Causeway Bay: There Was a Young Couple Who Lived in a Shoe (box)

We are laying over once again in Hong Kong, taking care of business. The business of finding a full-time teaching job for the academic year has really been what this southeast Asian foray has been about. So far we’ve ruled out the peaceful Islamic empire of Malaysia, the racist overseas Chinese in Singapore, and the military state of Thailand. All had some opportunities, but treat my wife like she’s a bar girl or house cleaner. Malaysia’s got a real problem with fair treatment of women, period. Singapore is truly more racist than the California foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Thailand is an overrated hippy hell-hole. China, despite being communist, has been a good host each time. Hong Kong would be great if we were part of the international banking elite, which we are not. Lest you think that we are rich and ambling about without a plan, read on

Cheapskate travellers in Hong Kong, whether on the Island side or the peninsula of Kowloon, know about mansion living. Mansions are huge labyrinths of tiny shoebox dwellings in high-rise roach towers, to put it mildly. For the price of a Travelodge room in the States, you get an ultra-efficient room that requires feats of contortion and acrobatics just to manage everyday business. I mean everday acts like taking a piss or a shower or even turning on the bloody television set or recharging a cellphone require planning, agility, and a tolerance for spinal compression. If I want to sit on the pot while my wife brushes her teeth, my legs will get wet because the sink is too small for her and my legs have to go somewhere. If I get up in the middle of the night, I have to be extra careful I don’t break her bones as I gingerly pass over her snoozing body. And hell if our towels or sheets ever get washed. We are constantly cooperating to keep things aired out and even have to change clothes one person at a time. If there is a fire in the building, we’re toast. God, I miss building safety codes and other things taken for granted in the good ol’ USA!

This time we chose a shoebox on the Island, so we can handle embassy business at various consulates without wearing out our heels on the MTR subway or sloshing around in ferry boats getting bumped by too many people in too much of a hurry. Causeway Bay, unfortunately, is not as economical as Mong Kok, because it is all about designer label clothing. Ack! It’s more fun to walk toward Wan Chai and imagine the old waterfront of the 1950’s, which has since expanded past Gloucester Road by development. The girly bars and neon signs and cheap eateries make this a real down-to-earth urban zone, away from the hoity-toityness of Central and the mid-Levels. It’s always the case, in my travels, that the red-light districts are where the real people hang out.

We were fortunate to have a lunch with my former Cantonese teacher, Hazel, and to say hello to Ricky, the elder tattoo master at Pinky’s Tattoo in Wan Chai. Ricky is the one who fixed my first misfit tattoo in 2005, and now he has me tempted to add a phoenix to my arm, for the price of a 10-megapixel digital camera. I told him maybe when we pass through again in the wintertime, after I earn some money teaching somewhere. We exhanged a few nice words, said “joi gin” and I know I’ll see him again. Good man, Ricky. Has decorated many a Triad in his day, and quite a few sailors and other derelict English teachers, I’m sure.

In some ways this adventure has reached it’s most stressful point. We need positive cash flow, and we need to get out of this expensive city or wind up homeless. My back is killing me from being sandwiched between two walls at a distance shorter than my frame. Janice sees homeless people on the street and worries that we’re gonna be with them soon, me playing the erhu while she passes around a coffee can for change. I tell her not to worry; I will provide. Inside I’m scared, but I can’t reveal this or she won’t sleep well. This is truly rough.

August 13, 2007

Mongkok: Our First Shoebox

Back in Hong Kong, our favorite city outside of our own countries! More correctly, we are in the continental peninsular part of HK called Kowloon (9 Dragons). Last winter, we escorted my mom though many shopping districts here, from our base in Tsim Tsa Tshui; this time we are camped slightly north where less tourists live and throngs of locals come to shop.

Saw Die Hard 4.0 in Langham Place, after riding an escalator at least 4 stories high. Haggled for a new 802.11 card at the Mong Kok Computer Centre. Ate pork cheeks, fried fish skins, oysters congee, curry pies, and other local cheap eats. Explored the upstairs mystery shops in some of the electronics markets; found a few quality adult DVDs for our eyes only.

We were here for business, though: to find a job for the coming academic year. Talked with a recruiter about teaching in primary school; she quickly left for The Mainland and never followed up in email. Helped Janice start her own MySpace and Friendster pages. 24-hour wireless internet access is awesome!

