Em.'s In & Outs

Today I am two weeks in starting my exchange! This is my first summer semester ever and I must admit I am struggling with balancing out fun and study. But let's start from the beginning...

We had an orientation at the beginning of the CUHK International Summer School (International Asian Studies Programme) - long name! There are about 150 students from around the world, the majority being Singaporian or Chinese Canadian. We got to know one another on the first day by enjoying some ostentatious meals and walking around the city. I finally went to the Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong from which you can see the whole city. Breathtaking! I met my ''to-date'' best friend, Mark, in Stanley Market (a touristy shopping area nearby a beach), when I was heading towards the military cemetary to check it out. Hong Kong has a very interesting history, and here are burried many Chinese who died to prevent the British to take possession of the Island during the Opium Wars, and yet many more who died fighting for the Union Jack during World War II.

After the official orientation, a large group of us went to Lai Kwai Fong, which is the clubbing district par excellence here in Hong Kong. It is a crazy crazy place, with so many people in the streets (lots of foreigners!) and many venues to enjoy some TsingTao beer (including the street itself - it's legal!). We had a good time, came back at 4 a.m. and got in trouble our first night. Congrats!

The first week of school I spent mostly with Yishin and Steph, as the former was gonna go back to Toronto soon. I will keep good memories of our visit to the Li Po Chun United World College, which is right on the other side of the harbor from my university, and which is where Yishin went to school for I.B. Such a great place; after having a chat with her tutor, it really gave me the taste for becoming a UWC teacher in India! So inspiring! It's good though, we've been goig around, and I am very grateful for my friends to take me around with their friends and family, I feel like I am not too secluded, which is an impression that I get when I look at most foreigners here, unfortunately.

The campus here is very very very pretty. Nothing Oxfordish like U of T, but rather the campus is located on a mountain! Literally! The best way to go from one point to another is to use series of staircases or elevators throughout buildings! The road is so steep and the campus so large that CUHK actually has a shuttle bus running throughout it! Isn't that nuts? But it's good, the panorama from the roof of the residence is stunning, with the Tolo Harbor and the mountains! I can't wait to go for a hike or a bike ride. Soon! So far I have been taking full advantage of the outdoors Olympic swimming pool and the yummy canteen next to it. I'm getting to tennis next week, I'm going to try to verify the hypothesis that states I'm really bad at tennis is Canada but rock at it elsewhere lol

My roomate on residence, Zhao Xin, is very very sweet! She did not come until 4 days into the program, and I was sincerely worrying I would not have a roomate! But she came! She's from Beijing (Pékin), she studies finance and she's very pretty and generous. She helps me with my Mandarin homework - which are killing me! - and I in turn help her with her English! ... I love languages

I have met some really nice people down here. I am convinced more than ever that the people make the trip, not the places! I have met some nice Honkies (no offense!) in my courses, and they have been super helpful in showing me the real student life here at CUHK (= instant noodles, lemon pie, and horlicks (a malted nutritional drink!)). This girl I met in Econ class is coming to Shenzhen (at the border of mainland China) with us later today, it's so good to have someone who can speak Cantonese! Thanks Vris! There is another guy in Econ class from Northern China, he is insanely smart, his name is Alex and he's very nice and helps me with my putonghua and introduced me to ''bamboo forest fighting music''. Xiexie Alex! I'll never forget them.

I met two really nice foreign students in the programme, their names are Mita and Mark. Mita is from Madagascar and she now lives in Paris, and we've been hanging out for bit. Mark is from Malaysia and we can talk about absolutely everything, it's lots of good time! Also, I met Maria, who's another girl from U of T, and she's also very nice. I seem to get along with people whose names start by M ah ah. Mita and I went to Macau together last week-end; Macau is a former Portuguese colony that has the same status as Hong Kong, that is, a ''Special Administrative Region'' of China. It was interesting, there are lots of casinos there and the government is getting over 50% of its revenues from gambling.

A word or two about courses now! I am officially taking three couses (the limit) and I am auditing another one. I am taking Economy of China, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Region and Mainstream Chinese Philosophical Thoughts. And I sit in the Intermediary Mandarin class (which is everyday). I have put much more efforts in learning mandarin than in any other course (I have nightwares of complicated characters!), although they are, in general, very interesting. I learn a lot here, although I have really long days and when I'm all done, all I feel like is some good noodles and good conversations. But homework is starting to kick in and there are assignments and exams nearby, so I will get myself together soonish :0 Hopefully!

