September 2003

In the end, Typhoon Dujuan turned out to be a non-event. Sure, there was some rain, and some wind, but from my vantage point the most exciting occurrence was the placement of a number of stranded passengers at my hotel, as flights in and out of Hong Kong were cancelled. On the other hand, a hearty group of revelers that I read about in the South China Morning Post had a great time down at the harbor watching the winds kick up and the waves come crashing against the docks. In retrospect, I should have headed down there to, but since I wasn’t all that sure what to expect, and knowing no one in Hong Kong should I have encountered some serious trouble, I wasn’t up to taking the chance. Besides, to be honest, I was tired, and it made for a great excuse to get some shut eye.

Wednesday dawned cloudy but cleared up by the time I made it out and about. I took off for Stanley, on the opposite site of Hong Kong Island from the city itself, via the No 6 bus that headed over the island. This was quite a pleasant if swooning ride, with beautiful views both of the city on the way up and the various bays and inlets on the way down. At more than one point I was tempted to disembark just to take some photos, but I surpressed the urge in the hopes of having fun in Stanley.

The town around the market areas was relatively quiet and relaxing, with a nice bay walk. I also spent some time Wandering leisurely through the inexpensive merchandise (where I picked up two new ‘paintings’), tooks dozens of photos, and ate lunch at Wildfire on the third floor of the Murray House. The Murray House itself has a fascinating history, as it was the oldest colonial building in Hong Kong city, and was disassembled in 1982 to make way for the Bank of China. It was then rebuilt in the 1990s, after being discovered in storage, in Stanley, where it now houses several restuarants. Oddly enough, the restuarant I ate at spoke far more English than Cantonese.

The third floor breeze was fantastic, and I lingered until mid-afternoon. I left shortly after leaving the restaurant, wanting to ensure I returned to the city in time to stop by my hotel to drop off my backpack prior to the Cantonese Opera at 7:30. The Opera itself turned out to be one of the most fascinating cultural events I’ve been to, on par with the Cherry Blossom display I saw in Kyoto at Gion Corner. It also contained far more acrobatics than I expected as well as music that was primarily a cacophony of clanging noises. To my surprise, it also contained a for of electronic subtitles, enabling those of us speaking English to follow along, for the most part. When the scenes picked up speed, particularly at the end of the second story, the subtitles were sadly lacking. Still I was completely drawn in to the story by that point and enjoyed every moment.

Thursday I decided to head to Macau, once a colony of Portugal. The province is about an hour away from Hong Kong, with vessels sailing every half hour during the day. The trip itself was quiet and uneventful, and the seats on the ship I took were extremely comfortable. I was told by two Aussies on the return that their ship over was not nearly as smooth or comfortable a ride.

Leaving the ferry terminal in Macau, I was dumped in front of an area with several men around to accost me for cheap transportation and “tours” around the city. After putting off several of them I was able to find the bus terminal and catch a bus that headed near the Casino Lisboa. Unfortunately, this wasn’t as wonderful as it sounds, since the bus didn’t clearly announce the stops and had a tendancy to skip some. I was actually quiet nervous, having never been to the city and having no idea where in the world I was. I finally got off, after what seemed like awhile, at a stop in the middle of nowhere in a place that, as it turns out, was only about a block and a half away from my intended destination. This, of course, I realized only after I got on another bus and watched it drive the block and a half or so.

From there I was able to get my bearings and head toward the Monte Fort, the fort at the top of one of the tallest points in the city. Along the way I encountered a lovely pedestrian area with buildings still built in the original architectural style from when the Portugeuse first settled in the area. The area was now filled with shops and other modern amenities as well as plenty of pedestrian traffic. I finally came to an intersection in the road, where I decided to head up toward the for. Granted, the other way would have led to the ruins of the Church of St. Paul, a front facade to what at one time must have been an impressive structure. It was originally built by the Jesuits, though they lost control when expelled. It was later used as a military installation, until it burned down in 1835. Off to the side are the climate-controlled escalators leading to the top of the fort as well as the Macau museum.

Me being me, I didn’t find this out until after I was leaving. Instead, I took the long walk up the other face throught he noonday heat and humidity to the top of the fort. This was a long walk through some back alleys and did provide an excellent sense of the more typical housing areas that are “off the beaten path” so to speak. The fort itself provided some impressive views of the surrounding area, and the museum provided an excellent background to Macau’s history.

