周星馳

Finally got a phone. It only cost me about 280 HK buckaroonies, which equals roughly 36 US buckaroonies. It even came with a sim card that has on it about 633 minutes. Hellz yea. I went to the main mall in Sha Tin with a friend who lives on campus, and who is one of the students I met last summer in Philly. While we were there, I also picked up a couple movies. The first is Kung-Fu Panda, a Dreamworks flick, and the second is some anime flick from the 80s. Both are dubbed into Cantonese, which is why I bought them. I'm trying to make this trip as linguistically immersive as possible: I've been watching Cantonese films non-stop, I changed my facebook to traditional Chinese characters (Hong Kong uses the traditional script; mainland China uses the simplified script), my new phone's language is set to traditional Chinese, I've downloaded a program so that 我識讀廣東話 ("I can write Cantonese"), and I only listen to Cantonese pop music. Once I get more comfortable with the language, I'll start speaking it more, but for now, I just ask my friends what certain words mean, or how certain characters are pronounced, and I'll say a few words in Cantonese to them; I'm still a bit shy with it, but I only started learning it about a week ago.

I've got some unfortunate news to report. All language classes have been canceled for the coming week. As such, I've decided not to register for the additional Cantonese course, which would focus mainly on oral and listening skills. I felt that since there's only 3 more weeks of class, and I'm only going to be in class for 2 of them, it's not worth the money. Besides, I have many friends who speak Cantonese, including my roommate, so I can just practice with them for free.

I'm not terribly upset that classes have been canceled for me next week. My plan is to use the extra time to study. So far I have a study schedule all laid out for myself. It pretty much consists of waking up, eating, and studying Cantonese (for about 10-12 hours everyday). Hopefully, that'll be enough. If not, I can always just study longer, or harder (or watch more Stephen Chow movies). Mmmm...周星馳 (Stephen Chow's Chinese name).

OK, time to go watch Kung-Fu Panda!

More 香港

So there have been 7 confirmed cases of swine flu in the International Summer School student body, of which I am a part, and more are expected. Some of the students in the two dorms in the New Asia college--Grace Tien hall, where I live, and Daisy Li hall--just attended an info session headed by the Office of Academic Links and the head of the medical department at CUHK. The speakers mainly just went over safety measures that are now in place, such as our classes being online for the coming week and that it's now mandatory that we wear surgical masks when outside of our dorm-rooms. They also went over the signs and symptoms of swine flu. They also told us that they are now taking prophylactic measures by giving us a 10-day dose of tamiflu. However, the two medical speakers present did not give us much info on the pills nor were they very helpful in answering student's questions, some of which were very poignant. With the pills, they simply seemed to be giving them to us so that at least some medicinal precaution was taken, and that that precaution would somehow prevent future outbreaks in the student body. Yet, as one student pointedly pointed out, after the 10-day dose is finished, there's nothing preventing any student from getting swine flu; for 10 days, there might be no new cases of the virus, but what about after that? The speakers also tended to evade the questions asked, simply repeating that measures were being taken, what to look for if you think you have swine flu, and how to prevent getting it in the first place.

I decided not to take the prophylaxis for a few reasons. One, the side-effects of the pills affect one's G.I. tract, possibly causing nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and upset stomach. I've already got enough G.I. problems to worry about, and I'd rather not consciously take something that I know is going to upset me (barring beer and liquor). The pills also might cause dizziness and bronchitis (wtf?), and, according to wikipedia, might even have adverse psychological effects on the user. Having for a long time struggled with depression and real bad anxiety, I'd rather not take something that might have an adverse effect on my mental cool, especially when I'm in a foreign country, where I should be enjoying myself. There's also one more good reason not to take the pills, and it relies on a sort-of twisted logic. Swine flu causes--at most--a fever, a sore-throat, a headache, fatigue, and some nausea. The symptoms also last only 7 days. On the other hand, tamiflu's side effects number greater than swine flu's symptoms and are worse than them, and it is to be taken for 10 days, after which time, and even during which time, it is up to question whether or not you will contract swine flu. If you ask me, the numbers add up in favor of not taking the prophylaxis. So I'm not. (To be sure you're all informed of my hygenic habits, I wash my clothes everyday, take a shower everyday, brush my teeth and wash my face everyday, and wash my hands every chance I get. I'm also not the most social person on campus, so I don't interact a lot with my contemporaries. I'm not really worried that I'll get swine flu. Also, the media both here and abroad has seriously hyped up swine flu to the extent that everyone thinks it can kill you. It can only kill you if you're dumb and you don't take care of yourself, just like the regular flu. I'd be more annoyed than scared if I got it, and not annoyed that I'd be quarantined for a week--I'd be annoyed at what I know would be everyone's reaction: "OMG ARE YOU ALRIGHT?! YOU COULD HAVE DIED! EW GET AWAY FROM ME! UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!!!").

