A couple weeks ago we went to the opening races of the Hong Kong Jockey Club in Happy Valley near Causeway Bay. There, you could bet on a horse and lose some money, be it through said gambling or booze.
I went because I thought it might be something of an experience—and it was, just not the one that I imagined. It happened the Wednesday before last and was advertised by the International Student Association here as an event worth going to because horse racing is a favorite pastime of Hong Kong.
Whereas I can see the Jockey Club’s influence everywhere here (because as a non-profit they charitably get money from the people who lost it on horses and give it to organization. I know that their name is plastered on a building or two on the HKU campus, as they probably donated funds to help build it. That’s all fine and dandy.
The theme for the night was gold, and if you wore gold, you’d get entered into a raffle for a special prize. I didn’t wear gold. I only saw a handful of people wearing gold.
From what I read, it was to be a classy event, but with two pitchers of beer (buy one get one free) for HK$120, most of the people on the ground level were drunk, many of which having bought a couple pitchers for themselves.
From what I saw, there were hardly any locals in sight. The crowdedness of the expats and tourists made me think it was more for expats and tourists than being a pastime of Hong Kong.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Shopping for Classes, Part 3
To register for classes, you sign onto HKU Portal and click on Student Connect. To register classes, you find individual lectures on the “Optional Courses” search page and scroll down the list. Once you find it, you click on it, which prompts you for a lecture selection, which almost always is “A” since most classes don’t have enough enrollment to warrant multiple lectures and professors. Make sure to save between adding classes.
When you add a class, a “TS” appears next to it, meaning the department offering the course has to approve you for that specific course. If the department doesn’t approve you, you get a “TN” and if you’re approved, you get sent for approval by your super-departmental faculty, which while pending is assigned “TW.” Once you get a “TW,” you’re pretty much approved, but they can still deny your selection, giving you a “TN.” If all goes well, all your classes are now “TA” or fully approved to take.
Upon attending class, you are told to sign up for a tutorial (what I would call a section), the times of which are not publicized nor solidified. If you have a problem making any of the tutorial slots, say if you have lectures during each of the tutorials offered, then you should talk to the TA and or professor so that you can be accommodated.
Some classes have a convenient sign-up process online, which serves to confuse in its own right. It’s a competition to sign up for tutorials first so that you get the best time slot, which basically means it is neither too late in the day nor too early in the morning, considering existing schedule blocks for other lectures. The tutorial enrollment is only compared to the lecture enrollment once the add/drop period ends.
Needless to say, I have now finished registration in its entirety.
It was painful to go through, and seemed to add more corners that needed desperately to be cut off. Why couldn’t the Student Connect system for lecture registration be integrated with tutorial registration for better convenience in schedule arrangement? It would make logistics smoother and more operable, allowing professors and TAs to teach rather than arrange tutorial slots for the masses.
So now I’ve attended all of my tutorials at least once. With tutorials having started on the third week of instruction, I’ve already been to all my lectures at least two or three times by this point (with the exception of Cantonese, which has no tutorials), and for the most part, they have been good.
For my Traditional Chinese Society class (SOCI0052) the enrollment stands at thirteen students, split into two tutorials led by the professor himself. Last week, we had a typhoon level eight, which canceled morning and early afternoon classes, so we were all lumped into one section. This week, however, the two tutorials met separately, and mine only has five students. We presented our proposals for the ethnographic research project due in a month, and apparently mine was a good idea (details forthcoming).
For Hong Kong and the World (POLI0019), the tutorial was relaxed and focused on discussions of the readings and the lectures specifically (as the professor usually brings guest speakers in). We went over Hong Kong’s global competitive as a haven for multinational companies and international financial institutions and speculated as to its ability to maintain any such competitiveness.
In the tutorial for Introduction to Arts of Asia: Past and Present (FINE1008), the professor served as the tutorial leader, though she has one TA for her class. There, we discussed the major artworks (of various mediums) and went over the nitty gritties that we were to be tested on later.
In the tutorial for Phonetics (LING2004), my particular section saw the professor teaching. He went over a homework assignment that we have to turn in by next Wednesday. Though his approach is explicitly observational, I still feel that he’s trying to prescriptively teach the local students how to speak English like an American or a Brit.
For Humanity in Globalization (POLI0078), I just had my first tutorial. The lecture immediately prior, we watched a documentary on the Rwandan Genocide, to which we reflected upon in tutorial. While really quite depressing, the syllabus has topics in the future that involve logos whereas these first two weeks have really invoked the shock factor and pathos.
“Peux ce que veux,” non?
When you add a class, a “TS” appears next to it, meaning the department offering the course has to approve you for that specific course. If the department doesn’t approve you, you get a “TN” and if you’re approved, you get sent for approval by your super-departmental faculty, which while pending is assigned “TW.” Once you get a “TW,” you’re pretty much approved, but they can still deny your selection, giving you a “TN.” If all goes well, all your classes are now “TA” or fully approved to take.
Upon attending class, you are told to sign up for a tutorial (what I would call a section), the times of which are not publicized nor solidified. If you have a problem making any of the tutorial slots, say if you have lectures during each of the tutorials offered, then you should talk to the TA and or professor so that you can be accommodated.
Some classes have a convenient sign-up process online, which serves to confuse in its own right. It’s a competition to sign up for tutorials first so that you get the best time slot, which basically means it is neither too late in the day nor too early in the morning, considering existing schedule blocks for other lectures. The tutorial enrollment is only compared to the lecture enrollment once the add/drop period ends.
Needless to say, I have now finished registration in its entirety.
