Days 36 and 37: Hong Kong

Hello, hello, dear readers. Thank you kindly for your patience. I’m sorry I couldn’t get this post up before Vietnam. Two days is not nearly enough time to recover from travel fatigue and write all I want in my journal (let alone go to classes), and that is precisely how long we have been on the ship between the last two ports. It feels like I haven’t been on the ship in the longest time, because I’ve spent the last brief sailing periods cooped up in my room sleeping and writing. Anyhow, Vietnam was most awesome. I’ll get it up soon. I’m going to spend a bit more time with this one, though, as we have eight days at sea this time, and I’d like to spend some time relaxing, getting sleep, and catching up with friends. But this tangent has lasted long enough, on to my Hong Kong adventures.


Day 1

After a 3:45 wake-up call (I’m still in Beijing at this point), I sleep-walked my way through packing and getting set for the flight. On the bus ride to the airport, though, I woke up a bit, which made me fear I would not be able to sleep on the flight.

And that is precisely what happened. After going through security and customs, I found myself wide awake. So I resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to sleep and decided to try to be productive. I achieved great success!; I finished the How to Pick up a Latin Chick song and did a few sketches in my sketchbook.

Once we landed in Hong Kong, we again had to clear customs. We were bussed back to the ship, which I was very happy to see. It made me think about how odd it is that I’ve become so attached to this thing. But in hindsight it isn’t odd at all; I’m having the time of my life. On the bus ride, though, we had a tour guide. One of my biggest complaints with SAS travel is that they are way, way too tour guide-happy. It is entirely unnecessary for a 30-minute ride from the airport to the ship. And it means I have to watch my volume if I’m speaking to a friend.

We finally boarded the ship around 1:00, and Nick and I both agreed we were exhausted. So after a shower (together, of course), we took a nice, long nap until 5:00. Jake and Arthur were going to Macao, which is Asia’s gambling capital, and I entertained the idea of joining them. But after doing some research, it seemed like it was just casinos, not other fun stuff like in Vegas. So I decided against going, and instead Nick and I explored Hong Kong with Tolan and his group of friends.

We started by simply cruising the city streets, which was a sight to see. We were on the Kowloon Island, which I later heard described as “a big fucking mall.” Though I think that description is an unfair depiction of the island as a whole, it paints a fair picture of the main streets. And it was the main streets which we explored first, so it was a sensory overload. Lavish, tall buildings were everywhere, as were beautiful, bright lights. While it may be too busy of a place for me to live, I certainly enjoyed seeing the sights and the people watching.

After an hour or so of exploring, we decided to eat dinner before the Hong Kong light show. Dinner was delicious and cheap; I paid less than $4 USD for barbeque pork and roast duck over rice. I could get used to those prices.

After dinner we went to see the Hong Kong Light Show. The light show is a famous daily attraction, as buildings on the Hong Kong skyline put on a light show to music. Though the show was a bit underwhelming, the skyline was breathtaking. In fact, it was likely the gorgeous skyline which diminished the novelty of the light show. The skyline was already gleaming with colored lights; a few extra lasers didn’t add much. Still, I was more than pleased to soak up the view for a half hour. It was quite the sight to see.

Once the show finished, we headed to the Night Market. On the way to hailing a cab, we stopped at a Bruce Lee statue for a quick photo shoot. Because the Bruce depicted in the statue wasn’t wearing a shirt, I decided to take mine off for the photo. When I did this, all of the locals (or perhaps they were just Asian tourists) took photos of me. I’m not sure if this was because I have an outrageously hairy chest or if it was because of the funny photo. Either way, I couldn’t help but laugh at the attention.

After my brief moment of celebrity, the group headed to Hong Kong’s famous night market. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy shopping there as much as I enjoyed China markets. The Chinese were much more aggressive and began with a much higher asking price. At the Night Market, the sellers would barely haggle, if at all. Many vendors simply would have none of it. In addition, none of the trinkets were too striking. All I ended up getting was a pretty neat bottle opener and a goofy poster of Mao for 10 Hong Kong Dollars (HKD), which is about $1.30 USD.

