Freshman year at USC
Summer at CUHK
Sophomore year at CUHK
Summer at CUHK
Junior year at USC
Summer in the US
Senior year at CUHK
Summer in China or Hong Kong
So basically there's some major back-and-forth going on.
Anyway, for those of you who maybe haven't talked to me in a while, here's an update about exactly why I'm in this program. I'm double-majoring in International Business and Economics. Hopefully, a minor in Chinese will also work out for me. If you don't know why I'm pursuing Chinese in relation to International Business, I suggest you take a long look at who exactly owns all that government debt we're shouldering.
So, moving on...
I finished up freshman year at USC--and in tip-top shape if I say so myself. Now it's time for that whole summer at CUHK thing. Well, I'm here. I got in last night (Thursday morning for all you Eastern Time Zone people), and today was my first full day in Hong Kong.
What did I do? you may ask. The answer: orientation. However, unlike the week long festivities and general feeling of let's-get-this-over-with that was so prevalent at the USC orientation last year, orientation here seems quite short, sweet, and to the point.
The first major plus was that orientation didn't even start until 10:15am. Now is that cool or what? Some of us got up early enough to grab breakfast. Kuo Mou Hall, the dorm next to ours (Student Hostel II--High Block) is supposed to have a dining hall, but the summer hours are ridiculous so only the vending machines were available. Instead six of us took the shuttle bus down to the Benjamin Franklin Centre, which is the Student Union.
That place has everything! Just from what I saw, there was a hair salon, book store, 2 banks, grocery store, snack shop (which are apparently different?), swimming pool, art museum, restaurants, and so on and so forth. So we stopped in one of the restaurants for breakfast. I got what was described as "Sausage, ham, fried egg & butter toast with lemon water." I got the fried egg and the butter toast, but the sausage and ham were actually pan-fried hot-dog and sandwich meat. The lemon water also had some sugar in it, which I didn't expect or particularly desire. Still, altogether not a bad breakfast considering what it cost me. HK$11.5 sounds expensive for a breakfast, but considering the exchange rate between HK$ and US$, the meal actually cost me a cool US$1.48. I think I could get used to this. The food was excellent considering what we paid for it, and the service wasn't half-bad either.
We got back to the dorm by 10:15am and met Nikki and Shadow, our orientation guides. They took us to the Fong Shu Chuen Building for a little official welcoming along with all the other summer studies people. It seems like there are a lot more people studying Cantonese this year than Mandarin, which I'm told is unusual. We got the "Laws to Know" and "Safety in Hong Kong" talks as well as free Vitasoy Drink. I did not partake. From the looks on the faces of my classmates, I think I made the right decision.
At the Fong Shu Chuen Building, I met a guy from Vancouver. He was really friendly, and he told me that he had grown up speaking Mandarin at home with his parents, but they wanted him to come for a summer program here to polish up his skills. It's probably unnecessary to say he's at a much higher level than me. It was nice, though, when he asked if I wanted to practice my Mandarin with him. I said yes and he immediately started talking. Why is it that some people change their volume when they change languages? He was perfectly audible when speaking English, but apparently Mandarin was meant to be mumbled? I don't know. Thank goodness most Chinese people seem to speak very VERY loudly. I did feel kind of dumb when I had to keep asking him what he had just said because it was always something simple and easily at my level. I have just 2 words for that...zao gao.
After that we went on a little walk over to a restaurant called the Orchid Lodge. I don't know what the prices are at that place, but if they're decent, I'm definitely coming back. We were seated at large tables in the downstairs area and served hot lemon tea. You would think that hot tea is not the drink of choice when the outside air constantly feels like the bathroom after a long steamy shower, but the air conditioning here is insanely cold when it's turned on. The tea was great.
