Sidney in China and More ……..

I saw a news clip the other night about mainland Chinese workers going home for Chinese Lunar New Year.

In a way, we live on this side of the pond are no different from those who live over the other side. We all yearn to be with our families in festival times. It is just that they have 1.3 billion people over there, and we only have 25 millions or so in Canada.
Our national peak travelling periods are not near as dramatic as theirs.

Someone in Canada even went over to China and made a documentary movie about it, it is named, “The last train home!” I reserved a rental copy from my local library. Found out I was the twenty ninth person in line to view that copy. It will take perhaps a month to be my turn, but what the heck; I put my name in the hat anyways.

One added variety of transportation means is private automobiles these days, this latest addition will surely easy the pressure on the demand of public transports like trains and buses, of course the newly minted rich will surely opt for travelling by air.

While travelling within China, I was quite pleasantly surprised by the sophistication that some of my fellow Chinese travelers displayed. However a couple of times I was quite taken aback by the blatant disregard for their fellow passengers of some people’s behaviors – like a four some of smokers lighted up in front of the men’s room at the far corner of a corridor.

Of course, being a thick skull out of Towner, I raised my concern to the bathroom attendant, all he could do that day to pacify me was mumble something to the effect that they will soon finish their smokes, then the air (we all breathed) would be alright again.

Then I saw this harried father who needed to bring his baby to the bath room, because he had luggage with him, and Chinese travelers in public places rarely make eye contact with you nor ask a favor if you would look after their bags for a minute this post. He just simply lift up his little baby, aimed his ass onto the planter close up, and the kid just blasted away!

One positive sign though, I observed no body spit on the grand looking marble floor, even if one had the urge to clear their throat and spit, they will find a waste basket and spit in it.

Here you have it; they called that airport an international airport, because it does have connecting flight to Taiwan and Hong Kong. Yet that is the way it is, I guess, we all have growing pain in all corners of the world.

I have a most unnerving experience in a train station in Canton; it must be round 1997, October 1st. All I could see was a sea of black hair; they all wanted to buy a ticket to go home. All looked anxious and tired; all have packages and parcels under or around their arms. Me and my brother, two obvious light travelers, and obviously out of place, we felt very uncomfortable being there.

We got out of there fast, got a cab, turned around, and went to the long distance bus depot that provide cross border bus services to Hong Kong, so much of our good intension – to see our ancestral home land through train trips, but it was ill prepared on our part.

To travel peak season in China by trains or buses, besides the fare money, you still need the nerve of steel, not to be ashamed of elbowing some men or women who tried to get past you from behind the queue, you also need the language skill to get out of trouble in case the person wanted to get ahead felt slighted, and initiated a colorful verbal dialogue with you.

Our Chinese Lunar New Year of the Dragon will begin in two days; the whole 1.3 billion of my Chinese brothers and sisters will temporarily put their daily work behind them for a few days or so, go home to be with their families. Just like we do in Christmas.

Happy New Year!

People like fresh produces, fresh meats, and fresh poultries. I do!

During my time in Ningbo, I shopped a few times in one of those modern supermarkets. I think I have mentioned the name Aushan (it is a French investors backed supermarkets).

You can get everything in this one stop shop, clothing, Chinese food stuff, European food stuff, daily sundries, electronic goods, liquors, sports equipments, you name it, they have it, and there are shoppers at all hours, seven days a week. You hit a niche market, you would not have to worry about traffic flow, and people will come to you.

I went there a few times, and then I grew tired of the sanitized environment, the bright lights, and the many chatty floor attendants who were more interesting in catching up gossips the night before than tend to the needs of shoppers.

So this one time I requested to go with our canteen supervisor/chief cook/driver/food purchaser to our local market during his once daily shopping. The way he did it, he would go in his electric trike (a battery assisted three wheeler with a three by four box at the back, the driver rides in front, the box out back has a small bench seat for accommodating the occasional passenger. He goes to market at 3 pm sharp every afternoon, and shop for his next day’s menu.

I was pretty excited about the short trip from the factory to the local market. Number 1, it was my first time riding in this rickety contraption as a passenger, I have seen plenty of them riding around this industrial section of the city. People haul goods in them, transported people in them, going to work, they are a bit under power on regular road ways, as drivers in regular gasoline powered vehicles view them as nuisance, and would not give them the courtesy of slowing down a bit when passing.

