My people!

The Shanghainese, that is. It turns out that my co-worker's husband is from Shanghai. Hooray! I could chat with them yesterday in my mother tongue and it was so comfortable not to have to struggle with my lame Mandarin or worry about blank looks when faced with English language comments or questions. It really helped kill off some of my homesickness.

And by homesickness I mean the sense of dislocation which comes from living in a foreign country which has a difficult native language. I am so grateful that I retained at least some minimal Mandarin, and can understand a little Cantonese. (Shanghainese is not common here, although Meilee's husband tells me that there is an enclave of My People in the North Point area. Hmmm...) I cannot begin to imagine living here in HK without any Chinese knowledge.


Meilee and her husband were kind enough to take me hiking on Cheung Chau island yesterday. Not only was it refreshingly green, so unlike the hustle and bustle of Central or Lan Kwai Fong (a bar district which Meilee hilariously -- and accurately -- decribed as being "like Chinatown for gwailos") but it reminded me that there are relaxing activities to do once you escape from the office.




Being a public holiday, the commercial districts of Cheung Chau (reachable from HK Island via a 50-min. ferry ride) were overflowing with daytrippers like us. Long Island (the literal translation for Cheung Chau) reminded me of Coney Island or the Jersey shore back home: a seaside resort which is very casual. For dinner, we had fresh shrimp, fresh whole fish, and some other dishes involving fresh shrimp. REALLY fresh seafood, as in: swimming around earlier in the day.

No cars are allowed on the island, except for ambulances, so pedicabs are available. Hauling groceries uphill to the various homes perched on the mountainside must suck though. Jiming (my co-worker's husband) pointed out that you could potentially use bicycles, but everyone we ran into (as we wandered around lost, looking for the route back to the ferry) was on foot... carrying groceries.


The other "people" of mine are knitters: I wandered across a yarn shop yesterday stocked with Mondial yarn and a gazillion buttons.


I just happened to be looking into a commercial building while exploring a the "downtown district" and saw a "needlework shop" with what appeared to be a wall of yarn behind the window. I discovered that when properly motivated, I can dredge up my Mandarin. Heh. I found a street vendor on Li Yuen Street West (no, it's not referred to as West Li Yuen Street -- HK uses directional suffixes a la DC or Deattle) who was selling Patons yarn as well.