I suppose if you grew up with it, it wouldn’t be so odd. In some ways, I guess I’m a picky eater. Studying abroad though and seeing how other international students deal with these differences allows me to better see how I fall into line. I can now say that I’m more open than others to different foods, though I admit there is some stuff that I would rather not go near.
A few weeks ago, my group of friends and I went to Queen Mary across the street. Yeah, it’s a hospital, but compared to Bayview Restaurant in the basement of Lee Hysan Hall, the canteen of Queen Mary Hospital is absolutely gourmet. Oh, and we get discounts there because Queen Mary also happens to be the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (HKU Med School).
I’m a bit partial to the barbecue pork with rice that they have. When I go days without it, I begin missing it, and then when I order it, I realize that I don’t really care for it. I always ask for less rice (in Cantonese, of course), so instead of getting three portions of rice, I get about two (which I still don’t finish). That meal all comes out at like $16-17 HKD, which is like two bucks USD, so it’s well worth it. This meal also comes with a few stalks of Gai Lan (芥蘭/芥兰), which I used to mistaken for Bak Choy (白菜) until I was reminded that the vegetable before us is stalky, whereas Bak Choy grows in the same leafy manner as cabbage.
Now, I don’t eat Gai Lan at home, though I’ve seen it sold at the Chinese supermarkets. When I’m with my family, we tend to more often go along the lines of broccoli, Napa cabbage, and cauliflower. (Mom and Dad, if you guys are reading this I like the first two better than the third.) Here though, Gai Lan’s nickname “Chinese broccoli” becomes apparent as it’s served as the main vegetable to go with any meal that comes with a vegetable.
If you thought my mix-up was bad, my friend from northern Europe couldn’t tell what the vegetable was, so instead of assuming it was a vegetable he had never seen before, he decided that they must cook their vegetables funny here to get it to look that way and taste so different. I took it upon myself to set this logic straight and inform him clearly that this is a different vegetable.
At a different time, last week to be precise, I was having dim sum with my Cantonese classmates. In addition to this being a prime opportunity to practice our Cantonese, we also used it to try new foods. As such, we ordered chicken feet. (Unlike in the old days and at Chinatowns, most dim sum places in Hong Kong have you order food off a menu rather than pointing and choosing off of the 點心車/点心车 dim sum carts). At our table of ten, we ordered to share, splitting the bill evenly in the end.
Well, the food came and I made my stomach happy with the regulars like Haa Gau (蝦餃/虾饺) and Siu Mai (燒賣/烧卖) as well as the crowd-pleasing Cha Siu Bau (叉燒包). We went ahead and tried Taro Dumplings (芋頭角/芋头角) and Taro Cake (芋頭糕/芋头糕) , but when the Chicken Feet (鳳爪/凤爪) came out (literally Phoenix Claws), I couldn’t try it. I would have tried, but my stomach was well full, and trying new food, especially something I wasn’t sure whether or not would sit well, wasn’t a good idea. That was my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
By the others though, I was told that it’s basically just skin and fat, so I didn’t feel I was missing out on much. One of my friends at the table though was a seasoned chicken feet consumer. She could put the whole foot in her mouth and get all the edible parts off without hands, pushing the bones to one side of her mouth and when it was all said and consumed, she would spit out the foot bones onto her plate. It was impressive if not a little off-putting.
The one thing that just completely makes me feel sick is shrimp with heads and shells still on. I can de-shell them without making a fuss, but I dislike doing it while I’m eating.
I was informed though at a meal in Temple Street (廟街/庙街) near Mongkok (旺角) that they don’t de-shell because the shrimp are fresh (in addition to the fact that it’s a lot of work to peel shrimp). They quite literally pull the critters out of the tanks linking their storefronts and put them into boiling liquid. This means that they’re super fresh and that there’s no time to de-shell them.
Most people don’t eat the shell. A friend of mine who’s originally from Taishan, Guangdong, (台山, 廣東/广东) told me that you only eat the shell if it’s deep-fried. That way the shell is crunchy and enjoyable rather than fishy and unbearable. I tried it, and though it wasn’t fishy, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea either.