The University is bringing us on field trips in the week-ends when we want to. Last week-end, on the St-Jean-Baptiste day (Québec national day woooohoooo! I celebrated at the tea house rather than around the fire this year!), we went to a really cool contemporary art museum and to a temple, where we enjoyed some good vegetarian food! It was good, although this week-end, Mita, Mark and I are skipping the Ocean Park trip to go to Guilin, a city in the Guangxi province of China which is known throughout the country for its beautiful sceneries. I am told it's a backpackers' paradise. I just hope we can get the train ticket for the ride! 15 hours aiya!

So I am still not clear with any future plans (for when school ends as I still have 2 and a half weeks here in Asia), but I will write as soon as it gets together! Allright, that's it for today!

Here are some pictures that I hope some of you will enjoy! I'm working on an official photo essay at the moment with Mark, and something creative shall come out of that joint venture!

As a side note, I've been increasingly interested in multimedia recently. The reasons why there are few pictures on the blog at this point are because 1) I'm slightly lazy and 2) my camera plays me tricks of not accepting the batteries I buy for her! On the other hands I've been fooling around with my video quite a bit recently and I am hoping to get some stills out of there once I get back to Canada (my computer here isn't good enough, sorry...). My goal is to make a short music-video dubbing a Chinese song onto the footage I took during this memorable summer in Asia. It probably won't be of the caliber of my inspirations in photo and film, but it will be first step to get more familiar with filming, with will sure help in my project of shooting a documentary on placement next year...


P.S. More photos on my Flickr if any of you are interested.

So this is going to be a very long post; I actually needed to write up an outline so I won't forget any of the crunchy details! I'm at the library now so I can't put any pictures up yet, but shall put them shortly.

Things are still good here, it's quite rainy, there is lots of smog. Apparently the only days with clear sky in HK are when mainlanders get their annual week-of; they close all the factories...

I have been spending some time with Steph and her parents (which were all very helpful to help me translate pictograms and drew me maps!) On Monday we went to the Ladies' Market in Mong Kok (a prime shopping place for young people!) then we had dinner at her grand-parents', which was very nice! Usually families get together on Sunday for dinner, but then this was an exception. I was thrilled to see buddist offerings; oranges put under the shrine of gods.

So I moved to Wan Chai for a bit, to stay with Chris. I like it there; it was originally pretty much all under water, before people start demolishing mountains to create more lands with the rocks! It has a lot of really nice, colorful and charming buildings, which make HK a less cold urban landscape than I first imagined. Unfortunately the government is demolishing many of these buildings in its ''urban renewal'' policy; they want to construct more modern (i.e. smaller) appartment blocks to accomodate all the immigration. The population here is expected to grow far past carrying capacity soon because of the hand-over. It's quite puzzling.

The other night we went to the Temple st night market with Min, a friend who works for Armani and really likes fashion. There was lots of cools stuff, but the highlight were the many fortune tellers, some who take a bird to pick up a piece of paper to tell you what your future looks like! Strange! You can find anything there, from fans (you know the foldable ones are for men only? duh!), incent, perfumes that you sniff, masks to electric plugs, video games, etc.

The other day I walked around Hollywood rd, which is a place famous for its antiques and arts. It looks like the Old Quebec city! And it is located where the central to mid-level escalators are; they're the world's largest escalators and they dominate small streets with really nice staircases. Pretty!

Besides that I have seen a lot of ''wet markets'' ( open-air markets) with lots of interesting vegetables and live animals waiting to be sold or slaughtered. People are scared avian flu will come from there; it's weird here you see people with masks all the time because they don't want to contaminate the air with their sneezing! In these markets there's also lots of dry fish, chinese medicine, and herbal tea to rebalance your yin and your yan when you feel too hot (but it's so bitter pouah!).

In the past days I have been riding countless ferries and visited 2 islands. I first had sea food with Chris on Cheng Chau island, which is famous for its bun festival, in which people climb some really tall structure to get to a bun on top! But my favorite favorite one is Lamma island, a place with no cars, only bicycles and a apparently very closely knit community of hippies that enjoy African drumming! The beaches are great, the streets are pretty and the Bookworm Cafe restaurant is very friendly; the ideal place to read the Count of Monte Cristo or a Nietzsche dialog!

I have been to a couple parks and museums too. In general I am a bit disappointed by these official tourist spots; the zoological garden, for instance, just had a jaguar, which spends its time sleeping. But bah, it's okay... One exception though is the History Museum, which has some really cool ethnography of the people here and how they got there (a lot escaped persecution from barbarians tribe to the north or came here after being expelled by the Communist Party because of their assets) throughout the years. I have yet to see the exhibits on the Opium Wars and British colonization, which I surely won't miss at it is so crucial to understand how things are here.It's strange to think that Asia's World City was first financed by drugs. Ah la la.

