Reflections on Japan and Singapore

Having been to both the UK (obviously) and Mongolia before this summer my reflections on them would be relatively pointless. They wouldn't have changed much and wouldn't be very interesting for me to even think through.

Japan and Singapore however are a completely different kettle of fish.

Similar to S Korea I adored Japan. It was polite, safe, friendly and everything was very distinctly Japanese. There is a fierceness to maintaining the culture and way of existence in Japan that I respect a lot. They are proud of who they are and it is magical experiencing their world from the outside perspective.

It was massively overwhelming at times and the resistance to communicating in English (even when they speak it perfectly well) can be frustrating for a non-Japanese speaker. But you can bet if I was there for longer than a week I would end up with some functional Japanese. That's more than can be said for my Cantonese after a year in HK.

Singapore feels more sterile and far less interesting . The tour guide described how the government enforces cultural mixing which seems to have led to a smooshing together of all cultures; losing all of the defining characteristics to leave a bland hotch potch (a bit like Singlish but on a massive scale).

Singapore appears in my eyes to demand an amalgamation into a whole - you may be Chinese but you must display Malay/Indian/British traits too otherwise you are not tolerant enough for Singapore. Everyone and everything seems to be halfway between multiple features, like a teenager trying to fit in with every group in school and therefore ending up everywhere but fitting in nowhere.

Isn't the beauty of the world in the differences around it? The experience of something alien, almost incomprehensible to your way of life and the acceptance of it being that way, abiding by the difference and accepting it for what it is - a defining feature of someone else's culture/belief. And I recognise that I am reflecting on something that is different and saying I don't like it - I'm not saying it's wrong, just that I can only see what is being lost and not really gained.

Surely taking something and forcing it into a diluted mix of cultures is not tolerance at all? I know this process has always happened but can't help but think it will only happen more and faster with our ridiculously interconnected world.

Which is why I love Japan's defiance at maintaining their "Japaneseness" and will never like Singapore. I'll accept it for what it is (different from the rest of the world) but I will never like it.

Summer break

So the end of the school year is here already and I find myself on the Airport Express heading back to the UK after 6 months away.

Since Easter I have found myself more and more disillusioned with HK. I love the city and the opportunities it presents but I'm not convinced that I essentially fit here. It's such an emotionally cold place and I find the massive divide between expats and locals difficult to overcome.

I hoped by moving abroad to be surrounded by opportunities to experience a different culture; instead I'm surrounded by people more concerned with champagne,  complaining about their cleaners they pay pittance to and making sure everyone knows what an 'awesome' time they are having.

It's not everyone and I have met some truly amazing people - they know exactly who they are and why I feel that way.

Maybe it was seeing expat life in Seoul that did it. I genuinely fell in love with that place and the people there. Everyone was friendly and welcoming, there felt like no divide. So maybe that's where I start looking next.

Maybe by being in the UK again I'll snap out of the dip and remember what I love here. The hiking, the access to so much of the world.....

Or I move to Korea

It was actually clear when I landed in HK

So I flew back into HK today and for the first time since I arrived here the sky was clear enough to see the SAR out of the plane window. So I took some pictures to prove it is more green than city :-)

Wandering in Seoul

Tricky to type on phone so will edit when back on laptop in HK. Some pictures from the first two days.

Weekend in Shanghai

 So last weekend I headed to Shanghai with my friend from school Sam to do a little sightseeing and Christmas shopping before we head back to the UK in a few weekends time.

Towards the French Concession

My hotel was a very shiny 5* hotel near The Bund and Yuyuan Gardens. I got a fab deal to go on a special club floor with free breakfast, afternoon tea, cocktail happy hour and dessert buffet. Was about £90 a night and saved me a fortune in food.

View from my hotel

On the first morning we decided to head to Yuyuan Garden. It is a very beautiful area with lots of old style Chinese buildings, and even though they are clearly rebuilt and fairly new it has a much more natural and less clinical feeling than other bits of Shanghai

Yuyuan Garden from my hotel

Yuyuan Garden

It is however very touristy and we spent a lot of time being asked if we wanted to buy watches, of all things, so we headed to a more traditional tea house in the lake in the centre of the market and drank tea instead. Of course being me I ended buying tea to bring back to HK too.

Yuyuan Garden Teahouse

Yuyuan Garden at night

After Yuyuan we headed along The Bund to take the touristy photos of the Shanghai skyline. Like Beijing when I visited the smog tends to spoil the view of everything but there are some impressive buildings there. Some nice American gentleman in the hotel were telling me all about the architecture (they had clearly researched it beforehand) and they claimed it was the only place where you could see three buildings over 180M tall in one shot. The tallest building was apparently made out of  six seperate sections and after that I tuned out and just ate my dim sum.

Tourist shot

Wandering along The Bund it was interesting to spot how many tourists were Chinese Nationals. Like Beijing they really do encourage the internal tourism scene. Us Westerners definitely are a secondary market for them.

After a few hours shopping and some lovely dinner at a Shanghainese restaurant we hit a hostel bar recommended by an IN teacher at my school, (Chris J) who used to live in Shanghai, called the Captain's Bar. It had a rooftop garden that had a unspoiled view of the Shanghai skyline, good cocktails and a really nice atmosphere.

 Shanghai was nice, and I'd definitely visit again for shopping and atmosphere but I'm glad I live in HK. The mainland had many infuriating attitudes that I would struggle with every day of the week.

Sports and Charity events eat your time

The last few days have been incredibly busy. On Thursday the school swimming gala, Friday was the House Relay competition and as always I decided to run in the staff team, Saturday a 50km charity trek and Monday Division 1 Cross Country tournament.  At some point in all this I should probably sleep!

The swimming gala was very snazzy at the refurbished pool in Causeway Bay, with lots of dressing up and house spirit.  Einstein House came second which felt familiar after 3 years in St. David House.

The house relay was madly competitive. The kids sprinted off like lunatics. The Senior Heads of House were actually tripping one another other, shirt pulling and yelling if we didn't run fast enough. For 12 minutes. It was insane.

The 50km trek was the hardest thing I've done since being in HK. Absolutely destroyed my legs, I'm glad I did not check beforehand how far it was in miles because if I had realised it was longer than a marathon I probably would have given up halfway.

Cross country was good fun. A day right up by the border with China at a lovely golf course supervising and encouraging the kids. It was ridiculously hot and several schools had to call out ambulances to their pupils. One girl from CIS was hallucinating as she crossed the finish line, staggering from side to side and batting away invisible somethings!

Fortunately all our pupils were good, sensible and stayed hydrated. The A grade boys came third out of fourteen teams so got to collect a trophy but more importantly they beat West Island School (that is our only objective ultimately.)

Since then we've had parent's evening and tonight I'm flying off to Shanghai to do some Christmas shopping. Sleep is a limited commodity here, or perhaps I should say time is limited and using it for sleep would seem ridiculous.

Halloween party

So Island School had a staff Halloween get together with a staff pumpkin carving competition that the pupils then voted on.       

After sufficient pumpkin soup and punch we had a lovely Halloween quiz that my team won with many prizes, such as glow in the dark rings, Halloween sweeties and the required bottle of wine.

Then we counted the votes for the carving competition.

My personal favourite pumpkin was disqualified due to primary school craft additions rather than just standard carving.

The whole collection looked very cool and the pupils cast over 500 votes, which is nearly half of all the pupils.

The Batman was a popular choice

But the winning pupmkin was Carolina's very artful carving (it took her over 4hrs).

Sadly I didn't have time to enter as I teach all lessons at the beginning of the week so no free's to go pumpkin carving in.