“Hey Tim, does this box get two slabs of bacon or three?”Life in Hong Kong has the occasional surreal moment. Every once in a while, I find myself stepping outside of the moment, looking at myself, and saying I can’t believe that I am in China doing such-and-such.
Today, during my free period, I found myself –with about a dozen other teacher volunteers- in the cafeteria working on a makeshift assembly line filling meat orders.
Life in Hong Kong is all about adaptation. If we ever had any delusions about fully immersing ourselves in Hong Kong culture and living a Canton life, that just ain’t gonna happen. Bottom line is, we’re expats, and part of being expats is living a hybrid life.
In my school building, there is a principal who everyone –including himself- refers to as Mr. Hong Kong. He has made a connection with a father of one of our students. This father is German by birth and a butcher by profession. The German butcher has made a pretty nice living for himself supplying high-end hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong. Some time back, Mr. Hong Kong worked out an arrangement with Herr Butcher to allow the teachers at our school to submit a mass order once a month.
Because it’s hard knowing exactly what you’re getting from the local Park n Shop (lets not even get started on the open air markets) and because the quality is inconsistent, Julie jumped at the chance to participate in the collective order.
Because the meat arrived during my free period, I volunteered to be a sorter and a packer.
So there I am during 5th period, helping to divvy up half a ton of meat. “The Wilsons get 10 salmon filets, 20 hamburger patties, four flank steak, one slab of bacon, two packs of turkey sausage, and . . . done!”
At one point, I stopped, looked around at all the activity, and said to myself “I can’t believe I'm in Hong Kong, working side-by-side with a bunch of Brits and Aussies to pack boxes of meat. Whose weird dream did I wake up in the middle of?
Bizarre.
Okay, what transpired today is not exactly the typical Hong Kong way. But then again, what is? Eating pigs knuckles and sucking the skin off of chicken feet certainly is.
But apparently, so is banding together with your fellow expats and ordering a half-ton-worth of meat from a German butcher.
We are all just trying to survive here.
By any means necessary.
And at least now, our beef is coming from parts of the cow we’re actually familiar with.
If it would make everybody feel better, we promise to cut all that meat into tiny pieces, stir fry it, and eat it with chop sticks. Would that be Hong Kong-y enough for everybody?
Grandpa was butcher.
Gandhi was a vegetarian.
-Jack
Note to Julie: Those 30 frozen chicken breasts you ordered? Yeah, those were two to a pack. So now we need to figure out how the four of us are going to eat 60 chicken breasts in a month.
No comments:
Post a Comment