Noticing Things

Just a few notes about Hong Kong, CUHK and Morningside in general

• MTR motto: Be aggressive. When the train arrives you're supposed to stand to the left or right to let passengers off first, but this never happens. If you have a seat, don't offer it to anyone. That's just weird.
• Buttons in elevators, hand rails on escalators, and even some vending machines have little laminated signs stating how many times per day the surface is disinfected. (Residual cautionary measures from the SARS outbreak).
• People cough and sneeze without covering their mouth. (SARS? Meh)
• Announcements (general): 
• 'The train for .... is arriving. Please let passengers exit first' (MTR platforms)
• 'Please hold the handrail' (MTR stations everywhere)
• 'Mind the doors, please' (Pentecostal elevator)
• 'Please mind the gap' (MTR)
• 'Next station: University. ... and be aware of the difference in levels between the platform and the train' (Specifically for University Station)
• 'Toast' in Cantonese is 'doh-see'. This is useful for ordering $7 toast from Morningside Canteen at 8:30am when none of the English-speaking staff are at work yet. 'Jam' is 'jim'.
• Try Almond Milk Tea. Just try it.
• Sheung Wan is a beautiful neighborhood with lots of galleries and design shops and people walking their dogs on warm April evenings. It also has lots of stairs. 
• Elsa, the lady who runs Cafe Liscio (Tower Block, Morningside College) is a dear - she will make you vegetarian croissants or ciabatta rolls, and if you order something that doesn't quite fit the lunch specials, she will give you a discount anyway.
• Local students will steal your food from the fridge.
• International students will steal your food from the fridge. It sucks, but it happens.
• Lan Kwai Fong on a Saturday night is a must, but be prepared to come back smelling like smoke and alcohol, even if you don't drink or smoke.
• Eating hotpot is a must, but be prepared to come back smelling like hotpot.
• Catch a minibus. Don't worry about where it goes, it's the ride that counts! (Trust me)
• Catch a double-decker bus and sit up the front. (There are several buses that run from Shatin to the Airport, which is probably where you will best experience it). It feels like you are in the front seat of a rollercoaster.
• Don't tip. Don't even think about leaving change. At almost all restaurants you are charged a 10% service fee, so if you leave money, it's just weird.
• If you are at Morningside, during communal dinner, just once sit with the Master. He gets really lonely at his table sometimes. Plus, if you sit with him you get wine with your meal!
• Get annoyed at the Chung Chi College student who loudly practice tug-of-war until 1am on week nights.
• The local students are absolutely lovely, but expect them to always be talking about how much they want to sleep, and how much they hate studying.
• The Park-n-Shop sells Devondale milk, Flora spread, and Cadbury chocolate. Enough said.
• The Hong Kong Central Library in Wan Chai is beautiful.
• From CUHK, it is quicker to get to China than it is to get to Central. Take advantage of this. I should probably write a post about that... Anyway, Shenzhen has some excellent 24 hour spas (kind of like Korean jimjilbang) - the best being Water Cube and Queen Spa. (I went to both. Both had free all-you-can-eat fruit, soft drink and icecream!)
• Buy a jacket or jumper of your college. Morningside's is purple and says 'Once a Morningsider, Always a Morningsider'.
• The University Health Clinic is not just for students. It opens only on week days from 8:45am. If you arrive at 9, the wait time is already half an hour. BUT prescriptions are free!

Movie Night

So, Wednesday night is movie night here at Morningside College, and tonight we watched that seminal American tale One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I read the book years ago, and while I was in high school the year 12 drama students did a performance of it, which was absolutely brilliant. So, seeing the movie for the first time, finally, was excellent.

In the Tower Block (where I live) on the Upper Ground Floor we have a TV Room with lots of comfy sofas and armchairs and a big flatscreen TV. Anyone in the college can use the TV room, unless it has been booked for an event.  Once Lavinia (an exchange student from Melbourne) and I tried to watch a movie from her hard drive (because the TV has a USB port), but we couldn't quite get it to work. The TV has regular HK channels, but there is information circulating about the possibility of getting cable channels, depending on the cost and if the college can find the money for it. The package being considered is the NOW TV Sports package, which has the rights for the English Premier League and the FA Cup, as well as other channels like Discovery Channel and Al Jazeera English. So, perhaps by the time next semester rolls around, you'll have cable!

