A trip to Hong Kong (part 9 – final thoughts)

I’ve now written 8 short posts on my exploratory trip to Hong Kong.  I won’t rehash what I’ve covered before, but just to wrap things up I wanted to close with some final comments. I watched YouTube videos on Hong Kong only once I was back home again, so as to be as opened minded as possible and form my own opinion when I was over there. As expected, I found most of these videos dripping with clichés (“East meets West”, etc) and were generally over-positive about the place.

 

Culture shock

 

We are always the most perceptive of the differences with our own home culture during those first few hours on arrival. After that we start to get used to things. Even when I travel back to London from Paris, I notice only in the first few minutes how people dress differently, how shop staff interact with customers differently etc. Arriving in Hong Kong I was struck by the smell of the the hot humid air carrying fragrances of food, spices and rubbish (worse than Singapore, not as bad as Bangkok). I noted the greenery and public spaces, the feeling of safety and lack of graffiti (is that a Western thing?). I was also hit by the noise levels in restaurants. Customer are loud not only with family or friends but even alone with their mobile phones on loud speaker. And the waiters think nothing of shouting at the kitchen staff while standing right next to you. This is part of a more general pattern that the HongKongese are a straightforward, no-nonsense people (not a value judgement, just an observation). One gets the impression that in the unglamorous life of the traditional neighbourhoods, the housewives are hardened by adversity. Their shoes are caked in blood from walking through the meat section at the wet market and they swagger around in old clothes from cheap street markets. Femininity is a quality which has been nudged aside in the tussle of every day survival. 

The suspicion that the HongKongese of the mainlanders often comes up, perhaps exacerbated by the wave of immigration in recent years. Reasons vary. I’ve heard they regard them as uncouth (even more uncouth than HongKongers? – I dread to think!). On the other hand, one lady sitting opposite me in a diner explained that she didn’t like their two-faced insincerity of smiling while hiding their inner thoughts, and she preferred the straightforward authentic interactions in Hong Kong.

 

Disappointing

 

I won’t be rushing back to Hong Kong. The number one frustrating point was the level of English spoken, especially as you get away from the tourist spots. This meant that I couldn’t connect to people on a deeper level – as well as not being able to order what I wanted.

 

Itinerary for a couple of days

 

If one were to spend a couple of days in Hong Kong, let’s say as a quick stopover on the way to Japan or Australia, what would I recommend? Some will no doubt be attracted by the brand shopping but that wouldn’t interest me. I prefer bookshops, and those are few and far between (maybe books take up too much room?). Here’s my recommendation based on the things I’ve seen and mentioned in earlier posts: