Slideshow Movie of Henan Province Trip

Hey, just be thankful that I don't have you trapped in my living room while I narrate along with each picture. At least this way you can skip it altogether and say you saw it anyway :-)

The truth is, I had planned to just write a whole post about our trip, and I will, but I didn't have time today. This is because we got home late last night and then because I had to spend all night on the freakin' phone with American Express I slept late. 

Seems someone somehow got hold of our American Express card number and charged $420 in renting a car at O'Hare airport and driving it to Boca Raton, Florida. We learned it as soon as we got home and she just happened to check the Amex balance. 

Grrrrrrrrr!

So, yeah, a very late night. Also, as soon as I got up today I had to go to the dentist. He is a totally committed sadist and so I wasn't really in the mood to post when I got home. 

That said, I figured I'd post a slideshow of a few of the 260 pictures we took this weekend. Most of them are self-explanatory except a few. For example, the (I think) 3rd picture is a close up of a tree that has holes in it. These were made by the fingers of Shaolin monks. Those guys are hardcore. 

There is also a picture of what looks like The Girl touching a tree when in fact she is scratching it. I swear to God this is true- it's known around the Shaolin Temple as the "itchy tree" and there's one spot on it, and only one spot, that people can scratch and the branches will quake like the damn thing is laughing. Bizarre. 

Also, because I'm fascinated by all kinds of weird stuff, I took pictures of the lighted guardrails in Zhengzhou. They change from blue to green to red and such. Very trippy. Why don't we do that?

The guys in the red jackets are students of the Shaolin Wushu Academy. They study all of the regular stuff like history, geography and computer science but also spend alot of time doing Kung fu training. 

Lastly, there are a bunch of pictures from the Henan Province museum in Zhengzhou. Henan is the cradle of Asian civilization and scientists place humans in Asia as being here first- this is where the switch was made from ape to man on the Asian continent. (PLEASE- no emails about evolution being a farce and humanity only being around for 5,000 years, huh? PLEASE?!?!?)

Anyway, one of the subjects is an old mummy wearing a bodysuit made of jade tiles that were sewn together using gold seals. This one is a national treasure because all of the other ones have been stolen by tomb raiders over the centuries. 

Another one of the exhibits depicts vegetables carved from ivory. Each has a grasshopper sitting upon it as well. According to our tour guide, it's a lost art and nobody can figure out how they did it so exquisitely detailed and life-like or even how they got the colors on there. 

So here's some pics. There's music synced to it (mainly because I started playing around with my music composition / mixing software and my cool new mandolin) so if you don't want to hear it, turn your speakers down. 

The whole story tomorrow. 

G

The Chinese DO Know How to Party

Above are pics from the fancy dinner we had during our trip. This was a table set for five and doesn't include various appetizers that were brought out first such as chicken and egg (Mother and son reunion) soup, chicken feet, corn juice (tastes just like creamed corn) and I can't remember what else.

The girl somehow always feels the need take pictures of pretty food and I am not entirely sure why. I guess it's good that she does this though because, I have to say, it does look pretty cool.

This was upstairs in a private room at the peculiarly named "Raymond's Abalone" at the Beijing Dayali Pud hotel in Zhengzhou. Apparently the hotel's name comes from the fact that the mother ship restaurant is somewhere in Beijing.

From the top down: The whole spread, Lotus root stuffed with rice (tastes very similar to sweet potato casserole), Beijing duck with the obligatory slices of green onion and cucumber as well as the sauce and wraps, shrimp tempura with creme fraiche and pecans, sweet melon in liquor

I admire how people in China manage to make going out to eat a party. More so than in the west, restaurant meals here always seem much more raucous and festive to me and are never, by any means, somber events. There's always plenty of laughter and conversation and everyone orders one or two dishes that are shared among the table which I feel only adds to the communal feel of the event. And make no mistake- dining out in China is an event.

Unlike in Japan, there aren't really alot of rules and protocols. There is one big one though- when alcoholic drinks are brought to the table and poured, you don't start drinking until others (or in situations where there is a clear host) appear ready to drink as well. Sooner or later the host (or someone who really wants a drink) will propose a toast and you're off. 

I always seem to forget that part (no- I mean really forget it) and I caused a bit of a stir (mainly with The Girl- everyone else just gasped as if kicked in the solar plexus and raised their eyebrows) the night before last at the very meal pictured above a by knocking back a small cup of Tsing Tao beer by myself. Without raising my glass to toast someone else.

This was perhaps made a more egregious trespass by virtue of the fact that we'd just had dinner at a family's farmhouse in Dengfeng the previous evening where we'd polished off plenty of beer between the five of us. It was just a form of habit thing on my end but everyone looked at me as if I'd just covered up one nostril and done a snot shot on the tablecloth. (That visual is on the house...and "Hi Mom!" ;-)

Speaking of which, never blow your nose while at the table or, for that matter, anywhere in public. This seems odd to me because there don't appear to be any rules preventing the hocking up lung biscuits all over the place on the mainland. I say "on the mainland" because since SARS people in HK are pretty cool about stuff like that.

The nose blowing thing is a real pain in the ass for me because I prefer my food fiery which makes my nose run and necessitates about 17 trips to the bathroom during dinner so that I can use my ever present Kleenex. I'm pretty sure all of Taitai's friends and associates believe me to have a bladder the size of a pine nut.

Getting back to the alcohol issue for a moment, unless you make it clear from the outset that you will not be drinking alcohol during the meal, it is inevitable that someone will raise their glass to you. You absolutely must not refuse.

Also, if you do decide to tell your companions that you won't be drinking it's probably ideal not to tell them that it's because you're an alcoholic. A friend of mine's boss used that once during a business meeting on the mainland and negotiations took a hard turn. Turns out saying you're an alcoholic implies weakness.

Your best bet is to just say "medical reasons" and you're off the hook. Also, if you can drink but don't really enjoy it, go along with a toast or two and then pull the plug. They're pretty understanding if you say you've reached your limit and don't want to drink any more.

Anyway, the typical Chinese toast is "ganbei" which means "dry glass". No drinking half of the glass- you have to knock it all back. Here the glasses aren't of the massive beer mug variety seen in the west so it's not as daunting as it sounds.

Never refill your own glass. And don't worry- you won't have too. As soon as your glass is empty it will be filled immediately. And I do mean immediately. When someone refills your glass - be it beer, wine, water or tea - take three fingers (index, middle and ring) and tap twice on the table. This ancient custom is a way of saying "thanks" without disturbing the flow of conversation and is also used when someone serves you food, etc..

Also, it's important to make sure that you leave something on your plate at the end of the meal. A clean plate signifies that you're still hungry and will oblige your host to order even more food. Which will then oblige an already overfed you to eat it.

All of the above protocols said, people here are pretty easygoing and will understand if assholes like me either don't know the etiquette or have an occasional relapse.

Although I don't believe anyone is apt to get any latitude on the snot shot thing.

This Blog is Blocked in Mainland China

Just got in a couple of hours ago and I'm exhausted so I'll save the report on my travels for tomorrow. I do just want to say one thing though- I was very excited to find out that this humble, insignificant little blog is blocked in China.

Yep, I could post from there but I couldn't view what it is that I wrote which is why I didn't write anything else - because I usually hit "publish" and then view it as the reader will see it as, for some reason, I feel that's the only way I can really tell what needs to be changed, deleted or added.

Anyhow, at first I thought every blog that's out there on blogspot.com is blocked but I found that I could read some of those.

No, I can only suppose that the government has deemed my blog a moral and / or ideological hazard for over one billion people! How cool is that??!!?! I almost feel like a real journalist. Move over CNN. Hahahahahahahahaha

A Dispatch From: Where Buddha Lost His Sandals, China

Normally I wouldn't be writing right now but there's been a change of plans which has resulted in me sitting in a room at a hotel in Pingdingshan, China. Although I haven't seen the whole area, from the drive to the hotel it seems to me less like a city than a huge industrial park with the occasional apartment building, noodle shop and convenience store dotting the landscape. I'm not even certain it can be found on a map.

