At lunch the other day with a friend who is also from America, we started talking about things that were not normal -- that have slowly become a part of everyday life in hong kong. I started thinking more about this, and started laughing... a lot.
When did it become normal to stand on a crowded bus with people snoring as they sleep standing up?
When did it become normal to spend $16USD on about a gallon of milk?
When did it become normal to travel by foot, train, bus, boat, and taxi in one day?
When did it become normal to walk places and not hear one word of English?
When did it become normal to share "face-space" with total strangers on a packed MTR train?
When did it become normal to watch the same lady walk backwards down the street...every morning?
When did it become normal to see men in catatonic poses during tai chi in a park?
When did it become normal to be really thankful for blue skies and stars at night?
When did it become normal that our children eat pancakes with chopsticks?
When did it become normal to not put ice in our drinks at home?
When did it become normal to play soccer on concrete?
When did it become normal to take our shoes of before entering our house?
When did it become normal to meet people from different places around the world every week?
When did it become normal to drive on the right side of the car on the left side of the road?
When did it become normal to pay to park the car... and walk a couple blocks home?
When did it become normal to actually enjoy hot, unsweetened, chinese-style tea?
When did it become normal to watch cartoons in mandarin, cantonese, and english?
When did it become normal to feel totally disconnected from college football seasons?
(ps. War Eagle).
That's just a start... but I'm pretty sure there are thousand more.
4 comments:
face-space.
I know how that feels
Hello there, I just stumbled to this blog whilst pressing "next blog" (a lot) haha.
HK life is indeed interesting isnt it? To introduce myself, I am a 20-something and I used to live in HK for about the first 10years of my life, and the latter 10-ish in Australia.
Most of my family is still in HK and your photos and questions have made me remember how everything used to be! and how certainly things are different in a western culture.
and LOL to milk = USD$16, haha, we dont drink milk, soymilk seems to be the choice! have some with sticky rice! nom nom.
Cheers.
Hi. I found your blog at random. I just wrote a similar blog of obvservations from my last 4 months of living in Argentina and decided to cruise through some other blogs to kill time. I really appreciate your blog and that War Eagle hit me! I'm a senior at Auburn and hate that I'm missing such a year on the Plains!
I'm an expat in a different part of the world, but know how you feel.
I was a real college football (OSU) and NFL fan, but some years I only now catch the Superbowl.
Another weirdness is when you go back to the US, and after a few days it starts to feel unreal.
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