Coming Back From Hong Kong—II

Let me continue on the remaining two aspects of HK.

Living:

HK is notorious for its limited living space. So I came prepared, expected to be squeezed and squashed, but apparently I survived okay.

I think people in America normally don’t realize how wasteful we are. Yeah sure we shop at Costco and we invented Wal-Mart. But we are wasteful in every other regard. Everyone sort of “pity” me when they heard I live in a 600 sq ft apartment. Until my friend I-Ching came to visit. She thinks my place is oversize (oversized?!?!), not surprising if she just lived in Tokyo for the last 3 years coz everything is relative! So after living in US and NZ for a total of 12 years, where space is never a concern, HK did seem very crowded.

My experience is limited to the one apartment at Paul’s folks live. It is definitely at the top tier if not the cream of the crop, so what I see might be a bit biased. Albeit its size, it is definitely very well planned out. Besides the gym facility, which isn’t that attractive since I never exercise, I love the fact there are magazines reading lounge as well as a library (like I ever read?!?!) The bus stops are always right beneath the high-rise so less chance for you to become the road kill by a bus, at least not around your neighborhood, I guess. Shops are usually within walking distance, same with every other Asian countries, but what’s interesting is how HK has brought the shops into underground, so the basement of your apartment could also be a shopping mall or supermarket. Pretty neat for someone who hates making special trips to supermarkets (and that’d be me) or someone who absolutely loves going to supermarkets (and that’d be Paul).

Well, there’s always a downside to everything. What I didn’t like about what I saw, is how half the nation is hanging the flags outside their windows. And no, I’m not talking about patriotism like those displayed by fellow Americans (which I don't agree with also, I simply dispise patriotism), I’m talking about pragmatism like hanging your yellow-stained panties right next to your next door’s grandma’s bra. I’ve seen it in other countries but never in such a right-in-your-face kind of fashion. But I guess it was that manner that made it almost like an art form. But I guess from the pragmatic HK style, why pay for extra space like a patio when you can hang your clothes for free in the public space?!

Oh, and one big gigantic minus point for indoor smoking allowed in HK. OK, maybe it’s not allowed everywhere but I saw lots of people smoking indoors and I saw this one guy smoking in an elevator. Maybe that’s why the whole city seemed to be very hazy. But somehow HK managed to work around this fogginess and make the city looks more mysterious.

Commuting:

I always notice how there is no fat guy in Asia (and girls are obsessively thin). Transportation is very convenient in HK, the most common transportation form is always accessible 24/7—your feet. Except for cars (which has been an indispensable item to me for years), there’re abundant choices in HK: subways, ferries, buses and taxi. But to here and there and in-between, your feet are still the one thing you have to rely on for the most part.

There’s this one cool feature I have to mention about HK’s transportation system. This one deserves a blog of its own at my techie site but unfortunately I don’t have one so here’s a brief mentioning. They made your life a lot easier with a prepaid card called the Bah Dah Tong (I think the English name is Octopus, meaning you’re with eight feet which allows you to go anywhere with this card). Sure, prepaid card isn’t so unique, but this card allows one to take ferries, buses and subways, and what’s more, you can also buy newspapers at a convenience store, and eat your lunch at a fast food chain restaurants! And they even apply the system for school kids so they can clock in and probably eat lunch at cafeteria with lunch money too. This is definitely something to be adopted on a worldwide basis!

Going back to the walking, HK is very well designed for walking. There’s the underground passages (so you don’t get run over), and the overbridge (so you don’t get run over). And like I mentioned early on, the bus stops are usually at the ground level of a major building (so you don’t get run over)! It is truly essential in HK because (note!!) drivers don’t stop for pedestrians!! And that included the double-deck bus driver who toured me around the city! (To fully exploit the benefit of being the first-time tourist, I sat at the first row of the second deck, greedily moving my eye balls checking out things around me, and almost saw the very road kill that Hong Kong city government is so eager to prevent).

But hope you didn’t get me wrong, I don’t think Hong Kong is in any disorder or being rude. Growing up in Taiwan, I learned very early on that you never mess with the Taxi driver. In US, you simply don’t mess with anyone because you have no idea who's going to turn into a nutcase, could be the lady driving in a Mercedes, or someone walking with a stick. In Hong Kong, I didn’t get any sense of that feistiness. It only seems to me that everyone is just minding their business and if you cannot follow the order, you get killed and no one is going to turn around and look at you. They’re just too busy, that’s all.

Of course I’m only exaggerating, I don’t know what’s on their mind or the whole culture all that well. After all, I was only a tourist in HK, minding my own business and tried not to get run over.

I guess this concludes my short albeit exciting HK visit and next time I’d like to share with you my day trip to Vegas on the CES (Consumer Electronic Show). So stay tuned.