The market is pretty huge, and Nick and I ended up separating from the rest of the group we came with. So we took a cab back to the ship and got back around 10:00. Nick was pretty beat from our travels, so he decided he did not want to go out. I wanted to get out and see the Hong Kong nightlife scene, so I was on the lookout for a group to go with. As we were heading to our room, I saw Wayne, my new friend from the Beijing/Xi’an trip, and Derek, a really cool and funny guy. Derek is big hit at the coffee houses, he sings songs in earnest but his interactions with the audience allow his hilarious personality to shine through. Anyhow, I explained to Wayne and Derek that I was looking for a group to go out with, so I asked them to wait five minutes for me to brush my teeth and change my shirt. They both agreed, but when I ran up only a few minutes later they were gone. Derek seemed truly remorseful when I saw him later, and made many more efforts to apologize, even writing me a letter. So he and I are totally cool (Editor’s note: though he did get Traveler’s Diarrhea after Vietnam, and I couldn’t help but smile). Wayne, on the other hand, issued a BS apology, saying he figured I would meet them because I was taking a long time. So I’m no longer a big fan of Wayne.

But back to the story, I came back to the room dejected, and Nick graciously agreed to come out with me to cheer me up. On the way out we met saw our neighbors Blake, Alan, and Mark. I’m surprised they haven’t come up in my blog yet, because they are all real cool dudes. They are all funny and I thoroughly enjoy hanging out with them. Blake’s dad actually traveled to China to meet him while we were in port, and he also came out with us. It was hysterical to see the two of them interact, because they are literally the same person, just thirty years apart.

We all took the ferry to the Hong Kong island, and from there grabbed a couple cabs to bar street. The hopping bar was Bulldogs, so we decided to go in there. The place had been taken over by SAS kids; probably 90% of the packed bar were SAS students. I was actually happy to finally find the SAS party, as we were over a month into the voyage and I had never found it. While I usually prefer to be at a more authentic, local nightlife spot, it was fun to be back at a college party type atmosphere.

At Bulldogs I saw Allyson, the girl from my China trip, and she seemed happy to see me. I also ran into Megan, a girl I had been chatting with the last few days on the same trip. Megan was immediately very flirtatious, and I spent the majority of my time with her for the remainder of the night. I stayed at the bar for probably two hours, and it became increasingly clear, at least I thought, that I would be going home with Megan. Any time I talked to other girls (which was surprisingly frequent and I assume must be attributed to the success of Tolan and Max; multiple girls with whom I had barely spoken and whose names I do not remember struck up conversation with me, and that has never happened to me before. Ever), Megan gave me crap, saying “you’re so popular” and “you’re such a hit.”

Anyhow, at about 2:00 in the morning Megan and I were talking in the middle of the street. It had turned into a trashy, drunken evening as many fellow SASers were making out in the street. Now I have never done this before, but I had had a few drinks and was feeling impulsive, and I thought I was getting the right signals so I decided to go in for a kiss. As I look back on the situation I’m surprised I did this, because I’ve never tried to kiss someone when I was unsure of the outcome, even in private. And I’ve never tried to get a first kiss in public. So I suppose I can check off both those milestones, but only in the trying category. Because I got rejected. Oddly enough, Megan stuck around and continued to flirt with me, saying only “I don’t do public” when I tried to kiss her. I told her I’d try again in private and she said ok. Needless to say, I’m inviting her over for a movie in the near future.

And there was more good news on the lady front that evening, as this gorgeous girl Beth, with whom I thought I was only an acquaintance, was literally ecstatic to see me. She spent most of the night with Derek, who was obviously trying pretty hard with her, but she sought me out for conversation on multiple occasions. She said she wanted to exchange music back on the boat, which was another good sign. So I took a cab back with Nick and a few other SASers feeling confident about my lady chances.


Day 2

Nick and I had hoped to sleep in, but we were woken up at 8:00 am by a ship-wide announcement. Though I do not remember exactly what the announcement said specifically, I do remember that it was not pressing. So Nick and I grumpily woke up cursing the lady who makes the announcements. But it was all for the best, as we ended up getting more out of our last day in Hong Kong.

