Hong Kong is different than the U.S. and I find that hilarious.

If you know anything about me it's that I enjoy criticizing anything that is different that what I think is normal. So while most tourists are looking at tourist attractions and historical landmarks, I am on the look out for cultural differences that I find amusing. While I will be 36 this year, I still have the maturity of at 13 year old when it comes to cultural differences. So I'd like to take this post to point out some of the things I have observed so far. My goal has been to find at least one thing a day but I am getting sensory overload with immaturity.

Seasoning

Before we even arrived in Hong Kong William and i were faced with a decision on the plane that I for one had never encountered. Apparently when you are part of the upper crust of society you get choices all the way down to how you season your food.


Two kinds of pepper? Rock or Sea salt? This decision was much too overwhelming for me so I proceeded to eat my food unseasoned. William on the other hand was brave and made a decision I believe to go with White Pepper.

Bling

This little number caught my eye as we were walking around town. I cannot possibly imagine the person that would wear this. Maybe some wealthy pig farmer, or Mrs Piggy?

If your having trouble making out the image, it's a mother pig with 8 piglets feeding off of her. Some Chinese women found it amusing that I took a picture of this so I can only assume that they find it as ridiculous as I did.


Construction Methods
If you have sat near me over the past year or so you may have learned that I love construction and observing construction methods. The construction of the Comcast building has been a complete distraction and I will routinly stop working if the crain is hositing something up the side of the building.

While here there is one thing that I find completely bizarre and the more I see it the more I am beside myself.

Like New York, Hong Kong is a vertical city with may tall buildings. Many of the buildings are deteriorating due to age so there are quite a few buildings with scaffolding around them. The thing that is amazing is the scaffolding is made entirely of bamboo. Bamboo while strong, is flexible and is rarely straight. What is even more appalling is that the bamboo is held together by a handful of those plastic strings that are typically around a bundle of newspapers or the printer paper boxes in our office.


This is one example of scaffolding. This building is about 10 stories high, but there some buildings that are twice this size with the same scaffolding method.

This scaffolding is on the building next to our hotel. This picture was taken from the 27th floor just to give you perspective. I can't imagine the size of the balls on the guys that have to climb up on scaffolding in Hong Kong but I imagine the sheer weight of them makes the bamboo bounce like a diving board.

The Escalator
When I type the escalator in bold face like I did above it makes it sound like a thrill ride. That is exactly what it felt like when we took the escalator down to the subway on Tuesday afternoon. This quite frankly was the tallest, longest escalator I had ever been on.

This escalator was easily 3-4 stories tall. William admitted that he was a little nervous on this escalator since he doesn't like heights but I'm proud to say he was brave and didn't ask to hold my hand.

Funny Signs
One reason I was really excited to come to Hong Kong was to observe signs and funny names and so far I've found quite a few.

William gets credit for spotting this on in the Subway station.

No commentary really necessary here. You will be disappointed to know that this is a bakery. I didn't think to check the shape of the pastries.

This burger joint was on the Avenue of the Stars.

I imagine you want to stay away from Stale Burger.


This was another sign I found while walking along the Avenue of the Stars. While some of these restrictions make sense, I cant imagine how this sign has progressed over time since it seems to have quite a few restrictions.

The one I find hilarious on this list is the kite restriction. I'm just trying to imagine the meeting that was held when planning this sign as well as the people being chased away for kite flying. While in our society we tell people to Go Fly a Kite as another way of telling them to piss off, in Hong Kong flying a kite really pisses people off. It really is the opposite side of the world here. This image is a little hard to read so here is what you can't do at the Avenue of the Stars:

• No bikes - makes sense
• No dogs - makes sense
• No playing of remote controlled model car - Apparently one is not allowed. I wonder if you have two.
• No hawking - makes sense. I didn't realize that the international symbol for hawking is a guy carrying two buckets on a pole. I'm learning everyday.
• No graffiti - Sorry Rocco, but your art isn't acceptable here either. Apparently the spray paint cans are different here in Hong Kong. While in the US, spray paint comes out in a steady stream, in Hong Kong it exits the can in a wispy gas like fashion. Must make it hard to write your name.
• No kite flying - already commented
• No Skateboarding - whats funny here is that the picture has a Rollerblade on top of a skateboard. Apparently the kids in Hong Kong ride a little different. I'm wondering if Sean can shed some light onto the HK skating style.
• No lying on benches - this makes sense but the pic looks more like the person is posing for a picture.
  
• No damage of plants - also makes sense but if I didn't read either language I might think I wasn't allowed to give people flowers.
  
• No fishing - this was the one rule I saw being broken on the Avenue of the Stars. Since I am not a citizen of China I didn't feel like it had the authority to make a citizens arrest but I did give them a dirty look.
  

This Ones for Paul
I'm really not sure of the premise for this place but I can envision at least wo funny scenarios.

One is that Jawas have figured out a way to travel to Hong Kong through time and distant galaxies to either form a club or go clubbing. The thought of Jawas dancing to techno music is really pretty hilarious to me. The second scenario is that this is a club for rabid Star Wars fans who really really like Jawas. While this scenario is a little scary, its still hilarious to me. Either way, I know this picture is intriguing to Paul.

Day 2 Thoughts
Overall we have had a good time so far. As William said, we had a really good meeting with the client today. They took us to a nice Chinese restaurant where I am proud to say I sampled almost everything on the table. I really didn't have much choice since our main contact at Hong Kong tourism board was putting food on my plate and asking me if I want to try it in the same motion. William was brave and tried to use chop sticks but that lasted about 5 seconds when he dropped his first attempt at picking up food. I didn't even try since I didn't practice prior to our trip.

Jet lag really hit me hard today and I slept from 6pm - 10pm and probably would still be sleeping if Asif hadn't woken me up for dinner. McDonalds has become the American Embassy for us in Hong Kong. While I love McDonalds, 3 meals in 2 days can't be good for my body. I think I'll joint William at the bakery tomorrow and pick up some fresh fruit. We haven't seen William since our meeting so I can only assume that the jet lag caught up with him too.