At this fresh seafood restaurant, I witnessed something I doubt I’ll ever see again. He and another friend could and would put the entire cooked shrimp in their mouth and de-shell and de-head it within their mouths, spitting out the refuse politely onto their plates. It was starting to say the least, though most impressive. Never will you find me putting a shrimp head into my mouth.
The bottom line is that I don’t try everything, nor am I really expected to. I think that what’s really important is to maintain an open mind about different foods. This means that even if you don’t try it, you at least shouldn’t talk about it subjectively with objective terms. Better yet, don’t show any disgust that you may be harboring.
Balut (毛蛋 in Chinese) is a Southeast Asian delicacy that National Geographic taught me about. Over the years, I have found that many of my friends enjoy this food, and though I’ve never tried it, I maintain my doubts as to whether I’d actually like it personally.
For those who don’t know, Balut is a fertilized, partially developed duck egg. If I remember correctly, they boil the egg right before parts of the body such as the bill harden, yet it’s not like a hardboiled egg either. It’s runny, and it’s eaten fetus, yolk and all.
A friend of mine here whose parents are from Vietnam likes Balut a lot. On one episode of Fear Factor, contestants had to eat some as part of a competition and she said that she should have been there, because she totally would have won that competition.
Another friend raised ethical concerns about eating a fetus, which I thought were not necessarily irrelevant but rather illogical. I think that the only people who can argue against eating Balut are those who eat neither eggs nor meat, in which case they could say that eating such is unethical. The difference to me between eating an animal or a fetus of the same animal deals nothing with ethics. (In that sense, you can’t argue that you don’t eat human babies for that would imply that you’re a cannibal) I’ve seen how factories keep chickens cooped up in their own waste, lacking the space to turn around, and how pigs get their teeth removed from them forcefully and obviously without anesthetic when they are still young.
Though I’m not to keen on eating fetuses, I see little moral dilemma in the issue. Instead, I personally have concerns about whether I would like the texture of the item, seeing as it’s a whole undeveloped animal with extras.
Showing posts with label HKU campus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HKU campus. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
I Can't Hear the Music
It’s been about a month now, but I’ve got this one incident in my head right now that I’d like to write down before it goes away forever. Normally, it wouldn’t be significant at all—you know, music on college campuses. Now this happening didn’t have to do with marketed music at all. It’s just one day, I walked out of the library, and the usually music-fee campus was alive with this impromptu drumming session.
Of course, it wasn’t impromptu in that some club booked the venue (Sun Yat-sen Plaza, like the small quad on campus), but what was happening was quite fun. Sitting around a coordinator were students on seats playing (percussion) instruments. They were all into it, and it was apparent that they were not all one group, because while the sounds coming out didn’t sound bad, they didn’t sound at the concerto standard either, and would have sounded terrible without the coordinator and the baseline of instruments near her.
In addition, there were empty seats (more than a few), and they all had instruments on them. Granted, they weren’t thousand-dollar pieces, but small hand drums and such. It became more apparent that anyone could join in as random people started sitting down.
So we sat down as well and had some fun banging away at our instruments for like ten minutes. It was more for fun than for meritorious art, so the quality of the actual sounds didn’t matter—it was just fun.
That was just one of a handful (like maybe three) times that I’d heard music blaring on campus. That was the first time I witnessed and participated in an impromptu drumming session as well, and it was a nice relief from class, which I went to immediately after.
So where did the music go?
I’ve heard of Cantopop (or any music for that matter) and I was surprised that the first time I heard it blaring was when I went to karaoke in Causeway Bay about a month and a half ago. In comparison, when I went to Rome, the first thing I heard was American pop blasting out of a storefront across the road from Roma Termini (train station). I heard Italian music coming out of the storefront a block and a half later.
I suppose it would be easy to blame it on the perceived lack of culture here. I don’t think this works though in this case, because even though you might not produce it, you can still enjoy it—I’ve heard my floormates listening to music in their rooms. It can’t be a public space thing, because it’s just constant chatter of students practically shouting over each other on campus. And it’s not like it doesn’t exist at all, because I know that there are plenty of concerts going on around here.
