made in

“I am so disappointed in you”

A fun little fact about me is that I have never been “grounded.” Now, this is not to say that in my twenty three years I haven’t engaged in behavior that warranted a serious “time-out”, because I definitely have.  My parents just never needed to ground me because whenever they discovered I had made a poor decision all they would have to do is look at me and say, “I am so disappointed in you.” That was all it took. I sent myself to my room.  I am not entirely sure why this strategy worked, but it did. I would always end up making the right decision.

Up until last week no one had disappointed me enough to be the recipient of those six little words of shame. After the hoopla surrounding my letter to Bank of America and their response, I was kind of hoping for a Disney channel ending. I was hoping that by some miracle this multibillion dollar financial institution grew a conscience overnight and decided to make an exception for me and my family and our house.

They didn’t. The offer that my good friend Serene at the CEO’s office was referring to was nothing more than a letter recognizing our concern and assigning us a representative at Bank of America to work with my parents. A representative with whom my parents had already been working, and who was conveniently out of the office for the last two weeks.This was pretty disappointing. I can’t say that it was all the surprising, but disappointing nonetheless.

Taking a lesson from the Maureen and Noel Schmidt Parenting Book, I decided to let Bank of America know just how disappointed I was by their action in hopes that they would see the error of their way and make the right decision. On Monday night I called back the lady at the CEO’s office. She didn’t answer so I left her a voicemail stating exactly why I was disappointed by their “offer” and that I hope they do everything in their power to make sure this has a favorable outcome.

Two days later and I haven’t received a call back from the Bank, not that I really expected one.

In the meantime, the amazing foreclosure counselor from Catholic Charities that my parents have been working with for the last couple of months is continuing to work with the Bank on my parents behalf.  My parents are more realistic about how this is going to end and are actively looking for a new place to call home before the impending auction at the end of March.

As for me, I am holding on to my youthful idealism and continue to believe that this will all end well. Ultimately I just want my parents to be able to have a place to live and grow old and retire without constantly worrying. It really doesn’t seem like too much to hope for, right? 

Re-cap

January 18^th was another day in the life of a recent college graduate. I had the day off work and with the first real rainstorm of the winter pouring down on San Francisco I decided to stay indoors. Sitting alone with my coffee and my space-heater I continued on my search for a full-time job. After hours of prowling the internet looking in vain for employment, the self-loathing was really starting to sink in. Six o’clock rolled around and I was nearly at my wits’ end, when my phone rang. It was my oldest sister. She sounded distraught. She told me that my parent’s last attempt to prolong the foreclosure of their house, my childhood home, had failed. The house was going up for auction tomorrow afternoon and they still had nowhere to live.

The call from my sister coupled with my already crummy day was the final straw. Feeling frustrated, angry, and hopeless, I took a break from writing cover letters and wrote a letter to Bank of America. With no intention of ever showing anyone, I wrote my “strongly worded letter” to the bank.

Fourteen months of frustration, stress, and tears unleashed on to my keyboard. Man, did it feel good to write. It wasn’t until I finished writing the letter that I considered sharing it with anyone besides myself.  After all, over the last year my family and I had mostly internalized this struggle and posting it on the internet for my whole world to see seemed a bit terrifying. Temporarily disregarding my apprehensions about making my family’s plight public domain I posted the letter to my blog.

And it seems as though it was a good thing I did. The response was amazing. Within an hour, a handful of friends shared it on Facebook, reposted it on tumblr and re-tweeted on twitter. I was greeted with warm wishes, words of encouragement, and even e-mail addresses for executives at Bank of America. Upon the recommendation of friends, I forwarded my letter to some people at Bank of America as well as some local news outlets.  I went to bed Wednesday night feeling equal parts satisfied with having actually sent the letter and astonished by the kind of support I was receiving.

That was just the beginning. I awoke Thursday morning to a message from my mom. She said that the loan counselor from Catholic Charities, in a last minute Hail Mary attempt, called the U.S. Treasury and asked them to intervene and postpone the auction…and they did. The auction would be postponed until March 21st!

Upon hearing the news, people started to rally. Over the next 24 hours my outstanding group of friends and family continued to share my letter and reach out to me and my family.  Going to bed Thursday night I was completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and love. That alone felt like enough. It reaffirmed what I already knew to be true; that the bank could take our house, but they could not take the love and friendships and memories that had grown in that house or in that community.

On the morning of the 20^th, I was walking into work when I got a voice mail. It was from a lady at the CEO and President’s Office at Bank of America. Less than 48 hours after the letter to B of A had been drafted I received a call from the office of the CEO of Bank of America. Seriously. 

In shock, I gave myself some time to collect my thoughts.  Home from work, I sat in my kitchen trying to muster up the courage to call back this lady. I finally did. The conversation was short and direct. She knew who I was. She told me they received my letter and as a result had drafted some sort of new offer for my parents. Legally she could not disclose the details but said that they would be in contact with my parents and the offer was in the mail. And that was that. Before we hung up, I asked her how she had got a hold of my letter. She said one of the executives received it and made sure it got the CEO’s office.

I don’t know what more will come from this. I am cautiously optimistic. The purposed offer may just be nothing more than the bank providing me some lip service in an attempt to dodge yet another public relations disaster. Who knows? I guess we will just have to wait and see what this next week brings. 

My “Strongly Worded Letter” to Bank of America

January 18, 2012

Dear Bank of America,

Walking through the front door of our house with tears in our eyes after a coach unfairly cut us from a sports team or a teacher treated us badly, my mom would always threaten that she was going to write him or her, a strongly worded letter. My mom and dad, like most parents, hated seeing their children get hurt. They saw the hurt in our eyes and wanted to make everything better.  

 Well, my siblings and I are all grown up now and we are seeing the same hurt in our parent’s eyes.  We saw the hurt in their eyes as they struggled to figure out how to pay for an inflated mortgage payment. We saw the hurt in their eyes when after job loss, a stroke and increasing medical expenses became too much, they could no longer afford their mortgage. Now we see the hurt in their eyes after countless nights of losing sleep, worrying about where they are going to live. Seeing this hurt in their eyes over the last year is what prompted me to write you, Bank of America, a strongly worded letter.

 My parents, my four older siblings and I first entered the house on Alejandro Drive in the middle of winter twenty three years ago. In the time since, we have left quite a mark on the house.  I am sharing this with you because I want you to really understand what you are getting when you take that house-our home-on Alejandro Drive.

 When you enter the house, you will notice the colorful walls and vibrant tiles. We call that my mom’s “mid-life fiesta.” Enjoy that. It was a labor of love. Each colorful tile was made by mom and laid by my dad.

Those bookshelves, that mantel, the fence in the front yard…my dad built those. You are welcome.  

When you look at the walls, you will see holes. The holes once held nails, which held some of the finest art you have ever seen. This is not art by Picasso or Van Gogh, but by the Bay Area’s best fiber artist, Oregon’s finest calligrapher and New York City’s best abstract artist. You can’t have the art.

There are bigger holes in the walls of the bedrooms from when our teenage angst got the best of us and we slammed the doors so hard it left a bit a mark. Have fun fixing those.

 You might see some screws, way up on the highest ceiling. Those were securing the famous “Schmidt family Christmas mulberry branch” to the wall. This probably warrants a bit of an explanation but quite frankly, you don’t deserve one. Good luck getting them out.

You will notice railings on the walls. Those are a new addition to our house. My brothers built them. They were for my dad, to help him learn to walk again after he suffered a massive stroke last November. You probably remember; it was right around the time when you sent my parents a letter telling them their loan modification had been rejected. We really appreciated that.

There is much more that you will never understand about the true value of this house. It is worth more than whatever monetary value my parents owe you. The dinner parties, the sleepovers, the birthdays, my first steps down the hallway, graduations, weddings, and funerals all happened within those walls but they also happened within each of us and you can’t take those memories.

