Yesterday--In A Fit Of Hong Kong Adoration--I Hugged a Light Pole

[Has it officially been six months?]

Dear Everyone,

THREE MONTHS IN HONG KONG and loving it more every day (that's only partly true, sometimes I love it less one day, but then my love increases three-fold the NEXT DAY, so on AVERAGE it's more every day...yeah... anyway).

Odd things here that are still weird:

• Driver's seat on the right side of the car (I keep trying to get in the driver's door when Sister Chan or Angel drive us somewhere, and they just shrug their shoulders and sigh--this dumb sister missionary, when will she jaahp gwaan) (get used to=jaahp gwaan),
• Construction workers wearing way too low of pants,
• Chinese parents smacking their kids in love,
• AND HOW MUCH LIKE DISNEYLAND IT IS HERE!!!
• Ooo, I am also still not used to fashion/ what Hong Kong peoples think is cute.
• Things that are no longer weird that probably should be---I was thinking last night in bed, "what weird food did I eat this week? I know there was SOMETHING... tung seui (dessert soup, served cold, it's sweet and usually has egg white and mochi like balls or tapioca or mango swimming around in it),no that's not weird... octopus, nope, that's my favorite, I eat that all the time... pig's ears? no, that was last week... mango pudding, normal, chicken foot, normal... I know there was something weird... oh YEAH! That HAMBURGER!" Yes, last Thursday we had HAMBURGERS on Hong Kong Island (close to Wan Chai) to celebrate/mourn the passing of Sister Black to International work in Macau. I had mine without the bun and it was pretty good... not as good as octopus rice box, though! (and the octopus is like, a fifth of the price!!). Ooo, today I might try stinky tofu. I'm a little nervous, and can't decide if I should try it before or after my fish balls (normal)--if I try b4, I can get the taste out of my mouth, but then I might get queasy...?

So, speaking of food. It's probably time to go on a diet of some kind, since one of my skirts doesn't fit anymore and I found a scale in our new apartment and I won't quote any numbers but let's just say I've never SEEN that number on a scale. Since I've never gone on a diet before, I thought I'd share some of my ideas...

1. Rule number one, only eat as much rice in one sitting as would feed ONE third world country for a day. I know, it'll be hard.
2. Rule number two, never eat more than you can visibly see when you're sitting down. No worries, peripherals are included.
3. Rule number three, if you lost count of how many you've eaten, stop eating it (good thing I can count to at least 20 (with my shoes off) when I really pay attention).
4. Rule number four, only one dessert a day. Per house. Per member of the family. Per times they force dessert on you.
5. Rule number five, never step on a scale again...?

OKOKOK, I'm not THAT bad :) I just have a nice rice face coming on. My new companion Cheung JM asked me the other day why foreign missionaries' faces always get rounder here, and I told her about rice face. She chahm si'd for a second (...english word..=.. pondered? thought really hard?) then said, "Aahhh, holahn yan waih keuih deih yiu

ngaahn hou loih!" = "Oh, probably because you have to CHEW rice more!" aka, because our JAW muscles become more defined---bwahahahaaaaaa!!! yes, I'm sure that's why.... not that we're gettting feih... (=fat).

Now, about fashion: I'm so grateful now that all the teachings of those wonderful fashion-sense people in my life (Elizabeth, Sister Ramsey, Ashley, Mati...) never really sunk in. If it had, I'm sure I'd be even more startled by "fashion" here in HK. I wish I could take pictures stealthily, but it might look bad as a missionary... especially because I'd QUICKLY move from taking pictures of horrible fashion to taking pictures of ADORABLE CHILDREN, and that could just get messy :)

I will try to describe super fast: HK is alllll about corny. I've never seen so many disney or disney related shirts, bags,

zip-pulls, shoes, backpacks etc on FULLY GROWN ADULTS. I mean, the woman in front of me is 55, easy, but she has a SPARKLY tinker bell backpack. This is normal. We see Winney the Pooh ALL THE TIME in people's houses. Figurines, cups, wall-hangings (especially new year's ones on people's doors---gold, red, chinese characters and tigger. Seriously). That is still... so... um... I'm not used to it yet, that's what we'll say :)

Ahhh, China is also very... me.

My initial thought when I came here was akin to mom's so-often repeated saying, "You can take the girl out of the trailer (mainland?), but you can't take the trailer (mainland?) out of the girl." What would be deemed as ultimate "low class" in the states is totally normal here--hanging your clothes outside to dry (underwear included!), wiping down your kids sweat in public, leaving meat out anywhere for any period of time is no big deal. Hong Kong is so real--with restaurants "washing" their dishes out on the front sidewalk with a hose, it's totally acceptable to toenail clip in public, and spit and I mean SPITTING... ahhh, it's so wonderful. I love Hong Kong so much.

This morning we climbed LION'S ROCK to see the sun rise! So we got up at 3 and took a taxi (my first time ever, I

think! very exciting) to the base of the mountain. We climbed for about two and a half hours in the dark-- it was TERRIFYINGI MEAN AWESOME! The scary part was at the very beginning. I wished I didn't have a flashlight, because I kept seeing glinting eyes when I shined it off the trail--and brown furry bodies.... and there were I-don't-even-know-what kind of animal noises and sounds of things crashing through bushes ... it ws pretty scary, actually, and it didn't help that our zone leaders were whooping and screeching back.... BUT then we came out of that creepy valley thing and the worst after that were cute frogs, not so cute toads and lightning bugs :) At one point we went (accidently) off the main trail onto another and ended up hiking sorta up a little waterfall--it was beautiful! All dark, water running, with tiny points of light on rocks and trees--just like hiking through the peter pan or pirates of the carribean or something. Beautiful.

So I'm struggling, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, with my new companion, Sister J. She's a super hard worker, but we're both really new (she went into the Phillipines MTC 4 days before I went into the Provo one!) and we have had some trouble communicating (haaaaa= I DON'T SPEAK CHINESE) when we plan lessons. I am trying to remember that in Cantonese, blunt means clear, not rude. She is really a great missionary, though. Please pray for us to help our investigators progress--her style is really different than Sister B's, and I am fearful to lose investigators because of this---but fear is not faith. I trust that God put us together, in this area, at this time, and for these people!

And we will "be safe, save souls!" (as I yell at our roomie sisters every time they leave the house) here in Sha Tin, Tai Wai and Ma On Shan!

Thank Derick for his letters, his generous love and validation is so wonderful = seriously, save my life. OH AND MATT IS IN THE MTC TODAY!!! OR yesterday!!! or something. Ahh, I love him so much! He will be such an awesome missionary! Someone should send me his addresss!!!

LOVE Your Sister DIA Darcey