Blogging
From Abroad

HK is supposedly a “multi-cultural city” but I don’t really get that feeling from it. HK is basically just local Hong Kong people and transplants from Mainland with a large expat community. (Expat = expatricate, the name for people who leave their home country to go live and work in a foreign one, typically Western to Eastern cultures). Americans are basically a novelty in Hong Kong, and all of Asia for that matter. I think only around 20-30% of Americans have a passport, which is very, very small compared with most of Europe. America also likes to make it difficult for foreigners to come and work and live and even visit, so some Asian countries (mainly China) do the same to us. It costs almost $200 USD to enter China for an American, but about 10 times less than that for a European, Mexican, or even Canadian for that matter.

But no matter how my whiteness/Western-ness stands out, I am navigating Hong Kong like I’ve lived (or really just shopped haha) here for years. I know the places to get everything I need or within reason, want. I can navigate the HKG (what we like to call the HK airport, which is BEAUTIFUL, by the way) the MTR (subway) and on a good day, even the buses (but I don’t mess with buses in big cities in America – I’d rather ride the subway then walk).

Some of my Western staples, like Sephora, let me down in HK. Apparently it’s only been open since September 2008 and most people in HK would rather go to make-up counters at the large department stores (my favorite is Lane Crawford, the British colony answer to Harrod’s in London or the equivilent of Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus in the states).

Hong Kong International (HKG!!) in the morning
in the Philippines!!
My favorite place in Hong Kong, Stanley Beach. The girl beside me is from WVU, Kara, and the girl beside her is a local student who studied at WVU last semester, Christine.