Eagerly Unanticipated

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

無 money, 無 problems

I'm sorry for the pun, especially since it probably makes sense to basically nobody. (無 is said like "mou" in Cantonese, and it means "nothing" or "there lacks", and, um, the Notorious B.I.G. wrote this song, uh, anyway... it was funny when it occurred to me walking around this afternoon)

Other tangent: Stephanie, Viv, I had a fresh fried dough stick today at a little jook place in Cheung Sha Wan. And it was AWESOME. Also, they call them "yau tsa guai" here instead of "yau tiu", which is the Canto pronunciation of the Putonghua "you tiao", so the lady didn't really understand what I wanted to order at first. I ended up pointing to another customer's table and saying, "Nei tiu," which means like "That long thing," which worked. It was hot, straight out of the fry oil, and I got a glass of soymilk to go with it. Nobody here that I've talked to seems to be familiar with the other trappings of Taiwanese breakfast, though, so I just might have to go to Taipei.

Subject: I got a check in the mail about a month ago (maybe longer). It was my college housing deposit or something, I think, something from Pomona. And just like that "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry gets carpal tunnel syndrome from signing $.20 royalty checks from Japan and nobody feels sorry for him, this check felt more like a burden than a windfall.

The problem, of course, was that the check was denominated in US dollars. Our employers here thoughtfully set us up with accounts at Bank of East Asia, the chain that won the bid to have a branch on campus. Now, this is only half sarcastic: I don't think I could open an account here on my own without a Hong Kong ID card, and that took several weeks to get, so BEA was basically doing us a favor; they also have an ATM on campus and direct deposit, which is pretty convenient. The problem is that BEA isn't by any means the largest or most convenient bank for Hong Kong overall, and our accounts don't have credit/debit privileges. Also, the customer service at our branch is pretty lame (two tellers who don't speak english and no personal bankers). And then to top it all off, they wanted like 3% of the value of my check just to deposit it. Well, I wasn't having that, so I figured I'd find a different bank, maybe a higher-profile bank. I checked out HSBC, and they seemed perfect: internationally oriented, so they should take my check; good rates on CDs (called Time Deposit in HK), which could be denominated in other currencies, good because I've grown cynical about the US dollar; a big deal here, so ubiquitous.

I went into HSBC once and was rebuffed for not having my passport, in addition to my HK ID. I went back, tried again to open an account, and was rejected based on insufficient proof of address (the letter I brought was addressed to my office, not my dorm room). I went back a third time, armed with ID card, passport, proof of address, the check, extra cash in HK dollars--the works. After waiting for more than half an hour, the personal banker talks to me and gets the gist of what I want to do with my account (deposit this check, deposit HK$, time deposit in euros or something), and sells me on this flexible-management integrated account. It sounds perfect, and although I'd have to basically close out my BEA account and drain my savings from home to meet the minimum balance, I'd be happy to have everything in one place. Well, then he starts to process my documents. And the stream of positive statements about my account trails off into silence when he gets to the passport. "Oh, you are a US national? We cannot offer this type of account to US nationals." The receptionist, standing behind him helpfully, occasionally offering translations and generally trying to look out for me, adds, "US... citizens." Oh. My mistake.

So the personal banker kicks me out of his office, sheaf of documents in hand, and sends me to wait in the teller line. For twenty more minutes. I see a teller, and the receptionist, who meets me at the head of the line to help translate my requests, tries to explain that I want to open a basic account. The teller is having none of it. We end up being waved over to another teller window, where the woman says she can open an account for me. I again hand over my paperwork, sliding all of it through the slot under the glass partition. She starts taking documents to photocopy, asking questions, etc. And then she gets to the check. Apparently, customers can only deposit US checks if they already have accounts in good standing. As a new customer, I would not be in good standing. And she says that it is impossible to determine when I would actually attain good standing if I were to open the account today. I left, but they may as well have thrown me out, for all the help they offered.