So understandably I was a bit nervous is this first ride, luckily my chauffer/chief cook was an experienced man, we got to the market in intact. Now parking was the next thing on my mind. This market is about half a block long and as wide – to North America sizing standard – with four entrances at four corners. There are concrete reinforced steel posts embedded on to the concrete floor to prevent two wheel electric bikes from driving right into the market space. And there are amble officious notices telling/warning people that you are not to ride your electric two wheelers into the market.

As usual, these notices are ignored; there is a market office that has two workers that supposedly looking after the smooth running of the place, but of the few times I was in the market, I don’t see any interaction between them and the vendors in the markets.

However, cleaning/floor cleaners were constantly on the move to clean up any vegetable scraps and garbage that some people carelessly threw on the floor. Floors are washed everyday at day’s end. So the floors are reasonably clean.

The items for sale in the markets were plentiful, there were plenty of seafood, fresh produces, meats of all kind, cooked or raw, sundries items, kitchen utensils, shoes, slippers, all manners of stuff and items, I especially enjoy watching the interactions between vendors and shoppers.
I was told regular shoppers tended to go to their regular vendors for supplies, because the rapport was built, and the prices they quoted you would be fair, not cheap, but fair. If you are a new face amongst the sea of people, you better check out a few places before you want to buy, because price might vary a fair bit.

As you can imagine my cook/purchaser – he speaks the language, and he has been shopping in this market for a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised he gets a better than good deal from his regular suppliers. He walked in the shops, did some small talk, pays the bill, and came out with a bunch of stuff. I was, understandably, a bit anxious to follow close to his coat tail, as I don’t speak the language so well, I know I can talk my way out of trouble if trouble ever finds me. But why bother, if you can avoid it?

He probably grew tired of me after about twenty minutes, so he said to me,” why don’t you wander around, I will meet you where we parked my electric tricycle?”
I sensed he probably didn’t want me to be around, so I bid a hasty good bye, and went on my own expedition. To buy a live chicken, have it dressed, cost about RMB 45 dollars, have a bunch of green onions cost a mere dollar. Now these are the two extreme of the shopping spectrum. People don’t buy chicken every day, and don’t buy green onions every day. So you can have an idea, shoppers can adjust their budgets to suit their needs.

A freshly killed fish on display may cost about RMB 15 to 20 dollars, depends on the species. I especially like a locally catch fish called Tofu fish. They are not expensive, the meat is white and soft, hence the name.

Local Ningbo residents also like lamb, one can buy cooked lamb in a local “cooked food” specialty vendors. A delicatessen imported from Taiwan and favored by locals is the marinated and cooked duck-neck, they are very tasty and meaty, surprisingly, and guess ducks are a fair bit bigger than chickens.

Many times, when we frequented the local market after a day’s work, we would buy five dollars worth of duck-necks, five dollars worth of a local pan fried pizza like pan cakes, grab a couple of cold beers, viola! Who need dinner? 

By and large, I like local food, Ningbo food is less oily and less salty, as compared with other food prepared by cooks from other regions, but every region has its own characteristic, and why restricts yourself to one kind of food?

Guess I wander away from my initial topic – food markets! Will do more when I think of more. Oh, like the world over, bring your own reusable shopping bags; the flimsy plastic bags they provided for your freshly dressed chicken or fish would only survive one single trip! Happy shopping!

Our factory in Ningbo has a canteen that provides three meals a day, breakfast in the morning at 7 am, lunch at 11:30am, and dinner at 6:30 pm.

The meals provided are not fanciful, but plenty, and nutritional. After eating in the canteen I noticed there were three cases of local beers tucked under the food dispensing counter. By the look of it, the number has neither gone up or down, just sitting there.

Curiosity got the best of me, and I asked the cook whose beer was that? The cook shrugged his shoulder, saying that the canteen used to sell a bottle here, a bottle there to the workers whenever anybody asked. But business has been slow lately, blah, blah, blah.

Mind you, having a beer over lunch once awhile is tolerated here, provided one does not over doing it. The canteen was doing a pretty brisk business on pay days, at least that was the way it was.

Until one day, the guy who operated a sort of convenient store out of a tin shack across the road from us invited out cook over for a meal, a drink and a smoke. Our cook obliged, after all who does not enjoy a free drink and a free smoke, with dinner on top?

After dinner was served, plenty of drink and cigarettes were passed around the table. The proprietor of the convenient store popped this question, “Well, we are thinking about expand the size of the store a bit to include a cigarette machine, put in a new pop and beer cooler… And by the way, how is business in your canteen selling beer to the boys?”

