So that last weekend I posted was pretty exciting, no? Thats one of the reasons I really like being here, something exciting is always happening. If I was back at St. Mary's, my weekends would most likely consist of work, homework, and sleeping in. While I'm here I feel that I need to get out and do everything possible that there is for me to do. I still have a pretty lengthy list of things I need to do/see here. Terrence promised me that the week after next, we'll go the Chinese Opera. The Hong Kong Ballet Company is also doing a production of Sleeping Beauty, which I also really want to see. I love the ballet! I think that Karen and I will go for our birthdays next month. Its crazy, we have 5 birthdays in a row among the exchange students! May is going to be a fun month for me.
Back to where I left off in the last post:
After the street performers and photo-taking sessions with random strangers, another week of classes was pretty mundane for me. My history professor almost exploded with rage as people kept coming into class later and later. Sunny was sitting next to me laughing as he raged, and I was looking at her like she had gone crazy. The last thing you want to do is laugh at an angry person. But he did agree to take us out for Indian food at the end of the semester. That week classes seemed to be getting more relaxed and fun. Its the beginning of the end for this semester, so things are starting to wind down more. I've actually got some papers to write and some other work to do. The final exam schedule has come out, and I only have 3 exams. If there are no rainstorm/typhoon delays, I should be finished by the 19th of May. To be safe though, Professor Starr recommends that we don't leave until the 24th, which is what I plan on doing. The I'll go to Thailand and have adventures with Jason there, and get a good massage. I haven't decided wether or not to take my computer with me, so you might have to wait a long time to get the adventures from there.
That week we also got a visit from a diplomat from the mainland, Professor Cheng Si-wei, the Vice-Chairman of the Congress of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the Mainland. (What a tittle!) He came here to tour all the universities and give speechs and what not. Some of the exchange students were invited as Student Ambassadors to meet him and have a dialouge session with him. So I had to get dressed up in my suit and I was given a free Lingnan pin for this event. Exciting! I like the pin, it looks like the logo of the school, but its in gold and about the size a penny. It makes for a nice keepsake, and its even better that it was a gift. In this dialouge session, we were given the opportunity to ask the professor anything we wanted, and we could ask in any language, because he knew about 6. I was really excited about this, and I was the first person to ask him a question, which was, "If you were the president of the USA, what would be one thing that you change about US economic policy and why?" I thought that it was a good question, until he, who had been speaking perfect English up to this point, pretende that he couldn't understand a word I was saying, and all he would say was "I can't answer this now. Come to my lecture and it will all be explained" Talk about the big brush-off!
When Megan asked her question about the greatest challenge facing our generation, he said it was studying. I feel like he brushed off all the exchange students questions, but gave five minute answers to everyone else. He's one slippery Chinese diplomat. We did get to take a group photo with him, that was later published in several newspapers. I'm in the back row, in dark mauve. The professor is the center older Chinese man with the black hair. Next to him are the President and Dean of Lingnan. I have photocopies of articles, 2 from Chinese newspapers, and one in English. I hope that there is still a chance to find the originals. I went to his lecture the next week, but he still didn't really answer our questions. It was basically how the American economy is going wrong, mainly in textiles, and how the Chinese economy is taking over. And it wasn't that good either. I was a little disappointed by him, but it was also really cool to meet such a high Chinese offical. He seemed really excited to see the exchange students.
The we have the super-awesome weekend known as Rugby Sevens weekend. Every year Hong Kong holds an internation rugby tournament, which lasts for 3 days. On Friday, university students could get in free as long as you showed your ID. We were lucky; tickets can start at $600HK and go as high as $2000 US! And thats for one day! Americans are really out of touch when it comes to popular sports. Everybody else really likes soccer and rugby. We got to the stadium around 3ish and it was the largest group of Europeans that I have ever seen in my life. It was like a mass exodus of white people. There were people in costume, and everyone was so proud of their country and screaming at each other. It was so different from all the sporting events I've gone to. I love European enthusiasm. We managed to find seats for all 10 of us, and it became pretty aparent that we were the only Americans in the stadium. It was really interesting to see the politics behind some of the stuff, like when the Taiwan team came out on the field, the announcer called it them Chinese Taipei, (capital of Taiwan) and thats how they were listed on the scoreboard. They were set against the Chinese team too. Each game only lasted about 30 minutes. As far as I understand, rugby sevens is played with seven players on each team, and you can run with the ball, but you can only pass it backwards. Some times you do this weird huddle thing, and tackling is always permitted. It looked like a lot of fun. And the boys were cute! I suddenly remembered my weakness for professional rugby players. The highlight of the evening had to be the USA-Canada game. For about half an hour, we turned from normal students into screaming ravenous USA fans. The enthusiasm from the Europeans was infectous. We had one of the Canadian girls with us, and we started screaming at each other. Then one of the Scottish guys who were next to us came over and said " Wait till Scotland comes out on the pitch, we'll sort all of you out" The USA lost by a point. And then we and the Canadians were all friends again.
After the game, we stopped for some dinner in Wan Chai, and just observed the mass crazyness all around us. It was like it was St. Patty's Day, Christmas, and Halloween. All the people who were in the stadium had apparently all come down to Wan Chai, which is about a 3 square block area. I saw two guys dressed up in full bear suits, heads and all walking down the street with beers. Well, there goes my childhood.