So I guess I don’t really know; I just wish there were more music.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Of course, it wasn’t impromptu in that some club booked the venue (Sun Yat-sen Plaza, like the small quad on campus), but what was happening was quite fun. Sitting around a coordinator were students on seats playing (percussion) instruments. They were all into it, and it was apparent that they were not all one group, because while the sounds coming out didn’t sound bad, they didn’t sound at the concerto standard either, and would have sounded terrible without the coordinator and the baseline of instruments near her.
In addition, there were empty seats (more than a few), and they all had instruments on them. Granted, they weren’t thousand-dollar pieces, but small hand drums and such. It became more apparent that anyone could join in as random people started sitting down.
So we sat down as well and had some fun banging away at our instruments for like ten minutes. It was more for fun than for meritorious art, so the quality of the actual sounds didn’t matter—it was just fun.
That was just one of a handful (like maybe three) times that I’d heard music blaring on campus. That was the first time I witnessed and participated in an impromptu drumming session as well, and it was a nice relief from class, which I went to immediately after.
So where did the music go?
I’ve heard of Cantopop (or any music for that matter) and I was surprised that the first time I heard it blaring was when I went to karaoke in Causeway Bay about a month and a half ago. In comparison, when I went to Rome, the first thing I heard was American pop blasting out of a storefront across the road from Roma Termini (train station). I heard Italian music coming out of the storefront a block and a half later.
I suppose it would be easy to blame it on the perceived lack of culture here. I don’t think this works though in this case, because even though you might not produce it, you can still enjoy it—I’ve heard my floormates listening to music in their rooms. It can’t be a public space thing, because it’s just constant chatter of students practically shouting over each other on campus. And it’s not like it doesn’t exist at all, because I know that there are plenty of concerts going on around here.
So I guess I don’t really know; I just wish there were more music.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
King's College
Teaching English as a second language has always been something I've always tossed around in my head. Whereas in general I probably couldn't cope teaching English high-school style, teaching it as a foreign language always tickled my fancy, as it has to do more with the practical and conversational than the philosophical.
English is in high demand here in Hong Kong. As one of the region's official languages and one its business advantages in the international arena, people who can speak English have an automatic leg up on the competition. Statistics show that Hong Kong isn't nearly as cosmopolitan as it's purported to be. Ninety-five percent of the population is Han Chinese and ninety-five percent use Cantonese primarily as their daily language.
From what I gather, English is taught in many secondary schools, but trying to talk to many service workers here in English, reasonably presuming they attended secondary school, whatever they learn tends to fade away. Talking to secondary-school students (I have no idea what grades they are in because they use the English form system), it's apparent that they, at least the ones I've talked to, have a good grasp in speaking the language. Comprehension is another issue, because whereas they can understand each other's English and I can understand theirs, they cannot understand enough of mine. And seeing as most native English speakers speak more like me and less like them, it would behoove them to improve their comprehension skills.
With this thought in mind, many Hong Kong people, several starting from scratch, pay oodles and oodles of money to get tutored (or coached) to make their English better and closer to standard varieties. Many tutors make $100,000 USD per year, from what I've heard. Others who have invented themselves as celebrities have become multimillionaires by such means. If I had the proper documentation to be allowed to be employed in Hong Kong, I might have tried my hand. But since I didn't, I participated in something second best.
Back to the secondary-school students--the reason I got in contact with them is through a program(me) that was publicized through the Office of International Student Exchange (OISE) here at HKU. It was advertised mainly to exchange and international students as the King's College English Teaching Programme. Sounds really intensive, doesn't it?
There was no pay, but that was understandable. It was a volunteer program in which after their school, we were to walk across the road and down half a block to King's College, a local boys' secondary school. though the program name had "teaching" in it, it was more of a mentorship, for they already had English class in school.
We first learned about it in non-local-student orientation back in August and I was excited to apply. They were supposed to send us applications shortly thereafter, I thought, because the program was to last most of the semester. I was wrong. After enquiring by email, I was told that application would be made available, but much later.