Tomorrow that house, my childhood home, is going up for auction. I will go to my parents house this weekend and pack up the stuff that my parents have accumulated over the last forty-two years. Forty-two years my parents have lived in that town. They have been teachers, mentors, community organizers, coaches, and so much more.  They have given back so much to this community and now you and your corporate greed are kicking them to the curb and letting them fend for themselves. I hope you’re happy with that decision. I hope the money you get for the house is worth the loss that this community is going to feel in my parent’s absence.

Sincerely,

Mary Schmidt

Goodnight Hong Kong

Saying goodnight, before I go to bed on my last night in Hong Kong (for now). It’s like the childhood favorite “Goodnight moon”, just without the rhyming and not as clever.

Good night Kowloon Tong

Goodnight City University

Goodnight to all the crazy,awesome exchange students and local students I met this semester

Goodnight people campaigning for God knows what on the 4^th floor of the academic building

Goodnight people holding the “quiet please” sign in Run Run Shaw Library

Goodnight  ridiculously uncomfortable dorm room bed.

Goodnight Homeys kitchen with your ham and cheese jaffel and criss cut fries

Goodnight random statues everywhere in student residence.

Goodnight Festival Walk

Goodnight really efficient public transportation

Goodnight obnoxious construction that wakes me up at 8:00 on Saturday morning

Goodnight mirrors everywhere I turn

Goodnight not being able to eves drop on people’s conversations and instead making up fake scenarios about what they are talking about

Goodnight pretending like I know what people are saying when they speak to me in Cantonese

Goodnight (or good morning) to the people coming home at 7:00am after a night out on the town.

Good night really cheap taxis

Good night Lan Kwai Fung

Goodnight TST

Goodnight SKITZ

Goodnight Billy Boozers

Goodnight McDonalds delivery man

Goodnight cockroaches

Goodnight Ladies market

Goodnight Victoria Harbor

Goodnight Red Bar and IFC building

Goodnight Hong Kong…thanks for everything!

Adventures in Thailand

For whatever reason all the classes I took this semester held their final exams early, leaving me done for the semester by December 10^th.  I thought I should probably take advantage of this free time I had before I headed back to California. While my friends in Hong Kong were taking their finals, I decided I would go for a little trip. Initially I was going to go to both Thailand and Cambodia over a nine day period.  After a somewhat rocky  first day in Bangkok..and by rocky I mean losing my debit card…my one and only way of retrieving money…a mere 30 minutes after arriving in Bangkok and having to have my mom wire me money, I had to re-evaluate my trip a little bit. After a day or two of exploring in and around Bangkok I was kind of worn out on the whole site-seeing thing so I thought I would head south and get a little R&R on one of Thailand’s many beaches. Cambodia would just have to wait for another time.

Word around town was Koh Samet was the best beach within proximity to Bangkok, so I hopped on a bus Monday afternoon and headed toward the ocean. Koh Samet is a little island about a three hour bus ride south east of Bangkok in the Gulf of Thailand. The bus takes you as far as Ban Phe, from there it is a 45 min ferry ride to Koh Samet. Not having made any arrangements for accommodation, I talked to a “travel agent” (a dude sitting at a table on the ferry pier with a homemade photo album of the different resorts) who sold me on the idea of getting one of the beach bungalows. It wasn’t too expensive and it was getting late and I was in no mood to walk around the island looking for a place to stay. It was a cute spot, a little family owned place at the quiet end of the beach. The bungalow…well, let’s just say it was no Ritz Carlton. The room consisted of a mattress on the floor and a toilet and a shower head. The faded, mismatched sheets were stained with paint (at least I am hoping it was paint), the door didn’t close all the way, the windows were held together by tape and I could see the ground through the floorboards. Whatever, who am I to complain? I was in a bungalow on the beach in Thailand. My life doesn’t suck.