I returned to Hong Kong for the early evening and ended up later at the Night Market on Temple Street. Bustling with activity, dozens of tourists and locals interact in a night market each day from about 6 pm until late at night, with clothes, CDs, movies, and many, many trinkets and jewlrey items all for sale at “bargain” prices. Literally, you have to bargain to get the best price, which was a concept that was relatively new for me. Sure, I’ve been to flea markets and other markets in Asia, but I’ve generally not bought anything there, so going back and forth with a calculator was definitely a whole new experience. I did pick up a few things here, including a nice bead bracelet for my sister that she very much appreciated.

Friday I took off for the new territories, particularly Sha Tin. Sha Tin boasts an incredible shopping space, all accessible immediately adjacent to the train station without actually going outdoors. The space is huge, with passageways connecting to additional buildings filled with…more shopping. Walking back through here when I was heading to the 10,000 Buddhas Monestary was simply unbelievable. It was essentially a mall to rival any mall I’ve been to.

Outside, behind the town hall building, is the Marriage Registry, which opens to the park area next to the river. Here I paused for awhile, in part to take advantage of the photogenic nature of the park and also to allow my camera to de-fog. While I waited several brides and grooms, with their associated parties, left the registry and, in a celebratory mode, took photographics with their friends and family. It was wholly worth the half hour to hour I spent watching the five to ten groups that passed through. There were also a number of groups out, practicing breathing and martial arts exercises, including one large group doing sword forms in the covered pavillion.

Eventually, not wanting to spend my entire last day here, I did head off to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. If you visit only one museum in Hong Kong (and I did visit only one), this is the one. It boasts an impressive set of galleries with several changing exhibits. The one that caught my eye was the “More Than Just Food – Ceramic Art Exhibition”. I was very amused by one display, of a giant chicken-theme setting for National Day. On the menu, Shredded Chicken in State Secret Sauce. I suppose you had to be there.

Before leaving Sha Tin (the second time), I did climb the many hundreds of stairs to the top of the 10 Thousand Buddhas Monestary. The monestary is the home of over 12,000 Buddha statutes, built on a hill overlooking the city. Despite the climb, the monestary was quite busy, with another tourist and even a family making it to the top.

Before heading back to Kowloon, to take care of packing, eating, and just hanging out for my last night, I took the KCR train up to Lo Wu, the town that shares a border with Shenzhen. Before you even leave the train station, you’re confronted with ominous signs stating that this is a closed area and that only valid people may enter. This was my motivation to catch the next train back to Kowloon, despite the fact that, if I had wanted to, I could have picked up a valid visa and actually entered Shenzhen. It being early evening, though, I decided to head back.

All in all, the trip was fascinating, and I had a wonderful time. I would be quite thrilled to visit Hong Kong again, and very much look forward to another trip there in the future. In fact, of the three major Asian cities I’ve visited (Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong), I prefer Hong Kong the most. Granted, I did have some food trouble, but that’s simply the way it goes on these trips. I can only imagine what my next adventure will bring.

According to Reuters, Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior aide to Arafat, said Shalom’s “threat…will harm efforts to revive peace.” Truthfully, I have in general little sympathy for either side, and I believe both sides are generally unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences that they bring (i.e. settlements and movement restrictions on Palestinians, sucidie bombings, rock-throwing, and other attacks on Israelis by Palestinians). Yet I have to admit that Abbas actually appears as though he was a leader who “got it” and who had the potential, from the Palestinian side, to bring about a real change. In fact, his resignation at his inability to accomplish anything meaningful due to Arafar only reinforces this perception. Truth be told, if I felt that Israeli expelling him would accomplish any good, I would be all for it. In the meantime, the best anyone could hope for is he is “removed” due to “natural causes.”

There was an interesting rumination this morning in Briefing.com (subscribers only) on Microsoft and the motivation of virus creators. Specifically, they make this point:

What motivates the creators of viruses? Most people view the viruses as simply technological graffiti, written by immature adolescents. While there are certainly virus-creators that fit this profile, a deeper protest is the source of many viruses, and the reason is generally not spoken in public. Many viruses are protests against the imposition of industry standards by Microsoft.

Don’t forget to patch your computers!

Tonight I began watching The Majestic as I was ironing clothes. I have to say that while this movie has potential, as a writer, upset at his sudden blacklisting from Hollywood during the McCarthy Communist hearing times, leaves L.A. one night in a depressed stupor, crashes, and lands without a memory of his former life in a little town along the coast. The town determines that he’s a long-lost son of a local who never returned from World War II, and celebrates him, all while the FBI determines that he’s even more of a concern than they originally expect.

Sounds like a fairly solid drama story line, yet the film suffers from what I’ll label the “Beat Joe Black” syndrome: a production team that, unwilling to make decisions about what should and shouldn’t be cut or rewritten, decides to include nearly everything. And this ends up bogging down what is otherwise a potentially solid storyline. Certainly it’s more than most plots, and the quality of actors aren’t terrible either. It’s a shame to see such a waste of a good movie.

