Hong Kong Blog Day 6

StartFragment

Between the material and spiritual worlds

I had another day on my own.  I had been in Hong Kong 6 days now and was in a definite rhythm.  Everything about the city seemed to agree with me—the food, the people, the transportation—well, except for the pollution.  The day started out foggy and the air was quite hazy and polluted for the entire day.  No Peak again today.  With that in mind, I decided to visit the Jade Market and perhaps make a few purchases for myself and family and friends.  I was desperately behind in getting gifts and souvenirs for loved ones.

I took the MTR from Mongkok to Yau Ma Tei.  The neighborhood is very traditional Chinese  and apparently mostly working-class.  A total contrast to the business district I had visited in Central or the fancier parts of Tsim Sha Tsui I had seen the day before.  There were a lot of traditional shops, as well as markets selling fresh fruits and vegetables in temporary stalls and a more permanent fish and meat market. 

I also passed a carpenter’s shop where a carpenter was working on what looked like a shelf with hooks on it.  When I tried to speak to the carpenter in Cantonese, he responded in perfect British-accented English.  He looked to be in his 50s and obviously was educated in English-speaking schools in his youth.  His English was much better than that of the most of the 20-something shop girls who tried (and usually failed)  to speak intelligible English with me around town. 

I also passed shops selling incense and the paper offerings that are burnt for the dead, such as Hell Money, paper figurines of people, cars, houses and gold ingots.  I bought the best incense in the house at one shop and every time I burn it, I am immediately transported back to the temples I visited in Hong Kong for it is the same sandalwood smell that permeates every temple.

I eventually stumbled on the Jade Market under a highway overpass. 

It is housed in two sheds, one quite long and the other smaller, filled chock-a-block with all manner of jade and other jewelry items.

The Jade Market did have a lot of jade, though much of it was of questionable quality.  As I am no expert on jade, I limited myself to purchases of inexpensive items of ethnic costume jewelry rather than pretending I would be buying any high quality jade jewelry. 

The first thing I bought wasn’t even jade, it was an yixing teapot.  I started speaking to the owner of the stall in my limited Cantonese, though the courses I had taken had stressed numbers, asking how much things cost and bargaining, perfect for a trip to the Jade Market.  I pointed to one of the teapots decorated like a woven bamboo basket and said that I had one of those at home.  So the stall owner realized that I actually knew what I was looking at and showed me a very whimsical teapot that is decorated with goldfish for the feet, a goldfish on top of the cover and, a charming touch, a goldfish visible inside the teapot when you open the lid and look down inside.  The first price she offered me was already one-half off the label on the piece, and we got it down even further.  I ended up paying around $20 US, which is an excellent price for such a teapot.  It isn’t the top of the crop (that would have set me back $50 US or much more) but, for what it is, it is very reasonably priced and well made.

With the teapot in my bag, I moved on to purchasing some jewelry.  I bought a heavy black jadeite bangle and some hanging knots decorated with stone and cinnabar pendants.  I picked up some bracelets of jadeite beads, a pretty green and rust colored ring, a very nice Guanyin pendant (which has elicited a great deal of interest from every Chinese woman who has seen it), a Yunnan-style silvered-nickel bracelet decorated with fish and bells, as well as some cloisonné bangles.

I hadn’t brought a lot of cash with me, and most vendors took only cash (and who would want to leave credit card numbers in a public market anyway?), and so my visit to the Jade Market was coming to a close as I was about out of money and needed to recharge my wallet as well as drop off the purchases back at the hotel room before heading out to lunch.

It was just my luck that the last stall I came upon as my wallet was almost drained had some of the best non-jade jewelry I had seen that day.  This vendor specialized in Tibetan turquoise, coral and silver pieces, as well as jeweled pendants with Tibetan-style Buddhist deities.  What really caught my eye was a group of heavy silver and turquoise necklaces decorated with seed pearls and spiny oyster shell.  I asked the shopkeeper for the price of one of the nicer turquoise and coral pendants.  He took the pendant and put it on a scale to get some idea of how much silver was in it and based his price accordingly.  Looking at the necklace, I could see that it was a beautiful piece, worth bidding at least $50 US (and it was probably worth around $75 US).  I had far less in my wallet and refused to insult the seller with a meager offer.  I told him I was out of money but that his piece was very nice.  Then, reluctantly, I left.

On my way back to the MTR, I visited the Tin Hau Temple. 

You could smell the incense from the street.  The temple consists of a main central chapel and several side chapels.  I saw that in one of the side chapels a woman was fashioning large (4 ft tall) bamboo and paper figures that were being painted to look like a phalanx of people that in a few days time (for Chingming Festival or a funeral) would be burnt as an offering for the dead. 

I respected the posted signs that said "do not take photographs inside temple" and so I don't have any of my own.  I was able, however, to find some nice pictures of the interior of the various sanctuaries at  www.arrakeen.ch/asia2006/hongkong.html 

There was a furnace adjacent to one of the other chapels that had received offerings earlier that day.  There was also a model of a two-storey house out in front of one of the side chapels that was painted to look like a brick house and contained interior walls, rooms and even furniture like a doll house, but made entirely of bamboo and painted paper.  This sizable model (at least 4 ft tall) would also be burned shortly.

