Made In China

January 9th, 2008

“Relax, we took the test already” she said.

Sixty days. We celebrated our 60 day anniversary of landing on communist soil January 3rd by heading to Hong Kong, a strangely free (only because it makes money—lots of money) collection of islands and swamps to revalidate our Visas. Every 2 months we must leave the main motherland and head for either another country altogether or a self governing, self administrating area, which there are only 2 of in/out of this nation, Hong Kong and Macau. It is quite confusing though, because Hong Kong and Macau are considered SAR’s, or Special Administrative Regions, and are left to governing themselves, yet there are a few more Self Autonomous Regions as well, also SAR’s, who are clearly not independent. These other SAR’s feel the lovely effects of Chinese infrastructure development, no existing zoning rules for development, poorly managed tourism and horrible pollution standards. Tibet and Xinjiang, are the two ‘other’ SARs, the latter being a province larger than the State of Alaska. And like Alaska to Washington Republicans and oil mongers, Xinjiang is highly prized by those in Beijing for its vast oil reserves.

Anyway…

Another lovely night in the incredibly personality-less and young city of Shenzhen left us with sore backs after sleeping on hardened slabs touted as beds. About 25 years ago, in preparation for the Hong Kong handover, and also to reap some of the then present benefits of the close neighboring British colony, the Chinese government decided to build a city where previously only fishing villages existed. They classified it as another S-acronymed entity, this time a Special Economic Zone, and set about bulldozing fill into the swamps bordering the Hong Kong territories, and raising uniformly ugly high rise apartment buildings to house their future armies of workers. Kiss green hills sloping down to the South China Sea’s lapping waves goodbye, and say hello to another beehive belching noxious, choking exhaust fumes and bordered by garbage laden beaches. In the course of 25 years, Shenzhen has grown from 310,000 indigenous fisherman to nearly 10 million Han Chinese workers. Puts Las Vegas and Phoenix, those equally bizarre, bulging cities in nowhere, to shame. I make it sound so lovely, don’t I?

We took the early morning ferry over to Honk Kong from Shenzhen arriving at the Star Ferry Terminal around 10am. After carting our luggage thru the subway and finding our hotel on the north end of Hong Kong Island, we set out to explore. IN our minds, the first thing we wanted to find was comfort food to take home and bookstores with English print books. Elizabeth is what I would consider a book junkie, she starts to quiver and drool if without a new book for over 2 days, which happens quite regularly seeing that she reads a 500 page novel in about 3 days. We succeeded in finding both macaroni and cheese and trashy novellas within the first few hours and then set our sights on finding good Pad Thai, one of our favorite delicatessens.

Over the next few days we explored the city and one of the outer islands, Lamma. Unfortunately, due to extremely false advertising, creating an extremely saddened author as Lamma island has no llamas to offer. Instead we had to suffer thru beautiful nature hikes, gorgeous beaches and rocky cliffs overlooking the South China Sea and fresh lobster for lunch. Not even a damn alpaca to speak of. That night we went out for more Thai food, another round of Pad Thai and some famous Thai Massaman Red Curry that causes me to drool whenever I think of it. Spicy…coconutty…creamy…oooooooooooh. After dinner and once we’d mopped up the mess my salivating glands had caused, we headed for a glass of wine at one of the many wine bars that inhabits SoHo in Hong Kong. A fine Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon for me and a dull Italian red for the lady. We agree on almost all wine choices with the exception of her love for some Italian reds…blaaa.

On the way home we stopped by the pharmacy and picked up a couple things.
“Wow those aren’t as expensive as I thought. How many do you have back at the apartment in Xi’an?”
“only a couple left. I used one 2 weeks ago and I told you nothing happened.”
“I know, but it’s weird don’t you think? I mean its been a while since you…”
“that will be 45 Hong Kong Dollars sir” the cashier said.

We made our way back to the Ibis North Point hotel and our closet sized room again for another night of marital bliss. As has been happening more often lately, while I was showering and readying for bed and for squirming beneath the covers with my wife, Elizabeth, my wife, the very one who was supposed to join in the festive squirming, decided it was best to shut her eyes. Upon my marvelous and sensual exit from the steaming bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, I found myself in the company what sounded to be an animate assemblage of raging chainsaws. As I rounded the corner, squeezing past the bed frame into the smurf sized room I found my chainsaw asleep under the covers. Even turning on the television and finding comical Chinese pornography ( I know most would disagree about the comical value of pornography, or value whatsoever, but when you see a Chinese woman in construction boots and bunny ears being spanked endlessly by a team of giggly and bubbly Chinese men, as she feigns and makes really bizarre noises, I, at least got a good laugh at it) the lovable, beautiful chainsaw kept cutting away. Ah, marital romance at its finest. I nudged her, and the motor quit finally, probably running out of oil.

