I climbed a mountain

August 30th I decided to climb this mountain.

The problem was I didn't know how to get to it.

It took some time, and I was able to take

 this visually appealing photo (left).

I came across this clearing 

and felt like it would be a good place to start. For the next hour I pushed my way up the mountain through thick brush. It went a little something like this: 

When I was especially fatigued, I sprawled out on 

top of the bushes I was climbing over... 

Right around the time that I started having flashbacks of the never-ending stair-climber

 workout machine, I came across a pathway leading to a clearing... 

I was pretty thirsty, considering I did not know that the path you see in one of the pictures led 

all the way up mountain. So, I proceeded to engage in the most difficult but necessary conversations with the two gentlemen in this picture, asking them if the water was clean to drink. Thinking I could use sign language as the universal communicator, I pointed to a water-dispensing tube and made a drink motion with my hand and a scrunched, inquisitive face. The men transcended my expectations, as they did not provide a simple yes or no answer. They just continued in conversational Cantonese,  ignoring my drinking gestures, perhaps admiring the liters of sweat spurting from my hot epidermal layers. Finally, "Drink! Drink!" he said. That was all I needed to hear, and this man was as good as a marine biologist.

The next hour was spent climbing the remaining distance and admiring the view. I was pissed off when I reached the top... ... apparently. A

ctually, I was very happy, stunned, and at peace...  ... with much armpit hair. Here is some footage I took. (For those reading my blog and aren't completely internet-savvy, you can click the underlined word "here" and view footage. You can also leave comments on my blog, email me at jacobcarrigan@gmail.com, or send me mail): 

Lingnan University HC-105A

8 Castle Peak Road

Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hong Kong

On top of a mountain nearby was the structure you see in the picture here. What is it? I don't know.

As I mentioned earlier, there was clearing with men living on the mountain. Or, I think they lived up here. There is a large buddhist influence, with graves

 like this sporadically built on the mountain. And figurines like this. There are places like this. I want to learn more about it.

As I made my way back down the mountain, I returned to the original clearing I had found earlier. Different men were there. I asked them if it was okay to drink the water. They said, "No!" "There is bacteria in it!" "Do not drink!" in much better English than guy number one.

I'm made it down the mountain with enough strength about me to appreciate the eye trick this picture I took plays on you (look at the pants in the middle/right).

I am excited to visit more mountains. Hopefully, I will camp on the top of one or two. And hopefully the first guy was right about the water.

Some photographs of Hong Kong

This is central
This is a skeleton.
This is poutine. Gravy and cheese served over french fries. It is very Canadian. I'm not sure why I'm eating it in Hong Kong.




The Ozone, Mon Kok, Victory!, a view from my dorm, picture of Central.
This city is beautiful madness and seems like it shouldn't exist.

Found in Translation

I landed in Hong Kong three nights ago. Upon my Sunday night arrival, I have come to understand that life is very easy here. Along with the dirt cheap food, commodities, and transportation comes an overabundance of mutual back-scratchers.

But it isn't just about helping to de-lice each others' back hair; I've detected a raging case of altruism within people, perhaps manifested in the oasis effect Hong Kong seems to have when juxtaposed with China. Or, perhaps it is the stark jungle-to-jungle contrast. Nearly every bouquet of buildings in this city grows next to a set of mountains covered in a sub-tropical rain forest ecosystem. Sociologists and botanists can find their dream pea tree dishes 200 feet apart (and both 10 feet from the delicious dim sum dishes). And if both scientists have an affinity for the absurd, it'll help all the more. A rain forest and metropolis together at last, all built on a giant rock.