When I walked inside the chapels, in particular the main chapel with its heavy coils of incense burning and the altars filled with Buddhist and Daoist images, lighted lamps and offerings of fruit and flowers, I was simply overwhelmed by the spiritual power of the place.  It was akin to what I had felt the day before in the Art Museum, only even more concentrated and focused on the areas where people routinely worshipped.  There was a veritable vortex of spiritual power focused on this temple.  It was so powerful that I once again was practically in tears I was so moved..  To remain composed, I had to retreat from the temple and go back outside into the courtyard in front of the temple, furnished with benches and tables filled with local residents playing games and chatting.  Like all good religious institutions, this temple also functioned like a community center for the local citizenry.

After dropping off my purchases at the hotel, I decided to head over to Central and the IFC Center in search of Basil Pao’s exhibition that juxtaposed the walls of China with the Yi Jing.  After arriving in the IFC Center, I had some trouble finding the exhibition space at the Rotunda in Exchange Square.  The first few people that I asked didn’t know what I was talking about and even the person at the helpdesk didn’t realize that there was an exhibition by this artist going on in the complex.  She sent me over to the stock exchange building and, after a trip up to the second floor, passing water cascading down natural cut stone walls, I came upon the exhibition. 

Some very nice young women met me, apparently Basil’s assistants, who took me around the compact exhibition.  I had the opportunity to meet the artist who was there that day, and he took out some time to explain to me a bit about the exhibition.  He explained that he had been traveling to China for a number of years and photographing close-ups of its walls so that they resembled abstract impressionist paintings.  He had also been studying the Yi Jing for many years, but only recently had seen how to combine the images with the Yi Jing ideograms and written interpretation.  Danny Chau ( http://www.alivenotdead.com/dannychau)  had printed the pictures for the exhibition and also for the book that was published in conjunction with the exhibition.  I told Basil that I had not seen anything in the press or even on the internet about the exhibition, that the only way I knew about it was because Danny had told me about it at the previous night’s dinner.  The artist told me that was intentional on his part, he wanted people to come to the exhibition solely through word-of-mouth.

After a delightful time spent at the exhibition, it was time to go back to the MTR and travel over to the Hung Hom station to meet AnD artist Gary Gibbons (World Worm Studios  http://www.alivenotdead.com/WorldWormStudio, Whole Nine Yards  http://www.alivenotdead.com/wholenineyards) and his wife, Astor.  We were pretty early for dinner and had the restaurant virtually to ourselves.  As always when dining with locals, I asked them to order for me in order to get what they knew was good.  I’m pretty open to trying new things, especially if I know that they are tasty and well-prepared.  I was not disappointed with the dinner, which had a number of Shanghainese dishes such as steamed buns and tofu with vegetables and shrimp roe.  I’m a big fan of tofu and was never disappointed in a tofu dish as I ate while in Hong Kong.

We talked a lot about the arts in Hong Kong, I told Gary and Astor about the two art exhibits I had seen in the past two days and also the Zuni Icosahedron production of Flee By Night.  When I mentioned my attempts to try to meet Anthony Wong (Wong Yiu Ming aka Ming Gor) at People Mountain People Sea, Gary told me that he had done quite a bit of work for People Mountain People Sea.  Gary knew Ming Gor and had worked with him in the past.  How ironic, for here was the second person in less than a week who knew Anthony.  Obviously, it was not in the cards for me to meet Anthony Wong on this trip or it would have happened effortlessly.  Instead, I just had to be satisfied with some stories about Ming Gor.  Gary promised to tell Anthony that I was his biggest US fan (which makes me quite an oddity) and to direct him to my Alive Not Dead blog where in the past I have posted a thing or two about Ming Gor (such as my (in)famous “Geek Chic Blog”  http://www.alivenotdead.com/mariejost/Geek-Chic-Daniel-Wu-and-Anthony-Wong-have-it-Johnny-Depp-doesn-t--profile-491534.html or a comparison of one of Anthony's songs with one of Villa-Lobos Bachianas  http://www.alivenotdead.com/mariejost/Did-one-inspire-the-other--profile-542762.html).

After finishing dinner, the three of us took a little walk around the neighborhood, chatting as we went and ended up in a shop specializing in sweet soup for a little bit of dessert.  Both Gary and I ordered a mango and pommelo concoction that was quite tasty.

It was time to get back to the hotel and rest while I could.  I had been on my feet all day, every day for the past 5 days.  The next day would begin the 3-day Leslie Cheung commemoration festivities and I anticipated long days and nights with few hours of sleep.

As I went to bed that night, I marveled at another fabulous day in Hong Kong coming to an end, with three more days filled with activities now focused more and more on Leslie Cheung to come.  The next night would see my reunion with many of my Leslie friends that I had met earlier in my stay and the addition of some new acquaintances.  This trip to Hong Kong was definitely all about the people I was meeting and the times I was sharing with them and only secondarily about places and tourist sites.  I was still seeing enough of the city, just not primarily as a tourist.  As I settled into the rhythm of the city, this seemed to be a quite natural way to experience Hong Kong.  The breakneck pace of being on the go from morning until late night seemed effortless and invigorating in a way I had never experienced before.  Usually, by this point in a trip I needed a “down day” to recharge, but this trip didn’t require naps, down time or even much sleep.  Yes, Hong Kong was definitely agreeing with me.  Besides, when I got home I would have plenty of time to sleep.

EndFragment