So I decide to try Hang Seng, another big, awesome bank that I've heard of (probably from the Hang Seng Index, HK's stock exchange). I went to the branch at Sha Tin mall last saturday. It started poorly, with me waiting for a personal banker for half an hour, asking the security guard if I was in the right place, and then being sent to the teller line for another half-hour wait. Fortunately, things go much more smoothly after that. The teller gets all my paperwork to photocopy, accepts the check for a charge of about HK$50, which is like US$6.50 or so, and opens my savings account with ATM/debit card privileges. Admittedly, this takes another hour plus, and he has to fill out a bunch of Chinese-language-only forms for me that seem positively Draconian, but it's all set--I even got a passbook! All it required was a passport, HK ID card, US driver's license, proof of address (testimonial letter from my dorm manager), proof of address (document mailed to said address), US address, and an opening deposit in HK$. But now, next time I come in, probably to pick up my ATM card, I can stop by the personal bankers and open up a linked time-deposit, get a credit card with a line of credit, start a retirement plan, etc etc etc.

And since I discovered Hang Seng has no branches in the US, by pulling my Wells Fargo savings out of an ATM and putting them into a Euro-denominated time deposit, I'm effectively taking my money offshore, like people with real jobs do. I feel pretty self-satisfied, I have to admit.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

another lesson I've learned

So I'm sitting in my Hong Kong Studies module (the word they use for 'course' here) the other day. This is, first of all, notable, because although we're all signed up for the course, we're not actually being assessed at all, so absenteeism runs rampant. The other students in the class are all on semester- or year-long exchanges from various countries, and they don't seem to really pay much attention, though they do attend more regularly. It's a generally not-engaging environment, basically, at 9:30 on friday mornings. So, hopefully that sets the stage. We're discussing, this week, the political climate in Hong Kong, and the idea of Chinese identity (as a cultural and political construct) among HK people. We're now discussing post-1997 (post-handoff) conditions. This happened during the lecture, with my thoughts in italics.

"Now, a lot of Hong Kong celebrities held a conference for students. Andy Lau was there."

Oooooh, Andy Lau is a big deal... What's he been in, again? Um, I know I've seen him in something... (note: according to Wikipedia, he's been in 108 movies 20 years, with the highest cumulative gross of any HK actor)

"Andy Lau stands up in front of an auditorium of students, and says, 'OK, trivia time! The question is: which Chinese province has the most earthquakes?' "

I love trivia! Um, oooh, that's a good question. Earthquakes... probably... well, there are some up by Korea, but not that many in Manchuria, right? Maybe... Xinjiang and Tibet are biggest... but I'll bet... the Himalayas must make some earthquakes, so... Yunnan? Tibet? Wow, what a great question.

"So a student raises his hand, and gets called on. His guess is Yunnan."

Oh snap! I got this one! Oh, geography.

"And Andy Lau says, 'Wrong! The answer is Taiwan!' "

I started laughing at this point, and I couldn't stop for a minute or so. Even though nobody else particularly laughed. Maybe they just weren't paying attention, or maybe the students from mainland China knew all along that the "right" answer was Taiwan. I'm not sure.

Anyway, the lesson learned is this: even though I tease pro-Taiwan friends about their push for independence, I clearly think of Taiwan as something distinct from China. So Steph, sorry for saying "Rogue province!" all the time. I didn't really mean it. I think the thing that really convinced me (subconsciously) was when I actually saw simplified characters. The traditional/simplified gulf seems so vast to me that if Taiwan wants to be different soooo badly that they stick to fantizi, they deserve their own government and stuff. They've done everything they can to prove that they don't want to be part of the PRC, so I think the least they deserve is maintenance of the status quo until the PRC changes dramatically (or collapses). I still think all their military parades and stuff are kind of cute, though. And the protest where they formed a chain of people across the entire width of the island was just precious. So I guess, while I don't think, deep down, that Taiwan is part of China, all the things they do to provoke the PRC seem sort of unnecessary, I guess, for lack of a better word. I should probably visit Taipei and stuff before passing such sweeping judgments, I realize, and this is certainly the year to do it. But I figure a good first step was falling for the same trap that that anonymous Hong Kong student did, in order for Andy Lau to demonstrate his patriotism.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

some excerpts from other people's writing

From Saul Bellow, Herzog (1964), I'd been meaning to write this down someplace, and I know I read it as the epigraph to another book, somewhere else (maybe one of the ones Sophia recommended?):

