ChinaLite

Hong Kong, a former British colony and now one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China along with the nearby Macau, is an incredible anomaly. In between the glitz of all of the international designer shops (it seemed like every block was Fifth Avenue), you'd find some enclaves of a Chinese identity of yesteryear. Nonetheless, it was an incredibly modern global city full of life and culture.

Since Hong Kong was, like many of the other places we've visited along this journey, a British colony, the more rampant use of English made it a very nice training course for mainland China. Most, if not all people, had a basic understanding of English, and that made it easy to communicate.

Hong Kong reminded me much of Singapore in the sense that it was such a cosmopolitan place with a distinct Asian flair that made it interesting. Both were island city-states.  I regret only spending a little more than a day there because I’m confident that there was so much more to see.  Yes, there was a Body Shop on every block (not even kidding), but there are so many islands to see all chock full of jewels waiting to be discovered. Speaking of jewels, one of the places that I found very interesting was the Jade Market, a small camp of vendors selling a multitude of jade products and other assorted knick-knacks.  It was somewhat like entering a Chinese grandmother’s basement.  While on that note, I also found a small shop of second-hand goods that was actually a Chinese grandmother’s basement full of relics from all around the world that one older woman has accumulated along the years.

I kept catching myself thinking that I was in some kind of Chinatown only to realize that was, indeed, in China.  It took a while to hit me that I was, in fact, on the opposite side of the earth in a place which, since we were children, stood to symbolize exoticism for us in the United States.  No longer was this a recreation; it was the real thing.

Pulling into port in Hong Kong was one of the few times that I decided to wake up at the crack of dawn to see it actually happen.  Though the weather was cold and hazy, you could sill tell that it was marvelous sailing into such a huge city.  You just had so much to look at that you had no idea what to do with yourself.  The best part, though, was seeing a slew of parents waving mercilessly from the dock.  Semester at Sea sets up a Parent Trip where families can join their child through their exploration in China, and a few of my friends’ parents were able to come for the ride.  It would have been great to see my own parents there since I know how much they’ve wanted to visit China.  They’ll get there, I promise.

All in all, Hong Kong didn’t feel too much different than what I’m used to past the fact that everything was is Chinese (along with English).  The beautiful skyline and amazing water views made me feel like I was back in Manhattan.  I even took a ferry across the water between Kowloon and Hong Kong islands which, if I dare say, felt like I was going to Staten Island (except the other side didn’t suck).  But then there were the things that were a little different.  For example, there were multiple levels of walkways; there was the normal street level, but there were often underground walkways as opposed to crosswalks (which were somewhat inconvenient), and there were also networks of bridges and moving sidewalks running along the periphery of buildings that not only linked several buildings together but also transported people above ground.  And of course I made it into the Starbucks where I was happy to fish for grass jelly at the bottom of my Frappuccino.

Altogether, Hong Kong was a very pleasant place, and it was a good starting point for the rest of the week in China.  So much more on that really soon.