Around the place where I'm staying (more particularly, in Central), there are some quite cool buildings (thanks to Chris for the info). There's an office that has tons of circular windows that people call the ''100 assholes'' building :) Then the HSBC bank has the coolest building that can be taken apart and moved block by block (like Lego!). It has a system of mirrors inside so that during the day it does not require electricity for lighting! In front of the building, there are two lion statues that have little holes in them; a souvenir from the Japanese occupation. Everybody seems to hate the Japanese but the youth like their fashion and music. And then the Bank of China. People say the building looks like a knife and the two antennas resemble the chopsticks people plant in encent when someone dies. Everybody also seems to hate mainland China. I wonder how much real change happened in Hong Kong since the 1997 hand-over (from which it stopped being administered by Britain and went back to China). I heard that freedom of press went down and that red tape starts to appear, although visible signs of protest are hard to identify. It's seems to be a temporary situation before the 2050s, in which HK is supposed to be more fully assimilated to the rest of China.

Besides that, I heard some really interesting folklore and superstitions. I can't remember some of the ones I was told, but one cool one was that when you cook fish, you're not supposed to turn it or else it is believed that all the fishing boats will turn over and sink! Woah hey. Actually, I have yet to get the story straight about the Monkey King story; it is one of the most well-known stories here, and after watching yet another Stephen Chow movie I can't wait to find out what it's really about!

One thing that surprised me was the institution of the Filipino maids. Many women from South-East Asia come to work here as domestic helpers, and they form the most important diaspora here in HK. I am told their hiring conditions vary; sometimes they are really well treated and sometimes their employers fire them just before they're supposed to give them a bonus in order to help them return home. Sunday is their day off, and you can see Filipinos having picnics all over the streets, it's quite special to see that!

Also, hummmmmm, the food here is the best I've ever had! Lots of dumplings, yummy instant noodles, pork chops, baked rice, great dessert. It is paradise here with the coriander, ginger, coco milk and curry, ahhhh, I just won't get over it!

So now my friend Yishin is in town for a week (having immigration visa problems, so we'll spend more time hanging out...!), and with Steph and Chris we're going to the famous Chung King Mansion, which is at the origin of a even more famous movie, Chung King Express. More than just a restaurant with all possible kinds of curries, it is a place where apparently lots of ''magouille'' goes on with drug dealers or ''business'' visitors that come to buy second-hand junk and resell it in developing countries to make an aweful lot of profit. I'm very excited to visit :)

Finally, things are good, tomorrow I'm moving to the University to start my courses on Monday... I think i'm starting to see beyond the first impressions and to realize what's behind the apparent shopping ( 2-3 times a week for the average HKer!) and eating. I can't wait to find out more. :)

Here is a brief account of my first days in Hong Kong Beach, written as I am stuck inside on this day because of a typhoon! The flight, although 16h long, didn't feel like so long. Flying over Hong Kong was great; there are over 200 islands with nice hills, and many different kinds of boats (like in Battleship lol).

One thing that surprised me is the variety of transportation options! There are I think, 6 or 7 MTR (subway) lines, a fast train going to the New Territories (suburbs), minibuses, tramways, double-deckers buses, three colors of taxis, alouette! And most of the system works with a smart card, the Octopus Card, which charges you on transportation depending on the distance you travel. This is great! The subway is super clean (interdiction of eating and drinking in it!) and the platform has double doors to prevent people from jumping before the train - high suicide rates here I heard!

We spent most of my first day going around the city, on Hong Kong Island next to Causeway Bay, a very vibrant shopping district (one thing : there are as may shopping malls as residential buildings here, I swear!). We went to Holly's favorite shop, GOD, which is the coolest shop ever, it has tons of furniture with really cool designs. After that we took the minibus to Stanley Market, a touristy place with plenty of nice clothing and jewelry which falls out of my budget unfortunately... Oh well, then we spent most of the afternoon sun bathing and swimming in the ocean at Repulse Bay. It was very nice! Then even a yummy curry-coconut dish (my favorite) could not spare me from my jet lag, so it was it! A little bit of Cantonese soap opera and I was fast asleep.

I was very surprised at how efficient everything is here. The service in restaurants is very fast, and the roads are a human masterpiece; it takes plently engineering skills to design a road system for a 7 million people community surrounded by water and mountains! Everything is built vertically; there are layers and layers of stuff to look at (especially advertising, a thing at which Hong Kongers ace!). I have never seen so many air conditioning devices at once in my entire life. Although living in relatively small flats, people really know how to make the most out of the space they have, a lesson from which many of us could learn...

