61 Years of the People's Republic

It's been busy here in Hong Kong this week, although next week's looking even busier.  Before I get into upcoming events, though, I'll offer y'all a little recap of current events.  As you can guess, most of the week was class, followed by class, and rounded out with a little more class.  My Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are quite relaxed schedule-wise, but it all comes at the expense of my Thursdays.  Since this week was the beginning of our tutorials for "Political Economy of Asia," my Thursday schedule will now be full of class from 8:30am to 5:30pm with a one-hour break for lunch.  Ain't life grand?  Yikes.  At least my whole morning is full of stuff I love:  politics, economics, and Asia.  I've learned way more than I ever expected in the last few days about Taiwanese revolutionary politics in the 1980s.

So, to make a long story short, I trudged through my Thursday classes as my allergies began revving up with the fall weather and my brain shutting down from the sleep deprivation (caused by said allergies).  I cannot express how thankful I was for having Friday off.  With the Mid-Autumn Festival just last week, you would think Chinese holiday season would be over now...but you'd be wrong.  On the first day of October 61 years ago, the Cultural Revolution produced what is now known as the People's Republic of China.  Therefore, every October 1st is National Day.  Obviously, the PRC has been at it for a while, but Hong Kong's relatively new at it seeing as how the British didn't return it to China until 1997.

As for National Day...well, people have mixed feelings about celebrating it.  Since Hong Kong was very recently still an official colony of Great Britain, most Hong Kongers don't harbor much patriotism towards the People's Republic.  True, Hong Kongers still think of themselves as "Chinese," but they don't feel particularly attached to the Chinese government.  It's not any kind of resentment.  I think it's just a natural reaction to the "One Country, Two Systems" policy.  It's hard to celebrate the Cultural Revolution when you've never been affected by it.

Of course, the government over here figured out how to make Hong Kong thankful:  give them a public holiday!  Mainlanders actually get the entire week off, which is crazy because they all go traveling with (of course) Hong Kong as the destination.  However, we humble exchange students take holidays when and where we can get them.  With Friday off, it only made sense to party Thursday night.

The International Student Association (ISA) decided to have a big BBQ at Shek'O Island, which is one of Hong Kong's most famous beaches.  It took 2 hours to get there:  we changed MTR lines 3-4 times and took a bus for 30 minutes.  It was already dark when we arrived, but everything was already prepared...and well-marked:

Random tidbit of humor:  nobody actually spells out "barbecue" here so a lot of Hong Kongers actually pronounce it "bee bee cue," and have no idea that this is not the real word.

And, yes, if you were wondering, we did have meat--a lot of it--but thankfully there were all kinds of delicious vegetables and bread too.  I love me some grilled bell peppers and grilled corn.  Turns out grilled Chinese plain-buns are tasty too.

After the first round of food, we decided to go play at the beach:

It was really remote so there weren't a lot of city lights around:

This was the best shot that I could get of the waves.  I'm glad I didn't get too wet.  Amy, Jeang Bin, and Sue were starting to play it rough and wound up soaked.

Of course, good food draws company.  We had 2 small visitors of the feline variety.  I tried to make nice, but a lot of other people did too...at the same time.  The kitties promptly disappeared.

I really like hanging out with the ISA kids.  You always meet the most interesting people, and a lot of them speak Mandarin--especially the ones from Singapore, Malaysia, or Indonesia.  We were late getting back, but it was OK since we could all sleep in on Friday.

So how did I celebrate my National Day?  Studying for statistics.  I have a super-early midterm this coming Wednesday.  I don't expect it to be difficult, but it will be my first actual test at CUHK so I would rather go in over-prepared than otherwise.  After studying for statistics, I did statistics homework.  Even more fun, right?

It's OK, because my day does have a redeeming feature, and that is going to Tsim Sha Tsui (pronounced "Chim Sha Choy"), more commonly known amongst English-speakers as TST.  As far as I'm concerned, it might as well be called "Little India."  This is a good thing, though, believe me.

Anyway, I met up with Su, Teresita, Eleanor, Yoana, Phoenix, Ivy, and around 12 or 13 other people at East TST station.  We had a big group.  I met some more new people (both exchange students and locals), and made new friends.  We took our giant group over to this building called Chung King Mansion, which has a lot of restaurants and shops--all of which convince me that I've seen a sneak preview of Mumbai.  We came to the restaurant that I didn't catch the name of, and had some most excellent (and super spicy!) Indian food.  I will return.

Once we finished dinner, we walked a short distance to the Avenue of Stars.  Yes, it is based off the one in Hollywood because not-surprisingly Hong Kong has yet another nickname:  The Hollywood of Asia.  There's a big statue of Bruce Lee, but I didn't get to see it this time because the crowds were huge.  You see, every year since 1997 (when Hong Kong was handed over, you recall), there's been a huge fireworks show over Victoria Harbour.  You can see the fireworks best from the Avenue of Stars.  I tried to take a picture of the sign, but that's when tragedy struck.

Below you can see the last picture taken by my beloved camera, may it rest in peace (Go figure I get photo-bombed):

As you probably know, my camera has been dying since the Liu Sanjie Impression Show in Yangshuo.  Since that major malfunction, it has gotten slower and less reliable.  I also think the picture quality has lessened somewhat, but maybe that's because I've had to use the manual viewfinder.  Anyway, as I snapped my first picture of the evening, it croaked.  I'm glad that the pictures I was planning to take were only of fireworks--not of anything really cool or specific to Hong Kong.  I had a fun time at the show regardless, and we all got crammed into the MTR like sardines on the way back.  It was another night of getting in late.

Since I was so tired, I intended to sleep in this morning, but my allergies decided that this was not meant to be.  By 8:30am I had simply given up so I made my morning oatmeal (finishing up the package), and skyped home.  Well, I sort of skyped home.  As Mom and Dad know, my allergies also decided to rob me of both my sleep and my voice.  I'm a little better off than I was this morning, but I still sound like Frog Vader.  We just kind of IMed back and forth.

Around lunchtime I went to buy a new camera (yes, I did my research), and wound up with my new baby:  http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666073335.  Once I'm used to it, I'm sure it will earn some kind of nickname...just like all my favorite electronics.  So, if the next pictures I post look different, that's why.