Batgung - Expat issues

Expat tribes

Mr Tall — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:00:00 +0000

Regular readers know that if there’s one thing Mr Tall likes, it’s a little seat-of-the-pants amateur sociology. And recently I’ve come across an online writer whose very title glows with the kind of qualifications and expertise I’m looking for in my speculations on culture and society: Assistant Village Idiot.

Assistant Village Idiot is in actuality a very smart and thoughtful man, and he has a wealth of insight into the way we think about ourselves in complex modern societies. He’s written a series of posts in which he’s divided the American populace into a number of ‘tribes’. These tribes aren’t really ‘tribal’ in the traditional sense of forming a single extended clan that’s genetically related. Rather, AVI’s tribes comprise subgroups that find similar ways of thinking and acting that draw them together, and make them feel good about being a part of something bigger than themselves, but smaller than the great abstract monoliths that are modern nation-states. A good example is the ‘White People’ tribe we’ve had some fun with in a recent article.

But how does a move overseas affect our tribal view of the world? I found that my own sense of tribal affiliation was quite different after I’d been an expat for a while. Looking back on those days, there was a complex but comprehensible interplay between the ‘tribalism’ I’d carried along with me to Hong Kong from the States, and the condition of being an expatriate. In the rest of this article, I’d like to consider some of the ways being an expat ‘changed my tribe’.

The first, and now most obvious, way being an expatriate changed my view of tribes is that for the first time in my life, my ‘national’ tribe was important. That is, when you’re one of 300 million American, living in the middle of America, you’re free not to think much about your status as a member of a particular national culture. It’s for this very reason that huge societies like the USA fracture into smaller subcultures and tribes in the first place. When I met someone new in the USA, the first five minutes of our conversation did not usually include the question ‘So where do you come from?’ As an expatriate, however, it usually did. Now my first and most obvious identification was ‘Mr Tall, American’ rather than ‘Mr Tall, student’, or ‘Mr Tall, correct-thinking, educated-type person’.

This ‘return to nationalism’ is sometimes an issue for expats like me who come from big countries; it’s perhaps less so from those whose national/cultural backgrounds are more, shall we say, select. For example, it seems certain of the UK’s constituent cultures (cough Scots cough) come pre-loaded with polished and comprehensive representations of their tribal origins. But expats from many countries who now live in Hong Kong have at least some opportunities to meet up with countrymen: clubs, national day events, political groups, international schools teaching your home country’s curriculum, and so on.

This immediate, obvious ability to associate with a national tribe can be comforting when you’re fresh off the boat – you are going through culture shock, and you feel suddenly more comfortable when you’re with other members of your ‘national’ tribe. But in the longer run you’ll find out whether or not those people are members of your ‘real’ tribes back home. If they’re not, you might find that you’ve struck up a quick social relationship that doesn’t seem to work very well.

Second, there’s a potentially very positive effect for expats as we’re pushed out of our home-country tribes, and gradually realize that we’re free to be people we hadn’t previously thought we could be, and to meet the kind of people we’d never dreamed of associating with before. An expat meets not only people who represent different nations, histories and cultures, but people who also mix and match some of the characteristics of his ‘own tribe’ back home with the characteristics of tribes he’d generally shunned. All the categories and characteristics an expat finds so instinctively familiar are mixed and muddled in unexpected – and sometimes fascinating – ways in people hailing from other countries, because their tribes don't map directly onto his tribes.

Third, there’s the possibility that expats can discover, and even form, new tribes that have no (or less obvious) precedents in their home countries. I’d like to close the article by listing out some possible ‘Hong Kong expat tribes’:

Banking Tribe – Since Hong Kong is so top-heavy with banking and finance institutions (and hence expat jobs) there’s no doubt bankers and those in related functions form one of Hong Kong’s long-standing, premier tribes.

TESL Tribe – This expat tribe obviously comprises NETs and other English-language teachers, along with teachers at international and ESF schools, plus expats at local universities. I know they’re not all teaching English, but I just like the way ‘TESL Tribe’ sounds!

Mixes Tribe – Expats in mixed marriages, plus the mixed fruits of their, umm, cross-cultural exercises in mutual understanding and enhanced relations. Speaking from experience, this is an easy tribe to feel a part of . . . .