After the tea came the dim sum. I should have been faster with the chopsticks, but I still managed to get one of each kind, which came out to 3 different dumplings...all of them positively delicious. When we go back tomorrow, I'm not holding back. Those pork buns are mine. Eventually we ran out of dim sum, but we were immediately served steamed vegetables, tofu and eggplant in soy sauce, fried noodles, and shrimp rice. Needless to say, those dishes didn't last long either. What can I say? I was at a table full of boys. Sorry guys, but leave some dumplings for the girls, will you? Finally, the last dish was our dessert, which was red bean soup. It wasn't too sweet, but it was pretty satisfying...though only about half the table actually liked it.
When lunch came to an end, we took a campus tour. We saw all kinds of neat stuff: the campus chapel, the reflection pool, the koi ponds, the statue of Confucius, and so on and so forth.
But guess what came after the campus tour? A test. That's right, a test. Somehow it seems like a horrible injustice to give a test to a group of students suffering from (in some cases severe) jetlag. The good news is that the test was, in fact, a pre-test, which will be used to assess how much progress we've made after the summer program. It was all on a computer where we were asked questions in Chinese and given a certain amount of time to respond as well as we could. I admittedly felt a little bad telling the electronic voice that I knew where the movie theater was in relation to the bookstore, but I couldn't give her directions because I didn't remember how to say "walk straight one block then turn left." At least the voice didn't have an opportunity to guilt-trip me for being mean to it.
After the test we bought textbooks. I have no idea why some of my books for the summer are "Kung Fu: Book I" and "Kung Fu: Book II." However, after perusing them a little, I still have seen no signs of learning martial arts. Darn.
One guy and most of the girls, including me, took the shuttle down to the grocery store after getting our textbooks. The Park n' Shop is ironically named because there is almost as little room to park as there is to shop. The store is actually pretty decently sized, but the aisles are ridiculously cramped. There was a lot of fun stuff there, but I just stuck mostly with what I know: apples, blueberries, Coca-Cola Light (which is Diet Coke), microwaveable red bean buns, and toilet paper because our HALL BATHROOMS didn't have any. Not a single stall had a roll. My TP stays in my room and I'm not sharing because those little travel packs of Kleenex can only last so long. Believe me.
A lot of people wanted to go out and party tonight, but there are several reasons I didn't go.
(1) They wanted to go to New Sha Tin Town, which is fine but we're going there on Sunday anyway. We're here for 14 months so what's the rush?
(2) Drinking age in Hong Kong is 18. We're 19. Do the math. I don't drink...even IF I can. Ironically, I know of only 3 expensive things in Hong Kong, and they are real estate, gambling, and drinking. As of right now, I don't know what their concrete plans are, but winding up in a bar is not out of the question. It's perfectly legal and I have no issues with hanging out in bars, but I'm the kind of nerd who would take the Dragon Boat Festival over the Dragon Eye Club any day. Sorry guys. Maybe next time.
(3) Today, June 4th, is the anniversary of Tiananmen Square and let's just say there's some late-night political activism going on that we've been advised to steer clear of. I couldn't agree more.
(4) Most importantly, it wasn't until a few hours ago that I was able to really establish contact with my family and loved ones back home. My phone doesn't work here and we couldn't access the Internet until this evening so I was only able to borrow a friend's phone last night to send a quick text message, which I wasn't even sure my parents got. In other words, I had a Skype date or two that I couldn't miss without a severely guilty conscience.
Anyway, I made contact with the family and all is well on the home-front. Tomorrow is IBCE orientation, and we're meeting at the train station at 12:20pm to head back over to the Orchid Lodge. I think tomorrow's stuff is pretty short so hopefully that will be a good time to get familiar with Hang Seng Bank and open an account. Mom, Dad, I'll let you know when you can wire me all that wonderful birthday money.
Here are just a few pictures from today for your enjoyment:
Sorry for the lack of pictures with me in them. I know there are some parents and grandparents reading this that might like some of those. Unfortunately, the person taking the pictures has a strange tendency not to appear in them. Imagine that. Well, I'll see about rectifying that in the near future. In the meantime, goodbye America and hello Hong Kong.
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