things i dislike about hong kong

i can’t hate hong kong, but there are things i do not like about it:

1) the discrimination. domestic helpers have such a tough go of it. they get two weeks of holidays every two years. there is a minimum wage, but MANY helpers get paid below the minimum wage, because they are so grateful to have a job anyway. many helpers sleep under a table, or share a room with a child, one who may be in his or her teens. the children they care for can be rude, hit them, and the helpers are told not to discipline them. they are subject to unwanted sexual advances from their employers and don’t say no because they are scared of losing their job, often cannot eat the food they enjoy (told to eat the leftovers from what their employers had), often do not have enough food to eat, are not allowed to eat or shower at their employers on their day off…it is tough for these ladies. and they continue to smile.

2) there are very few opportunities for people with disabilities & very little public awareness/government campaigns regarding disabilities.

3) the pollution

4) no "crunchies". cheetos and crunch-its do what they can…but hawkins rules

5) difficult to get a good bra, although to be fair, most of the bras that you purchase here could also double as mattresses when guests come to town. padded like you wouldn’t believe

6) you can’t buy liptons onion soup. when we were on the post-graduate begger’s budget, lipton’s onion soup was an ingredient in most of our recipes!

7) mahi mahi isn’t available here

8) if something happened to a member of our family, it would take us a minimum of 15 hours (probably closer to 18-24, depending on connections) to get home

9) U2 won’t come here for concerts, but to be fair, kd lang DID

10) public does not get listened to. it would be very discouraging to be a member of an advocacy group, because you RARELY make a difference. a great example is DISNEY. i don’t take who is running it these days, i am not impressed. disney hong kong is opening in a few months, and the site they are building it on PREVIOUSLY was the home of hong kong’s pink dolphins. never heard of pink dolphins? that is because they are very rare, virtually extinct. the dolphins were happy in their little secluded home, until disney decided a mouse should make it his home. the tourist association and government were praying that hong kong would get to house the mouse, think of the dollars from mainland tourists!!! so disney applied and were granted the site.

what about the dolphins? the protection group and papers burst into gear, talking about the likely fate of the dolphins, once ousted from their homes. the government didn’t care enough to make disney change, and disney, aware that no one was going to force them to make costly pay-outs to the pink dolphins, did nothing.

i don’t like disney, and i don’t like that the government values bucks over the environment. if this had been disney anywhere else, PR would have gone into high gear. here, disney barely even acknowledged the dolphin demise they are causing.

ironically, disney is set to open a disney in china. the hk government and tourist board must be as sick as parrots to hear this. ha.

before i forget: the traffic doesn’t bother me. vancouver and toronto, the traffic is way worse, so this is okay.

11) education is expensive, and the pressure on kids starts very young. they have homework by 7 yrs old!! no matter how great i think wearing unforms is, uniforms can’t balance out the pressure the kids are under.

12)it is a transient city. good friends have moved, and almost as bad, people who had the potential to be good friends.

13) there are a lot of people here who don’t want to be here. life is short. if you don’t like it, move. money can’t mean more to you than your happiness.

14) the salty popcorn at the movies is pre-made so by the time i eat it, it is cold and dry. and there is no butter or topping or oil or flavoured salt or whatever. whereas, the sweet popcorn is hot and grossly scented. oh, and lest i forget, items such as dried cuttle fish are also sold. if you end up sitting next to the wrong person, UGH. watch out it stinks.

however, whilst talking about the flicks, i should mention that hong kong is excellent because you can book your own seats before the movie starts. you can do this online, or when you buy the tickets. when you purchase your ticket, you point to the computer and select your seat. this means magnificent gets his aisle seat, 7-10 rows from the front.

15) you can’t sit in public places. there are security guards everywhere who reprimand you if you sit down in a mall, on the wall outside a building…anywhere. and there are few public seating areas. everyone makes fun of mainlanders for squatting..hotel managers hate how the mainlanders even squat in the lobby while waiting for a car or for assistance, but if you don’t have the seats, and you don’t let them sit on the ground…what do you expect?

i still love it here.

australian dave or his wife – thank you for your added feedback..i tried to email you but cannot….i love the seafood restaurants on lamma. we like to take the ferry to lamma then walk to the seafood restaurants, get our fill of mussels, etc and then take the ferry back. thank you for the reminders!

reasons i love living in hong kong

1) great (efficient, thorough, cheap and varied) public transportation. i have never had a driver’s license and never will, and having access to quick and cheap public transportation is essential to my quality of life. when i lived in north vancouver, five days a week i needed to get to school, and there was only one bus that took us there, and it came every 37 minutes.

