So when I last updated, I left you all at the end of my Lamma Island trip with Megan and my usual Sunday at Prof. Starr's house. That following week of classes was more exciting then the usual week. On Monday afternoon, the Office of International Programmes (Thats how they spell it- leftover British influence) threw a Welcome Reception for the exchange students, international buddies, and students from Lingnan who had gone abroad in the previous semester.
It was a nice little teatime affair, complete with tea and little sandwiches with the crusts cut off. We spent time just hanging around talking with the different students and professors and took a nice little group photo. This one feature yours truly, one of the Korean exchange girls- Sunny, and two local students. The trick is to learn how to tell Koreans apart from the Chinese students. (I can do it) Prof. Starr encouraged us to promote Lingnan to our fellow students when we got back home and that was pretty much it. Just a nice little meet and greet. But I also love the fact that they have tea time here. I wish that we had tea time back home.Tuesday night was also a lot of fun. I was recruited by my hall committee to play basketball in another inter-hostel game. No one seemed to care that I haven't played basketball in years, or that I was exceptionally horrible at it. After about 20 minutes on the court, I was bright pink from head to toe and had made no major contribution to my team. We really didn't have much of a strategy, and no one told me where to go. I spent most of the game standing there wide open, and none of the other girls passed to me. Not that I would have been able to make it in the net anyway. They seemed excited just to have me play. Needless to say, we suffered a crushing defeat. It was still pretty fun, and it made me realize how horrible at sports I am, well at least basketball. I did pretty well at badmintion when I played with Jon earlier that day.
Later that week, I had my first exam of the semester, which I am proud to say that I got a perfect on, the only perfect in the class. So it was a pretty exciting school week for me, well maybe not exciting, but more out of the usual routine of just class, work, and spending time with my friends. Friday night was St. Patty's day, and what I have dubbed the "Dim Sum Crew", (myself, Megan, Jess, and Karen), decided to go out for Irish food, with Megan's Irish pride ablaze. That was a great night.
We headed on down to TST, better known as Tsim Sha Tsui, to a pub/restaurant named Delaneys for dinner. When we walked in, we immediatly ran into other exchange students- small world! This place was great, it was filled with Europeans and the tables looked like they had come from the Medieval ages. All the waiters were very Irish, and from the looks of it, all a little tipsy. They had a DJ playing all these old Irish folk songs and a fiddler too. I knew that it was going to be a great evening. We managed to snag a corner table next to this very sweet British couple, and talked with them for a while. They had been traveling the world for 2 months and were trying to decided between Hong Kong and Thailand in which to settle down. They also taught us some Irish folk songs. I was super-excited because I got an Irish breakfast which had all the food I was longing for, sunny-side up eggs, toast, potatoes, etc. It was so good!! It was probably the best breakfast I've had, and I think that its mostly due to how bad I wanted it. Other exchange students showed up, and we finally had this huge group of people that just took over one side of Delaneys. It was fantastic. Everyone was just really friendly and fun, and I met some cool people. Like Zac the barrister from England who kept calling me a nutter. I learned some European slang, and taught some American slang too. When we went outside, they had shut down the street traffic to accomidate everyone who had come down to that area to celebrate. It was the largest group of white people in Hong Kong that I have seen in one place here. Just crazy. One of my favorite nights here so far. We also played some trivia games in the restaurant and everyone won a Guinness hat. Who knows what I am going to do with it though. It worked for some silly pictures.
The next day, I met up with Zac to show him around Hong Kong. He had only been there for 3 days and had seen nothing! (Well, nothing by my standards) I took him around TST and then to Sha Tin. We had a nice day, and it was really interesting meeting fellow travelers. I've noticed that the people who are traveling around here, wether it be other exchange students or what, feel this instant commraderie with each other. Like we're all part of the same club and we have to stick together. Its fun that way because you meet some interesting people, and hopefully do some networking. I meet some one from the mainland who really wants me to come to his town, which is outside of Chengdu, after I graduate and teach English. Or the Irish boys we met on the subway who made us sing Danny Boy with them. Just pure sillyness sometimes, but its really fun. I hope that I keep meeting people like this as I go on traveling. You never know who you might meet.
That week was another ordinary week of classes, nothing too exciting. There was no meeting at Prof. Starr's house that Sunday. Classes are still going fairly well. The work has picked up a little bit, but still not up to the level of what I am used to. All I really have left is the rest of lectures and a couple of papers, until finals time comes around. Most of my finals will be done the first week of May, except for my statistics one which my professor still doesn't know the date for. I figured that it would be statistics that gives me a hard time, considering that I have a burning hatered of the subject, and it seems to be the subject that gives me the hardest time. I hate statistics so much, and I feel like its almost pointless, even though I know its not. Its just the way I relate to math, like oil and water that want to beat each other up.
That weekend Megan and I had tickets to the Hong Kong Dance Company's performance of a modern peice called "Hands in Hands" It was very interesting to say the least. From what I understand, it was about a deaf girl who joins a dance company, but then everyone hates her, and she prays and these Thai gods come out and dance around. I think that there is something that I just wasn't getting, but I enjoyed it none the less. The dancers where incredibly talented and I really wasn't expecting the children's choir to pop out at the end and sing a song about the world being beautiful. I was also sitting next to an old man who was clearly a very proud grandfather. When the children came onstage, he kept smiling, laughing, and tapping me on the shoulder to point out one of the kids to me. It was really amusing, and he was so proud. After the show, Megan and I tried to take pictures of us all dressed up on a stairway near a beautiful chandiler, but they wouldn't let us. The conversation went as follows:
Usher: Are you trying to take a picture on the stairs?
Me: Yes, its very beautiful and I would like to show people from home
Usher: Well, you can't take pictures on the stairs
Me: Why not? It will only take a minute
Usher: Its too dangerous.
Me: Dangerous how?
Usher: You could fall down the stairs
Me: Oh it will be ok. I'll hold on to the handrail
Usher: Well, you just can't do it. I'm sorry
Me: Ok then. Thanks
So no pictures of the interior of the Hong Kong Cultural Center folks! I guess that it was to dangerous after all. Sometimes I feel like I'm just being messed around with by the people here, just because they can. Oh well, what can you do? We decided to take a stroll on the Avenue of Stars and people watch before we went home. It was a nice warm night, and a surprising large crowd of people are out at 11:30pm on the boardwalk. We saw several groups of breakdancers, and there were small crowds everywhere standing around local musicans, singing and having a great time. My favorite was the woman from the mainland singing ethnic minority songs and dancing. Her songs were mostly Mongolian and Tibetan. While we were watching this performer, a little old man came up and tapped me on the shoulder to ask me where I was from. He explained to us that he was from Hong Kong, and he had a friend with him from the mainland who had never met white people/Americans before. He wanted us to take a picture with his friend and his family. So Megan and I were like- why not? This family ate us up. We took almost every combination of photos possible. Me with the guy, Megan with the guy, me holding a Chinese baby, and my favorite, one with the guy with his arm around me and me looking incredibly startled. I wonder what this family is going to think once they get home and look at these pictures. They also kept telling me how tall and pretty I was, because before them, I never knew that Chinese people consider me tall! It was just so disarming, but the family was really sweet.
END OF PART ONE
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