Back in the States

So I’ve arrived in the United States. As if there was no turning back earlier, I’m pretty much back now. I forgot that winds work so that it takes much less time to go west to east over the Pacific than the other way around. To get to Hong Kong to San Francisco, it took thirteen-and-a-half hours. Going back, it took just under eleven hours, and here I am now, sitting in the domestic terminal of United Airlines.

It’s currently around 9:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, and I’ve just gone through immigration and customs and went back through security in about an hour and a half, having arrived here just before 8:00 a.m. Though it’s still early in the day, my all-nighter that I pulled yesterday may have just paid off. I’m not tired, though it is around 1:30 a.m. in Hong Kong (at which point I would be snoring).

The flight was on par with other standard long-haul flights. There were two meals serves and a few meals in between. Unlike many other airlines (probably most), United though doesn’t have individual entertainment screens for economy class. It was fine, because I slept about half the flight, and the other half I watched the movie Julie and Julia as well as the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I had already seen many times previously.

I arrived better than other long flights. With this being my sixth such flight (a number that pales in comparison to some of my friends), I guess practice makes perfect. I went through immigration first, where lines are divided between United States Residents (including non-residents) and Visitors. In line, this one duddy young adult behind me kept asking his father if they should move over to the citizens’ line, which, if he had taken a quick glance, would have realized that he was in it.

I went through without a hitch and asked the officer to stamp my passport. He did, but it was funny how he decided to skip my extra pages added mid-November by the United States Consulate-General in Hong Kong and went straight to the back, to the very last stampable page. He was nice though, so I thanked him.

He asked me if I had anything to declare, so I said that I have to pay customs tax but nothing outright to declare. He asked me what the purpose of my trip was, and I told him study abroad, and then said education, followed by some sightseeing. He’d already marked my Customs and Border Protection Sheet though with a circled numeral one. He waved me on without delay.

What was weird though happened to be what I did. Having gone through tons of Chinese immigration and airport security on this trip (Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan), I was so used to just blurting out something in Cantonese and or Mandarin, once a disastrous and erroneous combination of both (that led me to say “I want” in Cantonese followed by “computer” in Mandarin to mean that I have a computer). Arriving in San Francisco, I caught my tongue and had to remind myself for a split second to speak English. Feel free to suggest what this means, since in Hong Kong I used English 70% of the time and Cantonese at about 25% of the time, with the other 5% consisting of Mandarin between newly-arrived service workers and French between the off-chance need to communicate something secretive in nature.

After that, I waited for luggage at carousel six along with most of the rest of the 747’s passengers. The bags took forever to come, and as expected I had to wait for them to take through customs then recheck them into the system. Waiting, I saw this unkempt guy in the army-veteran style as opposed to the hippy style who kept whining to anyone who would listen about how slow the bags took to come through. He was particularly poking at the various security checks he was told they send the bags through, which although annoying, also increase national security. This guy seemed to be one to argue in the realist sense for high national security and preemptive attacks upon foreign sovereigns yet he couldn’t see that his waiting was making the country safer in a more micro sense.

I got my bags after waiting for a long time, and remembered just how heavy they were. I was allowed two bags each under fifty pounds or twenty-three kilograms depending on where you checked in. I had my two bags that I managed to fit everything into except my pillow, which I’d have liked to keep, and though I had a hunch that it would go over weight, it was too late to mail stuff back. I resolved to just bring them along and see how things went.

So after calling home, telling them that I was leaving for the airport and that I would see them the next day, I dragged my bags up to the airport bus stop and waited for that bus to come. When it came, I had to toss my bags onto the bus, pay with my Ziploc bag of change pulled (with permission) of my roommate’s desk, and then heave my bags onto the luggage racks. With $48 HKD in the form of mostly ten- and twenty-cent pieces, the driver seemed oddly accepting of my method of payment. To me, that either meant that he didn’t care, didn’t care to show that he cared, or his coin collector had a counting mechanism in it. Whatever the case, I got on the bus and went on my hour-long journey to the airport, during which I accidentally took a nap.

