Notes on Hong-Kong Living

[k15n1]

A friend of mine is a visiting scholar from Hong Kong, China. We have discussed differences in how people live and I thought I'd share some of it with you.

1. Land is very expensive, so everyone rents or buys an appartment. The poor live in 50 sq-ft/person and the rich live in 100-200 sq-ft/person.

2. Because appartments are small, there's no space for storage. If you want a beer, you go buy 2 beers, and come home to drink it. You buy food for the day only. This is the opposite of SS, IMHO.

3. Everyone works a lot---12 to 16 hours is normal. Because of the long work hours, people sleep less, excercise less, and have fewer children.

This type of lifestyle is ver different from mine---so different that I almost wouldn't believe it if I hadn't got it straight from the horse's mouth. I've started seeing the benefits of land recently but now I see that it's really important for the SS life. But the most important for being SS is space for storage.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I can't imagine just buying food for the day.

 

[moolie]

Most cities in Europe are like this, and I would imagine the same is true of cities in India, Japan etc.

Our friends and family in Europe (England, France, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Poland) shop daily in the marketplace, buying different types of foods from different vendors--the baker, the cheese shop, the butcher, the greengrocer etc. Fridges are small and few people have freezers--in fact all European home appliances seem to be much smaller than North American ones. "Canning" isn't generally done, although people do make jam and chutney and occasionally pickles. Europe is smaller in area and denser in population than North America, thus why it works for them--although I'm thinking that in Hong Kong they would be much more dependent on resources from off-island because pretty much the whole island is city. It is a different way of life, and in Europe anyway it is generally considered more "healthy" to eat fresh food purchased daily the way they do--although plenty of people use supermarkets and eat packaged foods like they do here.

North America has a different food heritage than Europe (and the rest of the world). Europeans "gave up" their home preserving earlier as trade became easier between European nations, bringing food from more temperate southern climes north--around the time that North America was being settled. Conditions here in NA were primitive and harsh, and there was really no way to bring "fresh" food to the frontier. Also, there is more land here and the early settlers were by and large (outside the cities) farmers who had to provide for themselves in the absence of easily obtainable goods and at a distance from the cities. Goods were also more expensive on the frontier, so people learned to do for themselves, and a culture of "self sufficiency" was born. Not everyone subscribes to it anymore, but it is an important part of our heritage that other parts of the world just don't have.

That is not to say that other ways are not sustainable ways of living and procuring goods. Many in the world would consider storing copious amounts of food as "hoarding" just because they don't have the same traditions.

 

[so lucky]

But wouldn't the country people in Europe still need to preserve their own? Don't some people still live on farms and work the land? I can't see the very small villages having fresh vegetables brought in daily. I know it's not as far between the villages, but still....I knew that in France and Italy people stop by the markets on their way walking home, for bread and vegetables. It's easy to visualize in nice weather, but can you imagine doing that in a hailstorm or some of the horrible weather we get here?

 

[ORChick]

Moolie has it right, about Europe anyway. Small appliances ('fridge fits under the counter), seldom a freezer (my German SIL has one, but she is the only one I know who does), a tradition of shopping daily. My parents in law, and many others in Germany (though maybe not so often nowadays, I really don't know) would get a load of potatoes into the cellar in Autumn, but, except for a few jars of this and that, didn't really stock up on anything. DH's cousin's wife told me that freezers, and stocking up were more common in East Germany, where she grew up, simply because supplies were not as available as in the west; you bought what you could when you could, because tomorrow there might not be any left. People behind the former Iron Curtain also foraged more for wild foods, mushrooms, hedge fruits, etc. - also because of scarcity in the markets. As Moolie said, "canning" as such is not common there, but jams, chutneys and pickle making are. Woman I knew in Ireland and England would have been ashamed to offer storebought jam - but that was in the '60s, and might no longer apply.
Once, when we were visiting friends in Germany, I mentioned that I had (shortly before leaving the US) got a great deal on fresh, line caught salmon, and had frozen quite a bit for later. Our friend asked me "Why?", and seemed surprised that I wouldn't prefer to get it fresh when next I wanted some.

