When the Rain Comes, Better Have a Yellow Umbrella

If I were to teach a global citizenship program in the US to American kids, I would focus on the themes of Global Governance and Culture.

In America, we have a very skewed sense of values. What I mean by this isn’t that Americans are simply ungrateful or materialistic (Although this is an issue that first world countries generally struggle with, and America is no exception). What I mean is that we take for granted the aspects of our country we should be the most grateful for. The rights to freedom of speech, assembly, expression, and critical thinking about the government are the most valuable rights an American has. Ironically, because we constantly exercise our freedom to criticize the leadership of our country, we seldom take the time to appreciate that we have the right to voice our (unsatisfied) opinion in the first place.

When I first came to Hong Kong, and met the other Asian international interns, something very strange started to happen; They actually seemed to admire America. America, land of the free and home of the brave unless you’re black, poor, or otherwise marginalized or disadvantaged. How could a country that headlines a racism scandal or an obvious miscarriage of justice in law enforcement every other week POSSIBLY be viewed as generally positive from half way around the world?

I’m not saying that America’s issues aren’t condemning, urgent, or imperative. But I am saying that when this part of the world looks across the ocean towards the Statue of Liberty, they do see freedom. And after living in Hong Kong for a month, I’m still only beginning to scratch the surface in terms of figuring out why.

The first thing I had to understand was that Hong Kong has an entirely different identity than mainland China, and the locals here are vehement in maintaining that identity as an entirely separate entity. Since control of Hong Kong was given back to the Chinese government from Britain in 1997, the Hong Kongers have noticed the walls starting to close in on some of the freedoms they enjoyed as a British colony. Let me pause here to say that I’m not trying to pass judgment on British colonialism or the pros/cons of HK being under Chinese or British control, I’m just relaying what I’ve been told by my co-workers who grew up here.

Similar to our Senate, China elects representatives from each province to serve in the government. Keyword: China. For Hong Kong, this means that the local people have no real say in who represents them. Walking around HK, I’ve routinely seen posters of their representatives with their eyes blacked out, or big X’s spray painted over their faces. I’ve also seen the Umbrella Revolution protests, where young-middle aged adults occupy popular areas and peacefully voice their grievances while holding bright yellow umbrellas. I’ve also been told not to get too close or watch for too long, or I could be arrested along with them.

Technically speaking, Hong Kong has freedom of speech, press, and the right to assembly, but everything goes grey once the mainland government gets involved. For example, protesters can be arrested by the HK police force (which many argue is more in the hands of Beijing than the local government), but they cannot be prosecuted, since Hong Kong has a separate legal system to Mainland China. 

Hong Kong and America are not all that dissimilar in terms of revolutionary spirit; You just have to look a little harder in order to see it. Where we would charge towards a human rights violation wielding burning torches, axes, and a gilded copy of the Constitution, the Hong Kongers would find a more subtle way to voice their opinion and push back against the governing body. It’s a very precarious battle the Hong Kong people are fighting, and one that they have to fight with quiet tenacity and an extreme prescience of the possible ramifications of their actions. Change here comes slowly, and ground is gained millimeters at a time, but change does come.

Shit

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before now, but since I got here, I’ve been the only intern not to have a roommate. Which was great for a lot of reasons, but was starting to get just a little bit lonely. Which is why I was SO excited for the arrival of the Australians, one of whom is my new roommate, Chrissy. Now that she’s here, I’m no longer the only western woman in the program. As nice as a fully immersive cultural experience is, sometimes you really just need to sit down with someone and talk about Ed Sheeran and Western television.

Chrissy and Guy arrived with tons of fuzzy koala toys and little gold pins from their YMCA (two of which are now in my possession), and brought a whole new culture to the table.

This is my final week of teaching at the YMCA College, and next week I’ll be going back to one of the family centers for the remainder of my time here. I’m pretty excited about life, but the weather vehemently disagrees. It’s been raining here non-stop all week. I now realize that the ultra-hot, sunny weather I’ve been complaining about was sheer luck, and this awful gray rain (Hello, SU) is, unfortunately, the norm for the summer. But I have hope that it will clear up this weekend.

Yesterday I had western style Spaghetti Bolognese for lunch. This is significant because it’s the first time I’ve had a meal sized dose of gluten since arriving here. I don’t have any sort of gluten issue, but eating the local food and thereby going without it for the past couple of weeks has really given me a new perspective. For one thing, I realize that gluten makes me tired, bloated, thirsty, and more liable to eat more gluten later. For another, eating the pasta and meat sauce felt like the richest, creamiest, heaviest food in the world after eating brothy soups and rice dumplings.

It’s so much easier to cut out processed food here than in the states. Just by eating locally, you really can’t help but eat fairly naturally as well. For example, most nights for dinner I go to the local market and get vegetables in broth, a rice dumpling with a simple meat filling, and maybe a sweet potato roll or bread bun if I’m craving something carb-y. But even the bread here is lighter, steamed, and more natural.

My only major issue with the food here is that all the desserts are gelatinous. If it can’t be steamed, frozen, or set, usually you can’t find it. At this point, I’d give just about anything for flourless chocolate cake, but hey, un-availability of heavy desserts isn’t exactly cause for alarm. Yet.

I did have this awesome steamed coconut the other day; they take the milk and turn it into this awesome pudding. And you eat it out of the coconut.

Alright, one last topic for this post: Toilet paper.

Let me explain.

More and more I’ve been noticing a recurring trend in the bathrooms I’ve come across here in Hong Kong. There are no toilet paper dispensers inside the individual stalls. Instead, there’s one big dispenser outside the stalls for the whole bathroom. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the consequence of not being aware of this situation.

Rather than argue about why this is inherently awful, I’d just like all of your prayers that I will, someday soon, adapt.

Totally Worth the Sleep Deprivation

The concert kicked off a crazy weekend of sightseeing and levity. On Friday night I got to experience the Western bar/club area of the city, Lan Kwai Fong.

Now here’s the thing about me and Feminism..I don’t begrudge anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, the right to be offended (or not offended, that’s also a legitimate decision) by anyone’s actions, but I thoroughly enjoyed not having to pay cover charges at any of the bars we went to. I’m not sure whether or not this custom offends any of the local women, but as a foreigner I didn’t feel pressured in any way to drink more, or to constantly talk to the men. In fact, unless I initiated a conversation, I was more or less left alone to have fun with my friend. America could definitely take a card or two from the Hong Kongers.

Lan Kwai Fong is this little corner of the city built on the side of a mountain (not altogether unlike Syracuse), and is made up of a network of stairs and escalators. It’s really pretty amazing. It’s full of bars, Hookah lounges, clubs, cafés, shops, most of the Western population, and tons and tons of local 20-somethings. A lot of the smaller bars are open to the street and play loud reggae or American music while everyone dances in the streets. It’s young, energetic, and freer from awkward sexual implication than American party culture could ever hope to be.

People in HK stay out LATE. We left the bars at around 4am, and there were still huge crowds of people everywhere. I went to bed as the sun rose, and regretted nothing except my lack of pictures from the night.

The next day was reserved for sleeping.

Sunday, a group of us went to the Big Buddha, this giant (stone?) statue on Lantau Island. In order to get there, you have to take the subway all the way to the end of the line, and then take a cable car (yeah, a CABLE CAR) to the island. It’s absolutely breathtaking riding across the water and through the mountains to the little tourist village of Ngong Ping.

We ate lunch at a Buddhist temple (what they can do with meat substitutes is the stuff of legends and epic poetry), and then went to say hello to our giant stone friend. After climbing about a million steps (SU people think Crouse but like x 3 and a million degrees and the entire population of Newhouse on the stairs), we got to the Big Buddha, and the museum and gift shops that sat under its base. Lots of photo ops, lots of majestic views, lots of inner peace.

Then we had to climb back down.

Every Punch Line is in Cantonese

So, remember a few posts back I mentioned this really cool opportunity I received that was wreaking havoc on my internship schedule? That opportunity was to host this awesome Jazz A Cappella/Choral concert the CYMCA (Chinese YMCA) was producing with a group called the Oxford Gargoyles, who made the trip from the UK to sing for 500-ish people last Friday night in a beautiful music hall at Hong Kong University.

The other American intern and I were to MC the concert in both English and Cantonese (as an “ABC” (American Born Chinese), he speaks fluent Cantonese). They wanted bits and jokes as well…bilingual bits and jokes. Comedy on stage is like a fragile little fairy creature to begin with, but when you’re working in two languages (and only one of you understands both), it’s more like a football player with Osteogenesis Imperfecta. 

So we’d speak back and forth, setting up the joke, me in English and Brian in Cantonese, and we’d have to rehearse it over and over again because I had no choice but to memorize the exact timing and wording. But somehow we made it work (even though to this day I don’t know why any of the jokes were funny).