Absurd amount of clubs on campus, too. Just like at Beloit, I've overcommitted myself and feel pretty guilty about it. Either dragon boat racing or rowing is going to have to get the ax. Rugby must stay--my irregular size at this university tells me that now is my only chance so play the sport while feeling good about my chances of maintaining suitable oral structure. Green Club... in China... an oxymoron? we shall see. Drama club; what better way for me to learn the language than to memorize a bunch of lines associated with a caricature of expressions--that's how babies learn. Volunteer club, music society, film society, dragon dancing... where do I begin? One difference here when signing up for clubs is that you must pay membership fees. Makes me long for them good old days when people just assembled to play rugby on their own. At least the fees will regulate my over-committing ways.

Changing gears, I must say I'm a large fan of many cultural differences in print media. From billboards of dogs saying "Don't eat us!" government-created signs next cliffs saying "Don't climbing," and t-shirts for the thugs who want to boast "I am gang."

Two good links

When I'm in Hong Kong, I would like to communicate with you! To do this, you could

1) email me. My address is jacobcarrigan@gmail.com

2) Skype me. Skype is an internet phone service. We can voice chat, text chat, or video chat. It's extremely easy to get started, and wonderfully enough, it's free. Go to www.sykpe.com. Then just search for Jacob Carrigan or Jacob Emory Carrigan or Jake Carrigan or whatever name I'm saved as. We'll be friends. It will be great.

Also, you can text or email me and we can setup a Skype date and that's how we'll talk without paying @!$#$ dollars a minute.

3) Look at this awesome map. I was checking Hong Kong's weather radar because they are having a typhoon, when I learned how to zoom out all the way on the radar map (which is what you should do on the map link). This allows you to see the entire world's weather at once. You can also mess around with the transparency of the radar. It's really cool, I think.

If you think I have a warped definition of the word "cool," sorry.  I'll start posting things that are more interesting... soon.

I'm going to Hong Kong

I'm going to travel 16 hours that way (points West) this Saturday, August 23rd and am scheduled to return December 23rd. That's four months in Hong Kong. While on that side of the planet, I hope to travel through China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and maybe even India, Egypt, or Israel. These travels outside of Hong Kong will depend on research, time, money, and impending xenophobia--er, homesickness.

While I'm in Hong Kong, I will be studying at Lingnan University. Lingnan is a small, liberal arts university located in the Tuen Mun district, which is part of the New Territories. My classes will be in English, as English is one of the official languages of Hong Kong. The English influence is because Hong Kong was under British rule until 1997, when it was handed back to China. It is now a Special Administrative Region and functions under China as "one country, two separate systems." It is supposed to be a separate system until about 2047. The other main language is Cantonese. I've learned a little basic Cantonese (that is, "Gno ng sihk tang Gwong Dung Waa" or "I can not understand Cantonese"). 

I suppose it would be wise to take a course in Cantonese while in Hong Kong. However, I don't want to burden myself with too much academia while in a different country. Also, I'm not sure I have any intent to use Cantonese in a career. Of coarse, learning a language must be wonderful for the brain. This would be my argument for registering to learn a language where the letter "a" could theoretically mean nine different things. I guess this isn't much different than the English language at times. In fact, I'm guessing these nine concrete tones would prevent much of the difficult ambiguity, sarcasm, and double-meaning someone deals with when learning English or other languages. Now all I have to do is master the low-falling, very low level tone.

One thing that I am curious to find out about Cantonese, as I've mentioned to a few of you, is how people adhere to the differing tones when expressing emotion. If each tone must coincide with the spoken word, will I know I'm being scolded for spitting on the sidewalk, or just assume the Cantonese-speaker complimented the distance of my hawked lugi? I'm guessing I'll figure it out. I don't think Sapir or Whorf would argue that a language turns people into emotionless robots or an incomprehensible cross-cultural nightmare like these Russians playing chess.

I plan to discover much about the mysteries surrounding Hong Kong and will share them all with you on this blog. Pictures, addresses, and other fun stuff will come soon!

Vonnegut quotes from Palm Sunday

I like these. There are more, but I cannot type so much at once. Good things come to those who wait, but better things come to those who demand more quotes.