Vignettes of the World
It was time to say goodbye to the Dying Lion. I headed back and passed by the Hofkirche St Leodegar (The Church of St. Leodegar). The Church of St. Leodegar, the Catholic Foundation of Luzern St. Leodegar is Luzern’s patron saint. In the Chapel Bridge, …
Lunch at Heini It was time for lunch. As much as I looked forward to having some hot food, I was a little lost as to how to find the right food for the right price. All things in Switzerland were expensive, with the exception …
Those who have been to Hong Kong would have heard of the “Ladies’ Street” in the shopping area of Mong Kok. I think equally fascinating is its counterpart, “Men’s Street.”
Temple Street in Yau Ma Tei is known to Hong Kong people as “Men’s Street.” Its vibrant night market sells all sorts of knick-knacks catered to men. From something so simple as reading glasses and pocket flash lights, to the more “private needs” of men, the Temple Street Night Market is always brimming with a “scene of manhood.”
Tin Hau, the Goddess of the Sea, is the figure of worship in this part of Yau Ma Tei. This likely had to do with the fact that Yau Ma Tei had a long history with the people of the sea. During the 19th century, Yau Ma Tei was a stretch of bay with a sandy shore. This attracted the Hok Lo people, who lived on boats offshore. In the early 20th century, Yau Ma Tei became a typhoon shelter, thereafter attracting many sampans, amounting to a floating village. But we do not see this scene today, due to the reclamation work by the Government. It has effectively destroyed the shoreline that was the main feature of this once-sea-reliant district.
And the Tin Hau Temple on is the focal point of the night market on Temple Street. The din of gongs and the hustling of hawkers gravitate toward the public park on the temple ground. The street probably was named thus after the Tin Hau Temple.
Every evening, hawkers set up makeshift stalls on the street in front of the Tin Hau Temple. Stalls of fortune tellers would read your fortune out of every variety of geomamcy imaginable. The sound of street singers performing the tunes of a distant past fill the air with festivity.
Perhaps not so readily observable, but transactions of a seedier nature continue to this day. Temple Street, as the “Men’s Street,” was long the breeding ground of cheap prostitution, gambling dens and drug trade. The opium dens and brothels used to be found on the sampans at the shore. Notwithstanding the disappearance of the sampans, the area remains known for making available cheap vices for working class men.
Certainly, as with all market places, Temple Street offers plenty of attractions to all. One unique feature of food at Temple Street is what the locals call the “neighborhood style”. Seafood restaurants have a strong presence on Temple Street. Customers order the seafood from the tanks, and then specify the cooking style. It is “neighborhood style” because of the availability of lower-end seafood, such as shells, or the oyster pancake.
Another special feature of food on Temple Street is the made-to-order casserole. The rice is cooked in the clay pot with a choice of meat. What is particularly special about the casserole in Temple Street is the cooking on coal-lit stove. On a winter evening, it is indeed an especially memorable experience. A group of people sit around a knee-height table, upon small stools, with a charcoal-lit clay pot sizzling besides them.
Finally, worthy of note is the Mido Café, which stands right across from the Tin Hau Temple. This two-storied café has been in business since 1950. It is a classic “bing sutt” serving Hong Kong styled small meals and Cantonese food. The menu features items like the Hong Kong Pineapple Bun with a slab of butter. Or a sweet French toast. If one feels like a regular meal, there is the baked spareribs over rice. A special drink is the lotus seed with yin-yang, which is the mixing of coffee and milk tea. If not this drink, then certainly finish the meal with a cup of dark-brewed milk tea.
Mido’s curved window panels upstairs show a top-down view of the Temple Street night scene. As with the China Café in Mong Kok (now closed permanently), Mido Café was the setting for a number of movies. It certainly is a part of Hong Kong memory.
In Christopher DeWolf’s wonderful article on Yau Ma Tei’s history, he noted that the neighborhood has retained much of its unique character throughout the years. Unlike the neighboring Tsim Sha Tsui, there was not much of an effort to revamp Yau Ma Tei. Yet Temple Street has changed, not in terms of its inherent character, but rather owing to the significant improvement of living standards in the rest of Hong Kong. To most of Hong Kong’s middle class, Temple Street and the life that it represents is valued more for its nostalgia than its marketplace. For this same reason, while Yau Ma Tei remains a working-class neighborhood, Temple Street has become a tourist attraction, more so than a cheap flea market.
Comes the break of dawn, and Yau Ma Tei would see Gwo Lan, the fruit market a few streets away, to open. Year after year, Yau Ma Tei continues to age as the rest of Hong Kong becomes increasingly affluent. In Chinese we say “ten years like a day,” and such is Temple Street in Yau Ma Tei.
