Buddha and the Mouse

Twenty years ago, a community of faithful Buddhists pooled their resources and built the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island here in Hong Kong. It is the largest, bronze, outdoor, sitting Buddha. (Apparently there is a larger Buddha sitting indoors somewhere?)

It sits on top of a mountain next to a Buddhist monastery. For twenty years, the faithful made pilgrimages to the Big Buddha. So far, so good.And then came the Disney-ification of Buddha. Some enterprising soles just could not pass up the opportunity to cash in. First came the massive cable car that takes tourist on a twenty-five minute ride over mountains, valleys, and ocean on its way up the peak. Not surprisingly, you alight from your cable car directly into a gift shop.

It is then a ten-minute walk to the base of the Big Buddha. Along this route, the developers of the cable car have built a “themed village.” It is a direct take-off of Main Street in Disney World. But, instead of clapboard siding, green shutters, and wrought iron railings; it was built in the traditional Chinese style complete with circular moon gates and ceramic roof tiles. The two dozen shops that make up the “village” are almost entirely souvenir shops and restaurants. For an extra $5.00, you can go to the “The Monkey’s Tale” theater and watch a Disney-like movie based on a Chinese folktale. Across the cobble-stone street is a second theater that houses a “multi-media experience” that tells the story of Siddhartha the Indian prince who became the first Buddha 2500 years ago.

Out front of The Buddha Experience is a Bodhi tree like the one under which Buddha first achieved enlightenment. This one is made from plastic though and has rubber fruit hanging from it. Under the plastic bodhi tree is a wooden rack with pegs sticking out from it. Hanging from the wooden pegs are thin wooden boards on which the faithful have written prayers and submitted to the bodhi tree.

And where can you buy one of these wooden prayer boards? You can’t. They come to you free if you spent US$25 or more in any of the gift shops.Now all we need to do is get Buddha a fast-talking, wise-cracking side kick and he will be all set.

Torah! Torah! Torah!

Today, Bibles are much more available in China than they were just a few years ago. Beijing likes to point out that Amity Publishing -the one state-sanctioned publishing house that is allowed to print Bibles in China- has printed over 50 million Bibles since it began printing 24 years ago in 1987.

Sounds impressive.

But that works out to just two million Bibles per year -this in a country with a population of 1.3 billion. Assuming none of those Bibles has worn out over the years, China now has one Bible for just every 26 people. Suppose for a moment that the goal was to have a Bible available for every man, woman, and child in China. At this rate, it will take Amity Publishing another 62 years to print enough Bibles for everyone.The bottom line, there is a huge demand for Chinese-language Bibles in China which outstrips the supply. So Beijing’s claims that they have the Bible-supply thing under control and that there is no need to import Bibles into China are a little disingenuous.

To further impede matters, Bibles are not allowed to be sold in standard book stores. They can only be sold in state-sanctioned religious bookstores. So not only is there a supply problem, there is a distribution problem.

The shortfall is most severe in rural areas. Outside of urban areas, Bibles are hard to come by and when available, they are prohibitively expensive.

In an attempt to overcoming these deficits, Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan printed and distributed Bibles free of charge. Last June, Chinese courts found him guilty, fined him US$22,000, and sentenced him to three years in prison. All for simply having the audacity to work outside of sanctioned channels.

While religious repression in China may not be as draconian as the dark days of Mao Zedong when simply getting caught with a Bible in your possession was a serious matter. Religious freedom –in particular the right to produce and distribute Bibles- still has a long, long way to go.

Look Boss, All we need to do is add a "t" and ...

Easter doesn't make a big splash here in Hong Kong -especially up here in the New Territories.

But its nice to see our friends at Maltesers have given the nod to the holiday.

How clever of them.

Of Births and Borders part 3 of 3

Because The States grants citizenship to almost everyone who is born within her boundaries –even if they are only there for a weekend visit to Disneyland- a cottage industry has sprung up around birth tourism. Citizens of South Korean, China, Taiwan, and yes –Hong Kong- are the ones who probably take fullest advantage of this legal anomaly. Several travel agencies in South Korean actively market to pregnant women and offer travel packages that provide all travel arrangements, accommodations, and a little gift basket for the new mother.

One of the big draws is that once a child has a U.S. passport, it is much easier –and cheaper- for them to gain admittance to a U.S. university later in life. An initial investment of $20,000 up front by mom and dad, can reap a savings of tens of thousands of dollars once junior is of college age.

A colleague of mine taught in Seoul, South Korea, and she pointed out that another advantage is that the South Korean government makes it much easier to get a coveted spot in one of Seoul’s international elementary or secondary school if a person holds a foreign passport.

Great Britain, Ireland, India, and Australia used to have jus soli citizenship laws like the United States still does, but in the last few years they have modified their birthright laws to no longer automatically extend citizenship to every child born within their borders.

I think that it would be really cool to have grandchildren who hold Chinese citizenship. I imagine that these might come in really handy one day in the not-so-distant future. Wouldn’t it be great if one day my married daughters could book a vacation to China for a few weeks, take in the sights, deliver a baby quick a minute, and then be handed a Chinese passport for the newborn on the way out of the country?

That would be awesome.

Unfortunately, that is not how the world works.

