Authentic Tappenaki

There is a restaurant in our neighborhood in Wan Chai right down the street from our apartment.  We pass quite a lot and thought we should try it. So when planning to take Maggie to the Nutcracker, we thought it would be nice to try this place. We fondly recalled the bennie hanna’s in the States and how much fun they are.

You see buried in the background noise of our life in Hong Kong, is the music that we should try  and expose our kids to as much of asian culture as we can.  It seemed like a great idea.  Nicholas would be staying at home with Eva and it would just be Maggie, Katy and I.

We were however done in by one small unnoticed “A” word.  Authentic.

We made a reservation form 6:00.  We came to the place on time and of course were the first customers, actually they were still setting up the place. You will recall in Hong Kong dinner starts around 7pm to 8pm.  So  they kinda looked at funny to begin with.

Then we noticed that it didn’t seem that they spoke english very well at all.  Since we don’t speak Cantonese, this should be interesting. No worries, the menu is bilingual. 

The menu has set meals and courses.  It also has ala carte.  But you would be surprised how hard it is to explain your ala carte choices on a menu with a serious language barrier, so it seems we would have to go with the pre set choices.

The thing is every pre set choice has several course with what I consider hard core Asian food: abalone and the like. OK we can be adventurous, they have lobster on the menu and beef.  At least Maggie will find something to eat.

The table as you may know has a large cooking grill in the center and 3 seats on each of the 3 sides.

The chef comes, has no understanding of English, but we point to the preset course selections .  Ok, he gesters, and we begin. I get the impression that if we spoke Cantonese, it would have been more enjoyable as I watch the 2 other groups at our table discuss each exotic course with the chef, who is more than happy to be friendly and informative….…in Cantonese.

We start with some vegetables and rice.  OK.  Then he brings out what are live, yes live, lobsters and abalone. Maggie seems a little confused by it, and I try to ignore it as he rips the live abalone from the shell and yes cooks it alive. Next come the lobsters which are unfortunately cooked alive in front of us on the grill.  Now to be fair, I am not sure if the movements the lobster is making are residual nervous system twiches or if in fact it is still alive.

Would we like another Saki, yes please. Make it the large one.

Katy and I try to contain and hide our horror, as Maggie notes, “the lobster is bleeding.” Cooking seafood fresh here has something to do with bringing it alive to the table.

Each course that the chef cooks is fine to us, but Maggie is losing interest and doesn’t find any she likes.

Did I mention each course is taking about 30 minutes? So 2 hours into this, Maggie is very hungry and Katy and I are getting stressed with the realization that Maggie is not going to eat here.  Even the beef is too “spicy” for her . At least Katy and I find the food OK. We still think there is time to bring Maggie around to this cuisine.

Just then the chef in dramatic fashion pours oil of the grill and ignites it in a fireball that engulfs the entire grill about 6 inches from our faces.  Did I mention the fire stick incident with Maggie?  Maggie is not at all fond of fire. So the minute the chef ignites the grill, Maggie gasps and darts under Katy’s chair. Now Maggie is hungry and hiding under the chair and it is about 8pm. Very calmly and to her credit, I hear from under Katy’s chair, “Can we go now?” To be fair, I doubt the benny hanna’s in the US would create such an inferno.

Gratiuously as we can we hurry along the last course and get the bill.  Yes live food served here does cost a lot of money.  We pay what has to be one of the most expensive dinner bills in Hong Kong for us and you guessed it head to McDonalds.

While sitting at McDonalds watching Maggie eat chicken nuggets, and Katy and I have a ice cream cone, we think, yes it did say “authentic” tappenaki. Oh well.

An American Thanksgiving in Hong Kong

As you know, there is no Thanksgiving in Hong Kong. Obviously.  It is a normal work day. After Halloween, which is a big deal here, it goes directly to Christmas decorations.  Christmas is a huge deal here. I think by mid November all the malls have there displays up and christmas music playing.  It is funny because they have completely separated the secular holiday from the religious one. So everyone it seems is into Christmas.

Thanksgiving though is one of those times were it painly obivous that we are not in the US or North Carolina anymore. It is I think the biggest difference you notice living here.  It was the biggest one we noticed.  No Turkey Trot, no parade, no leave changing, no Macy's parade, no football. More than that, no collective sense of holiday.  From thousands of miles away, I have noticed that this one holiday, Thanksgiving, is maybe one of a few that all Americans, no matter what religion, race or creed, share.  In a way, it is one of those defining characteristics of being American.