It was painful to go through, and seemed to add more corners that needed desperately to be cut off. Why couldn’t the Student Connect system for lecture registration be integrated with tutorial registration for better convenience in schedule arrangement? It would make logistics smoother and more operable, allowing professors and TAs to teach rather than arrange tutorial slots for the masses.
So now I’ve attended all of my tutorials at least once. With tutorials having started on the third week of instruction, I’ve already been to all my lectures at least two or three times by this point (with the exception of Cantonese, which has no tutorials), and for the most part, they have been good.
For my Traditional Chinese Society class (SOCI0052) the enrollment stands at thirteen students, split into two tutorials led by the professor himself. Last week, we had a typhoon level eight, which canceled morning and early afternoon classes, so we were all lumped into one section. This week, however, the two tutorials met separately, and mine only has five students. We presented our proposals for the ethnographic research project due in a month, and apparently mine was a good idea (details forthcoming).
For Hong Kong and the World (POLI0019), the tutorial was relaxed and focused on discussions of the readings and the lectures specifically (as the professor usually brings guest speakers in). We went over Hong Kong’s global competitive as a haven for multinational companies and international financial institutions and speculated as to its ability to maintain any such competitiveness.
In the tutorial for Introduction to Arts of Asia: Past and Present (FINE1008), the professor served as the tutorial leader, though she has one TA for her class. There, we discussed the major artworks (of various mediums) and went over the nitty gritties that we were to be tested on later.
In the tutorial for Phonetics (LING2004), my particular section saw the professor teaching. He went over a homework assignment that we have to turn in by next Wednesday. Though his approach is explicitly observational, I still feel that he’s trying to prescriptively teach the local students how to speak English like an American or a Brit.
For Humanity in Globalization (POLI0078), I just had my first tutorial. The lecture immediately prior, we watched a documentary on the Rwandan Genocide, to which we reflected upon in tutorial. While really quite depressing, the syllabus has topics in the future that involve logos whereas these first two weeks have really invoked the shock factor and pathos.
“Peux ce que veux,” non?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Tongue of Another
I pick up here where I left off from “A Friend of Two,” posted in late August. I had just arrived here and found myself struggling with the lack of English. Honestly, I knew it was to be expected, and honestly, I know I should have tried to pick up some more basic Cantonese before I left.
But as it became readily apparent—I didn’t.
To this effect, I enrolled in Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1, which has, in the first five classes, served to localize my speech more than it had been before. Being an unstandardized, not completely written language, there is debate over how many tones Cantonese does (or should) have.
For those who don’t know much about the Chinese languages (called dialects), they are tonal, which in short means that same syllables pronounced with different pitches in tone (not all of which steady) have the potential to change their meaning.
Having gone to Chinese school (teaching Mandarin) when I was little, I was used to being told about the four tones in Mandarin, five including the neutral tone. With English being the language of my household, I learned the language an auxiliary language (contrary to popular opinion), and had not been able to pronounce understandably until just a few years ago. Now, in words that I know, I can pronounce the tones properly, albeit with an American accent.
In Cantonese, the debate over how many tones exist ranges from as low as six to as high as eleven or twelve, depending on your source. In the Hong Kong variety of Cantonese, there had historically been seven tones, but two consolidated with the recent “lazy generation.” So in my class, we are being taught with six tones, which usually appear as superscript numerals immediately following the syllable that they modify.
Explained in words, the first tone is high, the second is high rising, the third medium, the fourth medium falling, the fifth low falling then rising, and the sixth the lowest. For the vowels and consonant sounds, we use the Jyutping system, which the book claims was chosen for its resemblance to the International Phonetic Alphabet (though I know it could be closer).
So my goal in learning Cantonese, other than for the sake of learning Cantonese, is so that I can get around places earlier and apply such skills to a future professional career.
But like I mention time and time again, my classes here are in English (with varying levels of quality). This would imply that the local students and the Mainland Chinese students speak scholarly English to be able to read scholarly articles and to understand lectures in their entirety.
This leads me into the way that I’ve seen local students function as a reflection of their education. As my cousin told me, the education system, heavily influenced by the British, “teaches them to take orders, but doesn’t promote critical thought.” My mother, who spent part of her childhood in Hong Kong, told me how though they had English classes, they were not effective in method or end result. And according to my own research, Hong Kong schools only teach English to students based on vocational needs.
But this isn’t about English. Locals speak mostly Cantonese to each other here and most can work with Mandarin. However, with English as a co-official language, one would expect the system to make more of an effort to teach English. With Hong Kong seeing itself as “Asia’s world city,” English competence is one way that it keeps its competitiveness—a trait that it’s not maintaining, if it had it in the first place.
The University of Hong Kong purportedly uses English as the medium of communication for all classes (expect foreign language), so it would make sense that the students are competent in English in a scholarly capacity—which brings me back to what my Hong Kong University buddy, a local student, told me.
Apparently, when I called her the morning that she gave me the tour, she said that she was so nervous to be speaking English to me. Don’t get me wrong—I think that she’s a great person and I remain grateful she gave me that tour, but a student shouldn’t be frightened to speak in the language that they’re being instructed in.
Though she represents just one student out of the 20,000 here, thinking that a lot of local students doubt their own English competency helps explain a lot of things. For one thing, local students focus a lot on face, which is based on the Chinese emphasis on harmony in relationships over individuality and non-conformity. This means that if you say “Hi” to a local, you will get a “Hi” back, and little more. I have experienced this on multiple occasions when I attempted to break the ice with my floormates in my hall.