2) when i am awake at 3am and know that sleep is another 90 minutes away, friends in canada will be able to talk with me

3) it costs less to fly from hong kong to bangkok or malaysia or shanghai than it does to fly from toronto to vancouver

4) dim sum, yum cha,,,whatever you call it, i love it.

5) kids wear uniforms

6) we don’t get shows like the OC; peer pressure is much lessened for teenagers.

7) you dont get clumps of kids grouped on street corners that make suggestive remarks when you pass.

8) this is a very safe city. i have always felt safe walking alone in the dark, i can leave my handbag and a baby in the shopping cart and dash over two aisles to pick up something i forgot.

9) domestic helpers

10) sebastian is learning his geography not according to city capitals or prime ministers and weather patterns, but instead each location is where his friend’s parents are from.

11) mango pudding

12) the fruit. cheap as chips and so delicious and available, all year round., starfruit, lychees (!) pineapple, durian (KIDDING), coconut

13) the flowers – franjipani in particular, although i did buy a pot of pansies the other day, in honour of my gran.

14) wet markets. i love outdoor wet markets, crowded walking areas, with various pudles you need to step around, the old scales they use to determine the cost of your purchases, the long eared, bright eyed cat (tail optional) that during the day you see curled in a corner, and at night keeps rats and mice away. i love wetmarkets.

15) walkers crisps and timtamms. beautiful british and aussie imports…

16) my friends. whether they’re bringing girl scout cookies back from north america, captain featherstone dolls for carys from australia, or phenergan from the uk to help the kids sleep on planes….or making me laugh or sharing with me, supporting me, watching after my kids after i chase one lone crawler on the playground, i love my friends.

17) that you can be at louis vuitton, chanel and balenciaga, and ten minutes later in a wet market. hong kong has no boundaries, the possibilities are endless

18) it is a clean city. much cleaner than most cities

19) the smell – hong kong has an undefinable scent. it is not the heavy humid scent of south eastern asia, it isn’t all pollution, or the flowers…hong kong exudes excitement.

20) the beauty of the rainforest canopies.

21) the animals. yes, i am talking snakes, spiders, bugs and others, but these are fascinating critters. my dad, pam and i once saw the most incredible fight between a spider and a wasp. the spider was trying to climb back to its web, and the wasp kept flying down and stinging it. amazing to watch.
snakes are incredible. they have the toughest hide imaginable. and really, how talented do you have to be to move around like that? they’ve got abs i can only dream of. and have you ever looked closely at some of the bugs? their ability to blend is incredible. preying mantis. incredible. watching them walk …i could do that forever. did you know a turtle can survive without its shell? and that terrapins are (apparently) different than turtles?

the crunch of the killed cockroach, admittedly, i can do without.

22) the chotchkes. hong kong is filled with stuff. buttons, figurines, bits and bobs, stuff from the cultural revolution, fake jade, real jade, pearls, ribbons, materials…some of it is utterly ugh, but others of it is really interesting. one of my favourite possessions is a ceramic figure of mao sitting in an armchair with a spittoon beside him.

23) cheap massages. okay, it is obvious they haven’t taken courses… and occasionally you get a masseur that talks on their mobile phone while walking on your back, but on the whole, $50 canadian for 90 minutes of massage makes me smile

24) the different districts. i love living in pokfulam, because of the space. but there  is something to be said for the less spacy other areas, wanchai…how it goes from restaurants to bathroom fixtures…happy valley, little tiny dress, etc and coffee shops, central, soho, lan kwai fong, tai koo, sai kung…each district has its own flavour.

25) banyan trees

26) the old kai tak airport. tomorrow i will post old pictures of that much loved hairpin turn airport.

i might add some more, and please, suggestions are welcome.

music together

well, we didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. magnificent is ill, and he was up coughing a lot of the evening. i wasn’t sleeping well because, well, i rarely do. i remember looking at the clock and it reading 4.30am.

a just a few seconds later, sebastian bounded into our room, and told his dad he wanted to play trains with him. it was 7am, a new day had commenced. lita saw my face and told me to go back to sleep, she had everything under control. (no surprise there, this woman could run a multinational and a marathon simultaneously).

charles, equally as sleep deprived, allowed himself the chance to get some extra sleep as well.

suddenly, it was 10am. i shot out of bed…."the babies are starting their music together programme today!"

we hastily got dressed, and i was in such a panic i couldn’t find the address for where we were heading. i called denby, who never gets in a panic, and she provided it for me. (she goes on thursdays).

charles offered to drive us, and so we piled into the car, and only five minutes late, we arrived at the location. we grabbed the babeolas and ran into the classroom, where a LOT of parents/helpers were sitting on the ground with their babies on their laps. music was playing and the babies/children were moving around.

lita, de and i each had a baby, and were soon bouncing them around. we sang familiar songs, lullabies, children’s tunes, harmonies and rounds. all the time, we swung the kids, danced with them, walked around the room with them, and, to quote the teacher, "let them express themselves".

it was surreal being there, with my children just one of the babies. sure they were triplets, but only one other couple there knew their story. not preemies, rather, babies learning to respond to music however they chose.

JASPER – only cried once. his favourite part of the class was when he was given a small set of marracas and he got to shake them around. we were singing a "Train" song at the time and were meant to shake them during the "choo-choo" portion of the song, but jasper choo-chood pretty continually. he got quite sweaty and needed some water halfway through. he danced toward the end, sitting on his bottom and rocking back and forth.

SELA – was very social, and would have crawled up to the box where the instruments were held and grabbed her own if i had let her. other kids were coming up to her and giving her cuddles and this didn’t phase her at all. she danced by clapping and moving her head and her torso a little bit.

CARYS – was the big surprise. she cried at the beginning when the music changed over to a louder song, but soon stopped. she was the first to dance, and danced the most exuberantly! she was on her hands and knees and was rocking back and forth grinning happily quite often. if we prompted her with a simple, "dance, carys!" she would rock away. she was surprisingly friendly to other people there, giving them her special nose wrinkle smile.

at the too soon end of the class, we sang a goodbye song (she played the guitar) and then each parent was given a CD of the songs we would be singing this session, and to play them often for their babies, to familiarise them with the music. we have played the music twice today and i feel sick of the tunes already.

of course, the perfection of the class was slightly marred at the end when the instructor came up to me and said, "i think there is a mistake!" yes, turns out we were signed up for the 11.30 class….ai-yi-yi. she was tres cool about it and assured me the 11.30 class is not as full as this one.

it was a lovely being there with the kids. not only is this the beginning of their integration into the toddler world, and good for them…but it is good for me to integrate my mindset from "precious"* babies to happy toddlers.

(this isn’t to say that two of the three didn’t vomit upon our arrival home, one of them all over their sheets. or that i didn’t feel terror upon learning that a girl in sebastian’s class has been diagnosed with scarlet fever.)

* australian definition, meaning easily harmed, must be treated gently, tendencies to fall ill.

men in hong kong have yet another reason to appreciate the diverse cultures in this fair city: mother’s day in the UK is in march. so north americans watch their british friends scuttling around making last minute flower delivery arrangements and make mental notes: ah…our mother’s day is coming up. i better get a hoof on that.

i had a wonderful mother’s day. and i have to shallowly admit, a large part of that was influenced by the presents i received.

as we were about to head off to church, it started raining. we decided to stay home. we were late heading TO church, and parking and getting the babies into the church dry would have been impossible. so, we stayed home. and i was given my gifts.

yesterday at church i had helped the kids prepare the mothers day presents that would be given to mother’s the next day at church. so let’s start there. cora, the lovely youth programme director (and canadian. YAH!) had sent families an email, asking the fathers to bring their kids to church on the saturday to make special mother’s day gifts.

i volunteered to help, even though it would ruin the surprise. why?

1) i figured cora would need the help. she is amazing, but extra hands are always needed

2) this is one way i can help. i would not join the praise and worship team (and let’s be honest, they wouldn’t take me)

3) i want to be more involved. like most churches, our church has about 20 per cent doing 80 per cent of the work. i am one of the 80 per cent who wants to help out more.

so, we headed off to church to make mothers day gifts.

there were three gifts.

1) a garland of grace. kids were given 15 strips of paper and told to write down 15 things their mothers had taught them. each individual strip was folded into a circle, and then linked to the next one, creating a garland. kids were very creative in this one. answers ranged from, be nice to eat your vegetables.

one cutie-patootie was quite unwilling to give his circles the "necklace" effect, and preferred to keep them in circles of two. i asked him about this and he replied, "well, my mum likes handcuffs!"

well allrighty then!

2) a necklace. kids were given string and a selection of beads to choose from to create a necklace.

3) a sachet of potpourri. and the making of this was hilarious. there was a dads table, where mag char, dale and nick (husband of terri), were making the tables of potpourri with their kids. because we were making the sachets for every mother in the congregation, we needed to make 150 of them. there were 150 bags, and enough potpourri as well. it averaged out to each child in attendance making 7 bags. of course, after one or two, the kids were bored. charles looked up and asked cora (i was at another table helping other children),

so are we done now?

and cora replied, "have you filled up all those sachets already? wow!"

and the look of panic on the guys’ faces as the kids dashed away and they were left to scoop and tie (in a bow!) was very very funny. dismay, helplessness, horror as they eyed the 40 empty sachets on their table.

i knew the presents sebastian was making, but i didn’t spend time at his table.

so this morning, when i saw the beaded necklace, i choked up a little. to transfer the intensity, i looked at my garland. sebastian couldn’t come up with 15 things i had taught him, but here is what he reckons i have taught him:

"eating vegetables and making pudding"

"tight hugs and the letter "S""

"how to ride minute buses, big buses and taxi’s"

"letters and numbers and words"

"saying please"

"i love my mummy!"

"i love my mummy!"

and there were a few more circles/strips with just drawings on them.

my little man!

and there were five more cards…one from sebastian from school,

"i love my mummy because she takes me to chi fu."

chi fu is the nearby shopping centre and wet market. sebastian loves the wet market, (he hasn’t figured out the chickens and fish are on borrowed time and that the THWACK of the axe that makes him jump is something ominous rather than funny…)

each of the babies gave me a card with their footprint on it…sela – purple, carys – red, jasper, blue and sebastian blue. very sweet.

charles had gotten me a massage certificate, and as well, a few months ago he bought me a gorgeous ring that i LOVE LOVE LOVE. i am not much of a jewellery person, but what i wear, i love.

after playing with all four throughout the morning, they ate lunch and all went for a nap. HOORAY! charles and i raced to bed and watched GATTACA, which neither of us had ever seen before. i actually thought it was pretty good. interesting concept and premises about the future, particularly the IVF aspects.

then voices had us hustle to the nursery…food down their throats and it was time for the playground! it was very wet down there, but the babies were thrilled. jasper looked like a snail, he left this trail of slime behind him. talked with friends, it was lovely and fun.

and now, thai food for dinner (we also had thai food after our massage last night…terri and nick were with us and it was great), and mother’s day is about to end.

if anyone has any brilliant and cheap suggestions as to what the kids can make for the father’s for father’s day (cannot be a time consuming task), please send me your thoughts!! remember: we have to make 150 of them! merci.

maybe because last year’s was so difficult, this year has been a wonderful mothers day. the triumverate were in a really good humour, and sebastian was thrilled to spend the day with both his parents. a great day.

magnificent and i went to see THE INTERPRETER tonight. on the whole i thought the plot was weak, but sean penn and some of the lines were excellent. and nicole kidman gives good accent. hows that for succinct?

whether it is watching television or movies, mc is part of my viewing experience. a few weeks ago, i was at stephanie and dale’s place. magchar was out of town. as it was wednesday, we were watching THE AMAZING RACE. at one point something happened that displeased me and i covered my eyes, turned away and exclaimed, "oh no, charles!"

a few minutes my couple redeemed themselves and i said, "charles! this is great!"

and this time, dale looked at me and said, "you know he’s not hiding in the other room."

yes, i did know that, but magnificent and i have been watching television together for eight years now. he is an integral part of my viewing experience. i see the tense portions of movies either by watching the television from the reflection off the window, but more often i place his hand over my eyes and position his fingers so i can peep through the digits.

and yes, scary bits are less frightening when you are using the hand filter program.

tomorrow night we are going to a korean 100 day festival, to celebrate the 100th day of a babies life. this is the first such festival i have attended, and am really looking forward to it. then we are going off for a massage and a meal with friends of ours. again, really looking forward to it.

i went through the babies closet today. oh dear. the girls are growing furiously, and i pulled out a bunch of new clothes they now fit. SIGH. carys’ gain is most noticeable. her legs are very thin and i think will remain that way, but she is getting taller. i think she is going to be like my mum. if you have seen my mum, you know this is a very good thing.

i (read: magnificent) am in the middle of changing the name and look of the blog. i love dim sum, which translates into the expression "little pieces". so this blog will be re-named: dim sum mum – tess’ little pieces. i will have little pieces of dim sum as well as the babies faces. the little pieces i write about won’t necessarily be the babeolas, but you can count on seeing them regularly.

we are calling the babies the four f’s: fwee, fang, flirty, and fragile.

happy friday.

why call him magnificent?

with all due respect to julie andrews, we’ll start at the middle, a very good place to start.

one year ago it was mother’s day. we had three babies in hospital. now, by this time we knew that they were probably going to live, although he did not know much about their quality of life. all three were on CPAP. but so tiny.

i already hated feeding the girls. it was russian roulette. you were meant to get 70 mls into them, yet at 45 they weren’t showing any interest. so…do you stop there, or do you press on? of course, if you press on, they’ll gain weight faster.

unless of course, they throw up, which they are liable to do if their tummies are too full or if they are feeling stressed.

and of course, if you stop feeding them, there’s always the risk they will throw up anyway.

the slog of the three daily visits to the NICU was taking its toll. we knew their health for the immediate future was okay, but, the doctors were talking about long term issues. jasper’s eyes, sela’s hydracephalus, cary’s precious limbs, jasper still needing oxygen. we couldn’t imagine bringing these children home, what IF they stopped breating in the night? no machines to bleep and alert us to the problem, no way we could save their lives.

plus, things we had not had the time to do for months thanks to our NICU lifestyle were demanding to be done. taxes, bills, responses.

and in the midst of all this, arrived mother’s day. i knew sebastian would crayon me a card, and indeed he did. it was beautiful. we went to church and afterwards, we left sebastian with a helper and walked over to the hospital.

inside their room, charles decorated the bassinettes with individual letters, cards and hearts. one of the nurses, winnie, had printed out english lyrics to a chinese song that honours mothers. i don’t cry…often….and i didn’t then, but it was close. if it had been at a time in my life where i could cry, i would have.

it wasn’t just that for this one day, my babies were like any other babies across the globe and giving me mother’s day cards..it was the thoughtfulness and love of my overworked and overtired husband. it was amazing. he is amazing.

yet another reason he is magnificent.

wet christmas

i have gotten a few emails with requests to write about living in asia….here is a recount of the most interesting christmas i have ever spent in asia, or possibly anywhere.

a few years ago, (to put it into infertility speak: right before ivf #1 and a few months after iui#1 (so futile why bother trying again), charles and i took time off and spent christmas in the philippines. we had planned to go to sri lanka but politically things weren’t great there, so we ended up booked for seven nights at coco beach resort, on the south china sea. it sounded good to us, after all, after all the resort shared the name of one of my two favourite perfumes…how bad could it be?

with logic like that you are guaranteed an interesting holiday.

we boarded our flight and a short 90 minutes later landed in manila. a bus took us to the holiday inn, where we would spend the night, and the next day be taken by bus and ferry to our resort.

we settled happily into bed and watched television for a few hours. i think we watched the last bit of caddyshack, anyway, we were happy, and soon turned out the lights. just a few short hours later however, we were awoken. was that the telephone? actually, our wake up call came in the form of someone a few doors down, whose boyfriend had just jumped from our floor into the empty swimming pool below. definitely dead.

nothing to see, nothing to see said the on duty managers, and tried to hustle us back to our rooms. in a beau geste, he announced that

breakfast is on the house tomorrow. 

someone who was with our tour said, "isn’t breakfast part of our package?"

it was.

after our free/paid for already breakfast the next morning, we boarded the bus. now you have to understand, philippines is a hot country and transportation isn’t always the best. this bus was boiling, the back of the seats sticky before our luggage had even been loaded on to it.

but, we got on our way and they put on a movie for our viewing entertainment. i forget the movie, but i remember charles and i poking each other and laughing as the warning rolled infront of us that this film was not to be viewed on a bus. sure. whatever.

Reaching the boat launch that would sweep our group of 40 away to idyllic Coco Beach was more complicated than promised. “One hour and thirty minutes away, sir”. Three hours and scant kilometres later, the bus driver shared that the road was washed out. The bus would go no further.  Only divine intervention would get us to our destination…and it came in the form of three jeepneys: King Gabriel, El Shaddei and The King of Aquarius Kings.  These steel modified and elongated jeeps are visual remainders of the US’s military presence in the eighties. Jeepneys and taxis are Manila’s sole official public transportation.  Two steel benches run the length of the tin plated vehicle, and with our luggage at our feet seated 14 people. The driver and his family of four was crammed in the front, pleased at their unexpected financial windfall (300 pesos $7.50 US). Our jeepney (King of Aquarius Kings) has a bumper protector that read, “Bless this trip,” was bright orange, and had a picture of Jesus beside the sign of Aquarius.  Seventy minutes later we arrived at our boat, The King David. No lack of religious fervour here.

the boat trip over was really great. after the bus, i expected these boats to be held together by twine and spit, but they were actually very cool. charles was of course in seventh heaven.

We arrived at Coco Beach Resort with warm salty skin and wind-tangled hair. Our bungalow was located high up on the hill, and made entirely of bamboo and rattan. we had a "host family" dedicated to "serving our needs", which didn’t include carrying all our luggage. maybe it was a small family! my hair was a lot longer then, and it was so humid, and after our climb to the bungalow, i was dying for a shower. imagine our surprise to learn that the resort wasn’t equipped with hot water, not to mention electricity!

We spent the afternoon on the beach and moved only to drink banana & mango milkshakes and to turn the pages of our books. Charles was reading The Godforsaken Sea, while I was re-visiting The Sun Also Rises. That night, we climbed into our four poster, mosquito net covered bed and fell asleep listening to coconuts dropping to the ground and lizards searching for mosquitoes. We were awoken in the middle of the night by our room mascot… an extremely large and loud asia bull frog (if there is such a species!) who seemed to think his mascot duties included croaking at 3 AM.

We woke early, read the daily “Dearest Beloved Guest” that had been slipped under our door sometime during the night  and noticed the resort’s subtle extortion techniques. (please do not eat too much bacon, iut is very bad for you… oh and… shshsh… it is very expensive! ) Tess spent the day walking and reading, while Charles caught up on much deserved sleep.

Rain started splatting December 24 after we had taken an early morning “wog” with a staff member around the grounds.  We read and walked on the beach until the rain turned into a tropical storm and even then we were loathe to retreat. we had wanted a beach holiday!! but we did hide out in our bungalow, mainly because if you got a piece of clothing wet, it would take several days to dry.

so we read on the verandah. i can’t say it was unpleasant. i started making inroads on my lollies, which i really love. (particularly lime flavoured. we also discovered gekkos are big fans of lollies!) charles had a cigar…. or several… the heavy clouds and thump of fat raindrops on the leaves and smell of the rainforest was relaxing, and since there was no sun to watch set, we had a sense of real timelessness.

we had made friends by this point and joined them for dinner. Returning to our bungalow that night, we were Hansel and Gretl, with glowing white shells decorating the cement pathways shining in the moonlight and leading us home.

The rain encircled us the next morning as we sat on the beach and had a celebratory Christmas cigar. We read until 9.30am, and then it was “show time”. Every year the resort hosts a Christmas meal for the locals and provide them a knapsack filled with foodstuffs to take home. With several thousand expected, guest participation was essential to the day’s success. The meal was meant to begin at noon. By 10am, boats weighed down with bodies stood motionless in the water in front of the beach. Babies held in towels, the blurry eyes of the very old and ill, the dulled gazes that those living a life without options have, mothers shifting children from hip to hip, thousands of faces, all with the same message…we are hungry.
Feed us.

A production line consisting of Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish scuba divers and instructors, young French and Italian families, Hong Kong expats, German retirees and others filled the knapsacks with pressed meat, powdered milk, rice and sugar.

Hot rain beat against our bent backs. The gray of the water was dimmed by the dark shadow of overflowing fishing boats creeping ever closer. The silent scrutiny of the locals increased the sense of urgency. The food table was set up, we transferred to the food lines. The floodgates opened and the first guests were seated. One scoop of rice, noodles, five chunks of oxtail, mango pudding, a container of yogurt. Where is the juice, there is a garbage container full of water, someone make juice. There’s no big spoon, I will just use my arm. All leftovers were scraped into plastic bags, fingers caked with saliva and gravy, were rinsed in the bag, in an effort to strip fingers of flavour and add extra seasoning to tomorrow’s meals. Balancing three, four plates, setting down plates to people who singed their fingers as they attacked the ox-tail lumps and cared not. Serve, pour juice, clear, wipe noses, help elders out of chairs. Scrape plates. Serve. Pour. Clear.

As locals weighed down with the precious knapsacks departed the island, the number of boats decorating the nearby waters decreased and the workers felt respite. But like ants marching relentlessly two by two, from the back of the resort came the mountain people (some of whom had been trekking for two days) Skirmishes ensued as some of the new arrivals were seated before those who had been waiting in grey ankle deep mud for hours. Others were caught trying to “eat twice”.

Although working on automatic pilot, occasionally as we scanned the grateful faces surrounding us we realised how blessed our lives are. There but the grace of God go I. Prior to Christmas Day, the resort was divided by the natural segregation that a lack of shared language creates. But Christmas Day, without a common language and in perfect understanding, we gathered together to extend the universal true meaning of Christmas. We were overwhelmed.

That night enjoyed a drink with Christian and Martina, raising our glasses to those we had worked alongside throughout the long, hot and wet day. Free “rhum” and coke. Eighties tunes. Robusto cigars.  Rhum and coke in a chipped white enamel bowl, with a lump of ice to cool the mixture. We dipped our glasses in the bowl, toasted absent friends and families, lit the cigars and chatted into the night. More rum was added to our pot, and as Christmas 2000 drew to a close we sat in the Barracuda Bar, getting pleasantly tight on watery rum and coke.

one of the greatest ironies of all consisted of the "Christmas present scheme." on the 24th our morning newsletter instructed us to buy a Christmas present for our fellow guests within a set budget (about $5 US). all presents would be put into a giant basket, and at the christmas dinner on the 25th everyone could pick a present. of course by this point we were all hostages to coco beach, and no one could buy a present anywhere but the resort shop. had we known about this ahead of time, interesting itty bitty presents might have been brought from all around the world to fill the christmas basket. not the case… so mc and i decided to splurge, went about 10X over budget to buy massage gift certificates, wrapped them into very small gifts and dropped our contribution into the giant crhsitmas basket. "these will look like nothing, but will give someone a very special surprise," we both agreed. (charles’ boat at left)

christmas evening, prior to the watery rum and cokes, we opted out of the traditional christmas for an asian dinner with our new friends. that meant we never got our gifts. the next day off we went to claim our share of the christmas basket from the night before even though we half expected everything to be gone. our friends grabbed theirs, so if math served us correctly, there should be something waiting for us. sure enough, one of the hostesses (amazingly her name was Tess, she was wonderful and at the end of the week we gave her a gigantic tip) pulled us towards the basket. she was quite excited but we knew we had to manage our expectations… as we approached the basket we saw it was empty… we gave 10X… but that’s okay, we expected nothing… but no… wait… what’s that in the bottom? how extraordinary… the two presents we’d dropped in the day before awaited us and that afternoon we enjoyed splendid massages at coco beach.

it’s been a sad, bad day. let me try to shake it off by talking about the good….

i feel sorry for the babies. as they approach their official due dates, their palates are changing and they are very rapidly losing their interest in bottles. when sebastian sits down at his tiny table with a steaming plate of pasta, fish pie, risotto or eggs and toast, the babies creep up around him, and reach for his plate, resulting in sebastian shrieking and protectively lifting his plate.

and of course, when we offer the afore-listed food to the babies, they vomit it all over the place. cheerios and raisins aren’t even sure, spew free deals.

im still racing to beat these deadlines and i have finished two of the three stories. the last story will be tough, not because the word count is imposing, but because the topic is one that no PR person will touch. most companies here are too unwilling to admit there was once a problem, than to say, yes there was a problem and this is how we solved it. no one responded to my request for an interview. how annoying is that. so instead i have to write 2000 words on a topic i don’t know a great deal about and the only research pertains to the american market, which of course has such different concerns than chinese companies. still, i’m doing it.

our summer is slowly coming together. so much planning is invovled. remind me that we need to find a place where we can rent a nebuliser for jasper, JUST IN CASE. and speaking of the j, he is using the nebuliser right now, he’s wheezy and a bit of his rash is back. poor button. he is also getting a front tooth in that looks larger than a molar, and charles is of the opinion that it is rotten. (see his blog for the complete story if you dare!)

i’m not sleeping well and am dizzy when i wake up. i didn’t go to church this morning either. but i took a few minutes this afternoon to play with sebastian and we decided to spray paint our hair. of course being dark dark dark means the most that happens to my hair is it looks slightly purple, but sebastian soon sported a fine green, blue and red, highly flattering do. magnificent charles liked it so much we gave him one as well. sebastian liked it.

tomorrow is a holiday in hong kong and mc is working. sebastian and i have decided to meet mc in a nearby park at lunchtime to share sandwiches, crisps and juice. (sebastian made the menu selections.)

on a slightly different but still happy note…i am loving this season of amazing race. i am rooting for uchenna and joyce, am impressed wtih meredith and gretchen but am appalled at how often her grating voice says "oh my God", think kelly has quite the sharp tongue, and even though i am not rooting for amber and rob, they really get points for not sitting back and letting elements (broken vehicle, traffic jams) stand in their way. they make things happen. i also like that they appreciate where they are and take interest in people. this week when they were weighing people, i loved how rob took a minute to laugh with the guy who was insisting that he didn’t weigh as much as the scale showed.

reality tv, you’re my escape.

FIVE

recently, my friend’s 46-year old uncle died suddenly. her blog tells of how this uncle will forever hold a special place in her heart because he so sincerely welcomed her into the family when she got married.

becoming an ally to a girl meeting her boyfriend’s family for the first time…. there is no better way to win eternal loyalty.

i remember meeting my in-laws for the first time. mc and i had gone to yellowknife first, it had been a huge success. my parents knew we were headed towards an engagement and both had given me their approval. dad gave us some advice about love, which he couldn’t have done if he didn’t like charles for me. and then, if he and my brother didn’t like and trust magnificent charles, they wouldn’t have made the jokes about me that they did! my sisters would hug him, ask his opinion on clothes and careers, my mother would smile and hug him often.

swarmed with hugs, mcharles occasionally got a look in his eyes. i asked him about it, and he explained,

i am not used to this. it is overwhelming at times.

the excellent book THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES talks about how people communicate their love, and how if they are "speaking" a language we don’t understand, we don’t realise they are telling us of their love.