We started by taking a double-decker bus to Flower Street, and of course we traveled in style on the top deck. It was a nice way to see the streets of Hong Kong without having to walk too much, which was a huge plus because we were seriously beat. Flower Street was pretty cool, especially because Hong Kong is such a scenic area in a tropic climate. Of all the places in China to colonize, it’s pretty obvious why the British chose Hong Kong. Flower Street is a long, wide boulevard with flower shops packed from end to end. There were a bunch of cool, exotic plants and flowers on display. They were really cheap, too. Unfortunately, we could not purchase any as we are not allowed to bring plants onto the ship. We certainly enjoyed looking, though.

While walking around Flower Street, Nick got a case of diarrhea and had to use a public toilet. Boy was he lucky to be in Hong Kong instead of mainland China, as he said the public restroom was very usable. We both feared he may have come down with a case of Traveler’s D, but, luckily, it was an isolated incident.

After exploring Flower Street, we went to the Bird market. Though we had expected to see some wild, exotic, birds, we were disappointed to see that nearly all of the birds being sold could be found in a normal, American pet shop. That said, despite the lack of freaky exotic birds, it was still pretty cool to check out the atmosphere of the Bird Market. Birds were everywhere, groups were jam-packed into small cages (which was sad), the air was filled with the sounds of birds squawking, and the ground was covered in bird shit. But, luckily, Nick and I both avoided being pooped on.

Once we finished checking out the Bird Market, we decided to walk back into a more populated part of town in search of a nice, big lunch. As we were walking back, we saw people playing soccer in on an Astroturf soccer field (just to avoid conclusion, this field was located in the middle of the city). There was a pretty big game of soccer going on with two distinct teams: a blue team and a red team. I told Nick I wanted to see if we would be able to join. Nick was anxious, as he assumed it was a league game due to the color coordination. I adamantly opposed, citing that despite the color coordination, teams did not have uniform jerseys. And, more importantly, it was around noon on a Tuesday. So Nick reluctantly agreed to check out the field, and said I could try to play if I wanted to but that he did not want to play.

As we walked around the field to find its entrance, we heard a cheer from the players and assumed a goal had been scored. Once we entered, however, we realized that it was a deciding goal that had been scored, and the game had in fact ended. I was pretty bummed, because I thought we may not get to play. But then I saw two guys standing at the edge of the field, clearly waiting to play. So I went over and struck up a conversation.

I started by asking if they spoke any English. The guy who responded, a very nice man named Eric, said he spoke a little. It turned out that he was just being modest; he, along with everyone who ended up playing, spoke very good English. We had no problem communicating. So Eric and I began talking while his buddy began a warm-up jog. I started by asking about the gorgeous facility, which it turns out is private. Members rent the space by the hour. I then explained the Semester at Sea program, and told him that Nick and I were students and that today was our last day in Hong Kong. I asked if he wouldn’t mind if I joined in on his game for a little while, an idea he welcomed because they were going to be short players. He said Nick was welcome to play as well, though at the time Nick still did not want to join.

As Eric’s friend continued to run around the field as a warm-up, on a hot, humid, sunny day, mind you, I asked Eric what he did. To my delight and surprise, Eric told me that he is a TV sports announcer. He does play-by-play soccer in Cantonese. I excitedly told Eric that I want to work in sports media when I graduate, and that I was truly envious of his job. Eric laughed when he heard my career ambitions, telling me I had come to the right place. We were going to play soccer with big names in the Hong Kong sports media, including guys from TV, radio, and print. As for his buddy who continued to jog in the sweltering heat, he is coincidentally also named Eric, and is a former pro basketball player. Basketball Eric now does play-by-play. I suppose that explains why he’s in such unbelievable shape.

Anyhow, the rest of the players started slowly filtering in, and they all were exceedingly nice. They were also very modest when I inquired about their careers. They did, however, admit to being regularly recognized in public. So to give an analogy as to how cool of an experience it was, an equivalent would be a foreigner stumbling onto ESPN’s campus and playing soccer with some of the personalities. Of course the Hong Kong guys are famous on a much smaller scale, but it was awesome nonetheless.