Needless to say all but like two practically gave the cold shoulder, as they did not know me yet, and did not feel comfortable enough with me to be open, which I feel is perfectly understandable. But a friend of mine, who speaks Cantonese (among other languages), finds that the local students warm up to him faster, which, needless to say, is in all likelihood because there is less of a perceivable language barrier.
So in their not responding to my friendly efforts in attempt to save face, they’ve actually lost face in my consciousness (and most exchange students’ sub-consciousness) as they isolate themselves from the exchange students (possibly as well as the Mainland Chinese).
And I’m not trying to be an English imperialist in the opinion. I believe everyone is entitled to the language of his or her choice, with the thought that one should be open when going abroad, especially to a non-English country. So I failed; I assumed that just because English is the language of instruction that English is something most everyone is competent in.
And to this effect, I am attempting the learn Cantonese. A month (one quarter) into my program, I find that by itself, my Cantonese has not improved, which to the contrary my Italian developed rapidly during my two weeks there last summer. This morning, as an example, I asked the minibus to stop in Cantonese, which, while understood, had a highly apparent accent, which even I myself could hear. So I’ve resigned myself to the primary goal of being understood in Cantonese.
But even if I’m understood and I can understand, I face a second dilemma—a dilemma that could be readily solved by speaking English. Since I look like a local despite being rooted 7,000 miles away, a lot of service workers think I’m stupid or slow when I speak to them in Cantonese. The little that I know is slow and heavily accented. When I speak English though, I get great service and people who think that I’m highly educated. In all likelihood, I probably get charged higher prices as well.
So I guess there’s just no winning. A friend of mine here, a Scottish exchange student who doesn’t look like a local, manages to ask the minibus to stop as well. She told me that when she does so, she get stares from both sides of the aisle. The locals look at her for having a funny accent with little appreciation for her efforts to learn the local tongue, and the tourists and ex-pats look at her, wondering what she just said.
So what can be done?
Well, for me, as I’ve said, I hang out mostly with exchange students. Scratch that—only with exchange students. It’s not my choice, as going abroad is, in my opinion, to branch out, especially into the host culture.
As for my Hong Kong University buddy, she informed me that she, as well as many other local students don’t attend lecture, opting just for tutorial (or section), which are often taught in Cantonese if everyone is competent. She told be that the professors speaking English are hard to understand.
So a few weeks ago, at my faculty’s orientation for registering for classes, I raised my hand with a question about tutorials: “My HKU buddy told me that some tutorials are conducted in Cantonese. So how easy would it be to switch tutorials if I need to get out of a Cantonese-language one?”
And the answer, “Well they aren’t supposed to be speaking Cantonese, so if it is in Cantonese and the tutor refuses to teach in English, tell us and we’ll get everything straightened out.”
Alrighty then.
But as it became readily apparent—I didn’t.
To this effect, I enrolled in Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1, which has, in the first five classes, served to localize my speech more than it had been before. Being an unstandardized, not completely written language, there is debate over how many tones Cantonese does (or should) have.
For those who don’t know much about the Chinese languages (called dialects), they are tonal, which in short means that same syllables pronounced with different pitches in tone (not all of which steady) have the potential to change their meaning.
Having gone to Chinese school (teaching Mandarin) when I was little, I was used to being told about the four tones in Mandarin, five including the neutral tone. With English being the language of my household, I learned the language an auxiliary language (contrary to popular opinion), and had not been able to pronounce understandably until just a few years ago. Now, in words that I know, I can pronounce the tones properly, albeit with an American accent.
In Cantonese, the debate over how many tones exist ranges from as low as six to as high as eleven or twelve, depending on your source. In the Hong Kong variety of Cantonese, there had historically been seven tones, but two consolidated with the recent “lazy generation.” So in my class, we are being taught with six tones, which usually appear as superscript numerals immediately following the syllable that they modify.
Explained in words, the first tone is high, the second is high rising, the third medium, the fourth medium falling, the fifth low falling then rising, and the sixth the lowest. For the vowels and consonant sounds, we use the Jyutping system, which the book claims was chosen for its resemblance to the International Phonetic Alphabet (though I know it could be closer).
So my goal in learning Cantonese, other than for the sake of learning Cantonese, is so that I can get around places earlier and apply such skills to a future professional career.
But like I mention time and time again, my classes here are in English (with varying levels of quality). This would imply that the local students and the Mainland Chinese students speak scholarly English to be able to read scholarly articles and to understand lectures in their entirety.
This leads me into the way that I’ve seen local students function as a reflection of their education. As my cousin told me, the education system, heavily influenced by the British, “teaches them to take orders, but doesn’t promote critical thought.” My mother, who spent part of her childhood in Hong Kong, told me how though they had English classes, they were not effective in method or end result. And according to my own research, Hong Kong schools only teach English to students based on vocational needs.
But this isn’t about English. Locals speak mostly Cantonese to each other here and most can work with Mandarin. However, with English as a co-official language, one would expect the system to make more of an effort to teach English. With Hong Kong seeing itself as “Asia’s world city,” English competence is one way that it keeps its competitiveness—a trait that it’s not maintaining, if it had it in the first place.
The University of Hong Kong purportedly uses English as the medium of communication for all classes (expect foreign language), so it would make sense that the students are competent in English in a scholarly capacity—which brings me back to what my Hong Kong University buddy, a local student, told me.
Apparently, when I called her the morning that she gave me the tour, she said that she was so nervous to be speaking English to me. Don’t get me wrong—I think that she’s a great person and I remain grateful she gave me that tour, but a student shouldn’t be frightened to speak in the language that they’re being instructed in.