 

[moolie]

But wouldn't the country people in Europe still need to preserve their own? Don't some people still live on farms and work the land? I can't see the very small villages having fresh vegetables brought in daily. I know it's not as far between the villages, but still....I knew that in France and Italy people stop by the markets on their way walking home, for bread and vegetables. It's easy to visualize in nice weather, but can you imagine doing that in a hailstorm or some of the horrible weather we get here?

Nobody actually has to preserve their own, anywhere

Country people I've met in the parts of Europe with which I'm familiar do tend to be a bit more "back to the land" in terms of baking their own bread, making their own jams/chutneys/pickle etc, but generally live like it's the 21st century, just like most people here do. And most farms are just like farms here, even though Europe is heading away from factory/monoculture type farming and is growing much more organic food than here.

My Polish, French, Portuguese, German, and Swedish friends/relatives pretty much go to the market every day or two to get what they need, my English friends are a little more "Americanized" and shop at the supermarket for many things, but still prefer a real bakery/cheese shop/butcher for certain things.

When it comes to weather, most of Europe (other than the Scandinavian and Baltic countries and northern Russia) really doesn't get "winter" like we do here. Whenever they do get real wintery weather, it makes the news big time. People die, particularly the elderly. Most older homes/buildings don't have central heating, perhaps just a fireplace or two.

And you are correct, most villages are a stone's throw from somewhere else--people are everywhere and Europe is "crowded" in a way that we just can't imagine here. Take England for example, it has 10x Canada's population and everyone fits into an area that is approximately a quarter of the area of my province (Alberta).

 

[Denim Deb]

I don't think I'd want to move to any place like that! It sounds too crowded for me.

 

[moolie]

My hubs' uncle used to live in Hong Kong, and from the photos and descriptions I wouldn't want to live there either--plus it's very expensive there.

But most places I've been to in Europe are surprisingly not that crowded, despite the density. The cities over there are not as sprawling, just more populated, and the countryside can feel just as remote as places do here.

 

[k15n1]

I was reading all sorts of old English and British recipes the other day and am now thinking that country folk everywhere preserve food for themselves. But you're right, there's no country left in Hong Kong. And I have no idea what rural people in Europe do, or even what fraction of the population still counts are rural.

There's an issue of time efficiency, too. Shopping every day may be nicer in some ways but it takes longer than shopping for 1-2 weeks, right?

 

[moolie]

There's an issue of time efficiency, too. Shopping every day may be nicer in some ways but it takes longer than shopping for 1-2 weeks, right?

Depends on how you look at it It's really just a different way of life.

When I do a "big" shop it takes time to get everything I need, it takes time to make trips out to the car with my arms full, or time to get it all back home in the bike basket because I'm buying large amounts of things. If I were to just pick up what I need for a day or two it would all fit in one bag and be easy to carry home. Not saying that would be preferable to me, just saying that I can see how it works.

Our Polish friends live very close to where they shop and they just pop in on their way home from work to grab bread, veggies, cheese, meat, whatever to make dinner and for breakfast/lunches the next day--it's just part of daily routine. But their place is small and there's really nowhere to "keep" anything other than the usual collection of spices and condiments, some dry foods like pasta, tea & coffee, a few bottles of alcoholic drinks etc. Daily fresh bread like they have would be wonderful, but I can't do it every day and my hubs only bakes on the weekends so we eat a lot of our baking out of the freezer--it's convenient but not "fresh".

As I mentioned, our British friends and relatives tend to hit the supermarket more often than other Europeans we know, but because they have a tiny fridge and no freezer or pantry, they do shop at the very least weekly and will pop in to get something on the way home from work when needed. My "English" Aunt grew up on a small family farm here (married an Englishman) so took her Mom/my Oma's ways with her to England when she moved there. When she and her husband built a new house back in the early 80s she made sure she had a small closet for her pantry, and took all of Oma's jam recipes etc. with her. But even she got used to the rhythm of things there.

It is possible to live "sustainably" without living totally "self" sufficiently. Yes, the "on demand" nature of supermarket/grocery store inventory doesn't always work (I've seen it many times when we've had winter storms interrupt grocery delivery) but local producers selling their baking, cheese, meats, and veggies/fruits in market stalls or shops on the high street or even right in your own neighborhood isn't too far off how I shop here at the local year-round farmer's markets.