The guy who organised the Movie Night, Edwin (a local student, pretty sure he's a graduate student...) bought a DVD player and a speaker to play tonight's movie, so I guess that's the most reliable option. And because he applied for funding for the movie nights, we had snacks (chips, Pocky, Maltesers etc), plus juice, and even a bottle of red AND a bottle of white! Of course, those who didn't think to bring wine glasses drank red wine from plastic cups. After the movie he asked us that if we had any requests for what we would like to watch next week, then just send him an email and he will try to find it. He gets the DVDs from United College's Media Library, so it's all legal and above board for the college to have us all sit around using college property to watch movies.

Normally I wouldn't be able to make the movie night because I have Kung Fu lessons on Wednesday nights, but I didn't go this week because I am sort-of getting over/sort-of still in the midst of a cold (blocked sinuses, in case you were wondering), so two hours of martial arts was just not going to happen.

Burns Night

There is a tradition at Morningside College of holding a 'Burns Night' in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns during the week of his birthday. Last night, Master of the College and Head Scot, Professor Sir James Mirrlees read Selkirk Grace (with a beautiful Scottish lilt) before an Asian man in a kilt playing the bagpipes performed the "Piping-in of the Haggis". Seriously. The bagpipes were played, and the haggis was rolled in on a silver platter by the chef. (Well done to John for capturing the moment, as it all happened so fast!)

An extract from the Address to the Haggis was then read, then we toasted the Haggis. Then we ate the haggis (with mushed carrot and mushed potato-cauliflour).

Well, most people did. They also served fish with vegetables, plus the table staples of rice and soup (last night was regular Asian-style chicken soup. More on irregular Asian-style chicken soup to come!)

For the third out of four nights my vegetarian meal was... pasta! But sadly it was not Scottish-themed. So far I've had spaghetti in napoletana sauce, spirali in yellow curry (that was interesting) and penne in napoletana-with-broccoli-and-carrot-chunks. I'm not complaining. The serving is huge and my food is never cold (unlike some of the regular meals that can take a while to get to your table and become cold in the process).

We also had two of the resident professors give speeches - Professor Simon Haines spoke of Robert Burns and his achievements (both literary and... extra-curricular) and Professor Colin Graham - who actually grew up 8 miles from Burns' hometown - read To a Mouse. We were given a program:

And in the program there was a copy of the poem in its original form (as it was read on the night), plus a "Standard English Translation".
Anyone who has ever read Burns and tried to figure out what 'skeekit', 'whyles', 'daimen' and 'cranreuch' means will appreciate the gesture.

We then all stood up and sang Auld Lang Syne (again, the verses were in the program, and some of us sang more heartily than others!) then it was trifle for dessert.

I thought the whole occasion was thoroughly enjoyable! The case for Morningside College being the best of the residential colleges is, in my opinion, getting stronger by the day... but I won't give my final analysis until I've lived here for at least one month.

Night View

View from my dorm on a winter's night in HK. I could get used to this...

Except for the fact that my bed comes standard with a 9.5cm thick mattress.

I'm used to it... but not really >_<.

Bathroom Notes

This is my floor

There are 11 levels in the Tower Block, and I know levels 8, 9 and 10 are for girls, and level 3 is for boys. Perhaps the higher levels are for girls and the lower levels are for boys?... Apparently it is ok for girls to visit boys rooms and vice versa from 8am to midnight (with the permission of the roommate), however this means that I don't feel comfortable walking from my room to my floor's shared bathroom in my pajamas because a guy could be lurking in the hallway >_<.

The floor has 9 rooms, with two girls to a room. However, for these 18 girls there are only two showers, two toilets, and a disabled toilet in the bathroom. However, the bathroom itself (space in front of the showers) is HUGE, like 5m by 5m, with lots of mirror space and 4 sinks. Question: Why couldn't they put more toilets or showers in? The showers are very small - about 1 to 1.5m wide by about 2.5 long. There is a shower curtain to divide the shower from the small area that I assume is the place to be kept dry and to get changed in. But this is what makes me laugh. In our Orientation Booklet they make explicit reference to privacy. Quote:

"Many local students, especially females, are extremely modest and prefer to undress only in complete privacy. They will expect equal consideration from you. It is a good idea, therefore, to discuss about this early with your roomate and arrive at an agreeable arrangement."

There is NOWHERE to be private, except for the tiny shower cubicle.

Regardless, the bathroom is very nice and new and shiny, and we are allowed to use the bathrooms on the other girls floors also if ours if too busy.

First Impressions

Hello Hong Kong! I like you already.

We were told via the IASP e-newsletter a few weeks ago that we should travel from HK Airport to CUHK by taxi (it would be quite inconvenient to other passengers to travel on the MTX if we had lots of luggage, which is understandable), and that it would be about $300HKD. My taxi driver spoke almost no English, but had a cute figurine in his car.