The concert was received very well, and even the General Secretary of the entire Chinese YMCA said he was very impressed.

But the most awesome part of the whole thing was actually the part I’d anticipated being the most painful: The Gargoyles arrived in HK a few days early to lead a 3 day workshop with local kids, who would perform the songs they’d learned in the concert. Hong Kong kids are ultimately superior in musicianship to American kids. Sorry, but it’s very, very true.

I think it has something to do with Chinese and especially Cantonese being tonal languages; since a child has to recognize that the same word or sound can have several different meanings based on pitch and inflection, I think their ears are automatically more tuned to melodies. These kids learned an incredible amount of (fairly challenging) music, and performed it on pitch, and with (well executed) harmonies.

On that note, I leave you.

I’m So Not Qualified for This (I can't believe you trust me with your children)

I have two major jobs here at the Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong. One is to help in a family center with things like program management and making their branch more attractive and accessible to international patrons and interns. The other is to teach English at one of the YMCA’s Colleges (High School-ish).

Let me pause here to highlight another major difference between the Y here and in America: THEY HAVE (MANY) FULLY FUNCTIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Good schools. English immersion schools. You can see where I’m going with this, yes?

Most of the schools here run summer sessions for kids to work on their English, Math, or Sciences (And by the way their vacation is only from Mid-July through September 1). The kids I’m teaching are planning to enter the College in the fall, and are taking this English course as a sort of jump start. It also helps the school year faculty see how advanced their English is so they can be placed accordingly come September.

I teach with 3 other interns; The other American, a Taiwanese boy, and a Singaporean girl. The school also gave us two assistant teachers who are godsends, as they speak both fluent Cantonese and English. Our kids are between 10-13 years old, and we teach 3 sections a day for 1.5 hours each.

We’ve chosen to base each of our 3 units around an animated movie that features a foreign culture (one of the school’s goals in addition to the kids learning English is for them to learn about other non-English speaking foreign cultures). So we picked Big Hero 6, The Lion King, and The King & I. We’re currently in our second session of classes, and we’ve already seen how all the units play out, so here’s a general recap:

Day 1: Big Hero 6. We meet the new kids and play ice breakers, then watch a section of the movie. Then we go over some vocab from the movie, and learn about the setting. THEN we make candy sushi. That’s my job. It’s great.

Day 2: Same concept, but The Lion King. The kids get a Tanzanian mango drink and chocolate covered bananas (supposed to be plantain, but hey, either way they think it’s strange and exotic and sort of gross).

Day 3: The King & I. This is where it gets interesting. The goal is to teach the kids about Imperialism, so we play a game in which we give one team an unfair advantage over another, then debrief with the kids about it before applying the same concept to real world politics. When asked if it’s “fair” for one country to take over a less powerful country under any circumstance, there was usually a fair mix of yes and no, which we were surprised and mildly concerned about until we asked the kids who said “yes” to explain their answers. Some said the more powerful country could bring peace to the other country. Some said social health could be improved. Some said they'd read a lot of media articles saying that it was politically necessary.

Some kids has obviously never considered the concept of Imperialism before, and sat silently in their chairs while their world got a little smaller, and a whole lot more complicated.

This is my favorite day because we get to see how the kids react to new ideas and philosophy concerning the human condition. The “I understand” look has a lot of different variations, but each one is infinitely more satisfying than the last. So, in conclusion, teaching is awesome, the kids are adorable, smart, and curious, and I get to eat a lot of chocolate and candy sushi. I have very little to complain about.

Don't Lie, You Wanted the Shoes.

During Orientation they gave us this little booklet that contains a section entitled “Culture Shock and its Phases". I didn’t know it was a thing either.

Phase 1: Honeymoon Phase, when you’re like woah omg lights people food no sleep jet lag drunk dehydrated it’s so hot Jesus Christ people are staring at me and I’m not sure yet if it’s a positive or a negative thing but it’s all ok cause I’m surviving in a new culture YAY!

