Welcome to...HONG KONG!!

Hey everyone!

So today actually marks my third week here in Hong Kong!

During the first two weeks, we had to partake in a two-week seminar style course, in which different lectures who work in fields pertaining to different aspects of HK society (e.g. economy, immigration, human rights, etc.) gave lectures to us. I took this seminar with the other students in the 3-Campus program, as well as a few guest students who came from either Hong Kong or Bangkok, Thailand.

And then this past Monday is when I started my summer internship! I will make another post letting you know about my thoughts and feelings after being one week in.

Now, I’m just going to talk about my initial and general perceptions of Hong Kong in general.

Hong Kong is an interesting place. I had heard about it in passing many times in my life, and have even met a few people from Hong Kong, but never really had much interaction with anything about it.

The first thing I can say is that Hong Kong is a very big financial hub. I would imagine that many people working on Wall Street who are looking into an international experience would easily get transferred to a Hong Kong branch, and vice versa.

Another key thing to know about Hong Kong is that it’s highly political. Often times I had heard people say China and Hong Kong are “different”; and I never really understood that until I got on the ground. Hong Kong was formerly under British control, and was only returned to People’s Republic of China officially in 1997. Even so, it has since existed under a “one country, two systems” framework, meaning that Hong Kong has a separate government from the PRC, but do have to answer to Beijing at the end of the day. But there are significant tensions surrounding how much the PRC respects this “one country, two system” agreement, especially when topics like freedom of speech, human rights and universal sovereignty are considered. In my short time here I have been able to gain more knowledge about these issues both in and outside of the classroom, considering that July 1 marked the 20^th anniversary of the “handover” of HK from Britain to the PCR, and served as a key time for protesters from all kinds of factions to come out and air their grievances.

Now that I am dedicated to an office cubicle, I am really hoping to have more time to churn out more posts in the manner that I would truly like to. Look out for more posts, as well as some links to my YouTube channel where you can see the videos I have made about Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and more!

Thanks for reading~!