Around came the middle of September, nearly a month into my four-month stay here. The application had come and I was ready to apply. Only then were we told that it was but a four-week program, where we would teach for one hour a week on a given day. So I applied for a few timeslots I had available.
Now this happened to be going on during that whole shopping-for-classes fiasco, so I didn't definitively know when I was going to have free time. About two weeks later, I had registered after much ado for my tutorials. They were sporadically (and thereby inconveniently placed), so I wondered if both my class schedule, being my first priority, and the King's College Programme would fit together.
A few weeks later, well after I'd finished shopping for classes, registering online for classes, and registered partially online for tutorials, the selection came out. It was clear that they had more applicants than they needed. I had a partner to "teach" six students, and it just so happened that I got the Wednesday 4:00-5:00 timeslot, which proved to be problematic.
During that timeslot, I had my tutorial for Hong Kong and the World, so quickly I emailed my tutor Sebastian to see if he would allow me to move when I attend to an empty slot on Thursdays so that, if necessary, I could withdraw from the program as early as possible. The next day he graciously granted my request, since we were already well into the semester. I was now in the program.
The program dates were set to begin shortly after reading week. Orientation was scheduled in the latter half of reading week, but when it was found out that most of the exchange students couldn't make that date, it was moved earlier. I couldn't make either day.
I told OISE (specifically Queenie) that I wouldn't be able to attend and she sent me the orientation materials after the fact. there was a conspicuous lack of lesson plan stuffs, though it was suggested that in the first session we have the students give us a tour of King's College and that in the fourth and last session (which was today), we give the students a tour around the University of Hong Kong. Oh and a big piece of advice that proved a little unsuccessful was to talk about sports with them--yeah, that topic lasted like ten minutes total.
Week One
I arrived straight from my Humanity in Globalization lecture. The professor was beginning to give us advice on how to write a good paper, and I had to leave since he was going over on time in order to get to the first day of the program.
We were to pick up our folders and then proceed to our classrooms (which were marked on maps for our convenience), and we were each given a small bottle of water. At the entrance to the school, I met my partner, who I learned if from Singapore but normally attends university in Australia, here on exchange for one semester.
This first session a mere four of the six students showed up.
Going to start the first session, I found that he was talking a lot more than me. Though I tried to increase my presence by inserting more into the conversation, the students all directed their questions at him rather than at me. I figured that they found it easier to understand him, because although he speaks good English, his accent and their accents are quite similar.
As expected, they gave us a tour around King's College, giving me some insight into the life of a secondary-school student in Hong Kong. We were shown their athletic facilities and canteen, as well as their library and a hallway that students were not allowed to go through.
Hong Kong is like Las Vegas in that it implodes its history and builds upon the rubble. So King's College and a few buildings at HKU are some of the few remaining examples of the colonial style.
Week Two
This week, all but one of the six students attended.
One student brought a newspaper clipping. It was about how a Hong Kong woman in finance decided to quit her job and start a frozen yoghurt business. They all thought she did it to make more money, assuming selling yoghurt can make more money than her high-paying corporate job. Though it is possible, she will, for a very long time, will be losing money on startup and then be making lots less money than her former career. I presented this argument to the students, that switching to selling frozen yoghurt was more a labor of love than a financial pursuit. They thought I was joking.
After that all, we completed unsuccessfully a crossword puzzle of sorts. I maintain that it was poorly designed with definitions too vague (and sometimes flat out wrong) for the specific words they were looking for. Needless to say, we moved on.
Hangman was the name of the game, and we went back and forth throwing random words at each other to see if we could get them. We kept the words easy, as did the students when it was their turn. Because we had some substance to this meeting, time went a lot quicker than in the last session.
Week Three
This week was actually two after Week Two because they had their finals the week in between. Two decided to show up (the most talkative two).
My teaching partner, at their request, told them how he served in the Singaporean Army (as there is conscription of young men there) in order to defend themselves against possible attack from Malaysia. Though Singapore officially operates in four languages, the one and only in the army was Malay. His position was the army police, to suss out all the contraband and maintain internal order.