Anyways, my stay here hasn't been very eventful. At least not this past week. I'm not quite here on vacation, since I am going to summer school. And man, the class I'm taking is so intense. It could be taught a bit better, but it's much better than most other language classes I've taken, which are taught at much too slow a pace. This one forces you to keep up and think hard, which is what I need. Most of my Cantonese class already speaks Mandarin and some Cantonese, so they are having a relatively easy time with it. They're also from Singapore, and so quickly memorizing and putting into use newly introduced vocabularies and grammars of different languages is their forte (they all speak about 3 languages on average). But they are all impressed with my ability to pick up Cantonese pretty quickly. Plus, they're all cool as hell. Jeez. The only reason why I'm having a bit of difficulty with it is because I'm not studying enough. But I've started to do more of that, so things shouldn't be as difficult. Also, I just registered for another, complementary Cantonese course that focuses entirely on speaking and listening. My life is going to get pretty crazy in the coming weeks as I start to use English less and less and Cantonese more and more. In fact, the only music I listen to now is Canto-pop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvRYoYjsltI

Speaking of Cantonese, its written system isn't nearly as hard as every American makes it out to be. Each character represents one syllable and, though there are some exceptions (as always), the pronunciation of each character remains the same no matter its placement. Of course, there are about 5,000 characters that one should know for daily use (reading the paper, etc.)--though I could be wrong about this.

In other news, I went out to see a movie with a friend the other night. It was supposed to be a Hong Kong mystery thriller. It was called "Murderer." It was pretty gruesome, but the gruesomeness wasn't overbearing and it wasn't done unskillfully. I actually enjoyed it up to a point, and that point was when the movie took a turn so much for the worse that the whole audience started laughing--something which never happens in theaters here. Afterward, my friend Billy and I decided that I would tell our friend Quyen how great a movie it was so that he'd watch it. (Quyen also speaks Cantonese and watches so many movies).

There's supposed to be a typhoon tomorrow, but if the weather isn't bad, I have plans to go windsurfing with a friend who's from Hong Kong. Fun! But since it probably will be bad, I have back-up plans to go get Dim-sum with a friend and his folks. Also fun!

Now to go get myself a sim-card for my phone (or a new phone)!


Here's a pic of Mong Kok, one of the central shopping locales in Hong Kong. Shops are open real late here--I'm talkin' past midnight. Even on a weekday, swarms of people are here until 2 or 3 AM. Being from Philly, where shops usually close at around 5 to 7 PM, I am so not used to this.

Generally Hong Kong

Yesterday, I began my coursework here at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). I'm currently taking Cantonese level 1, but I'm soon going to see if I can register for an additional Cantonese course, which will focus primarily on speaking. (My current course is broken up into reading, writing, and speaking). Class is 2 hours and 45 minutes long, with two 5 minute breaks, and is on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 1:30-4:15, though it will be everyday if I can get into the additional course. It's pretty cool, both the language and the class. I'm very excited to be studying Cantonese, 1) because it's awesome, and 2) it has more of an immediate impact on my life than, say, Italian (which is my minor at Temple U.), because a few of my friends speak it and it is spoken by most Chinese immigrants in the US. The class is very small--maybe 15 other students--and the instructor, while starting out at a decidedly slow pace, will pick up the pace very quickly and expect that you keep up, which is a teaching style I like. So far, we've covered how to read Cantonese pinyin as well as some basic words and phrase structures. I'm still getting a hang of the vowels, because they aren't very clearly described in basic Roman script. (If only I could get my hands on an IPA list of Cantonese phonemes...).

