Special thanks to Brooke and Molly for the guiding my many leisurely ambles around town!

Because I cannot say no to a travel opportunity, I jetted out to Bangkok the same Sunday my visitors from NYC left. ‘Twas the night before the Lunar New Year festivities kicked off in Chinese communities worldwide – including, we realized as we arrived in Yaowarat, the Thai capitol’s own Chinatown. Armed with  little more than our Luxe guide and our hunger for delicious Thai food, Libby and I took the city by storm.

Traditional Thai

Grand Palace, or, say it with me now – Phra Borom Maha Ratcha Wang-  is a gleaming, sprawling complex of temples and jewelrybox mini-palaces, home to countless Rama kings for over two hundred years. It’s also a place of pretty serious worship – hence the required saris for such scantilly-clad ladies.

Wat Pho – the Temple of the Reclining Buddha – was blinding in its sheer size and goldenness. A really colorful buddhist playground, if you ask me.

Streetfood – “Like rock bands, the best noodle slingers attract groupies,” gushes the NYT’s Joshua Kurlantzick about the noodles at Raan Jay Fai, and a groupie I would gladly become. Hot, perfectly seasoned, and packed with fresh vegetables and meat, these were like no pad thai I have had in the States. They really hit the spot late-night. (Treat yourself to the full text of his homage to Bangkok streetfood here.)

(NYT photo of noodles at Raan Jay Fai).

Despite the creepy mystery surrounding the disappearance of Thailand’s premeir silk entrepreneur Jim Thompson, his drool-inducing traditional Thai teak house set in a lush compound of flora and fauna still draws hoards.

For drinks with a view, the Vertigo Sky Bar at the top of the State Tower was great… but I especially loved the Mandarin Oriental’s backyard-glam vibe, with its receding riverfront terrace and its thaijito, a blend of rum, Thai limes, lemongrass and fresh ginger.

Yaowarat: Bangkok’s Chinatown

The streets were literally teeming with decorations, food stalls, and all sorts of the cheap colorful paraphenalia that you come to expect from any good Chinatown festivity- especially one in the heart of S.E. Asia’s more vibrant cities on the first days of the Lunar New Year.

Not to mention the many live performances of dancers, both dragons and Thai, we encountered along the way…

Special Guests

But the biggest CNY party was definitely going down chez nous. It was truly seredipitous that we happened to pick Chinatown’s most colorful boutique hotel, the Shanghai Mansion, for our Chinese New Year getaway. We became chummy with our hotel’s young and ever-smiling staff from the moment we arrived. Just how much they liked us, however, didn’t become clear until our last night, when, after returning from a full day of sight-seeing and bargain hunting, Libby and I were essentially ensnared by the concierge staff, physically squeezed into flashy Shanghaiese cheongsams, and thrust out into a crowd of hundreds on Yaowarat, the heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Unbeknowst to us, we had been kidnapped to to “M.C.” their New Year’s launch party, and in the matter of minutes became legitimate local celebreties.

Voila their much hyped ”special American guests”…

… and the crowd that loved us.

Oh, and then we had a photo shoot inside the hotel.

Overwhelming yet entirely worth the memories… not to mention the free night at the hotel plus a free t-shirt! Double bonus!

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

The traffic. The telephone wires. The bars. This city is on overload, but in the best way possible. I felt nothing but positive energy there, despite the potential frustrations of so many people criss-crossing the road all the time. The best part about Saigon (and a lot of cities in Vietnam in general, but especially here in the warm climate) was how everyone just hangs out on the streets all day and night. From early morning to late at night, the sidewalks are covered with people old and young who couldn’t look more relaxed, either sipping their famous coffee or beer, slurping on pho, or just watching the crowds hustle by.

We also made it out to Cu Chi tunnels to see how Vietnamese guerrilla war tactics ravaged so many American troops. One look at their homespun booby traps would be enough to make any sane person go AWOL.

Hoi An

A beautiful, colorful riverfront town, Hoi An used to be a major port for Japanese and Chinese traders, hence the fabulously ornate decorations and many temples. Some of the best meals we had were in Hoi An, which boasts many regional specialties but also a lot of good ole’ fashioned home-cookin’.  One of my favorite memories of the whole trip – riding bikes though rice paddies, past water buffulo, through throngs of kids, into riverfront villages, and around the beach, all for $1 - took place in Hoi An. True story.

Santa Babies

Christmas traditions take all sorts of forms in Asia, as witnessed by Hong Kong’s committment to light displays of epic proportions (see previous post here).

