Bureaucracy netvigates

First of all, an official announcement: The dragon boat races are TOMORROW and the day has been declared a PUBLIC HOLIDAY in Hong Kong, so the whole city will be there! CRAZY!

Check out the webpage (I learned how to do a hyperlink now) for info on the race, the teams and sponsors and, most importantly, the results http://www.dragonboat.org.hk ! Our goal is to beat at least one team in our group (Expat Men A) so let's see if that works out.... but I guess the Finnish organization is more concerned with the sufficient supply of beer inbetween the races (I think there will be a minimum of three races)- or at least that is the impression I got from past comments (and the mass of some of our team members, they seem to be gourmets in the simple meaning of the word)- it's going to be relaxed and fun and hopefully the weather will go along (otherwise waiting in wet clothes might be slightly uncomfortable). Go Nordic Dragons!!!

Referring to the title of this post, an alternative wielding more explanatory power, should have been: “On how to acquire possession of a Netvigator Broadband Internet Service Termination Request Form”. I spent 2.5 hours today trying to get hold of a representative of our broadband internet service provider – I have been trying to do that for the past two weeks since the contract has to be terminated 1 month in advance. Anyways, after unsuccessfully dialing through the rather confusing customer service hotline, which seems to be the only way to get in touch, since my emails got no response, and after listening to five different stages of explanations in bad Chinglish, each time choosing a different number, I ended up with a taped voice telling me that I should go to http://www.netvigator.com/ to download a “Service Termination Request Form”. Or alternatively they could fax it to me. No fax, try the net. Of course I could not find the form. So I called again and it took me some time to again find the right “path” ending up with the right tape. Well, I ended up googling for the form and finding it- unfortunately downloading it was not possible. How annoying!!! Can’t they use the technology they are (indirectly) selling? Is it so difficult to talk to a real person? I got soooo angry… so I again called the hotline and just started pressing random numbers # and * signs… until some other tape “recognized” I might have “technical difficulties” and connected me with a “technical support officer”- FINALLY a REAL person! I got him to take my number, call me back and then after mutual agreement my property agency to fax them a self-made termination request (no need for the stupid form) valid ASAP! Turns out that they need to pick up the modem from us (I thought we had paid for it?)- well, that’s not my problem anymore (I just need to get their payments OFF my Visa bill!). It helps a bit to know that other people had similar experiences shattering any perception of customer service and perceived value for money. And they were as angry as to write about it.

http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=177442

(Stefan Hammond, Computerworld, Hong Kong).

Anyways, again a prime sample of Chinese/HK bureaucracy: for everything, there is a form or a paper you need to sign. And things move VERY slow. Some examples: I picked up my student Octopus Card two days ago: I was allowed to pick it up after 1 month of processing, the stamp on the card was dated 3 days after I had handed in my request. I wanted to deactivate my student card at the admin office today (we are supposed to do that I was told): everyone was out for lunch at the same time (and this is the case with the Housing Office, the Student Affair’s Office or any other Office between noon and 2 pm). Erkki collected all his change during the term and we wanted to pay with coins for food (since the bank did not want to change coins into bills) and they would not sell us food (hey, it’s MONEY!). Well, enough of that! But fact is: HK people love rules and formalities (be it showing up for the final presentation in a class in a suit or taking student society year photos with everyone in suits or naming every society with a name consisting of at least 10 English words-the more complicated the better, right?). But Finland is not better in some aspects (just thinking about Elisa Laajakaista and their customer service hotline in which I spent 45 minutes queuing just to get someone completely incompetent to tell me to go to a store…)

Otherwise the day was great: Erkki turned 25 and we started the day with some good breakfast (pancakes). Iina, Jussi’s girlfriend, left after spending two weeks here (1 week in the Phillipines). Peace is back, but can’t go into details! *smile* I booked a flight to Shanghai and will be leaving from Shenzhen on June 1st together with Erkki, Martin and Jiri from the Czech Republic and Jack from Xian. The current plan is to spent 4 days in Shanghai and then to take the night train to Beijing. I have 3 weeks in China and I really need to see those two cities, Xian, Chengdu and Yunnan province.

Campus is empty - so is the computer room. The Swedish girls (Alexandra, Matilda, Josefin) and Mike (the first exchange I met in HK) left today; most of the Canadians and U.S. people left on Sunday and Monday. There’s some of us left, but not many…. I am trying to look for flights to NZ now. And meanwhile the boys are getting drunk on absolute lemon sitting right next to me in the barn (computer lab).

