Chinese Mainland Culture Night

There are heaps of exchange students and full time students from mainland China who live in the student halls, and they recently had a night of showing off their culture.

I can't remember the english word, but this instrument is AWESOME!!! it's basically a cross between a cello and a guitar, and sounds beautiful. And i was allowed to have a go!

A sexy fan dance thing.

Recently there's been alot of press about Steven Spielberg ditching the Olympics. I read a hilariously propaganda loaded chinese paper that had an article about how Spielberg made the decision because of his western imperialist mentality.

In the same paper i've read articles about how the Dalai Llama is evil.

This is Joey holding some Tibetan yak butter tea. I had to drink it as part of my tea tourism, but i think it broke my stomach for the last four days. But no regrets! Who needs a stomach when you have at least partially digested the lactic excretion of a magestic yak!!!

Anyway, I asked the Tibet stall if Tibet was really part of China, and they said yes. Then i walked away before the thought police heard me.

(also, read Joey's shirt closely.)

Visitors!

COUSIN RIA

My Cousin Ria dropped by my little Special Administration Region over Chinese Lunar New Year. We had a great time; ate dim sum, then ate sweet desert dumplings, then ate Hokkaido chocolate buns, then watched a lame parade.


Dim Sum! Hoorah!

Is it Bruce Lee, or Ria? I just can't tell anymore!!!

(p.s. Bruce Lee is still alive, and probably lives in Kowloon.)

Having a spin on the massage chairs in my megahall!

To cure the problems of stress from too much study, the college installed 2 massage chairs to service 3000 students. I recently realised that more than 30 minutes at a time gives you back problems in the middle of the night.

TIM AND CHEONG

My next visitation came from Tim and Cheong, quasi-locals of the region, and fresh of the boat from Vietnam, before they go back to Australia. They gave me reports that Henry is still alive, somewhere in S.E. Asia.

This is one of my favourite sweet dim sum things - a steamed bun with gooey sugary egg stuff inside. Ho Ho Mei (delicious delicious.)

Tim trying to find us an icecream shop with his i-pod touch. This is the intersection of humans and technology that i appreciate!

More dim sum, and the two best cantonese dishes.

Sorry

So on the same day of the Australian parliament's historic apology that hopefully changed one aspect of Australian culture and tradition, i have to admit that i continued on with another intriguing part of our nationhood.

It's a phenomenon that happens to every Australian living overseas; just as after a few drinks you mysteriously recollect all the words to Waltzing Matilda that you hadn't had to sing since kindy, at some point, every Australian will be confronted with the choice of whether or not to perpetuate the great mythology of the DROP BEAR.

I couldn't help it. The victim was a sweet Finnish girl from my university. The main perpetrators were tourists from Sydney and i was simply an accomplice. After they had talked to her she came up to me and asked if it was true.

"Zeze boyz outside, zay say zere is zis sing, which comes down and ripps your eyz out?"

She gave a really good impression of the drop bears claws and how they dig in really deep to a victims face.

I couldn't help it because it was ladies night (don't laugh, everyone laughs when i say that they let me in to ladies nights) so it's free drinks, and she was so convinced. So i just nodded and smiled and said that it was true.

But this sort of thing makes me wonder about natural universal justice, and whether every Australian who has ever perpetuated the myth to innocent europeans will one day have a huge scandinavian man drop down from their ceiling and gauge their eyes out.

And this is why i sleep with the light on...
(but mainly becuase Jessica is on skype.)

My blog still sucks, but i have slippers

I've heard from someone else, who shall be anonymous, that they also think my blog sucks, because it's all about meat. To proove that it is not all about meat (i don't eat meat by the way, but sometimes it just looks photo-worthy) i thought i'd take this blogortunity to showcase my slippers, and also a detailed photo documentary of my recent cup of tea.

MY SLIPPERS

Here are my slippers. I bought them a few weeks ago from a shop across the road for $70 hong kong, so about $10 australian. They have provided me with unspeakable joy, because they provide exceptionally well all the main properties of slippers; comfort while walking, enough fleecy soft material inside to give a sensation of warmth as well as comfort (perhaps could be likened to a trip inside the womb as a feotus, but for your feet) and ease of entering into and out of the slippers, as the nature of this piece of footwear is to 'slip' into them, usually from a reclining position.

Here are my slippers from another angle. This highlights the cutaway design. But choosing this style i've compromised by having increased 'slippability' but decreased walking comfort and possibly warmth.

You can see here the fleecy stuff inside. It's very cosy, makes me feel like i'm wrapped up in a lamb. (a live lamb, not a dead edible one!)

MY CUP OF OOLONG TEA

Oolong tea is grown in southern China, Taiwan and even a tiny bit in Hong Kong, so the rumour goes. It is achieved by processing the tea to a point between black and green, giving a taste lighter than black, but a different taste from green.

This is my kickarse tea pot. You put the tea in the compartment and let it brew.

Then drip it into the pot, thus preventing it from over-steeping, but keeping it warm to drink at your leisure. Genius!

If you've read this far, then well done. I'm sure you'll notice that in this entry there is no meat, no racial slurs, and more words than in previous entries. If you've read this far, i'm also sure that you're my mum. Hi mum! How do your slippers rate?

My Blog Sucks, and Macao

I had a chat to my Polish friend Karolinka the other night, first time in three years. She told me my blog sucks. Something to do with too many boreing photos and not enough writing. But you see, the reason for this is deliberate because just like with books people want to just look at the pictures and not bother to read the words. Anyway, język polski wyścigi jest słaby z zbyt wiele

We went to Macau this week, because there wasn't much to do in Hong Kong with the terrible weather. Apparently the main reason to go to macao is for prostitution, as well as gambling. We thought about it and decided to avoid both, and drink bubble tea and eat portuguese egg tarts instead. We didn't even think of making any punns on the phrase 'portuguese tarts' until we were back in Hong Kong, unfortunately.


Portugeuese egg tarts.

Sweet street meats!

Imperialist oppressors!

This is a machine that gives you the pronounciation of tea in 17 different languages. I'm not sure what the point it, except that TEA ROCKS!

Hotpots vs Pasta

With the crappy weather, we've been stuck inside watching DVD's and eating food for the last couple of days. I watched a scary film about a girl who gets sold as a wife slave into a creepy hick village in northern China. And another film about a good looking Korean banker who can do magic tricks but can't get a girl.

Meanwhile, the Europeans have been getting restless without European food. So they transformed the hotpot arena into a pasta making extravaganza.


This is a hotpot I attended a few weeks ago (when i say attended, i was watching tv next to it, and this girl is my classmate so she made me put assorted rubbery meat products into the meal.)

En depit des difficultes pour faire cuire des crepes deans des hot pot et dans des poeles sans manche, nous nous sommes bien regalees...

Pasta. Less rubbery meat. More cream.