I (Matthew) was fortunate enough to have been sent to China over the past two weeks for work. I have a lot of people that I want to share pictures with and figured that this blog was the best place to do it. So, for once, I will be making a post.
Here I am at the San Fransisco airport just before our 13 hour flight to Hong Kong. I figured that studying a few Cantonese phrases wouldn't be a bad idea in the down time.
Here I am at the San Fransisco airport just before our 13 hour flight to Hong Kong. I figured that studying a few Cantonese phrases wouldn't be a bad idea in the down time.
Here I am with my boss, Joyce. Behind us is Hong Kong bay. We had just enjoyed dinner with the CFO of our China operations in a really nice club.
Here is another picture of Hong Kong bay at night. It looks a little blurry, but that is because of all of the air pollution and the heavy fog at night. The lights of the buildings and the very crowded streets reminded me a lot of Tokyo.
The streets of Hong Kong are full of every type of store you could imagine. Everything from Coach (above) and Chanel to little "mom and pop" style restaurants.
Here is an interesting picture I took of an alley above the "party street" of Hong Kong. I just thought it was a interesting contrast of light. You can't tell very well in this picture but the street below is PACKED with people.
During my trip, I stayed in both Hong Kong and in a 'little" town in mainland China called Foshan. Both hotels I stayed in were amazing. The picture above is in the lobby of the Hong Kong hotel, "The Royal Garden".
This is the lobby of the hotel in Foshan, the "Golden Sun".
We had dinner in a lot of interesting places. Here is a pretty popular area called "Rat Alley." It is just an alleyway that is surrounded by all kinds of small kitchens whose waiters come around and try to get you to order their food. I had some amazing Thai food, but there was also Korean, Indian, Chinese and Japanese. You may notice all of the white people here. Hong Kong is FULL of ex-patriots from England and America. When I was in Foshan, I saw maybe two other white people and they worked for my company. I guess that has something to do with China's reluctance to let outsiders within their borders. White people are called "Gwilo" which means "White Ghost".
Here is a view from my hotel in Foshan. Directly below the hotel were nice, expensive single family homes. Across the river are the run down, neglected and dirty apartments that most Chinese people live in. There is a HUGE wealth gap in that country. Strangely, those who work for the government make all of the money.
Here is a picture form our plant with our company's flag and the Chinese flag.
I spent the first full weekend exploring Hong Kong with Joyce, who actually used to live there. The following are just a bunch of pictures I took of the amazing architecture and beautiful parks we found.
At the top of a peak above Hong Kong there was a wax museum. I found this guy and taught him some of my sweet Kung Fu moves. He was pretty impressed.
Here is a cemetery in Hong Kong.
Above is a funny stencil graffiti that I came across. Not sure what they are trying to say about "Hello Kitty".
Above is graffiti showing the former president of Hong Kong, who most people felt was a shill for the Chinese government. Those who live in Hong Kong do not exactly feel like Chinese citizens and resent them in a lot of ways. I worked with a team of auditors from Hong Kong and heard a lot about their views of the "mainlanders".
This was a picture I took from inside of a Buddhist temple in Hong Kong. As you might imagine, I didn't see anything like this in mainland China. The stuff hanging from the ceiling is incense. As you walk around, the ash drops on you and is considered to be holy/lucky.
Here is a paining of Mao I thought was interesting in Foshan. It was interesting to be around people who see him as a hero after living in America most of my life.
Hong Kong was full of markets of every type. Above was a street where some very poor, old people laid out their blankets and were selling old shoes, clothing, kitchen utensils and other junk.
Above is the entrance to Temple Street Market. It is lined with all kinds of vendors selling everything from high quality jade jewelry and antiques to knock-off watches and purses.
This is the Jade Market. It is a heavily guarded tent with a ton of merchants selling everything you could ever want made out of jade. Everything is negotiable here and I am pretty sure I was taken on everything I bought. Since I had fun and everything was comparatively cheap to the US, I have a hard time feeling too bad about it.
Here is another place called Stanley Market, similar to Temple Street, but geared more to tourists.
This is a picture from a huge open air meat market we stumbled upon. Notice the pig heads hanging from the table...yumm.
I ate A LOT of food over this trip. I figured out pretty quickly that what passes for Chinese food here in the States is nothing like the real thing. I never saw anything like sweet and sour chicken or sesame tofu. Not too surprising.
The plant I was auditing provided a meal to everyone at lunch. It was pretty much the same thing everyday and was...interesting. It generally consisted of really fatty meat (chicken, fish, or pork) complete with bone shards and gristle in a brown ginger based sauce. We always had some steamed vegetable on top and rice. I never really ate the soup because I always found "interesting" pieces of meat floating in it.
Here I am at a Korean BBQ restaurant. I am eating fried cow tongue. Actually pretty tasty.
Whenever we ordered chicken in Foshan, the platter always came with the cooked chicken's head. Didn't always do much for the appetite.
One of the restaurants we went to allowed you to pick out the animals you wanted to eat. The main room was like a zoo. It included fish of every type, bunnies (above)...
....every kind of bird you could think (or not) to eat....
...water beetles and eels.....
...snakes...
...alligators...
...and even bamboo rats (notice the yummy cigarette butt on the floor). It all actually tasted really good if you didn't think about the fact that you personally sentenced your dinner to death a few minutes earlier. Freshest meat I have ever eaten.
Even though I fell in love with China/Hong Kong, after two weeks I really missed my beautiful wife and two kids. I am glad to be back, but want to go back (with family this time) as soon as possible.
