Hong Kong and What am I Eating?
It’s been difficult to figure out what I’m eating most of the time, and I’m not kidding! I’ve been trying to eat at smaller places that are more cultural. In fact I was just smelling my hands wondering what that smell was and I’m realizing it’s the smell of the fried tofu balls I had last night at a little dim sum shop.
I’ve been in Hong Kong now since Thursday and it’s been quite a culture shock. I’ve noticed that there are things that have been quite difficult to get used to. All of these concepts that I learned in my Intercultural Communications courseI took in Florence are coming back to me. The thing that I have found most frustrating has been the sense of personal space or rather the lack of it! While people are simply going about their daily business I sometimes find myself getting offended at what seems to be the lack of respect from others. Getting on the subway, standing in lines or even walking on the street is much different here than back home. Personal space it not a 3 foot radius surrounding you, instead it is you and only you. When I find myself getting offended I simply try to remember that there is no intention to be disrespectful, it’s simply a cultural difference and I’m the one who’s a guest in their culture! Disrespect just like many interpersonal conflicts is not something that people can do to you but rather something that is a state of mind. So it’s as simple as changing my state of mind, which I suppose is easier said than done, but I’m working on it. Hopefully though when I come back I don’t have the reverse problem with personal space!
Where to begin?
Hong Kong is a pretty overwhelming city but I managed to see and experience much of it. My first expedition was to actually get into the city, which was surprisingly easy considering it’s immense size. I didn’t arrive until late so I didn’t get much time to look around. The following day I decided to walk down to the pier in Kowloon and poke around there. You can see from the pictures how incredible the skyline was. Most of that day was spent just walking around Kowloon and getting familiar with the city and the transportation system. The subway system in Hong Kong is called the MTR and it works incredibly well. It reminded me of the DC metro, only faster and more frequent. The only problem was that it worked so well that EVERYONE used it. Even thinking about riding it during morning or afternoon rush hour was madness. The efficiency of the system didn’t stop at the transportation itself. Purchasing tickets was streamlined even if you didn’t have a metro card. Simply push the destination on a touchscreen map and it told you the fare, you put the fare in, receive a card and you’re off! I ended up using it for all of my trips within the city and even on the way out to the airport when I left.
Can You Walk Through Hong Kong and Play Video Games at the Same Time?
One thing that I found interesting was how much people love electronics. I mean everywhere you go you see people with their PSPs, cell phones, iPhones (more on that), etc. What’s insane what how people (when I say person I’m not talking about the random kid walking by, I mean adults, teens and more and pretty frequently) would walk down the street playing video games. Talk about multitasking!
So that’s where all the iPhones went…I noticed almost on arrival that everyone in Hong Kong has an iPhone. It was crazy to see how many people were using them and even more amazing to see how many were on sale! I’ve heard that there are shortages in the States and while some may say it’s due to the next model coming out I think it’s partly due to everyone over here buying them to sell. They are in every electronics store and what’s crazy is that it hasn’t been released in China yet, which means that they are all being hacked.
They Love Their Escalators!
When I headed over to Hong Kong Island, on the other side of the bay I really discovered just how much people love escalators in Hong Kong. In Central, a district in Hong Kong, there are these series of escalators called the Mid-Level Escalators, which go about mid-way up the mountain in the background of the skyline. They are around the area called SoHo (btw - in order to be a big city do you need a district called SoHo?), which is a little section of bars and restaurants where many foreigners hang out. While most of the way up I would call them “moving walkways” it did make me realize just how many escalators there were everywhere I looked. However, after getting so accustomed to using them I found that my trip out to Lantau Island and up to the Big Buddha or Tian Tan Buddha was more difficult than it should have been…
The Ubiquitous 7-11
Somehow 7-11 has infiltrated the Asian market. It is literally on every street corner. For those of you back in Indiana who couldn’t believe 7-11’s existed that didn’t sell gasoline, you will be disappointed to find out that the majority of 7-11’s in the world don’t sell gas. I’ll get a picture of some soon to show you.