Unfortunately for me, I was not dressed in any way to play soccer, especially given the heat. I was wearing a black shirt, jeans, and shoes built more for style than for sport. To start, I had to take off my jeans and tighten my shoes. The guys convinced Nick to play, as well, and he also took off his jeans. Midway through playing, I was baking in my black shirt and took it off. So there I was, in the middle of Hong Kong, playing soccer with the Hong Kong sports media in just boxers and sneakers. Though I had planned to only play for five minutes, we ended up staying for the entire two hours. Nick and I each had a blast; we both agreed it was one of the highlights of our China trip. And while we enjoyed interacting with everyone, in particular we chatted a lot with the two Erics and an outgoing guy named Cyprus. We exchanged facebook information with Cyprus, and hopefully can get in touch with the other guys through him.

After two hours of playing, Nick and I were exhausted and dehydrated. So we left in search of water and a restaurant for lunch. After getting water at 7-11, I saw a guy wearing a shirt which read “I fuck on the first date.” Obviously, I had to get a picture with him. I found it funny how shy and docile he reacted, even giving me a bit of a bow after taking the photo with me (customary in Japan but not China), considering how crass his shirt was.

After we got our giant waters from 7-11, we got an epic lunch at a nearby restaurant. We shared three main dishes between the two of us: beef and vegetables sautéed with rice noodles, sizzling seafood with udon noodles, and chicken curry over rice. For desert, we split an egg pastry and a sweet bun. All this for maybe $20 USD total. Gotta love cheap food abroad.

Full from our meal, we headed back to the ship. We did not sit down to eat until around 3:00 pm, and after eating and transit we got back around 5:00. We had a muster drill, (ship language for emergency drill) at 7:00, so I unpacked and took care of emails. The muster drill was really boring; they insist we stay silent, even after roll call. This makes no sense to me, because it’s almost as if they think we need to practice being silent. In the case of a real emergency I’m certain we would have no trouble staying silent because we’d be scared shitless. Anyhow, I mention the muster drill because immediately afterward Beth called about swapping music. So I hung out with her that night and she ended up making me a long playlist. Things appeared to be on the up-and-up.


Reactions (to both China and Hong Kong Culture)

In China, the majority of my time was spent on a SAS trip, while in Japan I traveled independently. So I’m going to start by comparing the differences between the two, which will hopefully give you, dear readers, insight when comparing my reactions of China to my Japan reactions.

When traveling on a SAS trip, you have much less control. This is both good and bad. It’s good in the sense that you don’t need to worry about planning or transportation. I do not think I could have done another hectic schedule like I did in Japan, especially if I had to plan it myself. In addition, it was fairly easy to travel independently in Japan. This was not the case in China. Travel in China would have been extremely stressful on my own, but on the SAS trip it was stress-free. So that was nice. In addition, there were only two days at sea between Japan and China. And I spent almost all my free time writing for you people. So not having to plan was also a big plus.

But, by the same token, I did not like all the things that were planned. The worst was probably the visit to the silk factory, which cut our visit to the Olympic Village short. And I also felt like the trip was overscheduled. At times, we tried to fit too many things into one day, and, thus, everything we did felt rushed.

Another aspect which is both good and bad is that you don’t get a sense of “roughing it out,” the whole travel experience is very cushy. We get shuttled around in air-conditioned busses and we stay in nice hotels. This is good for obvious reasons; it’s simply pleasant to be comfortable. But, at the same time, there is something rewarding about toughing it out on your own, like staying in a Manga café from 2:00 – 5:00 am in Sendai. It just seems like the right thing to do as a 21-year-old traveler.

The last major difference, and this is universally negative, is the fact that there is much, much, much less contact with locals through SAS trips. We simply rely on our English-speaking tour guide, and he did all the talking with just about every local we interacted with. This was probably my least favorite part of traveling through SAS. Some of my favorite parts of Hawaii and Japan were meeting people. On this trip we were separated from the locals. As a result, I got much less insight about Chinese culture than I did about Japanese culture. Now that I’ve compared the two means of travel, on to my cultural reactions.