We went over another newspaper article. This was was about tonsils and tonsil stones (which accumulate in your tonsils and pop out when they get too big after a bit of prodding). Big words such as tonsilitis were skipped understandably, and at the end of the article they admitted that big chunks of the article didn't make sense. We verbally summarized the article for them.
Though I told them in the first place that I'm American, they learned that little fact again. I answered questions about the United States, pointing out where I'm from on a big bad chalkboard drawing, drawing New York state onto the map, and explaining that the smallest state Rhode Island is not an island at all.
Week Four
The last session was earlier today today. The same two students as last week were the only ones to show up, and they were really excited to get shown HKU by us.
So we walked them there. As with any good tour of HKU, you start at Main Building. It's the oldest and most historic (and prettiest) building on campus. The main room in Main Building, Lok Yew Hall, is where the university hosts all its A-list events and ceremonies (except for graduation, which is being held this year at Asia-World Expo on Hong Kong Airport Island).
We continued around campus and showed them the library (but entering requires a HKU ID card, so we looked in from the outside), as well as a few canteens and some unique buildings. After we got through in just forty minutes, I was reminded how small campus is.
We walked them back to the bus stop and they went home.
Closing Ceremony
I won't be able to attend the ending ceremony for the program. It is to be held next Wednesday at Lok Yew Hall. I told them that I was probably going to go until I realized that I have class during then. All in all, though it was not exactly what I expected, I'm glad that I participated because it was a good experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
English is in high demand here in Hong Kong. As one of the region's official languages and one its business advantages in the international arena, people who can speak English have an automatic leg up on the competition. Statistics show that Hong Kong isn't nearly as cosmopolitan as it's purported to be. Ninety-five percent of the population is Han Chinese and ninety-five percent use Cantonese primarily as their daily language.
From what I gather, English is taught in many secondary schools, but trying to talk to many service workers here in English, reasonably presuming they attended secondary school, whatever they learn tends to fade away. Talking to secondary-school students (I have no idea what grades they are in because they use the English form system), it's apparent that they, at least the ones I've talked to, have a good grasp in speaking the language. Comprehension is another issue, because whereas they can understand each other's English and I can understand theirs, they cannot understand enough of mine. And seeing as most native English speakers speak more like me and less like them, it would behoove them to improve their comprehension skills.
With this thought in mind, many Hong Kong people, several starting from scratch, pay oodles and oodles of money to get tutored (or coached) to make their English better and closer to standard varieties. Many tutors make $100,000 USD per year, from what I've heard. Others who have invented themselves as celebrities have become multimillionaires by such means. If I had the proper documentation to be allowed to be employed in Hong Kong, I might have tried my hand. But since I didn't, I participated in something second best.
Back to the secondary-school students--the reason I got in contact with them is through a program(me) that was publicized through the Office of International Student Exchange (OISE) here at HKU. It was advertised mainly to exchange and international students as the King's College English Teaching Programme. Sounds really intensive, doesn't it?
There was no pay, but that was understandable. It was a volunteer program in which after their school, we were to walk across the road and down half a block to King's College, a local boys' secondary school. though the program name had "teaching" in it, it was more of a mentorship, for they already had English class in school.
We first learned about it in non-local-student orientation back in August and I was excited to apply. They were supposed to send us applications shortly thereafter, I thought, because the program was to last most of the semester. I was wrong. After enquiring by email, I was told that application would be made available, but much later.
Around came the middle of September, nearly a month into my four-month stay here. The application had come and I was ready to apply. Only then were we told that it was but a four-week program, where we would teach for one hour a week on a given day. So I applied for a few timeslots I had available.
Now this happened to be going on during that whole shopping-for-classes fiasco, so I didn't definitively know when I was going to have free time. About two weeks later, I had registered after much ado for my tutorials. They were sporadically (and thereby inconveniently placed), so I wondered if both my class schedule, being my first priority, and the King's College Programme would fit together.
A few weeks later, well after I'd finished shopping for classes, registering online for classes, and registered partially online for tutorials, the selection came out. It was clear that they had more applicants than they needed. I had a partner to "teach" six students, and it just so happened that I got the Wednesday 4:00-5:00 timeslot, which proved to be problematic.
During that timeslot, I had my tutorial for Hong Kong and the World, so quickly I emailed my tutor Sebastian to see if he would allow me to move when I attend to an empty slot on Thursdays so that, if necessary, I could withdraw from the program as early as possible. The next day he graciously granted my request, since we were already well into the semester. I was now in the program.
The program dates were set to begin shortly after reading week. Orientation was scheduled in the latter half of reading week, but when it was found out that most of the exchange students couldn't make that date, it was moved earlier. I couldn't make either day.
I told OISE (specifically Queenie) that I wouldn't be able to attend and she sent me the orientation materials after the fact. there was a conspicuous lack of lesson plan stuffs, though it was suggested that in the first session we have the students give us a tour of King's College and that in the fourth and last session (which was today), we give the students a tour around the University of Hong Kong. Oh and a big piece of advice that proved a little unsuccessful was to talk about sports with them--yeah, that topic lasted like ten minutes total.
Week One
I arrived straight from my Humanity in Globalization lecture. The professor was beginning to give us advice on how to write a good paper, and I had to leave since he was going over on time in order to get to the first day of the program.
We were to pick up our folders and then proceed to our classrooms (which were marked on maps for our convenience), and we were each given a small bottle of water. At the entrance to the school, I met my partner, who I learned if from Singapore but normally attends university in Australia, here on exchange for one semester.
This first session a mere four of the six students showed up.
Going to start the first session, I found that he was talking a lot more than me. Though I tried to increase my presence by inserting more into the conversation, the students all directed their questions at him rather than at me. I figured that they found it easier to understand him, because although he speaks good English, his accent and their accents are quite similar.
As expected, they gave us a tour around King's College, giving me some insight into the life of a secondary-school student in Hong Kong. We were shown their athletic facilities and canteen, as well as their library and a hallway that students were not allowed to go through.
Hong Kong is like Las Vegas in that it implodes its history and builds upon the rubble. So King's College and a few buildings at HKU are some of the few remaining examples of the colonial style.
Week Two
This week, all but one of the six students attended.
One student brought a newspaper clipping. It was about how a Hong Kong woman in finance decided to quit her job and start a frozen yoghurt business. They all thought she did it to make more money, assuming selling yoghurt can make more money than her high-paying corporate job. Though it is possible, she will, for a very long time, will be losing money on startup and then be making lots less money than her former career. I presented this argument to the students, that switching to selling frozen yoghurt was more a labor of love than a financial pursuit. They thought I was joking.
After that all, we completed unsuccessfully a crossword puzzle of sorts. I maintain that it was poorly designed with definitions too vague (and sometimes flat out wrong) for the specific words they were looking for. Needless to say, we moved on.
Hangman was the name of the game, and we went back and forth throwing random words at each other to see if we could get them. We kept the words easy, as did the students when it was their turn. Because we had some substance to this meeting, time went a lot quicker than in the last session.
Week Three
This week was actually two after Week Two because they had their finals the week in between. Two decided to show up (the most talkative two).
My teaching partner, at their request, told them how he served in the Singaporean Army (as there is conscription of young men there) in order to defend themselves against possible attack from Malaysia. Though Singapore officially operates in four languages, the one and only in the army was Malay. His position was the army police, to suss out all the contraband and maintain internal order.
We went over another newspaper article. This was was about tonsils and tonsil stones (which accumulate in your tonsils and pop out when they get too big after a bit of prodding). Big words such as tonsilitis were skipped understandably, and at the end of the article they admitted that big chunks of the article didn't make sense. We verbally summarized the article for them.
Though I told them in the first place that I'm American, they learned that little fact again. I answered questions about the United States, pointing out where I'm from on a big bad chalkboard drawing, drawing New York state onto the map, and explaining that the smallest state Rhode Island is not an island at all.
Week Four
The last session was earlier today today. The same two students as last week were the only ones to show up, and they were really excited to get shown HKU by us.
So we walked them there. As with any good tour of HKU, you start at Main Building. It's the oldest and most historic (and prettiest) building on campus. The main room in Main Building, Lok Yew Hall, is where the university hosts all its A-list events and ceremonies (except for graduation, which is being held this year at Asia-World Expo on Hong Kong Airport Island).
We continued around campus and showed them the library (but entering requires a HKU ID card, so we looked in from the outside), as well as a few canteens and some unique buildings. After we got through in just forty minutes, I was reminded how small campus is.
We walked them back to the bus stop and they went home.
Closing Ceremony
I won't be able to attend the ending ceremony for the program. It is to be held next Wednesday at Lok Yew Hall. I told them that I was probably going to go until I realized that I have class during then. All in all, though it was not exactly what I expected, I'm glad that I participated because it was a good experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, September 7, 2009
City LIfe
Being here for two weeks, I have fallen into something of a routine. Living inconveniently far from campus, I find myself taking public transportation to school frequently. The buses that run by my hall are so-called minibuses (小巴) that seat sixteen, standing prohibited.
These first few weeks of class, there have been large crowds of students trying to get to campus, crowding the bus stop whenever I want to catch a bus. Besides the raw numbers trying to get on these minibuses, there seems to be no respect for who got there first, so everyone sort of piles onto the bus as the bus driver indicated how many more seats remain.
It costs either HK$4.50 of $5 to get to main campus, so since paying this twice a day adds up, the university has a shuttle service. But with a bizarre schedule and few shuttles, this resource seems more of a formality than an actual service.
Because of this, I’ve found myself taking cabs to school more often than not. At about HK$21, if you get a group of four or five together and split it, it’s roughly the same price with faster service.
If I have time, I grab a bite on campus if I didn’t already at Bay View Restaurant, a very average canteen located beneath my hall. Frequently I find coffee because my hallmates do not allow me to get to sleep as early as I would like.
Going to class, I sit more frequently towards the front of the lecture hall here than at home because the locals don’t stop chatting with each other while the professor tries to talk. (We’re still in the middle of the add/drop period, when students are choosing classes, so once this is over, not only will there be less students in attendance, but also many students simply do not show up to lecture.)
For lunch I got to one of the four eateries on campus. My favorite, the one in Swire Hall above the Global Lounge is packed. Here, instead of having tables for two and four, the tables here seat eight to twelve, which means that whereas at home you usually didn’t sit down at a table already taken, you have to here if you hope to sit.
And a note on morality and ethics, I was telling a hallmate once at a crazy McDonalds that send the fastest eater to find a table and reserve it, allow the rest of us to order, then once we get our food, allow the last person to get their food. If you don’t do that, it’s hard to get a table. My hallmate said that that wasn’t fair for some reason that I don’t remember, since it didn’t seem logical to me, but I told him that that’s what they do.
At the canteen above Swire Hall, students seemed to come in big groups. They’d claim a table with one person and all their bags and backpacks, then proceed to order. So when I picked up my food, I walked around for ten minutes trying to find seats that didn’t have bags on them. Of those, half of those were reserved (as I was told off in Cantonese).
After my classes are over, me and some of my friends (also exchange students) do something locally. There’s actually a nice mall nearby named Westwood, where we go frequently. It has a few nice restaurants, a poor selection of retail stores (but that’s not why we go there) and a Wellcome store (yes, with two Ls), which I wish the locals had told me about.
Two weeks ago, I arrived in Hong Kong without blankets of a pillow. The lack of a blanket I could deal with, as it was filthy hot and humid well into the night. The day after next, I asked a local student where I could buy a pillow. He sent me to Causeway Bay, which happens to be halfway across the island, to IKEA.
Knowing IKEA back home as a large home store, I set out, without a map or any idea where in Causeway Bay I was going. The minibus dropped us off and I wandered around for a while. After asking a few people where IKEA was and getting piecemeal answers, I decided to just go to a bedding store I saw along the bus ride. I paid HK$174 for that pillow, thinking that’s like less than $25 USD. Unfortunately for me, at the Wellcome at Westwood, a short five-minute bus ride away, they were selling nice pillows for HK$30. Oh well! It’s too late now.