I was unpacking my things, getting ready to go grab some dinner when I look over and see a cockroach on my bed. Gross. We all know how I feel about cockroaches. I felt kind of bad for the poor little guy though; he was stuck on his back and couldn’t move. I took mercy on him and helped him outside. Returning from dinner I was getting ready for bed when I looked over and saw a lizard/gecko type thing climbing on the wall of my room. Normally I don’t mind geckos but I just couldn’t help imagining it running into my mouth in my sleep. I decided I should sleep with the light on because that would somehow keep these little critters at bay. I know there is actually little to no logic behind that idea, but it was comforting nonetheless. I also thought wrapping myself up in my blanket like a mummy would prevent the various insects who were inhabiting my bungalow from bothering me. Again, no logic but it made me feel better.

The next couple days were spent on the beach, reading a book (for pleasure, not for school—-I haven’t done that in a while), drinking out of coconut (seriously), getting a Thai massage.

A little side note: I really can appreciate a place where your sunscreen costs more than an hour long massage. Sunscreen: 400 Baht (about $13). An hour long, full body Thai massage on the beach: 300 Baht (about $10). Ridiculous.

It was kind of weird to literally have NOTHING to do but sit and read and hang out in warm crystal clear water. No school work to do, no job to worry about, no internet, no TV to watch, just food to eat and a tan to be had. Not a bad way to be. But to be honest, I am not sure I could have done it for more than three days. There is only so much of nothing a person can do before they start to go a little crazy.

Initially I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive about going on a trip alone for nine days. Nine days is kind of a lot of alone time. What if I got lost or stuck or hurt or sick? And wouldn’t I get lonely? Quite the contrary actually, it has proven to be a great adventure. It reaffirmed my love of traveling. It was a nice reminder for me to trust myself and be patient with myself. If I get lost…it’s OK. That’s just part of the adventure…I’ll figure it out.  Plus I met some of the most interesting people. Whether it was in the hostel in Bangkok or at a café in Ayutthaya or in a bar on the beach in Koh Samet…I may have been alone but I was definitely never lonely. 

In case you were wondering….this is what I look like when riding in a tuk tuk, in Ayutthaya with no idea where I am or where I am going: 

Liz and Rosemary: Confused in Beijing

I think it is safe to say that over the last four months I have been confused by about 90 percent of the things that go on around me. Which I guess is only a slightly higher percentage than was the case previous to my stint in Hong Kong. However, my weekend in Beijing took that confusion to a whole new level. As a foreigner in Hong Kong you have the luxury of being able to go up to the average person on the street and ask for directions or the time or whatever and that person will more than likely be able to help you out. Most people in Hong Kong can speak enough English to help my crazy American ass out when I get lost or confused. In Beijing, that was not the case—-not even a little bit.

I went to Beijing a couple of weekends ago with my friend Libby, aka “Liz.” We were under the impression that we had booked a hotel that was somewhere near Tiananmen Square. We got to the Beijing airport with the name of our hotel printed in Chinese (we thought ahead) and asked the guy at the information counter how best to get to our destination. He told us what train to take and what stop to get off at. So we did. He said when we arrived we would have to walk about five minutes, so upon exiting the train station we tried to figure out where we were but given that the street signs were all in Chinese, we gave up and hopped in a taxi. The guy driving the taxi didn’t speak a word of English. We showed him the name of the hotel (the same name that we showed the man at the airport) and after a slightly confused look from him, we were on our way. A 45 minute taxi ride later we arrive at hotel. We thought we were being taken for a ride, both literally and figuratively. There was no way what should have been a five minute walk somehow could have turned into a 45 minute taxi ride. But sure enough—-it was the right hotel. It was nowhere near the town square but it was a really nice hotel none the less. Maybe we weren’t paying enough attention when we were booking our hotel, maybe the man at the airport accidently pointed us in the wrong direction, maybe there are two hotels with the same name…I have no idea. So confused.

That night we headed to the Chinese opera. Naturally—-it was in Chinese, which we expected. There were some translations on a screen next to the stage so the predominately non Mandarin speaking audience could follow what was going on. I enjoyed the performance, the costumes, the dancing, the singing…it was all lovely. The message however, I think was a little lost on me. The opera consisted of three short shows and each was supposed to have some kind of moral which I now think can only be fully understood in Chinese. Slightly confusing but regardless it was a very nice show.