Though she represents just one student out of the 20,000 here, thinking that a lot of local students doubt their own English competency helps explain a lot of things. For one thing, local students focus a lot on face, which is based on the Chinese emphasis on harmony in relationships over individuality and non-conformity. This means that if you say “Hi” to a local, you will get a “Hi” back, and little more. I have experienced this on multiple occasions when I attempted to break the ice with my floormates in my hall.
Needless to say all but like two practically gave the cold shoulder, as they did not know me yet, and did not feel comfortable enough with me to be open, which I feel is perfectly understandable. But a friend of mine, who speaks Cantonese (among other languages), finds that the local students warm up to him faster, which, needless to say, is in all likelihood because there is less of a perceivable language barrier.
So in their not responding to my friendly efforts in attempt to save face, they’ve actually lost face in my consciousness (and most exchange students’ sub-consciousness) as they isolate themselves from the exchange students (possibly as well as the Mainland Chinese).
And I’m not trying to be an English imperialist in the opinion. I believe everyone is entitled to the language of his or her choice, with the thought that one should be open when going abroad, especially to a non-English country. So I failed; I assumed that just because English is the language of instruction that English is something most everyone is competent in.
And to this effect, I am attempting the learn Cantonese. A month (one quarter) into my program, I find that by itself, my Cantonese has not improved, which to the contrary my Italian developed rapidly during my two weeks there last summer. This morning, as an example, I asked the minibus to stop in Cantonese, which, while understood, had a highly apparent accent, which even I myself could hear. So I’ve resigned myself to the primary goal of being understood in Cantonese.
But even if I’m understood and I can understand, I face a second dilemma—a dilemma that could be readily solved by speaking English. Since I look like a local despite being rooted 7,000 miles away, a lot of service workers think I’m stupid or slow when I speak to them in Cantonese. The little that I know is slow and heavily accented. When I speak English though, I get great service and people who think that I’m highly educated. In all likelihood, I probably get charged higher prices as well.
So I guess there’s just no winning. A friend of mine here, a Scottish exchange student who doesn’t look like a local, manages to ask the minibus to stop as well. She told me that when she does so, she get stares from both sides of the aisle. The locals look at her for having a funny accent with little appreciation for her efforts to learn the local tongue, and the tourists and ex-pats look at her, wondering what she just said.
So what can be done?
Well, for me, as I’ve said, I hang out mostly with exchange students. Scratch that—only with exchange students. It’s not my choice, as going abroad is, in my opinion, to branch out, especially into the host culture.
As for my Hong Kong University buddy, she informed me that she, as well as many other local students don’t attend lecture, opting just for tutorial (or section), which are often taught in Cantonese if everyone is competent. She told be that the professors speaking English are hard to understand.
So a few weeks ago, at my faculty’s orientation for registering for classes, I raised my hand with a question about tutorials: “My HKU buddy told me that some tutorials are conducted in Cantonese. So how easy would it be to switch tutorials if I need to get out of a Cantonese-language one?”
And the answer, “Well they aren’t supposed to be speaking Cantonese, so if it is in Cantonese and the tutor refuses to teach in English, tell us and we’ll get everything straightened out.”
Alrighty then.
Monday, September 21, 2009
What Happens in Macau Stays in Macau, Part 1
(photographs posted most recent first)
And on a sidenote, I've now been here for a full month!
And on a sidenote, I've now been here for a full month!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Four More Stamps: Fabulous Macau
For the first time since I arrived here in Hong Kong, I left the Special Administrative Region to visit Macau, another SAR of the People’s Republic of China. With different immigration schemes and regulation, leaving Hong Kong got me one stamp in my passport, entering and leaving Macau got me two more, and my reentry into Hong Kong got me another large student stamp.
In addition to controlling immigration separate from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau each maintain their own currencies. Macau’s is the Pataca, which is pegged to the Hong Kong Dollar (which is in turn pegged to the U.S. Dollar). Being such as small currency zone though most everyone takes Hong Kong Dollars there, which means that only as much as 30% of currency in circulation in Macau is the Macanese Pataca.
For those who don’t know, Macau is often referred to as the Monte Carlo of China; and for those of you who don’t what Monte Carlo is, I refer to Macau as the little Las Vegas of China.
Situated on an island and a peninsula (which I believe is technically another island), it’s quite a bit smaller than Hong Kong SAR and has an industry heavily based on the gambling and entertainment industries. However, in comparison to the Strip of Las Vegas, many of the casinos appear smaller and less in number. Like Las Vegas, there were many not-so-ritzy areas that appear in stark contrast with the shining lights of tourist Macau.
Though more than anything, I went to Macau with some other exchange students to simply see and be there, I found the cultural items, most of with heavy Portuguese influence to be the most interesting part of the whole expedition.
Which brings me to another point—Macau is an SAR because it used to be a Portuguese colony in much the same manner that Hong Kong used to be a British colony. Having been controlled since 1557 by the Portuguese, Macau has a history as being the oldest European colony in China. Having been given back to China in 1999, Macau is also the last European colony to be returned. So in many ways, Macau is more Portuguese than Hong Kong is British.
The name of Macau itself has, since I first learned about the city, always been a point of personal contention. In Chinese, it is referred to as 澳门, which would be pronounced as Àomén in Mandarin and Ou3mun4 in Cantonese, neither of which sounds like its English name, adopted through Portuguese.