"In substance, however, he understood that she was trying to teach him something and he was trying (the habit of obedience to teaching being so strong in him) to learn from her. But how was he to describe this lesson? The description might begin with his wild internal disorder, or even with the fact that he was quivering. And why? Because he let the entire world press upon him. For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs."

I want to draw attention to, and then table, the characterization of urban violence as "barbarism," which strikes me as an unnecessary invocation of racial slur-stereotypes. It sucks, and I thought about omitting the sentence with a careful ellipsis, but did not. It is what it is--the character is in a specific time/space/class setting and it sucks, but it's there. The character is hardly sympathetic, and the shadow of racialized paranoia only makes him less so. Anyway. I saw Herzog as trapped, throughout his daily life, by academia, its mode of inquiry and critique. As is most directly illustrated in the excerpt, he overthinks his every interaction and relationship through the lens of Big Questions. I have to say, I've been guilty of the same, and when my ratio of thought-time to doing-stuff-time passes some ill-defined threshold, the places my mind ends up are generally disconcertingly disconnected from reality. Part of the value of that Liberal Arts Education we got in college is being made aware of such questions. And part of living a life that will have a positive impact on the people it touches requires some level of conscientiousness, being mindful of the message our actions broadcast to the world beyond their direct consequences. But having to answer to Big Questions whenever you make a decision forces us into inaction, Herzog into what is almost certainly a clinical-level mental disorder. The most important thing I have to learn is how to stay closer to the balance point, avoid oscillating between extremes of uncritical living and overcritical paralysis.


In contrast, from this summer, Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear (recommended by Ada):

"When you look at the surface of the ocean, you can see waves coming up and going down. You can describe these waves in terms of high or low, big or small, more vigorous or less vigorous, more beautiful or less beautiful. You can describe a wave in terms of beginning and end, birth and death...
Looking deeply, we can also see that the waves are at the same time water. A wave may like to seek its own true nature. The wave might suffer from fear, from complexes. A wave may say, "I am not as big as the other waves," "I am oppressed," "I am not as beautiful as the other waves," "I have been born and I have to die." The wave may suffer from these things, these ideas. But if the wave bends down and touches her true nature, she will realize that she is water. Then her fear and complexes will disappear.
Water is free from the birth and death of a wave. Water is free from high and low, more beautiful and less beautiful. You can talk in terms of more beautiful or less beautiful, high or low, only in terms of waves."

There is very little I can add to this. Maybe the suggestion to read it aloud.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

the mystery deepends

Remember when I said my email at work was "samuel@ied.edu.hk" because they must only have one samuel who has ever worked here?

Well, I just tried to email something to myself in outlook. I typed "samuel" into the "to:" field, pressed the "verify name/email address" button, and came up with six matches, six people in the system THIS TERM named Samuel, both staff and students.

I guess on the one hand it's a little like special treatment, but on the other, it makes me feel really unprofessional.

Monday, October 01, 2007

humility is

... putting in my retainers I-don't-know-how-long since last time

... trying to fix my hair in the mirrored glass in the back of the elevator (it needs a trim), then remembering all the elevators have security cameras

... getting laughed at by a KFC employee. My request for a side substitution in my family bucket meal was shut down by her manager, and she laughed at me. And clapped, as one does after hearing something particularly funny. And her name, according to her name tag, was Onion

... saving the text message on my phone that I sent to Diana, which says, "You were totally right about the squids only being on NES mario" to remind me that I can be completely wrong about arguments that I get stubborn over