Hangin' with hens . . .

I've lived with free range chickens and know the difference a good life makes to the taste and goodness of their eggs and, eventually, to the taste and goodness of their meat.

The yolk in the egg of a free-range hen fed well is a deep golden orange, nothing like the insipid yellow you get from a factory-farmed hen. The proof is in the taste. It seems obvious to me that the food produced by an animal that is free to move around at will, forages in the dirt and plants for seeds and insects, and is fed a good variety of greens, grains and appropriate table and food prep scraps will be far superior in taste and goodness than that of a creature that is confined to a small space without even natural lighting.

I've been empathising with factory-farmed animals a lot lately. Studies have been done but again, it seems fairly obvious that a lifestyle that constrained would result in stress and stress causes illness (antibiotic use is high in factory farming), as do overly crowded quarters. (NB: My home country also lags badly on this issue.)

There came a time, after the chickens had been free range on my friends' farm for about 20 years, that the woman of the house finally got sick of them shitting in the laundry and trying to help themselves to the sacks of grain. Finding the eggs was also a great adventure - there was a henhouse where most slept at night and where they usually lay, but there were always a few rebels, who preferred to roost in the lower branches of a macrocarpa or lay their eggs in a secret space they'd made under a hedge. Whenever I worked in the garden I had one eye on where the hens were coming and going from as there was often a clutch of eggs at the end of the trail.

So we built them a chicken ranch. This was no mere chicken run, it was an area about four times the size of my Hong Kong apartment with a sheltered, reasonably barren area behind the henhouse where they were fed each morning and could scratch among the scraps and soil to their little poultry hearts' content. It also had an area of hardy bush and a grassed area, both over the fence from a large kitchen garden so they got plenty of good greens and insects tossed over the fence to them also. The eggs continue to taste amazing.

When home in Aotearoa/New Zealand last month I visited a young friend and we chatted while we spontaneously weeded his garden and I checked out his hens. They were eating crayfish (not crawfish but a tastier cousin of lobster) shells with meat still in them. The friend had got the crays diving, and I realised that the hens I know at home had better lives than I did in Hong Kong.

At one extreme of Hong Kong, people literally live in cages. Landlords divide rooms with metal cages and people live cheek to cheek with their neighbours in spaces about the size of a large dog cage. Others live in shanty housing sheltered only by a tarpaulin or plastic sheet if lucky, yet more live on the streets.Yet others have their cooking facilities, laundry and toilet all in one small room. The Society for Community Organisation and photographer Benny Lam did a powerful exhibition and book on this last year and it's well worth the time to check out the images.

One of Benny Lam's powerful images of a side of Hong Kong few visitors know exists. Credit: Benny Lam/Soco.org.hk

Benny Lam records the lives of cage residents. Credit: Benny Lam/Soco.org.hk

Domestic helpers don't necessarily have it much better. Although employers are required by contract to provide helpers with “suitable and furnished accommodation” and “reasonable privacy”, there are no guidelines as to what constitutes "suitable accommodation". A recent survey of 3,000 plus Filipino and Indonesian migrant workers found 43 per cent were not provided with private rooms. Of those who were, in one-third of cases, the room was also used for other purposes, such as storage or to house pets. One helper, in an extreme case granted, slept in a kitchen cupboard above the fridge and microwave oven.

Hong Kong could not run without its army of helpers yet they are treated as invisible by most employers, and suffer abuse and exploitation at the hands of many others. Those employers are the elite of Hong Kong - the ones who can afford to hire a human to tend themselves, their children, elderly and pets yet often treat those humans with less care than they bestow on those same pets. Former colleague Yonden Lhatoo likens this dystopian existence to an H. G. Wells sci-fi cautionary tale.

Now on to what I admit is a first-world problem but no less a concern for that. The mid-level position worker in Hong Kong also lives a very constrained life, living in a larger box and often with better views but often just a better decorated self-chosen cage. Hong Kong is known as a vertical city because of the multitude of these boxes built one atop another, in many of which nobody knows their neighbours or even spends much time in the box other than to sleep (roosting) while believing themselves to be free-range during the day.