Black spots in space

I just logged into blogger and realized that it has been exactly two weeks since I have been writing anything at all. Not much, but still- half a month! And I wonder how it feels for someone opening the page time after time with no real new content on it… No hard feelings…
For the first time, I do not know what to write about. I feel completely empty. Hollow. With a black whole inside which - according to Kepler's 1st law of planetary motion (I just learned that so I thought I should brag about it) - absorbs everything with accelerating speed (planets move about the sun in an elliptical orbit with constantly varying distance to the sun). The feeling is recurring and often creeps into my consciousness when a certain period of time is coming to an end- like a year at uni or now my exchange.

People are leaving every day, some quietly, sneaking out of goodbyes, others not. And the parties get wilder! Saturday night people went swimming in the school pool at 5 a.m. (and were consequently kicked out by the guards) after a heavy night in Wanchai. Wednesday we went to Club 97 and Balalaika (a lot of Vodka); the fun is forced to a certain extend, since the feeling of finality is hanging like mist among us.

My friends from Finland (yes, the Hong Count has approached zero!), Dani and Martin, left last Saturday (May 27th) after one eventful week. I took them to the dragon boat training in Stanley on the first day and this although they were completely exhausted (I am very proud!). The rest of the week was what one could almost call the "basic Hong Kong Tour"- same, same but different! Unfortunately I had to study quite a bit during the week since I had three finals and got slightly stressed. Bad timing, but nobody knew at the time the flights were booked. Saturday and Sunday we spent however together the three of us, Monday through Wednesday I studied and did my exams - somewhat well (or then not, results this week), but to be honest I do not really care…. I just want to pass so as to not having to give back any scholarship (e.g. Liikesivistysrahasto). We met in the evening and went out to Sai Kung (Thai this time), the horse races in Happy Valley and to Soho (Cru, Italian food).
We went of course to Mongkok (my favorite HK neighborhood), where after intensive browsing I bought Converse-shoes. What a transformation! At least mentally although I will not wear them until I get back to Finland since I sent them back with the boys… (as I did with all my uni books, my new ibook and some extra clothes…right now I have exactly clothes fitting into a 15l backpack and nothing else…. One can live very minimalistically! Let’s see how much stuff I will have bought upon returning home!)

The Avenue of Stars/Symphony of Lights was in the program as was LKF, the Star Ferry, Chi Lin and Hong Kong Park and the Peak. We also spent quite some time in TST in the Art Museum (great Rothko exhibition), the Space Museum (see Kepler *smile*) and the Museum of History - mainly because the weather was really bad all week (humid and raining). We had two sunny days in the end *lucky, lucky* and now it s back to raining again. For some cool pictures of HK and me with my washed (grown) out semi-blond hair (irreparable as an expert hairdresser at Toni and Guy in Causeway Bay told me yesterday – if I do not want to shave my head completely bold (and I am seriously considering that!), check out Martin’s blog (link in the sidebar under: sMARTINtellectual).

Concerning my summer plans: there is no job and no detailed plan… right now it looks like I am leaving for Shanghai this Friday (and I do not have a flight yet, a problem I will hopefully fix tomorrow), then going to Beijing next week. After that some traveling around China until mid-summer, after which I will meet my dad in Christchurch (NZ). Back in Finland in mid-July (around the 14th). It is about time to GO HOME! But as said: I have no flights yet! But it will all work somehow….

The end of time...

... in HK is approaching (my visa runs out in the beginning of June). As is the zero date for the Hong Count -i.e. my friends will arrive here in around 4 days! A good moment to recap some of the thoughts... although I think I have been thinking far too much about life, in particular my life and what I want to do with it in the last weeks, which in the long run is not an overly healthy thing to do, especially since I do not seem to reach any conclusion but have the same thoughts circling around my head, threads of ideas and plans without ending!!!

Best to get rid of the lost feeling... that is what I have been trying to do the past week: drowning myself in exercising. Wednesday through Friday I went running 1h, playing tennis 1-2 hours and swimming 1h EVERY DAY! Saturday I was hiking in the morning (which was a pain since I my legs hurt like hell so I turned back after 1 hour and hiked back 2 hours) and in dragon boat practice in the evening (and in between I spent 3 hours in the bus to Stanley thanks to the all-so-normal traffic chaos in HK!).

Sunday was spent at a beach in Sai Kung. Today we (Martin, Claes, Jack, Erkki, me) woke up at 5 am and went to a self-organized visit to a steel factory (Shiu Wing Steel) in the west of HK. The factory is the only one left with operations in HK and we had all morning to talk to management and the head engineers. It was very interesting because of the exceptional corporate strategy (steel is bulk) with which this family owned business has managed to create a (sustainable???) competitive advantage in the local markets... (any case potential???)

Boats on Stanley Beach. Stanley, a little village shrouded in a Mediterranean air on the southern side of HK Island, is the place to spend the weekend for HK's rich (Caucasian, young trendy bankers and other expats) and be seen "promenading" on the beach boulevard...

Illegal activities in bus nr. 260 from Stanley to Central (it is a double decker with usually no passengers on the top in the evening)...

