Arcades and Hong Kong

Last Saturday, I walked around with one of my friends here, as the mainland Chinese love to do. We ended up spending around three or four hours in an arcade, something I haven’t really done since elementary school. I finally got to try that Japanese drum game, as well as this “advanced” DDR-esque game that had eight inputs (foot diagonals and left-right for each hand. It turns out rhythm skills are transferrable, even though I looked extremely silly doing the latter. Lots of random waving and cardinal direction missteps the first time I tried it. After cycling through racing, shooting, and those silly basketball and air hockey games (I have no chivalry when it comes to gaming, so I was literally undefeated throughout the period).

Sometime over the weekend, I also made pot stickers with another group of friends, which was also pretty interesting .

The average Chinese home seems to be quite cluttered with random things. I know that a significant amount of my friends here like collecting tiny trinkets and displaying them over any available space. Then again, it also happens in the U.S. I guess my personal aesthetic is basically the opposite of that.

I thought Hong Kong would be somewhat like Shanghai, but it is totally different. In terms of architecture and road layout, it is pretty much the definition of urban jungle. Raised walkways are everywhere, sometimes three levels of pedestrian bridges going different directions. It’s fairly easy and quick to traverse the city horizontally, but since everything is more vertical, its much easier to miss sights. I’ve definitely passed some big malls thinking they were office buildings.

The people here are definitely more polite, I suppose the stereotype holds true. It was somewhat surprising that people actually waited when the stop walking sign was on. I was always totally disoriented because of the reverse driving directions though, so I stayed pretty close to other people. The bad thing about looking Chinese in this case is that everyone initially speaks Cantonese to me, and not English. Awkward.

Mostly outside of work I just walked around, and tried to avoid taking the subway. I like getting the “feel” of a city a bit more than going to see individual places, although I did take the requisite trip to the peak. Things were cheap, but not so much that I felt good buying things I didn’t really need at the time.

Merck HK was more like a trade office than anything; however, the people were quite nice. The office was located on the 29^th floor, leading to some nice views. It’s smaller than the office in shanghai, but a bit more friendly feeling.

A huge problem came up in terms of the visa; I had applied for an F visa (180 days) and got back an L visa (14 days). This means that I will have to renew it for another 14 days, and then make a trip back to the U.S. I should probably use this opportunity to use my holiday vacations, however, the possibility that the Chinese consulate in SF would also reject it is, while small, cannot be totally discounted. It’s just a worrisome situation. On the plus side, maybe I can use this opportunity to get a 6 month multiple entry, or even a 1 year multiple entry visa, only available in the united states. Hehe.

Getting an extension was a big pain. First I read the address wrong, then I learned they had the wrong address on their website, then finally I learned that the marterials I had needed to be updated to the new visa. Everything has worked out though… I think. I’ll still be back to the US from the 18^th to the 27^th.

I eat a lot better when my parents are here… haha

Ootoro and others

I actually wrote a story to go with this picture to practice my “writing skills”, but it was bad, so I trashed it. But this was totally inspired from that one drunken night when I went back to Princeton and the comic that Carol and I drunkenly made when we were pregaming Margaret?s party. Something about a girl getting killed by a dog and doing a magical girl transformation into a monster. Something like that.

Today I attended the opening ceremony of a new factory in Shanghai for our company. At least, that’s the most succinct description for it. A more accurate one would be a … we-just-rented-this-place-and-our-board-executive-is-coming-ceremony. They had a red carpet leading to a totally empty warehouse and a small room, where the executives eventually had a meeting. Our department was bussed over there at 7:45 am (had to wake up extra early to get to work today), and we didn’t really interact with them at all. The board executive merely came, had the meeting, did a photo op with the other executives, and left. Although it was interesting to see the factory, I’m not sure it was necessary for the entire department to be there, other than for “face”. At least some people got souvenir power point slide manipulators out of it…

Two of my fellow foreign interns recently left. To see one of them off, we went to all you can eat teppanyaki place near people’s square, quite a good deal for the quality of food. Even though buffets are usually a losing proposition for me, I feel as if I got my money’s worth this time, since they served pretty good sushi in addition to the beer and meat. I’m not sure if I like fatty tuna more because it tastes good, or because it’s traditionally associated as super expensive and prized. Either way, I ate quite a bit of it. The other interesting part of the night was going to a super seedy expat club, as it was “something we had to see.” At this point it was a Canadian, two German guys, and one of their native girlfriends. We ended up going to Judy’s, featuring skimpy philipino singers belting out classic tunes on a stage. I’m almost completely sure all the girls in that club, except the one that came with us, were prostitutes. One of the German guys mentioned that seeing all these seedy European middle-aged men with “young-looking” girls really disgusted him. I have to agree, it was one of the more pathetic sights I’ve seen. The club was packed with overweight expats, and average looking middle-aged women with too much eye makeup and tasteless skimpy clothing eyeing potentials like hawks. Not all of them were even Chinese, but all of them had the same style of… prostitute.

Looking like a native Chinese allowed me to escape from experiences my foreigner friends had, like middle aged ladies sidling up to them and pressing themselves onto them without permission, or little girls clinging to their legs until they buy something. It was an interesting experience though, even if we didn’t stay long at all.

Later that weekend, I went with a Chinese friend to Da Pu Qiao area. Lots of interesting souvenir shops there… I feel if I need to buy gifts for friends in the U.S, it will either be here, or in that Japanese model store (Aside: I want to get some sort of figurine or model, but there are a few things stopping me. I don’t really follow any show with cool figurines in it, therefore making the premium unjustifiable. The cheap ones are either shoddily constructed or tasteless. The good ones are either expensive or lewd. In short, I think I like the idea of having a figurine/model to look at, but don’t actually want any specific one/think most are not worth it or embarrassing. One day I should learn to make my own). China has so much nicer stationary than the U.S, for a lot cheaper too. Unfortunately that day, I didn’t have any reason to buy anything, so I didn’t… feel it would just be clutter. I also discovered a Japanese food court area on the bottom of the mall, with mocha stores/really good matcha stores/ramen restaurants. Very nice, will go there more often.

I mentioned to that girl that almost everything she wore contained/was a shade of pink in the past, and this week she came in a navy blue dress that she bought earlier that weekend. Coincidence?

Other than these activities, I visited grandparents and shopped. A few things worth mentioning: I get an inordinate amount of satisfaction shopping for cleaning supplies, and I really like the cheese green tea drink from Happy Lemon. Maybe I should have tried the cheese milk tea at Tea Era back in Cali…

I feel as if the older I get, the more stock I put in people’s opinions about products and the less I put in people’s opinions about general abstract ideas, like politics. Either that or I spend a bit too much time reading opinion pieces on Google News.

Parents are coming and I need to think of things to get from the U.S. The centerpiece so far is Nutella… just way too expensive here. Otherwise…