It's Chanukah (光明節, or חנוכה in the original), so latkes (which are like potato versions of 油端子) and jam doughtnuts (aka sufganiyot [סופגניות]) are required for degustation. Latkes is probably a little too hard to find in Hong Kong, but how about doughnuts?
[below is a picture of 油端子 followed by one of latkes; the similarity is uncanny, right?]
As is explained in the Talmud [NB. this might not be true], Chanukah doughnuts must not have a hole in the middle and they must be full of strawberry or raspberry jam. Something like this:
A recipe to have a good time at home by yourself in Hong Kong (Christmas Eve edition!) while suffering from rhinopharyngitis (rhinorrhoea optional but recommended for the complete experience):
1) Go to your local favourite purveyor of pharmaceuticals. Watsons would be a mainstream choice in Hong Kong, so that is where I went today. This helps ensure that Li Ka-Shing makes even more money than he already has. For advanced chefs: Don't forget to take your Watson's card! You will receive discounts seemingly, or possibly actually, at random; you will also receive points that expire at random intervals. It's basically a totally random experience.
2) Buy the following items:
The Hong Kong dollar is a strange currency, although given how most
governments (sorry, central banks) run their currencies perhaps it
would be better if it was the norm.
This interview with the author of a new book about “Chinese people’s views of pornography and sexual identity” (‘People’s Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet’, published by Intellect Books) is interesting as far as it goes, although as usual in much of academia, the unnecessary and unsupported generalisations — although given in an academic faux-qualified and faux-authoritative tone — are legion.
I mention it on this blog because of this section of the interview concerning Hong Kong:
CNNGo: How do attitudes towards sex differ between Hong Kong and mainland China?
Jacobs: People in Hong Kong recognize Western discourses [on sexuality] more but they are still extremely shy about participating, almost squeamish.
On the mainland people are often more open to expressing themselves. I think Hong Kongers are repressed, actually.
CNNGo: Why do you think that is?
Jacobs: People who are interested in sex seem to be stigmatized here. To have a good sex life is not an important value in Hong Kong.
I strongly doubt the author, a Katrien Jacobs, has any evidence for this being the case. She’s already shut out criticism by claiming that the reason for any negative reactions to her research is (as the interviewer paraphrased it) because “taboos die hard in a restricted society”. That may be so, but taboos about academics being rigorous researchers and not scurrilous mythmakers are worth holding on to, in my doubtless patriarchal opinion.
For the record, it is extremely easy to obtain pornography here from street-side magazine stalls, let alone online. And of course there’s the (in)famous Sex and Zen film which outgrossed [and not just in the money sense] Avatar in Hong Kong. Ironically, if you’re still confused, it needed to be cut in the UK before its cinema release there. Would Ms. Jacobs say Brits are sexually repressed? Maybe she wouldn’t be wrong…
I have been doing some research of my own into the obscenity legislation in Hong Kong — much of which is based on old British law and is indeed somewhat puritanical — which I will report on soon. There’s even a hilarious government-endored anti-obscenity site to reveal to you! [I have too much free time, clearly].
You can tell something about a place and how it’s viewed by others by the phrases in different languages that use its name. ‘Shanghai’ used to be a verb meaning “to kidnap”; ‘Afghanistanism’, in turn, a noun meaning —– as the sublime Oxford English Dictionary puts it —– a “Preoccupation (esp. of journalists) with events far distant, as a diversion from controversial issues at home”. These usages have obviously both been rendered obsolete with time, unfortunately so in the latter case…
I was intrigued by how Hong Kong is portrayed and reflected in its non-city-specific usages in (sometimes old-fashioned) English. Here are the phrases I’ve come across so far:
I’ll put any more phrases on this page as I come across them.
Apparently “Hong Kong” was also a croquet term referring to when an opponent’s ball was sent (presumably within the laws of the game) to a far-off corner of the ground (or beyond it). And of course “go to Hong Kong” was used an equivalent of “go to hell” at some point, according to the OED, although I can’t imagine being asked to go anywhere nicer…
Pet owners on the island are on the alert after at least six animals have died from eating bait suspected to have been laced with a powerful weed killer Pet owners on Lamma Island fear a dog poisoner is on the loose after at least six animals died in the past three weeks.
One owner, who lost a chow [GinHK: What the hell is a chow? Isn’t that something edible?], said yesterday that the actual figure was more than 10 because some cases had not been reported and the owners had decided to bury their dead pets. The Lamma Animal Welfare Centre is warning all dog owners to be on the alert. Centre chairwoman Elizabeth Huang said the dogs died after apparently eating bait laced with poison in either Yung Shue Long or around the fire station in Yung Shue Wan.
“We believe the poison was sprayed on meat left out on the street. It was a deliberate act,” Huang said. Dr Hans de Vries of the Lamma Veterinary Clinic said he had come across three poisoning cases involving seven dogs in the past two to three weeks. Six out of the seven died and the remaining one was dying.
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a...
PET owners on Lamma claim their dogs are being poisoned as part of a hate campaign by locals. One animal lover says she can no longer bear to stay on the island after two of her dogs were killed last week.
‘'I cannot stay with this much hatred and violence,’‘ said the woman, who wished to remain anonymous. ’‘I have lived in Hong Kong for 22 years and I have never felt so threatened.’‘ Lamma police have set up a series of meetings with village headmen to try to defuse the situation, while the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is campaigning for paraquat, a herbicide used to poison the dogs, to be banned from the territory.
‘'I came to Lamma seven years ago because I valued the nature and friendly atmosphere here, but that has all changed,’‘ said the woman.
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.06f0b401397a029733492d9253a0a0a...
I’ve put up a few historical quotes about Jews or Jewish things by Chinese people, including Sun Yat-sen / Sun Zhongshan, here. They’re quite jarring from a modern perspective, especially if one is ignorant (as I am) of how Jews were used by the Chinese intelligentsia as a projection for their fears and plans, but also because one forgets there was a time when Yiddish was considered the “modern” language and Hebrew the “old”.
I hope to add to keep adding to the list as I come across more worthy quotes… Send some along if you know of any!
I can't write much about Hong Kong if I'm not in Hong Kong, so I will
be returning on Monday after a month-long cognitive dissonance session
at its former coloniser, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland.
PDF here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1121650/00392173.pdf
Original article here: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=392173
And the citation information for the article, because you know you're going to need it, is:
