Angmoland

“…they don’t even give you time for tea break! And if you want to get coffee, you have to walk to the nearest 7-11 to get one of those disgusting instant coffees from machines.”

“Is that in Angmo-land (red-haired land)?”

“Of course lah! Where else? I was in Hawaii for a conference a few months ago and the only thing they gave you for free was water. AND you even had to bring your own container for it! Otherwise they make you use these ridiculously flimsy cone cups!”

Sitting on an uncomfortable gray plastic chair during a conference break, I was enjoying both the view of the typhoon running through the South China Sea, and the exuberant Singlish (Singaporean English) chatter that my new conference friends were engaged in.

The two-day conference was coming to an end. After 14 hours of attending one presentation after another, we’ve reached the point where we’re basically brain dead. 

If networking is the most important part of being in an academic conference, then nothing is more productive than sitting in and listening to a bunch of Singaporean scholars compare notes on how red-haired people run conferences to the  black-haired ones.

Ang-mo (the ‘a’ is pronounced like the word ‘yawn’), the Hokkien word for red-hair, is a derogatory term used for Westerners (yes, White people).  Out of curiosity, I went to Wikipedia to check out the origin of the term and why Westerners were uniformly referred to as the ‘redheads’ in this corner of the world. Surely my initial mental image of a freakishly high number of redheaded British colonists wouldn’t hold…would it?

Here’s what Wikipedia had to say:

The earliest origin for the term "Ang mo 紅毛" could be traced to the contact between Hokkien  (a Southern Chinese dialect) speakers in Southern Fujian province of China with the Portuguese people and Dutch people during the 16th and 17th century.

The Dutch people were known in Taiwan as "Ang mo lang 紅毛人" (red-haired people) in Taiwanese Hokkien. This is most likely because red hair is a common trait among the Dutch. This historical term "Ang mo lang 紅毛人" continues to be used in the context of Taiwanese history to refer to Dutch people.

Oh! So it’s a freakishly high number of Dutch redheads who prompted the Chinese to coin the term!

In this particular black-haired conference, food, rather than academic rigor, serves as the central organizing theme. Never mind that many presentations were merely descriptive, with one presenter confessing that she didn’t really use any theoretical frameworks, and that she wasn’t sure what her conclusion was (you tell me).

 

bamboo clam with glass noodles and garlic sauce

Sweet and sour pork chops

In black-haired land, conferences begin with a big sit-in welcome dinner and end with an even more lavish farewell dinner. They really outdid themselves yesterday evening! We were treated to the best of Cantonese cuisine which consisted of bamboo clams with glass noodles cooked in garlic sauce, the most tender pork chops I’ve ever had in my life with sweet and sour sauce, abalone and shiitake mushroom, bean sprouts with dried scallops and rice noodles…the list goes on and on.  

The cuisine variety was only matched with the variety of interesting characters who attended the conference: a famous Singaporean actress turned academic, an elder female professor who wore a tube top dress with a silk white blazer, a pearl necklace, and matching pearl hair accessories who looked like she was going to her own wedding, a group of Chinese Baha’i faith believers who zealously proselytized to participants during what was supposed to be a panel discussion on the state of this particular religious strand in the Mainland…this list goes on and on as well:)

New conference friends

This concludes the Hong Kong portion of my trip. I’m heading back to Jakarta this evening to visit my family. Can’t wait!