Moving from Chicago to Hong Kong was quite the shocker for me... Some things like the high efficiency of public transit and shopping malls that open well past dinner time are welcome surprises. But some other things are quite weird to me. Having lived in Hong Kong for the past year or so, these are the ten strange yet amusing things that I have noticed:
1. UMBRELLA-ELLA-ELLA: Women bring umbrellas on rainy AND sunny days (to keep their skin from getting tanned)2. COUNTDOWN-CRAZY: People even do a countdown for Christmas (Santa better be on time!). Watch here!
3. PAW-SITIVELY STRANGE: They walk their dogs in a stroller. Here's a picture I took in an elevator... My baby is probably wondering, "Why are the kids in the other stroller super hairy?"
4. FASHION SENSE: It's 60' F outside, yet you'll see some people wearing down jackets and furry boots, while others wear shorts and sandals. What gives...?
5. RIGHT OF WAY: Pedestrians must yield to cars (it's the other way around)
6. FOR CRYING OUT LOUD: Hong Kong is experiencing a shortage of baby formula/milk powder because of mainland Chinese moms. They won't buy milk powder sold in the mainland because they doubt its safety and quality. This issue became such a problem that the HK government had to limit mainlanders to buy no more than two cans of baby formula per visit.
"For HK$50, Wong will take care of your enemy. Wong is a professional ‘petty person’ beater. Her weapon is a worn shoe. She will beat your rivals and burn them to ashes, metaphorically speaking of course. Beating the petty person, or “Da Siu Yan” in Cantonese, is a Chinese folk ritual to dispel evil, particularly the kind brought by enemies. Beaters, usually old women, will hit a human-shaped paper that represents your nemesis and do a sequence of steps to ask a Taoist god for help in protection from malicious influences and to bring you good luck."
Taken from: http://journalism.hkbu.edu.hk/feed/?p=806
8. STREET SMART: Taxi cabs will ignore you if you try to get on the side of a street with double-yellow lines--this is a no taxi pick-up or drop-off zone. I learned this the hard way while I was pregnant... I felt like a reject as I tried to hail cab after cab. Only to find that it wasn't personal... it was just traffic signage that I didn't understand.
9. HOUSING BOOM: A lucrative housing market paired with a competitive, dog-eat-dog environment will get you highly aggressive real-estate agents. When you visit a developer's open-house/showroom, several agents will quickly approach you like moths to a lamp. Then they'd literally shove their business cards into your hands. If you take their business card, then you're stuck with them for the rest of your visit.
10. THE HONG KONG MEDIA: Compared to the U.S. news outlets, Hong Kong thinks bigger is better. To win attention, each news outlet have giant mic flags for TV reporters to carry around. Online news outlets also have no qualms about the use of models when featuring real-estate news. Somehow, they maintain objectivity in their reports... I guess I'll never know until I learn how to read Chinese characters.