Much was my surprise, however, to see the Vietnamese interpretation of our beloved holiday. Sure, there were red and green lights strung up and down the streets. But I was totally unprepared for every family’s committment to turning their kids into the petit Asian incarnations of Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

Hoi An is where we also spent Christmas/Eve. The mass, complete with hundreds of Santa babies, was packed with Vietnamese of all ages, many of whom seemed pretty devout, and some of whom clearly just came for the party. It was quite a show. Would it be embarrasing (or sacreligious?) to admit we ended up belting Bon Jovi at a bar full of expats for the rest of Christmas Eve?

Hue

In a country that is much more interested in steering head-first into the future than looking back on its invasion-scarred past, Hue (and Hoi An for that matter) are admittedly the kinds of towns that can feel like ‘tourist-traps’ in the sense that the only reason they’re still caring for these beautiful old monuments is because they know tourists will pay money to see them. This is one of the reasons that I usually prefer traveling in large cities or small towns, since you can much more easily get a picture of peoples’ lives – lives that will go on whether or not you and your American dollars decide to visit. That being said, I’m also really grateful for places like Hue and Hoi An since they provide a glimpse into the glory that was once this S.E. Asian country before colonialism and communism screwed it all up. The Imperial Palace /Citadel is THE thing to visit in Hue, and as you can see from the pictures, the remaining ruins do only partial justice to what was their one-time glory.  Despite some overcast skies (which I, personally, thought added to the romantic deterioration of the place, kind of like Ms. Havisham’s house in Gwyneth’s Great Expectations, right?), we were able to see where the Vietnamese royalty held court. The neighborhoods within the Citadel’s walls had a nice relaxed pace to them too.

And I couldn’t mention Hue without mentioning the Imperial city’s food – a degustation culinary tradition influenced by the French and dictated by the country’s last great Emperor,  these six (or more) course meals feature some of Vietnam’s greatest hits with some seriously frivolous presentation.

Hanoi

What can I say except that if I had to retire right now, Hanoi would probably be where I’d stay (with maybe a summer home in the South of France for the really humid months). With its gracefully crumbling French architecture, lakes, delicious restaurants, glorious shopping and shamefully low prices, Hanoi might be the best deal in all of Asia. I was really surprised by its feel of a true colonial city (unlike Hong Kong, at this point), and to the extent that the French influence pervades. Hanoi had none of the formal uptightness so many young Parisians lament about their grande dame of European capitols, though. Case in point – the city went absolutely nuts our first night there, when Vietnam beat Thailand’s soccer team for the first championship in history. We felt the passion.

 Like Saigon, the streets were abuzz (to be gentle) with motorbikes and cyclos, but its old winding streets gave way to better walking routes than the southern city. Which is why, except for a field trip here and there (like  to see an embalmed Ho Chi Minh), we spent the majority of our time in Hanoi wandering and shopping between meals, stopping regularly for coffee, or even better, at a bia hoi for home brewed hops – never more than $0.75 a pop.

Holiday lanterns sent up for good luck over Hoam Kiem Lake, Hanoi.

Other sites worth seeing:

The fabulous village homes at Museum of Ethnography:

John McCain’s bloody parachute at the “Hanoi Hilton”…and the Water Puppet show (a sort of Mr. Rogers goes to Hue’s Imperial City.)

Halong Bay

8th Wonder of the World? It should be. There lie almost two thousands  individual limestone isles and their caves, the beautiful result of mother nature working her magic. Pictures really cannot do the place justice (at least mine can’t). Go there. You won’t be disappointed.

What made our trip there all the more special was our semi-private (minus a mute Finn, a loud Australian, an awkwardly tall Spanish couple, and the cutest Japanese family ever) boat tour on New Year’s Eve. The boat, in addition to being beautiful and clean and classy etc., had perhaps the funniest crew in all of Halong Bay (and there were TONS of boats out that night). They threw a special NYE dinner party, complete with Chinese lanterns, a huge cake, and some teeny-bopper techno-pop. The 15 year-old looking captain (who was actually 31 years old) even taught us how to break it down on the d.floor with his equally boyish looking crew.  Good vibrations all around.

