Returning the Favor

At lunch with my colleagues a few days ago, I learned that it is a very common practice in Hong Kong for adults to give a certain percentage of their salary to their parents each month. Basically the idea is that the parents have taken care of the child for 18-22 years, and therefore after they are done with schooling and are earning a salary, it is then their responsibility to take care of their parents (financially) when possible. It's like paying them back for helping to raise them. The figure my colleagues gave me was that usually the money given to the parents is around 20% of their salary (paid on a monthly basis).

So for example, an employee who earns HK$20,000 per month (US$2,500 - this is an average HK salary in my industry) would probably give around HK$2,000 (US$250) each month to their parents. Not a bad deal for the parents, eh? Hong Kong doesn't have social security like in the USA, but they have something similar that pays people a bit less (relatively speaking) than what people in the USA get each month after retirement.

The interesting thing is that my co-worker said that if she forgets to give her parents money one month, her mom is not afraid of calling her and asking where the money is! So I guess some parents need this money. Then when I asked my co-worker (who has 2 teenage children) if she expected her children to give her a monthly allowance when they get older, she said "no". The reason for this is that basically this system is kind of an old, traditional thing and that people growing up in today's day and age would not do this sort of thing. I'll have to ask around to some of my other local HK friends and see what their views are on this.

I guess this is all part of the fact that family bonds here are much closer than in the western cultures (the group comes before the individual in asian societies). I think it's kind of nice that the children take care of the parents when they can. I know that in many peoples' families in the west, children also take on financial and other responsibilities for their parents, but usually this only happens when the parents are much older and cannot care for themselves anymore.

Seoul Train

I spent last weekend on a quick holiday to Seoul. One of my friends was interested in going there, so we got a group of 4 together and decided to go just a few weeks ago. The only thing I really wanted to do was see the DMZ (demilitarization zone) between the border of North and South Korea. For some reason I've always had a fascination with North Korea (and in general other countries on George W's "axis of evil").

The DMZ tour was pretty good - we got to see some of the famous things like the tunnel the North Koreans dug that was discovered by the South Koreans in 1978. We also went to an observatory where we could actually see into North Korea. Our tour guide was a South Korean woman and while she gave some background on the many things that North Korea uses as propoganda to oppress their people, she was giving us some South Korean propoganda as well. For instance, when asked why the tunnel was so small (in height) she said that the North Koreans were shorter than the South Koreans because they are malnourished. While that might very well be true, I highly doubt there have ever been any studies done on the height of North Koreans as compared with South Koreans. And on and on it went like that. I would have liked to have gone to Panmunjon, which is the actual place where South Korean and US military stand facing the North Koreans at the actually border, but unfortunately tours are only given during weekdays, and we were only there for Saturday and Sunday.

Other highlights of Seoul included some interesting palaces, and some really great food. The traditional South Korean dish is called kimchi, which is basically cabbage with some spices on it. And the drink of choice is called soju, which is similar to rice wine. We ate a lot of street food - enough to make Anthony Bourdain jealous.

We also went to a show called Nanta, which is where the actors use cooking to perform and make rhythms (in a similar way to Blue Man Group). We got tickets to the show a few hours before the performance started, and we were given front row seats. Part of the show involved choosing some audience members to help out on stage, and they decided to pick me. I got to eat some soup alongside another audience member, who was a Japanese woman. The basic idea was that the cooks had made the soup and wanted to know if it was good. The Japanese woman next to me kept saying , "Oishi desu, oishi desu" which is Japanese for "it's delicious, it's delicious". The whole show was based around throwing a wedding, and lucky for me I got to be the groom, so at the end of the show the large slide projector in the back of the stage showed a picture of me and my Japanese bride smiling. Supposedly they're going to email me a picture of this, which I hope they do because it was absolutely amazing to see my grinning face on the huge screen of this show. Good times.

We also spent a lot of time shopping, which isn't usually my thing, but I happened to have travelled with some people who have good fashion sense, so they helped me pick out some good things for me and for some gifts.

Overall we liked Seoul - friendly people, good food, pretty easy to get around and use the subway, and best of all they had numerous Dunkin' Donuts stores - quite a treat for me!

Learn English...the Japanese Way!

One of my favorite websites - Asian Offbeat - often has the most interesting and unique stories about weird stuff going on in Asia. I've seen these before on YouTube, but today they posted 2 wickedly hilarious Japanese videos that are actually used for teaching English. Are you havin' a laugh? Is he havin' a laugh?

Oh yeah, and I changed the name of my blog to something a bit more interesting.