Back to San Francisco, I picked up my bags off the carousel and onto my cart and from there I proceeded onto customs. I wrote down that I bought $1300 USD-worth of merchandise, after the $800 exemption, $500 of which was liable to a 3% tax, or $15 USD. Instead of directing me to some sort of cashier to pay my customs taxes, the woman looking at my ticket said “Thousand Oaks” (reading my United States address), and pointed me past the various luggage inspectors (or luggage unpackers) to find all the Cuban cigars and the like they could find to discard.

I’m glad that I didn’t get unpacked, because my bag was stuffed to the brim. Opening it put you in danger of not being able to close it. I found this out at I dragged my two bulky bags (as well as my carry-on backpack and camera case) to the check-in counter. One weighed seventeen kilograms and the other weighed a whopping forty kilograms (something just under ninety pounds). I was informed that I could pay an extra $150 USD to check in a bag under thirty-two kilograms, and that I couldn’t check in anything heavier (for the carriers’ contracts I suppose).

To that effect, I had to rearrange my two bags to even out the weight. I was directed several meters away to do it, substituting heavy books from the heavier bag with lighter clothes from the lighter bag. For a minute, it looked like I was going to have to abandon my two full-sized umbrellas, but in the end, everything fit back in. The whole thing took around fifteen minutes, the whole time in paranoia that someone was going to take my other bags (each with contents worth a very pretty penny).

Going back up to the check-in counter, I still had a little bit of adjusting to do, but my bags after moving two books into my carry-on luggage came in at about thirty-four kilograms and twenty-four kilograms, which to the checker was over the weight limit but acceptably so (probably as per her guidelines). With those two suckers off my back, I had a lot less to worry about (a main factor in choosing to travel in groups or at least with one other person so as not to leave luggage unattended).

Before packing these bags full though, I removed all the price tags I could find because while I planned to properly declare what I bought, I didn’t want the customs officers to be counting pennies on me.

One of my last friends who hadn’t yet left told me that I shouldn’t declare in excess of what’s tax-exempt, because no one pays customs taxes, implying that I was overly law-abiding and silly in doing so. I told him that it’s not that much, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t pay it. I had the money to and knew that it would come down to whether or not they believed me when I said that though I’m bringing the box back, I solemnly swear that I bought it in the United States.

I guess when it comes down to it, I follow Socratic philosophy regarding civics. When he was sentenced to death, Crito came to free him, seeing that no one was going to stop him. However, Socrates chose to take his punishment seeing that the society that he lived in decided against him. I suppose I feel that the overwhelming majority of laws are there for a reason, and if not for the sake of the law itself, for something secondary in the least. In my case, paying customs tax (which happens to be much lower than Los Angeles County sales tax) helps my country protect our national security interests.

On the other hand, my roommate, in addition to bring six People’s Liberation Army hats (with a red star square center) and quite a few Quotes of Chairman Mao pocket books for cheap thrills, along with a defiling depiction of President Obama for his right-wing father, bought a small pack of Cuban cigars to bring back. Now if Communist souvenirs provide cheap thrills for Americans, bringing Cuban cigars over to the United States provides just downright ridiculously cheap thrills for Americans.

It’s not like the cigars are particularly good that makes them so fun to bring over, nor is it being bad for your health to smoke the reason why they’re illegal to import. It’s because of our long-running trade embargo upon Cuba set during the Kennedy years that first Cuban cigars are illegal to bring it and second that people like my roommate find it deviantly fun to sneak in. * Snicker, snicker.

Well I’m back in the States now, definitively so, having come in without having been asked to pay customs tax, yet following the law to the T. It just goes to show that people get by perfectly well by doing things the proper ways as well—just saying.

Psyched to Go Back

It’s quite sad to see this whole experience ending with me seeing my newfound friends one by one. In some ways, it seems just yesterday when we were all introducing ourselves adamantly to each other. Eagerly we traveled together as strangers and in the process quickly became friends. In some ways it was just yesterday—just four months ago. Was it enough time? I’d rather not think about that—I just have to keep telling myself that it had to end eventually.

I began packing up my things several weeks ago, yet today, the day before I leave, I still have items to stow, drawers that I don’t want to empty, last meals with friends that I wish were just meals. It had to end at some point, but in no way is this the conclusion to this blog, nor this chapter in my life.

Though it seems like we’ve moved beyond this, as Rhinesmith would point out, I’m now at stage seven. But I think that in his little analysis, either he got something slightly wrong or it doesn’t quite apply to exchange students in particular. Stage seven points out return anxiety, and honestly, I don’t think my anxiety levels are at a high right now. Quite the opposite, I’m not eager to return home.

It’s not that I’ve become adverse to home or anything. I love constant weather at livable temperatures as any friend of mine could quickly tell you. I love driving and speaking English as a part of every aspect of every day of my life. No matter where I go and how far I go, I will forever hold California in the very center of my heart, even if there’s nothing left for me to go back to.

I’ve realized that there is more now though to the world I suppose, as corny as it sounds, and I really want to see just how far away the edge of the planet is. I guess I’ve got my future to accomplish this, and accomplish this I will.

I am blessed and I understand that, because I know that while my life is not perfect and never will be, so many doors have been opened up to me. By chance or by higher power, so quickly and so definitely I have found my place in the absence of such a place. I regret ever having thought the world was against me, however long ago that was, and shall never feel that way again.

I am not psyched to go back. As much as I know that the longer I stay away, the more I will end up missing my home seven thousand miles away, I really want to stay here—stay studying here, stay traveling from here, stay experiencing other lives from here. But alas I cannot.

Due to the wisdom of past me, I decided not to file the proper paperwork to pre-approve my extension at the University of Hong Kong all the way to May. I understand why and I assumed that I would have an easier time accepting this preemptive decision on my past counterpart’s part.

Right now I’m not accepting it. Right now I feel like it wasn’t so necessary for me to graduate college in the three-year manner that I am. I know that until I finish my education (as if it’s ever done) I will flip back and forth between whether it was the right decision to plan my graduation so early.

I sit at my desk this last night of mine in Hong Kong at nineteen years of age—not yet two decades old, not yet old enough to ask for a beer on the airplane back to the United States. Who am I to do this at this age? I’m the youngest of the exchange students I know here, by as little as a few months to as much as six years. I understand that my mind is pliable, that I’m not in my own yet, that I may still have an inch in height to grow.

But on the other hand, not to sound old, but I know that my youth is closing up on me. For a good year and a half, I could read in cars without getting sick. I could stay on boats for hours on end and not feel the least bit nauseous. As silly as it sounds, I know times are changing. I know that my glasses are getting thicker, unevenly on different axes; I know that reading—even a bit—on a moving vehicle will get my head rolling for hours; I know that as much as I try, as hard as I try, certain things just aren’t so easy to learn anymore. And as much as I know not to let the future take all the brownies, I know that there’s only so much I can do—mind over matter only works to a certain extent.

This last night in Hong Kong is adding up to be a sentimental one. The number of friends still here I need not one hand to count. The number of hours until my plane leaves Hong Kong as I write this sentence stands at thirteen.

I finally got to taking the Star Ferry Night Harbour Tour and it was amazing. They circled Hong Kong as I took two hundred pictures with my new Nikon D90 camera. I got a good night as it wasn’t too hazy, and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing this skyline for quite some time.

As much as I know I'm coming back one day, someday, I also know that it’s going to be far in the future—I might have a different passport; I might have multiple passports.

But for now I’m moving back to the University of California, San Diego. Good old UCSD in the bubble that is La Jolla, California. I’ve already got my accommodation sorted and I know I’m moving in the day before classes start. I’ve already begun buying books for classes and filed plenty of paperwork to re-matriculate.

I’m set to continue with my life. I’ve laid my provisions out as I have since the end of middle school. I’ve kept watch on my own deadlines and made sure I’ve never been late on anything since I was twelve. The time to move on is now, and though the road has been paved for me by me, I know that not only am I going to be apprehensive getting on that asphalt for the first time in a long time, but also I’m not so sure I’m going to be emotionally ready for it. But as they say (though not usually in this context), life moves on.

Germans All Have Blond Hair and Blue Eyes

I guess I just can’t shake it off. Most incidents are minor and not worth mentioning, except perhaps in larger contexts, because a constituency is made of its smallest parts, right? At this point, I don’t plan to exempt myself from this observation, because I know I do it too—I just wish it would all stop.

