From the "Path of Wisdom".....to Craziness

August 21, 2007 - Day 3 in Hong Kong/Day 1 in Shenzhen

The great thing about hostels, even the one in HK that was lacking in basic necessities such as food, is that you meet young people from all over the world, which is particularly cool if you're traveling alone. The first night, I talked for awhile with two girls, one from the UK and the other from Greece. The second night, I hung out with three Aussies, a German guy, and two Dutch girls, and got up before 8am the next morning with two of the Aussies to walk the "Path of Wisdom," which we had all seen signs for on the path up to the hostel.

I'm not sure what it says about the pursuit of wisdom that the path was rather short, but it ended at a point with lots of tall, thin, pole-like pieces of wood with Chinese characters carved into them (see pictures on facebook). I'm sure the view would have been magnificent if the mountain hadn't been enshrounded in fog. It still allowed for some cool pictures. Anyway, after reading the tourist information, we learned that the characters were the text to the Heart Sutra, which is a holy text of Buddhism I believe. The text sounded interesting, but it was overshadowed in my mind by the fact that these wooden poles were created in 2002 if I remember correctly by some guy from Hong Kong who found the Heart Sutra interesting. He also layed them out in the shape of an infinity sign (yes, the math one that looks like an upside down 8). I was less than impressed by the results of my quest for wisdom.

I spent the rest of the day seeing other tourist attractions on Lantau Island. I saw the 天坛大佛, the largest sitting Buddha in the world. This Buddha was also created rather recently - the early 1990s - and while I'm very skeptical of tourist sites that I assumed to have historical significance that were created during my lifetime, the Buddha seemed more authentic, as it housed a relic of the real Buddha, donated from another monastery. I also ate at the vegetarian restaurant at the monastery on the mountain. While it was expensive, each person is given a ton of food - spring rolls, vegeatables, and tofu - all of which was delicious. Finally, I took a bus with the German guy and Dutch girls to a fishing village on the other side of the island (pictures also on facebook). We paid for a boat ride that promised us dolphin sitings that of course did not occur, but the ride was fun anyway, as the scenary was beautiful and they toured us through parts of the fishing village, which provide a great contrast with life on Hong Kong island and Kowloon, which are both full of high rises of expensive apartments and even huge houses if you go far enough out. The houses in the fishing village are built on stilts above the water but out of thin material which barely looks like it could stand a thunderstorm let alone a typhoon. Hong Kong may have a per capita GDP to rival most developed countries and an image of a cosmopolitan city, but that does not mean there was no one left behind.

My Peter Hessler Moment

After taking the light rail across the border to Shenzhen, I had what I call a "Peter Hessler moment." Hessler was a Peace Corps volunteer in the mid-1990s in central China, and he has since written a book about his experiences as well as another book about life in China. I measure the "China-ness" of my experiences by how many "Peter Hessler moments" I have. To me, he is the source of all wisdom for foreigners living in China; it was in his book that I learned that the people outside subway stops saying "fa piao" are asking for receipts that they can sell to party members who can get reimbursed for the receipts.

Anyway, I was sitting outside of the Shenzhen train station, trying to figure how to get to the hostel that I had booked. An older man sat down next to me and started asking me questions. Then he told me that his wallet was stolen and he needed to get back to Hong Kong. He didn't outright ask for money, and as I was pretty tired, I didn't even really catch on that that was what he wanted. He did ask to borrow my phone, which I let him do, but when I still didn't give him money, he said, "Oh you must not have much," and then finally left. Half a minute later, a woman who had been sitting nearby asked if I had given him money. When I said, "no," she said, "Good, he's a liar. He hangs around here going back and forth telling people stories to get money from them." The reason this is a Peter Hessler moment is that he mentions that on multiple occassions, he has had people tell him "Oh that was a thief," after the person leaves the vicinity. So while Chinese people warn him about thieves (or warn me about pian ren, or liars), they do so after ther person leaves, which is helpful...but not really.

However, the craziness that I refer to in the title does not refer to the guy at the train station, but a woman in my hostel room. I was warned about her by the third resident - a Chinese American from California. This woman is probably in her late thirties and planned to stay in the hostel in Shenzhen for a month, which was evident by the fact that she had basically moved into the room. The whole idea of staying in Shenzhen for a month is beyond me; Shenzhen is a soul-less city where Chinese migrants go for jobs that pay better than the ones they can find back home. I have now spent about a total of about 18 hours there and have no desire to spend more, even though the city does have a distinct influence from Hong Kong, in that the subways are clean and an almost exact copy of the HK MTR, people generally dress better, and are more polite (at least on the subway). Anyway, my only interaction with the crazy woman was brief, but basically confirmed what the girl had told me. The woman banged furiously on the door around 1:30am, waking me up because her key didn't work. She then preceded to tell me about one of the former residents of the hostel room, a Chinese girl, who this woman claimed was her one Chinese friend even though she had spent two years in China. Apparently this girl, used to boil water from the tap to drink, which appalled crazy woman, who claimed that no one in Shanghai boiled tap water to drink because they knew it was not safe. (I can assure you that there are people who drink boiled tap water in Shanghai, though they might not have been a part of this woman's ciricle of ex-pat friends. Furthermore, I survived five months last year of drinking 开水，boiled water, in Beijing). This whole one-sided conversation took place in a frenetic voice that quickly jolted me out of my sleepy state and made it impossible for me to go back to sleep for another half hour. Thankfully, I had to leave Shenzhen early the next morning.