i was so nervous to meet magnificent charles’ family. he was freshly separated, and here was i, his internet girlfriend. i had been introduced to many boyfriend’s families and had passed inspection, but i knew i was going to marry magnificent.  i wanted family to be as important to him as it was to me, and seeing how much my parents appreciated his emails to them, he encouraged me to start emailing his family members. he told me about his sisters, his parents, the memories.

i did email his family previous to meeting them, so they weren’t complete strangers to me when we met face to face. but i so wanted to feel approval, and i undoubtedly tried too hard. (one of the good things of having a very hazy short term memory is that some memories i’d rather forget i actually have forgotten!!) but i wasn’t sure of the response. it wasn’t my family, or any of the families i had grown up with and could read. a slightly different generation, and i was adrift.

the first night i met charles’ entire family, i had embarrassed myself, after i failed to pick up on a family communication method they used. if you asked them today what i missed…they wouldn’t know, but i can remember that incident very very well! and how my face burned afterwards. after the dinner, my brother in law asked me to help him dry the dishes. just the two of us, he kept the conversation light and easy. a classy gesture from a classy fellow.

we never know when we are going to make immediate eternal impacts on others. i recently read the book THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN, which suggests that as well.

do i still speak my language to magnificent’s family? absolutely. do i still expect them to respond in my language? no. that would be like them expecting me to speak theirs.

and i am getting better at interpreting.

and i have slowed down my speech.

i love being in my 30’s.

amen.

we got anger. right here in river city.

well, i may not be the music man, but i do have anger.

i went a "little bit postal" the other day. it was a saturday, and as we passed by our postbox, i fished out the mail. there was an envelope addressed to charles and i from a local address i did not know. i could tell by the shape of the envelope an invitation was inside.

in the lift, i lodged all the bills, catalogues and other mail between my arm and ribs, and slid open the envelope. in the seconds between my pulling out the invite and my confusion/anger, i registered that the queen mary parents of premature babies group was inviting me to a talent show and afternoon tea.

who ARE these people?

the lift stopped at our floor and i got out, walked into our flat and stomped across the floor still in my outdoor heels.

i shut the door to our room, grabbed the telephone and punched the number given for anyone with questions. when a lady answered, i asked her if she had mailed us the invitation. yes, she responded, she had. would we be attending, and if so, when would we be sending in our cheque and did we want to enter our children into the talent show.

who are you? i demanded.

we are the parents of premature baby groups.

what do you DO?

we support mummies and babies. and we hold events, and gatherings and parties.

where were you last year?

what?

i was angry cold now. where were you last year when my children were in the hospital and we were told to get premature nappies that were smaller than sanitary napkins, and we didn’t know what to do and we didn’t know what these terms were and we didn’t know what to expect or what was happening? if there was a preemie outreach support group, why couldn’t we get in touch with you?

maybe no one told us you were there.

maybe? don’t you think that supporting parents of preemies is more important when their children are in the hospital and they are overwhelmed and bewildered, rather than having talent shows and tea afterwards? i could have used your advice, and there was no one.

that was about the jist of the conversation. needless to say, we didn’t attend the tea. thought long and hard about entering the triplets in the talent show…after all long distance vomitting is an art, but declined.

no two ways about it, i did spew unfairly all over that lady. why my reaction was so strong, not sure. i think i was appalled that the preemie group’s priorities are so off target (in my opinion). talent shows are great, but i could have used someone to guide me through the nicu during our days there. to explain that walking in and seeing your child having a blood transfusion is a common NICU practice. to point out the best times for talking to the dr, to suggest we keep a diary and take more pictures.  to tell me which company will ship preemie nappies. instead, we were alone with the beeps of machines and the whine of white noise. the nurses were wonderful,  but did not have the time or understanding or ability to answer our questions.

a few months after we departed the nicu, there were a series of expats who overlapped each other, and each was able to pass on wisdom, support and advice to the "rookies" whose preemies entered the world and floor. what a difference that support made to those people. someone to smooth their entry into that tough new reality. i wish we had had that.

and after departing the hospital, we told one of the doctors we wanted to form a parent support group. to my shock she responded,

you can’t, there is already one.

are you kidding? no one contacted us.

yes, they have bylaws, many committees, and are active. besides, none of you have training as counsellors, i am not sure you should form any group.

we don’t want to counsel, we want to help.

you need training before you can do that.

so, with our offer to help being refused, and then being refused the help that was apparently available, i went crazy when help arrived a few months too late.

call it sad, call it funny

but its better than even money

that the guy’s only doing it for some doll.

(well, in honor of two dolls and three guys, but who’s counting?)