Phase 2: Crisis Phase. I want spaghetti. I want to drink the tap water. I’m sick of hearing tonal languages I don’t understand. Why the fuck are people staring at me. Italy would’ve been better. Shit, I’m going to get my period while I’m here. WHY ARE PEOPLE STARING AT ME. “Tend to be annoying as well as annoyed by others”

Phase 3: Recovery Phase. I’ve bought a pillow I can sleep on. I found mac & cheese. I’ve now learned how to say “thank you” and “I’m sorry”, so people no longer think I’ve been raised in a barn. I bought some culturally appropriate clothes. I’m starting to like the clothes, even though everything is glittery, which is fine because although my fashion sense is regressing back towards Limited Too and I feel like my mother, I get complimented by the locals on said glittery clothing (and shoes).

Phase 4: Adjustment Phase. The lady in the local market knows me and my dinner order. I’ve bought some books. I’m confidently using the 3 words in my Cantonese vocabulary. I’m able to tune out the foreign languages I don’t understand, rather than hear them as frustrating melodies. I can give the new interns directions in the city. I’ve memorized the subway lines.

Great. So in stage 3 I mentioned clothing. Let’s talk about that.

Although Hong Kong is an international metropolitan city, and is generally considered the liberal second cousin to mainland China, the fashion sensibilities are significantly more conservative than in the states, to an extent most people in America would find ridiculous, considering the weather here.

What I mean by this is that it is generally not considered appropriate to wear shorts or shoulder bearing tops unless one is going out to bars, or to the beach. Sure, you can do it if you want, and you’ll always find a few other local 20-somethings in essentially the same outfit as you, but the difference is that you already stand out as “other”, and if someone has to pick who to glare at between the two of you, it will almost always be you.

Most women in the workplace choose to wear pant suits, dresses, and sometimes even heels. I have no idea how they do this, considering the average temperature is between 85-95, with 98% humidity and a “real feel” of no less than 101. Sweating is just a reality here that you have to accept in order to survive. Most of the locals have these little portable fans that they bring around with them. I’m pretty sure my purchasing one pushed me over the line from phase 3 to phase 4.

When I first realized that virtually none of the clothes I’d brought were completely non-offensive, I laughed it off and got excited about the prospect of going shopping. A few days later I was righteously angry. Why should these people dictate what I can and can’t put on my body? I don’t “belong” to them, after all. I’m not “damaging” the reputation of their culture.

Once I stopped being an asshole and remembered that I am a guest in this country, I got excited again about buying clothes. There was actually something incredibly soothing about going into a local store and seeing that I didn’t look so bad. I’ve actually grown quite fond of the casual office wear style here: Most of what I have are short drapey tunic like dresses with these really cool pant/leggings underneath. And here’s the other thing: Even skimpy American clothes can’t compare to fabric specifically designed for the heat and humidity in Asia.

Now, the shoes. A few days after I arrived, I realized my white fake Toms (Foms? No? okay.) from Target weren’t going to cut it. You do an incredible amount of walking in Hong Kong, and shoes with actual soles are a must. So I went to the shoe store in the local mall. I’d be lying if I said that EVERYTHING was glittery, but everything that I wanted to wear looked like Dorothy’s slippers puked Technicolor. Now, a pair of silver, sparkly (fake) Toms are mine, and I love them. I guess I’m my mother’s daughter after all.

Everything That Happened, Almost Chronologically

I am so far behind on these blog posts. I always mean to write, but our days are so full here, and the 12 hour time difference between here and Boston is a fantastic procrastination tool. I think the time difference is also responsible for lessening my social media addiction; Whenever I do check facebook or snapchat or whatever, it’s usually like 3am at home so there’s not much there. Anyway, I think it’s a good thing.

So, my first official work week started with the Kornhill Centre, in one of the business districts of Hong Kong. The first major difference I noticed between YMCA’s here and in the states is that here the centers are far more family oriented. In the US, the Y is basically a nice gym with some programs for your kids. Here, it’s all about the family unit, and everything is geared towards getting everyone together for a few hours as often as possible.

I spent the week drafting English programs for the kids, meaning I would write lesson plans for different age groups that revolved around English games, movies, etc. I never got to implement any of those programs, however, because I was given this spectacular opportunity which I’ll reveal in my next post J.

On Wednesday I got to sit in on the Chinese YMCA’s monthly meeting, which was awesome, even though it was conducted in Cantonese, so, optimistically, I understood about .05% of what was being said. They started out with a prayer service, which brings me to the second major difference between the YMCA here and at home: The “C”. They are big supporters of the Christian aspect of the YMCA here, not because they are interested in bending the organization towards the missionary mission, but because they find that basic Christian values are incredibly helpful tools in connecting YMCA’s in different countries that may have different languages, goals for the community, and completely different cultures. In this part of the world Christianity is sort of the calling card that connects all of the YMCA’s, but it really doesn’t do much more than that. Although there is a chapel in the camp grounds we’re staying in, I’ve never seen any services. I have, however, heard several excellent bands rehearsing.

