10 Days, and The Stuff That Happened During Them

At the end of last week, we received our final new intern, Paulina from Germany. The locals say that we look like sisters, which could be true except for the fact that Paulina is wise beyond her years, and certainly more mature than I was at her age! I’m going to tell myself that it’s probably a cultural thing. Paulina flew in on Saturday morning and by that night was eating Hot Pot with me, some other interns, and our boss. No time is wasted around here! (Hot Pot= Melting Pot but healthier and affordable.) She also speaks Mandarin. The Germans really know what’s up around here.

The next day we went to Ocean Park, aka the land of dreams and pandas. There were penguins, monkeys, shark eggs, roller coasters, food, and a very interesting game of international Apples to Apples. You also have to take a cable car to get from the animal exhibits to the theme park…which was terrifying but magnificent, and left Chris and the other Germans 2-2 for talking me through my irrational fear of slow moving high flying transport.

The next day was the long awaited Cultural Sharing day. Each country got a table and a small budget and a bunch of local kids to entertain. Team America went for temporary tattoos and mini American flags, which turned out to be a hit. That night, each country cooked a dish (Mac & Cheese and S’mores because, let’s be honest, we couldn’t make the American diet look any worse than it already does.) and we had a lovely international dinner.

Then the work week started again and I was back in the Kornhill Centre, writing blog posts about the Umbrella Revolution while I was supposed to be making a slideshow of my time in HK. My last day at the center I got to talk to some local high school students about their day to day lives, and Connie and I took one last picture outside the office.

This brings us to last weekend, my last weekend in Hong Kong. There was one major thing left on my bucket list; The Peak. Hong Kong is built on a hill/mountain (Once again, not all that dissimilar to Syracuse), and the Peak is exactly what it sounds like: the highest point in the city. The views are spectacular. But before I got there, Brian, Chris and I had a lovely dinner at the British YMCA, where the biggest draw for all three of us was the western style salad bar. Vegetables do not come in salad form in this country. They come in soup form. That night, raw lettuce would have excited me more than winning the lottery.

After dinner, Chris and I went to the Peak. In order to get up there, you take this tram that goes up the hill at an impossibly steep angle. Luckily, we got seats and could live vicariously through the poor souls who thought they’d try to ride standing up. Half way though they were basically lying on the floor of the tram. We made it to the top, and got some gorgeous night time views of the city. As an added bonus, the increased altitude lowered the temperature enough that I was able to have a brief respite from drowning in my own sweat.

The next day I devoted to digging up some information about my Grandfather’s teaching work with the YMCA. I ended up right back where I started on one of the first days of my internship; In the General Secretary’s office. It took some time and a couple phone calls, but soon enough I was handed a file from 1968, the contents of which were written almost exclusively by my Grandfather. I learned that the previous secretary of the Chinese YMCA in Hong Kong was one of my Grandfather’s students, and when I go back to HK on the 12, I’ll have a meeting with one of my Grandfather’s friends who still lives in Hong Kong.

My final day in Hong Kong was spent touring the city with a small group of interns, armed with our instructions for the “City Hunt”. I thought we were getting into some sort of Amazing Race type deal, but it turned out not to be a competition at all, so it was a pretty relaxing (incredibly hot) day. And at the end of the day I packed my bags and headed to Guangzhou!

The train ride was uneventful, and getting through border patrol even less so. For the record, Chinese border patrol (at least in GZ, which, to be fair is barely outside of HK) is much, MUCH more lax than people led me to believe, and certainly less stressful than in the US. They’ve designed their train station to be “barrier less”, so there are no scary walls, rooms, partitions, etc. Just a big empty room and desks with guards behind them who encourage you to rate their service by pressing one of four smiley to sad face buttons located on a console in front of their desks. I was through in 20 seconds.

I’ll talk more about my expectations vs. reality in mainland China, but suffice it to say that it is certainly not like stepping into an iron box, at least not in the southern part of the country.