 Fave Flava-Flaves

A wrap up of the culinary highs:

• Ban xeo – crepe like pancakes encircling shrimp, pork and bean sprouts, served with fresh mint and  parsely and a peanut dipping sauce.
• Pho. Obviously.
• The best fried calamari ever.
• Goi cuon -fresh spring rolls with prawns.
• Cha gio – fried crab spring rolls
• Gỏi đu đủ – Shredded papaya/mango and grilled beef salad with citrus vinagrette.
• Cafe sua da- drip coffee (hot or iced) served with thick, sweet condensed milk.
• Streetside-fried bannana fritters.
• Kem – ice cream – especially the coconut-milk and young sticky rice flavors.
• Bia. Light, cold, and as cheap as water.

More tantalizing pics of the trip here.

• Taking a 9 hour train ride through rural China, accompanied by Cawnry (name of his own invention) an exceedingly enthusiastic guide with a curious Southern twang to his English  who studies political science in his spare time and who dreams of going to U.Chicago. (Farthest on the left in the Hexi teacher shot below).
• Walking through a rural village and stumbling upon huge hay stacks, flocks of sheep, Cultural Revolution-era propaganda, and as always, cute Chinese babies (with open crotch  onesies, no less!)
• Presenting to reverent classes about “home,” including the Murphy clan; growing up on the coast (most of them had never seen an ocean); missing best friends at home; feeling at home in France,  NYC, and now Hong Kong; and why many young American embrace finding independence away from their home.
• Visiting a local primary where we were greeted by the T.V. station, and where I taught a class of almost 100 students to belt the lyrics (ok, maybe just the chorus) to “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!” They ate it up.
• Eating the cheapest and most delicious spicy beef noodle soup of my life – for breakfast. Several times.
• Exploring the crazy hills and valleys of the Gobi Desert – truly reminiscent of the American Southwest, but colder.
• Bonding with my assigned tour-guide and new friend Wendy over anxiety-inducing big life choices (see post below).
• Touring the Muslim market at the edge of town, where we saw charred cow’s heads, huge carcasses of mutton, and lots of beautiful produce and spices. Where I also bought my Communist/Russian hat which I adore.
• Accompanying a Peace Corps friend to a random wedding party at a local home, where we ended up playing hard-core drinking games with baijiu, and where my friend Ryan tried to hit on the groom.

And those are just the highlights! If you’re a real pal (with some real procrastination time on your hands), indulge me in a little more space to elaborate more on this eye-opening trip.

Napolean wuz here!

Legend has it that Napolean visited this once-bustling frontier town, one of the most important hubs for international trade along the Silk Road, and stayed here for one year. Not sure how accurate the history is, but there is a huge statue of Napolean in the middle of the town’s major intersection. French tyrants aside… this place is ideal for adventurous travelers, or for those who happen to be traveling the length of the old Silk Road and are committed to seeing some of China’s less frequented highlights, such as Rob Gifford did for his book China Road. I loved Zhangye for its still-intact ancient architecture  that actually shows its centuries-old age, unlike a lot of the sites that have been replaced with shiny replicas in more tourist-trodden destinations. The Sleeping Buddah (see picture below), is actually China’s largest reclining buddah and dates back at least 900 years. And like Gifford, I appreciated Zhangye not only for its glimpse into what was once a major trading post, but for its progressive energy. Sure, the town is a little dusty and kind of in the middle of nowhere… but that doesn’t stop its residents, students and small business owners from joining the rest of China in its upward and onward heave. Gifford writes about an almost tangible ambition he encounters with some PanAm salesmen there back in 2001, and I can attest to that ambition driving not only students’ far-reaching dreams, but to an earnest-looking MaryKay outlet I saw opening up. Road trip 2010, Mom?

The community at Hexi College

The success of our trip to Zhangye and its Hexi College was made largely possible because of the leadership and gracious welcoming of these wonderful people who work at the college: Gary and Rae, teachers with the Amity Foundation, and Dani, a third year Peace Corps volunteer, along with Ms. Mao – the feistiest Chinese woman I have ever met. I mean just look at those boots she went hiking in! And then there’s her overly helpful assistant Cawnry (pronounced Cowie???)…

My group had the pleasure of working with Gary’s creative writing and research writing classes. After showing pictures and talking about our different homes all over the States (Boston, Palo Alto, Chicago, Jersey), the students wrote and shared about their own homes. It was fascinating to hear where the students came from – most from remote farming villages and even several from the Mongolian plains. They hung on every word and image we gave them about America, yet they seemed extremely proud to speak about their homes and families as well. Almost all echoed feeling an accute challenge at being away from their families – families who were working overtime to pay for their tuition.