Though not a problem, since many names have not been transliterated properly (for China would be written Zhōngguó or at least Zhongguo), and life continues to move on, apparently when the Portuguese first landed in Macau, the locals told them that the territory was called AMaa5Gok3, named after Matsu, the goddess of seafarers, for whom a temple is dedicated. On the other hand, the name Hong Kong is transliterated by the British from Hoeng1Gong2, which was and remains the local name of the main island.
But back to the trip, we took a ferry from Central District direct to Macau’s ferry terminal. At about 37 miles, the journey took about an hour. With how bumpy the journey was, I was glad that I didn’t get seasick on the way there.
Trying to find the way to the hotel that we booked, we went up to the taxi stand and asked cabdrivers whether they could take us to the address we had written down. None of them had any idea where it was. Apparent to us now, the bilingual street names are translations of each other and not transliterations, meaning that a street named “Praca de ponte e horta” is not understood by those who operate in Cantonese (which has a completely different sounding name for the same street).
We ended up taking a bus to the Central Square (which has an absence of casinos). Nearly all the buildings along the way showed Portuguese styling. And I don’t know how it is in Portugal, but like in France and Italy (where I have been in Europe) the street names were written on the sides of buildings instead of on freestanding posts, as they are in most of Hong Kong and the United States.
The Central Square (officially Senate Square), in addition to sidewalks along the main road, was colorfully tiled in black and ivory, with wavy stripes and designs of animals apparent (which I read is traditional Portuguese pavement). The buildings were ornate and brightly colored with traditional columns and arches. Preparing for some festival in all likelihood, large decorations in the shapes of fruits and vegetables were hung over the main square. I watched them put them up from my window when I ate at McDonalds the next morning.
Our hotel, which, while close to the square, was not as close as described on its website. Ole London Hotel was, while not located in the best of neighborhoods, not in the worst of neighborhoods, and offered a comfortable bed, bath with a large showerhead, and free air conditioning.
Once we dropped off our stuff, the first stop was Macau Tower. Similar in shape to the Space Needle of Seattle, Washington, the one in Macau offers great views of Macau (as well as mainland China across the river) in addition to the highest bungee jump in the world. I did not have the privilege to do that, though it was more like I didn’t want to spend the money.
Getting up to the observation deck cost $90 HKD, but the bungee jump would have set me back $2088 HKD for the jump and $588 HKD for an additional jump, if I wanted it. Plus, one of my friends, who works as a nurse in Australia, said that a lot of peoples eyes pop up when the bungee bounces back due to the pressure change. I did see three of my friends do it too, and though I regretted not doing it with them at first, I decided that I was in Macau not to bungee jump but to see the city.
Later, we went to a casino—the Venetian. While on the other island and away from the other casinos, it is the largest Venetian hotel and casino of them all. I saw the one in Las Vegas and I thought it was pretty cool. The one in Macau was in all earnestness not any better than the one in Las Vegas. They both had the artificial sky and the pool-water Grand Canal, along with St. Mark’s Square (incomplete without Doge’s Palace and the campanile). We went to the food court, which served average food at terribly inflated prices, not to mention the food venues were way slow.
Down on casino level, the casino was just like any other casino. I originally intended to gamble like $5 HKD at slot machines (gambling and drinking age in Macau is 18) but ended up just looking and gambling nothing. What caught my attention was how the casino was entirely shielded off and one had to go in between gates along with people with the authority to verify your age to card you. This is in contrast to how in Las Vegas, they make you walk through the casino to get anywhere and everywhere, in hopes that the combination of clicking and shining lights will get you to sit down for a bit and spend a lot.
The next day, we went back to the central square and ate at McDonalds. It was great except that it didn’t sit well with me. After getting my coffee fix at Starbucks in the same square, we set off on a walking tour prescribed by the Lonely Planet guidebook for Hong Kong and Macau.
On top of markets (which I have yet to see as any better than Chinatowns in the United States), some of the highlights were St. Dominic’s Church on Central Square, which, being Catholic, reminded me of the many Catholic churches I saw early last summer in France and Italy. The main difference was that the interior of this church, just as grand as the others, is painted a light color, which in part makes it much more bright than the others. As part of the church, one of the bell towers was turned into a museum that houses relics and the like.
The other highlight was the Ruins of St. Paul’s, which used to be the façade of a seventeenth-century church in that location. Now, the façade is reinforced and equipped with a viewing platform, from which there is a great view of Macau. In front of the façade are steps leading down to street level. Though just as crowded as the Spanish Steps in Rome, there are more of them.
We headed back to Hong Kong that day, ready for classes to start again the day after.
In addition to controlling immigration separate from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau each maintain their own currencies. Macau’s is the Pataca, which is pegged to the Hong Kong Dollar (which is in turn pegged to the U.S. Dollar). Being such as small currency zone though most everyone takes Hong Kong Dollars there, which means that only as much as 30% of currency in circulation in Macau is the Macanese Pataca.
For those who don’t know, Macau is often referred to as the Monte Carlo of China; and for those of you who don’t what Monte Carlo is, I refer to Macau as the little Las Vegas of China.
Situated on an island and a peninsula (which I believe is technically another island), it’s quite a bit smaller than Hong Kong SAR and has an industry heavily based on the gambling and entertainment industries. However, in comparison to the Strip of Las Vegas, many of the casinos appear smaller and less in number. Like Las Vegas, there were many not-so-ritzy areas that appear in stark contrast with the shining lights of tourist Macau.
Though more than anything, I went to Macau with some other exchange students to simply see and be there, I found the cultural items, most of with heavy Portuguese influence to be the most interesting part of the whole expedition.
