Hong Kong: 2 faces

I lived in the society of different, yet wonderful people. I had a chance to  discover 2 faces of Hong Kong.

The first is a luxury, big, modern financial capital with many foreigners, a truly Asia’s world city with , where everyone feels safe and comfortable. This is exactly how the city is branded and is as a great attraction to foreigner to come and live.

The second face of Hong Kong is the face of people, who  feel trapped in the speed of life, being scared of financial issues, high prices for property, and ‘living for working’, because of the competition. People are very smart and have amazing education. You will be amazed by the English level here (I didn’t have any problems with finding the place or buying things). So why do they let themselves being trapped in this speed? Being so smart and kind? Or maybe my discoveries are not connected with the culture of Hong Kong, but the nature of life in a big city? 

P.S. Yesterday was rushing home in a heavy rain. A local girl ran to me, put me under her umbrella and walked all the way to the metro station with me, asking why didn't i take umbrella and telling that i could catch a cold. The girl didn't know me and i didn't ask her about help. She just wanted to help. So, sometimes the kindness doesn't have intercultural boarders :)

On Monday I’m leaving Hong Kong. I’m leaving with a clear understanding that I have to move on. I don’t feel sad or too emotional, yet, I feel honored and grateful of being here and having this opportunity in my life.

Impact. Results.

Like many other AIESEC interns I came to Hong Kong with the big idea of changing the world and making impact on everything I’m doing. Such grand-AIESEC words :) Yet they mean  a lot, and if many young people start thinking about the possibility to make impact, a lot of things can be changed in the world. 

Obviously, I didn’t changed the world and Asia, but I definitely changed my life. In what way?

I worked with passionate and extremely smart people, who believed in the idea of social enterprise and devoted bigger part of their life to it. During this time I interacted and educated 99 young people.  Every time I had a feeling of fulfillment. It’s a bit hard to describe, but imagine after you do 1 or 2-hours sports’ training. After it you have a feeling of being completely tired, but have a big satisfaction and completeness. This is exactly how I felt after each workshop. 

Youth leadership, responsibility, a set of skills (critical & logical thingking), global awareness can change the way of a young person, unless we're able to transform our knowledge and experience into them.

Eat, pray and learn.

I would describe my another part of internship in this way (based on the book ‘Eat. Pray. Love’, which I have read recently. 

Eat.

I was eating a lot of delicious Chinese food, drinking all possible traditional drinks, allowing myself to eat as much as I want. This is amazing feeling, I should admit (but will not admit how many kilos I gained!:)  If I feel happy eating all that delicious food, why should I restrict myself?

Pray.

I mentioned in one of my posts about how many religious people I met here. This made a big impact on me: I returned to my religious roots, which I neglected last year. I should admit that people here treat religion not as a tradition, but because of their calling and need to believe in God. So I started to visit church, pray and felt very happy about all these feelings.

Learn.

I wanted to devote time for learning. During 3 months I managed to read 6 different books, and most important was working in a social enterprise, and discovered business itself. I met people from different areas and working in different spheres, interns, AIESECers and AIESEC alumna, and also I met people from so many countries, with so many diverse attitudes and feelings, and mindset, and cultures. Each of them was like a teacher for me. Yeah, it was intensive 3 months of continious learning and development. Yet it's only the beginning.

I shall continue my thoughts here very soon. Indeed many of them need to be put here :)

One amazing place in Hong Kong and some thoughts

I think AIESEC exchange and life abroad are not only platforms to contribute to something big and useful in society, but also great place to change my life. Yes, we can't change the world immediately, but we can start from ourselves and make important decisions about our lives, our next steps in life and what is important for us. Thank you AIESEC in Ukraine and ICE for changing me and my life. Also now i believe there are no limits for personal development :)

But at this post i want to share with you about one special place in Hong Kong. I was there yesterday during our free time between workshops. This is the place for lutheran protestant church which is located in pure oriental (Chinese) style.

Entrance to the church

Special place near the church

On a rooftop of the church

 There is also something that i have discovered recently: the therapy with the help of walking on labyrynth. I met a founder of the company who is doing trainings with the help of labyrynth: people are told to walk on labyrynth with closed eyes and calm music. I experienced such walk and this was so amazing! Recommend to everyone to try it and what is interesting - everyone can easily find the way out of it and uses this time to meditate. Totally love the training. Now - everywhere i go - try to find a labyrynth :))

We found labyrynth near the church

Cutural shock! :)

During the week we had a big discussion in our office about cultural shock. As i believe that cultural shock is something that everyone experiences when being abroad, but also i'm sure it helps people to challenge their mindset and start looking at traditional things from very another perspective. It challenges the comfort zone. And it happened not only at the beginning of my stay in the foreign country, but constantly.


