Walking and eating

Not much to report right now. Robyn is on a school trip today to the wonderful "Ocean Park" theme park, lucky git that she is. I am basically spending a fair bit of my time organizing English fun fairs in schools and getting ready to start recruiting for next years influx of new people. It is all quite boring really but the perk is that I get to come back to the UK for a week and travel round the Britian visiting universities! Once I fully realize that this basically involves me being stuck in traffic on the M25 or similar places for most of my time, I will probably become less excited.

One of our friends had her parents come to stay recently. She said that it was quite a shock, not for the parents visiting, but more for herself. Her reason for this shock was because she realized how much she has become accustomed to life in Hong Kong. The example she gave was walking through the streets, it is quite normal to become ruthless when it comes to getting to your destination. Almost everyone is Hong Kong has to be rushing somewhere, and if they are not rushing somewhere then they have to pretend like they are so as to seem very busy and very important. If you so much as think that you can get away with ambling along and taking a casual stroll in some situations you had better be prepared to become crushed, barged elbowed and bruised. There is a similar rule when it comes to pedestrians and traffic, in any normal country cars have priority over pedestrians, this makes complete sense, cars are bigger. In Hong Kong this rule is reversed, the only way to get around quickly is to be fully prepared to step out into oncoming traffic and expect the oncoming car to grind to a halt and let you pass. If you do not take matters into your own hands and make the indication that you are stepping out then you may find yourself on the sidewalk for ten minutes at a time.

So our friend who had her parents visiting was walking through the markets of Mong Kok when she turned around to realize her parents were no where to be seen. They soon caught up and commented on her seemingly new approach to on foot travel. This got me thinking about other differences that have developed since Robyn and my arrival. The first thing that comes to mind is eating habits. Both Robyn and myself often comment that we have now become somewhat piglike. Its not for lack of care, its just that table manners are just non existant in Hong Kong. It is a case of hand to mouth, chopstick to mouth or more often than not food to tablecloth. In short, parents and visitors, prepare for dining with a couple of piglets.

bx