Which brings me to another point—Macau is an SAR because it used to be a Portuguese colony in much the same manner that Hong Kong used to be a British colony. Having been controlled since 1557 by the Portuguese, Macau has a history as being the oldest European colony in China. Having been given back to China in 1999, Macau is also the last European colony to be returned. So in many ways, Macau is more Portuguese than Hong Kong is British.
The name of Macau itself has, since I first learned about the city, always been a point of personal contention. In Chinese, it is referred to as 澳门, which would be pronounced as Àomén in Mandarin and Ou3mun4 in Cantonese, neither of which sounds like its English name, adopted through Portuguese.
Though not a problem, since many names have not been transliterated properly (for China would be written Zhōngguó or at least Zhongguo), and life continues to move on, apparently when the Portuguese first landed in Macau, the locals told them that the territory was called AMaa5Gok3, named after Matsu, the goddess of seafarers, for whom a temple is dedicated. On the other hand, the name Hong Kong is transliterated by the British from Hoeng1Gong2, which was and remains the local name of the main island.
But back to the trip, we took a ferry from Central District direct to Macau’s ferry terminal. At about 37 miles, the journey took about an hour. With how bumpy the journey was, I was glad that I didn’t get seasick on the way there.
Trying to find the way to the hotel that we booked, we went up to the taxi stand and asked cabdrivers whether they could take us to the address we had written down. None of them had any idea where it was. Apparent to us now, the bilingual street names are translations of each other and not transliterations, meaning that a street named “Praca de ponte e horta” is not understood by those who operate in Cantonese (which has a completely different sounding name for the same street).
We ended up taking a bus to the Central Square (which has an absence of casinos). Nearly all the buildings along the way showed Portuguese styling. And I don’t know how it is in Portugal, but like in France and Italy (where I have been in Europe) the street names were written on the sides of buildings instead of on freestanding posts, as they are in most of Hong Kong and the United States.
The Central Square (officially Senate Square), in addition to sidewalks along the main road, was colorfully tiled in black and ivory, with wavy stripes and designs of animals apparent (which I read is traditional Portuguese pavement). The buildings were ornate and brightly colored with traditional columns and arches. Preparing for some festival in all likelihood, large decorations in the shapes of fruits and vegetables were hung over the main square. I watched them put them up from my window when I ate at McDonalds the next morning.
Our hotel, which, while close to the square, was not as close as described on its website. Ole London Hotel was, while not located in the best of neighborhoods, not in the worst of neighborhoods, and offered a comfortable bed, bath with a large showerhead, and free air conditioning.
Once we dropped off our stuff, the first stop was Macau Tower. Similar in shape to the Space Needle of Seattle, Washington, the one in Macau offers great views of Macau (as well as mainland China across the river) in addition to the highest bungee jump in the world. I did not have the privilege to do that, though it was more like I didn’t want to spend the money.
Getting up to the observation deck cost $90 HKD, but the bungee jump would have set me back $2088 HKD for the jump and $588 HKD for an additional jump, if I wanted it. Plus, one of my friends, who works as a nurse in Australia, said that a lot of peoples eyes pop up when the bungee bounces back due to the pressure change. I did see three of my friends do it too, and though I regretted not doing it with them at first, I decided that I was in Macau not to bungee jump but to see the city.
Later, we went to a casino—the Venetian. While on the other island and away from the other casinos, it is the largest Venetian hotel and casino of them all. I saw the one in Las Vegas and I thought it was pretty cool. The one in Macau was in all earnestness not any better than the one in Las Vegas. They both had the artificial sky and the pool-water Grand Canal, along with St. Mark’s Square (incomplete without Doge’s Palace and the campanile). We went to the food court, which served average food at terribly inflated prices, not to mention the food venues were way slow.
Down on casino level, the casino was just like any other casino. I originally intended to gamble like $5 HKD at slot machines (gambling and drinking age in Macau is 18) but ended up just looking and gambling nothing. What caught my attention was how the casino was entirely shielded off and one had to go in between gates along with people with the authority to verify your age to card you. This is in contrast to how in Las Vegas, they make you walk through the casino to get anywhere and everywhere, in hopes that the combination of clicking and shining lights will get you to sit down for a bit and spend a lot.
The next day, we went back to the central square and ate at McDonalds. It was great except that it didn’t sit well with me. After getting my coffee fix at Starbucks in the same square, we set off on a walking tour prescribed by the Lonely Planet guidebook for Hong Kong and Macau.
On top of markets (which I have yet to see as any better than Chinatowns in the United States), some of the highlights were St. Dominic’s Church on Central Square, which, being Catholic, reminded me of the many Catholic churches I saw early last summer in France and Italy. The main difference was that the interior of this church, just as grand as the others, is painted a light color, which in part makes it much more bright than the others. As part of the church, one of the bell towers was turned into a museum that houses relics and the like.
The other highlight was the Ruins of St. Paul’s, which used to be the façade of a seventeenth-century church in that location. Now, the façade is reinforced and equipped with a viewing platform, from which there is a great view of Macau. In front of the façade are steps leading down to street level. Though just as crowded as the Spanish Steps in Rome, there are more of them.
We headed back to Hong Kong that day, ready for classes to start again the day after.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Shopping for Classes, Part 2
The add/drop period for class registration ended September 14. For the Faculty of Social Sciences, September 15 was when we had to turn in a signed finalization of those classes. Though I met both deadlines, making sure that classes will be approved for meeting requirements for general education and my majors and minor has been a little more difficult.
With shopping for classes done and over with, I ended up with five six-unit classes and one three-unit class, Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. That class may actually contain the majority of the fun I have on campus. Organized to give us conversational knowledge of Cantonese, the class is simple and entertaining. For the fifty minutes, twice a week that it’s worth, I can tell that the teacher is really enthusiastic about what she does. What makes it more fun is that, since I cannot apply this class to any graduation requirement back home, I’m going to take the class pass/no pass, I can enjoy myself and the content of the class without feeling to bothered about what grade I get.
The three five-unit classes that I plan to apply to requirements back at UCSD are Introduction to Arts of Asia: Past and Present, Traditional Chinese Society, Hong Kong and the World, Humanity in Globalization, and Phonetics.
To be rephrased as Introduction to Asian Art on my University of California transcript, this is the other class that I think I’ll take pass/no pass. This is to fulfill the non-western fine arts class for Eleanor Roosevelt College’s general education requirements. Being in Asia, I figured that this would be a good opportunity to do so.
The class is very interesting to say the least. As of yet we’ve been discussion Buddhist art and just last lecture we were discussing how Buddhism’s arrival to Japan reflected the native Shinto way of life and its reflection in art and architecture, particularly the design of temples. It was further related to the present day, in which reflecting the older works we went over selected contemporary works by such notables as Yoko Ono.
Traditional Chinese Society is an ethnographic, anthropologic class that deals more with contemporary Chinese society in light of traditional Chinese society. Right now, I’m trying to get it preapproved for my minor in the Study of Religion, with my case being that the class focuses on way of life, which is true religion in its essential form. Concretely, similar classes have been approved for the Study of Religion at UCSD, namely Chinese Society (a sociology class) and Traditional Chinese Society (an anthropology class). Here at HKU there is not an anthropology department, so this class is listed under Sociology. In crossing classes with UCSD, the description of my class here at HKU is in between the two UCSD classes, leaning more towards the anthropological one.
If the Study of Religion program refuses to see my logic, I plan to make my case to apply this as an anthropology class to the secondary focus of my International Studies-Political Science major. Unfortunately, UC transfers this course over as a sociology class by default, so I would have to prove its anthropological content through the syllabus and explaining the ethnographic methods used in analysis.
As of right now, we’ve been dealing with what it means to be Chinese (a topic which I have addressed and will address again personally in a later post). Last lecture we talked about creation stories as an aspect of Chinese culture and contrasted the shear view of culture to that of Christianity. Next week we focus on the body and the traditional Chinese view of it.
This class’s tutorial is also the only one I’ve been to so far. With such a small class, there is no teacher’s assistant and the tutorials, called sections at UCSD, are run by the professor himself. It was set up as an informal environment in which we could discuss the readings and the current class materials. In that tutorial, I had to make my case for why I call myself American, but more on that later.
Hong Kong and the World is another favorite class of mine. It is listed under politics and public administration, and rightly so. The professor doesn’t have a PhD but work experience, having a consulting firm with such clients as the William Clinton Foundation. I plan to apply this class to my International Studies-Political Science major.
In light of Hong Kong’s political situation as a highly autonomous part of the People’s Republic of China, we look at why Hong Kong as been such an economic success and evaluate its future competitiveness in light of rising Chinese cities and Hong Kong’s eventual return of full sovereignty back to China.
This particular professor organizes his classes with many guests. Our first is the current director of the InvestHK, and described his job as attracting and retaining foreign investment in Hong Kong. This was followed by an intense question-and-answer section which he handled like a seasoned politician.
Humanity in Globalization is another political science class taught by the same professor as Hong Kong and the World. This actually ended up being a substitute class for me, as I meant to take International Relations of East Asia, but was troubled by the lack of oratory skills of the professor. I opted for the more interesting, more grounded class (for IR talks about countries practically as sentient beings whereas Humanity in Globalization talks about individual people in relation to the world.
So far, we’ve talked about modern-day slavery (which most people don’t know about) with one source claiming that there are more slaves today than there have ever been before. (Though I wonder if you cast that data as a percent of the population whether the numbers would seem less dire.)
My last class is Phonetics, which at first I was really excited about, but now I’m questioning the content. With my second major being a specialization in linguistics, Phonetics is a core class for me, and deciding to take it here I thought would be a good experience.
At UCSD, Phonetics is taught in light of English, introducing anatomical features of producing speech, and focusing hardly at all at the International Phonetic Alphabet Chart. Regarding linguistics, I actually prefer phonetics and phonology over semantics and morphology because there is a quantifiable reality to the study. Semantics for me seemed a little soft because it seemed less logical than other linguistics sub-disciplines.
At HKU, Phonetics is taught much the same, with the exception that we go over sounds of Mandarin and Cantonese in addition to American English (I don’t know why we don’t go over British Received Pronunciation). It sounded good and all, but for the second lecture, we went over sounds of American English, and being that many local students (most all local students) don’t speak American English, he taught it more like a let’s-learn-how-to-speak-properly class.
This was problematic in my head because at UCSD a resounding message in my linguistics classes is that linguists (and social scientists) for that matter, being researchers, work to the effect of description and not prescription. That means that Linguists don’t dictate how we should speak, they just analyze how we do speak.
Being a native American English speaker, I had no problem, but as we have to go over that again in Mandarin and Cantonese, I hope he doesn’t continue in the same manner.
To make matters worse, the TA for the class makes all the announcements in Cantonese. I always end up raising my hand to request her to repeat what she said in English.
Though I hoped to write this post after I settled into a routine, I figured that I should get out my sentiments about my classes and reveal the results of my shopping before going any further.