Sports Tribe – Many expats who work hard like to play hard, too, and I think there’s a tribe in Hong Kong that includes all those expats who associate and bond over rugby, running/races, sailing, etc.

Church Tribe – St Paul says that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, and being an expat is a good way to see this ideal made real. ‘International’ churches in Hong Kong (i.e. essentially those that worship in English rather than Chinese) are quite wonderful in the way people really do leave behind at least some of their baser tribal comforts to unite in response to a higher calling.

Readers, do these make sense to you? Can you think of any others?

A Tribal Appendix

Assistant Village Idiot’s tribal breakdown for the USA goes as follows:

Arts and Humanities Tribe – essentially, White People in the Christian Lander/SWPL sense. The A & H Tribe comprises artists, musicians, media and entertainment types, ‘educators’ of all stripes, social workers and psychologists – i.e. most of the people who listen to National Public Radio and enjoy its detached, tasteful, mildly ironic take on cultural matters (his essay 'The Sadness of NPR Christmas' is an absolute gem). The A & H tribe votes democratic, and still looks to European elites for their example and approval. And as Lander and AVI both ably illustrate, this tribe derives much of its sense of quiet superiority from comparing itself favorably to our next tribe.

God and Country Tribe – this very large tribe comprises good ol’ boys, i.e. Southern whites; a big proportion of Midwestern and Western whites; and any others who are unironically proud to be Americans. This vast group is the Arts and Humanities Tribe’s nemesis, and its foil for much satire/stereotyping in the popular media. But as with most stereotypes, there’s some truth lurking.

DIversity Tribe – is made up of most African-Americans, plus some Hispanics who are particularly focused on racial issues (e.g. members of organizations such as La Raza, literally ‘the Race’), and all of the white people who make their living or focus their energies on pursuing a ‘diversity’ or ‘multiculturalist’ agenda. The DIversity Tribe are Democrats, it almost goes without saying.

Geek Tribe – i.e. the hard science and technology crowd. This is an interesting bunch; they are hard to predict politically, trending maybe toward libertarianism if anything, and they’re equally eclectic in their cultural beliefs and practices. But I think we can assume most of them like Star Trek . . . .

Business Tribe – as the name implies. This is a broad group, obviously, but my impression is that AVI intends it to comprise people like entrepreneurs and small business owners, plus the people who really buy into, work hard at, and advance through corporate organizations. There are mostly Republicans here on the small-business side, but this group is more varied politically at the corporate level.

Government and Unions Tribe – civil servants and, in the USA, at least, their enablers/dependants in the big labor unions. Also almost monolithically Democratic in politics, this tribe never the less has lots of overlap with several others, including God and Country.

Criminal Underclass Tribe – again, the name is pretty much self-defining. AVI suggests that all of the other tribes in the USA ‘tithe’ 10% of their members to this class, which seems maybe a bit high . . . .

Military Tribe – again, self-defining. In the USA there is a well-established military subculture, but it’s obviously not much of an issue here in Hong Kong.

You can find much of AVI’s analysis of the A & H tribe here and his rundown of the rest of his tribes here. He also applies his model very acutely to numerous situations and phenomena; for example, his analysis of why the A & H Tribe hated George W Bush with such venom may be at least in part that he forsook his true tribe (i.e. A & H, as his good breeding should have assured) to join up with – in speech, manner and often action – the despised God and Country Tribe.

My own situation is the opposite of my erstwhile president’s. I was born into a true God and Country family, with just a few Geek Tribe members scattered through my relations. But I launched myself on a trajectory to leave G & C behind and ‘ascend’ to A & H. I majored in English in college, attended grad school in the humanities, and did pretty much everything I needed to do to learn to ‘pass’ as an A & H Tribe member.

I had a friend in grad school – a definite A & H’er himself – who at first didn’t believe my life story. I told him that my grandparents were corn and hog farmers, and my Dad was a blue collar worker. He said there was no way I hadn’t grown up middle class: I sounded right, I knew the right things, I held the right beliefs, and I was pursuing the right goals.

For my first couple of years here in Hong Kong I was immersed in an environment that featured lots of other A & H people, so I stayed one too, more or less. But then it was time to move out on my own, get my first ‘real’ job, and to associate with the people I really wanted to associate with. And I found that, increasingly, I wasn’t as ‘A & H’ as I thought I needed to be.

What’s my tribe now? That’s an interesting question, and one I’d like to return to someday . . . .