But there is thanksgiving food here.  Even though it is not a holiday, it is very easy to get the food though at the stores: turkey, stuffing mix, cranberrries, pretty much anything you would want for your thanksgiving meal. So that part is fine. And since it is mostly about food, I suppose ok.

Another thing I noticed was that some American expats here kinda of give up on the holiday after a while. Not sure why. I feel like it's giving up on being American to some degree.

So this year, we were invited to be a part of Katy's friend Katherine's Thanksgiving dinner.  She invited several people over on Thanksgiving evening. She lives in the same apartment complex as us. Even though Katy and I both had a regular workday and both kids had school, we did get a Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day. It was really nice. 

Then on this Sunday about 20 american famlies in our apartment complex are getting together for a thanksgiving dinner and party. Everyone is bringing something. It should be fun.  I like the fact that we found some american families here who don't want to lose our traditions from home.

So in the end, we did have a Thanksgiving however somewhat lacking.

It's Beginning to look alot like..wait, stop the presses, it's only November 5th, Thanksgiving is not..oh..yeah..nevermind

Yes it is November 5th here in Hong Kong and everyone is putting up their Christmas decorations like it is the week before Thanksgiving. As an American family whose first year is in Hong Kong, we react with horror, right?  "Oh come on.  It's only November 5th.  Thanksgiving is still almost..." then you stop and blink yourself back to the moment.

Yes this is Hong Kong, the Special Administrative District of the People's Republic of China. The next holiday IS Christmas. They don't celebrate American Thanksgiving.

Hong Kong Halloween Bust

Sunday Morning

Katy, turning to David: "You want to move back?'
David: "Right this moment, yes."


You never consider how much logistics go into trick or treating with kids or take them for granted when you live in a great neighborhood like McDonald Ave. But apartment complex living sure has busted our Halloween this year.   So yes thus begins our first real critique of Hong Kong living for an american family.

Our apartment complex which is 33 floors had a Halloween party  on Saturday October 28 from 3pm to 5pm.  Trick or Treating was from 5:30 to 7:30pm.  If you wanted to open your apartment for trick or treating, you signed up, then the management produced a list of the apartments you could go to. Remember our apartment is yes 33 floors. 2 elevators.

So on Saturday, the kids both crashed with naps in the afternoon and were hard to get up.  Nicholas being very tired wanted nothing to do with a costume. But we got the kids in them and headed down to the club house for the party.

It was nice. Food. Pageant.  But the main event was a haunted house you walked through. Now in our house we have defined "silly Halloween" and "scary Halloween." No one wants anything to do with "scary Halloween."  So as you can imagine the haunted house was out. With that there was not much for a 2 year old and a 5 year old to do. You could see not many of that age group around. So we headed back up stairs to wait to start trick or treating.

Maggie's friend Lacey invited us up to trick or treat with them.  Now this entails either taking the elevator or walking up the service stairs.  But the service stairs do not stop at every floor's front doors.  There is one set of stairs for the odd and one for the even floors. OK. no problem.  Maggie and even Nicholas do not seem turned off by the stairs at all.

We get to Maggie's friend's apartment in the same block as ours.  (We agree to only trick or treat in our block.) Well Lacey has an older brother who has a friend who dresses up as the screamer with a mask.  He puts it on to start trick or treating and Nicholas freaks out. The boy is very nice and feels sorry. But it is clear to me, Nicholas and I will have to go alone.  Maggie and Katy stay with the group.

Well the first random apartment Nicholas and I stop at is answered by a middle school boy in a scary mask with blood.  Well that is it for Nicholas.  He does not, no way shape or how, want to go on and asks to go back to 17.  (Our floor.) So Nicholas stops at exactly one apartment. I try another apartment and Nicholas has had it. The lady even comes out into the elevator landing, but Nicholas is too scared.

One the way down the stairs I run into the group and Lacey's mom and dad, no Maggie or Katy.  They tell me Maggie has jumped ship as well and headed back to 17. Same issue.  Too many scary apartments. I could see Maggie was bummed.

So we have 2 kids with exactly 2 apartment stops. With all the logistics of the apartment building, it comes down to alot of scary halloween masks.

Katy and I both feel that they missed out on Halloween this year which led to the interaction at the top of this post. As Katy said, with homes at least from a distance you can tell whether it seems scary.  And the thing is in our McDonald Ave neighborhood, there were more fun Halloween homes than scary anyway. Not sure what the point is of scaring little kids.

Next year we will have to target only the apartments we know will not be scary.