Somewhere around Thursday or Friday the rest of the interns arrived, and I moved out of the boys’ dorm and in with all the girls. Our numbers have since grown and now stand as follows: Korea-4, Taiwan-4, China-1, Singapore-1, Germany-3, America-2, Australia-2. We had an orientation that weekend, the highlight of which was learning where the laundry machines were, and that we were going to get meal allowances every day so we could go explore, as opposed to eating inside the camp.

That weekend we all went to one of the beaches in the southern part of the city. A word on the beaches in Hong Kong: You will never be dry. You come sweaty, you swim, you pick up your towel which is slightly damp from the 95% humidity, you sit, and while the water on your skin evaporates you begin to sweat. There is no in between, there is no way out.

Other than that, it was great, and I ate a very pleasant coconut.

There’s also a beach here at Wu Kwai Sha, which is adorable and right next to the camp. It’s very rocky so you have to wear shoes, but the water is always super warm. A lot of families bring their little kids there in the evening to swim and have dinner, and the view of the mountains and the skyline in the distance is gorgeous. There’s also a mystery deistic statue across the bay, but no one knows what it’s supposed to be, since it’s privately owned. I think it looks a little like Jesus, but I’m the only one, which isn’t surprising considering my vast knowledge of organized religion.

And finally, I will close this post with a topic near and dear to my heart: Food. I have located a wonderful food source, right in the plaza across the street from the camp grounds. It’s called a “Wet Market”, and is as close to eating locally as you can get without actually going into the city. It’s in the basement of one of the shopping malls, and is full of fresh, cheap, local food that is absolutely incredible. The only caveat for me is the fact that ordering without speaking the language is occasionally problematic. However, I made fancy scholarly British friends who speak Mandarin (which isn’t the local language here but most of the time it does the trick), and they’re always happy to help.  

Ok, on to the next topics: Culture shock and the Hong Kong dress code.

Time Hump Chronicles, pt 2

So I've been in Hong Kong for 4 days now, and so much has happened that I've been putting off writing about it because at the end of the day I'm completely and utterly exhausted. In my life, I've noticed that sometimes I'll have trouble sleeping if I feel like I haven't done enough during the day, or that nothing has tired me out- That's 110% not an issue here. The overwhelming heat is enough to make a person tired, but once you add to that an incredibly fast paced city with a culture richer than a flourless chocolate cake, you're looking at the best sleep you'll probably ever get in your life.

But enough about sleep. Allow me to recount to you my first few days in this crazy place:

I flew out of San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon, and settled in for a 13 hour flight, scheduled to arrive at 6:35pm on Thursday, HK time. You lose an entire day when traveling to Hong Kong from crossing the international date line. The time difference from Boston is a well rounded 12 hours.

While on the flight, I thought it would be a great idea to try and beat the jet lag by forcing myself to get on HK time right away. Since I took off in the afternoon, California time, that meant taking a nap since it was super early in the morning in China. That sort of worked, except that I missed the one major meal of the flight. Here's the thing about long flights; they always serve the food according to where you're coming from, as opposed to where you're going to. So I "woke up" around 8am HK time, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, to a gelato dessert from the dinner I didn't eat. But hey, ice cream for breakfast is great. Especially when it's mango flavored. A couple snack boxes and lots of cups of coffee later, we landed in Hong Kong.

My first night in the city was not great. The airport is incredibly efficient, but also incredibly busy, and waiting for the baggage claim took far longer than I was expecting. About an hour after we landed, I finally met my escort to the YMCA camp site where I'd be staying. The second we stepped outside, a wall of wet heat oozed over me and settled down into my soul, where it has remained thus far. We took the bus all the way to a suburb of the city called Ma On Shan, where the Wu Kwai Sha youth village is. (If Hong Kong Island is Staten Island, Ma On Shan is the Bronx). Unfortunately we got a little lost on the way, which wouldn't have been so bad had I not been awake for 26 hours and wearing heels as I lugged my 49 pound suitcase through the tropical heat in the dark. But eventually we made it, and I met my new home for the next 4 weeks.

I unpacked, and promptly passed out on the couch, where my roommate, a lovely German gentleman named Chris, found me and kindly didn't judge me for whining to him for the next 20 minutes about how horrible my night had been. After more apologetic babbling about my poor attitude, I finally went to bed.

The next day was so much better. I embarked on my first foray of the city with one goal: Find the ballet studio I planned to take classes at in my free time. Let me pause here to praise the subway system in Hong Kong; It is cleaner, faster, easier to understand, and more efficient than the systems IN ANY US CITY. So, I arrived at the ballet studio a full 45 minutes before class started. After dancing for two hours, (Classes here are actually 1 hour instead of the typical hour and 20-30 minutes, so most of the ladies at the studio just take two classes back to back) I felt ready to explore the city.

My dad gave me a tourist guide book that has proven incredibly helpful to me, not in the least because it has the Chinese translation of all major locations in case one should get lost. One does get lost in Hong Kong  perpetually, so this is a key tool. My first meal in HK was actually a suggestion from this book; a French restaurant in a college town type area of the city. After that, I wandered around until I found Hong Kong Park; a beautiful little tropical forest complete with fountains, koi ponds, and a huge aviary. So that was awesome.

The next few days were filled with sightseeing and meeting my new boss, a wonderful woman named Connie who was kind enough to take me out to lunch upon meeting me, and spread her good grace far enough to come rescue me from the subway station two days later when I got lost on the way to work. Moral: NEVER leave your phone at home when in a foreign city.

Somewhere along the line another roommate arrived; a boy from California named Brian. He speaks fluent Cantonese, so he's incomprehensibly helpful to have around. We celebrated the fourth of July by wandering around the city; we even stopped by a summer carnival on our way to Kowloon to see the famous light show: Every night some of the tallest, fanciest sky scrapers on Hong Kong Island coordinate their lights to music piped out over the pier and boardwalk. It's pretty cool.

At some point Brian and I realized that Chris had never eaten Mac & Cheese, just one of many American staples that the rest of the world is smart enough to avoid. So we made it our mission to create a suitable substitute. While wandering around the city we found macaroni noodles and 4 cheese Italian sauce...a little fancy, but it would do. It ended up being alright, but it lacked the salty punch of processed powdered cheese that only Kraft can provide. The next day I found the beloved blue boxes in our local grocery store...right next to the dried chinese herbs and preserved meats...go figure. So we'll try that again some time soon.

I've made two visits to a local high school since arriving here; Once as part of an extracurricular English Ambassador program, where native English speakers from the community are brought in to have tea with the kids and practice their English with them. That was incredibly rewarding. I've noticed that these kids seem to have more of a genuine desire to learn...something most American students don't really get until college, if ever. They're endlessly curious about the world outside their own country which may be due in part to the fact that their schools place a much larger value on language learning that American schools do. One 14 year old girl I talked to had basically become fluent in English, so she was starting to learn Spanish, completely by her own choice. These kids are coming out of high school with two, if not three fluent languages. American kids are lucky if they can write a grammatically immaculate paper in their own language by the time they graduate.

The second visit was to judge their end of the year talent show. That was AWESOME. In addition to everything else, these kids are insanely musically talented. They love to sing and dance to American music, and interestingly enough, have better English accents when they sing to American songs than when they speak English. Just one example of how important the arts are in connecting cultures. They also love to dance to K-pop, which, although I know I'll never truly understand, I am beginning to have an appreciation for. Other major topics of interest include Taylor Swift, Starbucks, and Soccer (Football).

Last night, some British (female) interns arrived from another program, so I got to talk to girls, in English, for the first time since being here. That was much more theapiduc than I'd anticipated. Something I didn't realize until coming here was how truly difficult of a language English is, not in the least because most people don't speak it correctly 80% of the time. When talking to a non-native speaker, I constantly find myself adjusting my syntax, which is dumb both because I'm not expressing what I'm saying in the way I'd like, and because non-native speakers are taught a very, very correct English, and hearing a native speaker talk helps them to sort out what's grammatically correct vs what sounds natural.

Today, I'm working at a YMCA family center in the Quarry Bay area of Hong Kong Island. The commute is about an hour but it's worth it to see the amazing views. There's the one section of the trip where the tall industrial buildings against the green hills the city is surrounded by look VERY Hunger Games-ish, especially when seen from a high speed train window. It's really pretty eerie, I'll try to get a picture of it eventually.

Okay. Onwards and upwards! Sorry if anyone thought I was dead, usually I'm better at asserting my existence.