Wendy & Luke

I was lucky to be able to develop frienships with two of the most standout students I met at Hexi. Wendy was assigned as my “buddy” for the week to show me around campus and whatnot. Immediately I was struck with her strong English skills, her warmth and generosity, and her overall joie de vivre. She opened up to me about her close ties to her father, the frustration of doing long-distance with her boyfriend (who lives and teaches back in their hometown), and her anxiety about choosing between marriage/motherhood and pursuing a post-graduate degree in English. In her (and their families’) eyes, the two paths cannot exist simultaneously, despite this time of unprecedented opportunity for young people in China.

With Wendy on the edge of the Gobi desert

I met Luke, another one of Gary’s students, when I helped him edit his final – and first ever – research paper. With complete freedom of topic choice, Luke had chosen to write about the urgent need for quality teachers in rural China. Instead of line-editing his work, though, I spent my time listening to Luke’s incredible story of how he made it to college – a story of family sacrifices the likes of which most Americans could never fathom – and how he was determined to share the gift of education and upward mobility by burning and distributing DVD’s of English instruction to the children in his village at home. For free.

Here are some of the many, many kids Luke returns to each summer to teach, regardless their age or family’s income.

Town & Country

One of the best days in Zhangye was spent walking through a neighboring village with Gary as our guide. Only minutes away from the honking trucks and commercial buzz of the city, this village seemed frozen in time. Farmers hearded sheep, stacked hay, and tended to covered gardens on the outskirts, while the babies, elderly residents, and donkies stood guard along the singular strip of traditional courtyard homes that make up the village.

Cultural Revolution propaganda for farmers

We walked almost everywhere in Zhangye, and so were able to really take in the local rythm. Drawing from surrounding regions, Zhangye packs a lot of diversity- Uighar, Hui, and Tibetan minorities to name a few -  for such a small city.   A few scenes from the town:

Worth the 12 hour journey alone?

• Lamian - handpulled noodles served in a chili-oil infused beef broth topped with chopped scallions.
• Teaching ”Noodle Boy,” yes that young gentleman at the end of the table who hand-pulled the above-stated noodles I ate for several breakfasts, beer pong.  He had remarkable hand-eye coordination, naturally.

• Being welcomed into the cellular dorm room where Wendy and her fifteen other roommates happily and gratefully live.
• Playing finger games – their competitive drinking game – with Ms. Mao and the principal of the elementary school that we visited as American “foreign experts”.

In short (hah), it was an incredible trip. The End.

For more pics in the album, click here for FB or here for Flickr (yes Mom, it works even if you’re not a registered user).

It’s more the copy than the image that gives this public health campaign major panache points in my book. In the sad event that you’re too blind to (or to technologically impaired to zoom in on) the text, allow me to quote:

“To control snacking, establish a regular tea time everyday to enjoy your snacks and beverages, and drink only water to quench thirst during the day.”

Reactions:

1. First of all, talk about comprehensive health care! You go to read a public advert on dental care…only to find out that you’re receiving free diet advice! Two-fer’s (or shall I say tooth-fers?) are the best!

2. We all remember that Hong Kong was once a colony of the Queen. But did you realize that they still took tea time here? Though the high tea tradition is mainly carried out in the classiest hotels like the Peninsula, the afternoon snack break is still evident in the city. Many restaurants still advertise afternoon tea-set specials (in addition to lunch). If the Brits condone snacking, I’m sold.

3. Let’s discuss the classic British diction here. Though I’ve never been big on dieting, the idea of establishing a proper tea time so that I can “enjoy” some (undoubtedly scrumptious) “snacks and bevvies” sounds delightful and sensible. It has a better ring than “brush and floss daily,” n’est-ce pas?

4. All these Anglicisms got me wondering…is this ad is geared more towards the local Chinese residents (with an unfortunate reputation for unimpressive oral hygiene) or the British expats, whose  reputation for  abominable dental care truly precedes them world round? Not to mention their higher propensity to retain weight…

Why America hasn’t tried this refined approach to cavity-prevention and slim waists is beyond me.

 No online version yet, so here’s a jpg.

Reader beware:  there are a few editorial additions that really amp up the cheesy factor (i.e. “All aboard!”) for which I take no credit.

