Sunday, February 18, 2007
All the way from shenzhen!...
8 days away from home, away from family, from the wonderful country i grew up in.
Now I know how they feel.
There is nothing like home.
Nothing like coming home to loved ones every night, to the tree-lined alleyways, crazy local people, and the equally crazy local food, all the while never worrying much about whether your wallet will mystically disappear on the way home.
These 9 weeks will be the longest time Ive been overseas, my first trip without a supervising adult, my 4th time in hong kong, and the first real job I have.
This is the cny break, the first time in my life that i missed the reunion dinner, and the first time i am not receiving hongbaos in this break. ba.
A lot of firsts, eh?
Yes, hong kong is a truly amazing place. Over here, you can never run out of nice places to eat, and excuses to part with your hard-earned money. BUT see...
Every morning, me n my classmate leave the hostel. We get our daily dose of carbon monoxide, from the busy main road beside, and all the zng-ed japanese cars that roar past. at the same time, we have to dodge enormous piles of doggie poo littered along our street, where dog owners love to walk their dogs on. damn dangerous la! the bigger the dog, the more the shit, and hk has VERY BIG DOGS. like a PONY kinda big. If I didnt weigh as much as an elephant, id probably jump on those giant dogs and shout YEEEEEE---HAAAAARR....
Okay, then we reach work, which is quite decently at the 29th floor of a downtown office building. oh man, 3/4 of the people smoke! they all do it at the pantry, which leaves a smoke-tinged 'aroma' in the entire office!
Right, end of day, we have to take the train and then walk. hk is full of street food vendors, narrow streets, and grossly overcrowded urban areas, which make for a terrible, terrible combination. wth la. we get to sample the refreshing aroma of raw pig intestines, rottng flowers (cny ma), smelly sewers, smokers of all ages, bad mainland Chinese breath, burps, farts, and the omnipresent dog shit and car exhaust.
Ive spent the chinese new year break in nearby shenzhen, a chinese city in which 4 of my classmates are working. They stay in pretty posh condos, much better than my crummy hk hostel room. at least I dont have to do the dishes/wash my own clothes =p. Must pay for laundry tho. bleh.
Wow. okay, a little history. Shenzhen is a relatively new city, a Special Economic Zone, set up by Deng Xiao Ping. Its one of the most prosperous cities in China, as it was set up specially to trade with hk. the good thing is, compared to hk, it has very wide streets, and is much, much less polluted. but aiyo, the people here are absolutely uncultured country bumpkins, compared to the worldy-wise hong-kongers.
No matter where I go, nothing can really replace Singapore. When you've stayed in one place all your life, you begin to take it for granted. Really, the only bad thing about singapore is the humid weather. The shops in singapore are wonderfully planned and organised into shopping centres, with a reasonable range of goods and cool stuff.
True, HK has a staggering amount of shops, but who the heck really wants to spend all their waking hours buying clothes? You can always spend a week here and buy all you need. Materialism and elitism, you say? well, try working in hk for a week, and you'll learn to appreciate how singaporeans at least HAVE A FRICKING LIFE. The people here work at least until 9+pm every day! The shops don't close on cny (most la)! No wonder so many of them smoke and turn to drugs. Walao, the city is already so polluted. Smoke summore, you probably wont live to see your children start schooling -_-
Really, I love, love, love Singapore. I haven't found a place more healthy, more enjoyable, where freedom does not mean anarchy. =p
Money or life? HK = money, Shenzhen = life. Singapore = both. :)
I once read somewhere that HK is the best place for shopping, Taiwan is the best place to work, and Singapore is the best place to live. I think it's true =)
jOhn thought at 10:09 PM