The Minor Adjustments

Pictures: The beautiful indoor mall, the food I made, me getting my hair chopped, the girls hanging out in the pantry (kitchen) after we topped the meal off with some Oreos

Showering: the girls are very modest here and so it is a big “no no” to run to and from your room in a towel when showering. So, I now learn to take all my clothes and towel to the bathroom so as not to offend the other girls who don’t want to see my white legs.

Loudspeaker: There is a serious invasion of privacy here in that every night at about 11 there is an announcement. You know like in middle school when you got a morning new bulletin? Except this is college and it is pretty late and they don’t make you say the pledge of allegiance but instead force you to listen to “cantopop” (pop music in Cantonese) for a solid two minutes. Not ideal for studying…then again, nothing here really seems to be.

Mahjong: For those of you who lived in Stebbins with me you should recall my domino playing tendencies. They have a game here that all the people on my floor come together to play in the pantry. Sound carries loudly through the halls but even still, I know when they are playing this game because mixing around the tiles makes quite a sound! I have been told it is like gin rummy and that if I can learn which Chinese symbols stand for which numbers then I am set. It is my goal to know how to play it by the end of the semester.

The buses: There are minibuses here that don’t have designated stopping spots. You have to say “yauh lohk” (please let me get off here) loudly to the driver who will then pull off whenever he can and just plop you off. They drive like madmen but it is cheap (I paid less than $1 to go from one end of the island to the other side). Just don’t ask them to turn up the music and sing loudly to it (Alison learned the hard way).

Boba tea and street food: I haven’t actually tried the various street food available. I have been told to be skeptical of it. But I have purchased bubble tea (otherwise known as Boba) here which is scarce here because apparently it is a Taiwanese thing. But I have yet to try to doughy waffles they sell for a buck. I’ll keep you posted…

Cooking food: We have been to the big supermarket here, Wellcome, a few times now. It has a pretty decent selection and due to refrigeration restraints I have to refrain from buying too much. But the other night we decided to make dinner in our little kitchen. So, I basically monopolized on the planning and got salmon, tofu, some fresh veggies (because when you order vegetables here, they are just different) and rice. I cooked the ever so easy yet delicious blackbean/apricot salmon and five of us girls huddled around the table eating our homecooked meal to the sound of Mahjong in the background. The slight adjustment for me here was buying the fish and prepping it. Dad, I think you will appreciate this tidbit the most in that the part of the salmon they were selling was not what I am used to. It had all the bones and skin on and had a little ambiguous circular side part that I was later informed was the “belly”. So, I didn’t cook that but after prepping the fish for what seemed like ages we had significantly less salmon to work with but a first successful meal.

Hair: I let Emma chop mine! I feel pounds lighter and have a new French or potentially Asian hair cut. I figured I would'nt be seeing any of YOU people for a while so why not…

Elevators: You know how they give stats about how long car owners will spend waiting at red lights. I feel like in Hong Kong the stat should be about spending years of your life waiting for elevators here. You know the old tradition of trying to fit as many people into a phone booth as you could? I swear there is some record here for most people squished in an elevator.

Malls: Yesterday was a big shopping day for me although I had little to show for it. The mall we went to was indoor (thankfully because it was pouring) and highly resembled Powell St. Station Mall in SF. We went with a new friend, Rocky, who helped tell us what he thought looked good and what didn’t and who eventually led us to a small complex where he said more of the locals go to shop. Here we found very small boutiques that must have had no more than fifty items of clothes, there was one person watching the store and when you came in they basically watched you look at their clothes. It is awkward but maybe it will dissuade me from buying too much. After this excursion, shopping all day, I wondered whether or not my day could be considered partaking in Hong Kong culture…they do shop a lot.