HK Chronicles 2012: Part 5

Okay so that last post wasn’t that exciting. So this one will focus more on the fun things I did in Hong Kong. Note, I’ll deal with my shopping in a video once I get back to Australia. I didn’t really manage to do that many fun things with people while in Hong Kong; but I did spend a lot of time hanging out with different people while walking the streets of Hong Kong. It was a good change of pace hanging out with different people this time round (well nearly). Sometimes we know it becomes a bit dull being with the same people all the time (especially during the long four month summer break) so it was cool to have been able to do different things with different people.

 

Lan Kwai Fong

Essentially, LKF is the Hong Kong equivalent to King’s Cross, and other seedy places. Well to be honest, it didn’t seem that bad, although to be fair, walking around in a group of ten shouldn’t pose us as a weak target to any other groups of strangers. On the third night I was in Hong Kong I visited the area with a bunch of friends for dinner, and then drinks, and…let’s leave it at that. The place is void of Chinese people and instead was full of foreigners and other English speakers. Most of my relatives (a generation older) felt a bit uneasy when I told them I went there with friends to drink. On the other hands, my cousins asked to make sure I had actually gone haha. Some were a bit more conservative and wanted me to go just to see what it was like. It’s quite a rowdy district, especially late at night. Luckily we all left by 12am. Sadly, there is no good photo I can put up for this section.

 

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Bike Riding

I can’t be bothered tracing back to the exact dates when I did things. On one day I went out to Tai Po and went bike riding with a different set of friends. It wasn’t that special an activity, although to be honest I hadn’t touched a bike like ten years prior to this event. But of course, you don’t forget how to ride a bike that easily so I was fine. Others, who at this point still have not ridden a bike, struggled a bit:

 

I thought it was interesting that it only took an hour for my friend to get the hang of it; compared to like the many more hours most of us might’ve spent as kids. It just sort of seemed more efficient this way to learn how to ride a bike in an hour at this age, rather than as a kid. I suppose the trade off then is that you don’t get to ride a bike as a kid, something I rarely did anyhow.

 

We rode all the way from the bike hire place down to Sha Tin which was perhaps about 12Km. It was quite a long ride even though it was along a near-straight path most of the time. There were a lot of other cyclists as well, some who were riding for fun in groups of friends or families, and other people who were doing serious training. The quality of he bike and their attire gave us a strong hint on what level they were at. Nothing hat interesting happened along the way; we had to take breaks along the way for our newbie and so our journey took longer than expected. I stacked some kid at some point because I suddenly decided to turn around (didn’t check my blind spot) and he wasn’t very good at braking or keeping his balance. He was fine, not that you could guess without me telling you. We were all very tired by the end of the day because we had to ride the bikes back to return them as well haha (a total of about 25Km).

 

 

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Ocean Park

The very next day (yes most of us were still quite exhausted), we went to Ocean Park. The last time I went was a good 14+ years ago, so I had pretty much forgotten my experience. We got there heaps early to make the most of the day. We headed to as many rides as we could in the morning before people started coming and making the queues long. It didn’t take long for me to get into the rhythm for roller coasters. Having not been to many amusement parks, one would tend to think that I’m bad with roller coasters, I certainly thought so. But by about the fourth ride, that “dropping” feeling wasn’t that foreign to me, it was a quite pleasant adrenaline rush haha.

 

One new ride they opened this year was the “Hair Raiser”:

 

Didn’t really manage to capture a good section of the track but it was basic a rollercoaster which would also twist 360 degrees  as it went around those loops as well. We lined up for that one several more times because it was probably the most exhilarating ride of them all. Also went on the vertical drop ride; which was worse than what we expected because the ride faces towards the ocean and so when you try to look down, all you see is the ocean, rather than dry land, which made it all the more scary I suppose? It’s one of those rides where right before you hit the climax you think to yourself: “At the time it seemed like a good idea…” I don’t think anything gets worse than the vertical drop yes?

 

Food was kind of expensive there, as expected, so we all only ate a bit from a McDonald’s stall; it was still cheaper than any corresponding item in Australia. Another random thing to mention is that mainlanders LOVE to push in queues; we all had to wall off a lot to prevent those snobbish people from doing so. And to also think that it was adults who were pushing in, to go on a children’s ride, the sight is somewhat pathetic. I think at the end of the day, some of us are a bit too old to be going on these rides now. Even though it was my first day in a while going on rollercoasters, the thrill died pretty fast and to me, Ocean Park sort of does feel boring enough such that even if I did come again, it would only be to go on the new rides (probably should wait another 14 years again then haha).

