...and so is Christmas

Week 2,3, etc.

December 12, 2010

The best pleasures are always unexpected.  We were told that we wouldn’t have callings in the branch or be going to the temple very often.  So, of course, we were immediately called to the Branch Presidency of the Island 1^st branch (Did you know that Hong Kong was an island?) and we were given a weekly assignment in the temple.  The Philipina sisters are amazing – they have little in the way of possessions (some don’t even have a room in which to sleep, they sleep with the children that they take care of), they have to dry their clothes on  a bamboo stick out the window and yet they still seem so happy and cheerful.  Ebullient is the word.  I feel like I’m going to Church with a 100 of my daughters.

There was a moment today which was descriptive of their spirit.  We were having a baptism (since I’ve been here I’ve taught a baptismal lesson, interviewed someone for baptism and participated in the baptism ceremony) and a special musical number had been hurriedly organized – a guitar and six sisters  who had only practiced a few minutes.  It started and was semi-horrible.  Fright and shyness was taking its toll – the melody was being corrupted by thin attempts to find a pitch.  It began to die out – we’ve all been there, everyone sitting and wondering why time goes so much slower during acoustic pain, waiting for the inevitable silence and giggles.  All of a sudden, someone else joined in and then another and another.  They just refused to let the singers go down in defeat.  The singers gathered courage and began to sing better and soon the entire room was singing.  It sounded wonderful – there aren’t any other voices like those rich Philippine voices.  I’m sure the Lord has a choir of them to welcome us to the other side, because it’s like coming home.  I found myself weeping – they’re so cheerful among a horde of reasons not to be – and they did something important while I was doing something miniscule, contemplating the despairs of bad intonation.

To the left you see the picture of the Wan Chai building.  This picture was taken in the best spirit of photographic propaganda.  There are no trees near the building, no open spaces.  The building faces out onto a busy street – high-profile street, status street – but a street.  The reasons the trees are on the right and left sides of the building is that the Wan Chai police station, done in the communist tradition of ugly light gray and cracked stucco, is on the left and a busy intersection is on the right.  It’s not the ugliest spot in Hong Kong, but it’s not pretty either.  The picture is taken from the convention center plaza, catty-corner to the Church – this area is very well done, but in the wide-and-spacious-building theme.  There are 11 floors in the Church building – the area president lives at the top, we work on the next one down.  There are three chapels in the building and on Sunday they are all used simultaneously.  There is a branch which meets Tuesday through Saturdays because the Philipina sisters who go there can’t get Sundays off.  When the sisters come to Church it’s an all-day deal.  They show up for the block meetings, then do visiting teaching and home teaching, then do RS enrichment, then have leadership meetings, then eat together…  The Church feeds them twice a month because it’s the only time some get meat and vegetables.

To the right we see Sister Shirley Taylor.  She and her husband work with the financial records and do audit training.  She is an angel of mercy and has saved the Alleys on multiple occasions.  (Maybe she’s a Hell’s Angel.  She wears motorcycle goggles at her computer and is the one who introduced them to Marcie.  She claims it helps with dry eyes.)  She’s strange and wonderful, like Sister Alley.  This is their third mission: England, Latvia and now here.   I would like to have her on my side in any battle.  I’ve requested that she stand by the pearly gates when I’m trying to talk my way in.  She and her husband work in the cubicles across from ours – she has escorted Marcie to such shopping meccas as Wellcome market, the Japan Home Center and the wet market.  (In the wet market you have to hold your breath while you’re passing the pig carcasses.  I think pigs are pretty smart – even compared to horses.  If they weren’t such gluttons, I’m not sure I could eat them.)

And this is a shot of our area of Hong Kong.  The Church is to the left and off the frame.  Our apt is to the bottom and off the frame.  But you can see north toward the harbor – we’ve been there once on a ferry to see the Christmas light show. 

 It was basically lasers firing off into the night from the top of big buildings.  I wonder if the lasers have enough power to do any damage.  I imagine some poor goose getting nailed with a bright green light and flailing its way into the South China Sea.

We’re starting to get a foothold on our duties – we attended the Hong Kong PA council last Thursday.  It was great except we went one stop too far – the stop too far put us through the tunnel into the New Territories.  This is like a near-death experience.  People on that side apparently don’t come back to this side.  Cab drivers looked at us like we were aliens when we tried to buy our way back.  Thank heavens for Church organization – the area seventy, Sam Wong, called on our mobile and talked the cab driver into driving back to the Kowloon Wong chapel.  Marcie thought we were lost and about to be cast into Outer Darkness.  But we arrived in time to hear them talk about Church video clips, Family geneology partnering with local universities and a Journey to Bethlehem Hong Kong spectacular.  We got home on the top floor of a bus which wound through Kowloon like a snake chasing a rat, but we were with other couples so we sat back and watched all of it pass us by.  There’s no direct way from Kowloon to anywhere.  From some areas there’s no way at all –not even dimensionally connected.

Starting Up...

The store is PrizeMart – no, not PriceMart – PrizeMart.  It’s about as big as a big living room – shelves from your nose to the floor, close together.  Hong Kong specializes in these kind of places --- it’s their answer to the Big Box.  Cut up everything into 400 sq. foot spaces and offer three kinds of things.  PrizeMart has candy, oatmeal and clothes soap.  What poor little China person was sitting in their house and thought:  Oh yeah!  MnM’s, Tide and Quaker oats.  That sounds like a winner.  I think I’ll open a shop.

Because Hong Kong is semi anglicized, there are multiple opportunities for English bastardizations.  It gives some comfort that the Chinese are doing this to the King’s English and not to good ol’ American.  My favorite so far is the sign at a local gas station (ensconced in the bottom floor of a high-rise.)  “NO NAKED LIGHTS.”  I’m not sure of the intent.  Apparently, headlight modesty is a big deal here.   I picture two HK citizens discussing at the side of the road.  “Where did you get your skirt for your naked lights?”  “Oh.  You mean the asymmetrical off-the-round blue number with the flounce at the bottom?  I picked it up at Prize-Mart.  You know, the one that sells Tide and Quaker Oats.”

To the left we see the view from our apt window, looking up Hennessey Road.  There are two-decker buses and two-decker ding-dings.  Those, unimaginatively, are trolleys.  They can’t swerve.  I’ve tested this to the chagrin of the driver, who although he can’t swerve, can brake.

Hong Kong bustles and stinks.  I’ve  learned that all Chinese don’t look the same, although apparently we do.  A girl at the office today said, “Hello, Brother Taylor.”  I said, “I’m not Brother Taylor.”  She said, “I can’t recognize you.  You all look alike.”  She probably meant wrinkled and white hair, not Caucasian.

The food is various: familiar and strange.  We have two Mcdonalds, two Starbucks, one Burger King and a KFC within three blocks of us.  We also have a bunch of Chinese restaurants.  You have to be a little careful – we were reading the English translation of a menu on Jaffe Road and it features chicken testicles.  I didn’t know they had any.  It gives a whole new meaning to “huevos.”

We are six blocks from work.  The Church’s area office is on Gloucester Road.  Gloucester is a “status” road.  Porsche, Ferrari, Bentley, VW, Audi, Mitsubishi and Lotus all have showrooms in the three blocks before we get to the office.

This is Mom after walking to the office.  Yes, those are two pairs of glasses, one for dry eyes and one for seeing.  The mask is for protection from the world class pollution and smell of sewage enroute to the office and/or windy air and/or dirty air.  She has a tag on that identifies her as a missionary.  The Hong-Kong-ese don’t think they’re being  proselyted; they think they’re being invaded.

Hong Kong is hotter than Utah.  Today we almost hit 80, although cooler weather in the 60’s is on the way.  As you know, Hong Kong – just like Utah – has four seasons.  Only its seasons are autumn, spring, summer, and hell.  The Chinese apparently dress by the calendar, not by temperature.  It’s December, so they wear jackets in spite of the fact that it’s 80 degrees and I’m wringing wet by the time I get to the office wearing no coat, just a white shirt.  Well, not just a white shirt…

This is another picture from our apt – which is on the 11^th floor of Harmony Mansion.  There is a bakery just by our door that has great chocolate mousses (mousi?, meese?, mousies?)  Most of the Senior Missionaries eat a lot like they did at home.  We ventured out and got barbecued pork and chicken parts.  I forgot – the Chinese consider the chicken bones as part of the entrée, and should be consumed, not discarded.  It’s like eating basket.  I don’t have the art down – I was afraid of winding up with a bone cross wise and coughing like a dismayed Malamute.

Well, we love you.  We’re not smart yet, but we’ll be smarter.  We have enough to do every day, but we’re looking forward to knowing more, being more productive, feeling smarter.  I’ll write more next week.