The green taxis on the right as you exit HK Airport go to the New Territories. Happy point #1: The fare to my actual hostel - like to the door - was less than $220!
Drawback... I arrived right at the start of the lunch hour break for the Morningside College Office >_< (They are closed between 1 and 2pm) so I just had lunch at the cafe in the Tower Block. Pasta, and a not-too-big-not-too-small can of Coke Zero.

Morningside College consists of two buildings: the Student Hostel/Tower Block/High Block (same building, different names), and the Maurice R. Greenberg building (they are only about 10m apart). Downstairs in the Tower Block there is the cafe, which has a lunch special every day (Wednesday is Mediterranean Pasta, which turned out to be carbonara, so I picked out all the bacon) and the lady working in the cafe is really nice. (She actually had  noticed I had picked out the bacon and said I should tell her next time and she would prepare something else. How nice!). The Maurice Building has the Office, Laundry, Dining Hall, and residential apartments.

Actually, that's one thing about HK - people are really nice and helpful (just a little pushy getting on and off the MTR, but that's a mirror of the manners on public transport in lost busy cities in north Asia I think!).

So, we were told to check in to our Hostel first, which I did - at 2pm when they opened again - and I received a key and some info about College rules.

This is my room!

The window is opposite the door, and my bed and desk are on the left when you enter the room.

As you can see, there is one wardrobe for two girls. Hmmmm. 

But the room is really new and clean and we have a beautiful view of the lake (river?), so when study gets too much, I can just look over the University grounds and the water. (The front haze in the photo is the flyscreen)

We had also been told in the e-newsletter that AFTER checking in to the hostel, to go to the I-Centre in Yasumoto International Academic Park. There is a free CUHK app for Android and iPhone which has a really useful map, so I used that to find my way from one place to the other. You have to be pretty on-the-ball to keep up with where to check-in and where to be, because there is no-one to hold your hand, but the whole registration process wasn't difficult - just follow what they tell you in the email. At the I-Centre I registered for my student Octopus card (transport card) and filled in some other paperwork, and bought a bedding set for $200. I then lugged it back to my dorm (uphill), where I met my roommate. She's lovely! Her name is Chloe, she is from Vancouver and she is studying Finance... and she only needs to do three subjects! (I'm very jealous).

Although we had been told in several previous emails that we would have a "local roommate who had expressed interest in sharing with an international student", this is not true as a rule. Some people have local roommates, and some don't. Chloe's family is from China (near Shanghai) so she speaks fluent Mandarin and some Cantonese. Very convenient!

Last night I went out to dinner in Mong Kok with John and two of his friends from highschool (who are staying here in HK with family until the end of January; they study at Flinders University) and two of their friends. Hong Kong by night is amazing. Much older than Seoul, and lots more neon lights. We went down Nathan Road and Soy Street, and we had sushi at Hokkaido Katsu Sushi for dinner (order as much sushi as you like then pay by plate-number/plate-colour at the end) and a kind of iced-gelati for dessert. 

Afterwards John and I caught the train back to the University just before midnight. The train only takes about 20 minutes from the Uni to Mongkok! Excellent!

So, it was a brilliant first day! May there be many more like it ^_^

Residential College

I've been assigned to Morningside College!

I'm really happy about this because I requested Morningside as my residential college (on the college request form we all had to fill out). There were several reasons for this.

#1: Having only being completed in 2010, Morningside is the newest college. It has the newest facilities. It has the newest bathrooms. Enough said.
#2: The Master of the College is a Nobel laureate. It seems to be quite an academic college, and seeing as I'm there to study, this vibe should help keep me on the straight and narrow.
#3: One of the resident tutors is an ethnomusicologist. Enough said. (OK, maybe not enough said, but in my experience ethnomusicologists are never boring. Tal Kravitz's guest lecture at my university last year was brilliant and brilliantly funny. e.g. when an audience member tried to play the theramin, he comments "Its like making love to Shostakovich"). The other resident tutors seem really cool too.
#4: The college insists on mandatory participation in three communal dinners per week. Now this might sound like a drawback but I think it is a bonus. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights (school nights) I don't have to think about cooking, and I have recently found out that there are vegetarian options available for every meal. I also like the chance of having a meal with someone you might not otherwise talk to, and no doubt there will be no shortage of interesting dinner conversation!

I am yet to find many pictures of the dorms at Morningside, seeing as most of the blogs of the international students I have found were living in the I-House.

and #5: I don't have to walk up these stairs every moring, as Morningside is closer to the main campus.