 

It was a fun day though, we walked for most of the day, saw nearly all the things they had on display and when on other “scary” rides such as the “Escalator” and the “Cable Car” – man that last one is really scary when it just stops randomly over a big ditch and doesn’t move for a while. Here are some random photos:

 

 

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I suppose the other fun things I did in Hong Kong were small shopping dates either with friends or with cousins. One last random thing to end on is that I drank on a fair number of nights, mostly with relatives. That is, drinking, not getting drunk (huge difference). One of my uncles said that red wine is pretty cheap in Hong Kong (like $50 HKD a bottle) so most of the alcohol I consumed while in Hong Kong was just wine. I still prefer sake though. Anyhow that will do for now. All of these photos and many others can be found on my Facebook. A little over a week left in Hong Kong now.

HK Chronicles 2012: Part 4

It’s been more than a week since I’ve arrived in Hong Kong and so much has happened that I should probably jot my reflections down before I forget everything. The first three parts were of my travels back in 2009 before university started and since I don’t travel to Hong Kong much, I’d rather just continue the series.

 

This time I’ll be in Hong Kong for just under four weeks (if you checked the front page you would know); it’s my first time travelling by myself and not having my nagging parents with me. I’ll have to admit traveling by myself is totally…fine. Being sheltered by your parents is a bad thing most of the time I reckon and I’m really glad to be able to do what I want in Hong Kong, when I want, where I want, without them interjecting. My parents do call me here and there just to check up on me, and to update me on things I need to do for my relatives on their behalf and if they have things they want me to buy.

 

My main reason for coming to Hong Kong this time round is for shopping. I think I need to update my wardrobe again and from the money I’ve saved up from this year, this was a perfect opportunity to go. There were other favourable factors, such as the extremely high exchange rates favouring the Australian dollar, the fact that I’ll be graduating next year and probably won’t get another chance to go on a holiday, and the $6,000 that the HK government was offering (although sadly I found out that I was not eligible for it). Still this was not going to stop me from trying to enjoy my summer holidays.

 

My strategy this time round was to pack as little as possible and of course to buy everything there. That’s kind of a simple strategy; the only hard thing was forcing myself to buy clothes straight away. It was hard to look and decide what to buy straight away, especially when you haven’t really visited other stores and compared prices. So I bought some clothes to temporarily supplement the clothes I wore to Hong Kong. I think the first two days were rather rough for me. Arriving Tuesday night, I had to quickly set up a Hong Kong SIM (strangely you can still use WhatsApp internationally even with a different SIM), an octopus card, and then to arrange plans for the next morning. The very next day I had to lead a small Bible Study with other church people who were there as well, and then proceeded to go shopping and visit relatives.

 

At the moment I have a decently functioning base of operations at my uncle’s place. My cousin games a lot and so I have ready access to the Internet all the time. My uncle’s place is only a 2 minute walk from the train station which makes travelling very simple. In addition to my laptop, I brought my DSLR, and a compact camera. So unlike last time, I’ll actually be able to blog (when I’m free) and upload photos when I return to my uncle’s place (my poor laptop is struggling to keep up with all the work I need it to do). And then of course there’s Facebook and MSN, but most of you would’ve already seen my activity online anyhow.

 

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Relatives

Okay, time to start reflecting. Visited relatives from my dad’s side on like the second day I was in Hong Kong (the day right after I got off the plane). My uncle, who is quite aged now, was telling me about how important my family was amidst our extended family on my dad’s side. I’ve heard the story many times from my dad and my uncle told me approximately the same thing. He talked about how back in the days, education was a rare thing to come across, and because it was so rare it meant that finding it  was like finding treasure and had to be treated in an appropriate manner. At the time, my dad had managed to secure a position in a university which only catered for several hundred students; it was a very privileged thing to have, my uncle told me. And as such, my dad sort of carried the hope of his family, since his siblings didn’t have as good of an education. Long story short, me and my brother sort of carry that same hope that our relatives have “entrusted” to us because living in Australia provides much more life opportunities than say in Hong Kong. As such, the moral from the adults in the generation above me is that we shouldn’t take education for granted and try our best to study, get good marks, etc. Yes, it’s the same old things that any Asian kid gets told; having my uncle tell his side of the story made me appreciate his values a little more and I suppose I understand more about why our parents value education and study so highly.