Because there are no direct flights from Hong Kong to Zhengzhou on Thursdays, this morning The Girl's company had us picked up in a car and driven about an hour and 20 minutes to Shenzhen airport. From there we took a two hour flight to Zhengzhou where we got in another car and drove for two hair raising hours to Pingdingshan.

I say "hair raising" because along the way I learned that people here drive the same way on the highways as they do in the city streets. But 90 miles an hour faster.

At some point I became convinced that death was imminent so I released the white-knuckled grip I had on the door handle and told myself to at least try to enjoy it my last few moments in my skin cocoon. I fired up a smoke, put on my iPod, closed my eyes and listened to Molly Hatchet's "Flirtin' With Disaster". It seemed appropriate for the moment.

So once we got here to the hotel we settled in to our room, fired up some tea and showered up. She had a dinner meeting to attend and I'm sitting here trying to figure out what's going on in the Chinese dubbed version of Spiderman 3.

Thank God for predictable plot lines or I'd be screwed because, while I can understand some of what's happening when I try to understand Chinese as spoken by regular people (and not slowly as if to a third grader- as spoken to me by both my former teacher and my current wife) I'm not quite "there" yet.

As it is, it seems a fair bet that the guy with the razor sharp teeth and the black tights is a villain.

As you may have guessed, I did not luck out in regard to English channels. The only one is the English version of the PROC nightly news. It turns out the Dalai Lama is also a villain!

Good thing he wasn't in the Chinese dubbed version of Spiderman 3 or I'd have never guessed.

Just had a stellar meal that I ordered from room service. Kung Pao chicken with loads of chiles and peanuts in a crimson red sauce that got me sweating pretty quickly. I expect to burst into flames any moment now.

Now I'm at the point where I don't really know what do with myself for the rest of the night. There doesn't seem to be much to do outside so I guess I'm going to sit here and surf the 'net. I think it might be fun to type in certain search words that I imagine are considered taboo here and see what comes back. Should be interesting.

If I don't blog again tomorrow remember- that's Pingdingshan. I'm sure there's a jail around here somewhere. I'll be the guy charged with sedition or something.

Bail a brother out huh?

Hey, Hey They're The Monkeys!

So tomorrow we're going to take a car to Shenzhen where we'll take a plane to the city of Zhengzhou. It's in Henan Province, close to the east coast of China between Shanghai and Beijing and a little west of both. Since I've been asked fairly often where where all these places that I talk about are located, or where exactly Hong Kong is for that matter (far southeast corner), this is a perfect opportunity for me to include this handy map that you can click to enlarge. 

The Girl had already planned to go and we just decided at the last minute that I'd go along too. She has a meeting in Zhengzhou and I'm going to head about 50 miles further to a small town called Dengfeng. Nearby, at Mount Song ("Song Shan" in Chinese) lies the ancient Shaolin Temple. When Taitai is done with her meeting we're going to spend the rest of the weekend wandering around aimlessly in the area before coming back to Hong Kong on Sunday evening. 

I truly believe that she only asked me to come along because she's learned (the hard way I'm afraid) that it costs alot of money to leave me alone for any length of time. Last time she left for a week I spent HK$5,000 (about US$650) and she damn near strangled me. 

In my defense, boredom does strange things to a person. I already know most of the rocks up in those mountains- hell, I could probably give hiking tours by now - so there's not much else to do when I step outside other than shop. It would probably be different if I knew the language but, see, that's just the thing- while it's impossible to strike up a conversation with a local, it doesn't take much for me to make a Cantonese speaker understand that I want to be fitted for a really cool tailored shirt. 

Hence the near strangulation. 

I don't know what there is to do there other than visiting the monks (or "monkeys" as Taitai calls them in her charming albeit fractured-English kind of way) but I've seen some pictures and the scenery seems pretty amazing so I figure I'll hike. It's recognized by UNESCO (United Nations' Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization) as a world heritage site so I'm guessing it doesn't suck.

And, anyway, I'll just be content with visiting the Shaolin Temple.

One thing I did read, from stuff by other travelers who have posted their thoughts on websites like virtual tourist and trip advisor, watching the sunrise from the mountaintop is quite spectacular. This, of course, would necessitate my actually having to risk waking her up before dawn so...yeah, I'm still on the fence about that.  

The Temple itself is probably, and sadly, best known as the Temple that produced the main character in the 70's television series "Kung Fu". More important to me is the history of the place and the fact that it's over 1,500 years old. 

The place was built in 496 A.D. and the story goes that in the early 6th century (somewhere between 517 and 527 A.D.) a monk from India named Dama- perhaps better known as Bodhidharma- showed up at the Temple but wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms so he decided to wait outside the gates until he was allowed in. He waited 9 years. Never said a word the whole time, apparently, and also managed to achieve enlightenment while he waited. 

Kudos to him. If that's me I'm yelling out "Hey, fellas, seriously- I've been patient as hell out here. Could somebody at least throw me a freakin' lotus leaf to gnaw on or something??!?" 

After he was allowed in he ushered in a new school of Buddhist thought called Chan or, in the west, Zen Buddhism. 

I've wanted to go there for a very long time, as far back as high school, but I frankly never thought I'd get around to it so this is just a huge bonus. I'm very excited and I'm really, really looking forward to it.

Here's hoping I don't have to pick up a scalding hot cauldron with my forearms. Although it did seem to leave a pretty cool mark on the not-at-all-Chinese-looking David Carradine. Don't even get me started on that. 

"What?" you say? Oh, nothing. Just, you know, the fact that they hired a non-Chinese actor to play a Chinese man when Bruce Lee wanted the gig the whole time!!! 

Anyway, I'll post a recap of our adventures and some (hopefully) good pics when we get back. 

Right, okay, I'm back

Well, that was a nice long absence. After Thursday's visit to the hospital, The Girl had Friday and Monday off. Since it rained the whole time, we mostly stayed home (venturing out only to go to an Easter brunch buffet at the Marco Polo Hotel in Kowloon), ignored the whole world and lazed in our pajamas. Good stuff, that. 

There aren't really any highlights to speak of. While we did pretty much what we wanted to the whole time, what we wanted to do was nothing. In essence, we spent the whole time laughing like school children and watching movies. Oh, and we had an ill-advised food fight (the couch lost) and made some killer homemade Jiaozi. 

Jiaozi are Chinese dumplings that are typically stuffed with a mixture of ground pork, a little bit of soy sauce, some Chinese cabbage, a little fresh ginger and green onion. Then, you can boil or fry them (naturally, I prefer fried) and usually you'll dip them into a simple sauce containing vinegar, chiles and soy sauce as you eat. 

We made these, sure, but I figured that a dumpling is a dumpling and I thought I might as well make something crazy. So I made something I've dubbed "Southwestern (China?) Jiaozi" which I stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, corn, tomato, black beans, onion and a bit of mexican cheese. Ohhhhh man!! Deadly.

Other than the above, we spent most of the weekend talking about our future. In a mind numbing, epic conversation that seemingly lasted three days, we came up with a budget that will allow us to buy a house next year. We could do it now but the interest would be alot higher because there's less available now for a down payment and we figure it would be best to put down at least, say, 40 percent. 

And by "we", I mean "she". She figures 40 percent. She came up with the budget. Me, I'm no good with numbers so I typically find it best when the subject comes up to seem deeply engaged and heavily invested in the conversation, nod my head approvingly and jump in with the occasional "umm hmm", "I see" or, the tried and true "I concur". 

In reality, I'm pretty sure I was wondering what Santa would look like as a black man. 

In other life planning news, it turns out we've found a way for me to go back to school here instead of back in the states (In a horrible lapse in judgment, it appears that the University of Hong Kong will let me in) and we also plan on getting her all pregnant pretty soon. 