I guess the basis of this whole thing starts from a simple rule of thumb in English class in high school—never make absolute statements in essay writing. I’ve learned a long time ago now that applies to speaking now, because almost all absolutes are wrong, if even by the smallest degree. I’ve just learned that if all people believe the same absolute, it’s fake truth wills out against the real truth—which I guess is to be expected, since as records are reflections of events and not the events themselves, what’s “true” is largely up to interpretation, whatever the truth may be.

I’m guessing that this post is just going to amount to episodes of logical fallacies and the sense I’ve made of them.

The Germans

I once said to my group of friends here, something something something “is like saying that everyone in Germany has blond hair and blue eyes—it’s just not true.” Now, I’ve seen the statistics and I’ve seen it for myself (meaning I’ve been to Germany), but the fact that even though a vast majority of Germans have blond hair and blue eyes, the fact of the matter is that not all of them do, even if you only include ethnic Germans in Germany. I’ve met plenty of people from Germany who don’t have blue eyes and plenty more who don’t have blond hair.

My logic was lost on them though, as it often seems that 95% equals 100%, but any one who’s studied any form of science (natural or social) would tell you that it’s not the same, however damn close it is.

My statement got the reply, “Well have you ever been to Germany? Because I’m always surprised by the sheer number of blond-haired, blue-eyed people there”—to which I said yes, and that it’s still not all, to which I was rebutted, “Yeah but it’s a lot”—and I to that I said that yes, there are a lot, but it is still not all, and that’s the bottom line. And though I was ultimately right in logic, my statement got rejected because the falsity of notion and not the logic was what was agreed to.

In the Middle of China

Fine. On the train to Guilin, this guy started a conversation in Mandarin with me and the three other people in my group. I was the one with the highest proficiency (with two being nil), so I did most of the talking. They all said where they were from (Scotland, Australia, and Norway), and I said I was from the United States, using it as an excuse for my lack of proficiency. I am well aware that I’m noticeably of Chinese decent (though many perceive my attitude of that fact as meaning that I’m ashamed of my past or that I’ve got false notions about my appearance—both of which are false), so the guy pressed further at me. I asked the others what I should tell him.

One friend said that I should say that my family’s from China. I told her that’s not true (because to me that would imply that my parents met in China and moved to the United States, which isn’t true, with one parent never having been outside of North America and the other speaking better English than Chinese). By that logic though, I should have asked my Australian friend whether she would say that her family is from Britain, since her father’s from there and that overall she could trace her entire ancestry back to the Isles, because I’m pretty sure she would have said no.

American Dad

It seems funny to me that no matter how much things are illogical, the most superficial aspects of something just make up for the rest, even if it makes something more illogical.

Just a couple days ago, I got asked where my father is from since I always say that I’m trying to learn Cantonese, partly so that I can use it back home with my mother, who’s originally from Hong Kong, having left the Crown Colony at the age of eleven. I said Michigan, which is the complete truth.

Though I ultimately understand, I’ve always wondered why I get such a variety of reactions when I say my dad’s from Detroit. The fact of the matter is that that’s the truth. It’s where he was born and where he spent the first half of his childhood (the other half being in Chicago). He’s got those annoying double negatives to prove his difference in dialect.

So my friend asked me just a few days ago where my dad was from. I said Michigan, which elicited surprise. I was kind of taken aback. I wasn’t offended, but I was surprised, because I spend a lot of time with this friend and I’m sure I’d told her before. She had it in her head for some reason that my dad’s from Hong Kong like my mom is. I said that if that were the case, my Chinese would likely be much better—native even, if not at least near.

The Locals

The time I went to dinner with my floor here, I got local students asking how I could possibly American. After all, I look Chinese. To that I tried to say that why can’t you be both, or why can’t you be one in certain aspects and the other in other aspects? Unfortunately, I couldn’t convey that, nor could I convey my surprise that those students have never heard of populations that are not homogenous. (Hong Kong is 95% Han Chinese whereas the United States is less than 70% non-Hispanic white with California coming in at less than 50% non-Hispanic white.)

