Learning To Skip Class

This past Wednesday I redeemed myself from a previous false start the week before.  On Wednesdays in Hong Kong admission is free to pretty much all museums, of which there are many. I had planned to go the week before, but the dreary, rainy weather made getting out of bed harder than I thought. Thankfully I was able to get myself to move, on a beautiful sunny Wednesday – the first time we have had a clear sunny day in over three weeks – it was worthy of celebration.

Even taking the MTR into TST in the late morning on a weekday is packed. I don’t understand what all these people were doing. Anyway, my plan was to get to the museum around noon and be able to get back for my 2:30 Accounting class.  But, I decided to take my sweet time and make it a nice full day.

In TST, right on the water are a cluster of museums – art, space and culture, and then a few blocks away are the history as well as some more obscure ones like naval defense. They all look brand new, and I can’t imagine are much more than 20 years old.

(Park around museums)

(HK Museum of Art)

(Was a beautiful day indeed)

The museum was 4 floors, each having a couple exhibits on it. Unfortunately, three of them were closed for renovations etc, but I was able to get through three of the bigger ones – a calligraphy and traditional art exhibit, a modern art and basically an entire floor dedicated to antiquities – pottery, sculpture and other ancient items.

My favorite was the antiquities one, just because it showcased so much about the culture and ways of the different dynasties over the thousands of years of Chinese history. It always amazes me how little we are taught in school about such a vibrant and successful civilization. I mean, think about it, they coexisted with the Egyptians, and are still around today – I can tell where the Chinese get a certain arrogance about their culture, and deservedly so. US history could fit into one of the dynastic periods, with plenty of room to spare. I had bought an audio guide, but it was ultimately not very good, but maybe less than 10% of the pieces had an audio piece associated with it. I would have liked to know more about some of the general themes etc, but I was definitely able to take away a lot from it.

(Statue of Buddha sitting on lotus flowers)

(Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro?)

(Ceramic, about the size of a deck of cards)

(Even smaller)

(Porcelain)

(China, literally)

(Snuff bottles. Held ground tobacco and spices that were snuffed by Chinese (imported from the West). Couldn't be kept in wood boxes like in the West because of China's humid climate)

(There was an interactive area where you could use the stampers on paper - this is a bat that represents good luck and well-being)

(Carved tiger-shaped pillow, yes, that's a pillow)

The second one I saw was the modern art exhibit, focused on the environment. Over my time here, I am amazed at how much better they are than us as a culture of environmentalism.  Clearly, China will need an excessively large amount of energy as it develops, but at least in HK, and I would imagine in China, there is just a better sense of conserving. Some examples: HK now charges about 0.08 US to use plastic bags everywhere. All the lights in my dorm are motion activated, and we have to pay for our AC – I have used both significantly less. And this building isn’t as new as some of the dorms at WashU – makes me wonder why we haven’t progressed like that.

Anyway, this exhibit had some cool art related to the environment in Hong Kong. The first thing you saw when you entered were these little folding plane things. There was a picture montage of a family in wedding attire playing with these things in a park. Basically, it folds into the shape of a human, but you can use it to sleep in, unfolded. The caption read something about creating portable beds for homeless people – that seemed a bit odd, also because I don’t perceive homelessness as being a big issue in HK. Another major part of the exhibit was a set of these tiny cots that apparently were used in many of the housing blocs as HK was expanding upwards. As I’ve mentioned, space is of the essence, and so these beds were great because you could fold them up (possibly into the wall) during the day to get more living space. They were definitely too small for me of course.

(Entrance to the exhibit)

(A lot of very thoughtful lines printed like this one around the exhibit)

(Folded up form on the far left - each size was for the mother, father, son and daughter)

(Caption for below pieces)

(Landfills, polluted beaches and construction eating up land)

(Definitely my favorite piece - TJ, I thought about asking to buy this for you)

My #3 was the calligraphy and “scroll art” exhibit. By “scroll art” I mean paintings and drawings that were done on some type of paper scroll and that hang usually. I realized that I really like this style of art and would like to get to hang something like that eventually. The main issues were twofold. One, I wasn’t “allowed” to take pictures. This always baffles me. If there’s no flash, and I’ve already paid (on a normal day) to enter the museum, how is this a problem? I can’t imagine it’s viewed as stealing or some infringement on intellectual property rights – it’s not like I can take a picture of something there, and digitally reproduce and sell it. My disobedience of this rule led the lady “security” guard to ask me a few times to stop taking pictures. Of course, creative as I am, I took some by just hanging my camera from my neck and casually clicking the shutter. Some of them came out pretty well actually. It was really funny though, because she was following me around the entire exhibit staring at me – I couldn’t help but laugh as I saw her peaking around corners at me.