That way, I can go to school, be here to take care of the munchkin (God help the poor little bastard) and perhaps even work part-time. Best of all, we won't need to pay two sets of rent and bills for the next year while I'm studying in the states.  

So that's it for me. It's good to be back but I don't really have much else to say just now and so I'm off to buy meat to cook up on my new indoor grill. Actually, no, it's more than that. It's a "Jackie Chan Lean Mean Grilling Machine". True story. 

George Foreman, in addition to having a deadly punch and an aversion to greasy meats, also seems to have a pretty shrewd business acumen. He's signed up Jackie Chan to be the face of George Foreman Grills here in Asia- presumably because nobody in Asia has ever heard of George Foreman. 

So, yeah, I have a Jackie Chan grill. Right on!

Americans Deserve Better

As if one interaction with Hong Kong's health professionals wasn't enough this week, we spent all day at the hospital today. Just before bed last night The Girl started feeling some pain in the lower left part of her abdomen. We spent a (mostly) sleepless night debating whether to go to the hospital or not (me: fer, she: agin) and then eventually, just as I actually came across some primo REM sleep, off we went.

I should begin by telling my family, who seem to enjoy The Girl's company considerably more than mine (totally understandable), that the tests found nothing. We don't know whether that's good or bad but for now it is all that we have.

Secondly, and somehow dovetailing with my last post, I want to share something with my American friends:

Services rendered:

* Vitals check by Nurse (blood pressure, pulse, weight, height, eyes, etc., etc.)
* Interview and examination with Surgeon on call (no, seriously- a REAL one!)
* Extremely amusing (more on that in a later post) ass-injection of Ibuprofen / Codeine for pain
* Referral to Radiologist
* Interview and consultation with Radiologist
* x-rays of abdomen
* Referral to on-site Gynecologist
* Interview, physical examination and ultrasound
* Final, wrap-up consultation with original Surgeon on call

Total Cost:

$670 Hong Kong

$ 86.11 US

This $86.11, by the way? Not a typographical error and not the post-insurance cost. This was the total cost due my wife and I to the hospital- regardless of any other arrangements between us and our insurance company.

You may be thinking to yourselves "well, surely that's impossible! It must be a third-world kind of hospital or something..."

Nope. It is actually a private hospital that enjoys a very good reputation. And, during the whole time, we were treated respectfully. As if we were being provided a service or something! A health service, if you will.

When all of this was going down and she finally agreed that a hospital might be necessary, we called a good friend of ours who has been here her whole life. She, in turn, told us to go to a private, Catholic hospital here known locally as "the French hospital" (this being because it was started in 1940 shortly before the Japanese occupation by nuns of the French Catholic order of St. Paul de Chartres).

I just re-read that last sentence and, although I'm quite sure you already know, I feel compelled to state that the Japanese were never occupied by nuns of the French Catholic order of St. Paul de Chartres...

But it is funny to contemplate.

Anyhoo, after going to the emergency room and being sent to xrays, a Gyno and ultrasounds, oh- and one extremely entertaining ass-injection, we went to the cashier to pay (something that is also foreign to me- paying on the same day? How could THAT be possible??? Who the hell has $5,000 hanging around???!?!?!!?) and I cringed, literally cringed, at the thought of what the cost might amount to. Time to put that new Amex card to use.......

And it came to $86 bucks??!!?!?!?

Americans, we are all being taken for a ride. I guess I always knew it about healthcare, sure, but I'd never seen it in such real terms as these. Not like today. I'm stunned. I'm stunned and I'm offended. And, I have a feeling that you may be offended too.

86 US dollars. Cleanest, most professional hospital I've ever seen. Hmm....

I say? Vote every incumbent out of office next time. Write letters. Send emails. Stand outside their offices. Make fun of them while they're giving a public speech at the 4H club about how much they "feel" their constituents' pain. Whatever- do something. Anything. Just make your voice heard.

We deserve better.

Just Gimme Some Truth: A Doctor Speaks Out

So I went to the Doctor today. Normally that's not cause for blog inclusion but I mention it mainly because she said something that struck me as profound. I'd Love to publish her name but, out of respect for her and our agreement (I won't cough up her name, she won't tell anyone that I'm a hermaphrodite), I will not do so here.

I just wish other people, my whole family for one, knew her. Why? Because she is by far the best, most attuned and personally attentive Doctor that I have ever known. And while I have no way of knowing if her practice is demonstrative of Hong Kong Doctors as a whole, I can say that, for myself, I've never been happier.

Sure, she makes me weigh myself everytime- as if there's going to be a shocking find there. And, yeah, she takes my temperature and blood pressure and sticks that unholy stick down the back of my throat.

The thing is, when the state of American healthcare can be accurately described as a cursory check of one's pupils and blood pressure, a tap on the knee and a shameful 2 minute pimping in regard to the wonders of Celebrex or Prozac or, watch out world, "Celexa!", followed by a bill for $800 dollars.........

...which is then followed quickly by 9,897 phone calls to an insurance company (inevitably owned or, at least heavily financed by, a politician) that you've been paying loads of money to for 2 or 5 or 8 or 19 or 26 or 42 or 60 years who suddenly won't take your calls or even answer the letters you've sent which ask why they're screwing you and how they can possibly sleep at night.........

...an experience like mine is something to remember.

I don't mean to suggest that this Doctor is not subject to whatever weird and possibly archaic health insurance laws that Hong Kong has. I DO mean to state as a fact, unequivocally, that she is not part of a system that thinks of medicine as solely an enterprise in making gobs of cash.

Here, thankfully, medicine seems to be taken much more seriously. Y'know- like you actually matter. Not like you've just dropped off a crankshaft to be worked on and will pick up again on Friday.

Which, I guess, is what allows for the fact that after having been in her office 6 times since last August, I have yet to see a pharmaceutical salesmen there. You know the guy- the one who has just bought the whole staff an exquisite lunch and showered them with gift certificates to Sally Beauty? Great hair, killer smile?

If there's anything regrettable about not seeing the Pharmaceutical Salesman these days, it's that I no longer have pens in the house that say stuff like "Levitra- Get your crank up, man!" (Alright, the pens were real, the slogan was mine. Levitra- call me - I have loads more where that came from...many involving crankshafts!)

Right, back to today's experience-

What a joy it is to actually have your Doctor listen, really listen, to what you're saying and to engage you in conversation! Asking you about things that you hadn't considered. Offering alternatives to prescription drugs. Offering lifestyle alternatives.

Sure, sometimes the lifestyle alternatives are a bit vague. You know, "don't drink or smoke or eat fried foods or play on the train tracks". Other times they're less vague and include such things as "you really need to take better care of yourself" or the even less helpful "I can't believe nobody knows you're a hermaphrodite!" but the advice I'm offered, while perhaps not life-changing, still amounts to more than I've ever been extended by my HMO-approved doctors in the states. 

For example, today I was given a book full of vegetarian recipes for people who would really prefer meat. Well, hell yeah, where do I sign???!?!?!?! Sure, most of the recipes have something to do with the evil Portobello mushroom and the mysterious "Aubergine" (something that I would soon remember as being just a run-of-the-mill, evil eggplant), but what a fantastic display of consideration for my dime just the same!

Best of all, my Doctor has time for me. And, when it's all over but the dying, that's what it's all about right? When I make an appointment with my new Doctor I am assured that I will have enough time, usually much more than enough time, to get to all the things that I would forget to tell my American Doctors in the standard 4 minutes. 

She can assure me that she has time because she doesn't schedule 14 people all at once as I am also accustomed to. More specifically, her office allots one hour with each patient and when I leave I am handed a card, not that much bigger than a business card, reminding me of my next checkup. On the back it says the following:

"I like you. If I didn't I would already have urged you to find another Doctor. I have done so in the past and, unfortunately, will likely feel compelled to do so again. In most of the instances where I have asked someone to seek another primary care practitioner it was because I simply did not feel that my message was getting through.

