Well, I did say that “the next one won’t take 3 weeks,” right? Oh, you didn’t expect me to mean take longer, huh? Well, neither did I 🙃
Welp. Thank goodness I take decent notes of my experiences. Too bad I only take food photos…
Because I’m so behind and I don’t feel like doing an even larger mega-post than last time, I’ll try and partition the weeks into more spread-out posts so you can view at your own pleasure.
Saturday Sept. 25th – Friday Oct. 1st
I didn’t say this in the blog but I actually stayed up until 3am writing the previous blog post on Saturday 🙃
After such an exciting previous weekend, Sunday was reserved for a more relaxed night meeting new ABC friends by checking out a 小籠包 (xiǎo lóng bāo, soup dumpling) chain called Din Tai Fung (apparently they have these in the US but I never lived in a big city ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) The soup dumplings in Din Tai Fung were good but disappointingly small, but we made up for it after by going to a dessert shop focused on 糖水 (táng shuǐ, sugar water) a kind of local dessert type involving sugary treats placed in a starchy liquid and sometimes topped with ice cream (almost like a milkshake without any milk-based products). It’s hard to describe and might not sound super appetizing at first, but you have to trust me, it’s definitely up in my list of favorite late night snacks now.
New people met: Kelly and Willie from UNC Chapel Hill studying CS + Business, respectively, and Caroline from Stanford studying CS.
Monday and Tuesday meant more class and work, but now a lot of our hostel’s amenities were finally opening up, including our music practice rooms! I finally wouldn’t have to walk 20 minutes just to practice.
Besides the piano room, the college also has a snack bar (think East Wheelock or McLaughlin snack bar), an absolutely decked out fitness room, and a game room and study room which were now available for student use.
Meanwhile, enjoy some photos of the CUHK campus in late September:
On Wednesday, I finally found a group of international students to work together with on problem sets for my algorithms class, meaning I wouldn’t have to suffer alone in my most difficult class. I’ll get more into this later, but many international students, including myself, find it difficult to break out of the international “bubble” on campus in order to regularly or consistently hang out/study with the local Hong Kong students due to a multitude of factors, so it was quite a relief to be able to find other international students to work with. They were each from different parts of Southeast Asia—Andy from Brunei, Wei Xuan from Malaysia, Saranya from India, and Andrew from Indonesia. I also finally got the chance to reserve a study room in the library to work on problem sets with a German student, Bene, and it was quite weird since they were glass rooms and it felt like being in a exhibit with the rest of the library being able to watch you. Besides the homework, Bene also convinced me to start utilizing the tote bag we were given by the university since the weather is still so hot that wearing a backpack guarantees a sweaty back whenever you have to go anywhere, and boy has that made quite the difference. I’m officially a convert now.
And because plans made here are also very ad-hoc, I bumped into Fendi, an ABC I met a while back when we all decided to go watch Shang-Chi, and her friend Sebastian, also from University of South Carolina, and we decided to go to a popular chain in Hong Kong called Tamjai Samgor (譚仔三哥米線) that specializes in Yunnan Spicy Rice Noodles. Not wanting to perish, I ordered an “everything bowl” with “1/5” spiciness, and even still, it was quite a lot to take in. (Sebastian got 1/2 spiciness, and oh boy, I’m not sure how he managed, but he did…) Luckily, I survived and we all went to get gelato in the same mall.
