Hong Kong Study Abroad

Sometimes the best times are the most unexpected. After a normal day of classes and working out, I bumped into a friend on the elevator who invited me to join the tug of war team that was competing in the hall event. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I missed the few weeks of practice that they went through (yes, tug of war practice that included a coach, an introductory video to the techniques, and a speech from the head of Hong Kong’s tug of war team), but I still was able to participate. When I walked into the common area of our floor, people freaked out and asked if I was going to participate, since I was bigger than everybody except this huge Scottish guy, and I said of course I was! They instantly gave me LiZhi apparel (the name of our hall, pronounced “Lee Jih”) and threw some war paint on my face, although I ended up looking more like a clown, but it was still cool nonetheless.

We went downstairs and into the back room filled with like-minded crazy people. There was a live feed of the matches on big screen projectors, and everybody was going over strategy. When it was our turn, we walked out to the cafeteria that was closed down for the event and all of the security guards were working the event and the hall directors were there screaming, cheering, and promoting the event. There was an MC, official referee, and TV cameras. There had to be about 200 fans watching, and when we walked in the place went crazy, and we ran down the aisle giving high fives to them like celebrities. The LiZhi fans were repeatedly screaming our chant, which is in Cantonese, and the opponents were screaming their chants, and everybody else was just screaming. Right before the start it got silent, but then when we started it went crazy again, and it was so so so tiring. After we were done (and won our first match) we cheered some more, but then I realized how exhausted I was and my legs were numb.

We ended up taking 4^th place, and everybody was super friendly and nice, which made the whole experience super cool. We got Chinese desserts after (potato drink, green bean drink, and a rice drink), and just hung out for a while.

For the second time in a week, I went to Tai Long Wan, this time with three friends. We started at a different place this time, a dam along the ocean in a place called Long Ke. What was cool about this dam was that in front of the dam were hundreds of I-shaped concrete structures, each about the size of a house. We climbed on these a lot, which was a lot of fun since they were all angled and there were gaps in between as deep as 50 or so feet. There was also a cave behind the dam, which we went in, but it was filled with water so we could only walk a little bit on the walls of the cave.

This route was so much harder, going straight up, and then straight down. It was tiring, but it had great views and hiking with the guys made it bearable. We eventually got to Tai Long Wan, and I took them to the natural swimming pool that I found last week, and we went swimming. At first they were hesitant because it was very cold, but eventually we got to jump off the rocks into the water, which was a blast. We were about to leave when a Scottish guy came and we talked ourselves into jumping off the highest rock, over 20 feet high. We jumped a few times, and I now have bruises on my arms from hitting the water so hard, but it was definitely worth it.

We finally walked back to Pak Tam Au and barely made it before complete darkness, and I was as tired as all could be, walking for over eight hours.

Yesterday I went to a BBQ with a local and his friends near Lai King to celebrate a couple of their birthdays. They made the fatal flaw of eating the cake before the meal, but I wasn’t going to say anything. I don’t usually eat cake, but they had a mango cake with fruit on top, so I gave it a try, and it wasn’t bad! We had some vegetables, tea, chicken, and Chinese sausage (whatever that is). I’ve noticed that here in Hong Kong, bare hands are not used to eat whatsoever, because if you do, you’ll probably get a weird look (I have learned from experience).

My friend also brought his 2 year-old cousin, and we played with him for a long time. He was super energetic and I learned some Cantonese in order to play some sort of cops and robbers, and he would tell us all to freeze and give us instructions (all in Cantonese).

We also played some Chinese form of hacky-sac, except they played with some dart shaped thing, and it was hard, but I eventually got the hang of it.

At night I met with the “Let us talk” group again (the language learning group), this time playing cards. First I taught them Skipbo, which they liked a lot, then we played a Chinese card game (I forgot what it was called) that was very fun and I learned a lot of words related to card playing. In China they don't usually play cards just for fun, but instead they always have money or some sort of punishment on the line, so we played that the loser had to pay the penalty by doing something silly. One of my punishments was to sing the American national anthem while standing on a table, but I turned my punishment into a punishment for them, though, as I embarrassed them be standing on the table and singing in a crazy voice. I also have picked up on what it means by “face” being very important to the Chinese. No matter who it is, I haven’t met a graceful loser in the slightest, and they get very angry if you mention it at all. They either ignore you or try to justify it in order to make themselves not look bad. I know people everywhere can be sore losers, but this is a different type of losing, which isn’t necessarily bad, just interesting.