Bamboo: the miracle grass

Most people know that I have a soft and endearing spot for Hong Kong in my heart.  But when they hear about the typical living conditions of over 45,000 people a square mile living in box-like flats that cost several hundred US dollar per square foot in a hot and muggy subtropical climate complete with typhoons and monsoons, …they don’t understand why I like Hong Kong so much.  So I have often been trying to figure out how to describe what makes Hong Kong so special. Although I have gathered a huge collection of interesting little anecdotes in my mind that I always mean to write down, I usually forget to do so.

The fact is that nearly every time I walk out on the street, I see something that fascinates me.  And life in the older neighborhoods is extremely rich.  When I was taking my Swahili course at Hong Kong University, I had a two-hour lunch break to spend as I pleased.  The university is the in the heart of the oldest parts of the city.  So I developed a wonderful routine of getting lost while finding a place that looked good to eat and then trying to find my way back to class.  Along the way, I would pass through places like the dried seafood market where shark fins encased in locked glass displays and nearly as tall as me would be proudly displayed like diamonds.  In the alleyways, there would be whole fish neatly lined out from smallest to biggest and hung by their tail to dry on racks.  On the sidewalks, there would be piles of shark fins also separated by size and laid out to cure in the sun.  Further on, the dried seafood stores would become herb stores and there would be piles of dried plant materials on the sidewalk instead of fish parts.  And instead of shark fins on display, there were fuzzy deer antlers and sometimes even a whole deer, stuffed, and welcoming customers to take a look inside.

And then trying to find a place to eat among all the mouth-watering stores was another challenge. Even after I filled up on fresh noodles, delicious hand-made dumplings or beef brisket slow-cooked to perfection, I couldn’t help but look for a fruit stand to get fresh squeezed juice.  I ran across one eclectic store once that not only doubled as a news stand, fruit stand, and cold drink store, it also specialized in adult diapers.  In fact, the packages of diapers took up at least half of the small store either stacked up in the overflowing mountain or hanging from the ceiling.  The owners were, as it happened, an older couple.  When I asked for fresh-squeezed orange juice, the elderly man resting on a stool called out the order to the equally-aged woman who immediately jumped up and beckoned me to come in from the sun She cleared a pathway to a small stool inside by kicking some of the adult diaper packages aside.  I was thrilled to get a seat after sweating up a storm from all the walking and proceeded to watch her prepare the orange juice.  She filled up the cup until it was nearly running over and called me over to sip off the frothy top.  It nearly felt like it was my grandmother in the kitchen making me orange juice… well, except the mountain of adult diapers around us.    They left me with such a pleasant memory that I keep meaning to get back there if I am ever in the neighborhood again…and if I can find their store again…

But anyways,the story I really wanted to share today happened without me even getting out on the street.  I have been spending a lot of time at home lately trying to catch up with my research work.  I usually work best at home, although it has been annoying at times with the renovation work going on.  Not just on the building across from us, but also the flat down below us, and the building two doors over.  It’s pretty unavoidable: living in such a dense place means there is always some sort construction going on.  Before this, it was the tram line getting replaced (that means hearing the lovely sound of jack-hammers on concrete).  Anyways, renovation projects in Hong Kong are an amazing sight to behold because of the very innovative use of bamboo.  Rather than steel scaffolding, Hong Kong uses bamboo.  I have heard that there are several advantages of bamboo over steel which has made it the scaffolding material of choice.  For one, it’s quite resilient and yet light-weight.  This means that it can be put up and torn down quite fast.  I witnessed this in action the very first time I came to Hong Kong.  While waiting for Goldie one evening, I watched two men put up scaffolding on the side of a 20+ story building.  It seemed almost effortless for them.  Men down below handed up a 20 foot or so bamboo pole and the two men on the scaffolding would move it into place and tie it up with plastic ties.  In the fifteen minutes that I watched, they made incredible progress.  Sometime later, I saw how bamboo scaffolding comes down.  Again, it doesn’t take many people.  There would be a line of men a pole-length apart alongside the building and one man on the ground.  Two men would take off a pole, hand it off one man at a time down the building, and toss it the final distance down to the man on the ground.  He makes a tidy pile of the poles so they can be reused on the next project.  When the men get going, they develop a rhythm that is so well timed that you could nearly set a watch to it.

When I looked out my window today, I saw that the scaffolding on the building two doors down is getting taken apart today.  This time, the tear down was setup a little different.  Since they are just starting on a 24-story high building, they were creating large bundles of bamboo poles to be taken down by a pulley and rope.  I caught sight that they were just about to lower a large bundle of 30-50 poles down from the 20th floor (level with my flat).  One guy was on the street below holding the rope and several men on the building were tying up the bundle.  I was fascinated to see how they were going to take such a large bundle down, so I paused a moment at the window.  The man below with the rope was ready to lower down the bundle and they started to release it but something went terribly wrong.  The bundle swayed to the side and either it wasn’t tied right or the string broke because suddenly the bamboo poles rained down in a huge crash on to the patios, sidewalk, street, and parked cars below.  I couldn’t believe I had just witnessed the disaster.  Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be anyone in direct path of the falling bamboo poles.  However, it looked like a few TV antennas, several potted plants on the patio, and the cars suffered.  I am sure it could have been a real bad story if someone got hit with one of those 20-foot long, 3-4 inch wide poles.  On the other hand, it would have been a lot worse if that was a bundle of steel poles.  Nevertheless, I am sure the construction workers’ day is ruined.  It only took a few minutes for the police to come running and start making a report.  I wonder if the company has to compensate the people who lost their potted plants?

So, at least I have managed to record some of my stories.  I still have some funny stories of the days in mainland that I have been meaning to write down.  But I’ll have to explain how I got the nickname “poopy hands” some other day.

Yes, Dori, you were right.

Well, Dori has dedicated a post to me…so this post is dedicated to Dori.

In the comments of my last post about the heartwarming story of Lardcake[1] and my great intentions of fostering her back to health, Dori thought it would be “funny” to insinuate that I would not posses the willpower to give Lardcake up when the time came. I now think that Dori deliberately plotted to post that comment in order to sabotage my attempts to do the right thing. Yes, Dori, you were right. We adopted her. Are you happy now?!

Ok, enough sarcasm. The truth, as you all can well imagine, is that no one could resist the utter kitten cuteness that Lardcake embodies. Even Goldie, a die-hard dog lover, has fallen for her! But the real proof comes from the night Goldie’s mom came over to dinner…

About two weeks ago, Goldie decided to invite her mom to our house for a change of pace from the usual Sunday dinner at her mom’s house. So, that meant I spent an hour beforehand running around the house madly cleaning every nook and cranny while Goldie kept yelling at me “Get off the chair, you don’t need to dust the top of the bookshelf!” The next hour Goldie was secluded in the kitchen working intently on making a stunning new cooking creation. Meanwhile, I was playing with Lardcake and teasing her, “Grandma is coming over! Are you nervous?” And a few minutes before Goldie’s mom was scheduled to come over, we were staring at two rather small dishes of food and Goldie started to fret, “It’s not enough, is it?” So I ran down to the BBQ pork house, what seems to be the exact pork house where I found Lardcake, and bought a half catty of pork. Shortly later back at home, Lardcake was sent off to her room, Goldie’s mom arrived, and we shared the meal with the usual Channel 1 blaring on TV. I even scored a compliment for buying good-tasting pork.

As dinner ended, Goldie got a sly grin on her face and asked her mom if she wanted to meet Lardcake. I started cleaning up the dishes while cringing at what was about to transpire. Like Goldie, I knew that her mom was also a loyal dog-lover who had never raised cats. I also knew from first-hand experience that Goldie was somewhat naive about cat behavior and especially fearful of their sometime aggressive play. I naturally assumed that Goldie’s mom would probably have the same tendencies and I could see a disaster in the making. Despite her cuteness, Lardcake still has the well-known kitten flaw of getting a little too rough with the teeth and claws. (Yes, even I will admit that kittens aren’t perfect.)

I figured it would be safer to keep to washing dishes in the kitchen rather than stand around and watch the impending disaster. I kept waiting nervously, but several minutes passed and I heard nothing out of the ordinary. Another several minutes passed when I started to hear a strange high-pitched sound coming from the living room. Goldie yelled to me, “Come quick, look what she’s doing to Lardcake!” I ran out with my hands still dripping wet and saw Goldie’s mom bent over, cupping Lardcake in her hands, and cooing to her like a mother to her baby. Of course, Goldie’s mom was completely unperturbed that Lardcake was also trying to gnaw off her fingers in good kitten fun. Meanwhile, Goldie was in shock and kept nervously repeating over and over, “She’s going to bite you, aren’t you scared?!”

I went back out to the kitchen to finish up the dishes with a big smile on my face and no longer worried about Goldie’s mom’s safety. That night, after Goldie’s mom had left I started to bug Goldie for the details of the conversation that I missed while in the kitchen. I was especially curious about what compliments we had gotten for having a clean house and a good meal. Goldie just replied stunned, “She said that we should adopt Lardcake, and invite her to dinner every week so she can play with Lardcake.”

So there you have it. I think my name is cleared now.

Footnotes

[1] Lardcake is now more commonly known as Catpig. But I have used her “scare off the ghosts” nickname to reflect that this story occured before her adoption and official name change to Catpig.