My personal favorite was the group of about 6 middle-aged British guys dressed up as the Queen, with sashes, wigs, maskes, and crowns. I wanted to get a picture with them, but they moved pretty quickly before we could catch up with them. I did manage to get one with some guy who thought he was a superhero or something like that. It was awesome to see all these people from 18-70 out having a great time. They had to shut down a few of the streets because of the massive crowd. While we were walking down the street, I saw some guy very calmly walk out of the bar, and lie down in the street, like he was going to take a nap or something. I didn't understand that. Some woman who was walking by us as we were sitting on a patio stopped, and framed us with her fingers like she was taking a picture, which was just a little bit weirder than the guy napping in the road. Everyone was also really friendly and suprised to find Americans in Hong Kong, especially at a rugby tournament. I felt like we were the only Americans in all of Hong Kong that night. I also noticed something else about the British people that I meet. They have some innate desire to visit all the former British colonies when they travel. Almost every one that I have talked to plans on visiting, or has visited India, Austrialia, New Zealand, and of course Hong Kong. Only we are left out, and I wonder why that is. I'm doing my best to convince them to come to the USA. It was such a fun night.
Saturday I had plans with Sunny to go to Cheung Chau island, but we bother overslept. Instead a group of us went to the beach, which is just a 20 minute bus ride away. The beach is also free, but the water doesn't look that clean. I went in for a little while, and nothing weird happened to me. Its so nice to be able to go to the beach in early April though. I checked the weather that day, and back home it was in the 40s and raining. Anyone jealous yet? I also managed to get some work done, and my laundry too.
Sunday Sunny and I ventured out to Cheung Chau island. Sunny is one of the exchange students here from Korea. She has been at Lingnan since the start of fall semester, and I adore her. We have a history class together, and she is so much fun. Cheung Chau takes about an hour to get to by ferry, and I would say that its easily twice the size of Lamma Island. It has a much bigger fishing village too. Even a McDonalds. We didn't really come to the island with a plan, but more to just walk around and enjoy the beautiful day. There are no cars on the island, and it seems like everyone owns a bicycle. The first thing we walked to was one of the temples where an impromptu Cantonese Opera performance had begun. We watched it for a while and then went and explored the temple, which was tiny compared to the ones that I have seen so far. It was very quite inside the temple, but once we went back out, it was buzzing with noise. We tried to find the pirate cave that I had been told about, but no such luck.
We spent most of our time walking around the island people watching. We found a playground on top of a hill and I decided to let my inner child out. Sunny got a great picture of me on a little bouncy ducky thing, and I have never been so happy in my life to see swings! I know that I don't look happy in this picture, but I was having a great time. The thing dipped forward really deeply, and I was scared that I was going to fall off or something like that. Sunny caught that moment perfectly on film, don't you think? Even though we didn't really do a lot of touristy things, I had a great time just walking around and really seeing Cheung Chau. Comparatively, to the rest of Hong Kong, its rather relaxed and slow-paced. My kind of town! If I have time, I think that I will try to get back there and manage to explore the whole island. It wasn't small enough to do in one day.
Thats it for now with my adventure updates! Things have been a little tame recently with the semester winding down, and finals approaching rapidly. I still plan on spending almost a month with Jason in Thailand and beyond. My roommate Terrence insisted I come back to Hong Kong for a couple of days before my plane leaves and spend it with her and her family. She and I are going to stay with her grandfather, Guon Guon, at his apartment, with her parents and grandmother, Ma ma, down the block. Her Ma ma knows how to knit, so hopefully I will pick up a few tricks, and learn how to cook proper Cantonese food. Maybe even learn some more Cantonese- I'm pretty much going to have to, Terrence is the only one in her family who speaks English. I also want to cook for them, something easy, but very American. Any suggestions? So those are my plans for after finals and everything.
the university gave is on the 9th floor of one of the student hostels, with an amazing view of parts of Tuen Mun, Fu Tai, and the mountains. The day I moved in was hazy with pollution, heat, and an insane level of humidity, so much that it looks cloudy, but no folks, that's a sky of hot ickiness. Thank god for working AC. A living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom make up the apartment. It sounds lovely, but you have to keep in mind some space has to be sacrificed in room size, when you have 7milion people living on 25% of the land in Hong Kong. For example, my kitchen is so small that I have to close the door in order to open most of the cabinets and the fridge. My bottom counters are only about 3 feet tall, so that means I either squat to cook, or sit on my very short stool. The living room is spacious, filled with free furniture, and I'm not one to turn down free furnishings. (My couch holds the honor of being the most comfortable couch out of all the tutors) From the living room, there is a short hallway for the bathroom and bedroom. On a good day, with a little bit of optimism, the bathtub is about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. The interesting thing about the tub is that when you step into it, its actually a few inches higher than the rest of the bathroom floor- I think that it has something to do with drainage. I also get my own personal hot water heater, which for some reason was put inside the shower. This translates into showering sideways most of the time. There was also a two-week long epic battle between myself and the hot water heater; it didn't want to give me hot water for longer than 3 minutes, but I was bound and determined to figure it out, and I feel that I have. Some time it blasts me with a sudden jet of ice-cold water, but most of the kinks have been figured out. 
Next to the bathroom, there is my bedroom, about 10 feet by 10 feet, so maybe a little bit bigger than the dorm rooms at St. Mary's. What is really nice about the bedroom is that there is a queen-size bed in it, while the rest of the tutors have twin beds. (Suckers! ahahaha) For as tiny as it is, my apartment feels rather spacious. And I have lovely wood floors. The laundry room is conviently right across the hall, as is Paula, one of the other English tutors. It turns out that I'm not the tutor for this hall, Hall B, but the tutor for Hall C, but when they were contructing the building, the contractors neglected to build a tutor apartment. It makes is a little more difficult to meet my students and plan hostel activities, but I think that matters will be much easier after this week, and the Becca-Bash my hostel is throwing me.