Our cook pondered the question for a minute as I was told, then said,” Well, it really is not worth the trouble, we didn’t have a proper cooler for it. I was thinking about not selling it anyways.”

The fact of the matter is, the factory canteen has a freezer in the kitchen, but they are for frozen foods, we do not have a fridge for storing any other food items. All the meals are prepared fresh day to day. There was never any need to have a fridge. So the room temp beer for sale now and again is just the cook’s pocket money.

Now he had a nice meal from his one and only competitor on the block, he was left with very little wiggle room….

The three case of beer probably are still sitting under the counter. By the way, as local custom has it, a lot of people prefer room temperature beer as such. I don’t know why?

The convenient store owner probably would go on to bigger and better things someday! 

When I was in Ningbo, I heard this story – which made me wondered.

As we know, China as a country, is going through rapid changes, one aspects of it, is her real estate values in all major city centers.

A couple in their thirties from Ningbo left their very young son age of six in a local boarding school months at a stretch, both went to Dalian ( a northern city about two hours of air time from Ningbo) to work on real estate projects.

I am not sure if this young lad has immediate family in town or not. Last I heard was, in weekends, the parents have made arrangement that the boy would be taken in by one of the school teachers. It for all intends and purposes, the teacher became the foster mother of the boy, bear in mind, nothing is never in black and white there, no agreement is ever signed, just an verbal agreement, a nice gift would in the offing when the parents came into town for the annual festivities.

I wonder what psychological blockage would the young boy developed in his young mind, why my parents don’t want me to be around. There are of course local rules and regulations in Dalian perhaps the young lad’s parents have to go through to get him in a local school. But that should not be the sole reason that the young boy has to be separated from his folks.

My local friends have one word regarding this phenomenon – Money. To the “after 80’s” – those who were born after the Eighties – Money speaks for everything. And some of them unfortunately sincerely believe that money can and will help achieve every conceivable goal in life, in this case, this set of parents believe that the boarding school in Ningbo can, and it has so far helped them – bringing up their precious son – for a price.

There are a few boarding schools in and around Ningbo City – from Grade One to Grade Ten. Monthly school fees run a range of RMB three to five thousands dollars. But the schools all have waiting lists.

Fast forward to North America – I have a few local contacts in the education system – namely teachers – some have ESL credentials – so they are in frequent contacts with immigrant parents – given Vancouver is a very metropolitan city, high on the desirable list of the newly rich from China.

One of the frequent asked questions is – “what could be done to improve my child’s English ability?”
Teacher:” Well, encourages your son/daughter to mingle with other English speaking kids after school hours. “
Parent:” Umm, we do not have too many English speaker friends in our circle of friends.”
Teacher,” May be then, join some activities with the local community center?”
Parent:” Any other suggestions? Any program that … perhaps we can enroll him/her in?”
Teacher,” You mean all by the kid him/herself?”
Parent,” Yes.” Nodding.
Teacher,” I think parents have to play a part in a child growing up, don’t you think?”
Parent,” But, is there anything else?? “(Sounded a bit exasperated)
Teacher,” Get involved with your child’s life!”

(Guess the teacher sensed the parents really want to know if there is any magic pill/formula that money can buy, just take one and magically the child can be assimilated into the new environment)

Get involved with your child – the school system is not a baby sitting service. Not in China, not in Canada, not anywhere.

It is a very vague topic to talk about, guess I am trying to lament on the subject of how two cities go about tackling to keep theirs clean and look reasonably presentable.

It is no denial that the sidewalks in Hong Kong are not what you would call double wide or super clean, as a matter of fact; they are always dusty because of the heavy use by pedestrians and pollutants particles from vehicles.

The city government though, does spend a huge amount of money and man power to beautify what they can, like sprucing up the city boulevards with greeneries and real flowers of the season. Water trucks and workmen can be found watering these plants and the dwarf trees in the morning.

They don’t just do it to in downtown where tourists frequent; they do it in smaller out of the way communities as well. That is a real pleasure to have a chance to admire things that nature provide amongst the heavy traffic, and the huge volume of walking people traffic.

A friend in North America asked me if I feel safe walking in Hong Kong and China. I said I do, any time of the day. A small difference is though, the city I spent three months in China has a chaotic feel to the motor vehicles and pedestrian traffic to it. I see water trucks watering major thoroughfares, and contract worker replants and waters road side greeneries for all to enjoy. But they work dangerously close to the moving traffic, and the drivers have no considerations for the few pedestrians who chose to ignore traffic signs and lights and jay walk, and then chicken out mid way, huddles in the center medians, waiting for the traffic to clear.

