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Published: January 10th 2014
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This morning I walked along to Hong Kong park and the museum of teaware. I've been dying for a good cup of tea ever since I planned on going here one month ago...
I walked along Causeway Bay and down the tram route on Hennessy Road. I didn't bother with the metro today as I wanted to get a real flavour of this city. Every time I come to a pedestrian crossing the crossing makes the relentless sound of somebody banging steel over and over with a hammer and only gives people enough time to dash across the road. Some days in the city the smog is so thick that you can't see far in front of you. I imagine this is what England was like in the Industrial Revolution. It is a requirement here that people where masks over their mouths if they have a respiratory infection to prevent spreading germs but really I think its a requirement due to the pollution. There has been an outbreak of bird flu here recently and all screens in museums and handrails in the subway are disinfected six times a day.
It seems their is no or very little social responsibility.
I think this because everywhere there are signs saying 'Look after your bag,' 'report rape' 'don't get in the way of cars' as if people are a nuisance and as if people don't help each other. People look like they have suffered a lot, street workers look incredibly poor and unhappy, and unlike Thailand and Laos generally people don't take pride in their jobs here. There are of course some very rich people with expensive cars. I haven't seen one bicycle yet, most people eat alone and every street is lined with Mcdonalds, KFC, Pizza hut and HSBC.
One other issue is it is hard to get out of Hong Kong and go somewhere else as I would need to get a visa to go to Mainland China and as Hong Kong is fairly small anyway you cannot go and escape to the mountains or to a beautiful beach. I've explored several areas of Hong Kong and I've kept an open mind but each time I'm presented with the same view. I didn't know what I expected of Hong Kong, but this is the China publicised all over the world. After all Hong Kong is Chinese and just another
Chinese province. Actually to be here and see it for real is a surprise - a place where human rights seem much less important than making money and where helping people is no longer second nature. It sounds like it did seem to flourish under 155 years of British rule though.
But there is nothing a good cup of tea won't solve! Maybe that cup of tea I will drink at the museum will change my view altogether.
The museum of teaware was great. The museums here never disappoint! The museum listed the tea ceremonies for each dynasty and there were videos showing each ceremony. For example in the Ying dynasty they realised bigger tea pots made stronger tea as the last bit of tea would be too strong to drink so they started using little pots and adding flowers such as jasmine to enhance the flavour.
Afterwards I went along to their tea rooms, and I was lucky to get a seat, it was a very popular place! Imagine lots of people from all over the world enjoying an age old ritual of tea drinking, enjoying all different teas with different flavours, aromas and strengths. I
had eight cups of white rose white tea and ordered a vegetarian meal of sticky rice encased in leaves which I successfully ate with chopsticks.
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