From East to West and Back Again--Culture Change

Germany--More Like Home

When I entered the airport in Hamburg, Germany about a week and a half ago, I already felt closer to this culture than the one I had left about 15 hours earlier. For one thing, my whole foot would fit on each step of a staircase. I had forgotten that stairs in Hong Kong were much smaller. For another thing, I didn’t feel so outsized. The people surrounding me were taller and wider than the ones I had just left. I am reminded of that difference every day in Hong Kong. The last reminder came as I was purchasing socks for the colder weather when I departed the airport in Hong Kong. The label read “one size fits all.” I would have been relieved except that “all” referred to those people with shoe sizes from 4-8 and mine were 9!

I was also reminded of the differences when I had problems figuring out where to find a taxi upon my arrival in Hamburg. Finding nobody at the information desk, I inquired the direction of a woman at another desk. She promptly told me that her job was NOT to supply information and so I had to fend for myself in the near-empty airport that night. I thought to myself that strangers in Hong Kong were much friendlier—particularly in the fabulous Hong Kong airport.

When I went to breakfast the next morning, I was greeted by the best kind of difference—the sight and smell of sturdy bread in all shapes and all grains. The Chinese have likely come to the appreciation of bread a little late—and make it more to resemble their steamed buns than the bread I am used to. It is always either too soft or too chewy, despite having the look of the real thing. So instead of Congee and noodles or a stir-fried rice dish, there were many kinds of cheese and jams and yogurt and muesli on the breakfast table—all accompanied by wonderful coffee. OK, I can get that in Hong Kong, as Starbucks and the Pacific Coffee Company have both made their way to Asia and are fairly ubiquitous around the city.

Of course the cooler temperatures and the many-colored leaves were also different. I had traded my sandals in for lace-up shoes with those too-tight socks. And I even purchased a wool jacket from Marks & Spencer in Hong Kong before the trip. Yes, it is true, the stores are loaded with winter attire and the advertising in the magazine shouts “Winter at Last” when the daytime highs are still in the 80s.

Next Stop—Siem Reap, Cambodia

I didn’t get much chance to make other comparisons as I had to spend most of my time in Germany in meeting rooms before the interminably long return flight. But as it turns out I had another chance to make comparisons when Pekin and I decided to take this last long weekend with a little trip. Monday was Chung Yeung Festival where the people go to respect their ancestors in the graveyards and to sweep the graves make burnt offerings. Having no ancestors in Hong Kong to visit, we purchased tickets to Siem Reap, Cambodia to experience one of the new wonders of the world, the ancient city of Angkor Wat.  It didn’t make the cut for the top seven, according to the million votes received by the New7Wonders Foundation, but it was in the next 13 to be nominated. Other lists of the “wonders” do include Angkor Wat in the top tier.

At our age we frequently say to ourselves that it is possible we won’t get the chance to do these things or be healthy enough to make these trips again, so we need to do it now. We weren’t sorry.

But the contrast with both Germany and Hong Kong couldn’t have been greater. The first difference was the walk through passport control. Pekin referred to the long line of uniformed middle-aged men as the “Twelve Apostles,” but there weren’t quite that many. After affixing our visa to the passport the first man passed the passport to the next, who inspected it carefully and handed it off to the stern-looking guy on his left, and so forth—all the way to the last man, who then handed the documents across the counter to us. At last we had been given approval to enter the country. We would have taken a picture of the group, but feared they might revoke the visas.

All over Siem Reap we were greeted by men and women who couldn’t do enough to make us feel honored to have entered their country. That was all the more obvious by following of the cultural practice to press the palms of their hands together and bow to us each time we were greeted. We never opened a door in our hotel. There was always someone there to do it for us. Chairs were pulled out for us as we sat down to breakfast and my car door was always opened by the driver. I wonder how I can get that to happen back in the U.S.

People Living in the Midst of Poverty and Corruption

I know there is poverty in Hong Kong because I read about it in the newspaper regularly.  I’ve also read that the region is at or near the top in the gap between the richest and the poorest. However, because of the life I lead here, I don’t have many chances to encounter the poorest citizens. In Siem Reap it was impossible to avoid. Our driver, not among the poorest, quit his job as an elementary school teacher, to earn more money as a driver. He can’t rise in the ranks to be a tour guide, however, until he pays $3,000 for the license to practice. It is all about corruption, he says, when he describes the system for nearly everything in the country. He took us to visit his mother so we could purchase some of the baskets she makes and sells along the Thai border where they fetch a better price than in town. His parents were spared from the brutality of the Khmer Rouge because they lacked education and worked as rice farmers. After driving down a long bumpy dirt road and through a village surrounded by flooded land, we arrived at the family home—up on stilts, open to the elements from below because the floor boards had gaps between them; lacking doors or windows; and without electricity from the city but only a battery that allowed for limited lighting, television viewing, and refrigeration. After purchasing a few baskets, I left feeling sad about the hard life of this woman and her family of seven children.

We also saw the signs of poverty at the Angkor Wat ruins where small children as young as four or five relentlessly begged tourists to buy their post cards, woven bracelets or guidebooks. We were told they went to school on split sessions, but that school was closed in honor of the visit of the S. Korean prime minister, leaving the children free to ply their wares.

One morning we took a boat trip on Tonle Sap Lake where the mostly Vietnamese boat people live. To tourists the place is romantically referred to as the “floating village.”  Earning a livelihood from fishing, the boat people spend their whole lives on the water. Some of the larger ones serve as shopping centers, while one boat was the site of a pool room, and a third one covered with netting was used as a basketball court. Several floating restaurants were also situated among the homes. To complete the community there was a church boat and a school boat. The community must have to deal with water-borne diseases, and mobility is both limited and facilitated by the surrounding water. Children and adults alike appeared thin and malnourished. I was glad to have seen this village, but also sad to know that I could do little about the conditions. It made me want to give more to support Kiva, the online micro-loan program.

Of course we went to Siem Reap to experience the temples, not the poverty. They were as amazing as everyone has said. But without the $50 million that came from NGOs and the Japanese government to preserve the site and clear out the land mines—which are said to still be found in the jungle areas surrounding the temples, it would not be the tourist site it is today. The Cambodian People’s Party government is somehow unable or unwilling to manage the temple business , so outsources it to a private company that returns a small percentage to government coffers. In case you might be thinking that this poor country would not know the value of a dollar, you would be wrong. A 3-day pass to visit Angkor Wat costs $40 per person, while the 45-minute boat ride on a tub that we were not sure would get us back to the dock was priced at $20 per person, and the right to exit Cambodia at the airport was an additional $25 per head (coming in cost only $20 each). Who gets all that money? Our driver tells us that the corrupt government scoops it all up and it lands in their pockets.

I started this blog with thoughts about cultural differences, and in the short time between October 15 and 26^th I felt like I went through a time warp as well as a cultural warp. I’ve only touched the surface of the feelings I had about differences, so might continue this later. All I have to say to conclude is that I’m glad to be back at our serviced suite hotel on the Hong Kong harbor.