August 8, 2007

Zhuhai: Land of English Schools From Hell

Zhuhai is a Special Economic Zone in China, behind the old Portuguese city of Macau. We are cooling our heels here while figuring out what to do next.

The bus ride here took us through the south side of the Pearl River Delta, where we saw more agriculture and less empty condo-building. Lots of fish ponds are extant, but Janice says they look uninspected and unregulated. She worked in such environments in her undergrad years at Mindanao State Unversity, where she was a marine sciences major, so I believe she knows what she’s talking about.

After checking in to our hotel, we allowed ourself to be fleeced by a taxi driver just to satisfy a KFC craving (everywhere we go the local fried chicken just doesn’t compare to the Colonel’s!). Then we supplied at the Jesco department store, had an ice cream on the street, and retired to our quarters for a long deserved holiday. Janice practiced her Hanzi (Chinese character writing) to augment her Mandarin language acquisition of the last 3 weeks.

On day two we slept in late, walked along the waterfront and then back to the Jusco department store for a McDonald’s lunch and to find some gifts for Ashley, my step-daughter in the Philippines. Had fun browsing in another upstairs stall in a computer mart for my slightly older godson (Lawrence, aka Little Lulu) in Texas. With my limited Chinese, I asked the proprietor something like “have no clothes kind of DVD you have not have?” Dang if we didn’t find a secret cardboard box with the most hardcore pirated skin flicks on earth. Little Lulu’d better hope our Filipino cousins don’t steal them first!

I’m reflecting on the role of social interaction in language acquisition, and how some of my informal techniques at the last summer school may have helped some kids out. They at least know more than the average KFC worker, who says “good morning” to foreigners no matter what time of day. If I return to primary education in China, I’d like to do some research in this area.

August 6, 2007

Singapore: Overpriced and Overskanked

In S’pore, sweating in an Internet cafe with at least 50 grime-ridden PIIIs, no USB ports and a Buddhist shrine on the wall, I started this MySpace account. The ceiling fans of Heaven City wafted incense over us as I mused on how far networked computing has evolved. Back in the BBS days, when my sife was born, the PIII was the shizzle, now the PIII is shite. Paradigms change. Expectations change.

One night we were treated to chili crab by my friend Isaiah, who I met at a ryokan in Tokyo in 2004; afterwards we walked around Clark Quay, the former waterfront-whorehouse-godown area of seamen’s lore. Now it’s modernized with an atrium that would put Fremont Street, Las Vegas to shame.

In the Joo Chiat/East Coast Road neighborhood we found a Pilipino kitchen, Kusina de Pinoy, and ate letsyon (pork) for the first time since we departed Cebu City 3 weeks ago. We returned their a couple of times. Also on this corner, we tried a dish unique to the neighboorhood, a firm tofu filled with ground meat, onions and chilis. Very good.

After a week in a roach-walkup backpacker’s hostel, we were excited to leave even though we had to spend a whole day in Changi Airport. There we found an ethernet port and a Cat-5 cable in a gift shop.

June 26, 2007

Cebu City: My Audition for ‘Jackass’

Today I gave into my wife’s pressure and hired someone to remove my graying beard with hot wax. I theorized that eventually new follicles would grow and my next beard would be dark and youthful all over again, and that at that point she would stop nagging me about shaving.

Frankly this was so was so painful I had to abort this mission. I wanted to kill the lady waxer when she said I have a low tolerance for pain because this was like having your skin peeled off over and over again. I swore after this never to let another person touch my beard again, ever. My wife, like everyone else, will just have to accept my guapo salt-and-pepper face until they put me six feet under.

Damn, if this wasn’t the most stupid masochistic thing I’ve ever tried. Men, don’t ever try waxing!

June 21, 2007

Cebu City: Where Magellan Lost His Head (Literally)

In Cebu City we holed up in a hotel for 2 weeks, mainly to relax, while taking care of medical and dental checkups.

While here it has been extremely frustrating finding film for my 35mm Pentax K-1000 SLR and my old-school Yashica medium-format 120 camera, so I’ve shipped my anachronistic wares back to the barangay in Agusan del Sur. The rest of these blogs will probably be accented with so-so pics from my cellphone, an Asus V80. In its defense, the Asus is not too bad for a cellphone cam.