The Disconnect of the Upper Echelons

What’s the funniest is who knows what. Earlier this week, I walked into the Finance office to apply for my caution money back (a $350 HKD deposit) now that the semester is coming to an end. I asked for the proper forms not knowing what I needed, and though I’m 華人, I got the form for exchange students. The secretary for the office had heard my foreignness in my accent and judged my origin based on that rather than my skin color, so to speak. This feat would not have seemed so impressive had the pro-vice-chancellor on Monday not said what she said.

As I said earlier, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Amy Tsui came in to speak at the last lecture of Hong Kong and the World. I’ve got my opinions of school administrators, most of which along the theme of being disconnected and haughty (though not overtly arrogant). She of all people is someone you would expect to get this straight, having done her Ph.D. (in linguistics) in the United Kingdom.

Seeing our class of forty in attendance, she noticed the two white people in the lecture hall and referred to them as the “two foreigners in the class,” (though there were about ten of us), without thinking that maybe some of us happen to be of Chinese decent. Of all people, I would have expected her to understand well that culture, like language, is passed down through socialization and isn’t dictated in our genes. (Unlike the many people back home, including some of the people closest to me, who overtly believe that I am more comfortable around people who look like me rather than the people in my hometown—composition: 85% white).

I guess it just goes to show that those at the uppermost echelons of society are often the most ignorant whereas those of us who have our feet firmly planted on the ground—the ones who interact with everyday people—really know what’s going on.

Add It All Up

The bottom line is that I hold none of the above statements against the people who uttered them. This is because I’m well aware that as much as I try to monitor myself and bring myself back down to logic, I still fall victim to the same forces.

So the base line is that I really dislike when people hate that they are expected, especially in public situations, to be politically correct all the time. All that means is that you ultimately don’t care about anyone else (in feelings, emotions, situations, etc.), even if you think you are just joking. It gets worse when such is followed by a request not to judge, and I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that I already will have.

Just try and try hard, that’s all I can and do hope for.

Notes on a Close

Eventually all things come to an end. Eventually I will have to go back to the United States, finish my university degree, find my life, and establish my career. And I know that eventually will start to take place around noon on December 21, when I have to board a plane back to Los Angeles via San Francisco.

It all had to end eventually, I keep telling myself, but somehow it’s just not enough. I didn’t even come here that long ago. I now have just under three weeks left here and I arrived only fifteen weeks ago. Though I keep telling myself that I couldn’t’ve extended for a year, I know that my biggest piece of advice to others will be take the whole year—because now I wholeheartedly believe that it is.

I know that there are people who disagree with me. I’ll wait until they go back to their home countries and see if they still feel the same way, and if they do, so be it. I know I still feel like I’m learning every day, but I know some of the people I talk to remain close-minded and naïve. I guess I wouldn’t be the best to judge naïveté, but the fact that many of them haven’t made the slightest attempt (but a phrase or two) to learn Cantonese is a huge indicator.

I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side, though, as cliché as that is. I have one friend who attends Berkeley in the States but is studying abroad at HKU like me this semester because she felt like I do now. She filed to extend and was accepted, and now that she is staying, she’s not going home for the holidays, and she feels that she misses her family.

So the best thing to do is to reserve judgment I suppose. I’ll wait to get back home, I suppose. I’ll see the wide roads and giant cars (one of which I’ll likely be transported in), I suppose. I’ll see the wastefulness that Americans are so known for possessing and realize that people in Hong Kong aren’t all that different. Maybe by the time I get back, I’ll understand intuitively and subconsciously in addition to consciously that we are all just people, and that everything else really doesn’t matter.

I'm not ready just yet to go back—but then again, who is really ready for anything?

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author. 

A Question of Balance

I don’t think I’ve been this busy since I pulled fifteen-hour days in high school. Last year at UCSD I had so much free time. I was able see all the latest episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, 30 Rock, Worst Week, and the Big Bang Theory. In addition, I watched all eight seasons of Scrubs and started from the beginning of How I Met Your Mother. This fall semester, I can’t remember when the last time I watched a television show was.

