Ten Quirky Things About Living in Hong Kong

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. 

7. HONG KONG STYLE EXORCISM: If you want to put a curse on someone, hire the shoe-wielding-avenger grannies.
"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.

Which of these things do you find to be most amusing?

Fast Food According to the Chinese Palate

It's been over a year since my move to Hong Kong from Chicago, and the idea for this blog post came about from a recent Facebook conversation with a friend about McD's food safety scandal that caused them to stop selling McNuggets and other stuff in Hong Kong. So, to my curious friends, here's what you'll never see on the menu of your go-to fast food chains in the US.

I suppose it comes down to the Hong Kong consumers' habit of having different options in what they can buy... so, every now and then KFC would come up with something 'special':

Italian herbs and cheese to bring a taste of Italiano to Hong Kong's KFC customers... I'd try that!

Sweet lemon sauce over fried chicken... Hmmm, I wonder if it tastes like the typical orange chicken?

McDonald's in different parts of the world serve that region's staple food. Like gyros slices instead of beef patty in Greece. Back in the states, we've got something as American as apple pie. Meanwhile, here in Hong Kong, we've got something...

...as Chinese as Taro Pie!

Would you like your McNuggets to be Korean, Japanese, or American?

We love them both... black or white :) #nohate

When it comes to pizza... Hong Kong has a VERY different idea of what it is:

Yes, it contains all manner of seafood with CREAM CHEESE and FISH ROE within the crust

One word: Yuck. And I thought I've seen it all...

Fighting The Media's Portrayal of 'Desirable' Woman

I just heard Sue-Mei Thompson's speech at The Women's Foundation (TWF) Luncheon that was held in recognition of International Women's Day. As CEO of TWF, her foundation's mission this year is to change/correct the viewpoints projected by the media that subject young women to the double-standard and unrealistic expectations in society. A documentary project called "She Objects" is in the works along with other TWF educational efforts to reach out to the youth as part of one non-profit group's intervention.

This is a lot like one person trying to change the course of a tidal wave.

The problem is not with the media. They are just the medium of communication.
The problem is not with the advertisers. They are just reflecting what consumers want.
The problem is with society. We literally buy into these messages of what 'beauty' is.

We can deny all we want, but the fact that we are shelling out hundreds of dollars on a moisturizer shows advertisers and the media that they are simply reflecting what we want to see, what we want to be.

Which one came first: The chicken or the egg? The consumer's aspiration or the advertiser that capitalizes on this desire? Perhaps it's the result of constant evolution between the two. An evolution that builds one upon the other, influenced by the social and culturally accepted notions of that time.