Elizabeth claims adamantly that women do not snore, and especially not her. Instead, some women, yet again-not her, ‘snortle’, which is a far cry from the boisterous and rude thing that only men do while they snooze. I claim that while I agree some men, my grandfather included, can take snoring to new horizons, what she does, which she denies, is far from her dainty definition of ‘snortling’.
In the morning she emerged from the bathroom while I lay with the Hong Kong daily (no more Chinese spanking on the television) news on the bed. She handed me a white plastic thing that was strangely warm and that had evidently caused her much surprise.

“Look.” She said.
“I am.” I said.
“Umm…” she said.
“Yeah, ummm…really??” I asked. “How about one more?”
“Later.”
And I concluded our incredible conversation as any man would, with some not so longwinded words of wisdom. “OK”.

After reading up on all the great Hong Kong news for the day, we headed off for the legendary Kowloon Flower and Orchid market, where we marveled at the crazy colored orchids from around the world, all at very cheap prices. Blue, pink, ruby, yellow, white, plaid. All there, and all beautiful. Yet we kept looking at each other and saying profound things like “Wow” and “But…I thought…umm…wow, holy God, wow.” Most shop keepers surely thought our appreciation for orchids was immense.

Leaving the flower market street, we made our way thru the bird market, just to tempt the bird flu virus to have a go at us. As I suspected, it chickened out and stayed with its poultry friends instead. Every other cage full of sparrows and song birds was promised freedom via a breakout by Elizabeth as we made our way down the alley. The songs from the caged aviaries was incredible and deafening, yet beautiful at the same time. It reminded me of waking up in Durango during the spring and summer. Every morning I’d be awoken early not by an alarm clock or a needy dog (she’d have slept to noon if able) but by a choir of chickadees sitting on the aspen branches just outside my window next to my headboard. The robins on the lawn squawking at the juicy worm they just found and the swallows squeeking as they soared in and out of the nest I allowed them to plaster to my front door, it all added to the song. As I walked thru the market I kept thinking of this and how someday soon I hoped to awake to that very same harmonization of bird talk that would surely overpower the snortling beauty that was continuing to promise freedom to the jailed ouiselles. I pulled her thru as quickly as possible when the promises started sounding more and more real.

After the bird market Elizabeth was in dire need of a bathroom and a bite to eat. The only logical choice for a clean bathroom and some dirty grub? McDonalds of course—in Aisa. The golden arches don’t mean much to me in a foreign country besides a clean bathroom and some garbage food that will take your mind off of the shits you’ve acquired from unknowingly eating bad pickled duck’s intestines with a nice tangy ginger pork brain sauce. The clean bathroom is key though in China, as the vast majority of public and restaurant water closets out here are gaggingly disgusting. I pride myself on my previous skin diving experience every time I enter one of the foul rooms, taking a deep gasp of air just before submersion in vileness.

We both quickly disappeared into the bathrooms for some clean and wholesome relieving. When I emerged, expecting her to be longer, I established a space in the line to order her some French fries. A few moments later she came out, flushed with color, yet without a little white, plastic stick. She slowly approached, as I slowly approached the ordering counter. She came beside me and a sheepish smile crept on her face, and then onto mine as if strangely contagious. We stared at each other in an awkward silence for a few moments before her lips cracked open and she began to speak. The smile broadened.

“You’re going to be a D..”
“Can I take your order?” the McDonald’s counter clerk chirped.
“Medium fries to go please, that’s all” Elizabeth said, turning to the young girl.
“This means you’ll have to change the kitty litter from now on” she pointed out.
“DAMN! All well, me having to change the kitty litter is a small trade off! Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m going to be a D…”
“Here you are ma’am, medium fries! Any ketchup with those?”
“No thank you”

We look at each other and then one of us jokes:
“Think it’ll come with a Made In China sticker?”
“That’s fine, so long as it isn’t coated in lead based paint.”
Holy Shit. I’m going to be a Dad.