View (into the high rise jungle) from the bus in Wanchai. One can spend all day in HK traveling from point A to B... the traffic (and air pollution) is sometimes horrible! Last weekend it took us 3 hours to get from the university to Stanley - distance maybe 20km. Amazing.... and of course I had brought nothing to read for the trip (instead I slept in the bus).

We found a great Italian restaurant in Kowloon Tong (Festival walk) and spent Wednesday evening there: Jimmy (French, but living in Canada), Sergio (Mexico), Too (Vietnamese, but living in Hungary), Ashley (US). On the photographers side also Lauren (US/Mexico), Silje (Norway) and Alexandra (Sweden)... no pics though!

Typhoon warning!*

It has been 10C colder and really dry for a couple of days now – coincidence or can we thank the approaching typhoon? According to the Hong Kong Observatory, Typhoon Canchu is currently about 430km Southeast of Xisha and will come within 800 km of reach from HK tonight. The typhoon is apparently a level 5 storm, which should not be too bad. Well, well….. let’s see what happens!

More info at: http://www.weather.gov.hk/contente.htm

* The terms "hurricane" (North Atlantic Ocean, Northeast Pacific, est of the dateline or South Pacific east of 160E) and "typhoon" (Northwest pacific west of the dateline) are regionally specific names for a strong "tropical cyclone"(upwards of winds of 33 m/s), i.e. a non-frontal synoptic scale low-pressure system over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized convection (i.e. thunderstorm activity) and definite cyclonic surface wind circulation.

Typhoon CHANCHU 
at 11:00 HKT 15 May 2006
(14.4 N, 115.4 E)

What comes around goes around

I am sitting here at the HK airport in a juice bar (they should open one in Finland), waiting for my mum and her friend which I am supposed to meet here, and I am writing an entry for my blog: again I see one of the little advantages a small Apple laptop brings into student life!

Not much has actually happened since Saturday: I went to the dragon boat practice Martin and Erkki, which turned out pretty cool! I was told that there is something similar going on in Kaivopuisto every year – but of course it is mostly companies that (have the money to) participate… A dragon boat looks like aFinnish church boat in terms of size, but instead of rowing, one paddles like in a canoe, but much faster! And there is a drummer in the front and one guy steering in the back – and, for the real race –hopefully- some dragon or other decorations… The weather was great and combined with the amazing landscape in Stanley, some Finnish humor and eager Chinese who took us on in practice races (which of course we all lost) it was a perfect day! After practice we went for some beers in a German (!) restaurant perfect with the Bavarian potato salad, bread and salted ham, and heard some nice Finnish and Swedish expat stories of HK….

Sunday was again Stanley –this time with my mum- and Victoria Peak. Yesterday I was in school and slept at the hotel where my mum and her friend are staying –of course not paying *how unethical *(and I hope they won’t bill her) – which lengthened my school trip in the morning substantially. But it was interesting rushing through HK with everyone going to work – again a completely different atmosphere, completely different people…

And of course I realized how much I would like to go home RIGHT NOW! Some emails awakened me to the reality that yes, life is moving on in Finland –some people graduating, finding jobs, moving…- although changes for those there might be small, I wonder how everything is when I get back? And it would be so easy to jump into a plane right now and then be in Helsinki 14 hours later, Wednesday morning…

… and I have still no clue about the summer. Of course staying here is natural –at least for some time- since there is so much to see and to do! My job hunt has so far ended without results: I got an interview with an (i) bank (what a surprise!) but of course in Europe and it was impossible to find a flexible solution… let’s see where life takes me!

Wappu a la HK

It has been now one week and a couple of days since I cam back from Malaysia and HK has turned on the summer-mode with humidity, thunderstorms and very warm temperatures! I have a new laptop- an Apple ibook! It works and looks nice; I just need some time to get used to the different system. Erkki bought the same one, so I can comfort myself with the thought of both of us being now equally poor…

Wappu came and went- of course I was thinking of having a nice picnic (in Kaivopuisto), instead we went to a Wappu party on Saturday in the Mariner’s club in Kowloon, organized by the Finnish Business Council (FBC) in Hong Kong. The party started a bit lame –Finns just are not very talkative. Most people were businessmen from HK or from the HK consulate, although there were also some Finns from Guangzhou and a lot of students as well as some (brave) Swedes- altogether around 75 persons. Great food (silli and potatoes- is there anything better in the world??? * smile * ), but most importantly: alcohol. When the Koskenkorva started flowing (one 1.5 liter bottle for every 6 people and open bar from 9 pm-midnight) things relaxed a lot (with the suit ties disappearing first)… and people got drunk –very drunk- and the party was amazing! I think I have never been to a party alike this one–in comparison German parties thrown by the embassy etc. are just plain boring! In the Finnish parties there are no titles, just first names (small circles) and everyone talks to everyone. We had songbooks with Finnish traditional songs, which were eagerly chanted together so as for the drinking to begin (gracefully). 20 min before the open bar ended there was an official announcement in English and Finnish from some Finn (who looked like a farmer dressed in a very expensive suit) to get “as much booze as possible”… I thought that was so hilarious… Joking aside: I met a lot of interesting people, mostly CRAZY people (but maybe it was the alcohol), but smart and innovative. We continued to jatkot with the director of Finnpro first to a club in TST and then to sing karaoke at 5 am in Causeway Bay. The morning started in another club in Wanchai and I was home at 7 am.

