Cultural shock at my hometown

Published at the Libertines Pub, Hong Kong

Frankly, I really enjoy reading our gweilo libertine Wes’ posts on his expat rage in the Hi-Tech Village. Maybe it’s nothing new to our expat readers, but it’s always amusing to see how things I take for granted can cause so much shock and confusion to our beloved expats.

At the same time, I keep being shocked by the non-Hongkie culture at where I work, our CBD Central. I used to feel comfortable to live and work in the New Territories and Kowloon. However, in Central, every day lies a new adventure. First, I have to overcome the language barrier. Whenever I walk in the streets of Central, the only language I hear is either English or Putonghua, or worse, the expats speak better Putonghua and the Mainlanders speak better English than me. Perhaps Na’vi is more frequently spoken than my mother tongue Cantonese here.

Second, not only we locals are expected to make eye contact with strangers, as Wes suggested, we also have to prepare ourselves to talk to them, which is contrary to my mum’s teachings since I was a baby girl. No matter you’re rushing to your office, drowsily waiting for the pick-you-up cappuccino, or simply checking out the gossip magazines at the newsstand, some English-speaking strangers would come over and say hello as if they were your old friend. To look more “Western” and less like a Villager, I’m always up for the small talk until it’s close to 2pm and I got to go.
Then the obscure fact kicks in: they will give me a grumpy face as if I were the orange monk who took away their money. And I have no clue. Should I forego my humble career to make a stranger happier by spending more than a lunch break with him? Maybe my mum was right. I shouldn’t have talked to them in the first place. No talk. No expectation to manage.

Then, it’s their occupation. People I knew in Kowloon and the New Territories come from all kinds of industries, but in Central, everyone told me they work for iBank. Judging from the fact that these bankers are always available at LKF at the time the global money markets are supposed to be busiest, and they’re always up for boat trips even it’s winter, I wonder how many grandmas’ pension funds are contributing to their lifestyle. And I love their Porsches, BMWs and Ferraris!

As a local who work in Central but not for the bank, I can’t help feeling alienated, especially when people interrogate me for a thousand times where I am from and still disbelieve my plain answer “Hong Kong”. Once I tried to be creative and returned something nice (but without lying ) that people say I look like Japanese or Korean. Then someone will say matter-of-factly, ‘I think that’s a compliment.’ Since when being a local is a shame?