Hist 482 Journal #4

This week was so packed! Every single day has been extremely long, especially since a lot of us are still fighting jetlag. I didn’t really have jet lag, I just ended up living through really long days because I would wake up unnaturally early (for me). Alyssa, Alan, Christine, Abby, and I were all on the same flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong, and Wendy, Ben, and Joanna arrived a day or two before us so I’ve had lots of company in Hong Kong. Henry arrived on Sunday and then we all went to Tsim Sha Tsui and walked around (it was really really hot) and even found Chungking Mansion.

 

Hong Kong doesn’t feel very foreign to me. It’s been pretty easy for me to communicate with people and understand conversations around me. I think partly the reason is that I was back quite recently (in December), so I can still remember places that I went to last time I was here, and things haven’t changed since then. Most of my relatives come back somewhat frequently, but if someone who hasn’t been to Hong Kong for over 5 years came back, they would probably find that a lot of things have changed. There are always new shopping centres and new trendy areas and restaurants in Hong Kong. It’s always changing. I definitely don’t feel the culture shock that we’ve been talking about in Vancouver, but that’s to be expected. My mom was born here, after all.

 

We had class with Paavo on Monday, which started with a walking tour of Sheung Wan, and we also met John Carroll, who says that he leads a U of T exchange program. I think my friend was in it before. It seems like HKU has a lot of summer exchange programs with other universities. It would be really cool if UBC had more of these things. I guess our summer school makes it difficult though. HKU students don’t have summer courses that count for credit like us, so most of them are off campus during the summer months. Peggy and I left the lecture early because she needed to apply for her HKID renewal and I knew the way to the Immigration Office because I went back in December. We still weren’t quite used to the directions to get out of HKU and find the bus stop so we were very rushed in the end and had to run to the building because we were late to her appointment. While we were there, we missed Roger Chan’s lecture too. He was supposed to lecture us on Tuesday but rescheduled.

 

Some other highlights of our week are the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Shatin, which is a city in the New Territories, where most of my relatives in Hong Kong live. We also went to Hong Kong Housing Authority offices in Ho Man Tin (next to Ho Man Tin Estates) and saw an interesting exhibit on public housing projects in Hong Kong, especially with models of apartments and complexes in the New Territories. They also had a mini-exhibit on the changing doors and washrooms of the public housing units that are designed by the HKHA’s architects. One of the architects for HKHA also showed us the changing building forms (for periodically different purposes) for public housing projects. I never realized how the shape of a building could either facilitate or inhibit communication and ‘neighbourly’ habits. Especially in a city like Hong Kong, I can see how the building design would be so important and can be an effective way of observing social norms. The next day, we went to the Urban Renewal Authority in Sheung Wan. We heard from a very interesting presenter, Michael Ma, who showed us a lot of the URA’s initiatives in preserving cultural landmarks (but beyond the façade, and more towards the purpose and the understanding of the history of a place or a region or a building). Someone named Wilfred also brought my group and Henry and Wendy to the Central Oasis after the presentation, because the other group was going to interview Michael for their documentary. We went to the escalators that are iconic in Tony Leung and Faye Wong’s part of Chungking Mansion and saw hawker stands that were in the old style as well as in the new style designed by the architect with us at the URA room (I forgot his name…maybe it was Edward?). It was a nice walk around the area because locals own the hawker stalls and they sell a diverse variety of items, from incense to records to fruits, and it was quite lively. But our group was in a hurry to get back to HKU for our own interview with Hayne that day. We ended up having a pretty good interview with Hayne back at school and we went for a late lunch at Triple O’s in Pacific Place in Admiralty. Everyone was satisfied with the taste of Vancouver, and we even met the owner of the Triple O’s chain in Asia! It’s amazing what a small act (taking a photo of the Triple O’s sign) can tell a person about a complete stranger. I guess there are some really defining characteristics of Vancouverites after all!

 

Like I said, it’s been a really long week. After late lunch with Hayne, our group stayed around Admiralty until we went to a late buffet dinner at the Holiday Inn in Tsim Sha Tsui with my relatives, who were also going to bring us to the fruit market in Yau Ma Tei that late evening. It was a pretty good meal overall at Holiday Inn (the Holiday Inn in Hong Kong is definitely much fancier than what we have in Vancouver), there was even a sashimi bar and a mini Häagen-Dazs freezer. The fruit market was a good time. A lot of fruit that we take for granted in Vancouver is really expensive in Asia. All berries are basically luxury goods. After shopping around, we ended up purchasing a box of mangoes, a box of cherries, and two watermelons. The first time I came to the fruit market was in December, and I couldn’t believe that a fruit market could be so alive at night in Hong Kong. It gets busier as the night progresses, and the people are all very familiar with each other and it’s a place I could get lost in. There’s nothing to compare it to in Vancouver, except maybe the community in the Downtown Eastside, but in a completely different context and gathering purpose.

 

One more interview tomorrow and then crunch time!!!