City traffic moves in a speed of at least 60 to 70 kilometers per hour, to be honest, I do not have the stomach to cross the controlled intersections even if I have the green walk light, some idiot driver will try to beat you to it to make his/her turn. To be a pedestrian in China, you have to have eyes at the back of your head, literally. Now the city I was in is not even a hugely populated city by Chinese standard.

People all over the world marvel at the way China handles the growth of her cities, the super monumental structures she built for her citizenry, everywhere there are new highways, bridges, apartments, modern office towers, spacious shopping centers, plenty of new vehicles and electric bikes, plenty of humanity, but are they all coming on too fast?

Chinese New Year (Year of the Dragon – 2012) falls on January/23 this year, I went to my local library trying to loan a documentary movie called “The Last Train Home” –

This movie depicts all the guest workers who work out of provinces all year round trying to go home to their families for the festivities, I am the 29 person in line in the system, no matter, and I will wait.

In it you will see the humanities in which I was part of – for a brief three months last summer, my mandarin language capability after the three months?

I must admit, not so good. One has to be part of it to be good, I guess in my heart and soul, I always will be part of it! ……

China has a lot of good quality super highways, it moves thousands of transport trucks and assorted vehicles everyday, and these transport trucks, semi-trailers move goods around the country to satisfy the insatiable needs and wants of her citizens.

Our factory shares a common gated entrance and cost of security with our neighboring building to our left; their four stories building is a re-distribution center for family size air conditioners. This entrance gate is monitored by a security guard on a 24/7 base.

Motor vehicle traffic to and from our factory is light and sporadic, material deliveries, employees passing through after work hours, that is about it, and are always during day light hours.

Traffic to and from our neighbor’s warehouse however is constant, and seven days a week.

Stocks arriving in big semi-trailers from their manufacturing plant will have to be unload into the warehouse floors; vice versa stocks destined for retails or to other suppliers will have to be reloaded according to orders.

They have their own covered loading/unloading yard, but we share a common double wide drive way, so traffic control within the secured compound is neither a concern nor a problem.

The problem is the trucks over staying inside the compound overnight. We all know, it is a bit of a tough life being a long haul truck driver. Long hours on the road, sporadic meal time, and other unpredictable road conditions.

Say if the fully loaded truck arriving late in the evening and the ware house is closed, with all the goods loaded on deck, if I am the man behind the wheel, I would want my load secured for the night, and ready to be unloaded in the morning.

There are budget price hotels within walking distance for about RMB 60-80 a night, for a hot shower and a bed, it is worth it. Here is the situation, if I have the means and education, I don’t need to drive long haul, away from my family days in a stretch.

So a lot of times the driver will give our guard a wink and a package of cigarettes when they over stayed, they would sleep inside their cab to save the money otherwise they would have to shell out staying in a cheap hotel down the road. With the ware house closed up, the over stay driver need only walk a couple of hundred feet to our side to use the facilities – which is outdoors.

We have a long standing agreement with the warehouse owner next door – that no truck traffic after dusk. This is for their security as well as for ours. Our guards have been explicitly instructed that no loaded or unloaded trucks are allowed to stay over night within the compound. The gate can only be opened and closed with a remote control, and the remote is in our guard house at all times.

Hence the conflict between people, if I am the truck guy, I want to save the sixty bucks so I can buy my kid a toy or my gal a gift when I get home, a pack of cigarette as a lubricant to the guard is a small price to pay.

If I am the owner of the factory, I am concerned with the security of my investment, what if some people with ideas that they can get air conditioner cheap and free? What if the bad guys hurt my guard while they gained access to the premises?

We had four wall mounted air conditioner ripped off from the outside wall last year. Simply because the units were not mounted high enough. Just three months ago, a brand new electric scooter belonged to a sewing machine operator was stolen while it was parked inside the compound over night.

I had slept in my car near some wheat fields in my younger days during a cross country trip, just to save a few dollars for the motel bill. The truck guy in China wanted to guard his load and save a few bucks.

So here you have it, East or West, no difference!

The road leading to the factory where I worked was about three semi-trailers width wide. And this road runs about three blocks long, makes a right angle bend, up a gentle hill, half a block, makes a left, our factory is right there.

The road in itself is wide enough and decent enough in an industrial area. It is paved with narrow sidewalks on both sides. When I first got in town, my friend told me that were two serious accidents involved drivers riding electric assisted bicycles, one fatal. One seriously hurted.

