Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers

This semester I had two Chinese professors who taught in English. I'm sure they are smart individuals in their native languages, but their English was really terrible.

I found it very difficult to listen to them during class. My International Communications professor's English wasn't that bad, but she still had the fobby accent and made grammatical errors on the PowerPoint slides.

Now, my Chinese Culture and Its Philosophies fill-in professor (the original American professor was hospitalized with an illness) really spoke poor English. It was so surprising because she had gone to the University of Hawaii for college; I thought that would have improved her English. But she would conduct lectures without a microphone and would be shouting with her high-pitched, monotonous fobby accent. I could hardly bare sitting through class. Many a time I felt the urge to cover my ears.

In addition to her terrible accent, she couldn't pronounce several words she included in her slides. Even the local students knew the right pronunciation and would quietly say the words correctly after she said them incorrectly. It's a good thing the students know the right pronunciation, or the professor would be teaching these kids the wrong pronunciation of words!

I think the most memorable word from the last lectures was "annihilation." When it came time for her to read it off the slide, she said, "a-nih-hi...a-NIH-hi-lation." I almost burst out laughing.

I wonder what the criteria is for CUHK to allow Chinese professors to teach in English. Do they even test the professors to see if they can pronounce English words correctly? It would be a terrible thing if the local students were learning how to pronunciate words from them.

Behavioral Observations: Cultural or Universal?

This morning I decided to finally use the soymilk I bought a few days ago to have some cereal. When I picked up my carton (clearly marked with a post-it note with my room number and name), it felt lighter than normal. I screwed the cap off to discover that someone had opened my soymilk and had drank a cup's worth of it.

Somebody had the audacity to open my carton of soymilk. Now, I would understand if somebody took some of my soymilk if I had already opened it and had left it in the fridge. But someone actually opened MY soymilk to quench her thirst.

I almost got as upset as I had before when I had gone to the refrigerator after a night out craving my individually-sized carton of mocha vitasoy to find that someone had stolen it. But I controlled myself. Plus there was still soymilk for me to use, unlike the former incident.

My friends and I have discussed this whole stealing thing. I've learned that the girls here even steal clothes that are hanging out to dry. Some even steal UNDERWEAR! Now that's just not right.

Tonight as I was washing my face in the communal bathroom, I noticed a girl had walked out of the stall and out of the bathroom without washing her hands. Now, I've seen girls only wash their hands with water, no soap. But to not wash your hands at all? That's just disgusting.

I don't know if this kind of stuff happens in all dorms. I know the stealing of food occurs, but clothing and toiletries from rooms? And underwear?! Come on.

CU...HK

Now that it's getting close to finals time and people's departures, we are trying to fit in as many outings as possible.

This morning Brian, Jiesi, Kim and I had a nice Hong Kong-style breakfast at a restaurant in Shatin Centre. I had some really great Ocean Empire congee with fish, shrimp, chicken and fish balls topped with green onions and peanuts. I also had some yau tiu and soy milk.

I am really sad I hadn't gone to that place earlier, because I really haven't eaten much "Hong Kong" food every time I've gone out to eat.

Afterward, Jiesi, Kim and I went to Wong Tai Sin Temple to get our fortunes told. There are three levels of fortunes (higher, middle, and lower). I got the higher fortune, Jiesi got the middle fortune, and Kim got the lower fortune.

The fortune-telling method we chose was to use the cup full of sticks, kneel down and shake the cup until one stick falls out. You remember the number you get and go to one of the many fortune-teller shacks and tell them your number. He or she takes out the poem that accompanies the number and interprets your fortune depending on what you want to know about (ex. career, love, etc.).

I decided to ask about love. The fortune-teller said that it will work out with whoever I have in mind. We will have a long-lasting relationship that gets better and better with everywhere we go. The gods will be watching over us for a successful relationship.

I forgot to ask what the poem was really about.

Afterward, I showed Jiesi and Kim the I.T. Sales Shop in Festival Walk. They were amazed by the prices of the clothes (60-80% off nice brands). We all walked out with something.

In the evening, we went to the IASP Farewell Party. It was promoted as an all-you-can-eat BBQ. Little did we know we had to grill the food ourselves on BBQ pits! Most of us were pretty upset by that. We just wanted to eat food, not cook it!

We realized that at that point in the semester, it was too late to really meet new people. The farewell party was more of a way to see people you've met throughout the semester one last time.

Everyone had their cliques, though there were some people who knew a lot more people. I don't mind that I didn't get to know a bunch of people this semester. I'm really happy with the small group of friends I've made.

There were some activities at the end, but we didn't feel like standing with the crowd around the stage to try to get a look. We just stayed at our table and chatted.

When it was nearing the end of the party, we tried to get our money's worth by taking as many drinks back home as possible. The comedy of the situation was probably the highlight of that night.

A Weekend in Macau

Last weekend I spent two days and one night in Macau. I had the most amazing time! The food was fantastic and I had great company.

If you don't know what Macau is, it's an island west of Hong Kong that is also a Special Administrative Region of China, like Hong Kong. It was colonized by the Portuguese and was transfered to China in 1999. It's well-known for Portuguese egg tarts, meat jerky and casinos (there are casinos like the Wynn and Rio in Las Vegas, plus many more).

We took the ferry to Macau and got a taxi (with a really mean driver who gave my friend, Jiesi, a hard time about not being able to read Chinese and paying with Hong Kong money) to our hostel. The hostel was basically someone's apartment that was converted into a hostel. The building was pretty run-down, and the staircase was dark, but the people were nice. Our room was just two bunk beds and a desk with a TV. But the total cost for the room was less than a roundtrip ferry ride.

We left our stuff there and started exploring Macau. The architecture in Macau Square definitely looked European. Street and shop signs everywhere had Chinese, English and Portuguese. Most of the locals spoke Cantonese.

We ate lunch at a small restaurant and ordered the famous Macanese porkchop buns (basically a piece of porkchop sandwiched in a crunchy bun). We also ordered noodles. The bowls were probably the smallest bowls of noodles I've seen at a restaurant, but it was a good size. Everyone else had wonton noodles (the wontons had tons of shrimp) while I ordered beef stew noodles.

Afterward, we walked along this street that had tons of stores selling fresh jerky (pork and beef I think) and freshly made almond cookies. They all had free samples, too! You could also see the workers making the almond cookies out of an almond powder mix. They also made fresh crunchy egg rolls (not the ones filled with meat and vegetables, but ones filled with curry powder or shredded pork and seaweed) using flat, round irons. We had free samples of those, too!

We did a little more shopping/exploring, then we met up with Jiesi's aunt and cousin who live there. They took us to a local favorite that served Macanese food. The food was amazing! Every single dish (except for the clams that I didn't touch) was delicious. And Jiesi's aunt was really nice and paid for it all!

She walked us over to the Sands casino and said goodbye. Most of us exchanged a very small amount of money. I know the guy exchanging my HKD$40 (~US$5) was probably thinking we didn't belong there. We all just played the slot machines (especially because the minimum bets at the other tables were between HKD$100-300). I hardly won any of the times I spun. But I had already learned that I wasn't very lucky at slots from my last experience in Las Vegas.

My friend, Kim, was the only one who won. We went up to the second level with the more expensive slots, which were $1 per spin. She won five free games, and the first game she played she won the minor jackpot, which was about HK$320. I don't think she realized she had won the jackpot until after I started shouting and pointing "Oh my god! You won the minor jackpot!" She promised to buy us all Portuguese egg tarts the next day.

The Sands casino was really nice! They handed out free glasses of milk tea and free water bottles with the Sands logo on it. There was also a free show with singing and dancing. We visited the Wynn next. Only Jiesi and Kim played the slots once more. The Wynn was a lot classier-looking, and the slots and tables cost more, too. There weren't any free shows, and the Wynn water bottles seemed to be only for the people playing at the tables.

We decided to end the night there. We went back to the hostel and slept. All of us got multiple mosquito bites during the night because there was no screen on the windows. We woke up early to take turns showering (there was only one bathroom for all the guests, and there were probably at least 12 of us). Kim bought us our Portugese egg tarts. They were so good! The custard was a lot smoother, fluffier and sweeter than any egg tarts I've tried in the States. I can't compare them to the egg tarts in Hong Kong because I haven't had any, even though they're everywhere (even at KFC). Kim and I really wanted more, but we were heading to Macau Tower for the buffet at the 360 Cafe (it's a revolving restaurant high up on the tower).

We had a lot of fun at Macau Tower! There were a lot of exhibits that were great for taking pictures. We took a lot of silly pictures. The buffet was decent. There was a good mix of food with Macanese, Western, Japanese, Indian and Chinese cuisines. Some of the desserts were very good as well.

We headed back to Hong Kong after the buffet to try to see Jay Chou (a popular Taiwanese singer) at a signing in one of the malls. When we got there we realized only a few people received passes to wait in line to get his autograph. We hardly got a glimpse of him before he left (we arrived about two hours after the signing started). But it was really fun to just go through that experience and see all the girls (and some guys) trying to get a good look at him. It was really funny when all the girls starting screaming when he stood up from the table to say goodbye.

I wouldn't mind going back to Macau before I leave here, but the ferry ride is quite costly (about US$37.50 roundtrip). I am glad my first trip away from Hong Kong turned out to be so fun! Now I have to focus on school work for the next three weeks for final exams and essays. Then it will be time to travel to Malaysia and Thailand!

Ocean Park

Today a few friends and I went to Ocean Park Hong Kong in Aberdeen. We went on two rides that weren't very thrilling compared to the massive rollercoasters in California theme parks. We also watched the Marineland show, featuring four dolphins and two sealions doing tricks.

The lunch I had at the park was mediocre. There wasn't a great variety of foods at the park, and the lines were massive. At least the price was decent in comparison to what American theme parks charge for food.

The main reason we went to Ocean Park was to see the Giant Panda exhibit. We saved the best for last and saw the female panda, Jia Jia, before we left. The male panda, An An, was asleep inside an empty cell that was shown on TVs throughout the exhibit.

It was pretty sad seeing Jia Jia just pace back and forth, and sometimes try to enter the cell. It was also disheartening that I could not get a good picture of the panda since using flash made it appear darker, but not using flash resulted in blurry photos.

However, I did leave the park with a few souvenirs. I wish we had left for the park earlier because we didn't have enough time to try more rides or see more exhibits, like the jellyfish exhibit.

At least I can say I've been to Hong Kong's oldest theme park. (It used to be the only one until Disneyland Hong Kong opened.) Alas, theme parks just aren't the same as they used to be when you were a child with your family or when you were a teen hanging out with friends.