Thursdays are my busiest days for classes, with class from 11:30am until 6:30pm with one hour of break in between. However, tonight was supposed to be quite a special night. The Dartmouth Alumni Club of Hong Kong, in collaboration with the Columbia, UPenn, and Cornell alumni clubs, were hosting a joint happy hour at an upscale bar in Lan Kwai Fong, the party/nightlife district of Hong Kong. Since it was my first ever time going out to a bar here and by somehow missing the tidbit on the invitation about “smart casual” dress code, I showed up in my dorm’s lobby waiting for my UPenn friend, Stefan, wearing neon orange shorts and a plain green Dartmouth t-shirt expecting to be let in 🤡 Luckily, Stefan had a keener eye than me and I ran up and quickly changed into more formal wear (also, bars in Hong Kong apparently don’t let people in with shorts, guys have to be wearing long pants, which is torture in this 30°C weather). However, that isn’t the worst part. Because the group chat for the event had been quite active in chatting about vaccination requirements and types allowed, it completely slipped my mind that I also needed proper ID to enter any bars. In Hong Kong, that means bringing a government issued ID like your passport, and being the absolute noob I was, I didn’t bring it or any other form of government ID like my driver’s license (I’d left it in my suitcase and not my wallet for safety). Getting up to the bouncer and being asked “Passport?” after a 1.25 hour subway ride and climbing 2 flights of stairs in long sleeves on a night like that… well, I’m sure you can imagine my pain 🙂 So, wallowing in my depression, I went to the Five Guys we passed along the way and treated myself while punching myself for being so stupid. Oh well, lesson learned.
Depending on the week, I utilize my Fridays off for either work or another weekend day to go out. This week was both, where I worked on homework throughout the day and then went out to see the new James Bond movie with Ivan, an ABC from Ross at UMich, and some other European exchange students. Afterwards, he invited me to a group of Europeans planning on going out for a biking trip the next morning. Again, very ad-hoc, so no details whatsoever about the trip besides the instruction to meet at the MTR station at 9:15am for breakfast.
Saturday, Oct. 2nd: Biking Across the River
After six hours of sleep and a quick breakfast at the MTR station, we (Ivan, I, and five other Europeans) walked to a small bike rental shop on the waterfront in Tai Po, a nearby urban center that’s only one MTR stop away from University Station. Rental dude was a nice old man who we bargained with using our impressive non-existent Cantonese skills to reduce our bike rentals down to 50 HKD for the day. We went to way too many places but in short, think first-year trips but in *announcer’s voice*: eXtreme heat. I’ll let the photos and amateurly-filmed YouTube video speak for themselves (note to self: stop filming vertically please? thanks).
Short summary of the day was essentially biking along the waterfront, visiting the entrance to Tsz Shan Monastery (giant buddha to boot), heading to a beach with a jellyfish and sea urchin warning sign, biking across a massive reservoir dam, eating squid fried noodles at a local restaurant, biking across mountains and hills to get to a hiking trail towards a waterfall, and finishing off the day with an authentic Chinese restaurant. Ivan the madman wanted to workout after the beating our legs took from biking nearly 25km (15 miles) today, while the rest of us took a shower like any sane person. I may be committing heresy by saying this, but that shower was comparable to our post-trips shower simply as a result of the oppressive humidity and sea salt spray we were subjected to throughout the day.
Sunday Oct. 3rd – Thursday Oct. 7th
As a city of juxtapositions, Sunday meant a trip into Kowloon with my family, where I got a taste of Indian cuisine courtesy of my uncle. Unbeknownst to me, a devious spoonful of curry landed on my lap while we enjoyed fine dining, only to be discovered 3 hours later when we arrived home. Conjuring up as many lifehacks as I could, I could not beat my cousin’s ingenuity when she suggested we serve pants boiled in soap as a remedy for my troubles. Naturally, it worked, and I was saved from the embarrassment of having to walk around with a yellow stain in the crotch area thanks to the genius chemist that is my cousin. (unfortunately no photos, but man it was hilarious when I had to stir this giant boiling pot with my pair of shorts in it…)
Monday morning, my aunt brought me to a breakfast shop for pot-stickers, citing my mom’s high opinion of the shop when she visited back in 2017. I returned to campus, and the rest of the day was for classes and bumping into new European friends for meals.