The “real” Wappu on Monday was celebrated by first cleaning our apartment and then baking munkkirinkeleita. Although I was a bit suspicious of how the dough would work out (yeast comes only in suspicious looking packages of 50 grams; cardamom was undiscoverable) - I think we made the best munkkis ever! We actually baked them in our downstairs neighbor’s kitchen since we ran out of gas and it was a national holiday (1st of May is (since of “communist” origin really big in China) – she does not speak any English so I tried to explain with hand and feet and she was so nice as to let us use her kitchen (I felt so bad, because even though we cleaned everything, the smell of burning oil remains always for at least a couple of day). Since she didn’t want to take any munkkis (maybe they looked weird to her?) we have to think of some way to thank her (and it has to be “anonymous” because otherwise I fear she will give it back, and we do not want her to loose face!). In the evening we went to Sai Kung for (again) Indian food – and I smoked my first cigarette for a very, very long time!!! (probably the first one since January).

Tuesday my mum and a long-time friend of hers, Paivi, arrived in HK. To be honest, I didn’t think too much about it being very busy with schoolwork apart from the fun and getting back into the HK rhythm. Of course I had a list of things to do and to see prepared and had thought of some program (cause I know my mum is not necessarily so much into shopping I was a it worried of what to do in HK), but as the day approached, I got really nervous. Would it be too hot, too humid? Would they be really tired? Would they be able to eat the food? And the amount of people? Would they like HK? I know that it took me some time to get used to everything- especially the masses of people at some places at some times. And now it all feels normal, everyday, as if I had always been here. I don’t know why, but maybe it is just the feeling of two worlds, which until then have remained very separated, merging together. Of course I try to write and phone and keep everyone updated – as I am interested in what is going on in Finland- but still, it is not quite the same thing as being there. Understanding, how life works here really; I guess, although I write and in detail, it might remain a bit abstract (of course I hope this is not the case….).

Of course a lot of my doubts were completely unnecessary- it was sooo good to see my mum! And as a bonus she brought Finnish bread and cheese and Fazer chocolate and all the newspapers of last week as well as all the articles she had saved for me to read, although I had told her not to bring anything… and I got a bit homesick reading all of it…

… but I haven’t had much time to think about it (although it has been consciously registered). Wednesday we made a quick tour of Hong Kong: we walked through TST and the Avenue of Stars, took the ferry to Central and from there the old tram to Causeway Bay. We went to Victoria Park, the HK central Library and two temples- all of which I had not yet seen! The afternoon was spent in Mongkok, from where I left to go home. Thursday I went to classes and tried to catch up on my work – in the afternoon I took them around campus and our place, where we had a huge party the same night. I bet the neighbors didn’t like it (again a party during the week), but Friday was the Buddha’s birthday and the bun festival – a holiday in any case. We threw people out at 11 pm and after that I stayed on to clean our place: it is in the long term not a very gratifying role to always host the parties especially since people behave like pigs once wasted (which usually is the end result in our parties). Friday was spent in Shenzhen- I cut my leg in the morning when exiting our shower…. An so the day was a bit painful but worth the effort: I bought two jeans and sunglasses (altogether 30 euros).

The program has so far been a bit hectic and I feel I am sometimes impatient, but on the other hand I think you have to try to see as much as possible from here- just to get a glimpse of Asian (Chinese/HK-) culture. For them the food (noodles for breakfast?) as well as certain other conventions (take the change with both hands, walk on the left, eating with chopsticks…) are difficult to get used to –I notice how much I have changed my lifestyle and adapted!- but I think they are doing a great job and get around really well!!! For me it is a great practice for my other friends coming over here SOON!- now I know more of what to deal with * smile*

Today my mum and her friend are on Lantau Island – the weather is for a change great- and I am resting my foot and later going to Stanley (on HK Island) for the dragon boat practice. The Finns in HK have their own boat for the dragon boat race, a traditional and very popular (???) festival in HK, which is held annually in the end of May. I am excited about that one since it seems to be a big thing!!! So, off to packing my things… might stay over in the hotel tonight (it is centrally located in TST…) after showing them Soho and LKF….

Hope you had a fun (and not too cold) Vappu!