Under House Arrest

Ah my week of 'quarantine' has finally come to an end.

I suppose 'house arrest' is a bit severe a term to describe what I went through during the week. Basically because I was in a foreign country for 3 weeks I had to stay at home and not go out as much as possible in case I got swine flu. Funny - because I would consider someone from Japan a bit more swine-flu-susceptible than HK. Meh. Full list of swine flu cases, country by country.

I did leave the flat a few times, when insanity and boredom and beautiful weather drove me out of my pajama pants and into the sunny streets of this little yakuza-infested town.

When I was at home, though, I did quite a lot of cleaning, reading, cooking, facebook stalking and project runway catching-up-ing. I will certainly miss the feeling of slowly rolling out of bed at 10am , seeing all the other ALTs' bikes are no longer in the bike shed and thinking they were all driven out 2 hours ago and are now parked quietly outside their respective schools, whilst I contemplate how to slowly waste the day away without being too unproductive.

BUT tomorrow morning (Saturday - weekend) I actually have to get up early(er) and meet a couple of students and help them practice their little speeches for the annual English Speech Contest. Oh why oh why. Lord have mercy and graciously spare me some grace. Indeed one of the last things on my want-to-do list. And the irony is that I actually volunteered. I could've totally bailed out on it. But when I think about how unprepared these poor girls are, and also about how bad I would look in front of the other ALTs for being responsible for under-training them, my fingers just started tapping away at my cellphone - and before I knew it an email was composed and sent to the English teacher about how worried I was and how much I want to help. I do want to help. Just hoped it was a better time of the week and day.

I'm a kind person, really.

Misconceptions

Having been in Japan for a year, and having spoken to lots of people back home and being asked lots of questions about life in Japan, I've come up with a list of what people might misunderstand about Japan and life in Japan.

If you don't want your perfect little self-constructed image of Japan ruined, turn away now.

Misconception #1: Everyone in Japan eats sushi or some kind of 'common Japanese food' everyday
Unfortunately, no. People definitely don't eat sushi everyday. It's not cheap even in Japan. And no not everyone eats ramen or even rice everyday. Quite a few Japanese people I know actually prefer bread to rice/noodles. For school lunch, out of 5 days in a week, we get about 2-3 rice days, 1-2 bread days and 1 noodle day. We never get sushi for lunch, hardly get tempura; but we do sometimes get curry, pottage, sautéed veg, potatoes and jelly.

When I asked one of my teachers in school (Japanese teacher) what they usually eat at home, he responded with 'salad, rice, soup...' and he occasionally takes his family out for pasta, burger, roast meat, and sometimes sushi.

Misconception #2: Everyone in Japan loves fish
Mr. S from one of my visiting schools, a Japanese language teacher, HATES FISH! I have also encountered several students and friends who generally don't like anything from the sea. And one of them was brought up by fishmonger parents!! Poor kid.

Misconception #3: Everyone in Japan is polite
Most people are quite polite in Japan and generally have relatively better manners than those in Hong Kong. BUT I have observed, several times, that people on a train or metro rarely give up their seat for the elderly.

Misconception #4: Everything in Japan is super high-tech and modern
In fact, squat toilets are still widely used around the country; many houses are poorly built with wood and metal; every year hundreds (or thousands?) of very traditional festivals are held all over the country that have been held for hundreds (or thousands?) of years. Japan has also done well to preserve many old old temples, shrines and buildings.

Misconception #5: Everything in Japan is very expensive
Only in the cities! And even within cities there are some great restaurant and shop finds that sell great value clothing and food. There are also lots of 100-yen shops and 100-yen (around 65p or $8HKD) sushi restaurants (my favourite haunt)!

Misconception #6: Japan is one big bustling urban city that's super crowded and noisy
There are in fact many deserted coasts, lots of farms and open fields, magnificent mountain ranges and deep forests.


Right - off to my sushi lunch.

Anecdotes of Home

I can't believe it's already been a week and a half since I got home. It has just flown by. But at the same time I felt I've done loads already. That's cos I have done quite a lot already. This is, afterall, Hong Kong.

I have definitely had a bit of reverse culture shock since I got back. There are a lot of things that one may hate, or love about Hong Kong. These are just a few things which I used to take for granted, but now find quite amusing/dispisable/laughable.

1. Building names - The number of buildings and high rises and apartments and housing estates can rival the number of hairs on Austin Powers' chest any day. But the most amazing thing about these buildings are the increasingly ridiculous names developers slap on them. Some are so gory and overly pretentious you just wanna puke. For example, just around the corner from where I live is Palatial Crest, or in Chinese - 輝煌豪園. Unfortunately I don't think its fit even for Princess Sam Lees. A newer estate I recently got to know, situated in Kowloon City, is Le Billionaire...!!! LMAO. I would immediately un-friend any friend who would choose to live in such a gaudily-named block of concrete.

There are loads others such as Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, the Arch (in Chinese its ACTUALLY named after Arch de Triomphe...and the building sort of has an arch in it), Manhattan Hill, Bellagio, Wealthy Height etc.

And myself? I live in the lovely Merry Terrace. :D

2. The MTR - I love love love the MTR. It is clean, fast, cool, and clean. But I hate hate hate the people who ride the MTR. They are impatient, rude, noisy and aggressive. Actually, you will realise this upon 10 minutes of landing into HK Airport, even before you get on the MTR, when you take the little inter-terminal transit train at the airport that takes you from your airplane to the arrival hall. Because a train every 2 minutes is not fast enough for the fast-paced HKer. And in turn, this behaviour makes YOU impatient, rude and aggressive. It's a vicious cycle. I think once I actually snapped and yelled at someone who was trying to push me back into the train as I was getting out. Lord have mercy.

There will (might) be more to come.

Hi, it's me again...

wow I haven't blogged in nearly two months..do you remember me

Also, I'm back again in my noisy smoggy sweaty smelly busy home aka 852 aka HK. It has been 8 months. And I have already noticed things that have changed. Small things. Higher taxi fares. Shops gone and shops opened. Buildings gone and buildings built.

I also seemed to have forgotten about and thus felt slightly overwhelmed at the masses of foreign people in Hong Kong. I guess being one in 35 foreigners in a 350,000 population town does that to you. But having said that, in the nearly-4 days that I've been here, I've already heard 3 groups of Japanese people in HK each in separate occasions - a big group of salary men in the next table in a Thai restaurant, two ladies shopping in Zara IFC, and another pair of ladies sitting behind us in a French restaurant.

Right so what have I already achieved in the first 4 days of my 3 week visit?

I've had Thai food; I've been to LanKwai two times, three bars; I've taken a ferry to Lantau and seen the Big Buddha; I've had seafood; I've had french food; I've watched a movie at a cinema; I've taken the MTR three times; I've had Chinese food twice; I've been to H&M once and I've been to the tiny lanes in Central twice....

...and I still have lots more to do. Wish me luck.