On Tuesday, I went to an “Introduction to VR” workshop I signed up for in the library. We got to experience three different headsets while there—the HTC Vive Focus Plus (a more business-oriented headset), the Oculus Quest 1 (with hand-tracking), and the “L-Shaped Immersive VR Cave”, which was a gigantic wall and floor panel where putting on special glasses allowed the entire screen to become 3D (much like a 3D movie theatre, but interactive)! Being introduced to the technology through the demos was super cool, and it’s definitely made me want to get my own headset now. Plus, we learned that students are able to borrow the headsets for three days at a time and explore on our own time too, which was very cool, although the Oculus Quest was missing a controller and the HTC Vive wouldn’t be able to connect to your own computer without a membership, so we were quite limited in what we could do with the headsets. For dinner, being the ever-punctual person I am (I was late for class), I hurriedly ordered my food from a busy canteen and got over my social anxiety by sitting with two random students since there were no open seats available. It was there that I learned from them (both postgraduate students) that many of the postgraduates were actually mainlanders, as opposed to the undergraduate population which was mainly composed of local Hong Kong students. Also, unrelated, but many of the postgraduates live off-campus too, sometimes even up to 40-50 minutes away on the MTR! After regretting my order of a super-spicy noodle dish (I didn’t pay attention to the warning when I ordered, whoops), I rushed to my evening class (our first meeting, since it was a scheduled tutorial session—i.e. seminar as opposed to our normal Monday lectures), where a second obvious fact hit me that I was one of few upperclassmen in a class full of freshmen (since it was labeled as a level 1 course). Anyways, just random observations!
Food pics to break up the wall of text (Clockwise from top-left: Mango Lassi, Indian Chicken, Ben Franklin Coffee Corner Burger, Cafe Tolo Waffles, Lee Woo Sing Hainan Chicken, and a Vegetarian Pineapple Burger)
Wednesday brought me to the on-campus grocery store (meeting Corliss, an IRL Ms. Worldwide who was raised in HK and studies in the UK), my algorithms course, my control systems course, and eventually, an early bedtime to prepare for an early-morning resume review hosted by Thayer the next day. I also checked out the university gym after the 6:30AM meeting since the fitness room is usually reserved for classes from 8AM-5PM. To be honest, that was one of the first times I’d woken up before 10AM in Hong Kong, so I must say I’m proud of myself for such an early start to the day, but I doubt my ability to repeat this feat in the near future (it would also be the last time I visited the university gym since it’s a 25 minute walk at a brisk pace, the gym in our hostel is better equipped and most importantly, doesn’t require me to wake up at 6AM). The evening also brought with it a technical interview with NASA/JPL despite already having my Amazon offer in the hope that they would have a decision before the offer deadline (surprise surprise, they didn’t). Given that the interview was at 11:30PM, combined with waking up at 6:30AM that morning, I can safely say that interviewing abroad sucks.
Friday Oct. 8th – Sunday Oct. 10th (Typhoon Time!)
Upon waking up on Friday morning, I realized that in my haste to prepare for my interview, I accidentally locked my roommate out of our room for the night, and he wasn’t carrying his card with him. Crap. Luckily, he took it kindly and told me not to worry at all, saying he stayed with a friend on the floor for the night, but given one of my life goals to never to be the obnoxious roommate, I was sure I torpedoed that reputation with him. Anyways, with that fiasco over, a new one started, namely Tropical Storm Lionrock making landfall in Hong Kong and cancelling all classes for the day. (I had none anyways 😑.) I spent the day hanging out with the Americans in our hostel, while at night, we went to the nearby International House for some drinking games with other international students and fun times on their terrace watching the storm approach (wow, imagine living in an 18+ drinking age country 🤯).
Saturday was when the storm was at its worst, so instead of being responsible and staying indoors, Jessica, Stefan, Caroline, and I paid a 100 HKD tip to find a taxi driver willing to drive us to a conveyer belt sushi place in Sha Tin called Genki Sushi. Wow, are you insane? you’re probably thinking. Did we get wet? Was it worth it? A little, and yes. Likewise, we spent another 50 HKD tip to find another taxi from the MTR station back to our dorm, and finished the night up by playing jackbox games remotely with friends from the other dorms on campus.