Well, at least not most of the world.

Of Births and Borders part 2 of 3

There must be something in the water here at our international school. We have had five babies born to staff members or their wives since the school year began.

After I blogged this winter about some of the cultural differences that our colleague experienced when she gave birth here, one of you asked whether or not the child was given citizenship status because he was born in Hong Kong.

Great question. The answer –of course- is no.

But I thought it was such a great question because it had never dawned on me to ask it. It never even occurred to me that a child born to a citizen of another country who had been living and working in Hong Kong for just eighteen months might be granted citizen status.

The practice of granting citizenship to anyone born on that country’s soil is known in Latin as jus soli which literally means “right of the soil.” Less than twenty percent of the world’s countries’ grant citizenship status based on jus soli. Virtually no European or Asian country grants citizenship to individuals just because they happen to be born within that nation’s boundaries. The United States is the largest and one of the few nations that issues citizenship based on jus soli.

The vast majority of the world’s nations require that one or both parents have citizen or some sort of residency status. This practice is known as jus sanguinis –or “right of blood.”

Of Births and Borders part 1 of 3

Ever since the handover of Hong Kong back to China in 1997, people both inside and outside of Hong Kong have been speculating about just how much Beijing has been calling the shots from behind the scenes. According to the 1997 handover agreement, Hong Kong is to be a Special Administrative Region (SAR) for the next fifty years. One nation, two systems. Hong Kong is to enjoy a large amount of autonomy even though she has been reunited with China.

The more leery citizens of Hong Kong claim Beijing exerts a whole lot more control over Hong Kong than she publically lets on. Every so often something comes up that indicates that this may very well be the case.

In 2010, over 88,000 babies were born in Hong Kong hospitals. 41,000 of them –almost half- were born to mainland mothers who had come over for the express purpose of having their babies here. One of the biggest draws is that children of Chinese parents born in Hong Kong are immediately granted permanent residency status – a process that otherwise requires seven years of residency in Hong Kong.

Last month, 800 Hong Kong labor and delivery doctors signed a petition calling for tighter restrictions on use of the Hong Kong health care system. They said they are overworked and resources are being spread too thin.

Hong Kong has ways to clamp down on this massive influx of expecting mothers, but for some reason is choosing not to. This is what has caused some to speculate that there is more going on than meets that eye.

From Hong Kong’s perspective, there’s a problem. But from Beijing’s perspective –one could argue- there is no problem. Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong . . . it’s all part of China. If citizens from one city want to go to another city to have their baby because it has more modern facilities, so be it.

In fact, from a politburo’s perspective sitting up in Beijing, it might actually look like a good thing.

Wow

This from a new reader.

What a wonderful blog. I stumbled onto it while looking for international teaching blogs and I ended up reading it in its entirety over the past few days. My husband and I will be going to an international school in Beijing this summer, so it was lovely to find such a frank, humorous account of your family's time in Hong Kong.

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences. It's been a real pleasure to read.

- Sev

ifake part 2 of 2

My friend handed the phone back to the man just long enough to get cash out of his pocket. My friend gave the man the money and the man tucked the phone into my friend's pants pocket, patted it, smiled, and congratulated my friend on his new purchase. My friend pulled his new phone out of his pocket and glanced down at it. When he glanced back up, the man was gone having blended into the crowd.

My friend looked down again at his new iphone. The case was real enough, but instead of the iphone he had just been examining a moment early, in the case was a worthless, plastic display phone.

In the few seconds it had taken my friend to hand over his money, the man had performed a slight of hand and had switched phones.

As much as it stung, my friend was telling the story pretty freely on Monday morning at work. When I asked him if he kept the plastic phone as a prop to go with his tale of woe, he said no. He was so disgusted with himself that he gave it to his buddy Andy and told him to give it to his kids as a toy.

The hustler got hustled.

Well, at least my friend’s instinct was right on one account: the phone he’d been examining was in fact a real iphone.

It’s just too bad it wasn’t the one he walked away with.

-Jack

ifake part 1 of 2

My friend and colleague was over the border in China doing some wheeling and dealing. My friend is Chinese Canadian and by his own admission, there is no deal that can’t be made more favorable with a little haggling.

My friend is pretty shrewd. He drives a tough bargain. He has a pretty good nose for opportunity and can ferret out a bad deal from twenty paces away. The problem wasn’t that his radar didn’t go off, it’s that my friend choose to override it.He and his friend Andy were approached on the streets of Shenzhen by a guy trying to sell them a new iphone. Nothing unusual in that. You get approached on the city streets of all the time.

Instead of walking away, my friend stopped to check out the phone. Granted, it was probably a knock off, but my friend was taken aback by how authentic it looked. It had the right amount of heft, it looked really good. It was fully functional. It ran beautifully. It was responsive and fast.“I don’t know Andy, I think this may be the real thing,” my friend said.

The man was asking about US $150 for the phone.My friend played with it for a few more minutes, weighing the phone and weighing his options. “I am going to go for it!” he finally said to Andy.

[photo by Elise VanNoord]

Moldin' Golden Arches

Way to go Elise. Third place at the fifth-grade science fair. (Turns out McDonald's burgers do have a freakishly long shelf life. What do they put in those things?)