Reflections On A Long And Blessed Life No. 59: Food In Hong Kong Restaurants

Already in the 1950’s and continuing until today Hong Kong has had wonderful restaurants for every taste and pocketbook. My mouth begins to water as soon as I think of some wonderful Chinese feasts. We were indeed blessed to enjoy meals at common neighborhood restaurants and at the most elaborate and expensive ones.

But before enjoying the meal we always had to go through the appropriate seating ritual. The places at the table each had its ranking in the hierarchy-both as to where the table was located and the specific seat at which one was placed. It was dictated by both Chinese and biblical mandates to seat one’s-self at the lower tables and at a seat facing away from the entrance. This would always result in the polite urging to sit up higher-which one would, of course, decline. Eventually we all got seated and course after course was served. Among my very favorites is shark’s fin soup which is no longer available because it was the very sad practice to catch the sharks, just take the fins and discard the rest of the fish. It is impossible to beat traditional Peking duck. This specialty came in courses: first the very fatty meat wrapped in a wonderful crepe and dipped in a pungent, delicious sauce. Later the meat was served in small pieces and still later in the meal came the soup made from that same duck. Roast suckling pig was exactly that-with the whole piglet presented in the middle of the table. Elaborate meals had at least two soups plus fish, pork, duck, and several vegetables.

In contrast to the practice in Mainland China, my Chinese meals in Hong Kong did not feature heavy drinking of liquor. Beer was really not considered liquor. In fact children of any age could buy beer in neighborhood stores. Wine was never on the menu at any of the Chinese dinners I ate in those days. In Hong Kong whiskey meant Scotch.

The best and most exquisite place to eat on the Kowloon side was at the Peninsula Hotel and was (and still is) called Gaddis. The service was impeccable. The place was quiet and always featured a wonderful small musical ensemble from the Philippines. It was considered very expensive and we ate there very rarely. Of course, “expensive” is/was a relative term. One could eat a complete dinner including a cocktail, soup, entre and fancy dessert for less than $15.00(US). Our family often had our Sunday noon meal at a place called Garden Bakery. We could get soup, entre and dessert for US$1.00 each! Another favorite was the Russian Restaurant. It had wonderful baked bread and it was there that I first learned of and got to appreciate borscht soup.

There were, of course, no McDonalds’s or other fast food places in HK in our day. However there was plenty of “fast food” available. There were hundreds (maybe thousands) of little noodle and rice stands. There were street vendors who wheeled their offerings into the residential neighborhoods.

As I write this BLOG in mid June 2017 I am anticipating going to Hong Kong this fall. Top reason, of course, is to reconnect with former students who are now the wonderful and successful persons who have invited me back as their guest. It will be great to see them again and that experience will be greatly enhanced by fabulous meals at Chinese restaurants, at the Deep Water Bay Golf Club, and maybe even the extravagance of another meal at The Peninsula where a simple cocktail will cost more than the entire meal did in 1956!

Reflections on a Long and Blessed Life No. 58: Food in Hong Kong

I love to eat. So enjoying good food is among the many good memories I have of living in Hong Kong. However, before I can speak of that I must face the reality that when we first arrived in Hong Kong in 1956 there were many, many people there who were going hungry. They had fled for their lives bringing with them nothing or only the barest of necessities. They lived on the street, in stairwells, in hillside shacks. When thy had a little rice thy cooked it right there in the open. They often went hungry or underfed. I will never forget my early experience of seeing people on the verge of death due to starvation.

Fortunately we were a small part of the many efforts to feed the hungry. Lutheran World Service provided food for thousands. When their food trucks arrived people lined up orderly but eagerly for milk or rice packets. At our schools we regularly served milk to our pupils. This was a challenge because except for mother’s milk it is not common for Chinese to drink a lot of milk. When we strongly urged our students to drink milk they often had diarrhea as the initial response and that, of course, made it even more challenging. We added a bit of sugar to the milk and that helped. But what really helped is that it soon became obvious that those who drank milk every day were the ones who were gaining weight.

We faced a bit of a moral challenge I Macau. We had lots of flour and milk, but this was not what the people could easily use. They certainly had no money or space for baking ovens. We negotiated with a baker to use the flour and milk to bake fresh buns, which were enjoyed. We did not have funds to pay the baker in cash so we paid him “in kind” which technically we were not to do. But the arrangement did really save some lives and gave daily nourishment to others.

Inviting guests to share a meal is one of the basic forms of Chinese hospitality. This is almost always done in restaurants. In my ten years in Hong Kong I do not recall ever being invited to a Chinese home for a meal. Of course, most of the people with whom I worked lived in tiny, tiny apartments and hardly had room to accommodate guests. For people living in the Resettlement Estates it was not unusual that they had their small eating tables attached to pulleys and when it was not meal time those tables were pulled up close to the ceiling to make room for movement or a place to sleep.

One of the eating customs is to have the number of courses served be the same number as the number of guests at a table, usually ten or twelve. This can make for a wonderful varied meal but if funds are short it can present a challenge. I remember very early one. We had a big dinner for the teachers who had corrected the entrance exams at Concordia.  We had little money but we needed 12 dishes so we ordered the most economical and that is why, for example, at one meal we served blood soup, fish stomach and similar very low-cost ingredients.

At our home we always had plenty of good food. We learned to go without any fresh leafy vegetables because they were all raised using human excrement as fertilizer. The local chickens were scrawny but good, especially in soup. Fish from near-by waters were fresh and wonderful. Lamb came from Australia. Pork from the New Territories and China was excellent. I survived 5 years without ever having a steak.

Graduations 2017 In The USA

There is no way on earth I could count the number of graduations that I have attended. In my career I have been principal of elementary and high schools and so presented hundreds (thousands?) of diplomas. I was a superintendent of schools which took me to many more. I have spoken at several college graduation ceremonies. At all of those I sat on the stage. But this year I was there just to celebrate the grads, sit back and enjoy the ceremony and to have my own thoughts and responses.

The last few weeks have taken me to the graduation ceremonies of a public Junior college (Miramar), two high schools (both Catholic) and a public university (UCLA). Each of these was wonderfully inclusive. The grads’ surnames reflected more ethnicities than I could count. Even just thinking of the actual grads who had invited me I was struck by their variety in their or their family’s background. One was from Afghanistan whose parents were both killed by the Taliban precisely because they sent their daughter to school (girls are not supposed to go to school). Another was adopted because her birth mother was a drug addict and abusive. A third has a mother from Jamaica. Another had a father born in Hong Kong.  They were Christian, Muslim and “other or none”.  By gender they were not all straight. But they were all Americans and determined to make a positive difference in this country and in the world.

I could not help but contrast these classes from my own graduations. All my graduation classmates from elementary school through college were white, all American born, all Lutheran. But beyond the differences in our backgrounds I was struck by common themes articulated by both speakers and grads. I rejoiced at the challenge to dream big, to pursue the common good, to live lives of service to humanity, to be a part of one world which needs the best from every one of us.

As together we recited the pledge of allegiance I was proud to be an American. I am grateful for the heritage that welcomes immigrants, that supports both public and private education, that encourages upward mobility, that affirms our connection to the whole of humanity and all creation. And I said a silent prayer of thanks for all school teachers and administrators who nurture the hopes, dreams and abilities of all these grads.

One final shout-out. As stated above, I salute the students, teachers and parents of all grads and I extend a special plea to my colleagues in the Lutheran school business around the world. Keep the vision alive. Pursue the goal to always have each and every one of your students be set free and empowered to become all that God intends them to be