November 10, 2006 Archives
SCMP Chart on National Pride in HK, via Mask of China.
How you can change your mind about the totalitarian regime that took over your territory... For the general public, the totalitarian aspect of China seems pretty mild for regular working citizens from an external point of view. And as for these statistics, HK is still a island of relative free speech and free everything in a sea of relative restraint/censorship (I was reading how it is rather expected that you self-censor yourself in China, more than having a thought police run around hunting for dissidents).
In any case, I don't know. I am very interested in HK/China politics, and wish that the Bibliotheque Nationale du Quebec wasn't two months late in receiving the SCMP (about the only reliable publication that I can *read*). I would go to 6/4 and 7/1 walks, but I am not the kind of person to press for democracy right now for real (but understand the idea that you ask for 200% of something, if you want to insure to have 100% of it). And, I generally think that things must be gradual, and that immediate opening of the political system will only lead to an USSR-like collapse. See South Korea, Taiwan (all former brutal dictatorships), and Singapore (practically a single-party-thus-dictatorship city-state).
In general, I am proud of the HKness of my Chineseness. Was not born there, and my mother didn't even live there for more than a few weeks/months, I think (she passed by Taiwan for a few months, to get her papers for Canada). But uncles/aunts from both sides of the family live there, and I do consume more than the incidental HK culture, and speak of going to HK as "going _back_ to HK" (faan heung kong). Proud of its modernity, cleanliness, although I think I really need to go back to Beijing (five years after, and a year before the Olympics) and wander around in SH, not as a mere Western-born/grown tourist. Etc. Back to work.
So yeah. When you have high expectations for food (or for anything), you face the possibility of disappointment. To be fair, the food at Keur Fatou (St-Viateur, south side, between Clark and St-Urbain) was not bad - pretty good in fact - but it was their portion, and perhaps the catering to a bouche fine market?
The decor was attractive, in warm "African" colors (like a previous Ubuntu color palette perhaps; more red, I mean). I walk in front of it every day when I get off of my bus on St-Urbain and St-Viateur, and have always been fascinated with how it'd be to sit by one of the vitrines on those short knee-height chairs/coussins (the location was probably that of some fabrics shop in a previous reincarnation). If the restaurant wasn't so empty, being the only guests from 7:30 til 8, and if there were more people walking on St-Viateur, then it'd probably made the sitting experience more worthwhile.
It was an oral menu, and we were given the choice between chicken on rice, veal on couscous, and fish on rice. The portions were minimalistic, but very tasty. In the veal dish I selected, I had a few pieces of what seemed to be manioc. I always imagined manioc to be practically equal to sweet potato, and since I had manioc before sweet potato in this life, I basically hadn't paid attention to the former, as I were closer to the age of 5 than 15, and have thus overwritten memories of it with that of the latter. Nonetheless, yes, manioc, it's a sort of lightly sweet white fibrous tuberous root.
There was a small salad w/ exotic anonymous dressing, a plate of fruits with 6 pieces of cantaloupe, 5 slices of banana, etc, and then a half-glass of mint tea (4 oz, I think), slightly sweetened with a strong composed mint flavour. Don't know how to describe the dinner as a whole. It was good, yet not enough? $16 per person, tips/tax included, and we agreed that Les Delices was a better deal.