Hello, My name is Amanda, and I am addicted to Hong Kong

Well, I did it again. I went to Hong Kong, and here I am post-relapse and felling empty, scheming imaginary scenerios that would cause me to go back immediately, and wondering how two cities, so close in proximity, yet so different in culture and experiences could lay right next to each other. It is "a tale of two cities", shenzhen, completely and wholly china and Hong Kong, is a complilation of the world, in fashion, food, in people, in language. Hong Kong has been touched by the rest of the world and it shows. You walk across a border crossing for the same country and it is immediately evident that these two places are different. I don't stand out in Hong Kong, no one takes my picture, I can fade into the day to day motion of the people and that feels good after being on stage for so long in china.

This weekend we rolled in style with the help.....with the support of Eli's sister. In exchange for a comfy bed at a nice hotel we traded stories of what it's like to be in China. So many times, Jaime, Eli, or I would start off a sentence......"well in china....." It was probably the frist time the three of us had been with people who had not experienced china and realized there was so much to tell. So many things that are different about life here that we had almost forgotten because what's was different is now normal. I don't cringe when I have to squat to pee. I assume someone will offer me rice. I get upset when the students are sitting at perfect attention with their hands crossed or when their backs are touching the seat. I expect people to spit out their bones onto the table at lunch or dinner and wouldn't knowwhat to do it I actually saw a chinese person chewing with their mouth closed. What was was foreign is now my reality. What will I be when I return to America. Thank god for Hong Kong, or who knows...

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