I want to share with all of you how i try to overcome it, and make it go smoothly.

How do you overcome it when being abroad?

When eating is an art

I declare i became addicted to Chinese food! :D I've never felt so great when eating and tasting so many different delicious and various dishes. Somehow i feel like Elizabeth from 'Eat, Pray, Love' when she was in Italy and discovered the whole art in eating.

At the beginning of my internship i tried to cook at home sometimes, after a while i completely gave up because of 3 reasons:

1. I don't want to lose my time here in the kitchen.

2. I want to try more Asian food, which is so great and diverse!

2. Eating out (at cafes, street, restaurants) costs the same as to buy products and cook by yourself at home :))

There are several types of food that i enjoy the most:

1. Street food - completely safe and cheap. Usually you can find therefish bowls, tasty octopus, snake or chicken meet. For desert you can eat frozen yogurt or jelly.

Yummi octopus

2. Siu Mei - dried noodles or rice with different sort of meet: beef, chicken, barbeque pork or vagetables. I usually drink cold ice lemon tea together with it.

Meet for Siu Mei at the entrance to cafe- easy way to cut for your dish

 3. Rice noodles soups  - made from white rice noodles, together with meet, vegatables and dumplings. Everything together comes to one plate. Soup is being eaten with chopsticks and a small spoon simultaneously.

Artificial dish of soup noodles

4. Dim Sum - a traditional serving of Chinese food in small steamer baskets on a round table. Here you can find dumplings with all kind of meet, eggs, and sweet stuffing, fish, rice, and deserts. After eating you drink a traditional Chinese tea.

Dim Sum

5. Hot Pot - this is so special!!! In the middle of your table in restarant you'll see a small oven with a pot of boling water on it. You put all different raw meet and vegatbles together into the boiling water. After a while you get the meet out and can eat it easily. The plates with raw meet are so huge, that you can never finish it. 

Preparing Hot Pot

Eating together with Feddy's family

I enjoy all our eating times so much, especially after hard-working days we go together to some new place, have thoughtful and also funny discussions, sharing our cultures and sharing food together. I feel so much lucky to be HERE, with THESE PEOPLE, and eating THIS FOOD. 

Eating is one very small way of discovering the country, but when it's an art and almost a holy tradition, then you better not miss :D

P.S. I DO eat with chopsticks now, and can't imagine how could i eat without them before! OMG, i should bring them home!!!

10 minutes and you know everything about China

I got the video '10 minutes and you know everything about China' from my friend today, and couldn't stop sharing it with all of you. Well, it takes me already 2 months (definately more than 10 minutes:D) to understand people, culture and business. It's hard, i would say, but it's such a great journey. I truly enjoy of being integrated into Hong Kong, for me this is a heart of Asia, though many people say it's a very easy version of Asia.

A short remark from history: Hong Kong is a special administrative district of Mainland of China. It was a part of Great Britain till 1997. After 1997 it's considered to be a part of China,  many people left Hong Kong in this time because of fear to communist party of Mainland.  The city is rich, well-established, safe and totally open for foreigners and business from abroad. People have different perspectives about belonging to China: they are be proud of ancient Chinese traditions, culture, emerging growth of China. At the same time, they complain that people from China are rude, wear not fashionably, take their workplaces. This is what i discovered and was told by many of my friends here.

For eastern-european, like me, it takes time to understand people and easily integrate. Sometimes, i have a feeling that i'm totally from another world with my ideas and thoughts, especially when we have meetings or discussions. But it's such a fun and full of learning, because my mind is being challenged, and i understand that only challenging my stereotypes and believes i can change myself for better :))))

The video itself is very cool: has different statistical perspectives of China, business, culture, people. Those people, who are interested in Asia will like it!

And i follow its main advise: be patient and have fun! This advise i give to everyone who is at AIESEC internship or simply living abroad, i think this is the best way to fall in love in the country, people, and change for better. :)

Camping at Tai Long Wai

Tai Long Wai beach in the middle of mountains

South Asian Sea

This was quite unexpected and exciting trip: camping out of Hong Kong with my neighbours and friends from UK, Mainland China, Germany, Canada, living in the tent in the middle of mountains and beach just near South Asian Sea. Swimming, singing, playing mafia, setting fire and eating grilled sweet potatos!

Enjoy my times here so much with all the people whom i meet, learn from and having fun all together. Thank you!