First and foremost, Mao is revered like a God in China. It is more than just being the founder of the country, because he is glorified far more in China than George Washington is back home. Now, knowing what an incredibly ruthless and brutal dictator Mao was, it stunned me how much he is loved by the present populous. I figured the answer must lie in education, as children must be taught revisionist history in schools, at least with regards to Mao’s time in power. But when I asked Tony, our tour guide, about how Mao was portrayed in the school system, he blew me off. He told me he would cover education on the bus, but when he touched on it he never mentioned Mao.

On a similar note, it was surprising how the people seemed to accept the ruling Communist party. All of its policies I have heard about, both before going to China and when visiting China, are despicable. China shows virtually no concern for the environment, refuses to recognize a free Tibet, fuels the genocide in Darfur through oil interests, brutally represses forms of dissent, does not allow political protest, and does not allow the citizenry to own land (instead only allowing them to lease the physical structures at astronomically high prices). And that is just off the top of my head, the list goes on. But since the government controls the media and education systems, they must brainwash the populous into supporting them. With that in mind, I did a double-take when a fellow SAS student exclaimed “this is so beautiful! I wouldn’t mind living here” while we were in Shanghai. You wouldn’t mind living under an authoritative government? I would mind living there. I would mind it a lot.

I already mentioned pollution, but it’s really hard to grasp just how gross the air is in China. They have coal plants everywhere, constantly filling the air with thick, black smoke. On numerous occasions, brilliant views were spoiled by all the air pollution. By the end of my stay, my throat was noticeably sore from breathing in all the gross air. The worst of it, though, is that many of these plants are located just feet from massive apartment buildings. That cannot be even a little bit healthy.

Another interesting thing about China, and this holds true for Japan, too (though I neglected to mention it), is how many people smoke cigarettes. So many people smoke. I’ve heard the government frowns upon it, so the number is on the decline. But compared to the United States, a lot of people smoke in both China and Japan. As a nonsmoker, I’m not a fan. But a few of my friends smoke, and they loved the cheap price of cigarettes.

One of my strongest reactions visiting China, though, was how very lucky and privileged I am to live in the USA. Despite my grievances with our government, they cannot compare to the aforementioned problems with China’s regime. On top of that, despite China’s rapidly-growing economy, the people are poor. The small amount of the nation’s wealth which reaches the people is spread between 1.6 billion of them. On top of that, the country has few scenic areas. When I looked out the window from plane rides, everything looked so bleak. It was all brown and flat; a frozen desert. I’m very, very lucky to grow up in a free, wealthy, and beautiful country, and even luckier to be amongst the privileged few in that country. Life is good.

Another thing I have to touch on is the differences between Hong Kong and mainland China. Though Hong Kong is technically now a part of China, in reality it is separate. It has its own government, currency, flag, and education system. And although mainland China considers Hong Kong a part of China, something our tour guide Tony stressed, citizens of Hong Kong (henceforth referred to as “Hong Kongers,” which is probably incorrect) disagree. When I asked the first Eric, my soccer buddy, about this, he said, and I quote, “Hong Kong and Tibet are totally different from mainland China.” When we were driven back to the boat at the conclusion of our Beijing/Xi’an trip, our Hong Kong tour guide repeatedly said “we are not like China.”

I can see why Hong Kongers would not want to associate with mainland China. Life, in my opinion, is far better in Hong Kong. The people are much friendlier and approachable (though, granted, my perception may be influenced by the fact that many Hong Kongers speak English). While people shove their way through lines and crowds regularly in China, I did not see this once in Hong Kong. And the standard of living is noticeably higher in Hong Kong. Not only does the average person live better there, but there are some very, very wealthy people in Hong Kong. Over the two days I was there, I saw at least 15 extremely nice cars (read: Ferraris, Aston Martins, etc.).

In a way, it was sort of depressing to see how much better off Hong Kong is than China. Because, at least in this case, it justifies the imperialist argument to colonize it. Colonizers have always said they colonize places to help them, to modernize them. They say that the territory will benefit from being a colony. And in this case, I think it’s true. It is the British influence which separates Hong Kong from China. While the British occupation came with the very-unfortunate consequence of loss of culture, it led to a better form of government, and happier, friendlier people who enjoy a much higher standard of living.