You are scheduled to come back on ___________. Attached you will find a printout detailing my recommendations- follow them. I did not become a Doctor because I felt the need to buy a bigger car. I became a Doctor because I take pleasure in helping people. Please keep this in mind when considering whether or not to do what I am asking you to do.

As always, please be aware that I feel it important to spend time with my patients. For that reason, all patients are scheduled for one hour. Should the patient before you have a particular need to stay for longer, I must beg your understanding and ask you to know that I would do the same for you.

Indeed, I may be forced to do it for you one day- should you choose not to follow my recommendations.

Sincerely,

Doctor ______ _________"

Yeah, that's another reason I like her- she's a bit of a ball-buster. She doesn't mince words and, while she does seem to think that I'm amusing, she is also not afraid to tell me that I'm an idiot and, invariably, that I'm doing something that will surely kill me.

Lastly, I asked the Doctor about all of the many issues that both patients and Doctors in America are facing these days. She shook her head ruefully and said something that genuinely hit home. With her approval, I asked her to repeat it so that I could write it down and include it in my blog: 

"See, I'm sorry, but I just have nothing good to say about America's healthcare system. I Love America but it has a major health crisis and I am certain, just as certain as I am that the pants I'm wearing are blue, that people are dying because of health insurance companies. More, probably, than most people even realize. 

Managed care started out as a great idea- kind of like communism. It sounds great to the uninitiated. But, along the way, it became less about triage and more about who is expendable....because it costs too much to make them well or, worse, to even keep them alive. 

My parents sent me to a prep school in North Carolina before I went to college and I love America. It has some of the best medical schools and Doctors in the world and has by far the best medical research and development, but the system is purely about profit and I just don't see how any nation as powerful and typically forward-thinking as America can make the practice of helping people, of curing people, an enterprise in profiteering."

There's nothing that I can add to that, really, except that the United States Congress, en masse, should be very, very ashamed of themselves.

Or, at the very least, be forced to join an HMO under an assumed name.  

And Me Without My Mask...

Perhaps those of you reading this in the rest of the world have heard that, as of yesterday, the schools here in Hong Kong were summarily closed for two weeks in order to combat the spread of a flu that's been going around. I know I've seen it on my Google news page so I'm guessing that those of you who actually believe that there's a big world out there (Hello America?!?!?) have heard or read something about it.

This school shutdown, presumably, is because kids are tiny little snot factories that aren't particularly fastidious about what they wipe their noses on or even about regularly washing their hands.

For a while there it was unnerving because we first read in the papers about a small child with flu-like symptoms who died. Then another. And still another.

Rumours (there goes that fucking British spelling again...yeah, I caught it, but I left it in here anyway as a caution to those of you who may be thinking of moving to a current or former British territory...but, I digress...Where the hell was I? Have you lost the thread of what you were reading yet? I'm lost as well. Let's go back to before the parentheses started and we'll meet up below)

...started spreading and then, predictably, people lost their minds.

I say "predictably" because, given the SARS epidemic that killed too 299 people and turned Hong Kong into a ghost town just a few years back, this kind of reaction is perfectly understandable.

The thing that's really bothering me is that this whole episode serves as a reminder that my memory sucks the proverbial ass. I just cannot seem to remember to buy a mask.

Don't get me wrong, it's not as though I've not made numerous diligent attempts. Still, the fact remains that I've been telling myself to buy a mask for 8 months now- chiding myself after every trundle past the mask factory - but for some reason the act of actually purchasing one, like using a tissue to wipe my nose or even regularly washing my hands, seems mournfully beyond my grasp.

And I don't just need the mask to keep weird germs out, I need one for the treacherous, sky swallowing, soul sucking, "O' to be in Kyrgyzstan!" smog.

As God is my witness (and he's probably not happy about it, either), this morning I became fed up with the fact that I'd kept myself inside the house since last weekend (having used the maze of shopping mall tunnels underneath my apartment complex to get around like some kind of bleary-eyed trust fund gerbil) and went running on the jogging track outside near our apartment.

The area where the track is located is also, lamentably, next to the construction site of a new shopping mall (a freebie for the Tourist Authority: "WE DON'T NEED TO, BUT BECAUSE WE LOVE TOURISTS WE'RE BUILDING THEM MORE SHIT THAT THEY DON'T NEED!") and what I didn't count on was coughing up concrete dust and chunks of what appears to be ancient Canton pottery once I got back to my apartment.

But this isn't about flus or masks or malls. This is about that fact that I can't remember dick. I swear to God, I'm one step from Alzheimers. These days simple tasks go the way of a really good dress sock.

Valentine's Day. My keys. How old my wife is. What the hell I did with my tax forms and dental x-rays. Who gave us what for the wedding.

Yeah, wait- think about THAT. In some kind of overly optimistic reverie, The Girl decided that it would be a good idea to assign me the task of keeping track of who gave us what at the wedding.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

So, although I don't want to spend a great deal of time on it before getting back to my point, I would like to say two things here:

The person or couple that gave us the cool cast iron Emeril cooking pan for our wedding? We use it all the time and thanks very much.

Secondly, to Mr. D. Moore:

I just found your thank-you card underneath my file cabinet last week. I hope that this in no way will diminish your regard for me. Fortunately for me, you are an old friend of my brother Charlie and I gotta believe he's blazed some sort of trail of disappointment for me. That said, I consider you a big brother and THANK YOU.

Right, so where was I? Oh, yeah- memory. Stupid cooking with aluminum foil!

I talked to The Girl about my memory problem and she seems to think that I need to have "more structure" in my life. Whether she means putting a date sticker on a new toothbrush and cycling it out of existence precisely 3 months later or covering, binding, alphabetizing and cross-indexing instructions for kitchen appliances (seriously), I do not know.

I do know that she also mentioned thinking there's a possibility that perhaps I have ADHD. Not at all surprisingly, she's already booked a Monday appointment with our Doctor (as well as make-up dates in the event that I forget) and she wants to spend some time at the HK University's bookstore tomorrow in case we might have "missed something."

Fantastic.

For my part, I think I might really just be a dumbass. In support of this theory are scads of historical documents (see various bound, alphabetized and cross-indexed case files in the counties of Chester, Bucks, DuPage, Cook, Kendall, Kane, LaPorte, Howard, Dallas, Travis and Brandywine) to support this conclusion.

Perhaps most imortantly, I still don't really quite believe that ADHD, like carpal tunnel or dyslexia, is a real malady. I'm still on the side of that particular fence that suspects it to be just a "designer" disease. 

On the other hand, even if ADHD is nonsense I happen to know that they give you pretty good speed for it. So, I mean, at least I'd lose some more weight and still not really have to deal with my memory issue because it seems to me that I'd have fogotten why I was taking it anyway.

As well as how fat I use to be.

Double Bonus!

Anyway, like I said, I think I should make an appointment with the Doctor. Wait, I think I might have one...I should check on that. But I'm supposed to wash...

Never mind.

From The "Just When You Think The World Can't Possibly Get Any Weirder" Files...

While browsing the AP wire I came across a bizarre story. In fact, it's so outrageously unbelievable that I was compelled to check out snopes.com to make sure it wasn't a hoax. 

It seems a 35 year old woman in Ness City, Kansas stayed in her boyfriend's bathroom for two years, during which time the toilet seat became one with her butt - her skin actually grew onto the seat - and she could only be removed from the toilet itself with the use of a crowbar and, I have to imagine, some elbow grease. The actual seat itself was then surgically removed at an area hospital. 

I found myself wondering about what the surgeon who removed the thing was thinking. It probably was not at all what he'd envisioned when he enrolled in medical school. I imagined him admonishing himself for not studying hard enough to become a Neurosurgeon.

Anyway, yeah- two years. Think about that. Christ, I can't even stay still for two minutes.

According to what must surely be the world's most patient (or criminally insane?) boyfriend, every day when he brought her food and drink he would ask her to please come out, to which her reply would be "maybe tomorrow." I don't know why and I'm sure I'll burn for it, but I have to admit that I do get a kick out of thinking about it- this disembodied voice coming from behind a closed door saying "maybe tomorrow" every day for 24 months. The boyfriend eventually (I'll say!) called police to report that there was "something wrong" with her. 

Ya think?

No information as yet on why he waited two years. Strange, I would have thought that some morning after a strong cup of coffee he'd have been rather insistent that she get the hell outta there..."C'mon!! Fer crissakes, you been in there forever!!!"

Perhaps he has two bathrooms.

Stand By Your Man (?)

So I turn on CNN this morning just in time to see the unassailable "Mr. Clean", New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, making what appeared to me to be a totally un-contrite apology for bedding high priced hookers while in office. I got the impression that the "honest", hard charging (turns out that part was right) politician who had promised to clean up government (presumably by utilizing a team of highly motivated hookers dressed as French maids?) was really only sorry he'd been caught. Nothing new there, really.

The only thing I didn't see that I had fully expected to witness was him announcing an impending stay in rehab because he'd come to realize that he's a "sex addict". You know, hey, it's a disease! It's not his fault and it sure has nothing whatsoever to do with character!

And there standing right next to him on the podium, more wooden than a cigar store Indian, eyes glazed like a Krispy Kreme, was his wife. Wow.

Sadly, nothing new there either.

Sorry, I just don't get it. Why it is that wives of high profile, adulterous husbands agree to stand humiliated in front of the world while their husbands sling phony, self-serving mea culpas around with about as much sincerity as a Wal-Mart cashier bidding shoppers to "have a nice day"? Where's the pride in these women?? I just find it SOOOO creepy. 

And, even creepier? The fact that these husbands actually ask and / or allow their wives to stand there with them. Firstly, if that's me I'm much too ashamed to even ask. More importantly though, even if she offered to do it I think I'd prefer to preserve what little dignity the poor woman had left by not allowing her to stand there like a well executed lobotomy.

I'm at sea here. Really. I've read that most of these wives are trying to keep it together for the children. So here's an idea- why not take them to Disney World for a few days, and let the furor subside a bit instead of leaving them home in Stepford while you go stand shoulder to shoulder with Willy McPenispants in front of the world press like some kind of stooge?

I don't get it. Who knows, maybe that's because I've been betrayed in this manner myself. Perhaps there is something to be said for standing behind your man in front of the whole world a mere hours after learning that he'd been doing someone else. Perhaps there's something wrong with me that I can't appreciate an act as selfless as that. Hmm...

You know, now that I think about it, I realize that my Taitai reads this from time to time so I'd just like to take a moment to address her now if I may: 

Sweetheart, if I somehow manage to get to a point in my life where I've cheated on you and there was a need to hold a press conference, I know it would be difficult for you but it would mean the world to me if you would just please, please, stand next to me. 

...Then kick me square in the balls, take my wallet out of my pocket and hold it up to the cameras while shouting "Screw you, asshole! I'm going to Disney World!" 

I Declare a Jihad: On The Rock & Roll Hall of Shame

Can somebody PLEASE explain to me how it is that Madonna deserves to be enshrined in the "Rock & Roll Hall of Fame"??? Anyone??

Perhaps I should start off with this question- can anyone give me an example of a Madonna song that could realistically be called a Rock & Roll song?

Or maybe we should really start here- can someone out there tell me how, exactly, Madonna can accurately be described as talented? At all? She sings like a cat set afire. 

I was never much in favor of having a Hall of Fame for music anyway, but this is ridiculous. I'm thinking a name change is in order. Perhaps the the "Icon Hall of Fame"? The "Exhibitionist Hall of Fame"? "The Public Spectacle That Can't Sing a Lick Hall of Fame"?

Whatever. Might as well call David Soul and tell him to go ahead and dust off his big, pointy, collared shirts and get ready for his invitation. Perhaps if Paris Hilton donates a tidy sum of cash or a nice, new building wing she can get in too? Ugh.

It's a travesty. That's all I'm sayin'...

When the Cowsills went in I said nothing. When James Taylor went in I said nothing. But now you've gone too far "Rock & Roll" Hall of Fame. I have to take a stand somewhere. And so I say no! I am boycotting this foolishness for good.

In fact, I had planned on stopping off there next year when I visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. Now I think I'll take a detour and see the water tower that looks like a pumpkin.Or perhaps the Big Ears of Corn. Anything but the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame. 

Alright. Sorry. I couldn't help myself. I do feel somehow better now though...

The (not so) Great Smokeout

So, I decided to quit smoking this morning. Hang on, let me go get an ashtray and I'll be back to tell you all about it...

At my age, and with a well documented history of childhood asthma and, later, chronic adult bronchitis, smoking is right up there with snake handling or cliff diving on the list of things that could very well make my stay here at the Hotel Earth lamentably (for me at least) shorter. Yet I've soldiered on at a pack and a half a day. 

Makes no sense at all, does it?

To further cloud already murky waters, smoking is hard work. Truly. For the amount of time I spend hacking while trying to fall asleep at night - getting the lung funk situated just so - coupled with an early morning cleanout ritual that sounds disconcertingly similar to a Moose attempting to mate with a garbage disposal, I could be running marathons. Or, okay, at the very least, taking the stairs instead of the escalator. 

The Girl, God bless her little cotton socks, has her sleep interrupted at least twice nightly by a pathetic kind of wet, rasping wheeze followed by, out of the total darkness, a plaintive "Godammit!"- as if the phenomenon was somehow not of my doing.

On top of all of this, I have two parents with a history of smoking-induced emphysema and associative breathing treatments. My Dad, when he wasn't smoking like a chimney or using a bizarre, imposing contraption called a "nebulizer", was accustomed to carrying around a stack of paper towels to spit his effluence into. Much like his AmEx card, he never left home without 'em.

My Mom is, at this very moment, hooked up to an oxygen tank like some deep-sea arc welder and could, if there wasn't too much argument about the headgear, just as easily be living in the Marianas Trench as she could Naperville, Illinois. Sadly for Mom, Braconi's Pizza doesn't deliver to the Marianas Trench just yet.

So, yeah, smoking has weighed on more than just my respiratory system.

Which is why this morning, after three extremely air-polluted days here in Hong Kong, I decided that enough was enough. I quit.

Hong Kong has enjoyed many years of blaming their rather extreme air pollution on mainland China. And, while this is a charge that has had some basis in fact over the years, it has been, in my mind at least, largely discredited of late. Having read an enormous amount of mind-numbingly dry scientific journals, I am convinced that not all of Hong Kong's woes are due entirely to the mainland. 

Whatever the cause (thank you very much, China Power & Light), there's no denying that, when the wind is blowing just so, the air quality here can be unquestionably brutal. Indeed, I can attest that it makes a bad day in Los Angeles look like the Garden of Eden. But more on that in a later post.

When it's all over but the gasping, people like me, we feel it. Hard core. I've been wheezing like a soggy, tired air bellow over here.

So this morning I got up, looked out the window to another eerie smokescreen, and said "Right, fuck this. I'm done." I then semi-remorsefully chucked half a carton of squares in the dumpster and washed out my ashtray.

Actually, the ashtray had been, pre-Chewy, Taitai's ornate soup bowl and was used only on special occasions. In truth, she may in fact be happier about getting the soup bowl back under the gleaming lights of the china cabinet than not being awakened to a decrepit, carping old bastard in the middle of an otherwise restful night. Tough call.

Getting off point for a moment, some of you may be wondering why I liberated the soup bowl. Well, she carped about me buying a real ashtray because it would have legitimized my smoking and blah, blah, blah, and we're going to have kids and blah, blah, blah, and what are they going to do with a Dad who needs more wind to get going than a Hobie Cat and how the hell do you expect to show them how to play soccer when you can't even run for any length of time blah, blah, blah...

So, with no real ashtray to rely on, I snatched the thing because it looked as similar to an ashtray as anything else I was likely to find in Casa de Chewy. Probably also as payback. And, OHHHHH MAN, was she pissed! We fought but, to her credit, she knew it was a lost cause and that I'd keep using it. Still, it was ugly there for a while. 

Also, not for nothing, but...soccer?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Middle Linebacker, thank you very much. 

Anyhow, I have long had patches and nicotine inhalers - kind of like plastic cigs that give you a shot of filthy tasting nicotine when you draw off them- in my bedside drawer but I just didn't really have that all-consuming desire to quit before. 

Now I do.

And I was only kidding about needing to get an ashtray at the beginning of this entry. It is now 7 PM and I haven't had a smoke all day. Sure, it's only been 13 hours- I get that. Still, I remain steadfastly encouraged because I'm also the same asshole that has stuck his head dangerously deep into the airplane toilet on international flights in order to get just one or two puffs before the Air Marshalls could tase me stupid.

And, it's true, I don't know how long it will last. As much as I want to, I can't guarantee that "this is it". Believe me, I am well aware of my propensity for addictive excess, justification of stupid decision making and, in the end, full-on caving to my baser desires.

 

Still, the older I get, I realize that when it's time to sleep truthfully on my own pillow, the law of diminishing returns always has it's say.

Stupid law of diminishing returns...

Said another way, the point at which I decide to quit the act of smoking or drinking or wearing velvet panties on a downtown bus (hey- don't knock it until you've tried it) is directly proportional to how much satisfaction I get out of it versus how much of a realtime pain in the ass it is. At some point it's just no longer worth the hassle. 

So, while I think there's merit in not over-thinking something, and I'm trying not to at the moment, I also realize that, for me, my pillow has just become too uncomfortable to justify smoking any longer. 

P.S. Is it unusual to want to murder somebody, anybody, when you're trying to quit smoking?

P.S.S. The picture above (was taken from the following Wikipedia' page:) is, apparently, supposed to remain a national secret. Anyway, it was a picture of Hong Kong smog. 

The Paradox Of Choice

I used to think to myself, particularly in the mid to late 90's when the internet started really growing exponentially, that there was just too much information out there. Too many places to get your news. Too many places to get information on the same topic. Too much information that can make your head spin, really. How can you possibly know which site is better? Which one is offering bare, unvarnished facts and which one has some weird agenda? Who's trying to spin you out there and who isn't?

It was dizzying to me. Still is.

And I don't know about you, but I've caught myself at a store somewhere trying to choose the right something (toaster, electric razor- whatever) and getting to the point where I felt overwhelmed and ended up walking out exasperated. With nothing.

And I agonize over making the simplest purchases sometimes. If I'm buying pancake syrup I could stand in the aisle debating the merits of Log Cabin vs. Aunt Jemima vs. the more expensive but tastier (and real) Canadian stuff for 20 minutes. Seriously. And if it's a deadlock, well, no syrup. I didn't need the goddamn pancakes anyway, right?

When I started traveling to different countries back in the 90's, particularly the less affluent ones, I began to notice that people that had less material things somehow seemed happier. I don't mean people who are starving or homeless- I mean people who live more simply than most in the US do. Who, for example, don't have an SUV, a big, flat screen tv or an iPod. Who don't have to choose between 584 different types of shoes or whether their taser should come with an MP3 or not.

Of course, being an American, for me this immediately seemed like a dichotomy. People that have less stuff seem happier. Hmm. That can't be right. That just can't be right. WTF?

And then just recently I was in a bookstore at the University of Hong Kong and I came across a book called "The Paradox of Choice" by Economics / Psychology Professor Barry Schwartz of Swarthmore College. I bought it and, I have to say, it resonated with me. For some it may have more value than others, probably, but I think everyone can relate to it to some degree.

His argument is that the more choices people have, the less often they will buy anything and the less happier they will be with the purchases that they do make.

In one experiment he laid out 24 jars of gourmet fruit jams for sale. He invited people to try them for free and to buy them if they liked. His results showed that when he had 24 on the table nobody bought the stuff. They'd sample it, sure, but they wouldn't cough up the cash to buy their own jar. When he lowered the quantity of jars on the table, however, people bought jars more and more often.

Even when people did buy a jar of it when there was, say, 12 jars on the table they were much less apt to be as happy with their choice as those people who chose from a table with just 6 jars on it. Mainly because they were afraid that perhaps they'd made a bad decision. What if the other stuff, the stuff they didn't buy, tasted better? And so their satisfaction with the choice they did make suffered.

Additionally, he posits that because people have so many choices it sometimes causes them a kind of paralysis because they're afraid to buy the wrong one or there's too much information and they just can't decide .

He also maintains that it's not just inherent to making decisions about what we buy. He says for people in affluent western countries, where choices are plentiful, "good enough" becomes not good enough and so it seeps into every area of their lives. 

High school students trying to figure out what their college major will be. College students trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives after school. Couples trying to decide whether to have children now or wait a while. 

The opportunity cost just freaks people out and so they end up not making a decision at all. They just end up waiting for the answer to magically arrive out of the ether.

Like me and my freakin' pancakes. Still, now that I have the book, perhaps it will be easier to decide what I want to be when I grow up too.

If there was ever a need to defend living a simpler life, this book makes a convincing case.

Anyway, here's an interview with the author that I found fascinating.

Good Riddance Brett Favre, Bear Killer

Yeah, the headline is a bit harsh. Too bad. Brett Favre not only broke my heart on occasions too numerous to count (he even ruined the opening of the newly renovated Soldier Field by pantsing the Bears yet again) but I hold him partly responsible for my DUI arrest in 1994.

Besides, according to Answers.com, the definition of riddance is "a deliverance from or the removal of something unwanted or undesirable". Brett Favre is unwanted and undesired by football fans such as myself who's teams in the NFC North have to face him twice a season. And we're being delivered from him. And that's good.

But on to the DUI. There was a game, perfectly memorable to Bears fans everywhere, less so to me, that was played in Soldier Field on Halloween night, 1994- the night that the careers of Gayle Sayers and Dick Butkus were to be honored by the Bears at halftime.

Looking more like pumpkins than players in their puke-orange, 1920 throwback uniforms, Favre singlehandedly humiliated the Bears, much as he would continue to do for more than a decade to come.

On that night, I decided that there was no way Favre could score more than 24 points due to the torrential rain and 40 mph winds. So I bet a friend of mine from Wisconsin that for every point over 24 I would do a shot of Jagermeister.

Favre didn't do alot of throwing that night. No, he just proceeded to dismantle the Bears' defense in other ways- one of which was a 66 yard touchdown run. In the rain. Against Bear linebackers. Sheesh.

Packers 33, Bears 6. Gary -$5,000 dollars. Sure, if you want to get all technical about it, you could say that I bear the blame for driving while hammered and you'd be right. But Favre....he just...AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!! I hate that guy!

So, what the hell, I'm blaming it on him anyway.

On the plus side, I haven't done anything that stupid since then so I suppose he helped to teach me a valuable lesson.

See? Even when I try to hate the guy I'm forced to grudgingly appreciate him somehow.

So, yeah, first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback, free spirit, gun slinger, tough guy, love of the game, blah, blah, blah...he's not dead. He's just retired.

And I couldn't be happier about it.

Why Hillary For President May Not Be A Great Idea

Last week, on the evening before the big Texas and Ohio Democratic primaries, the Clinton campaign set up an area for the press....in a men's room.

Yep. A men's room. Not done yet, the Clinton campaign made it co-ed. All journalists, men and women alike, were sequestered amongst the enduring smell of urinal cakes. Dinner was served as well. Tamales, apparently.

Now, I get that she feels like she's been treated unfairly be the press. But, ask yourself, is this the right approach? Wow. A stunningly stupid move, I feel. 