I may have discovered their secret. While I was riding the loooong escalator up from the Causeway Bay MTR station yesterday, a blissfully and decidedly lazy ride, I looked up and was confronted by a whole army of these images staring me down from the wall:

Walk it out

A public health campaign geared at escalator-riding slobs like me. Genius! Just one look at the way the lady in the blue is dancing her way up the stairs, all trim and slim, made me immediately want to hurl myself off the moving staircase and feel the burn in my buns.

Perhaps America should adopt a similar campaign, no? Let’s turn this into an ad. design challenge, and use Jane Murphy, speed-walker and stair-taker extraordinaire, as a model.

(P.S. I’ll be on the lookout for more public health announcements, since I’ve decided they say an awful lot about a culture in a compact way, so stay tuned.)

• Harbour City, a large shopping mall in Hong Kong, spent HK$13 million (US$1.6 million) on Christmas decorations this year
• Hong Konger spent $25.6 million on holiday shopping last year.
• In a city of 7 million, only about 500,000 (7%) are Christian

Though I tend to lean traditionalist when it comes to Christmas decor (white lights on the tree this year, Dad!) I do have a strong appreciation for kitsch, especially done with a tongue-in-cheek deliberation and creativity. A very kitschy Christmas is what America does best – the tinsel, the front yard blow up Santas,  the Rockettes, the sweaters – the list is endless. Cliches abound, but so does generosity and love and forgivness and family all that feel-good stuff, so it works.

But Hong Kong has taken Christmas tackiness to a whole new level.  I have to admit I waver between feeling highly offended by this  level of tackiness, and just completely awestruck that the city would spend this much time and money on a holiday that is completely and totally imported. 

Witness:

We <3 TST East!

Festival Walk Mall Tree

It’s hard to provide an adequate sense of scale here – but know that the first two buildings were taken from across the causeway, the third from across the harbor, the next in a public square in front of a mall, and the last in one of the city’s biggest malls.  In other words, they’re all huge. The city feels like an Christmas-themed Vegas on steroids.  Christmas has overtaken Hong Kong in every respect, big or small. There’s a non-stop singing Christmas tree in the foyer of my hall, and snowmen and elves and gingerbread men hang all around campus, and in public buses, and in 7 Elevens, and in non-English speaking grocery stores… everywhere. 

My theory is that Hong Kong, like many other Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, etc. embraces commercialism with an unabashed enthusiasm that even America cannot match. They share none of the same weird guilt complexes Americans do about making Christmas a commercial sporting event and then shamefully reminding ourselves of the “real” morals and values behind the holiday when the shopping stress sets in.

So when you start to cringe (or squeal in delight) at the newly installed glowing set of Rudolph and his reindeers on the Jones’  roof nextdoor, remember that there’s a much bigger contender in the battle for Christmas kitsch, and be humbled.

Highlights:

• Our first night: French wine party at an Italian jewelry trunk show, a rowdy Hunnan (re: SPICY) dinner with some American Fulbright friends, margaritas at a French-Mexican owner’s restaurant Maya, and belting Cantopop (cantonese pop) songs at a karaoke bar late night. Serious evidence of Shanghai’s (China’s) cosmopolitan edge.
• Having drinks in the clouds (literally) with my dear old Hoya friend Caitlin Hickey on the 87th floor of  the Park Hyatt Shanghai in the World Finance Center, the world’s highest hotel.
• Listening to Mama and Angela and their American jazz ensemble croon “Georgia on my Mind” to a packed bar, and watching Caitlin kick the drunk Kyrgyz (Uzbek? Turkik? Some Central Asian…) in his nether regions to move him out of her view, to which he replied “You. Are. A. ZERO!”
• Walking through Shanghai’s old neighborhoods, where all people seem to do is cook, sell, and eat streetfood. My heaven.
• Discovering the beauty that Shengjian mantou,  or shengjian boazi (pan-fried soup dumplings) for the first time, then waiting in line for 45 minutes the next day to get the night’s last order, and then cabbing it backon our last day for just one more order before our flight back.
• Talking with Yang Pei Ming, the sole collector/director of China’s largest collection of original propaganda posters from the Cultural Revolution. (Caity, he wants a hook up at MoMA. I told him I’d look into it).
• Drinking Old Fashions at Yongfoo Elite, a onetime British Consulate cum villa, and perhaps the most beautiful example of Art Deco/1930’s Shanghai ever.
• Shopping amidst old embassies, churches and boutiques of the French Concession, and forgetting whether I was in Europe or in China.
• Mmm, more Uighar food.
• Mmm, massages.

See for yourself:

Shengjian boazi

For even more pictures of my forays in Shanghai, click here.