By Sunday morning, the rain had cleared out and I went back to my aunt’s for one final visit before she left with my younger cousin, Shu Wen, for her boarding school in Hangzhou in mainland China. Funnily enough, with our thoughts on the most recent storm, another was already brewing in the Philippine Sea, this time with intent on becoming an actual typhoon instead of just a tropical storm as indicated by the Hong Kong Observatory. Typhoon Kompasu was predicted to make landfall in Hong Kong sometime Tuesday, which made my aunt nervous about her flight on Thursday getting cancelled. Regardless, we went out for a large meal at a nearby western-themed restaurant where I had an Australian burger.
Monday Oct. 11th (The Human Library)
Monday morning meant another fresh start to a week of classes, but this time, my morning was reserved for me to become a book at a “Human Library”. To quote from the invitation:
The sessions will be in my class titled Intercultural Communication Through English. As an international/exchange student, I think you’ll find this semi-structured conversation rewarding. You will meet, in person, 4 small groups of Hong Kong students, each for about 15 mins. You will take turns to share your personal stories of cultures and identities. This may be your chance to ask ‘rude’ or ‘silly’ questions such as ‘Why do Hong Kongers seem so rude?’ … You may also assume unequal English language proficiency. Perhaps slow down your usual speech rate, offer guesses when you’re not sure, write out words that seem to cause confusion? Please bear with some silence. It may mean ‘I’m thinking and putting together my sentence.’ … Heads-up: I tend not to introduce you to the class (e.g., I don’t tell students where you’re from, even if I knew), I’d like my students to guess and find out for themselves. You could perhaps ask what’s behind their guesses. It’d be interesting to see what assumptions we have.
And my god, what a wonderful time we had. Upon first arriving, I got to sit down with Matt, a student from UT Austin who I hadn’t met before, and we went around as the “books” (guest speakers) to each of the four groups (“readers”) in the classroom as a pair, talking about everything ranging from the “international student bubble” at CUHK to cultural differences we’ve noticed. Alongside us were many other international students, including a few from the University of South Carolina, a Japanese exchange student, and a full-time international student from Kazakhstan (she mentioned that there were over 70 full-time Kazak students at CUHK, as it’s a very popular destination for those looking to study internationally). Funnily enough, there was also a full-time German international student who was able to speak Cantonese as well as English and a variety of other languages, though he was one of the “readers”, meaning he was a student in the English class. As the “books” in the human library, we did most of the talking during our sessions with each group, but we still got to ask the local students some questions about why Hong-Kongers seem much more reserved, how so many of them grew up speaking three languages, and why many students return to their parents over the weekend (including my roommate). In turn, they asked us about stuff like the weirdest foods we’ve tried in Hong Kong (fun), US Politics (not fun…), and school shootings in the US (the most not fun…). After going to all four groups, us “books” got together to introduce and talk amongst ourselves, where we noticed a common theme that all of us have wanted to get to know the local students better, but the language barrier combined with the fact that many local freshmen already have high school friends and upperclassmen already have established friend groups reinforces the already-existing international student bubble on campus (much more so than back at Dartmouth). As such, we all found the experience to be not only an enlightening cultural experience, but also a great way to casually meet some local students beyond our own roommates.
