A Brief Update on Life at HKU

Howdy!

Happy Thursday everyone! Today is the Ching Ming Festival here in Hong Kong and we have another day off to celebrate! It's crazy how often students get days off this semester, I feel like I could have seen all of Asia if I went to a country a day. I just returned from Mainland China on Monday (Easter break happened...) and tonight I head to Vietnam for one last trip before I dive headfirst into finals madness at HKU. But I think sometimes I get so caught up in taking photographs for this blog that I actually forget to talk about what happens in my day to day life. So! Here's a little "what I've been up to" for those who have been wondering.

I'm enrolled in five classes here:
Asian Cinema on Global Screens
Cinema and Society: Understanding Europe through Film
Hong Kong Cinema through a Global Lens
Film Culture II: Trauma and Memory in Cinema
Cantonese for Foreigners

I've never been so overloaded with film studies courses as I am here in Hong Kong. As a production student at UCSC, I usually take one film studies elective, one film production course and a GE or a class that interests me, and that's it! We're on a quarter system at UCSC and we only take three courses per quarter. Here, we take minimum of five courses per semester, and since I came here to get a Hong Kong perspective on film, I tried to take all the film courses I could... which means ALL the film courses they offered. It's fun and I feel really engaged, but watching four films a week plus readings plus lecture gets pretty taxing. You watch the movie on your own time! There's no screening in class! What THE HECK?!

Studying Cantonese is difficult to say the least. I love love love my teacher Chow Bun Ching (if you're at all interesting in studying Cantonese, take her course! She wrote the textbook we learn from!) but the tones and syllables are incredibly confusing, and unlike learning French or Spanish, the words sound NOTHING like English ever. Which you'd think I'd expect, but I guess I was surprised by how difficult it actually ended up being. I feel pretty silly because whenever someone asks me a question in Cantonese, I have to slowly and carefully repeat the words to myself before I can understand. But the point is I'm trying! I can now order beef brisket soup noodles and a cold milk tea in Cantonese so basically, my work is done, class dismissed.

I'm currently sick with a head cold that I'm pretty sure I picked up in Mainland China. It was pouring rain over there and I used a broken half-umbrella for most of the trip. At one point, my friends and I biked around Guanzhou in the downpour (pictures to come!) and my feet were definitely soaked to the bone. But it was such an excellent time I'm not even really upset about it. I've purchased a billion oranges to fight off the illness along with drinking multitudes of my mom's Emergen-C and drinking hot tea and soup. I think it's working... The only thing that's troubling is the fact that I am going to Vietnam tonight and I have to be at least in decent health by the time I head out. We're doing a lot of physical activities like biking and kayaking and watching "water puppet theatre" (yeah, that's a thing) and I want to be able to enjoy myself. I also bought anti-malarial pills from the school health clinic so hopefully that's one more thing I don't have to be too worried about! I feel like a real adventurer ever since I heard that anti-malarials exist. Me? Doing things that might give me malaria?! I'm finally seeing the world!

Finally I've also had a lot of fun doing the Insanity Workout in the morning with some of the girls from my hall, walking to school and cooking for myself. I feel like I'm living a pretty health-conscious lifestyle here (though sometimes I drink too many lattes. School is hard and I'm tired sometimes!). If I could just beat this cold, life would be pretty okay! Though I have started missing my home in California quite a bit. Specifically, Trader Joe's food, my boyfriend and parents and friends and improv team, the beach, and the deer that live on the UCSC campus. Things make me nostalgic lately, especially thinking of my hometown. I'm trying to get as much out of my HK experience as possible, because I only have 48 more days here (yikes!) and I'm sure I'll miss HKU like crazy when I leave. So here's to enjoying the city, the culture, the minibuses, and the noodles that I won't get to see again after these last few weeks!

So that's what's been on my mind lately! Thanks for checking in on me!

Dorm Life and Night Life

The hustle and bustle of Causeway Bay

Happy MLK day everyone!

Unfortunately, here in HK, MLK day is not a national holiday, so I had to go to school like a loser! I've had my first two days of school and so far, I think I'll really enjoy classes at HKU. The classes are much much smaller than at UCSC, so far I've only had courses that have under 30 students enrolled. It's amazing! It's wonderful! It's spectacular!

I've also got my dorm room all set up. I love it! For those people who are planning to attend HKU or just want to know what my dorm looks like, here's a little photo tour of my room:

My home for the next five months.

My new pet fish: Hot Pot, Dim Sum and Noodle

No Hong Kong dorm room is complete without junk food. Specifically, salmon sushi potato chips. 

The view from my room!

I feel really comfortable here now that I have a space that's all my own. It's surprising how photos of home coupled with a nice clean bed and a full closet can give you a sense of belonging. And just saying, my IKEA alarm clock is just loud enough and reminds me of all the little japanese apartments I see in Miyazaki movies. 

I've refrained from taking too many pictures over the weekend since we mostly frequented Lan Kwai Fong (LKF-my initials! It's calling to me!), which is the clubbing/drinking square where all the white people in HK go to let off steam. And when I say all the white people, I mean it. During the day, I feel like it's kind of rare to see a white person in the streets, but in LKF, westerners are everywhere! It makes me think the locals are partying somewhere else where western people aren't invited. Anyways, it was a fun couple of days, and I'm pretty sure the pictures would have been priceless, but I didn't want to risk damaging my camera as much as I was damaging my liver. Just kidding mom! But seriously, LKF is not a place you want to have your expensive new camera hanging around your neck. 

The clubs almost always seem to let girls in for free (which was really nice for my wallet), but alcohol was expensive, so everyone just bought liquor (pre-mixed jack and coke anyone?) from the 7-11 and drank and chatted in the street in front of the clubs before going in to dance. It was like one huge block party, and all the whiteys showed up!

After the weekend was over, I brought my camera out for some serious documentation. Last night, my floor-mate Jenny and I went to Causeway Bay for some street food and shopping:

Causeway Bay at night is just beautiful: here you'll find HK time square.

We stopped at a street food stand for some local treats!

Jenny and her dumplings!

For 10 HK dollars, I bought a skewer of five different fried treats. That's less than $1.50!

I also had an HK egg waffle, which is kind of like a sweet waffle-y hush puppy.

We also checked out the shopping in Causeway. If you go to the right places, it can be incredibly cheap. I bought a thin windbreaker jacket from a street stand, quotation mark earrings from Maple (they're so literary!), thick polka dot tights from a street stand and two nail polishes with remover from Sasa (I think it's like a cute version of CVS) for under fifteen US dollars! Jenny and I were pretty smart shoppers though, and we only bought things we really liked and could afford. I might go back and buy a red sweater that I loved for 12 US dollars... It had anchors on it. How can I pass that up?!

Anyways I'm off to Temple Street Market with my floormates! Thanks for checking in, ciao!

Or as they say in Cantonese, zoi gin!