Here I’m busy, and for the first time in a long time, it’s not all about studying, I suppose. Back in high school, I did plenty of extracurricular activities, most of which not academic, most of which in the hopes of getting into a top-tier university. Now having been going to UCSD, I’ve realized that the way my life has been set out for me and the way that my cards have been dealt has been for the better.

To start, I believed and still do that the biggest part of getting a college education is the studying and the classes. After all, that’s what tuition pays for. Employers care more about your degree more than how much fun you have in the process. That’s not to say they don’t care about other things like work experience (and study abroad).

Needless to say, I am studying abroad at the moment and loving it. I still think that I’m here first and foremost to study, since, after all, if I wanted to go traveling I would take a leave of absence from school and go abroad without studying. And in this sense, there’s something to be said about travelling with obligations.

Something that few seem to talk about regarding studying abroad is the fact that while most students go traveling, they also have to make sure they’ve got their affairs in order so that they can go traveling. I myself have my work lined up for me. I know when I have to do it by so that it’ll get submitted appropriately and I realize that even though I don’t want to work, sometimes I have to.

My parents would be proud if I ever asked them their opinion.

By late September, I had only been out of Hong Kong once—to Macau for an overnight trip. My mother wanted to make sure I went traveling to as many East Asian places as possible, since, as she put it, it would be cheaper to do it from here in Hong Kong than back home in California.

So what was I doing the first month here? Unlike now, I had little work to actually do. I used both hands to count how many weeks until the end of the semester. I went around Hong Kong. Granted, I haven’t really explored New Territories much, but as for the Harbour vicinity, I know it like the back of my hand. I’ve seen most everything on the Island side and I could rattle off bus numbers to take to get to where you need to go and back.

So starting in Reading Week, I went to Beijing. I could tell that my mother wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was going back to a place I’d already been to, but I think it turned out to be a really good experience. The other weekend I went off to Taipei and as with any other city, there were things that I expected and more that I didn’t. Last weekend I went back to Shenzhen and got my hair cut (with a “Thai” massage for a very good price). This weekend I’m planning on going to Guilin and have bought sleeper train tickets already. After that I’m planning on going to Thailand; and though unscheduled, I’d like to go to Singapore and Japan before I leave.

Also in the last two weeks, I had two midterm examinations, submitted two papers, and made three presentations. Before Reading Week, I went had one as well. Still to go I have two papers (one research and one op-ed) and another presentation, not to mention six finals to deal with. And before the worrying begins, all the grades that I’ve gotten back thus far have been As (or at least A minuses). Oh and of course I’ve got this blog, which I’ve really dedicated myself to if I do say so myself, which I’ve added nearly 20,000 words to in the last two weeks in fifteen posts. (Check my total word count below.)

It’s a lot, but I’m dealing with it fine through good coordination and a decent planning. In some ways, how my travel plans in conjunction with studying necessities turned out was bad. When I barely had any work, I did local sightseeing—easy and convenient. As the semester has been progressing, my workload has been increasing, as been my traveling, and consequently my blog writing.

All I can say is it’s all part of the experience I guess.

On the other hand, a friend of mine’s roommate managed to do practically the reverse of what I did. Starting early, she went everywhere every weekend. Before class started, she started with Cambodia, Thailand, and if I remember correctly Vietnam. The first few weekends she was gone to places like Borneo, Malaysia, and Singapore. Now though, she’s staying in Hong Kong and doesn’t believe she’ll be going anywhere else (until at least after finals) now that her workload has picked up noticeably.

In some ways, her scheduling was better. She and I both managed to see much of the same stuff. She managed to fit it with her workload much better than I did. On the other hand (not that I think even half of the time that my life works out better), when I arrived in Hong Kong, I had more immediate priorities. I was in a foreign environment and I really had a need to get used to my new surroundings before I could go venturing off to other countries. In some ways, my friends and I know more about Hong Kong than my friend’s roommate does. We probably have seen more of Hong Kong as well.

So whose plan turned out to be better? I don’t know; my internal jury is still out, and I don’t think it’ll ever be back in. I guess it really doesn’t matter.

All I know is that I’m swamped. After school every day, I find myself in the medical library (it’s less crowded and closer to Lee Hysan Hall) studying and planning, writing and reading. Right now, I’m going to get back to studying.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.

The Point of No Return

Two months in I stand; two months in I see. Like a ship halfway to its destination, I know I have so much behind me now and yet there’s so much in front of me as well. In a way it’s misleading. I don’t really want to go back at the moment. I look forward to my return, just not this December, not in two months. However, in no way am I home scot-free. My experience here still has the very real possibility of being a naufraga in the same way that I don’t know if I’ll still be alive tomorrow. It requires constant maintenance, and more often than not, it’s an uphill battle.

I arrived August 21, confused, dazed, and fresh off a thirteen-hour flight without sleep. My passport was then used just a few times. Upon entering the country, I was given a student entry stamp on the page opposite my student visa. The square, black stamp looked to take up most of the page to my surprise. The airport gave false impressions of Hong Kong—not false as in better or worse, but false as in different. Getting off the train on Hong Kong Island, I was greeted with lots of noise, winding roads, and my first experience seeing traffic move on the left.

With time, I adjusted. The sweltering heat and humidity lessened slightly as my tolerance increased. The bus system that once confused me became manageable and I could successfully ask to get off the minibus in Cantonese—a skill than increased to requesting stops in specific locations. I found where the better food is and how to deal with copious amounts of rice.

I guess you could say that I’ve now plateaued culturally. While there still is room to grow, there will always be, and I will continue to progress, just slower. As I went from being nervous, I can now say I’m quite the opposite. Whereas at first I missed home and was counting down the days to go back, I find myself now trying to maximize the rest of my time here. I’ve lost count and already I want to do this again somewhere else next fall semester, money and time permitting, of course.

So where am I to go from here? I’ve not yet reached the top of the mountain, though I’ve been to the Peak twice. My finals schedule is starting to shape up, though I don’t care for it to end. With my eyes perpetually towards the future, I’ve decided to take the time to enjoy the present.

To this effect, I’ve begun a project that won’t be done until the end of the year. The idea hatched as I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for my Introduction to the Arts of Asia class to research for a paper. The topic was hand scrolls, which have an aesthetic to them that requires observation beyond that of any western painting I’ve seen.

To read a hand scroll properly, you roll it open section by section, right to left. At several meters long, each tends to tell a story, accompanied often by deeper meaning. Many are accompanied with poetry, but the use of motifs and themes allow the artist to tell the story in an abstract fashion. By story, I mean journey, and there is usually a path in the scroll guiding the reader’s eyes through this journey.

For this art paper, we were to observe Qiu Ying’s 清明商河图 or “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as it is usually translated. We were to compare this Ming Dynasty scroll to Zhang Zeduan’s original of the same name, which was painted during the Song Dynasty. I won’t get into the specifics, though it is clear that Qiu Ying’s is not merely a copy of Zhang Zeduan’s.

To aid my paper, I bought a scaled reprint of the hand scroll at the museum’s bookstore, realizing later that it was in postcard format—fifteen postcards to be exact. Later I realized that this painting, divided into sections by the creases into postcards, being a journey, could be parallel to my journey here.

So I decided to cut apart this scroll replica into the postcards that were on the reverse. Sending them all back to my home in California, I addressed them as such, and stamped them all. As a representation of my journey here in Hong Kong, I’m sending them off from fifteen different post boxes, noting the location and its significance, as well as the date and time at which I sent it.

When I get back home, hopefully all fifteen will have arrived. At that point, I’m going to reattach them back together. This scroll reprint, in postcard/booklet format will then show the journey to the city center of Kaifeng on the front and my journey to Hong Kong on the back.

There are now four weeks of instruction left, so with deadlines looming and a push for more travels to look forward to, I shall resume my studying.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.

A World English

Last year, I was in a social anthropology class called Language, Identity, and Community at UCSD. Taught by an academic (whose name I have chosen to omit), who has done plenty of research regarding the use of Spanish and Catalan in the Catalonia (an autonomous region of Spain), the class aimed to give us an understanding about the role language plays in creating and enforcing identities among individuals and communities among groups of individuals. Though that was a very interesting class (albeit I got my lowest college grade in that class), that’s not what this is about.

The professor shared with us a story that I feel can be related with by one of my friends here. This professor was from the western side of New York State. Unlike a “standard” American accent, which many purport to be like that of Chicago newscasters, she had a regionalized Midwest accent that many people unfortunately could not understand.

And it’s really not that uncommon. Though I would be quick to point out several differences between a more standard Midwest accent and a Californian accent, in many ways characteristics of the two have converged with spoken media (such as Hollywood productions) becoming widespread, and as such, neutral. The logic of which is as follows: there is no one natural way of speaking. As such, everyone has an accent in the language(s) that he or she speaks, though some may be seen as more neutral than others due to exposure and proliferation.

This means that accents that aren’t heard on widespread media are generally understood less. So a regionalized accent such as Cajun, Scottish, or Southern, is often stigmatized as not being the norm. With such speakers’ non-standard pronunciation (and often grammatical forms as well as lexicon), they tend to stand apart from the crowd.

Such problems are made worse as students learning English as a second language are taught British Received Pronunciation or Standard American English. When learning a second language, students are taught what is wrong and what is right, and sometimes things are just different.

This story that she shared took place in Spain, with an audience from all around the world. It consisted of a guest lecture taking place in English by a German scholar. At the end of this scholar’s lecture, she asked a question, which received an answer. Afterwards, she heard people trying to figure out in hushed tones who “that woman who asked the question” was, because they could not understand her. These people were speakers of English as a second language, and in her experience she realized that being a native speaker of English did not automatically give her the ability to be understood in English-language settings. On top of that, she found that those people who spoke English as a second language felt they spoke better than her because they could not understand her regional accent.

Like I said, HKU is an English-language institution, which makes it arguably more attractive to a wider range of students over a different Chinese university where they would teach classes in Mandarin. As such, and possibly to my disadvantage, I rarely have to speak any form of Chinese here as most of the exchange students appear to converse to each other in English.

But this isn’t to talk about Cantonese again. Improperly so, this is to talk about English. I heart English, and as a student of linguistics, I’ve made a point of noticing all the different varieties I’ve heard.

To start, there are the people who’ve learned English as a second language. In that range, I’ve met and heard people from the Netherlands, Spain, France, and Norway.

Native English varieties I’ve heard are Scottish, British, Australian, Canadian, Californian, and Midwestern American. Some that I’ve mentioned I cannot be more specific about because I do not have enough experience with such varieties to the point where I could narrow it down further.

In particular, my friend from Scotland finds herself having trouble being understood the most. Except on the phone, I have little trouble understanding her. Though she is a native English speaker, the lack of understanding of her variety really shows how English is a world language of sorts.

So what have I seen?

Well, English speakers overall use most of the same words, so we can understand almost all of what we’re saying if we speak clearly. There are several words that I’ve not heard of and many more that have different meanings. The majority of the differences are in drastically different sounds.

So how do we cope?

Well we explain things to each other of course. We often make fun of each other though for the particular words that we use. It’s all in good fun. Part of learning about other people is being accepting and understanding.

I don’t have an accent, right?

Well no one thinks they really have an accent, because everyone feels like they speak naturally. So how has my speech changed since coming here?

Well for one, I’ve never really used California slang. I’d be hard-pressed to say there’s ever been a point in my life when I’ve used “dude” excessively, in say every sentence. Beach Boys-slang I’ve never used. Terms like “wipeout” never made it to me, though I know where all the places in their songs are. The thing I used the most that regionalized me is “like.”

Like though I’ve like learned how to, well, like monitor my use of “like” so if I like don’t want to say “like” so much, I like can.

So here I don’t use “like” very much at all. I’ve heard more “hella” here than I’d like from people from Northern California, and have come to terms with it here. Luckily I haven’t incorporated that particular term into my lexicon yet.

The biggest change in my speech is my intonation of questions. Whereas as home I would ask something like “Have you eaten yet?” Like , I find myself making questions sound more like . Whether or not you get what I mean by this, I’m sure I’ll still sound like this for a while after I get back home.

Speaking of returning, I just got back from my reading week trip to Beijing. Stay tuned for all the juicy details and awesome pictures!

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.