I've been lately spending much too much time sitting in my dorm room. Maybe it's the weather, but I've gotten 10x lazier than I usually am. I think I need to start heading to the library, because I've got some serious studying to get done this summer. Apart from studying Cantonese, I've got 10 books to read by summer's end for an independent study I'll be doing in the fall. Not that I'm complaining or anything...

Aside from chillin' in my room, I've been hanging out with some new friends who are also attending CUHK for the summer. They're quite the international cast. My roommate is from Shenzhen, a friend directly across the hall is from Beijing, a couple others are from Vancouver, a woman I met the other night when the whole International Summer School (ISS) went out to a fancy restaurant was from Seoul, as were two of her friends she introduced me to, etc., etc. I've also got a few friends who live in Hong Kong and are from here. I freakin' love it here; as my friend Jim put it not too long ago, "No wonder Al's an anthropology major--he loves foreigners." I must admit my friend Jim is right. I feel quite at home here among people of different nationalities. I love meeting and interacting with new people, even if they don't speak English very well (or at all).

I also love eating new foods. While in Japan, I didn't encounter many new foods. I've eaten a lot of Japanese food before, even the home-cooked shtuff, so I was already quite used to it. However, my journey to the lands of food-weirdness began on my last night in Japan. My friends, Neil--the friend whom I was visiting in Tokyo--and Ayaka, took me and some of their friends to a restaurant located in a building whose posh interior reminded me of an 80s film. We had finally gotten our food about 30-45 minutes after I told everyone that I desperately needed to pack because my flight to HK was the next morning and so I didn't want to stay long (we ended up staying long). Anyways, one of the dishes someone ordered comes in and it's 4 or 5 small slices of meat. I couldn't recognize it, because it didn't look like fish, and so I asked one of the others what it was. "Horse meat," they said with a smile. "Raw horse meat. Wanna try?" I jumped back a little bit in surprise, laughed, and said, "Sure!" Despite my enthusiasm, however, I was a bit weirded out. I knew I could never tell my mother about this, given her love of horses. I still ate it, though. It was sorta buttery tasting, almost like fatty tuna, but I wasn't very enthusiastic about it.

This food-weirdness continued into Hong Kong when I had dinner at a friend's house. I met her last summer when she was studying abroad in the US. She lives in one of the high-rise apartment buildings across the bay/river/whatever from CUHK. Anyways, she invited me to have dinner with her family, which I gladly accepted. Before we dug into the delicious food her mom had prepared, I was asked if I knew what one of the dishes were. It looked like a chicken, but that guess wasn't right. After one guess, I gave up (typical of me); they told me it was pigeon. That's right! Pigeon! It tasted just like chicken, though.

I know this entry is a bit scattered and a bit too general, but it's my first one, so gimme a break. I've also been in Hong Kong for almost a week now and so I figured I'd first write sort of a ramble and then move on to more specific things. So get ready for specificity!

And, of course, here are some more photos of Hong Kong:

My dorm room (before my roommate (who speaks Cantonese!) moved in):

Friend's house food:

From my friend's apartment window (34th floor):

It's blogging time!

So, I've finally decided to start a blog about my travels to Asia. I've been a tad lazy about doing so (it must be the weather), but I promise I will do my best to keep everyone updated on all of the exciting stuff I'm doing and will do and all of the people and things I'll meet and see. This is now my 5th day in Hong Kong and there's already some really cool stuff to share. Before I arrived here on the 28th of June, I was staying at my friend's apartment in Tokyo. I was in Japan for a little under 2 weeks, during which time I didn't really try to accomplish anything in the way of school work--I have a ton of reading to do for the coming fall semester--or keeping anyone updated on my travels. However, I do have a great many stories from Japan and I'll share them intermittently alongside my entries about Hong Kong.

Just to prove that it's true that I am in Hong Kong, here're a couple photos from nearby my dorm hall: