Last Thursday and Friday the university organized three orientation sessions for every exchange student coming to HKU. The first one was a personal Q&A with two local students. The locals were very helpful as they provided important information from the university and Hong Kong. I basically asked them every question I had and after the session was over, everything was clearer for me. The second session of orientation was a presentation from a faculty member of the school of Business and Economics and most of all she explained us how to enroll/drop classes and how the HKU online platform, which would be the equivalent of Northeastern’s Blackboard, works. Those students who are in different faculties had their own session as well. And the final session was with all the exchange students that will start classes this spring at HKU. At this session we received great information about Hong Kong’s history, culture and traditions and many important members from the university, including the president, provided us some welcome words.
I am impressed with HKU’s campus, it is among the best university campuses I have seen in my life. The university is in the middle of a mountain so it is very compressed and has many floors in just a short space. Different than Northeastern, the campus does not have green outdoor fields but since it is in the mountain, it has an incredible view to Hong Kong’s skyscrapers and even to the sea. As the main language of HKU is English it is easy to get anywhere around on campus as you can ask anyone for directions.
So far I love this city. It is a huge metropolis that truly does not sleep. What calls the most my attention is the brutal social differences that are basically everywhere. It is common to see an extremely luxury building with the most expensive cars in the world parked (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, etc.) and next to it a shanty building in a very precarious conditions. This happens everywhere in Hong Kong. The public transportation is amazing; the subway is extremely fast and very easy to understand, opposite from the bus system, which is way more complex and unfortunately I have to use it every day to get to my dorm–Lee Hysan Hall–as there is not subway station around.
Before coming to Hong Kong I was told by all my friends and family that have been here that Hong Kong was very westernized. I do not know yet how other cities in Asia are, but I can certainly say that Hong Kong is absolutely different than every Western city I have visited. There are many areas with similitudes with Western cities, especially the financial district, but overall is something completely strange for me. I can imagine a tourist coming and staying at an American hotel at the international area of Hong Kong and going to the huge malls and moving around in very westernized plans. For that tourist perspective Hong Kong certainly has abundant similitudes with the back home culture and way of life. But that has not been the case for me as I live in a very Hong Konger area where the local culture and way of life is everywhere. It is not the same coming as a tourist than coming to live for an entire semester. And this does not mean at all that I do not like Hong Kong, it is just an observation that I consider important to mention as there certainly is a cultural shock.
What I have struggled the most so far has been with the food. I could not imagine before coming that there was such a big difference between Western and Eastern food, but there certainly is. At the university there is a Western dining hall, which is very good and cheap, but I could not think of myself eating there more than three times a week as the food is very repetitive. Also, at my dorm the only dining hall there is only offers food that is very local, which as I said before, it is extremely different and I am sure not everyone from Boston would be comfortable with it. I have two options: move around to find Western restaurants and pay more, or get used to the local food, which is everywhere and cheap as the university provides it. I chose the second option and I am doing a big effort to enjoy the new food from this new culture that I am discovering. I am sure the food will not represent a big problem as I will get used to it soon.
Besides the cultural shock regarding the food, so far everything has been amazing. I am more than happy to be here and even though I have been here less than a week I am sure it was the right decision for me, among the many programs offered by Northeastern, to come to HKU.
