School bags here I find really quite depressing - most toddlers are OK, they get their school kit carried by their mum/ maid. Its really sweet watching them on the ferry, as just before we get into Aberdeen they all get their outfits changed even if they are spotless, and have clean white socks & different school shoes put on. But the 7-12 year olds - the bags are bigger than they are! It's scarey! They are about the size of my small roller suitcase, like an air-stewerdess's bag, and some of the kids are lucky enough to have ones they CAN pull along rather than carry. And the uniforms are SO unfair! The worst is the poor girls in the spotless white pleated knee length skirts & tops - and the poor lads going to that same (Catholic?) school, all in white - what an awful colour to keep clean! To make things worse there is a really sadistic school clothes designer somewhere - all the sweet boat-collared white shirts the girls wear, with their little ribbon ties at the neck- they button up the BACK so there is no way you could put it on yourself as far as I can see. Unless you are a contortionist. Or maybe they do up the bottom buttons with it on backwards, twist it round & walk to school until a friend can do the top ones???? Most pupils have similar to what the UK used to have (before the waves of uniform polo shirts & sweaters took over), except the girls are often in tartan skirts, some look very school disco/ Manga cartoon-ish. The fashion for girls shoes is massive black leather Mary Janes with the strap across the middle and rounded toes, so they look a bit like clowns with HUGE feet on them. The canadian teacher & I aggree the ugliest uniform is the chinese style cheongsam (those dresses usually in silk that fasten at the neck diagonally), as in cheap thin blue school shirt materal, with straight sides, its hideous & uncomfortable as soon as the girls aren't like sticks any more.
It seems theres a big lack of arts in schools, nearly all on offer is extra-curricular. And for a city there seems to be not much public artsy culture - I have seen 1 poster for Figaro by a touring foreign opera, and 1 poster (oh dear!) for a West-Life concert - I mean, London is HEAVING with plays etc. Saying that there does look to be lots of arts festivals, hope we can go to/ do some of them. There are LOADS of arty shops/ cafes/ clubs in the city where you pay astronomical amounts to paint, do pottery, jewellery etc. I quite fancy joining the YWCA as they have a great selection, from traditional chinese knotting to Indian cookery and walking trips. You can even get escorted by a local to the jade or pearl markets, get help to barter for what you want, then get taught how to make your own real pearl necklace. Etc! There are also a lot of courses 'for your helper' to 'teach her how to prepare & present a traditional english/ indian/ french dinner'. ... and so on! But Pete refuses to pay for them, wants me to find free ones - don't exist! So I think if I do get work I wont be contributing to his boat building fund it will be for stuff like that!
We have another contender for 'silliest names' - up till now the girl called Sky I had at Field Studies camp 2 years running wins (she was Sky Blue Mercedes in full as thats what her dad REALLY wanted). But - the Canadian teacher has 2 (unrelated) boys in his class, one named 'Human' and the other 'Alien', for their christian names! As for shops, I have giggled quite a bit - from passing Wan King Supplies, Wan Co Underwear, etc - I forget most of them, sadly!
I have taken a few pics (only from the bus) of the local cematries, but I will go for a closer look at St Micheals Cematry, definitely. From afar there seems to be no greenery whatsoever, all concrete; and a more 'christian' side, with crosses, angels etc; on the chinese side they all have little photos of the deceased on the stones/ cremation boxes, not entirely sure how that works. The truly oriental graves (the wealthier version of the occasional pots backed by a curving wall burial we sometimes spot on our island) seem to be almost like little amphitheatres focusing on the burial pot or tomb door. I'm planning a visit not just because I'm morbid, but also as I'm looking for a distant relation. Granny Fin had a cousin who was sent out here as a young catholic priest, after the war, I think. He stayed here for the rest of his life, setting up welfare places, teaching and doing all sorts for the commnunity. His letters were really interesting, especially about a typhoon that blew the windows & their FRAMES into all the buildings as well as wiping out most of the fishermen. He didn't really say how important his work was, but the letters sent to her & another cousin (who trained asa nun alongside a young Mother Teresa!) mention all the work he did setting up hostels etc, and how packed his funeral was. Anyway, my bus to 'school' every day goes over a fly-over, past his site in Happy Valley, so I will go and look when I work out how to get down there.
Ooh, that reminds me, flowers - if there is an occasion, they send HUGE bouquets which are displayed on shoulder high tripods a bit like in a church! Very hazardous as they take up most of the pavement and sort of explode sprays of leaves everywhere from a central arrangement of huge flowers, decorative cabbages and fruit. I passed a restaurant with them all lined up outside it, and as one said 'congratulations from the Browns' on the red & gold wide ribbon they mark their comments on, I could actually read it. No idea what the congrats were for - new management? Baby? Tax relief? There are also quite a lot of florists, it seems to be the thing to give big bunches of tiny rosebuds to people too. I want to buy the really cool pitcher plants some of the sell, hope they eat mosquitos too! Some have those weeping fig trees I had as house plants but AMAZING - Pete got me the lovely one with the plaited trunk for a birthday a few years back, but some of the business's here have them with really intricate stems woven into sort of tube that sprouts into trees at the top. A lot of places, and taxis & boats, also have to have a little bundle of leaves etc on/ by their alters. The boats hang it off their prow bit, with ribbons & incense. Theres one poor old guy who often gets on the ferriy with me, carrying a bunch of leaves (often sorts through the bin on the trip, collecting plastic bags), and I wonder if that is what his palm leaves etc get sold / used for. We even saw a street stall doing very good business for tiny wee plant charms to dangle on their mobiles (they love the little charms/ toys/ jewellery things that hang off the phones -mine doesn't seem to have an attachment for dangles or I'd be tempted too, to Petes horror!). They were clear plastic boxes, smaller than 1 cm, each with a tiny bud of a succulant, air plant or cactus growing inside! The other common gift is a hideously decorated basket, like those ones babies come in on storks, decorated with net frills and with huge ribbons on the handle. They get stuffed with fruit mainly (the fruit stalls hang them around their ceilings for you to choose), covered with cellophane & more ribbons, then lugged off.
More cool bugs - still not had my good camera on me the few times when I have spotted a preying mantis type thing, but they are getting fed up of me poking them so they look my way. Sadly my wee snappy camera can't focus on small things. Theres also a stupid orb spider which tries to build its web accross the causeway from the ferry passenger shelter to the railing. The first night I walked through it going pfffffttttt as I got web all over me, and Peter came rushing up to see if I was OK, as he'd seen the annoyed spider charge out after me. Luckily I HADN'T!!!! But sadly the last 3 nights I have, though it's of the body type/ species which doesn't worry me as much as the big leggy ones. Still I don't want the orb spider too close - it's body is at least the size of a decent plum! I was wondering what they actually eat, gnats won't satisfy theses guys, and Pete saw one munching a thumb sized shield bug... and dribbling, apparently it was very juicy. Yum. Still not managed any butterfly pics, they fly REALLY fast, even the big 'bird winged' ones; shame a lot are boringly similar to our UK ones!
Ichneuman wasp type thing carrying off a caterpillar - to eat or lay its eggs in live? Tung O Bay, Lamma Island, Hong Kong
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Still, we did get a good look at a sort of ichneuman waspy thing that nearly hit us as it was lugging along a caterpillar the length of my finger. It crashed, and Pete was disappointed as it then decided to run & carry the thing with it. I'm not sure if it was just food, or one of the paralysed ones that get an egg layed in them so the grub when it hatches has live, fresh food to eat before pupating inside the caterpillars remains! On a prettier note, the dragonflies (boring yellow/ brown) don't seem as terratorial as UK ones (yes I know the UK ones sometimes gather if theres an ants nest flying out etc but not this often!). There are CLOUDS of them everywhere on our island, at least 30 in a bunch. I was watching the shadows waiting for the ferry yesterday, and they are so fast/ many it made it look like a sort of rippling heat haze on the concrete.
Yes all the wee dots are dragonflies - told you they aren't terratorial on Lamma!
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Police stations all have murals outside them done by local kids with phrases such as "NO BULLY!" and other like-minded things featured on them. Pete was saying how little crime there seems to be, whether due to the social stigma of having it in your family or the actual punishments I will find out! So often we see shopping waiting to be collected just left on the pavement, even in deserted bits of the city, or huge deliveries left piled on roadsides. I dropped my purse getting off the mini bus and nearly got deafened, by about 30 people in the queue getting on it, who were chasing me screaming 'Missy' at me! I only really see police on traffic duty, and something was going down on Friday in Wan Chai as there were groups of them all over the place, even the locals looked edgy.
Pete's boat is still here - after sinking when he tried to re-float it, and managing to float itself the day he handed in all the paperwork to get the Harbour Police to drag it away, it has worked its way slowly down our beach. With the help of the cafe owner Pete tethered it in the middle of the beach, then the owner said Pete could store it on a bit of his land if he wanted. Typical as thats what Pete had wanted to do but been told no originally! So we dragged it up over the path just before the last typhoon, just as well as the torrents draining down to the beach cut a massive sort of river gully where the boat used to be, over a metre deep & 3 times as wide! Anyway after seeing how well I did NOT do (apparantly him saying 'its all in your head' is meant to stop me being seasick/ terrified) on the ferry in rough weather, Pete has calmed down on his plans to build a round the world catamaran for us. Yay! Though I prefer that idea to the rowing-pwered recumbant bike (there is even a website for the idiots that have built those that can FLY as well) or the pedal powered Hawaiian canoe he has also researched. We did trek up to the north of the city to look at tandem recumbant bikes (my wrist won't last even a few hours on normal upright bikes, we tried in the UK) to meet what I can only describe as a 'character'. An english bike shop owner, ex-pat for way too long, completely obsessed with bikes, swearing, smoking and accidentally insulting women incessently, more or less in that order. Still, if we want to spend at least £3,000 on a tandem recumbant bike that has a trailer that converts into 2 suitcases (that the bike also folds into) for transport when not being ridden, he's our man. Sadly the nighbours/ ex-pat community are getting the message that Pete likes old tat and are staring to give him theirs. So we now have the start of one of the above-mentioned projects - Rob the Canadian has donated a 10 year old bike that was used every day for 7 years, and has lived outside in the rain/ heat for the whole time........I reckon a fairly damp sponge would probably poke a hole through the frame.
Shoes have been driving me up the wall - after 5 days of sodden feet in my assorted sandals & flip-flops, (some of which are so fed up of being damp that they are growing mould), I started looking for a cheap-ish pair of something that would actually keep my feet dry or at least keep the dodgier bits in the cold puddles off them. I tried all the shoe stalls along the huge main road my class is on (they ALL sell the same brands) and finally decided a £5 pair of canvas shoes (converse all star rip-offs) would be a start - LOVED the sparkly ones but I went for the classier black sparkled version. Of course, none of them do that above a size 5 as its a 'ladies shoe' and my feet blatantly are not lady-like in this neck of the woods. So I got the boring plain black men's sized ones - even then he had to go to the basement to see if they had any that big! As they didn't go with any of the skirts I generally wear (still too hot for trousers!) I spent the afternoon after class in the shopping district. I tried 19 shops & 11 stalls for shoes, again, mostly selling the same styles - as long as you like court shoes, strappy pointed stilettos, open toes, high heels or wedge sandals you are fine. Unless again you have feet over size 5. In the end I got 2 pairs of sort of flat pumps which SAID they were size 7 1/2 & 8 in Uk sizes, bigger than I normally am, but they are STILL too small, gutted! She gave me a discount as she has had them 2 years...........Of course it hasn't rained as much since.
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