Miss the fun family Halloween.  Miss you McDonald Ave, the Yins, the Colwells, the Brittains, the Munceys, the Donaldsons all of you. Miss you Dilworth.

So today, yes James, I'm going to Carolina in my mind.

Book o Ween Woes

You never think you have to defend your child's creativity so soon in life. 

HKIS had what they call Book-a ween on Friday October 28. It was billed as an event where children could pick a character in a favorite book and dress up as them.  It sounded fun and the restriction made sense: no cartooon characters.

As a new family to HKIS, we thought it was a great idea. Maggie was excited and went through her books on which character she liked. She went back and forth between the mom in the Ugly Vegetable to Bree in Fancy Nancy’s Explorers Extordinaire all on her own.  She chose Bree.  We got together all the things from the book: binoculars, magnifying glass, notebook, hat.  Maggie was very clear to collect all the right props.   But the thing is Bree being a normal girl did not have a special costume.  Maggie chose some clothes that matched Bree in the book.

When she came back from school that day, she seemed really quiet about the whole thing.  We asked her, "how was Book-o-ween?"  

Apparently some girls made fun of her since she did not have a real "costume." I asked, "What do you mean?  Yes you did." Then we find out that a lot of girls went as princesses and bought their costumes. Now you would be right princesses such as Snow White and Belle are fairy tale story characters.  But come on. Either way I was annoyed that Maggie's creativity took a hit.

I told her that anyone can choose a princess, but that you were very creative in your choice.  I doubt in made her feel any better....maybe a little.  I am still very proud of her choice. Pictures are Maggie as Bree from Explorer Extraordinaire before school.

A Hong Konger work is never done...Really?

Moving and especially working here, an American notes how long everyone stays at work. Wow you think people here must be very overloaded.  I leave work pretty much the normal time from the States at 5:30-6pm and people are still at their desks.  Sometimes I actually have to look at my watch and confirm it is that late because I walk past alot of people still at their desks.

Now I think I have a pretty good handle on my work. Not only that but with the night phone calls, I fell pretty good about it.  But you still doubt when you look at the Hong Kongers.  You start thinking maybe their is something to this Asia work ethic. They wear as a badge of honro staying in the office till 8pm.  But then again, something always seemed a little off. I could never put my finger on it.

I usually eat lunch at my desk, while mostly everyone here takes a nice long lunhc break. So I thought maybe that is it. I dont take long lunches and usually work through lunch when trust me the floor is a literal ghost town from 12:30 to 2.

Then I read an article in this the Sunday Morning Post and things got a little clearer and not in a good way. The article "Miracle Worker," is about the extreme challenges working women with children  have in Hong Kong.  Women here are expected to keep the family needs first if they choose to work. This is another story, just think all the progressive gains women in the workplace have made in the US, Hong Kong is just starting down that equality path.

In the article, Bishop's qoute is what made it all cealr to me.  Robins is the COO of an NGO promoting work-life balance.  (Side note 70% of polled Hong Kongers do not being they have a healthy work life balance.) Robin says, "Hong Kong is built on a hard work ethic.  The local culture tends to reward employees for how visible they are as opposed to their output.  The more time you are seen to spend at the office, the more committed you are."

Think about that for a minute. "How visible you are as opposed to your output." Wow.

I remember my manager at Chase telling me directly, "There are only 2 reasons you work late every night. One you do not know how to manage your time and that is not good or two you have too much to do and you need to let me know because that is not good."

I still think the American work ethic that prioritize output is the better one.

You are new in town, aren't you?

It's a Monday evening and Maggie and I return a broken dehumidifier at Wing On (Americans read Sears).  We meet up with Katy and all head home together.

So I notice across the street a "Taxi Stand" sign.  Great. We head to it. About 10 feet away from the sign(Read no where near the sign), the Hong Kongers have lined up to wait for a taxi. A taxi driver points to the line and says to us,"That is where you line up." Ok without missing a beat we line up with about 7 people in front of us no where near the taxi stand sign.

As the line winds down, a well dressed westerner stands right under the sign and keeps looking at our line annoyed. You can see him getting irritated by this. At some point he comes up to us, yes not the 4 Hong Kongers in front of us, and says "the Taxi line is over there." and walks back to the taxi stand sign.

I tell him, "Well, the sign may be there, but the line is right here" as I look at him and think "Hey Mr. Von RighteousHousen, why don't you explain that in Cantonese to the people in front of us. Oh you can't speak Cantonese? Well let me explain something to you.  Here in Hong Kong, the line is wherever we decide it is.  That is how we roll."

Yes I am becoming a local.......