Sources:
Christopher DeWolf, Hong Kong District History: Yau Ma Tei, Frenetic 24/7 Urban Centre That’s Unlike Anywhere in the City, South China Morning Post, April 16, 2018.
The Chapel Bridge took me south of the river, where my tour of Luzern began. The Jesuit Church stands prominently on the riverside. “The Jesuit Church of St. Francis Xavier was built 1666-73, but its onion domed twin towers were not completed until the 19th …
Luzern and Lucerne are one and the same city. Luzern is the way that its mostly German-speaking population refer to the city, whereas Lucerne is simply the French name and the general reference in English. For a couple days I kept debating what my next …
Book Review: Not Giving Up (Trans. Original in Korean, Translated into Chinese), 2017
By Bok Yi Choi
The word Bon, in Hanja[1], is first, the character for “man” over a “cross,” then furthermore a “cross” below. Overall, it is an imagery of a man bearing a cross below a big cross.
There was something indelible about this porridge. It was capable of conveying its taste by its looks. Ms Bok Yi Choi pointed at the picture, “what do you think of this porridge? This is our seafood item.” The audience stirred. There was consensus that this porridge was delicious, without having eaten it. For the next hour or so, we would be savoring Bok Yi Choi’s story of entrepreneurship.
Porridge, to Bok Yi, was a weakness of the enterprise. It is a kind of food that people associate with poverty and sickness. Furthermore, it cannot be sold for a high price. It is labor intensive to make good porridge, and yet, before Bonjuk became Korea’s premier brand of national food, people would not pay very much for it.
There were many failed attempts in starting a business before Bok Yi finally set up the very successful Bonjuk enterprise. In the early years of her marriage, she and her husband failed in their first publishing business. They ended up selling buns on the street as hawkers, mired in debt and poverty. For many times, they were chased down by the police, who confiscated their pushing carts.
Her husband later established a very successful chain name in beauty and skincare products. For a period of time, the family enjoyed immense wealth. That all changed in the 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis. Her husband went bankrupt. The family was back to a life of making ends meet.
During those difficult years, Bok Yi went through severe depression. It was with the Christian faith that she experienced healing. When she was poor, she met many who were also poor. For 500 won, she made poor children the biggest bun she could, two times what was in the market. This was her witness of God to the poor. She told God that there was no waiting for the day that she became successful in order to be charitable. She would witness God even in the ebbs of life. The Lord powered her faith with reminders of the golden Biblical principle: it is more blessed to give than to receive. Thus sown in her heart were the seeds of charity. God’s love continued to guide her.
In seeking the first venue for Bonjuk, Bok Yi could only afford a place on the second floor in a rather run-down neighborhood. Besides the fact that the three previous owners all failed in their business there, this first store was a classic horror story. When Bok Yi first opened the fridge in the kitchen, hundreds of cockroaches raced out. Her mother, who would pray for anything, was so horrified that she found no words possible to pray at that moment. To Bok Yi, this first store of Bonjuk was God’s training for her. It was the toughest condition to start a business, and she passed God’s alpha training course.
In Bonjuk’s first day, the family of seven worked a whole day, but selling only ten bowls of porridge. They prayed, having full faith in Jesus’ promise that “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26). They dressed up in suits to hand out their flyers. Seeing that they were so respectful in handing out flyers, people received the flyers with both hands.
Bok Yi told us that some of the first women who frequented her restaurant wanted to eat porridge because they were on diet. With keen effort to advertise, Bonjuk began to attract many customers.
As business became better, Bok Yi had a problem. Each day they could handle only about forty to fifty bowls of porridge. She insisted that each bowl must be made to order, and each customer could ask for different ingredients in the porridge.
When there were thirty to forty customers during lunch hour, after the twentieth bowl the customers started leaving. They could not wait any longer. Even when the business had turned around, Bok Yi thought of giving up because her operation model did not seem to be able to meet higher demand.
Bonjuk’s good name spread. In the seventh month, people were lining up along the staircase for a seat at the table. Before long, the television station came for interviews. Two lines formed at her business. One was for the food itself, the other line was for people who were looking for a chance to open a franchise store for Bonjuk.
The Lord fully showed Himself through in Bonjuk’s success. Bonjuk flourished in the following years. There are now more than 1,700 stores. The enterprise has also extended its business abroad in many international locations.
Now, Bonjuk has blossomed into three prongs of enterprising work. First is the Bonjuk Corporation, which sells porridge in-store and also premade, packaged porridge in the convenient stores. Then there is Bon Love, which stands for the principle of Christian charity. It focuses upon charitable initiatives all over the world. Finally, there is Bon Mission, which is Bok Yi’s faith in action. It dedicates itself to the Christian idea of Business as Mission. On one hand, Bon Mission provides care and accommodation for returning missionaries in Korea. On the other hand, Bon Mission builds seminaries in other parts of the world.
