Positives and Negatives of Hongkong
I came to think, I am now here for a bit more than 2 months, surely, I have enough experience now to throw together a Pro and Con list of the place.
Some points will be a bit petty and some quite reasonable.
Positives:
Convenience: Alone the fact that stores don’t close on a Sunday is a blessing and I know I will end up in front of a closed Rewe on a Sunday back home and having a 711 or other smaller shops nearby for a quick snack grab coming home from Campus after midnight is also a real treat.
Variety: he combination of city, mountains, and beaches (like who could get tired of views like these)
Public Transport: MTR, Busses, deadly feeling Minibusses, Ding Dings/Trams. Want to go places? No problem a train will arrive every few minutes (except if the doors fall of LINK) The Network is vast, quick and relatively cheap, a trip from Wanchai to HKU costs me around 6 HKD~0,75 EUR and if I want to go to Kowloon its about 12HKD~1,50 EUR. A Student card would take 50% off of this fare, but I am not alllegible for that card as a 1 semester student. A Ding Ding ride costs 3 HKD i believe and Taxi goes by distance but also to affordable prices if you really have or want to take one.
Nobody cares what you do, sure you get the occasional look from people, but that’s it, no aggressive “Put the camera away” as you might experience in Germany (might just be my experience due to taking picture of strangers, since I prefer to capture non staged moments, in which people “can’t act for the camera”). Basically there is a different view on privacy here in Hongkong, simply due to the fact that housing is dense, walls are thin and the MTR packed. My district: Wanchai has a population density of ~17000 people/km². Compared to the around 3000/km² you would find in Bremens “Neustadt” district.
Photogenic af+, since the city is quite and has every possible variety you could imagine, you can encounter a new capturable moment each day if you choose to walk a different direction or the same for that matter. Something will have changed. And if you are not happy with the pictures on ground level, well just go vertical, some door to a rooftop surely will open itself up, one way or another. Or wait for rain and repeat, the city will look completely different.
Safety: I have never felt unsafe anywhere I went here, no matter if night or day or dody area, if we exclude having to look out for cars wanting to kill you. Pedestrain crossings are more of a suggestions and all crossings without a trafficlight have writing on the ground to look to a specific side for oncoming traffic, because the rule is “CARS FIRST”, which I kinda hate, on the other hand I understand that people in cars would get anywhere if it were different, but also you are stuck here in traffic anywhere, just take the damn MTR or a bus or a DIngDing why don’t you!
Negatives:
Is it rain? No it’s an AC unit without a water drain: Since it is still 25°C here in Mid-November and AC units are attached to the outside of the apartments which produce condensed water, they need to have a recovery tray with a little pipe underneath them, so not to dribble everywhere. But somehow a lot or most people don’t care and just let their AC unit drop water onto the pavement, so you find yourself sometimes thinking that’s it is raining, but you just get splashed by AC water. Not the nicest feeling I can assure you and there are even activist groups pushing to stop the “dribble epidemic”. at least I have seen some posters at HKU.
Housing situation: I pay roughly 500€ for 5qm for a room in a shared flat and that’s the cheap option, here rent prices the rules are “Sky is the limit”. Kitchen is basically one electric stove and a microwave, so I get saved by University Canteen and affordable restaurant takeout food, when I am in a rush.
When walking people will stop without a reason or sign and you will literally collide with them. This happens on a daily basis. They will get a phone message and stop to look or hear an ambulance and stop to look or anything and stop immediately, oblivious to the fact that they are on crowded pavement. Transportation here is on the left side of the road, you also walk mostly on the left side when it comes to staircases or escalators, but somehow doing the same on pavement is just beyond everyone. You basically rush through everyone walking everywhere to get anywhere quickly.
University LIFE
Uni life has basically continued as usual, Midterms came and went somewhat succesful, some A’s some B’s, now Finals are approching, so i don’t get that much time to roam the city, mostly due to my Chinese Language Course. Classes in that course these days just feel like a blur, so much to take in and immediatly adapt, that it sometimes just turns into “reading of the script” or simply asking what was asked or in general what is happening at the moment, since everyone is quite overwhelmed. Gonna do my best to push all the 100 Characters and 250 Pinyin (chinese words in romanised writing) into my brain in the last few days.
For some Bonus we also had a Thyphoon coming through, eventho it was rated as a T8 (3rd highest rating, school/uni and most shops closed for the rest of the day) it turned out very mild with just a bit of wind and rain.
General Things
So that term will come to an end, I am planning my next steps, looking for internship in various countries.
My first wish is to stay longer in Hongkong, to enjoy the warmth (still at ~25°C here at the moment) and do some more hikes.
As second and third i would probably choose Korea or Japan, eventho the work culture is supposed to be rather negative and language differences will be even more difficult to handle especially in an office setting. It would bring a lot of new photo opportunities and I could simply reminise past experiences or create new ones and dive deeper into these countries and culture, with all their unique features.
Of course returning to Europe would be possible, but dont really fancy that option, I’d really rather hang around asia until start of the Winter term 2023 in Germany.
I think this should be it for this time, next update will be around Christmas. So to end a few other pictures, some may or maynot have been posted yet
Niklas' Photo 