Vertical Hong Kong - the view from my apartment of so many other apartments. Credit: Tracie Barrett

Or at least, during those hours of the day when they're not ensconced in their cubicle cage doing whatever pays the exorbitant rental on their roosting boxes and the lifestyle that goes with being in Hong Kong. Many have no natural light in their workplaces, an issue animal rights groups consider abuse for animals, many go without breaks during their often long and relentless work days, and many turn to other things to cope with the stress of living and working here. The healthy choices include yoga, exercise, meditation and healthy eating and all have become big business in a city where stress (and overcrowding and pollution, both of which add to stress) reigns supreme. The less healthy but possibly more prevalent coping mechanisms include drugs and alcohol and I am stunned by the amount of drugs I see or know of used casually here (and I lived and worked in an Australian skifield for two winters in the '90s, when drug use was rife).

Friends and acquaintances in such mid-level jobs often tell me they don't feel valued by their employers for themselves or what they have to offer, but merely as another "employee unit" that is easily replaceable for the right money. Money is the constant justification for working the extra hours, accepting the regular illnesses that go with being overworked, overstressed and often overlooked - "I'll just do it for a few more years", I often hear, and it's a valid trade-off to set yourself up in life if you consider it worthwhile.

Personally, I did the math and it doesn't add up.

I love this city, I love the friends I have made here and I hope to keep the city and those friends as an important part of my life. I hope to visit regularly but I can't live here. For me, it's not sustainable.

I need to go back to where I can be truly free-range and dig in the soil whenever I wish. I need to go home, and I am . . .

Future Adventures, Part V . . .

It's been a reasonably quiet month as I settled into the job and neighborhood a little more. I did walk to the Lama Temple to take photos one morning but otherwise have avoided exploring overly much as the air hasn't looked very inviting.

My first guest helped me sort out what I need to be an adequate host and a dear friend, the Divine Ms. T, arrives Friday for a 10-day visit, during which we plan to visit the Great Wall (in a heatwave, no less, but will take plenty of water), see Cirque du Soleil, go to lots of markets and other tourist spots and eat great food. She also plans a trip to Henan to see the Shaolin Temple and the Longmen Grottoes - my weekends are already booked while she is here so I can't accompany her but I'm trying to talk other friends into visiting so we can do that at a later time. It sounds great - an overnight train trip, a driver/guide for a full day in Henan then back to Beijing on another overnight train.

Other friends from Jeju Island will also be passing through town during the next two weeks so I hope to see them also.

Which means I'd best finish up the Lonely Planet recommended Top 30 Experiences before venturing out to compile my own list.

26. Pingyao, Shanxi

This walled town is yet another of China's entry's on UNESCO's World Heritage List. (There are 45 sites on the list, so I'm not too surprised many of the LP picks are there.)

Unesco says it is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a traditional Han Chinese city, LP says there's not another city in China like it. I may need a few more reasons to put it on my travel plan.

27. Hiking in Jiuzhaigou National Park, Sichuan

Another Unesco site, would you believe, with a number of endangered species, including the Giant Panda. It certainly looks beautiful, as seen in the photo gallery with this National Geographic article (you need to join to see the full article but there is no fee). Even better, since 2009, eco-tours have been available to take you off the the tourist filled boardwalks. I prefer to hike without a guide but in a country as populous as this, appreciate the need to have a monitor in such a place.

I'll go here if I have the time.

28. Chinese Acrobatics

This is one of the suggestions I can take or leave, primarily because it's possible to see outside of China as well. There is a well-known theater not far from me so I may end up going there at some stage,  but it's not on my must-see list. Perhaps the LP writers were getting a little tired at this point.

29. Cruising up Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong

I love Hong Kong, but I don't necessarily need to visit it from Beijing, and it may be easier to do so from elsewhere. I've visited there a few times and am sure to do so again so don't need to try to fit it into my time working here (if only work didn't get in the way of my holidays so often).

30. Beijing's Hutong

These narrow alleyways can be found in much of inner Beijing and range from crowded shantytowns, many of which are due to be torn down and replaced, to upmarket areas with bars, businesses and eating places in teh restored one-story houses. Many expats choose to live in the hutong and a friend who has been here some time has promised to take me exploring those near where she lives.

So that's it - the LP recommendations perused, considered, accepted, rejected or put in the, "If I have time" file.

Stay tuned for more on the adventure as it happens . . .

Back in the ROK

Following the latest version of the Great American Adventure, the Kiwi is back in the Land of Not-Quite Right (aka The Land of the Morning Calm or the Republic of Korea).

