Licking the Bowl and Eating Apples

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  Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Thursday, September 29, 2005

From my little confession booth here in China, I have to say: "I like SURVIVOR." This year SURVIVOR is taking place in Guatemala. For over a month, a gaggle of American farmers, psychologists, nurses, and jocks lie, deceive, fight, work together, complain, lead, follow, and eat termites and such for a million dollars.

I'd like to see Stephen Page of Barenaked Ladies compete on SURVIVOR: "if I had a million dollars...I'd build a tree fort in our yard...If I had million dollars...I'd be rich." With his fancy for big sandwiches and thick glasses, he'd be like the object that doesn't fit on Sesame Street: (sing) "which one of these things is not like the other..."

Kevin, Karen, and I watched SURVIVOR from their Hong Kong sofa as I waited for my third Chinese visa to come through and for Jonathan Skurnik to arrive from the United States

Karen Leaving For Business

.

What draws me to SURVIVOR? It's just good clean outdoor fun, where everyone has to strategize, learn about the outdoors, work alone and as a team. Deep down, however, I think CBS chooses candidates based primarily on "talent." From Zhongdian, I rely on the internet to keep up on the show and get my fix of Americanism.

Up in the Tibetan villages of Yunnan Province, SURVIVOR seems slightly out-of-place and trite, as the people here are trying to survive every day, living off the land. Still, it's a hoot watching all the Americans slogging through mud, gathering termites to add protein to their diets, or causing much broo-ha-ha among their team-mates.

While in Hong Kong, we enjoyed a mostly-mellow time watching SURVIVOR clips, the latest Hong Kong DVD release House of Fury, and eating mango yogurt cakes.

As typhoon Damray approached Hong Kong, the red danger flag rose and we were tempted to break up the mellow time with a little typhoon body surfing in Big Wave Bay. As the rain periodically pounded our bodies and the wind whipped up the waves, we caught a few good waves then headed to eat an ice cream cone. Nothing beats an ice cream cone after body surfing.

Kevin and I also reunited with our fellow Mountain Hardware Hong Kong Aconcagua Expedition--Joe, Kevin, and John. We joked and reminisced about climbing K2 and some other 8,000 meter peaks, eating too many Cliff Bars, losing our minds and balance at 22,000 feet on the way down, and eating steak at Daniel Lopez'

Nate Climbing the Wall

.

We celebrated Nate's birthday at the YMCA climbing gym with all his friends. What a cool birthday party! Kids are natural monkeys.

But then my business visa was rejected for lack of a Chinese sponsor (WWF is not Chinese). I changed tactics and quickly applied for another tourist visa through a travel agency around the corner.

After I was in Hong Kong for a week, Jonathan arrived from Martha's Vineyard. Back in those Martha's Vineyard days we filmed absurd sock puppet shows and another small clip called "Licking the Bowl" with the ever-talented humorist Nora Laudani. We also hiked and kayaked around some of the finer parts of the island. Although I met him on the beach volleyball court and participated in his Martha's Vineyard Community Television documentary film-making workshops, I really got to know Jonathan more through socks and bowl licking and kayaking, strange as that might sound. Anyway, he's a great guy, very talented at film, and has a keen interest in cultural documentaries.

Earlier, as I was about to leave the island, we had half-joked about doing a film somewhere, sometime.

Now he's here in China.

My tourist visa came through and a few hours, Jonathan had his visa too: we headed for mainland China, flying to Lijiang at 8,000 feet. From there, I headed to Zhongdian and Jonathan acclimatized to the altitude in Lijiang for a night.

On the bus ride, I sat by a friendly Korean backpacker woman who kept offering me apples. We couldn't speak to each other so just enjoyed each other's company as best we could, eating apples and pinching each other once in a while to make sure we were still alive.

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