Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

Woke up quite early this morning. Headed out of the house around 740AM to make sure I got to the Lion Dance Center in time. I snagged a motorbike and said "Yongling", thats the district that the lion dance setup is located. It also happens to be the name of the team I am apart of. The driver must have understood me because we went in the general direction. I pointed him the rest of the way.
They say that the Yongling District is a very rich district. Well...if this was a rich district, I would really hate to see the poor district. The house here look very expensive and I have no doubt that people have spent lots of money in this area. However, the houses have this weird look of gaudy Western architecture mixed with the Chinese love of tiles and house layouts (which i think is a cool layout) and went they put it together it is just downright ugly. Give me the old traditional style of Zhongshan Gardens or Wong Fei Hong's Museum in Foshan any day over this crap. The residences look very expensive, but no one seems to care about the surrounding landscape or foliage. The place looks like a hurrican ripped thru here just last nite. Overgrown vegetation, trees knocked over, crap laying all around, spotted grass fields. Pretty displeasing to the eye.
I think its partly chinese culture though. The layout for their houses causes it. Basically, you got this house with a 8 foot to 13 foot wall surrounding the plot of land. Inside they have picturesque gardens and other pleasurable viewing materials, i have been able to peer in thru some gates. They don't see the actual surrounding landscape unless they leave their house and the only time they do that is when they go to work. I am sure if they had to look at it every moment they were at home, then they would do something about it.
I get to the Lion Dance Center and there is this 1980s (looked 80s-ish, but most everything does here in China) blue Honda Mini-Van sitting outside the door. The driver was blaring horrible Canto-pop over the out of date speakers. I knocked on the blue door. One of the wunderkinden answered and let me in. I took some morning footage of their living quarters and them getting ready. A couple others planning to come to HK had arrived. Then Sifu arrived all full of energy. We packed 9 people into this mini-mini-van. We headed out to the Guo Tai Bus Station, the small one by me. We hopped a bus for shenzhen at 840AM. I had the first seat next to Guo Sifu.
One thing that needs a swift bullet to the head is Karaoke on buses. It should not be legal to have it on the whole 2.5 hour bus ride. It really wasn't bad, but it could have been. This girl that sat across the aisle from me pretty much sang along with almost every song. Guo Sifu sang along with a couple. Of course they weren't singing loud, but enuff that me and my hawk ears could hear it....what? Even in China karaoke videos are quite horrendous. I still love the one that had Jackie Chan, Leslie Cheung, Yeun Biao, and Andy Lau sitting around an Old West fashioned Boomtown corner that had a well, a blacksmith and a bar all within a 5 foot radius.
The sun was coming thru the front windsheild so i was wearing my police mirrors while I drifted in and out of sleep. My head was falling into the aisle, but most everyone on the bus was passed out. We arrived in Shenzhen and it was really crowded. I thought that from Shenzhen we would need to take a ferry boat ride, but I was wrong. Shezhen shares a boarder crossing with the north part of HK. After about 20 minutes of walking and going thru two passport checkpoints, we snagged a train to take us to the Hon Hing Train terminal (East Kowloon Area). The train ride was around 30 minutes and it was a glorified subway train, just a little more plush. This family got on at one stop and this little baby girl had the biggest cheeks I have ever seen on a baby before. She was infatuated with the red "Oh Shit!" handles dangling from the ceiling.
We got to the KRC station at Hon Hing where we waited for our ride. About 30 minutes later he showed up. We were picked up in a converted chinese fish truck. Well, it never really was a fish truck. If you have ever seen movies set in China/HK/Japan, its the trucks that carry fish. This carried Lion Dance equipment. Three people could fit in the front cab, then we had 5 crammed into the prison seats in the front of the trailer while two people stood up in the back of the trailer with all the equipment. If that ain't totally chinese, I don't know what is. I was at the left window and I stuck my camera out the window as we were driving around the spider web that is the Hong Kong road and Highway system. One of the wunderkinden vomited in the back of the truck from standing/sitting in the back of the truck. He better have not heaved onto my bag. I will be pissed.
The sun was out, the sky was considerably clear, and it was warm. A gorgeous day. So what did we do on a gorgeous day in HK after eating in a cafeteria over looking scenic Aberdeen Harbor? Nothing! I was so friggin bored for 2 hours! Basically, after lunch, we arrived at one of the practice studios this new Sifu makes use of. This is where we will be sleeping tonite. It looked like Chang Kai Shek's Family Junkyard. The place looked like a pig sty....wait...a lion sty. There was liond dance crap and trash all strewn about the place. Some workers cleaned it up quick and laid down the practice rug. Then everyone sat around doing nothing but sleeping for what seemed like forever. I kept asking the driver dude, "How do I get to Times Square? Where are we on the map? Where is the bank, I need to exchange money? Is there anything to do around here?" I got negative answers to all. The driver spoke english, he just didnt know anything. He claimed there was nothing to do at all. BS!
After 30 minutes I had already flipped thru all the magazines they had laying around in which they had stories on this Hon Hing Troop. I had also seen all the fotos the Hon Hing Sifu had taken with celebrities: Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Simon Lam, and Tung Chee Wah (the commi ruler of HK) I think thats his name. Also, Andy Lau had done a bunch of foto advertisements for the New Year with some of the lions. They were quite humorous. "Hey Andy! Your stance is wrong."
