Throwing in the Tao

A Mao clock. And another, and another. A whole row of Mao clocks, all shiny and new, row upon row of them, dozens of Little Red Books all ticktocking back and forth. "Ingrid!" I rush back to her breathlessly, waving my very own Mao clock. "Look what I found!"

Across the harbor, on Nathan Road, a circus of neon signs hangs out over the storefronts. In the front window of a budget optometrist, I spot a glass of water among the eyeglasses. "A little sip," I say merrily, "strategically placed for a thirsty moment."

"Actually," says Ingrid, ever the good student, "that's feng shui. It's supposed to help you live in harmony with nature." Another educational tidbit from the Quick Guide.

"No kidding." I take a closer look.

Ideally, you orient the front of a building so it looks out on water. It maximizes your luck, though that word, "luck," trivializes the original Asian concept it's supposed to represent. In the West, luck is a completely random phenomenon. In the East, luck is the result of the world's complex web of interconnectedness. In the same way that the beat of a butterfly's wings in Asia may produce a tiny air current that entwines with other currents to produce gale-force winds in North America, a seemingly disconnected cup of water in a display window may somehow have an impact on the shop owner's ability to turn a profit.

After that, I notice that one of the swankier stores has positioned a bubbling aquarium just inside its entrance. A more value-conscious retailer has made room in its window display of watches and faux gems for an artful arrangement of full water goblets. And then there's the disposable cup set. In a dark and narrow nook between buildings, beneath racks of cheap embroidered slippers, sits a paper cup of water.

At the end of the day, we hail a taxi. We show the driver the piece of paper on which the concierge has written the name of our hotel in English and in Chinese, because most cabdrivers speak no English. But this one does.

"I like America!" he announces. "You know why I like America? No America, no balance. Whole world all out of balance!" He assures us that in the future, though, China will be number one. He points out sights along the way to our hotel. He sets us straight about Hong Kong film stars -- Bruce Lee was the best; Jet Li is better than Jackie Chan. And basketball player Yao Ming has a face like an idiot. As for the mainland, our next destination: "China very dangerous. Always robbering. Very dirty! Chinese immigrants bring families to Hong Kong, then don't work! Get the money from the government, spend it in China. That's why Hong Kong people don't like Chinese people." Suddenly he turns to look over his shoulder at us. He snorts a laugh. "And we all Chinese!"

WE TAKE ANOTHER FERRY, this one from Hong Kong to Zhuhai, People's Republic of China. Outside the ferry terminal, a hired car waits for us. It's an elderly compact, worn but polished and smelling of carpet shampoo.

The roads, though, are new and built like grand boulevards, lined with palm trees. We're part of a steady stream of cars and trucks. A few people walk along the curb. But despite all the traffic, Zhuhai has the sleepy, empty air of an off-season resort. Enormous buildings sit far back from the road. The cars drive slower, the people walk slower, and there are bicycles here, lots and lots of bicycles, some with a passenger riding sidesaddle on the back fender, some pulling carts. We pass a moped puttering along beneath a family of four -- a man and a woman with a child in her lap, granny hanging on behind. None of them wears a helmet. There are no seatbelts in our car. The builders of the grand boulevards neglected to install traffic lights.

Zhuhai was one of the special economic zones where mainland China first dipped its toe into capitalism. Since then factories have spilled over into the surrounding area, and now the whole region is a special economic zone. In Tanzhou, the next town over, construction cranes stud the hazy horizon; smoke pours from the stacks of more factories than I can count. Suddenly the white skies to the south make sense. That's not just fog hazing the views in Macau and Hong Kong. The prevailing winds tie their ecological fates to each other.

Our hotel is staffed according to central planning. Downstairs in the restaurant, only one other table is occupied. Half a dozen uniformed servers converge on each one. They are very attentive. They giggle at Ingrid's lack of chopstick skills.

When dinner is over, we're asked if we'd like a massage. "After," we're told, "you feel much better!" We've been hearing that the massage practitioners in China are superior to the ones in Hong Kong, and cheap, too -- an hour that would cost at least $60 in the United States and $30 in Hong Kong is a mere $5 in China. Only tourists get massages in Hong Kong, we've been told. Hong Kongers go to China.

An entire wing of the second floor has been converted into a massage center. All but one of the rooms are empty. Another dozen uniformed staffers hop up when we walk in. We opt for foot massages and are shown into a small room with two big padded chairs. While a quiet young woman on a stool works on my feet and an enthusiastic young man works on Ingrid's, the TV shrieks with a Chinese game show. The studio audience waves sparkling pompoms. The host is long-haired and suave. It needs no translation.

The enthusiastic young man at Ingrid's feet says something in Cantonese and mimes chest pain. Then he points at Ingrid's chest, his eyebrows raised like a question. Ingrid looks surprised. She puts a hand to her chest and nods. "Yes. Uh-huh." He mimes pain a little lower, eyebrows still raised. "Yes," she says, her hand on her stomach now, "there, too." He figures out her shoulder as well. For years now, Ingrid has been suffering from a pinched nerve in her chest, a hiatal hernia and, since spending 20 hours on a plane, a muscle spasm in her shoulder. In the space of a few minutes, this guy has figured it all out just by touching her feet.

Chinese medicine theorizes that we are our feet. Various parts of the foot are somehow connected to various parts of the rest of the body. Take your big toe for instance; that's supposed to be connected to your head. As the quiet young woman kneads my feet, my whole body relaxes and I close my eyes. Me, I'm finally starting to feel connected, too.

BACK IN HONG KONG, we're on a street that grows so steep it turns into a staircase. Ladder Street stretches up between the high-rises as far as we can see. We're puffing hard. When we reach a cross street, Hollywood Road, we turn off to catch our breath. Right in front of us is a temple.

It's old, the stone carving along the rooftop blunted with age. It seems as if it's part of the neighborhood, not a destination like the A-Ma Temple in Macau. The sign out front says it's the Man Mo Temple.

I ask Ingrid, "Do you think we can go in?"

"I don't know," she says, "but if you go in, I'll go in, too."

It's dark inside. I inhale incense. Narrow shafts of sunlight stripe the darkness, streaming through pale clouds of smoke. I wait a moment to see if anyone's going to throw us out.

No one does. Hesitantly, I lead Ingrid farther into the temple. It opens up around us, a cavernous red-and-gold-painted room divided by lattices and columns, with altars tucked into the corners. Overhead, a thick canopy of yellow incense coils hangs like a silent, half-visible carillon. Candles dot the shadows. Strings of white holiday lights flash. Standing at one of the altars, a woman holds a handful of incense sticks before her face and bobs her head in prayer.

It feels like a holy place to me. But, just like at A-Ma, a couple chats while walking through. A man calls out a greeting. None of them takes any notice of us. It's a random, everyday kind of holiness. We stay until we are ready to go. As we step back out into the street, I look at Ingrid and Ingrid looks at me. Suddenly, we are smiling as one.

Kristin Henderson, author of While They're at War, is a frequent contributor to the Magazine.