It is unfortunate yet revealing to read this article on how the media pursues what is termed as untruths and evaluating the credibility of statements by politicians.

I can wholly understand the eagerness to pounce on those non-political statements that are determined to be untrue by politicians (i.e. “I had no knowledge” or “I did not have relations with that woman”), yet those untruths uttered regarding actual topics of political discourse are left unexposed. The end result is that by simply having enough voices repeating a lie, the lie becomes true in so far as the media is concerned, which leads to it being perceived as true by the general populace.

This is an important breakdown in the watchdog role that the media are in theory exercising over the political class. That they are unwilling to challenge leaders when their statements are disprovable, and with a minimum of legwork, strikes me as reckless and irresponsible. Because statements regarding Iraq were argued as true by George Bush, for instance, over Iraq’s weapons capability, and backed up by other Republicans with a minimum of evidence, led the major media outlets to essentially report these as true. Rather than performing additional investigation that may have discredited some of these claims early on, before a war was launched, they were allowed to slide. Yet now, examples continue to be shown over where spin overruled fact. Just recently, there was another Washington Post article on how the spy agencies argued that the Iraqi resistance would be significant, as opposed to the convential views put forth by the Bush administration. Even now, the argument surrounding adequate troop levels is raging, and questions regarding the initial post-war plannings range freely.

While actually investigating remarks by public officials for their validitiy may take extra effort in this 24×7 news cycle, this is part of the value of a free and open press. Being critical when necessary is vitally important, even at the risk of appearing partisan.

I saw this article a few days ago and I’m finally posting it. An investigation in to the origin of SARS has turned up some important clues about how the virus may have made the leap from another species to humans. The researchers identified methods of interspecies transmissions by investigating live-animal markets in Shenzhen, China, right over the border from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR).

Specifically, they found similar versions of a coronavirus in a cat-like species, humans, and a raccoon-dog and badger ferret.

Swabs from two Himalayan palm civets, members of a cat-like family, turned up a coronavirus resembling one that is carried by many humans but does no harm, scientists at the University of Hong Kong report in the Sept. 5 issue of Science. The virus was also found in a raccoon-dog and a ferret badger from the same market, and in some employees at the market.
…
The concept here is that we know that coronaviruses are mutable, says Dr Philip Tierno, director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University Medical Center and author of The Secret Life of Germs.. But it was not known previously that animal and human strains could recombine to become more profoundly infective that the human strains we knew in the past.

They also implore governments and NGOs to maintain their watchful stance, as there is an expectation among the World Health Organization that SARS may re-emerge this winter and become a seasonal disease, like influenza.

I simply love Dhalia Lithwick’s description of the Scotus arguments. Her vivid, off-color remarks combined with fine-tuned analysis add an edge to her commentary. Take this line, for example.

Argument is virtually an Ice Capades of former solicitors general, as Kenneth Starr, who served as SG under the first President Bush, faces off against Olson and Waxman. Starr, who looks so much like Justice Anthony Kennedy that one half expects them both to start patting at their hair simultaneously, describes BCRA as intruding “deeply into the political life of the nation” and warns that the effect of the law will be to destroy political parties and redirect dollars in the direction of “razor sharp interest groups.”

How is that not quality commentary?

Jess invited me out to her MND (Monday Night Drinking) session, which was a good time last night. Pete Amos, one of the old McCormick residents, actually did show, much to my surprise. And only about 30 seconds after I bet against his appearance, no less. The rest of Jess’s MND friends seem to be good peeps, too.

The trip report and photos will be forth-coming. Today I finally feel as though I’m more or less on East Coast time. Although my new iPod was extremely distracting last night, as I feed my CDs in to it.

Yes, I am back in the Garden State (as of Saturday night, actually). Unfortunately, I’m still awash in jetlag. Right now I think I’m on a timezone somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I’d love to do a trip write-up but unfortunately, at the moment, most of the past few days is quite hazy. Hopefully this’ll clear up once I readjust to the local time.

Yes, and I would love to post some more items on our “Dear Leader” and his recent address but I don’t have the stomach for it right now. Hopefully that will change as well.

Well, I’m down to my last evening here in Hong Kong, unless another typhoon roars through between now and tomorrow morning. Since that appears unlikely, I should pack up so I’m ready to roll in the wee hours of the morning. Time for another 25 hours of airport fun!

CNN picks up the typhoon story. Looks like it’s expected to be a direct hit!