The funniest thing is that same night, I bumped into Matt on the bus down to the MTR station, where he promptly invited me to join his group for Shabu-shabu, essentially Japanese hot pot but all-you-can-eat! Along the way, I also met Tyler Vo, another one of the seven Stanford students, Duong, a girl from my control systems class that eventually dropped the course, and Carrie Zhang, another ABC from UT Austin. Besides being ridiculously delicious and filling, the hotpot was super cheap at only $20 USD per person in the end, not to mention free drinks, desserts, and side-dishes like tofu and veggies (they even had black sesame frozen yogurt, though apparently it didn’t taste all too much like black sesame according to Carrie). Afterwards, we stopped by a grocery store to panic shop for the upcoming typhoon, where I managed to grab a giant bag of frozen dumplings just in case we were stranded in our dorms. Tyler took the opportunity to give us a rundown of mall structuring differences between the US and in HK: circular paths with strategically placed food courts and other amenities in US malls gives you a sense of being able to spend your whole day there, while in HK, they are much more “linear” with a main section branching off into different wings for you to explore. Then again, according to my roommate, Hong Kongers still love to spend their time shopping and eating 小吃 (xiǎo chī) in the mall for a day regardless ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Tuesday Oct. 12th – Friday Oct. 14th (Typhoon Part 2!)
Tuesday was the calm before the storm… in that I walked calmly to my one class of the day before grabbing takeout and going back to my dorm to re-watch Avengers: Endgame for fun. 7PM never felt so spooky with the winds rustling the trees and the sun completely behind the mountains. In Hong Kong, the typical typhoon signal scale isn’t the Category 1-5 we are used to in the US, but rather starts off at 1, goes to 3 for strong winds, upgrades to… 8 for Gale/Storm Signal? goes to 9 for an even stronger Gale/Storm signal, and then 10 for a hurricane signal. This wind signal is sometimes then paired with an amber, red, black, or thunderstorm rainfall warning. Don’t ask me why they made it this complicated. Anyways, the number 8 signal went up tonight, and is expected to remain in force until the end of the day tomorrow, meaning classes have been cancelled.
The Wednesday typhoon meant another excuse to visit Genki Sushi (a favorite typhoon activity it seems) and play some Jackbox with the squad, while afterwards, I went back up and watched The Matrix to give myself an existential crisis.
Thursday was 重陽節, the Chung Yeung (Double Ninth) Festival—another day without classes, essentially giving me a five-day weekend as a result of the typhoon yesterday. The annoying thing about holidays for the students is that nearly all the on-campus canteens are closed, so I used this opportunity to visit the local Shake Shack in Sha Tin (what’s a city without a burger joint?) and tried out the adeptly-flavored HK Special Milk Tea Shake. This time around, I came back to my dorm to binge-watch Loki just to further compound my already-ongoing existential crisis from watching The Matrix.
On Friday, I volunteered to speak about Dartmouth and my current exchange experience for potential exchange applicants from CUHK. I manned the “Americas” station at the exchange fair with two other current American students, though lo and behold, nobody came to talk with us, instead preferring to talk to the other booths which had local students manning the Europe, South Africa, and Asia tables talking about their experience as a Hong Kong students abroad. (After the Human Library, I’ve learned not to take it personally, but it was kind of sad nonetheless 😓) Afterwards, I tried out a canteen on campus I hadn’t been to before—Ebeneezer’s, which serves Indian and Mediterranean food—and after trying it, I’d have been going to it every day if it weren’t so darn far. That night again demonstrated the ad-hoc nature of plans made here, where Tyler, Kelly, Jessica, and I went to Mong Kok for a dinner at a Korean restaurant, followed with a visit to a Michelin-Star 糖水 (táng shuǐ, dessert) place. That night, I finally got my redemption arc as we then made our way to Lan Kwai Fong with my passport and long pants in tow, meeting a bajillion people in squid game costumes and also other CUHK exchange students on the party streets. It was certainly an experience (and I’m glad I brought earplugs), though I would say it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy LKF to its fullest ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). At least I can say I’ve experienced it now, right? (Tyler, your lil flask always cracks me up lol)
And because this update is going out extremely late—to the Dartmouth community: I hope your 2021 Fall was at least half as exciting as mine, and best of luck on your finals! I’ve still got three more weeks of class here. More updates to come during winterim 🙂 (see above images for a sneak peak look at the whole month’s worth of update I still have yet to write about!)
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