Being new in town, I nodded in agreement, not knowing how to response not knowing the circumstances leading up to it.

As time progressed, the pattern of daily traffic gradually dawn on me why there were these two serious accidents. Because traffic volume just weren’t that heavy.

Semi-trailers were frequently parked on both sides of the road doing repairs everyday, those were not greasing linkages, checking fluid level jobs, I saw mechanics repacked wheel bearings, engine overall jobs, and welding jobs on the chassis.

Mechanics started working in the first light when day breaks until dusk, as you can imagine, sometimes workmen spilled on to the middle of the road, with local vehicle traffic tried to squeeze through the center of the road to get in and out of the factory compounds in the neighborhood. Sometimes tempers flared, and arguments followed.

I asked my friend why so? His answer was, there is a severe shortage of adequate sized repairing garages in this industrial neighborhood, and over time these sort of road side repairs just mushroomed up. The two accidents happened at the same T bone junction, two semi-trailers were parked right up to the corners – created blind spots on both sides where the two electric bikes were either turning left or right.

Bike operators are notoriously for not looking where they are going, or may be they did look, but the best I can describe after months of observation is – they just glance. It is a game of “playing chicken” over and over again!

And with the speed they are moving, well, may be not break neck speed, but rather speedy, and the majority of the riders ride without helmets.

Remember Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in “Roman Holiday”, didn’t they look cute? But, that was only in the movies!

Anyways, one life lost, the other suffered injury, it was so senseless, and the road side repairs carries on.

What happened to our so called five thousand years old culture?

One friend in Hong Kong summed it up well, “What five thousand year old culture? Culture has nothing to do with surviving the day!
Hell, no, I just need to survive, and to survive, I need to make money!”

Today is the second last day of Year 2011, from there back to here, everything here seems serene, and calm.

I wish all those people over there that had to work so hard to send monies home a happy Lunar New Year, may they find happiness and prosperity in their own way, within their scope.

Have a safe journey home !

The first time I walked by the front entrance of this hospital, there was a disturbance or dispute of some sort. A large crowd gathered on the side walk. Securities (I assumed) were talking to the crowd. The Hospital itself is non descriptive, plain, white washed, with open windows etc.

The crowd were not happy, for the verbal exchanges were loud, no chest pounding, no fists thrown, just heated words. I walked by fast, taking the age old advice from our mother when we were kids – If you feel you see trouble, move on. And I did.

The hospital was called “Number Two Hospital for Women and Children”. (By the way, there are no private doctor’s offices in this city.)

I don’t know what number Two means. Size wise or the second one built in the city? Anyways, the second time I walked by with a friend, we walked in.

Since I have been to a few hospitals in my life time, touch wood, all for minor stuff, or just visiting. Curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to see what is going on. How did they operate a hospital? 🙂

There is a large lobby on the ground floor after you walked in. Throngs of people walked through the open door all the time. To the left was the registration windows, I was told every inhabitant in the city has a health record book that you bring with you. You pay a two dollars registration fee, tell the reception what you were in for or what your child was in for. She gave you a slip ith a number with the department you were suppose to go onit.

There are three upper floors of various departmnets for consultations on the main wing facing the street.

You then got a number for the particular department that you wanted. Say if your little boy could not pee, or felt itchy when peeing, or the pee smelt bad. You wanted a urine test for the child.

You took this number tag to the lab reception, in this case, if the lab department was on the second floor, you go to the lab window, the lady behind the counter window collects yet another fee (lab fee), then give you a sample bottle, you would have to collect a pee sample from your little prince right there and then – in the public bath room area. This in my view might compromise the integrity of the sample collected.

If your little man is cooperative and produced the needed sample in a reasonable time, you will have to go back to the lab counter, hand in the bottle, and wait. Within a time frame, not including the hospital worker’s lunch and coffee time, you or the parents have to wait. And wait you would!

You got to give this hospital credit for embracing technology, for in front of each department there is a good size LCD panel that showed name and number of each patient waiting in line – at that moment of that particular day – not for yesterday, not for tomorrow, but right at that moment whose turn it was to see the attending physician.

Physicians’ offices are large enough to get in a desk, the doctor’s chair opposite the patient’s chair across the desk. Funny thing was, the one office I walked by had at least four people in it, hovering over the doctor. I was not sure if they were from the same family, by the look of it, they weren’t. They were just patients in line, spilled into the office from the crowded waiting area outside.

