Traditional Chinese Medicine and Fortune-telling.

March 30: Dim sum brunch in nearby mall with most of Joyce’s family (Joyce, second-brother, mother, father). Excellent food and plenty of tea (jasmine 香 片 and tie guan yin 鐵 觀 音). Joyce checks the selections from a paper form. I can’t read Chinese, but her choices are excellent. I especially enjoy the shrimp steamed in wheat flour (Ha Gau or 蝦 餃), the hometown pancake (which hometown? Not certain), and the deep-fried chicken soft bones (gai yun gwat or 雞 軟 骨). Of many others, the chicken/phoenix feet/claws stand out (gai guet or 鳳 爪) - they taste good, but the waterlogged skin texture was not my favorite.

Joyce, her mother and I head to the local Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner. Joyce places her hand on a cushion and he feels her pulse. She switches hands. They talk about skin. Her body is too warm and needs to cool. He prescribes a concoction to be brewed. It includes herbs, strange plants and beetle shells.




Next is my turn. I had dislocated my shoulder a year before while snowboarding and popped it back in myself. A few weeks prior to Hong Kong, and I slipped on ice while playing with my dog (very stupid) and popped the shoulder out and in once more.

Joyce explained the predicament. The doctor told me to sit. I place my right hand on the cushion. He feels my pulse with gentle fingertips and kind eyes. I switch hands. He asks Joyce if I had popped it back in myself. She says yes. He says I am healthy, but he could prescribe something for the pain or to speed recovery.

He returns to the shelves of glass jars. My concoction includes a tree bark that contains nutrients essential to ligament recovery.




We leave for a local wet market. Joyce’s mother buys fresh fruit. We walk home through the mall where we ate dim sum. We pass electronics stores full of the latest wide-screen televisions and miniature washing machines. We pass toy stores, candy stores, and more stores.

In the evening, Joyce and I join friends at Xi Yan 囍 宴, a speakeasy (si fong choi or 私 房 菜) in Kowloon. Unlike the U.S. prohibition-era establishments, Hong Kong speakeasies are nontraditional restaurants in a chef’s home or rented space, and they are typically unlicensed to avoid the high cost of operation.



The twelve-course meal is excellent and typical presentation for Chinese fine dining in Hong Kong/China. However, Xi Yan offered not the typical Chinese fare with a fusion of Shanghainese, Sichuanese, Thai, Japanese cuisine (Joyce thinks a bit of Cantonese was mixed in, too). Depending on the ranking, Xi Yan is the 2nd or 3rd best speakeasy in Hong Kong.




After dinner, stuffed, on our way to the fortune tellers, we wander the Temple Street night market and pass rows of inexpensive items: clothes (baby kimonos), toys (imitation Legos), adult paraphernalia (swirling, flashing dildos), communist memorabilia (Mao Zedong’s litte red book and imitation posters), watches, jewelry, faux antiques and more.



An elderly fortune teller catches Joyce’s eye. He waves a feathered fan. Past more kitsch salesmen and beckoning fortune tellers (hand, face and tarot card readers advertising fortunes in Cantonese, Mandarin and/or English), we walk around the block and return to the wizened man (the eldest present). His whiskers hang from above his lips and trail long from his chin. Joyce negotiates a price for two ($165 HK down from $300 HK). I go first and sit on a small plastic stool. The man’s crumpled eyes look into my own. He traces lines on my left hand with a blue ballpoint pen. I will have good fortune between the age of 28 and 78 with a peak at 33. I should live a long life and be careful next year, he says. Joyce translates as her tape recorder roles.



When it’s her turn, Joyce learns her years of fortune will last from 28 to 73. She questions the man. Her fortune sounds almost identical to my own, and she wants an explanation. It’s probably because we were born in the same year, he says, and she translates after we leave the stand.

We leave happy with our good fortune.

Departure/Arrival

Friday, March 28: Leave Omaha: Wake one hour and 15 minutes before flight. Shower. No Shave. To Eppley Airfield, parents drive me, tossing razor, shaving cream, toothpaste, toothbrush, and finger nail clipper set into carry-on bag. During baggage inspection, shaving cream and toothpaste are confiscated. Bag is set aside for further inspection. Announcer calling for all passengers on flight to Salt Lake City, the first leg of my flight to Hong Kong via Vancouver. After a second x-ray scan, while the announcer continues calling for passengers; FAA inspectors confiscate a wine corkscrew/bottle opener from the fingernail clipper set and steal one of my gifts to Joyce’s family… Inspector says - “You can’t take this.” Me – “That’s expensive jam from Sandpoint, Idaho (huckleberry). It’s a gift to my girlfriend’s parents.” Inspector says – “Let me talk to my supervisor.” Supervisor says – “Toss it.” Me – “Can my parents at least come upstairs and pick it up.” Supervisor says– “Nope. It’s garbage. Toss it.”

Stop in Salt Lake City. Fly to Vancouver. Go through customs to retrieve checked backpack. Border police suspicious of my six hour layover. Released. Go through x-ray inspection again.

Thirteen-and-a-half hours of sleep later, expecting more customs hassle, I walk on Hong Kong soil. I carry a piece of paper detailing my arrival and departure plans. Technically, visitors should not be admitted without proof of return ticket. The customs agent scans my passport, rips off the first sheet of the visa, and I meander through the green doors for those with nothing to declare.

Close to midnight on Saturday, March 29, Joyce leads me to the bus stop at Hong Kong International Airport on Lantau Island. We go to her parents’ flat on Hong Kong Island.

I ask about fishing in the ocean against her residential complex…. Joyce says - “Douger, you can forget about fishing.” We walk down steps to peek at the ocean black in the night. Big “NO FISHING” signs line our path. High above the water, a walkway weaves along the shoreline. Locals line the walkway above the water. They fish over the railing. A group of youths squat together and put line on a girl’s pole. A few heavy rods lean against the railing... Me – “Catching anything?” Young fisherman – “Just beer.”

A moment later, 39 floors above the scene, surrounded by more towering residential buildings, Joyce’s family offers a warm greeting. I forget to take off my shoes upon entering their home. I don’t intend disrespect, but removing shoes upon entering a home is one of the unwritten rules of which Joyce had pre-warned me. They don’t seem offended. Joyce doesn’t think they even noticed. I couldn’t have asked for a more gracious reception.