Stuff White Expats Like

Mr Tall — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:00:00 +0000

MrB and I both are fans of a recent Internet phenomenon, Stuff White People Like. I strongly encourage you to go and experience the site for yourself, if you’ve not done so already, as I think it’s one of the best satirical efforts I’ve seen in many a year.

Briefly – and you can take this as a spoiler alert if you haven’t yet checked out the site – SWPL is a list of objects/ideas/beliefs that gain the wholehearted approval of a very particular sort of person, i.e. a White person. But we’re not talking about the kind of White person who lives in the American heartland and who hunts assorted birds and quadrupeds for fun. No, the true White person is hip, happening and now, and is a denizen of a North American coastal city or college town. Note also that being a White person is not entirely limited to skin color; it's a state of mind.

The author of the site, Christian Lander, wrote incognito for a while, but his work attracted so much interest that he had to come out and own up. He got some nice interviews (and also here, if you'd like to hear Lander speak) and a book deal out of it, so no worries there.

Lander’s forte is not really his writing style or wit; he’s good but not great. His genius lies in his power of observation and his cunning in selecting his items. His title for the site is also a masterstroke; it's catchy and provocative, and it adds that memorable little frisson.

In that youtube interview I linked above, Lander also very astutely identifies the salient factor that drives White people and their lifestyle choices: status. The clothes they wear, the people they associate with, the food they eat, the places they go, the beliefs they hold – it’s all about getting one-up on their social inferiors. But those inferiors not people from other races: they are instead the wrong kind of White people – i.e. the ones who listen to country music and vote Republican.

Lander’s list is so wide-ranging that most of us can find some items that fit us, and some that don’t. He’s cutting, but never truly cruel. Again, if you’re not familiar with the site, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

It’s in the spirit of SWPL (and don't think I'm being original; there are many, many spin-offs, such as Stuff Asian People Like, for example) that I submit to you my own little list. As you read it, please keep in mind that I’m attempting satire here, too – I know I’m being frequently unfair, and that no one really is quite like the straw man I’m sketching out here! Oh, and note that wherever relevant I’ve linked back to items on Lander’s original list.

So here we go with some of the Stuff White Expats Like:

Living in a cool place. Hong Kong lacks a Manhatten or a Brooklyn, but living on Hong Kong Island's south side (but not Aberdeen!) is fine; Sai Kung is now chic; and funky old buildings in mid-levels with high ceilings are a good choice if you need to work in Central. Living on an island is also acceptably White, especially Lamma or Lantau. All of these places (except mid-levels) are good since you can live by the water. One proviso: living in Discovery Bay is okay for a White person, but you must arm yourself by preparing a set speech defending your lifestyle choice. Here’s what you say: DB is 1) really diverse; 2) it’s environmentally sensitive since there are no cars; and 3) riding the ferry into town is cool. Living in Kowloon is out. Living in a New Town is also embarrassing, because most White expats won’t even know where your home is, or how one might travel there. The new towns that start with ‘T’ are especially bad. Shatin might just barely be okay.

Travel. Trips to Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and India are all good; these developing countries pose the significant travel challenges that White people simply adore overcoming. Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are just okay – you don’t need to avoid mentioning trips to them – but as an expat they are too easily-reached and comfortable to carry any serious White cachet. Japan poses an especially tricky question. For White people in North America, Japan is cool. It can be here, too, but since it’s a convenient and common destination from Hong Kong, it loses a lot of White expat status points. You can recapture them by bemoaning the number of tourists visiting Japan these days, then describing the painstaking steps you take to ensure you experience the real Japan.

Eating at many diverse ethnic restaurants. Hong Kong has loads of great restaurants, so it’s easy to find cool White expat favorites. The original SWPL singles out sushi and Asian fusion as the premier White cuisines, but in Hong Kong both are rather quotidian, so you must do better than this if you want to score status points. One caution: liking Chinese food is not at all necessary to being a White expat, and may in fact be harmful. Szechuan food is okay. But Cantonese, Shanghainese, Beijing and other ‘mainstream’ Chinese cuisines can be dismissed as being ‘greasy’, or as including too many icky or immoral ingredients (e.g. shark’s fin), or simply for being served in déclassé places like fast food shops, cha chaan tengs and restaurants in public housing estate shopping malls. If you want to avoid the tedious burden of chasing down ‘authentic’ Chinese food in its world capital, it’s better simply to fall back on your vegetarianism/passion for animal rights/food allergies and special dietary requirements, and skip the whole scene.

