Last Class

On Wednesday afternoon, my entire Cantonese class went to "yam chah" (drink tea and eat snacks) at the University Guest House, one of the nicer eateries on campus. We carpooled up there with Chang sin-saang and Law sin-saang, two of the teachers, and valiantly tried to speak only Cantonese during the meal (well, some people tried. I mainly failed). Friday was our last class, comprised of an hour-long written exam and a ten-minute oral exam. I was incredibly nervous, but surprised myself by doing pretty well. "Gei hou," the teacher said, after I amazingly enough managed to express why I wouldn't like to be a businessperson ("Ngoh muiyaht m'jungyi heui gungsi"-- "I don't like to go to an office every day"). Not a terribly deep reflection on career choice, but this is only my fourth week after all.

Friday night, Rachel and I went out with Christian to celebrate the end of class and also to say goodbye (Mr. C. Lo has now returned to Norway and his Anthropology Masters program). We met up in Mongkok and trekked to Central, where we rode the mid-level escalators up and down and to and fro, rejecting this restaurant because it was too expensive, that because it looked too cheap, this other one because Christian deemed the menu "boring"... Finally he remembered a Russian restaurant that seemed a good compromise, and we hunted through the alleys near Hollywood Road for "Ivan the Kossack." I was starving and ready to give up and duck into some scuzzy place called "Tuk Tuk Thai Food" but I'm so glad I didn't: 1) Ivan the Kossack has really good Russian food (potato pancakes with sour cream, baked duck with apple and blackcurrant). 2) Ivan the Kossack has really good Russian drinks (cocktail titles include "Dr. Zhivago" and "From Russia with Love"). 3) Ivan the Kossack has an unbelievable, and I mean, UNBELIEVABLE Russian band. They are a boy and a girl. They are married. Their names are "Andrew and Oxsana" (I'm sure I'm spelling her name wrong). They wear Russian peasant blouses and sit in the corner and play very soft Eastern European disco on keyboard and drum machine. They were imported from the Ukraine by Ivan's owner 8 months ago, and every night of the week, from 7pm-11pm, they're doing their subtly amazing act, which combines covers of Abba and Kylie Minogue with completely indescribable and fantastic Russian easy listening and electro songs. I want to go see them again as soon as possible. And though it's hard to top Andrew and Oxsana, there is a 4th and final reason why Ivan the Kossack rocks: they have a SNOW ROOM. Yes. A snow room. A space about the size of a small bathroom which is kept at a permanent 15 degrees below zero and features actual SNOW on the ground (as well as panoramic photo murals of Russian snow-capped mountains, for atmosphere). You can get a big fur coat and fur hat to wear into the glorified freezer, and then take shots of any vodka known to man (I chose a fairly inexpensive pepper infusion). We toasted to Christian's last night in Hong Kong and the hopes that our Scandinavian friend would return soon! ("Ho! Leskutegol!" is a Norweigan toast that means something like "Let the ships roll!" Oh Christian, you viking you.) We also stopped at a nearby LKF bar to say a "Kampai!" to our other classmates Nami and Shoko who were returning to Japan.