You Guys

Last week in my Hong Kong and the World class, we had James Thompson, CEO and founder of Crown Holdings International, as a guest speaker to talk to the class about United States-Hong Kong relations.

As an American businessman living in Hong Kong, he had some good things to say about the place, perhaps too many good things. And before I start getting called a pessimist or what have you, he knew a lot about business—and that was about it. And business is good right now. It’s easy to set up shop with little bureaucracy and maintain profitability with low taxes.

Admittedly, he probably knows more about Hong Kong than I do, but after 15 years of living here, it was pretty clear that he lived in foreigner’s Hong Kong. He seemed to be speaking from the heart, but then again he was a high-profile businessman. The content of what he said suggested that though he spoke with decorum, business and Hong Kong for foreigners was all he knew.

And I could very well be wrong, but out of how he phrased one particular statement, it seemed to me that business was the primary focus of his living—so much so that cultural insensitivity becomes commonplace.

First off, what do I mean by foreigner’s Hong Kong? Well, I’ll preface this by saying that I am still a foreigner to Hong Kong both culturally and officially. I’d be among the first to admit that I do not understand it any meaningful extent—not yet, maybe not ever. When I first thought of Hong Kong, I envisioned the skyline of Victoria Harbour of the skyscrapers alongside the mountains that everyone’s seen in postcards.

That first night I took the taxi to Sassoon Road from the Airport Express Station, I was a little more than surprised to see the buildings behind the skyline. It’s like I knew they were always there, just never how they looked like.

And that’s how I’d describe foreigner’s Hong Kong in the figurative sense. (as Crown Holdings did set up shop in Sha Tin, which is quite far from Central Hong Kong). From the way he described his daughter’s ability to speak Mandarin, he suggested that he himself lacks a significant grasp of Cantonese or Mandarin.

And this makes sense since it’s quite easy to get around Hong Kong in English. Though most don’t speak proficiently, many service workers know amounts necessitated by their work.

So back to James Thompson’s appearance as a guest speaker for one of my political science classes, he did a good job politically in his speaking, acknowledging the widespread presence of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students in the lecture hall.

And he ended his presence with one comment about Asians—not Hong Kongers or Chinese, but Asians. He recounted the story of his daughter (applying as someone from Hong Kong) to the University of California, Berkeley. Though white with a European surname, she and her application for admission were rejected with the memo that they’d already filled the Asian quota for that year (though affirmative action is now officially banned in public settings in California).

That little anecdote was summed up, addressing the Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students as, “Well, you guys are doing something right!” Apparently James Thompson doesn’t get the difference between Asians in California (or seeming anywhere else) and those from East Asia. This was met with approval by laughs from most of the class.

They say that you learn something new every day. That day, I confirmed something the same.

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

Welcome to the University of Hong Kong

The University of Hong Kong held its orientation for non-local students this last Friday, August 28. Though I appreciate the effort, much of the event seemed to drag on and students found themselves socializing with each other more than listening to the presentations, making the presentations hard to hear. Apart from the main event, there were a few subsequent components to orientation that I found were much more informative and useful than the opening act.

The day was opened with all of the non-local (mainland Chinese and international) students gathered in the assembly hall of Main Building. My HKU buddy informed me that, as that building is one of the oldest and most architecturally significant edifices on campus, important events are held there to give a good first impression of the university.

Unfortunately, since the hall is so old, it’s also quite small, and many of the students could not fit. They were directed to nearby rooms where the presentation was broadcasted live to them. What happened at that first event were mostly formalities—introduction of the administration, various resources available to us, and a plug for the Chinese-language courses they would be offering to us in the coming semesters.

As a bad sign, I couldn’t understand a significant amount of what they were saying. Though while listening closely I could gather 75-90%, I’m still uncomfortable with the current degree of comprehension. But I’ll get to language in another post.

About those Chinese-language courses, I’ve decided to take Cantonese for Foreigners 1, as I have a pretty good Mandarin foundation, and figured that it could be good to get as local as possible. I think that the biggest thing I’ve found here is how profoundly bad my Cantonese is. And though a Canadian exchange student “called shenanigans” on me for not speaking Cantonese, she was highly uninformed of my upbringing, but I’ll talk about that more in that upcoming language post.

They provided us with a “light lunch” which was actually quite filling with three half-sandwiches, an apple, and a juice box. At that point most non-local students were done with their orientation; however, American students had an additional meeting with a representative from the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong.

That meeting started with her asking where everyone was from. Starting with California, about a third of the American students raised their hands. The other two thirds were from various places scattered around the country. As many of the students from California (undoubtedly mostly University of California students) were Asian Americans, my roommate mentioned that night that Asian American students being a big chunk of students studying abroad in Asia should be no surprise, but I informed him that the UCs have a large Asian population, and still more students, at least at UCSD, went to Europe for study abroad.

Like I said earlier, I’m in good company.

At the meeting basically said the standard “don’t make yourself stand out” stuff and told us how to handle ourselves if we were to get arrested. The consulate would provide a list of attorneys to help, but if someone’s incarcerated, he or she will be visited every quarter by a member of the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong.

Someone asked how serious jaywalking in Hong Kong is, and the representative said that she didn’t know, but it would be safer to cross at the crosswalks and she herself prefers to wait a couple seconds after the light turns green to cross, allowing those running red lights to do so.

An hour after that, my faculty had a quick session (that lasted an hour and a half) on how to register for classes. It was really complicated, but more on that later. Off to class now!