Hong Kong

Hello Everyone;

I have a bit of time before I have to teach again this afternoon (yes, it's Sunday, and yes, I'm working today), so I thought I would write another entry. I will tell you about Hong Kong!

Carol, Mason (the third English teacher at our school) and I had to go to Hong Kong to apply for our work visas, as we've been on tourist visas until now. I'm not sure why we had to go to Hong Kong, but it has something to do with having to physically leave China so we can re-enter with the new visa.

The planning up to the trip was all helter skelter. I thought for sure that we wouldn't get our visas, since it didn't seem like our school had their stuff together. Since our tourist visas allowed only a single entry, once we left China, they wouldn't let us back in. So it was important that we get the visa, or we'd be stranded in Hong Kong, which wouldn't be too bad because it would be a holiday from teaching.

So, a brief-but-hopefully-accurate overview of Hong Kong:
After the Second Opium War between China and England, Hong Kong was signed over from the Chinese to the British. Hong Kong had long had English influence as a trading port that gave Europe access to China's goods. This treaty said the British could have control over Hong Kong for 99 years.

In 1997, the 99 years were up, and Hong Kong was handed back over to China. Many people left Hong Kong for fear that the Chinese government would tamper with it was, but they did not. They created Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and basically let them be. As such, Hong Kong is Chinese, but is still independent.

So, while China was closed to foreigners because of Mao's Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong was open to foreign trade. So, Hong Kong is now very developed, while China is just beginning to become a world economic power.

Carol and I had to go to Hong Kong for our passports, and boy was it different! I loved the city, probably because it was comfortable. It felt very Asian, but with a splash of Western familiarity. It also reminded me of Vancouver, the way the city pops up out of the water!

I had found us a hostel the day before, which was lucky because it was a national holiday in Hong Kong. (Mid Autumn Festival is a civic holiday here, but not in mainland China.) We took a cab to the hostel, but were surprised to find our reservation didn't exist anymore. Ooops. Maybe I wasn't surprised. So, the guy called around and found us some rooms. He said they were in the next building, so we walked to the next building with him. Turned out it was actually about 4 blocks away. The rooms were nice though, and relively cheap. The school had given us some money to spend on a hostel, and we ended up spending all of it. Normally we would have bartered, but it was late, the school was paying for it, and we didn't want to put in the effort.


The hostel was within a maze of halways and iron doors that were really hard to navigate. Luckily the owner led us through this maze, and showed us our rooms. The rooms had their own bathrooms and air conditioners, and my window looked out onto a wall, about 1 foot away. There was barbed wire outside my window too! It was pretty awesome.


We all slept poorly, because it was very loud in the hotel. But we woke up on time, and headed to the Chinese Embassy. That part was boring. We waited in line, gave our forms, and were told to pick up or passports and visas at 3:30. So, we headed out into Hong Kong!

We were able to navigate the Hong Kong subway, which was great. We initially had help of Jill, who is employed by the school to be our friend and help us with stuff. She took off to do some shopping on her own though, and we were happy to fend for ourselves. There are something like six lines, and we had to transfer between three of them throughout the excursion. I like that I can now have confidence using this huge system in the future.

We had lunch at a nice diner, where we were the only foreigners. We did well ordering, and the food was great. We also bought cell phones...Carol and I both bought the cheapest ones available in the store. Mine's white, and Carol's is pink. My last phone was black, so I went for white this time.

The highlight for me was walking along the Avenue of the Stars, where Hong Kong's movie industry noteables are recognized. This Avenue is a boardwalk built right along the waterfront. It's a boardwalk, and it's awesome. The day was sunny, the harbour was busy, and the Avenue even had a Bruce Lee statue! In Victoria, one of my roommates was really into Kung Fu and Bruce Lee, so one weekend we watched all his movies. So it was fun to see this statue!


The Hong Kong waterfront is very busy! Vancouver has a by-law that limits the height of buildings so that the North Shore mountains aren't fully obstructed. Hong Kong does not have this, obviously because you can harldy tell that there are mountains back there!


I loved Hong Kong. I'd love to go back and spend some time there. It was a whole new experience, and I loved it. In Hong Kong they speak Cantonese, while most of mainland China speaks Mandarin Chinese, so even the few words I've learned in Mandarin weren't too usefull. Also, the charcters are different. Mainland China began to use 'simplified characters' about 30 years ago, but Hong Kong did not adopt this new form of writing. The traditional characters are more elaborate and to me, confusing. So even though I've been in China for a month, Hong Kong was very different and new! The language was new, the writing was different, and the buildings were very tall!

If you get a chance to go to Hong Kong, do! It may be one of my favourite cities, even though I've only been in a very few of them!