 

My cousins tell me how they think it’s amazing that I’m studying a double degree, but in all honesty (and aside from the high school that I attended), studying a double degree is not that rare, nor that great a feat either. I suppose those of you who are only doing a single degree have simply chosen not to do a double degree, it is not beyond your ability. So it’s hard for me, and I suppose many other people, to “value highly” our education in Australia. I value it even less as a Christian because I’m convinced pursuing Christ is much more important than education or getting a job. So I guess I feel a bit bad that I cannot meet not only my parents’ expectations, but also the expectations of my extended family. They’ve sadly placed their hope in a kid who won’t really use the education opportunities he’s been given to their fullest. But I think that should be understandable. For us, we’ve grown up where everyone goes to school, and everyone goes to university; that’s our standard which is much higher than in other countries. But we’ve known no other lifestyle and so we can’t take to heart just how important it is to someone else in another country. Using a “bad” analogy, it’s like “some” students from Kings. I’ve seen some pretty obnoxious kids from that school (I know others who are nice people too) and a lot of us bag them out for their attitude. But technically, they’ve known no other lifestyle so there is some rationale for the way that they act. I guess bringing things back to us Asians, all we can try to do is show some level of intellectual understanding and appreciation for our parents’ values.

 

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Mainlanders

Mention this word to any Hong Kong resident and they’ll show you their racial prejudice against them. In Hong Kong the racial tension is quite strong because a lot of mainlanders flood into Hong Kong to (in a sense) take over all their commodities (mostly goods and accommodation). I don’t quite understand the situation that well since I haven’t really experienced any serious incidents where there was racial tension but it is quite apparent in Hong Kong. I guess other countries feel it too, where it seems that Chinese mainlanders are “invading” the country. Although that in itself is bad, the thing that gets me is their arrogance in foreign countries. In Hong Kong, mainlanders are good at disregarding other people for the simplest things such a honestly lining up in a queue (they love pushing in), or talking in public. I guess I could name several incidents which demonstrate this but that’s not the point of this paragraph.

 

Last Sunday I was asked by another uncle (who’s the head of the ING in Hong Kong) to attend a weeklong finance seminar for Chinese university students. I was told that very few students get selected to come and that it might benefit me since I’m studying something similar. Of course I was reluctant because I didn’t come here to study more, and to make things worse, the whole seminar would be conducted in Mandarin. I had every reason not to go, but since my uncle graciously offered me the chance to come, I suppose I had to show him respect and actually go.

 

I decided to go on Sunday for now just to see what it was about. And in short (my English is steadily getting worse that I’m starting ramble now) the seminar was completely not what I had expected. For UNSW students, the seminar was pretty much on basic FINS1612 stuff (like week 1 lecture material). My uncle presented the seminar (in Mandarin) on how businesses operate (eg: proprietorship, partnership, and corporation). But much to my surprise in thinking that it was all simple stuff, to the other 48 Chinese students (all at different stages in their university degree, including postgraduates) this was first time they’d heard about this. I then I learned that all these students were here because they had an interest in studying finance, but have no prior knowledge about it. The situation for me changed drastically in the afternoon when they started talking about insurance, and my uncle mentioned that I was an Actuarist, and then asked me to tell everyone else about the different types of insurance and how they work. Instantly getting upgraded to be a lecturer for ING had never felt more scary.

 

The one thing I noted by the end of the day was that everyone there was not like the obnoxious and arrogant Chinese students that we might’ve come across in Australia (I know of a few, not by name of course). Rather, these students showed so much humility in the way they valued their opportunity to be able to come to Hong Kong to learn 1612 stuff. It really challenged me to think about our differences. To me, this week long seminar was nothing more than first year uni for me. But to them, it was a chance for them to get into a higher end job, in comparison to what they did before (and to be fair what they had already was okay too – some of them were doing Engineering, others some form of Arts, and still others something related to business, but not so much commerce).

 

They were very keen on practising their English on me (of course), we took photos, and exchanged contact details. I’m still awaiting their e-mails and photos that they took with me haha. But all in all it was a good experience for me to see what some other Chinese students are like. And in addition to the section above about my relatives, I suppose we all should somehow count ourselves lucky to have been raised in a country like Australia with such strong education possibilities (in comparison). Even if we do complain about our high schools and universities, they are all doing better than most other educational institutes in other parts of the world.

 

[Insert photo here if it ever becomes available.]