It's great to be back "home" in Hong Kong for just over a week. I had the opportunity to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday with my family. There was of course the usual sightseeing and shopping, paying respects to departed loved ones at their gravesites, getting together with friends... I also got to see my old school, albeit from the outside, and the neighborhood I grew up in, and was very surprised to see the old tire shop and the old snack store still in their old places, still with the same owners.
The customer service staff in shops are much more polite and patient than before, as are bus, taxi, even public van drivers. The streets are cleaner. The aire is cleaner. There are more domestic helpers--Phillipina, Thai, Idonesian--everywhere, not only in upper-middle class neighborhoods, but in solidly middle class and lower middle class neighborhoods. A growing number of Nepalese girls work in hair salons and restaurants. But as international as Hong Kong is, cultural standards and expectations are still constrained in a very narrow band. It's still essentially a monolingual moncultural society which borrows liberally from other cultures, but adapts these foreign cultural elements aggressively into a uniquely Chinese version.
Ah it's nice to visit, but it's also nice to be reminded what I didn't like about Hong Kong. Next time I'll take the children and show them that side of the world.