With shopping for classes done and over with, I ended up with five six-unit classes and one three-unit class, Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. That class may actually contain the majority of the fun I have on campus. Organized to give us conversational knowledge of Cantonese, the class is simple and entertaining. For the fifty minutes, twice a week that it’s worth, I can tell that the teacher is really enthusiastic about what she does. What makes it more fun is that, since I cannot apply this class to any graduation requirement back home, I’m going to take the class pass/no pass, I can enjoy myself and the content of the class without feeling to bothered about what grade I get.
The three five-unit classes that I plan to apply to requirements back at UCSD are Introduction to Arts of Asia: Past and Present, Traditional Chinese Society, Hong Kong and the World, Humanity in Globalization, and Phonetics.
To be rephrased as Introduction to Asian Art on my University of California transcript, this is the other class that I think I’ll take pass/no pass. This is to fulfill the non-western fine arts class for Eleanor Roosevelt College’s general education requirements. Being in Asia, I figured that this would be a good opportunity to do so.
The class is very interesting to say the least. As of yet we’ve been discussion Buddhist art and just last lecture we were discussing how Buddhism’s arrival to Japan reflected the native Shinto way of life and its reflection in art and architecture, particularly the design of temples. It was further related to the present day, in which reflecting the older works we went over selected contemporary works by such notables as Yoko Ono.
Traditional Chinese Society is an ethnographic, anthropologic class that deals more with contemporary Chinese society in light of traditional Chinese society. Right now, I’m trying to get it preapproved for my minor in the Study of Religion, with my case being that the class focuses on way of life, which is true religion in its essential form. Concretely, similar classes have been approved for the Study of Religion at UCSD, namely Chinese Society (a sociology class) and Traditional Chinese Society (an anthropology class). Here at HKU there is not an anthropology department, so this class is listed under Sociology. In crossing classes with UCSD, the description of my class here at HKU is in between the two UCSD classes, leaning more towards the anthropological one.
If the Study of Religion program refuses to see my logic, I plan to make my case to apply this as an anthropology class to the secondary focus of my International Studies-Political Science major. Unfortunately, UC transfers this course over as a sociology class by default, so I would have to prove its anthropological content through the syllabus and explaining the ethnographic methods used in analysis.
As of right now, we’ve been dealing with what it means to be Chinese (a topic which I have addressed and will address again personally in a later post). Last lecture we talked about creation stories as an aspect of Chinese culture and contrasted the shear view of culture to that of Christianity. Next week we focus on the body and the traditional Chinese view of it.
This class’s tutorial is also the only one I’ve been to so far. With such a small class, there is no teacher’s assistant and the tutorials, called sections at UCSD, are run by the professor himself. It was set up as an informal environment in which we could discuss the readings and the current class materials. In that tutorial, I had to make my case for why I call myself American, but more on that later.
Hong Kong and the World is another favorite class of mine. It is listed under politics and public administration, and rightly so. The professor doesn’t have a PhD but work experience, having a consulting firm with such clients as the William Clinton Foundation. I plan to apply this class to my International Studies-Political Science major.
In light of Hong Kong’s political situation as a highly autonomous part of the People’s Republic of China, we look at why Hong Kong as been such an economic success and evaluate its future competitiveness in light of rising Chinese cities and Hong Kong’s eventual return of full sovereignty back to China.
This particular professor organizes his classes with many guests. Our first is the current director of the InvestHK, and described his job as attracting and retaining foreign investment in Hong Kong. This was followed by an intense question-and-answer section which he handled like a seasoned politician.
Humanity in Globalization is another political science class taught by the same professor as Hong Kong and the World. This actually ended up being a substitute class for me, as I meant to take International Relations of East Asia, but was troubled by the lack of oratory skills of the professor. I opted for the more interesting, more grounded class (for IR talks about countries practically as sentient beings whereas Humanity in Globalization talks about individual people in relation to the world.
So far, we’ve talked about modern-day slavery (which most people don’t know about) with one source claiming that there are more slaves today than there have ever been before. (Though I wonder if you cast that data as a percent of the population whether the numbers would seem less dire.)
My last class is Phonetics, which at first I was really excited about, but now I’m questioning the content. With my second major being a specialization in linguistics, Phonetics is a core class for me, and deciding to take it here I thought would be a good experience.
At UCSD, Phonetics is taught in light of English, introducing anatomical features of producing speech, and focusing hardly at all at the International Phonetic Alphabet Chart. Regarding linguistics, I actually prefer phonetics and phonology over semantics and morphology because there is a quantifiable reality to the study. Semantics for me seemed a little soft because it seemed less logical than other linguistics sub-disciplines.
At HKU, Phonetics is taught much the same, with the exception that we go over sounds of Mandarin and Cantonese in addition to American English (I don’t know why we don’t go over British Received Pronunciation). It sounded good and all, but for the second lecture, we went over sounds of American English, and being that many local students (most all local students) don’t speak American English, he taught it more like a let’s-learn-how-to-speak-properly class.
This was problematic in my head because at UCSD a resounding message in my linguistics classes is that linguists (and social scientists) for that matter, being researchers, work to the effect of description and not prescription. That means that Linguists don’t dictate how we should speak, they just analyze how we do speak.
Being a native American English speaker, I had no problem, but as we have to go over that again in Mandarin and Cantonese, I hope he doesn’t continue in the same manner.
To make matters worse, the TA for the class makes all the announcements in Cantonese. I always end up raising my hand to request her to repeat what she said in English.
Though I hoped to write this post after I settled into a routine, I figured that I should get out my sentiments about my classes and reveal the results of my shopping before going any further.
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