Day two we woke up bright and early with the intention of heading to the Great Wall of China. Liz and Rosemary (me) are not the type of people to go on a group tour, we wanted to see the Great Wall on our own. So we, (mostly Liz, to be fair) did some research and figured out what bus we need to take to get us to this magnificent Chinese wall. We arrive at the bus terminal and are approached by a nice lady who must have been able to read the confused looks on our faces and offers some assistance. We tell her what bus we are looking for and she says something about how it’s not running and tells us we need to take this other bus. She says it will take us about twenty minutes away from the Great Wall and then we change to another bus that will take us to the Great wall…or at least that’s what she understood her to be saying. After about an hour and a half on the bus we arrive at the end of the line, which is where we thought we were supposed to be going. We get off the bus and are in what seems like the middle of nowhere. We are approached by a handful of men who are offering to drive us to the Great Wall. We try and tell them that we are looking for the bus to take us there. We soon realize there is no bus and these men are our only option for getting to the Great Wall. We also realize that instead of being only twenty minutes away we are a good hour away from our destination. Awesome. After some bargaining we settle on paying one of the men 200 RMB to take us to what I was starting to think had better be a pretty freaking amazing wall if we were going to all this trouble to get there.  Liz and Rosemary hopped in this man’s rickety old van and embark on another hour long journey. In the back of my mind I was thinking this has the makings of a horror story written all over it. We drive through the Chinese hillside in a van with a man whose name we don’t know and whose language we don’t speak in an unfamiliar country. I ultimately decide that I am being a little ridiculous and need to just trust this man. Sure enough we arrive safely at the Wall and bid the kind man ado and are very thankful that we made it there in one piece. 

We spend a couple of hours marveling at this amazing piece of architecture. We walk up and down part of it. Take some photos, make some memories. The sun is starting to get low in the sky and we think we should head back. We are both fully aware that we are at least a two hour drive from our hotel and have no idea how we are going to get there. Apparently no busses run to this part of the Great wall, there aren’t  any taxi’s waiting for us to take us back to Beijing. Our only options are getting a ride with another stranger or jumping on one of the tour busses that are waiting in the parking lot. So what do we do? We jump on a random tour bus. We pay them 50 RMB for the ride and in addition to a nice little bit of trivia as we are driving back to the city we also got dropped off right in Beijing.  We weren’t close to our hotel, but closer than we were before.

We decide that since we are already out and about we should make the most of it. We hop in a taxi and ask to go to the Silk Market. Where to be honest, there is not all that much silk being sold. It was mostly knock-off jackets and purses and back-packs.  Guess who got suckered into buying a fake Dolce and Gabbana coat for 700 RMB? Yeah—-I don’t want to talk about it. 

The rest of the weekend occurred with little incident but still a fair amount of general bewilderment.. Our last day was spent seeing Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the 2008 Beijing Olympic stadium, Hutong, and an art show that may or may not have actually been supporting students from a university in rural China. Who knows? 

When it is all said and done Beijing, I enjoyed you immensely. You confused the heck out of me but you were a great time.

“Keep on Keepin’ on”

Over the last seven days I have had to face three pretty harsh realities. The first one being that there are only three weeks left in my semester and I have to start preparing for finals. The second is that I am not immune to infection and that despite my best efforts to avoid it, I had to pay a visit to the campus clinic. The third is that my Dad, a man I have for most of my life thought to be invincible, had a stroke.

Obviously, one of these realities is a lot more difficult for me to face. After all, I have been doing this college thing for a couple of years now and although I am living in a bit of a dream world here in Hong Kong, I knew that this time would eventually come.  I mean it is called study abroad for a reason. However, if I am going to be totally honest, the course load has been a bit more demanding of my time than I would have thought and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that is will let up in the next three weeks.  But again, that’s just what college entails, regardless of whether you are in San Francisco, Hong Kong or Djibouti. As my friend Libby so eloquently put it, “Same shit. Different place.”

As for facing the reality of having to go to the clinic, it honestly was something that I was dreading. I am not a huge fan of doctors in the first place. So put me in a relatively unfamiliar country, with a pretty significant language barrier, a doctor whose bedside manner I would hardly describe as caring and it makes for a less than ideal scenario. I was able to avoid this scenario until this morning. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a tendency to walk around barefoot…especially after a night out on the town. When I head out for the night I sometimes think it is a good idea to wear heels but give me a couple hours and a couple of whiskey drinks and those heels are in my handbag and I am charging around the streets of San Francisco or New Orleans or Hong Kong or Barcelona or London or Amsterdam or Accra…sans shoes. Really, it is a wonder I didn’t get an infection in my foot sooner. I have had some problems with my left foot for a while, I really should have dealt with it before I came to Hong Kong but I just didn’t. Since I have been here I have been able to keep it reasonably under control despite my tendency to roam streets of Hong Kong barefoot. In the last couple of weeks the redness has increased and this morning I woke up with a seriously swollen, throbbing left foot. My body was achy and I felt nauseous. Now, I am no doctor but I knew that was probably not normal and I was pretty sure those symptoms warranted a visit to the clinic. So to the clinic I went.  It definitely wasn’t the worst experience of my life but it definitely wasn’t the best. They packed me a little baggy of antibiotics and sent me on my way.

The third reality that I have had to face this week is one that I am not entirely sure I am ready to accept. Waking up on Tuesday morning to a call from my cousin telling me that my Dad had a stroke and was in the hospital is not something I ever thought I would hear. As I sat in my bed listening to what she was telling me I just began to sob. Growing up I thought my dad was like superman. He was invincible in my eyes, nothing could ever hurt him. Now he’s lying in a hospital bed on the other side of the world, unable to talk or move half of his body. I am devastated. My dad is without a doubt the coolest guy I know.  He inspires me almost daily, with the work that he does, with his ability to get along with just about anyone, with his incredible sense of humor,  with his crazy ideas about how to save the world, with his bike riding and his guitar playing and his delicious bread making ability.  The guy is just plain awesome. To think of him sitting in a hospital bed struggling to talk and to move breaks my heart more than I ever thought possible.  More than anything I wish he didn’t have a stroke. I wish so badly that I could be back in California with him right now, sitting by his side, cheering him on helping him get better. I wish I could be with the rest of my family to support them through all of this.  They have spent the last 22 years taking care of me and loving me and helping me when I needed help; I wish I could be there with them now to return the favor.

But I can’t. At the end of the day, I’m still in Hong Kong. I still have finals to take and a bum foot to let heal.  These are the realities I am faced with now. I will finish up my semester here in Hong Kong and make the most of the time I have left here. I know my dad would be pretty bummed out if he knew I spent my last couple of weeks here moping around on account of him. I will be home with my family soon but until then, I am going to do what my dad often reminds me to do and ‘keep on, keepin’ on.’

An Open Letter to Cockroaches

Dear Cockroaches,

I really don’t like you. My feelings towards you border on hatred. You’re creepy. How you have managed to outlive almost every other species in the world is totally beyond me.  My dislike for you is rooted in an experience I had with some of your friends a couple of years ago while living in New Orleans. I’ll spare you the details but it involved a crowbar, some rotting drywall and several giant, red cockroaches falling on my head. The experience left me pretty badly emotionally scarred. Luckily for me, and I suppose for you too, I did not see many of your kind while I was living in San Francisco.  However, since being in Hong Kong I have seen your creepy cockroach brethren scurrying across my path almost daily. Every time I do, I jump and/or scream—- making myself look like a total weirdo. I do not like looking like a weirdo if I can help it.