Now, Hillary may or may not have known about it but, either way, she is responsible for presiding over a campaign staffed with really stupid people and she certainly made the decisions to hire the people who make whatever decisions that she doesn't make. 

Yeah, it doesn't inspire my confidence to know that she wants to be the one to "answer the phone at 3 AM". 

I'm just sayin'...

Slow News Day

The city of Brattleboro, Vt. has passed a resolution that instructs town police to arrest President George W. Bush as well as soulless, undead Vice-President Dick Cheney on sight for "crimes against our Constitution." The resolution instructs officers to remove the two from the city limits or, in the terms of the resolution itself, "extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them." 

A splendid idea, I feel, but a bit of a cop-out. I think it would have been better to arrest them and ship them off to the city jail. Imagine all the stuff Georgie could learn in there. Perhaps Otis could even teach him how to make booze from a bag of raisins. Hell, even if they only had regular grapes Cheney could suck all the life out just by staring at them.  

Imagine the CNN graphics!! "PRESIDENTIAL HOSTAGE 2008: THE BRINK OF MADNESS"

In other news, the mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with "severe punishment" if they die due to the fact that there's no room left in the cemetery to bury them.

Mayor Gerard Lalanne posted the ordinance in city hall telling residents of the town of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish", adding "Offenders will be severely punished."

(Source "Reuters: Oddly Enough" ) 

Goofy Gone Wild

One of my top 5 favorite breed of dogs is the Golden Retriever. I guess I've had a soft spot for them since my eldest brother Charlie got a dog named McGee many years ago. McGee was, I believe, emotionally retarded even by canine standards, but he was pretty smart and very humble. Like Mr. Spock with a long tail and an insatiable appetite for cheeseburgers.

So whenever I see a Golden Retriever these days I'm reminded of McGee and I smile reflexively. Until today (insert ominous sound of impending doom here).

Today, as unlikely as it must surely sound, I came across a pack of feral Golden Retrievers as I was hiking on Lantau Island. Oddly, they were traveling with a Chow and a limping Basset Hound. I'm assuming that there's some politically correct standard in place for dog packs here in Hong Kong which dictates that they must all include a Chinese one and a crippled fat guy.

I wasn't as surprised as I might otherwise have been had I not been doing alot of research on what's up in them thar hills. It's been said (and I have no trouble believing) that dogs outnumber humans on Lantau. After all, Lantau is more than twice the size of Hong Kong island and has only about 50,000 people - do the math. 

It's simply the unfortunate result of utterly despicable people abandoning their dogs. The dogs then either die or adapt and, if they survive, they breed with other wild dogs and there you have it.

There are numerous news items on the 'net that mention the problems the Disney folks have had with dogs stalking Hong Kong Disneyland - particularly after dark- and on occasion chasing people. Not funny. One story tells of the dogs chasing Disney Executives to their cars after work at night. Totally funny.

They chased me today. Once again, most assuredly not funny.

I had just crested a ridge on my way up to Lantau Peak when I hear some rustling and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn to look and there's this Golden Retriever mutt walking out of the dense brush, staring at me. And I mean staring at me. This was not "hey dude- I could sure use a tummy rub over here". 

He was checking me out, sizing me up. I knew it. He knew I knew it.

I broke eye contact very quickly because I know it's never a good idea to stare into the eyes of a strange dog. I'm guessing this is even more important when it's a strange, mangy, menacing, wild dog.

Wild dogs are in pretty good physical shape. I, on the other hand, am lucky I can touch my toes before noon. So it came as no surprise to me that, after our long ascent, the only one of us panting was me. I thought to myself "McGee, help me out here buddy". Totally inappropriate thought for the moment, sure, but I do tend to think weird shit like that.

But, hey, it's only one dog. Could be worse. I mean, much like teens and Packer fans, dogs become alot more aggressive in large numbers.

Then another dog emerges. And another. Two more. Three more. Another one. One of them looked entirely out of place (as much as a dog can next to a bunch of feral mountain Golden Retrievers) as it was tiny, all white, well groomed and had a designer collar on it. 

Must have been a new arrival. The token little guy with the big heart. But it, too, was giving me the fish-eye. Little bastard. I made a mental note to kick that little fucker to the coast with my dying breath if things went bad. I hate hangers-on.

I can honestly say that I've never been more freaked out (okay "scared") than I was today. Even when laying flat on the roof of a car doing 80 miles an hour down I-88 near Chicago. (Hi Mom!)

They all stopped and stared at me. There was no way in hell I could run from them and trying would set them off and only make this thing go from bad to worse. I thought "Shit, I'm going to be savaged by "Alex from the Stroh's Beer ads". Then, inexplicably, it occurred to me just how old I am and how terribly sad it is that I even remember Alex from the Stroh's Beer ads.

Rule number one of hiking is never hike alone. Rule number two is to know where you're going. One out of two ain't bad. Well, actually, one out of three because I hadn't told anyone where I was going either (Rule #3).

Anyhow, I knew where I was going, I just wondered if they'd let me get there without making this thing a big mess. Of me, mostly. And I always hike alone. There's nobody else to do it with during the week, really.

Not being a complete mental midget (sorry, "little person"), I always hike with a heavy, pointed walking stick and I keep a canister of tear gas in my backpack. Now I just had to get the freakin' thing out without moving too suddenly for my new companions.

So I've got my left hand up over my shoulder in my pack and my stick in my right hand when I see one of the boys start circling to my right. Now, I don't know much, but I know that it's a really bad idea to let any kind of predator get behind you if you can avoid it.

I started walking slowly to my right and he kept with me. The other dogs began to kind of amble forward a little. I was waiting for one of the rat bastards to go to the left but none ever did. That sooooooo would have sucked. Also, I noticed that none of them had their hackles up yet so I figured I might have a chance of getting out of this thing.

My heart was pounding. I swear I could hear it in my head.

As I kept walking to the right with this other dog it occurred to me that I had a windproof lighter with me as well so I took that out. I've no earthly idea what I was thinking. Perhaps I could set one on fire if things got up close and personal? Y'know- like ya do?

At that point we were pretty close to a cliff that didn't really leave alot in the way of options. A couple more steps and you're fully committed to rolling a thousand feet or more down a steep, dense jungle mountainside. With jagged rocks poking out everywhere just for fun.

It seemed like the closer I got to the cliff, the more the dog that was trying to flank me on the right slowed down and seemed like he wanted to give up. I don't know if he was shy of the edge or what. Maybe he was just bored. Maybe he'd eaten already and wanted to go scratch his ass on a banyan tree. I know I did.

So he broke off and trotted back to the group and they all just kind of looked around at each other as if to say "Do we have to? He doesn't really look all that appetizing. Look- he's old" and then they all trotted back down the way I'd come up. 

Which sucked because I had to go back down the same way.

Just for good measure, I waited an hour before heading back down. I spent most of that time wondering if, had I been eaten by the pack, I would one day get a mention on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet or something.

I remember wondering how long it would have taken for someone to find my remaining pieces and what parts of me the dogs might have eaten. I reasoned that if I had to be consumed I'd prefer they started with my gut. That way I'd seem alot thinner when I was found.

I didn't encounter them on my way down.

The whole thing, now, is a bit of a blur. Just a massive dose of fear and adrenalin, really.

I do remember thinking to myself while it was all happening that I wished I had a cell phone to leave The Girl a message. Perhaps something like "Hi, it's me. Hey listen, I know I said I would be, but if I'm not at the train station next week to meet you it probably means that I've been brutally mauled by a pack of untamed house pets. Have a nice day!"

And I thought about my Mom too. How the hell was I going to explain this? I mean,I had clearly committed to the clean underwear policy and here I was having shit myself. 

In retrospect, I'm sure she'd have understood. She wouldn't have understood the "Obama '08" pin on my tattered carcass, but she'd have understood the underwear debacle. 

At least it wouldn't have read "Hillary '08". I would have definitely received postmortem demerits for that. 

