I'm Back!

Hi Everyone,

First I have to say that it's been a while! About seven months to be exact! What have I been doing during this time? Mostly working and playing around Hong Kong, plus taking some side trips to Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand. Aside from that, these past three months in particular have held some unexpected challenges for me and I've been scrambling to get things right again.

But with all that behind me, I am pleased to announce the reopening of "New China Hand." The first big thing I have to announce is that I've moved into a new place to live. Up until March, I had been living in Mong Kok in Kowloon, the busiest, most dense populated section of Hong Kong. Even though walking the streets could be a trying experience during the more busy times of day, I really came to love the area's local flavor and smell (stinky tofu!), as well as the excellent selection of restaurants and shops available just outside my door.

Now I have moved into a serviced apartment on Hong Kong Island, right in between Wan Chai and Causeway Bay. It's a comfortable place, fully furnished and still in my price range. Allow me to talk a little more about Wan Chai and Causeway Bay. Wan Chai is without a doubt the most infamous bar district in Hong Kong Island. It first got worldwide attention in the 1950s, through the popular novel-turned-film "The World of Suzie Wong." It's the story of a romance between an American (played by William Holden) and the title character (played by Nancy Kwan,) who is a prostitute living in Wan Chai. Since the Vietnam War, it has become a favorite place for British and American sailors to spend their shore leave while in Hong Kong. Now it is host to an eclectic mix of English pubs (including the venerable "Old China Hand," by which this blog's title was inspired) and strip clubs with names like the "Bottoms Up Club."

Causeway Bay has a far better reputation I think. Home to some of the most upscale and expensive shopping centers and restaurants on the island, it is certainly a fun place to spend a Saturday afternoon. My favorite place to go there is Sogo, a giant Japanese-style department store which has everything from a grocery store to luxury clothing lines to a bookstore.

Although my time in Hong Kong is running short with less than a month to go, I still intend to use this space for posting any recollections of my time here that come to mind. Once again, thanks for reading and see you next time!

Lanterns and Typhoons

Now that I've spent almost a month at my new apartment and new school I feel like I've settled into things here pretty well. I'll finally begin teaching lessons tomorrow and I'm looking forward to trying out the lessons I've been planning over the past few weeks.

My duties at the school are teaching language arts to the first, second, and third year students and teaching film appreciation classes to the fourth year students. In addition, I'm going to be advising the sixth year students as they work on the school newsletter and make broadcasts on the school's PA system. With that and the afterschool English activities I'll be running it's going to be a busy schedule but I've got plenty of support from the staff and students if I need it.

Two weekends ago there was the Mid-Autumn Festival here, which along with the Lunar New Year are the most important holidays in the Chinese calendar. Families get together over the holiday to do moon viewing and eat moon cakes, which are palm-sized cakes usually filled with egg yolks and lotus seed paste. The kids also light up lanterns and play with them. To celebrate I went to Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island where the Lantern Festival was being held. Many giant displays made entirely out of lanterns were there to see, such as one showing the moon goddess Chang'e and her friends the Jade Rabbits. It had to have been the most crowded place I had been in since arriving in Hong Kong. It really was a struggle moving through certain areas in and around the park.

Right now Typhoon Hagupit is passing through Hong Kong so the authorities have hoisted "Typhoon Signal Eight" warning everyone to stay indoors. There are several levels of signals, but they only represent the proximity of the typhoon and not the force. This one has a lot of rain but isn't expected to be particularly destructive. Normally during the day if there's a Signal Eight businesses and schools close down, giving everybody a day off so most people are very glad when a typhoon is coming! The weather reports estimate that the typhoon will have passed Hong Kong by tomorrow morning so the chances of getting a day off this time are pretty remote it seems. Until next time!

Hong Kong

It's been a while since my last post so thanks for coming back! I have been kept in a whirlwind of activity since getting off the plane here, but now that I've got a place to live and a place to work things have settled down for now.

First of all, what's Hong Kong like? It can be a whole lot of things since Hong Kong is comprised of the island itself, the Kowloon peninsula, the New Territories region reaching up to Mainland China, and several large outlying islands. If you want the busy atmosphere of the big city, with skyscrapers and designer boutiques and swank nightclub districts, Hong Kong Island is the place to go. Kowloon is densely populated and in addition to the fancy jewelry shops on the main drag there are plenty of districts bursting with shops and restaurants that are aimed for the local population. The New Territories make up the largest area and despite the name making it sound like the frontier, it is pretty well developed and there are lots of large bedroom communities for the workers who commute to the island each day. Finally, there's the outlying islands, the largest of which is Lantau island. Lantau has got pretty nice beaches and scenic nature trails, all just about an hour's ferry ride from Hong Kong Island. Since the entire Hong Kong area is not that large and the public transportation is excellent, you can get just about everywhere quickly and cheaply. My apartment is in Mongkok, which is in the center of Kowloon and the school I work at is in the New Territories,

The program I'm working for, the Chatteris International Graduate Program, has been a good deal so far. There are 56 people in the program this year, 47 of whom are British. There are 7 Americans including me and there are 2 Canadians. All of us have been in orientation sessions together for the past three weeks so we've grown pretty close. Some of the more memorable times have been during the nights out at the bar districts Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai on the island where I experienced firsthand that the Britsh take their drinking very seriously!

Today I had my first day of work at my new school, The Church of Christ in China Chuen Yuen College. It mainly consisted of an assembly to start off the new school year and an English fun fair for the new first-year students. The princpal gave a long speech during the assembly and then he introduced the faculty. Everything was in Cantonese naturally so I didn't understand much of what was said, but when my name was called I got out of my chair up on the stage and waved. The students were pretty excited and there was a lot of cheering so I knew I made a good impression. My job at the school is not really that of an English teacher, where I'd be teaching grammar and language arts in a class, but rather someone who helps create an English-speaking environment around the school by setting up activities and generally just talking informally with students. In order to get the students interested in talking to me I needed to have a high profile, so part of today was spent just walking around the halls saying hi to people. Being the only non-Chinese person in the school makes me sort of an instant celebrity so I might as well use that to my advantage. This week is going to be spent just getting to know the other teachers and the students. By next week I'll be starting to plan and deliver my own lessons I think.

That's all for this time. If there's anything specific you want to hear about tell me and I'll put it up in the next posting!

Welcome!

This blog was created in response to the requests I've gotten to share pictures and written entries with everyone back home when I'll be in Hong Kong for the next nine months. I'll keep it updated as much as possible so check back often!