As there is an undoubtable and irresolvable delay in what currently happens and what I write about in posts, I’ll say that I type this right now as I wait for a University of California Education Abroad Program “How to get approval for classes back home” seminar to start.
Also, I haven’t written about it yet, but I’ve done quite a bit of local sightseeing over the past few weeks. Just this weekend I went on two tours advertised by the school giving a good overview of the area.
Posts to come!
These first few weeks of class, there have been large crowds of students trying to get to campus, crowding the bus stop whenever I want to catch a bus. Besides the raw numbers trying to get on these minibuses, there seems to be no respect for who got there first, so everyone sort of piles onto the bus as the bus driver indicated how many more seats remain.
It costs either HK$4.50 of $5 to get to main campus, so since paying this twice a day adds up, the university has a shuttle service. But with a bizarre schedule and few shuttles, this resource seems more of a formality than an actual service.
Because of this, I’ve found myself taking cabs to school more often than not. At about HK$21, if you get a group of four or five together and split it, it’s roughly the same price with faster service.
If I have time, I grab a bite on campus if I didn’t already at Bay View Restaurant, a very average canteen located beneath my hall. Frequently I find coffee because my hallmates do not allow me to get to sleep as early as I would like.
Going to class, I sit more frequently towards the front of the lecture hall here than at home because the locals don’t stop chatting with each other while the professor tries to talk. (We’re still in the middle of the add/drop period, when students are choosing classes, so once this is over, not only will there be less students in attendance, but also many students simply do not show up to lecture.)
For lunch I got to one of the four eateries on campus. My favorite, the one in Swire Hall above the Global Lounge is packed. Here, instead of having tables for two and four, the tables here seat eight to twelve, which means that whereas at home you usually didn’t sit down at a table already taken, you have to here if you hope to sit.
And a note on morality and ethics, I was telling a hallmate once at a crazy McDonalds that send the fastest eater to find a table and reserve it, allow the rest of us to order, then once we get our food, allow the last person to get their food. If you don’t do that, it’s hard to get a table. My hallmate said that that wasn’t fair for some reason that I don’t remember, since it didn’t seem logical to me, but I told him that that’s what they do.
At the canteen above Swire Hall, students seemed to come in big groups. They’d claim a table with one person and all their bags and backpacks, then proceed to order. So when I picked up my food, I walked around for ten minutes trying to find seats that didn’t have bags on them. Of those, half of those were reserved (as I was told off in Cantonese).
After my classes are over, me and some of my friends (also exchange students) do something locally. There’s actually a nice mall nearby named Westwood, where we go frequently. It has a few nice restaurants, a poor selection of retail stores (but that’s not why we go there) and a Wellcome store (yes, with two Ls), which I wish the locals had told me about.
Two weeks ago, I arrived in Hong Kong without blankets of a pillow. The lack of a blanket I could deal with, as it was filthy hot and humid well into the night. The day after next, I asked a local student where I could buy a pillow. He sent me to Causeway Bay, which happens to be halfway across the island, to IKEA.
Knowing IKEA back home as a large home store, I set out, without a map or any idea where in Causeway Bay I was going. The minibus dropped us off and I wandered around for a while. After asking a few people where IKEA was and getting piecemeal answers, I decided to just go to a bedding store I saw along the bus ride. I paid HK$174 for that pillow, thinking that’s like less than $25 USD. Unfortunately for me, at the Wellcome at Westwood, a short five-minute bus ride away, they were selling nice pillows for HK$30. Oh well! It’s too late now.
As there is an undoubtable and irresolvable delay in what currently happens and what I write about in posts, I’ll say that I type this right now as I wait for a University of California Education Abroad Program “How to get approval for classes back home” seminar to start.
Also, I haven’t written about it yet, but I’ve done quite a bit of local sightseeing over the past few weeks. Just this weekend I went on two tours advertised by the school giving a good overview of the area.
Posts to come!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
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