Talking about your maid. This is unexpected, since White people in general should be embarrassed at the very fact of having a servant(s). But since it’s ubiquitous in Hong Kong, your initial hesitance can soon be overcome as you quickly steer any maid-related conversation to a stirring, heartwarming account of how your maid’s life has been transformed since she’s gotten away from her abusive former employer, and now basks in the approbation and perks you shower on her in your Acknowledgement of her Full Humanity and her Equality with You.

Promising to learn a new language. This item seems to be perfect for a White expat in Hong Kong, but you have to be smart. If you make the obvious promise, i.e. to learn the language of your new home, you’re setting yourself up for all kinds of trouble, since it’ll sooner or later be obvious whether you’ve really learned any – or not. It’s therefore much better to avoid promising to learn Cantonese, since it’s not really necessary, it’s notoriously difficult, and it just sounds uncool. Mandarin used to be a safe bet, especially since so few people in Hong Kong actually used it, but that is changing: it would be social death for a White expat to have his lack of actual Mandarin learning exposed at a dinner party when a genuine Mandarin speaker tried to talk to him. The safe choice, therefore, is to promise to pick up a language from an exotic and preferably downtrodden Asian country. Khmer, Urdu and Tibetan are all excellent options.

There's lots more where that came from, but I'd better stop. Readers, what other Stuff do White Expats Like?

What do you do?

mrb — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:00:00 +0000

I don’t have a job.

And it’s ok, really.

There’s the money-worry of course. But I thoroughly recommend marrying someone smarter than yourself as a way around that. MrsB enjoys her work, is very good at what she does, and is reasonably well paid. Plus we don’t live very expensively, so according to my “When do I need to go back to work” spreadsheet, we’re not likely to starve any time soon.

Then there’s the relationship worry. Will MrsB feel it’s unfair, or just plain wrong that she’s working and I’m not? She always says that as long as we don’t have to worry about money (consult spreadsheet), and I’m not being lazy, she’s fine with it.

What other worries are there? I wonder about our girls, and whether it will give them a strange view of working if I’m not. Oh, and there’s a more immediate worry about how we fill in the primary school application forms next year! Mr Tall has just been going through this, and has said “Father’s employer and position” are usually some of the first questions asked on the form. I guess “consultant” is always a good cover.

And finally I get less employable as time goes by. If I discover some drastic + / - mixup in the spreadsheet, or a couple of company failures wipe out our stockmarket savings, I’ll need to find work. That’ll definitely be harder as the out-of-work gap gets longer, and I lose touch with the work I did previously.

But really I don’t miss the work I was doing. I occasionally miss some of the perks, like traveling overseas to interesting places and staying at nice hotels, or the frequent-flyer card that meant easy check-in at holiday time. But then I worked out that to get the card you have to fly at least 60,000 miles a year. That means around 120 hours in the sky, or five whole days. Not something I treasure.

I value the time with our children too, especially while they are so young. I’m no saint – we employ a helper to look after the girls during the weekdays – but I still see a lot more of them than I did before. When our older daughter was a baby, I’d be away for a week or two each month. Now I’m here all the time I don’t get the post-trip ‘daddy’s home!’ special attention, but I think that overall our relationship is better.

I also have more time to do what I want. Funnily enough that takes work! I have to step outside and have a word with myself now and again if I’m falling into couch potato mode. But generally, keeping busy isn’t a problem. A typical week is some mix of volunteer work, learning Tai Chi again, time with the girls, and trying not to lose money on the stockmarket!

I’m lucky things have worked out this way, but in general it’s not something I mention to many people. If I'm meeting new people and get asked the inevitable “So what do you do?” question, I’m likely to give some vague “working from home” answer. Although I feel good about the answer “I’m out of work”, the person hearing it often takes it a sign of a problem. Why is that?

Maybe because it’s rare to meet unemployed expats here? Expats need a visa to live here, and it’s usually an employment visa. ie you’re here to do a job. If you want to be unemployed that’s fine, just go and do it in your own country!!

Or is it that locally there is still a strong traditional view that men should be the bread-winner? Perhaps combined with the idea you can never have too much money (ie if you can be working, why aren’t you?).