After an initial aborted attempt at leaving America last Friday, caused by mechanical problems with one of United Airlines's scheduled flights and not helped any by the company's incompetence and complete disregard for its customers, I arrived back in a soggy, stifling, sweaty Seoul on Sunday night. (If my characterization of United seems harsh, read the note at end.)

I made my way to my old neighborhood of Kyungidan, just down from the Hyatt Hotel on the side of Namsan, and quickly settled into my new apartment with a friend of long-standing. I realized on arrival that it is the same building where a couple who have also been good friends for many years lives - not bad odds in a city of 10 million plus.

On Tuesday I made my way to meet my prospective employers at Yonhap News Agency - South Korea's national news agency - and was delighted to be officially offered an editing position. My visa paperwork should be processed soon, after which I need to take a quick international trip (yes, another) to have the visa issued and the plan is to start work August 22. I'm tossing up between Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong and Jakarta for the visa run as flight prices are all similar. Hong Kong is winning out thus far as it has good friends to have dinner with, great stores that stock even Vegemite, the Stanley Market and nearby beach AND a New Zealand store that serves hokey pokey ice cream.

While I wait, I've been trying to reset my body clock by +14 hours and trying to adjust from VA's heatwave to the monsoon heatwave in Seoul, where flash-floods caused loss of life and landslides this past week. I've also been getting accustomed to my new kitchen and enjoying cooking in my own place. After eight months of being a guest in other people's homes, five months in Aotearoa and three in the U.S., it's wonderful to have my own space again. I am humbly grateful to all my hosts (thanks to come, both here and in other ways) but being a guest for such a long period was at times almost as tiring as the 6,000 miles I covered on the motorcycle.

Now it's time to start work again, not just at Yonhap but on my own writing (see next post) and back at the volunteer job I held and loved when last living in Seoul. I should find enough to keep me from getting bored in this dynamic, vibrant and often mixed-up place. It's time to enjoy another of my many homes.

NOTE ON UNITED: After confirming my flight the day before, I arrived at Norfolk International Airport two hours prior to departure on July 29 (0730) to find a long queue at the United check-in and only two staff on duty. One of the two appeared to be a trainee as she had to ask the other for help on almost every task. My flight, to Washington, Dulles, was canceled because of "mechanical problems" and there seemed to be trouble with a flight going to Chicago also, as many of those in line were complaining about the excessive wait they had to be assigned seats and checked in. Once checked in, many still had to wait for up to 30 minutes as the staff member was unable to print luggage labels so they could check their bags with security. This included a family with three young children, who were repeatedly asked how many tags they needed without actually been given them.

I noticed a gentleman near the front of the line when I arrived whom I saw again two hours later near the back of the line again. At this stage there was only one staff member at the counters and she advised those waiting that it was going to take her some time to process them and they could dial 1800-United for assistance instead. The gentleman replied that he had done so earlier and an agent had rebooked him on another carrier but when he went to check-in there, he had been told he had to return to the United counter. Shortly before I left the airport he made it to the counter again, where he was told that although the agent had booked him on the flight, a seat reservation had not been made.

I was initially told there was no alternative service available to me for at least the next two days. I explained that my US visa was about to expire and that I needed to be back in Korea for an important appointment and I was happy to take any routing on any carrier. After more than two hours, I was rebooked via a different routing and with my final two legs of the trip on a different carrier. I was offered a hotel room overnight but told it would not be available until after 3 p.m. I declined, having wonderful friends/family less than five minutes away, and was given a $10 meal voucher as compensation for the inconvenience. NOT redeemable for alcohol, which is what seemed most needed at the time. (I kept the voucher as a souvenir and a reminder to myself to avoid United Airlines whenever possible.)

The staff were pleasant and tried to be helpful BUT there were not enough of them rostered on to deal with the number of people and from my own experience and those of other disgruntled passengers in the queue, they were poorly trained. The company mindset, rather than being of trying to deliver a service well and gain customer loyalty, seemed to be that of "buyer-beware."

On returning to my friends' home on July 29, I e-mailed the United customer relations desk with the above concerns and some questions about their handling of the situations and their apparent lack of concern for any inconvenience caused by them.  I have still not received a reply, but will be happy to post it here if I ever do.