(Sculpture of a famous Chinese calligraphy artist, made for the dedication of this exhibit in 1992)

 

(The detail here is really phenomenal, it was about 10 feet tall)

(One section of a 20ft long lying scroll)

(The other main problem with this exhibit was that it didn't translate the characters into English to understand, even though it was printed on the info plate in Chinese)

After the first exhibit, I realized that I would have to rush a bit to get back for class in time, so I decided not to. This felt great. As I alluded to early on, I have a lot of trouble cutting classes unless I’m traveling, and even then I try to avoid it. I have been institutionalized for the last 15+ years of schooling to not miss, so to get the balls to just blow class off felt great. I anticipate it might happen again, and I’m okay with this.

After getting through the museum, I enjoyed my time walking around TST on an absolutely beautiful day in Hong Kong before heading back home for some afternoon tutoring.

I definitely anticipate making this a weekly event, and I am already planning to go to the Space Museum this week with my friend Niclas.

Other Items

-I didn’t get to eat at my family friend Liat’s home for dinner the past two weeks.  Until recently, as I mentioned, this family had lived in Sri Lanka where the husband has a company that produces textiles, currently flower girl dresses. Now that they are in Hong Kong, the husband is often going back to Sri Lanka for the business, and has been down there the past two weeks because of some issues with the new product line and having to hire more people. These are the problems of owning your own business, but they are admirable problems to have. Anyway, Liat has promised that I will be there as soon as he’s back, hopefully this weekend.

-Late in the week I finally spoke to Howie Rudnick, who is residing in Cape Town for the semester. I hadn’t spoken with him since we drove home from St. Louis together in December, as he was in Korea, then I was in Hong Kong, and his internet has been shoddy in South Africa. It was so good to speak with him and know that he is in fact alive, and was definitely a highlight of my day.

-Graduation has been a news item here at CUHK the past few weeks. Confused? I still am too. First of all, I’ll note that the undergraduate degree here, as in most other countries, is a three-year program, so many of the students my year are graduating this year. This is very strange to me, and scares me a bit thinking about my own, dare I say it, graduation from WashU. 

The weirder thing is that the actual graduation ceremony is not until the fall semester, after people are out of school. This just seems stupid, as everyone will be doing something other than being around to go to this – apparently attendance is low, go figure. So, to make sure that they have pictures with everyone in cap and gown, they have Picture Days for each of the colleges. There are 4 colleges, United, Shaw, New Asia, and Chung Chi, which basically serve as administrative regions for all students, who are in one of these colleges. Each college has a small campus within the larger University, and has their own dorms, canteen, amenities center, gym facilities, library and academic buildings.  My guess is that people of a certain major are in each of the colleges to make it convenient to go to classes; I’m not 100% on this one though.

So they have these picture days on consecutive Fridays this month where they get up in cap and gown and take hundreds of pictures with one another. The funny part is that they all, guys and girls, receive huge, ridiculously large, bouquets of flowers, I think from parents. Also, they get huge stuffed animals. I will just let you marvel at this oddity, as I can offer no explanation.

(I stole these from facebook, they are not people I actually know. These weren't even the most ridiculous stuffed items)

(Even the flowers have stuffed flowers with them)

-The last interesting thing of the week was in my Chinese Film class, where we watched a movie called East Palace West Palace. Sounds pretty harmless right? Well, it turns out that this was one of the first Chinese films where homosexuality was openly discussed and viewed. The film was made in 1995, and it led to the banning of its director from producing film for three years (Note: all films used to be produced in state-owned studios, and heavily influenced by the government).

It was about the east and west gardens outside of the Forbidden City in Beijing, where at night becomes a gathering place for homosexuals. It was very interesting to see homosexuality portrayed in a Chinese context, but what was even more interesting, was the way the local students in my class reacted to the frequent homoerotic scenes. They would jeer and laugh and talk to each other as if it were the first time they had seen it and they were seven years old. I have to say I was surprised, but I guess it is viewed as a much bigger deal, even still, in their society and to one’s family than it has been in the US, at least at this time.