Any other ideas? Until that reaction changes I don’t see the idea of work-life balance will be given much attention in Hong Kong.

Regards,

The gainfully unemployed MrB

Expat life: making a home visit

Mr Tall — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:00:00 +0000

‘We care locally.’

That three-word profundity comes from a weblog written by Joe Posnanski, a sports writer whose work I enjoy.

Joe has just returned to the USA from Japan after covering Japanese baseball’s version of the World Series. He made the comment in reference to the deeply uninterested reactions he received when he tried to convey to his associates the wonders he’d witnessed in Japan. He actually was there to see the unprecedented phenomenon of two pitchers combining to throw a perfect game, and it --

Let’s stop right there: thanks for reading this far, but you don’t really care about Joe, or the Japanese World Series, or what I think about either of them, do you? You didn't follow those links. You’re wishing already that I move on to some more interesting and relevant topic.

Well, that’s just the point: for most of us, our range of interests is relatively narrow, and we’re far more interested in the places we live, or at least have visited, than we are in even the most exotic place we’ve never seen.

This can be an unpleasant lesson for expatriates to learn. We move overseas, and the first months and even years of our overseas experience are so exciting for us, so vivid, so often lived with an intensity of emotion we’ve rarely felt at other times in our lives. And then we make our first trips back to our hometowns, or the place we’d lived before moving overseas, and we meet up with friends or relatives. We’re just bursting with stories to tell, experiences to recount, emotions (forgive me, O high priests of good taste) to share.

Our home-country visits often start off well: our moms or our siblings or our life-long friends are truly happy to see us; they hug us, and tell us we look just fine, then they sit us down and say ‘Now, tell me all about your new life!’

So we plunge in, and do just what they say. Right at first, their eyes glisten, their heads nod, and their mouths hang gently open at the wonder of it all. Yet uncomfortably soon we notice their eyes flicking, just once, over to the oven where cookies are baking; or at the street, where a car has just passed; or – making us feel really special and valued – at a mobile phone, which doesn’t happen to be ringing . . . .

So we blame ourselves. The eager expat thinks: ‘I am doing such a poor job telling this story! I am being boring. I will stop talking so much about myself and how I felt about the things I’ve done and seen, and say more about the sumptuous details of my exotic new home – I’ll describe the colors, and the flavors, and the sounds, and yes, yes, the smells!’

And, with redoubled effort, we try again. This time, we notice that our friend is unusually diligent in keeping the teapot filled with hot water . . . she claims to hear Napoleon III (the family’s pet hamster) squeaking in distress, and jumps up to investigate . . . . finally, when she returns, she breaks in and says ‘So when you were over there didja hear about that Bernice Buxom who was in the class below us in school who ran off last month with the guy who catered the 40th birthday party she was throwing for her husband Bruce?’

It’s not really that bad, of course – most people are actually quite polite, and a few may be genuinely interested in our expat exploits.

But the cruel truth is, as my man Joe has learned, we care locally.

And like Joe, I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. I love talking about my overseas experiences, but I realized early on that I had to rein myself in pretty severely when back in the USA.

So here are just a few dos and don’ts I’ve accumulated over the years.

Don’t take home a huge album (or computer, or camera with viewscreen) full of photos and expect to go through it with everyone you visit. Even more so, don’t take along homemade DVDs so that everyone can watch your home movies. The excruciating home movie session has been a stock sitcom scenario since the days of I Love Lucy, but you may be tempted to convince yourself that because you’re living overseas, your situation is different. It’s not.

Don’t, especially don’t, ask your friends or rellies to view great masses of photos/video from trips you’ve taken away from HK to exotic destinations such as Bali or Thailand or Japan. Not only will you violate the basic rule of sitcom home movies stated above, you’ll be making them feel bad because you can make these trips with relative ease, while for them it would be a much bigger deal. Again, including a few photos might be nice, but almost no one beyond the members of your immediate family is going to want to see more.

Do take along maybe one small album of hard-copy photos that show things like your home, your building, the street you live on, your kids’ school, and maybe a few of your best shots of Hong Kong’s skyline, a view from the Peak, a hiking photo to prove that HK’s not 100% paved, and so on. Many people, especially older relatives, really may be interested in the ways your day-to-day life is different. But I’d keep this little show to maybe 30-40 photos at most.