The second day was a bit different, as both Steph and her mom were off to work. From my part, I roamed around the Asian's New York (did you know Hong Kong had a ''Time Square'' and a ''World Trade Centre''?), mostly in Tsim Sha Tsui (TST), a neighbourhood located next to the main harbor. I feel in love with the Kowloon Park, with it's huge, colorful birds, fish and trees. It is very relaxing, and there is always a noise or a smell to stimulate one' senses! I walked around next to the sea where the most famous ferry is (the Star Ferry), and along the Star Avenue, a place where you can see the hand prints of such people as Jet Li and Jackie Chan! It was pretty enjoyable! I got some nice shots on the camera, and I was wanting to visit some museums but they were closed (on a Thursday! hummm).

At dinner time I met up with Chris, my friend's Holly's friend, with which I will be living starting tomorrow. He's super nice, and he has the nicest British accent (although we can't really understand each other too well lol) and he has the coolest job ever; teaching English to little babies! Anyways, he showed me around Wan Chai, a downtown area were lots of the foreigners live and hang out at night (it's closed to Central, the renowned club / pub place). After dinner we went to meet up two of his friends, Shaun and ?Raymond? for one of the most bizarre evenings I had in a long time. We were in this Italian bar with all male expats gathered to prepare the World Cup first day by, I swear, taking 10 rounds of a... Football Quiz! In a pub! If that's not culture shock, then I wonder what it is lol But is was fun.

All in all, things are good, I have yet to be enrolled in the Triads (local criminalized group) ah ah. :)

This week I spent travelling around Central Canada in a quest to figuring out more about my upcoming internship. It started in Montréal from monday-wednesday, where the Canadian Institute of Foreign Service provided a group of development workers of all ages with applied, hands-on examples of intercultural communications. Our group was very nice, it was facilitated by Jocelyne, the Director of the Centre for Intercultural Learning herself, I met a quatuor of interesting men off for a project with Développement International Desjardins (a great potential employer for all interested in microcredit!) in Haiti, as well a girl that took the International Baccalaureate at Garneau CÉGEP a year before me. World is small! I enjoyed most of the training sessions, and they honestly were useful to provide a framework for analyzing cross-cultural encounter. We were brought to experience a life exerience of the Boal Theater of the Oppressed, which I heard about so much in Brazil. I was nevertheless bewildered at the luxery of the whole training; three nights in an executive suite, with generous daily allowances and a 35$ reiumbursement for dinner! Food for thought... Besides that I took my nights off to have an excellent evening with my aunt Jozée and to see my good friend Greg, which took me out to witness in person the official ending of the smoking era in restaurants and bars in the province of Québec! We went bar hopping in the Village, on larger-than-life outdoors patio at the Saint-Sulpice, on a rooftop with an amazing view and spas at the Sky Bar and then to enjoy a great show at Mado's drag queen house!

After the CIL training ended, I grabbed a ride with a Guinean colleague and his very funny Québecer counterpart; they have been working on contracts together for 13 years, and their down-to-earth, pragmatic and sociable mentality gave me some hope for the future in such a career. I was dropped off in Ottawa to continue with a WUSC-specific training. I was surprised to see that many staff from the CECI came all the way from Montréal to meet and chat with their new interns. Their warmth and welcoming will be remembered. Even if the time was getting lenghtly, the training was useful and to-the-point. I can now say that I understand more about how things are going to happen next year while on placement with Uniterra – what seemed at first like a bureaucratic puzzle now appears more intelligible. We were given a very dynamic session on public engagement, which really gave me the taste for getting involved with my home community when I get back. The highlight of the two days : we watch a short video realized by the U.S. Peace Corps, and it was talking about how 5 of them contracted HIV AIDS during their overseas assignment. None of them got it in a careless one-night stand; they all were in a long term relationship with someone they got to trust, then their guards went down, and now, they're dead. Food for thought...

On Thursday night I was lucky enough to catch my busy friend Sara. We went for dinner, and a walk around downtown Ottawa (or, sorry, at least twice throughout it). She was off to Cuba for a semester (see her blog) and I feared I would not see her again for years. It was great to reconnect with each other's projects and thoughts. Speaking thereof, I also saw MEG, Zoé and Nathalie during this past week-end in Montréal. It was honestly so strange because everything seemed all natural; walking around in this beautiful, vibrant city I will one day for sure make my own, going out for a movie, smoking shisha, attending to the tam-tam jam on the Mont-Royal, having ice cream in the Jean-Talon market, ... to then come back to MEG's place to finish packing, shower and take a 4 hours sleep to catch the airport shuttle. Here I am now in Neward, New Jersey, after having gone through the nightmare of U.S. customs, waiting for my next connection which will lift me up in the sky for a fair 16 hours before I meet with Stephanie and Chris in Hong Kong!