The Office & Improv Everywhere

The funny thing about this whole Writers Guild of America strike thing is that it doesn't affect me in the least. The shows we get over here in HK are from previous seasons anyways, so we never get any new shows, whether they're on in the USA or not. That being said, my favorite improv group, Improv Everywhere, has taken it upon themselves to produce a couple of mockumentaries of the mockumentary that is The Office (my favorite TV show). Check it out.

On Cue

As if on cue, a few days after my post about Christmas in Hong Kong, Penelope Trunk writes about Christmas in the workplace and in society in general - she's gotta have pretty thick skin, as I've read the comments both on her blog and on her blog on Yahoo Finance, and most of them are brutal. Although, you have to think that if all those people are writing comments (good or bad), at least they're actually reading her column. It's kind of like the part of the Howard Stern movie where the TV executives are talking about why so many people listen to Howard Stern - mostly to hear what he will say next. So even though they may not like what's being said, they still want to know what's being said.

Chinese Weddings

So today one of our most important vendors walked into my office and handed me an invitation to his son's wedding (to be held in less than 2 weeks). The vendor doesn't speak a lick of English, and I've never even met his son, or anyone else in his family, but weddings are always fun, right? It's a traditional Chinese wedding, but I was only invited to the banquet (thank goodness!), and not to the other activities throughout the day (the morning game rituals, the pictures, the tea ceremony, or the actual wedding ceremony itself).

The actual invitation itself was very interesting - it was a gold envelope with a nice invitation inside (printed in both English and Chinese). The interesting part was the additional small red envelope that contained a HK$10 note. I asked my colleague why the invitation included money, and he said that in anticipation of the financial gift that I will be giving to the bridge and groom, it is tradition for them to give a little something back to me in appreciation of my gift. Awww, how thoughtful!

I also asked him (and another friend of mine who knows these sorts of things) what is an appropriate amount of money to give, and they both said that for my colleague it would be appropriate to give around HK$500, and for me it would be appropriate to give HK$1200. Why is more expected of me? Well because I'm the boss of this office, and because I get paid more, that means I'm expected to give more. The envelope I will present to the bride and groom must be red, and it's a good idea to give red currency notes (the HK$100 bill is red, and the HK1,000 bill is orangish/reddish). Red is considered to be good luck and a strong color than can drive away evil spirits.

I'm also told that there will be a mahjong game held before the wedding reception, but unfortunately I don't know how to play, so I will not be participating (if only I'd paid more attention when my mom was playing all those years!). So yeah, I'm sure I'll have an interesting post to display after the wedding ceremony.

In other news - my fellow Bostonian friend living in HK just got engaged - so I'll have another wedding to attend next year somewhere in Asia. Congrats Laura & Paul!

Movie Review: Lust, Caution

SPOILER ALERT! - I talk about the ending of this movie here - so turn away if you don't want to know what happens in the end.

Last night I finally saw a movie I'd been wanting to see for a while, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Set in the era when the Japanese were occupying China in 1942, it basically tells the story of a group of Chinese revolutionary students who use one of their members to seduce a high-ranking official with the hopes of killing him.

This movie has had a lot of buzz in Hong Kong not only because of it's famous director Ang Lee (of Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame), but mostly because of its graphic sex scenes. I would have to agree that the sex scenes in the movie were probably the most graphic sex scenes I've seen in any mainstream movie, ever. So it makes sense that this would be a bit controversial in Hong Kong (and Asia in general) because of the general sense of censorship in Hong Kong.

For example, in my apartment on my TV package I currently have 6 different HBO channels that I pay extra money for. However, I've seen movies on these channels that I've seen in the USA, and for some reason they dub over or take out completely swears and any potentially graphic violence or sex/nude scene. That's right people - I can safely say that I have not heard any (English) swears on any movie that I've watched on any of my 6 HBO channels since I arrived in HK nearly 7 months ago. Weird, eh?

But back to my short review of Lust, Caution - as my movie companion agreed, the movie was pretty good and entertaining and all, and the sex scenes were pretty good (if that's your sort of thing), but really nothing happened in the movie. Basically the whole time this group of students was trying to kill this guy, and in the end they fail. That's it - the whole 2.5 hours detailed the girl seducing this guy, and then she and her plotters all die at the end. Visually, they did a good job depicting the time period and it was kinda cool for me because the whole movie they spoke Mandarin and Shanghainese so I got to try and pick out some Mandarin words (there were English subtitles).

So yes I would recommend seeing this movie because it's controversial and visually stunning, but just don't expect a complicated plotline, because it just isn't there. Watching this movie is kind of like the opposite of watching the movie Wild Things for the first time.

(Side note for those not in HK - movie theater seats here in HK are like airline seats - you choose the ones you want when making the booking (online or in person). So no need to arrive early - your pre-chosen seats will be waiting for you!)