The other day my friend and I were getting our almost-nightly post-dinner treat from Homeys kitchen, (which is just a fancy title for the crappy cafeteria in the residence). We were sitting outside enjoying our ice cream, discussing the events of the day. Both of us had had a pretty mediocre day. We were having trouble communicating with people in our classes. We came to the harsh realization that the majority of the clothes sold in Hong Kong were not meant for women of our stature. We were feeling suffocated by the massive number of people who came to the city for the holiday weekend. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was but something was making me feel particularly annoyed. Mid-way through our venting session I look down and see one of your friends hurrying towards my feet.  I was not amused.  Its presence was like the icing on my crappy-day-cake.  After a pretty intense stare-off between the two of us, it finally gave in and scuttled away. My friend and I finished our ice-cream and headed to our rooms for the night.

That night as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about how irritated I was by it all: the crowds, the communication problems, the clothes and the cockroaches. None of those things normally irritate me, so why was it bothering me now?  Then it hit me—-it is just a little bit of culture shock. Duh. It was bound to happen.    

So cockroaches, I guess I owe you a little bit of an apology. Upon some recent reflection I have realized that the things I don’t like about you aren’t really things that you can help. In the same way that Hong Kong can’t help that it has a lot of people in it, or that I can’t help that I didn’t immediately learn Cantonese or shrink to a size 2 as soon as I stepped off the plane. Don’t get me wrong cockroaches, I still don’t like you—-but just know that it’s not you, it’s me.  I hope you understand.

Sincerely,

Mary

P.S. If it makes you feel any better, I like mosquitoes even less than I like you.

Having My Mooncake And Eating It Too

While my friends back in the United States got up this morning and went to class or to work, I slept in. No…I wasn’t ditching class. Today is a national holiday in Hong Kong as well as in some other Asian countries.  Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, a harvest festival held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese Calender (or at least that is what wikipedia says). Supposedly it is when the moon is at its largest and fullest. I didn’t know the moon changed sizes, but what do I know? More than being a festival to mark the end of the summer harvesting season, it is also a time for families to get together, share a meal and admire the beautiful harvest moon. So I guess it makes sense that the customary food that people eat for this festival is the mooncake. 

Seeing as how my family is about 7,000 miles away I thought it might be a bit excessive to jump on a plane just to have a meal with them. However, I did want to take part in the festivities in some way. When in Rome, right? (Or Hong Kong…as the case may be). I ended up being able to get a little taste of what the mid-autumn festival is all about this week.

On Saturday I met up with the cousin of one of my cousin’s friends back in San Francisco. (I guess that connection is fairly complicated to understand, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter how we know each other, the point is we met up on Saturday). She invited me over to her beautiful house on the southern side of Hong Kong Island to make mooncakes with her mom and one of her friends. Obviously, I was all for it! I wasn’t entirely sure what mooncakes were or how to make them but I was going to figure it out. We made what her mom called, a “modern version” of the mooncake. I think the main difference was that the mooncake we had didn’t have any duck egg-yolk in it.  To be fair her mom did most of the actual making of the cake but we spent the afternoon kneading the dough and making it into balls, pressing them into the molds and smacking them out of the molds. It took me a couple tries to figure it out but eventually I got it. They said I could take whatever I made so I left there with a nice little tray full of mooncakes. I brought them back to the dorm and put them in the freezer…they got eaten pretty quickly though.

My Mooncakes:

Yesterday in Victoria Park there was the Mid-Autumn Festival Carnival. I don’t think I have ever seen so many lanterns in one place in my whole life. These were not your average lanterns either; these were some of the most stunningly ornate lanterns I have ever seen. Hundreds of them, all over the park.  Luckily it was a fairly cool night because Victoria Park was packed full with people.  We waited in a crowd of people for the fire dragon dance. We were told it was going to start at 10:00pm. After about an hour of drumming and anticipation, stuff started to happen. The dragon came out. Then it left. Then it came out again but this time it had incense stuck inside of it, so it appeared to be on fire. It was pretty amazing. Definitely not something you see every day.

Dragon Lantern Display in Victoria Park (Not to be confused with the Fire Dragon):

I’m not sure if I will ever get to celebrate another Mid-Autumn Festival in Asia again. If not, I think I will be ok with just having had this one…it kind of took the (moon)cake.