Going Home - Nov 8th, 2004
In some ways I was very glad to be heading home, I'm not a total homebody but there were so many things I missed about home. 2 straight weeks of Chinese food was even a bit tiresome to me which was surprising. Perhaps it was the fact that this was a whirlwind tasters tour where I sampled a little of everything and never got a chance to settle in and relax. Not that I minded the whirlwind nature of it - I wanted to sample as much as I could so I could decide what I wanted to see on future trips (if I even wanted to come back).
China is a fascinating country. It represents the best and worst of capitalism; all the uncontrolled excesses you see in the first world you see magnified in China. Are they hard working? Very. Are they a bit rapacious? Yes. Are they frequently selfish? Yes. Are they ambitious? Very. Frequently it felt like it was a country being torn apart at the seams and I mean that in a good way and bad way, it's a country that is in need of a rebirth and is trying to find its place in world that doesn't take kindly to slowness.
China was simply a bit of a crazy place. Poverty was everywhere, lined up right next to massive wealth. The pollution was insane on the Mainland. Traffic was like nothing I've ever seen or imagined before. All the while you'd see that the country was really one gigantic empire that has lasted a couple thousand years.
It was very nice though to finally meet some more of my relatives - aunts and uncles whom I'd only ever heard about. Cousins who were total strangers to me and grandparents who I hadn't seen since I was a kid. Learning about my parents past was very interesting, I think I would have liked to spend more time in Hong Kong if only to learn more about where they grew up and to learn about how they lived.
The flight home was much more pleasant than the flight out. We somehow managed to get ourselves seats in the upper deck where the coach seats had more legroom and the window seat had an extra storage compartment so we were able to stretch our legs a lot more than we normally would. Jet lag was a pain on the way back though, on the way out I had no trouble adapting but it took me the better part of 3 days to get my bearings straight again.
My first act upon landing was to arrange for dinner with a pretty lady, I needed a burger and I needed it bad. With that done it felt good to be home.
The Money
Oh the money!!! It was crazy. The gap between rich and poor was ridiculous. You'd have people rolling in Hummers and full size Beemers and Benzes while loads of people couldn't even afford to get a bike. In China you have to be a serious roller to be driving around in a bling car. In Hong Kong it was nuts but the gap wasn't so big - you still had people rolling in heavy metal but at least the poor weren't so poor.
In China you could go into a relatively normal restaurant (via Western standards) and order a dish that cost more than what the waiter makes in a day. If we tipped someone a Canadian dollar (about 6-7 Yuan) it was considered a big tip in many places. My mom gave this girl a 10 yuan tip in Shanghai after a shampoo and massage and the girl came back on her day off to wait for my mom to return (she only gets 2 days off a month).
The rich malls in Hong Kong were far richer than anything I'd ever seen and I've been to Beverly Hills. These were full size malls sending the pure premium stuff - Gucci, LV, Prada, Bruno Magli, Chanel, Tiffany etc, etc. And these malls were busy!