Don’t use your visits home as therapy sessions. That is, if you’re at the stage of culture shock where your expat life is wearing you down, or if you’re tired of living overseas, or if day to day problems are giving you headaches, don’t make a visit home an opportunity to unload on everyone about it. The problem is, they won’t understand. There are too many facets of expat life that are opaque to someone who hasn’t lived it, and they coincide neatly with the things that you may be finding it hard to deal with. For example, let’s say you’re having trouble finding a good domestic helper. How many people back home are going to want to hear about it, much less sympathize with you?

Do ask your friends and relatives just as many questions about what’s going on in their lives as they feel obligated to ask about yours. This sounds like basic courtesy, but looking back on when I was a young expat, I fear that I found myself and my experiences quite special; I felt almost as if it were just and right that I hog the floor so that I could expound on that specialness. Maybe that was just me – but I fear the temptation is there for many of us.

Don’t expect every single one of your relatives and friends back home to read your website or blog if you’ve started one to recount your expat adventures! Your enthusiasm for writing things up will likely far outpace their enthusiasm to keep coming back day after day to read about someone else’s life.

Most of us Hong Kong expats are unable to visit home as often as we would like. We should try to make sure our time with friends and family is as pleasant and productive as we can make it.

Cutting loose your cultural tethers

Mr Tall — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:00:00 +0000

I went to see ‘The Simpsons Movie’ last month. It was fun: it’s not great, but it’s very good, upholding the general excellence of The Simpsons TV series – which I believe has earned a permanent booking at the base camp of the pinnacle of western civilization. The Simpsons has for years been my touchstone for the culture of my homeland; it’s the tether that connects me to my people.

Or is it?

When I came out the movie, I started thinking. When was the last time I’d actually watched a Simpsons episode on TV, i.e. a current one? I used to keep up with them quite religiously, but then Daughter Tall was born, and TV seemed unimportant, and then whenever the TV was on the screen seemed to be dominated by animated fish, and now – well, it’s been five years since I watched a fresh episode of my favorite TV show ever!

This realization left me feeling mildly disturbed, and got me thinking: just how many pop cultural events from my homeland have passed me by over my years in Hong Kong? Most of the big-name movies I’ve seen, in one form or another, but once I got past that, my connections started looking tenuous at best. That whole Survivor/American Idol/reality TV thing? I’ve never watched a single episode of any of these shows. The Sopranos, or 24? Foreign territory. Could I name a single current top-10 pop music star? Maybe . . . how about that boy band guy who dumped Britney Spears? Justine Timberland or something like that . . . . I went over to Billboard.com and had a look at this week’s top 10 list and found someone named ‘Timbaland’, but he didn’t seem to be the right chap. And the rest of the list meant not a thing to me. (Although I did find #10 amusing; it’s by a group/artist/life form called ‘Plies Featuring T-Pain’, which in my decrepitude I read as ‘Piles’, and then understandably wondered why the Piles weren’t ‘Featuring A-Pain’ – but I digress.)

Some of my lack of USA pop cultural knowledge is surely due my advancing age, but there’s more to it. Being an expat means there’s a limit to the amount of pop culture I can absorb via the day-to-day osmosis we all depend on for picking up so many of our facts and beliefs. No one at the water cooler is talking about Mr Plies, or Mr Piles, or whoever he may be.

Yet things are far better on this front now than they must have been in the past, when trips home were via ocean liner, and surface mail was the main communication channel. I got a peek at this life recently when I was reading Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh. This 1932 novel follows the exploits of an upper-class twit who bullies and blunders his way into the de facto prime ministership of an imaginary African country. Much of the book’s action takes place within that sorry land’s pathetic little expat community, where the biggest thing that ever happens is the arrival of a pouch of letters and packets from the Merry Olde Merry Olde, don’t you know. Each mailbag contains a new record, of whatever song is hottest back in Blighty. These records become the ultimate cultural tethers; the expats listen to each one over and over and and over, until the next one finally arrives . . . .

These days it’s of course much easier for us Hong Kong expats to maintain cultural ties, what with air travel, globalization, telecommunications/Internet, etc., etc. But there are still some lags and gaps in pop culture resources:

Hollywood movies used to take six months or more to arrive in Hong Kong after their initial released. Simultaneous global premieres of many big-name films has improved the situation a great deal, as has the availability of DVD copies (i.e. those of dubious provenence) of current films. But lots of smaller films still never make to Hong Kong screens, and it can be hard to find even legitimate copies of non-Hollywood and alternative films.