I called CASE to find out the status of my iPod. The jerks said it wouldn't be ready tomorrow, yet they said it would. They said it would be ready by the 14th, Monday. I was like, I need it for my trip. "We are sorry for your inconvenience..." Bullshit, if you assholic chinese cared at all for your customers you wouldn't have said 3-5 days knowing full well in advance that you could not deliver. (all the people there when I turned my iPod in never got theres at least for 1.5-2weeks) I knew this would happen so I am just callling to be difficult and I will call again tomorrow.
Finally after sitting and staring at nothing while all the others took their afternoon nap (chinese people like to nap in the afternoon because they aren't grown up enough to handle the trials of the day), we headed to dinner. We hopped into the truck and drove all around the road system just so that we could go about 1 mile distance when we prolly traveled about 10 miles of road. Everything is so cramped here. We got to this diner and Victor ordered me some Chinese French Toast which was covered in liquid sugar and egg butter. Then they also gave me some terrible salsbury steak and eggs. At the diner we met some of the other teachers.
When we got back to the studio the head Hon Hing Sifu showed up while we goofed around. I was bored again. It took me 20 minutes to find out what was going on tomorrow. I talked with one of the comrades from Hon Hing troop. Her english was pretty good. Tomorrow we have practice at 2pm at the TV station where they will shoot the TV Program at midnite. Cool. She said TVB is located in Kowloon, so that means its pretty close to the China Star Ferry Terminal so i can hit it up at 8pm and get back intime to get a good sleep since I need to be in Shunde the day after that. So, to kill some time and appease the lion dance fanatics, i popped my tape of the Foshan lion dance troop to veiw it. The Hon Hing Sifu saw it and was watching it with me for about 5 minutes. He wants a copy. I mean, I think he wants a copy. His english was so messy I couldn't quite understand what he was saying. He then invited us all to dinner. Oh crap. Not again. I ain't hungry, oh well, I guess the MSG will take care of that. While at the crowded dinner table, I found room in my innards to pack some very good MSG ladened food away.
We headed back to the studio where the Hon Hing sifu wanted to watch the wunderkinden in action. The area that they practice the pedestal set up is on the roof. Its an amazing view, I was up there when we first arrived and its absolutely gorgeous. I got some fotos during the day and night. Very nice. It was 23 stories up. After that practice, Hon Hing sifu invited us back to his pimp pad and tried to seduce us with his many awards and trophies. Impressive. We chatted back and forth with everyone. Some folks speak english. Now, because they speak english, they think they are really cool, and acted all arrogant when they would talk to me. "English...no problem. I speaks english to you always." To bad its wrong. All I ask is that you try to speak english, I know that living in HK, these people have been taught it more than in China, don't be arrogant about it though because you aren't that good. Aiya.
We were taken to the roof here as well. This was on the 26th story. We were up there for about 5 minutes when the driver came running up the stairs with a handful of flames. He thru it into a pot and poked it with a stick with his other hand while he was sucking and blowing on his burnt hand. One of the english speakers showed up on the roof with two handfuls and then some of Money for the Dead. I figured thats what it was, but it seemed there was other stuff in there too. It looked like trash. "What's that..." I asked....
"Oh, its hard to explain to you."
-Try me, Prick. Just cause I ain't chinese don't mean I don't understand. After I said what it was, they all gasped, "WAH!, He's right! But he is still a gweilo."
I discussed my past gung fu experience with Siu Fei Long (Small Flying Dragon). We then went back to the pimp pad where i looked at some fotos. We then walked back to the other studio. I started writing this journal entry. After about two sentences in, some of the younger Hon Hing folks came over. They played some music while we all chatted. It was nice.
The host people left us so we could get ready for bed. I had to take my first chinese shower/bath. Basically, they had this giant bin filled with water. It had a heating wire at the bottom to heat the water. You take a bucket and pour it all over yourself, then soap yourself up, then dump another bucket on yourself. We were in the bathroom with a tile floor. By the time I got to go, i was last, the floor was under an inch of water and the water holder had very little water left. What was left was damn near scalding. I found this out when I tried to dump it on my chest. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I had to mix it up with water from the faucet. Talk about getting Hong Kong toe...this is the way to do it.
After the bath, I taught "Pull My Finger" to the chinese wunderkinden. They were speechless. It was quite humorous. Later on in the night they were doing it with each other. I have taught the chinese another valuable skill.
Now these wunderkinden are from poor families. In China, well, in the past, poor families that are too poor to care for their kids send them to kung fu schools to live. Thats what I think is happening here. So, they were all amazed with my electronic toys...my digital camera and DV Video Camera. I allowed them to use them. They took tons of pictures and video. I barely touched my stuff today. They seemed to enjoy it. During the time we were about to go to bed, after everyone cleaned up and etc, they took some really hilarious video footage. Its totally going on the DVD. Its great. I laughed my ass off.
We all went to bed, or tried to. We prolly didnt fall asleep untill 3AM. Basically, it was like a sleepover with a bunch of immature boys. It was great. I gave a bunch of charlie horses. It was great!
Time to sleep.