I took this picture my first few hours in HK. It was a beautiful and, for me personally, telling example of what was to come after. :)
Good morning!
It's the second day of my program here in HK and I'm already loving it here. As I stated in the description, this is a blog to document my time studying Comparative Cultural Heritage Preservation in HK and New England. This blog is to keep my friends and family informed on my travels as well offer something that could possibly be useful to the Brown and Global Conversation community at large.
I had a bit of trouble with the flight due to the engine breaking down before takeoff so the airline I was with (Continental) delayed our flight for 14 hours. I was sitting next to a senior high school student named Violet from Shenzhen, China. She just finished up her junior year in a boarding school in Connecticut and was heading home (Shenzhen is literally directly above Hong Kong). I offered to stay in a hotel with her because she was scared and didn't know anyone in the area and I am so glad I did. Out of this highly inconvenient and unfortunate situation I made a really good friend. Violet and I ended up spending over 24 hours together, offering support and friendship to each other.
Due to a NJ law saying that you must be 21 to book a room, I asked a woman I didn't know but who was also on the flight to HK to share a reservation with us. Luckily she agreed and Violet, Lilian, and her daughter Katelyn (7 years old) booked two rooms together. This also worked out really well because Katelyn was an incredible joy to be with. Lilian is from China originally and now lives in New York City where she is raising her two daughters. She took it upon herself to be Violet's and my guardian, jokingly telling us "Okay children, I am your parent now. No alcohol and no sex in the hotel room."
Spending time with Violet, Katelyn, and Lilian really made me feel at ease about all the mishaps that were going on with our flight. We felt and behaved like a real community. We even got an addition to the 'family' when the four of us went to eat at the hotel's only restaurant. Wei, the 35-yr-old professor from Beijing who had been sitting on my left, recognized us and Lilian invited him to come eat with us. All of a sudden, I found myself sitting at a table full of great food, eating 'Chinese style' (that is, we all ordered food and shared with each other), and being surrounded by people of all ages and backgrounds banned together to help each other out. Wei, being the only male, treated us all to a large serving of wings, following a Chinese custom of the older male benefactor. Lilian even made the joke at the end of meal when we discovered that we were a little bit short and Wei had offered to pay for the difference: "Yes, let's let Wei take care of it; he's the only man after all. That's how it should be."
Wei and Lilian spoke to me in Mandarin and helped me when I did not understand something. They were very kind teachers. Wei especially took the extra effort to give us life lessons. He advised Violet and I on topics ranging from applying to college and testing to career advice and marriage. Coincidentally, Wei is a professor of IT at Johnson and Wales University—right next to Brown University! Although only 35, he's been a professor for over 10 years and told me that at J&W he and his students have close relationships. A lot of what he said was incredibly insightful and interesting and I feel very grateful for the opportunity to speak with him. We agreed that once we get back to Providence we will keep in touch.
By the end of our long and delayed journey, Violet and I were like sisters. We held hands, teased each other, talked about our experiences and homes, leaned on each other as we slept, shared music (we like the same Chinese artists!), and laughed a lot. The best part is, Brown is Violet's first choice in university and she was so excited to learn I was from Brown. I am very much looking forward to showing her around Brown when she comes to tour and eating out with her when I go to Shenzhen.
By the time I arrived to Hong Kong, I had already missed all of the orientation and arrival events. Violet's mom was there at the airport to pick her up and graciously helped me call my fellow Brown student Larry Au, a native of Hong Kong. It was really great to speak Mandarin again with her and she had a lot better time communicating with the Cantonese-speaking taxi driver than I did! She welcomed me to her house (and I to Violet and her sister) whenever I am around the area and gave me a hug as she saw me off.
The taxi ride was long (and expensive!) and account of being late for the program, I had forgotten to exchange my money and ended up in a taxi without money. Larry very kindly offered to pay for me but when I arrived at the university, I was unable to reach him because of the low cell phone service in the area. The taxi driver got increasingly irritated as I tried to find a solution to the money problem and I ended up enlisting the help of a random CU student. He took me around the nearest building trying to find someone from my program. In the end, a woman in the office paid the taxi fare for me (she was so kind and generous) and I was finally taken to the dorm and then to the welcome lunch.
There I reunited with Laitan, Larry, and Jeff (the Brown students) and met several faculty members running the program. Everyone was so caring and helpful and the food in CUHK's equivalent of Brown's Faculty Club was very good (turkey and vegetable sandwich with “avocado paste”!!-- a variation of guacamole I suppose). We later took a bus tour of various Hong Kong islands although I was far too jet-lagged and sleep deprived to remember much of that—after all, I had arrived in the country and went straight into the programming.
Well, that's all for now. It's already 7 am (I still have yet to adjust to the time) and I have a 6-8 page essay to write today. :) See you again soon.
J