While here in Cebu City I finished my second draft of a book review for the TESOL Quarterly, and submitted it for peer review. Knock on wood, my critical review of “CALL Research Perspectives” will be my first scholarly publication. Knock on wood.

June 10, 2007

Barangay Maygatasan: The Green, Green Grass of Home

Our story begins in Agusan del Sur, where we were married in June of ’06. We visited family in my wife’s barangay, got good herbal massages from Ate Inday the healer, a beard trim with a straight razor, and even got to be with Janice’s kuya on his first airplane flights. The only disappointment is our karaoke machine was gone from our sari-sari store (Parker’s Blessings); the barangay council made us shut it down. We’ll have to buy more votes during the next election cycle, I suppose.

May 28, 2007

Bickle’s Adventure Begins: Exiled by Homeland Insecurity

Some folks choose the expatriate life. I was forced into this choice. United States immigration policy prohibits me from bringing my foreign wife home.  Seems there is an economic means test that us spouses have to pass before we can bring our families to our native America. Meanwhile, any Mexican who can sneak through the fence is likely to gain amnesty someday, despite their economic means. I hope and pray that we still have a great country to come home to; at this point the Republicans in charge have adopted liberal policies that are sending us into hell in a handbasket. My prediction is that the USA will become a mentally ill liberal fascist state, and that my promise to bring my wife to the greatest country in the world will no longer be possible to keep. As this blog begins, I’m scared of what will come, but rising to the occasion. Never let your government keep your family apart!

The journey begins with a long-ass trip to Butuan, in Agusan del Sur, from the biggest little city in the world, Reno, Nevada. This entailed a week of packing, filling 5 dumpsters with so much shit that the Reno garbageman has put out a contract on me, and losing some precious things like my late father’s gold wedding ring. Hint: don’t wear rings while shuffling packing boxes to and from Public Storage. After a long and excruciating journey, which almost meant an overnight delay in Lost Wages airport, I made it through Philippines immigration with only a one-way ticket. That means I’m truly stamped out of my homeland, whacked out from travel, and excited to reunite with my lovely wife.

Unbelievably, I am on an airplane right now. It’s been a hectic week, but the adventure has finally begun.

This adventure has a primary goal, to bring my Philippines wife to my home country of the United States. secondary goals are to gain overseas teaching experience, to see some of the world together, to bring perspective back to U.S. American classrooms, and to make a baby or two.

Now I’m starting the longest leg of the journey from Reno, Nevada, my home for the last 4 years, to the Mindanao barangay where my wife grew up. Vancouver to Manila is about 13 hours in the air, yet this particular flight is surprisingly comfortable considering it’s only Fiesta Class (economy) on Philippine Airlines. I’m at the end of a 4-seat row, and guy named Gary from Knoxville sits the other end. In short, we each have two seats to spread out in. In this case, high fuel prices are a godsend.

Well, my late dinner is here, after a day (a week, really) of hiblood. I hope to write more later, whether I share the details of the past week or just focus on The Now and The Future. The latter is more likely, as the hi-blood needs to drop.

By 2am of this flight, time shifts. Saturday never comes when you jump across the International Date Line. Time shift is one of the perks of Asian travel, and a perk that I enjoy.

A few catnaps and I’m less weary. This week has been rough: dropping heavy things on my feet repeatedly, aggravating my torn rotator cuff, pissing off the garbage man by filling 7 dumpsters, listening to my Turkish neighbor talk incessantly, calming my worried mom who questions incessantly, losing my late father’s wedding ring by sweating so much packing box picked it off, and abandoning so many possessions that were dear to me.  At least when we return, we’ll have less to move.

So now my earphones play English and Pilipino love songs, while i drink black coffee and review my notes/texts on Bisayan Cebuano, the poorly-documented mother-tongue of my wife’s family. Since I’m not laying over in the capitol, there is no need to review Pilipino notes this trip. I’m focused on acquiring Bisayan, by immersion into their culture.

After the barangay, we’ll live in Cebu City for a few weeks, primarily to take care of.dental and medical checkups, then we’re off to the northern Borneo cities of Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. We hope there is such a thing as a beach in Singapore for our anniversary of 6/28. Wife wants to see Bangkok, so the month of June will end in Thailand. I’ll be hunting or teaching jobs as we go, and we’ll both be assessing each country to see if it’s worth expatriating too.

To paraphrase an old hobbit, “We’re off on an adventure.”

May 25, 2007