Looking at the corridors, and all the little alcoves with rows and rows of chairs, they were filled with pregnant women and sick kids. Each floor is filled to capacity, and it is a regular weekday.

So going back to the kid who needed an urine sample, if he is cooperative, the sample will be collected right there by the lab people, and you wait.
Within a reasonable amount of time, your name would show up on the LCD panel. You then will be given a print out, on it would be the name of the department/ attending doctor that your child need to see. You placed this print out under a scanner, the scanner saps it, then you are within the system to continue your hospital visit.

I couldn’t remember whether you need to pay again at this stage, pretty sure you have to pay again before getting to the doctor’s office for consultation, again you wait.
A funny story was relayed to me as follows: A father brought his little girl for an urine checkup, because the lass complained of a burning sensation when peeing. After registered, got the bottle from the lab, by then the little girl didn’t have any thing to pee. Daddy waited a while, no pee, and the poor man had to go back to work. And he did. The little girl went home to mum with the bottle. Half a day wasted.

By four o’clock, a excited mother called her husband,” your daughter had a sample, would you please come home right away, take the bottle, and the girl, head for the hospital before they call it a day!”

Father and daughter rushed back to the hospital, handed in the sample. Waited for the result, by the time he had the result, waited in line patiently for the doctor’s consultation. Guess what, finally it came to his turn on the LCD board, it was 11pm in the evening, and it was closing time for consultation.

Poor dad had to go back next morning, and he won’t be the first one in line just because the door closed on him the previous night. He had to register, get in line once again. First come, first serve, users pay, and you pay first!

I spoke with people in their thirties and forties who are married with children, they are very aware of the dilemma they would face in ten to twenty years when their parents/in laws would be seniors some time down the road.

The social security net that their parents enjoyed in their productive years are no more. The State had cut back a lot of benefits, and that included medical.

To give you an example, a heart patient with two little balloons inserted in her main arteries cost RMB forty thousand dollars, the operation saved her life, but it almost wiped out her life long savings, because she was just a working gal in her productive years.

One up beat note about the hospital I just mentioned, the local health authority is building a much bigger addition behind the existing one. And I hope it would ease the stresses for the patients and hospital staff alike. Amen!

During holiday seasons, people are admiringly generous, other times, I would venture to say,” we Vancouverites are cautiously generous.”

Why did I say that? You asked. I recalled the term “food bank” was introduced to us in the late seventies, if my memory serves me correctly.

It was supposed to be a stop gap measure. We were hoping that food bank will disappear once economy picked up. Folks less fortunate could use the food supplement to lessen the burden of diminishing income, or loss of income.

Thirty years later, “food bank” has become a social norm. What has gone wrong amongst us?

Another year has gone by quickly, and I found myself in a family Christmas dinner last night. There were about twenty people plus at the dinner party.
They are mostly family members of in-laws. Their ages ranges from mid sixties to an eight months old baby girl.

I like to draw a parallel about family dinners between Hong Kong people and Vancouverites.

I had dinner out with my families on the 18th of December in Tsuen Wan, Kowloon. Jonson – my brother in law booked a table for seven. That’s it, Hong Kong, because of its severe lack of space; the kitchen area in any average sized apartment is just not big enough to accommodate more than four or five people to dine together, let alone cooking up a storm. Averaged size – by that I mean 400 to 500 sq.ft.

So, it is always eating out, if you live alone, don’t feel like cooking, you eat out, if you want to get together with some friends whom you have not seen for awhile, you eat out.

To tell you the truth, towards the end of this trip, I dreaded eating out, with the exception of one evening, my two sisters and I ate at a curry place in Causeway Bay area. It was called Aladdin Restaurant, a third floor walk up. About fifteen tables, the service was fast, food was delicious, delightfully, and it did not charge the customary ten percent on the final bill. Oh, yes, the bathroom was actually clean!

Coming back to the night of 18th, the food was Cantonese Chinese style, with beverage and beer; the eight dishes meal came to just slightly over one thousand something Hong Kong dollars. (About one hundred Canadian)

Straightly speaking, one thousand is not much these days in a city like Hong Kong. Then again, you can have a hearty lunch in a s neighborhood place for about 60 dollars, and you will be full.

Eating out is definitely cheaper in HK than in Vancouver, besides, pot luck does not always work; it just is not a local custom. By the time you cooked your dish, put it in a container for transport. Your tiny four by eight (ft) kitchen would be all cluttered with utensils that needed cleaning. Hence why bother, let us eat out!

Bona petite! And Merry Christmas!