Sources:
A Talk by Bok Yi Choi, 2018, Hong Kong.
Bok Yi Choi, Not Giving Up (Trans. Original in Korean, Translated into Chinese), 2017.
[1] Hangja is the Korean name for Chinese characters used in the Korean language.
“I have traversed all Rousseau’s ground…and am struck to a degree with the force & accuracy of his descriptions — & the beauty of their reality: Meillerie –Clarens — & Vevey — & the Château de Chillon are place of which I shall say little …
Perhaps with the exception of, broadly, British colonial rule and its return to China in 1997, Hong Kong is not well known for its history. Yet Hong Kong does celebrate its past, short though it might be. This day I visited the Pinewood Battery …
Gruyeres (pronounced gree-EYRE) is a town about an hour northeast of Lausanne. It is famous for its cheese, made at La Maison Du Gruyeres.
Every cheese starts with the cows that make the milk. The milk farmers of Gruyeres graze their cows in the meadows of Swiss Alps at high altitude. The cows feed not only on the green pastures, but also on the floral growth there, such as lavender. As such, their milk comes with its own special aroma. This source of milk guarantees the quality of the Gruyeres cheese.
The economics of cheese-making at Gruyeres goes like this. A cow eats 100kg of fresh grass and drinks 85 litres of water to yield 25 litres of milk, which it produces morning and evening. The cows are milked by machine to ensure its purity. There are checks on acidity and germs. The hard cheese of Le Gruyeres is made from natural unpasteurized milk.
Each 400 litres of milk will turn into 35 kg of cheese. Overall, 2,200 milk producers deliver 345 millions litres of milk to the cheese-makers. This would become 870,000 wheels of Gruyeres cheese.
I have noted, on my first day in Switzerland, how seriously the Swiss take their cheese. I found the reason in Gruyeres. Cheese-making is a traditional industry in Switzerland. The region in which the cows are raised, the milk is sourced, the cheese is produced and matured is a seal of craftsmanship. The process of production is fiercely regimented. After all, it becomes a tradition only because it is tried-and-true.
The milk is heated at 32 degrees Celsius. Then the cheese-maker adds a natural starter, which coagulates the milk. When the milk is coagulated, it is sliced up. Then it is kept at 57 degrees Celsius to firm up. The critical technique is for the cheese to retain its elasticity and consistency without breaking. The mixture is pressed for 16 hours. During this time, it is turned regularly. The juice (whey) comes out. The cheese is kept in a salt bath for 24 hours. Then it is placed in a cellar, with small amount of ammonia for it to age and ripen. Five months later, a crust will form. That would be the time that the cheese sells in the market. The cheese can continue to age beyond five months.
At the cheese museum we saw the actual tools that La Maison du Gruyeres uses for all processes of production. It was eye-opening. These equipment were organized, sanitary and modern all in one.
Perhaps the most educational part of the tour was the cheese tasting. When we bought our tickets, the staff handed out a packet of cheese pieces, aged in 5 months, 8 months and 10 months. As we waited for our fondue at the museum restaurant, we opened the packet and tried. One after another, the pieces did have a distinguishable difference. We all agreed that the 8-month tasted better than the 5, and the 10-month tasted better than the 8. I am no expert on cheese, but the most aged piece had the richest flavor.
When speaking of Swiss cheese one must know the idea of AOP (appellation d’origine protégée). In English, it means the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). Cheese that bear the AOP designation are “produced, processed and refined in a clearly defined region.”[1] This means that the “milk is sourced from the same region in which it is made into cheese and in which the cheese is matured.” There are currently twelve cheeses in Switzerland that meet the AOP standards, and Le Gruyeres is one of them.
Coming from America, however, when we say “Swiss cheese,” we are referring to the Emmental. You know, the mice that demanded, “Who Moved My Cheese?” Then the image comes thus the mouse with its yellow cheese with holes. That is in fact Emmental cheese. Emmental is another cheese region in Switzerland, located in the Canton of Bern. In Switzerland, Emmental is also an AOP-bearing cheese.
Last, but certainly not least, the medieval town of Gruyeres is really worth a good tour.
[1] AOP and IGP: Quality Labels with Character, CheesefromSwitzerland.
In German, “Jungfrau” means “virgin,” and “joch” means “pass.” The Jungfraujoch is a must-see in Switzerland. Named the “top of Europe,” it is at an altitude of 3,466 metres.[1] In order to maximize my time at the mountain, I woke at 5:15 and boarded the …