Anyhow, I'm home now and, even though I don't drink all that often these days, I'm on my second bottle of Merlot at the moment. And with each glass I've toasted old McGee.

You know- just in case.

The Libidinous Mr. Chen And A Tale Of The Tape

Well, everybody else in Hong Kong has weighed in on it so I might as well too. The scandal, that is. Haven't heard about it? Yeah, you probably wouldn't unless you lived in Asia or had some connection to Hong Kong. Or, who knows, maybe it has gotten some play in the west. Here it's seemingly central to every headline and news report that I've come across for weeks now.

It's a story as old as time itself, really. Boy meets girl, boy photographs himself having sex with girl, boy drops laptop off for repair where a bespectacled and dorky young kid with cheeto stains on his fingers, a severe case of acne and an intimate knowledge of the schematics to the Starship Enterprise does a little snooping, sees the pictures and shoots them to one or two.....million.....of his closest friends. Apparenly there's videotape out there too.

See, there's this young cinema heartthrob, sometime Cantonese hip hop (I know, right?) performer and "street" clothing company owner named Edison Chen. He's someone you've never heard of and have never even seen unless you watched The Grudge 2 (where, presciently, he is doomed by an Asian girl!) or have paid any attention whatsoever to local advertising while wandering around somewhere in China.

Then there's scads of starlets and singers including such luminaries as Gillian Chung (Action movie heroine and half of the virginal Cantopop duo "The Twins"), Bobo Chan (singer, actress) and Cecelia Cheung (actress, Cantopop star).

All of these young ladies not only allow Chen to bed them but also to film the proceedings. Whoops! Then Chen drops his Pink Powerbook laptop (dude, seriously...) to be fixed without first removing the videos and the 1,300 plus pictures of them all in various, er, "poses". The pictures, of course, make their way to websites all over the place which, in turn, causes all kinds of interesting fallout at the end of this past January.

So now in mainland China they're cracking down hard on anyone uploading the stuff to the 'net, here in HK it's brought a number of legal issues (copyright, privacy, dissemination of information on the internet, etc.) to the fore, rounds of denials and then, later, (woops!) apologies have been offered up, marriages and careers have been ruined, the public has demanded all manner of retribution for this licentious behavior, the Triad gangs (who tend to bankroll alot of the entertainers here) ordered that Chen's hands be hacked off or worse and Chen has decided to retire from Hong Kong's entertainment industry at the ripe old age of 27.

Initially the threats prompted him to head for Boston and then to a facility in Utah for sex addiction because, of course, all anyone has to do these days is check into rehab and all is forgiven. Sadly, a couple of inmates there whipped his ass for him (and not in the way one might expect in facility chock full o' sex addicts) so he then fled to his parents' house in his native Canada for a short time. He then returned to Hong Kong to undergo questioning by police and just left the country a couple of days ago.

What I find fascinating is the reaction this has been getting here in Asia. It has absolutely rocked Hong Kong, Beijing (where several of the girls were to play some part in the upcoming Olympics ceremonies), Taiwan (where a couple of the girls are from) and the rest of the continent as a whole. Except Myanmar where nobody is allowed to know what's happening in the rest of the world anyway.

People are such hypocrites. I mean, come on! Who among us hasn't nailed a starlet, filmed it and then forgotten all about it???

Seriously, though, I do see just a taaaaaad bit of hypocrisy here. You know- given that prostitution is legal here and you can't roll a bowling ball down Lockhart street in Wan Chai without mowing down about 900 hookers. 

And, for what it's worth, sorry ladies, I won't try that again.

Personally, I think the only people who should be vilified are those that stole the pictures and uploaded them to the internet in the first place. Seems to me someone's private life should be just that- private. But that's just me.

It's hard to feel too terribly sorry for anyone involved though, really. Not for the girls who knew they were being filmed. Definitely not for Chen, because he allowed the stuff to be stolen so easily and also because I wasted 10 minutes of my life reading this towering asshole's blog. All you have to do is read the profile at the top of his main page to realize he's a twit.

But here's the thing- it is an absolutely immutable law of the Universe that if you don't want people to see you doing something, don't film it! You don't have to be a Rhodes Scholar to figure it out.

Also, if you don't already know or never believed it was true, I have a tip for you: Most guys can't help talking about their conquests. And showing proof? All the better! I think most dudes, if they were honest, would ask "what good it is to go to bed with a supermodel if nobody would ever know about it?" Sad, yes, but true.

That's not to say that there aren't alot of guys out there who are gentlemen and don't talk about their private affairs...it's just that it takes a Herculean effort to control themselves. 

Guys are dirtbags. It's our very essence. Even guys that aren't dirtbags have to try REALLY hard not to be. So girls, please, when he tries to convince you by telling you that nobody will ever see the pictures, don't believe him. He might crack.

Unless it's me. Then, you know, you can be reasonably sure I'll do the right thing.

Gotta run. I have a tremendous craving for Cheetos right now for some reason.......

Show and Tell

The Pictures above were taken this past Saturday in Sai Kung. My two favorites are the one with The Girl holding the enormous shrimp and the one of her looking melancholy after gorging herself on seafood. Somehow I managed to spur her on to eat a whole two pound fish by herself.


Finally, nice weather on a Saturday! That being the case, we decided to make the most of it.

We decided to just pick a place off the map and we settled on the coastal town of Sai Kung. Surrounded by mountains, Sai Kung is in the Eastern Central area of the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) called the New Territories. There, out in the country, life is more relaxed and there is infinitely more open space.

Once in Sai Kung we hopped on a Sampan ferry (pictured) to head over to another island and do some wandering after which we went back to the pier in town and walked down the aptly named Seafood Street.

There are restaurants there that have huge tanks of any kind of seafood you can think of...and some I'd never even heard of such as the Squilla Mantis or "Mantis Shrimp".

Before I go on, I have to mention the Mantis Shrimp. This thing is bizarre. Not really a shrimp at all, it looks like an insect. And a shrimp. And a lobster. And a praying mantis. And also, the head(?) of it looks eerily like the cover of the book / movie "Silence of the Lambs". They come in all colors but these ones were a kind of translucent / whitish - very weird. Stranger still, the little alien has to be kept in a specially reinforced tank because their very powerful, lighting fast claws, which are normally used to stab and / or bludgeon their prey to death, are capable of easily breaking the glass on an aquarium.

I decided I didn't want to eat them. The Girl did though. She said it tasted like lobster, so there you have it.

Other than the Mantis shrimp there were squid and manta ray, shark, sea urchin, Geoduck, Sea Cucumber, enormous lobsters, all different sizes and types of crabs as well as loads of clams, oysters, mussels, whelks and cockles. Many of the fish were obscenely, monstrously large. We're talking fish (they looked like Grouper but I'm not sure if they were) that weighed well over a hundred pounds. One of them took up a whole tank. I've posted the picture here (top) but it's difficult to appreciate the true scale from the picture. If you click on it and open it to full size, you can see my reflection in the glass and that, my friends, is the true scale.

Anyway, once you're at the tank you point out what you want and the guy will fish it out and put it all in a bag. Then he ties up the bag, numbers it and gives you a tag with the same number on it. He sends it the bag to the kitchen and you take the tag back to the table.

At the table there is a menu that, besides appetizers, drinks and desserts, lists various ways that they can cook the food you chose for your main course. This way when the waiter shows up you tell him, "okay, I'd like the lobster cooked in chili and garlic sauce, the crab in the cheese sauce and the shrimp deep fried" or whatever.

After we got done eating we took a spin through the park and around the neighborhood which is teeming with restaurants of all types, small European gourmet food shops and loads of pubs.

It was really nice to see everyone out walking their dogs. You don't see that in the more citified and crowded areas of Hong Kong or where we live in Kowloon. We discussed the possibility of moving there when our lease expires. Personally, that would suit me juuuuuuust fine.

Springtime in Hong Kong is fantastic.