I started class on Monday. In my first class, I was one of two western people in a group of about 70 students. Our teacher had us go around and introduce ourselves, and I as well as the other American, got an applause. It was very strange. I also found out that the finance course I am in is taken by freshman at CUHK but at the UW it is taken by juniors or seniors. One major difference I saw from the local students and American students is that they are very disrespectful in class. I do not know if it was just that instance, but all of the student were talking very loudly while the teacher was trying to speak.
After that class, I went to my Chinese grammar class. I felt like I knew more than a lot of the other students which was nice, but once I went to my speaking class, I was very lost. My teacher barely used English and I did not know a lot of the words. I am going to have to catch up on my vocabulary and study a ton this next week.
The next day I went to my other classes. I went to my intermediate economics class to find out that it was really beginning macro economics which I have already taken. My professor explained in the beginning of class that he is not assigning a textbook because all of the macro economics textbooks are written by Americans and he didn’t think they were that good enough. He then asked if anyone had any experience in the subject, and I was the only one to raise my hand. He asked me where I had taken it, and I said “in America”. Then he asked me if I was an exchange student (which I thought was pretty obvious because I was the only white person in this class of 60) and I said yes. I am dropping that class: not because of that experience, but because I have already taken it before.
Now, I only have a business class that I am required to take for the UW (finance), another business class called Global Entrepreneurship, and two Chinese language classes. I only have one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and no class on Fridays! Today after Chinese, I went to lunch at a campus canteen with my friend Ryushi who is an exchange student from Japan. He has already been here for the first semester and gave me some good tips for eating on campus (a lot of the people who work at the canteens don't know any English, only Cantonese). What we did was found what we wanted on the menu board on the wall, took off the plaque that said what it was, and handed it to the cashier who laughed at us because she knew exactly what we were doing. After she rung up our order and gave us our ticket, we asked a local student how to say our number in Cantonese and waited for it to be called.
Last night, a bunch of us went to the horse races in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island. It was my very first horse race and I learned how to read all of the boards and understand the betting. I did not bet on any horses though, but if I ever do, I will probably base it off there names. The best horse name that I saw last night was Superior Unit. It was kind of weird because since Hong Kong used to be British, everything is British. They call elevators lifts, and the horses run the counter clockwise around the track. We just hung out in the beer garden for the races which is free to get into after 8:00pm and watched about three races until we headed back to CUHK.
This weekend, I am planning on going to Macau for a day (which is the Vegas of China) and also to Shenzhen for another day. Shenzhenis in mainland China, but right on the border of Hong Kong so it is only about four stops north of the University on the MTR. The MTR is sooooo cheap! I finally got my student Octopus card where I get to ride for half the price – which is roughly $0.50 USD to get from one end of Hong Kong to the other.
First view of the track.
Before the races.
My first horse race.
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