As for TV, there are always several popular US and/or UK series running at any given point on HK's terrestrial channels, and more if you pay for Now TV or cable, of course, but they're usually not up to date. The typical lag is a full season, i.e. generally about a year. Again, DVD copies can help, but you're never going to be right on the cutting edge. For example, I did get blown away by, and totally hooked on, the remade series 'Battlestar Galactica' (really, I can't recommend it highly enough). But part of the fun of following geeky shows such as BSG these days is being able to fully nurture and express that geekiness on online discussion boards, mailing lists, episode guides, and so on. But if you're cut off from current episodes, these extra resources are worse than useless; you must avoid them, because at any given point all the participants will be talking about episodes that you the expat have no access to, and they'll be flinging spoilers about right and left.

Sports are another tough area. I love baseball and basketball, and would like to be able to follow them more closely than I do. There are two big problems here. First, television access is poor. Even ESPN, which is carried by Now TV, is a pathetic diluted 'Asian' version of the real thing, and carries just a paltry spattering of big US games. It's also proportionately quite expensive, i.e. at around HK80/month, it's one of Now TV's single most costly channels, whereas in the states it's usually a throw-in feature of even the most basic cable package. Second, evening games in the US occur here in HK first thing in the morning, because of the time difference. Afternoon games start in the middle of the night here. That makes it tough even if you can find a channel that carries a game you want to see. The upside is that it's might fine having an ESPN scoreboard running in a browser window to get you through those first few dull hours of the working day! Not that I would ever give in to this temptation personally, of course.

Music is likely the easiest pop culture tether to hang on to when you're an expat. Far from the single records of Waugh's day, it's now easy enough to get your hands on music, whether through local shops, Amazon, or other online sales. The one big exception is that you can't download songs from Apple's iTunes store in Hong Kong. They say the ability to do this is coming here, but then they've been saying it for years . . . . As for the concert scene, well, I'm no authority, but it has always seemed pretty grim to me. Witness the hordes of pathetically eager expats when even dinosaur acts such as Eric Clapton actually appear in the wrinkled flesh here in Hong Kong.

So, after more than 17 years away from my homeland, in pop culture terms I'm now left clutching a Homer Simpson coffee mug, occasionally contemplating certain Cylon babes, and checking some sports scoreboards/watching online highlights. It's a pretty thin soup, but I guess it keeps me from wasting too much time.

I'm curious about the rest of you: what 'cultural tethers' keep you in touch with your homelands? Which ones do you wish you could maintain, but find you can't get your hands on?

What if you had stayed home?

mrb — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:00:00 +0000

How different would life be if you’d never left home to live overseas? Mr Tall pointed out some of the big differences a couple of weeks back, but here’s a couple more.

A bigger world,

If I hadn’t left the UK, the world would still seem a much bigger, more foreign place. It’s not that I'm any better connected to world news living here. It’s more that regular contact with people from around the world makes it seem a smaller, more familiar place.

You’ll naturally work and make friends with people from other countries if you move here as an expat. Stay for a few years and some of those friends move on but keep in touch, and at the same time you’ll make new friends. All these people are likely traveling around, so conversations regularly cover trips abroad – whether for work, vacation, or family visits back home.

Then the next time you hear of some far off place, it’s not just as a paragraph in a news article, but it also conjures up personal feelings about the friend that described it to you. The place has become more familiar, somehow part of the neighbourhood.

As an example, look at who was at last Friday’s drinks & dinner with friends, and see the opportunities to hear about foreign places:

MsB. Born in HK, now a Canadian passport holder. Works in a local role, but handles international business as part of a large multinational. Married to a British expat (me!).
MsB’s older sister, also a Canadian passport holder. Spends probably one week in three in Shanghai, plus regular trips to other countries.
MrM. BBC. Works for multinational. Last year’s holiday was a safari to Africa, this year heading to Bali diving.
MrK. BBC. Works for a multinational, with business trips to China & US.
MsK. Born in HK with Shanghainese parents. Works for multinational. Holidays around Asia.
MrO. British. Works in multinational, with business trips around Asia. Makes use of every vacation day possible to visit unusual places. Recent trips have included N. Korea, Jordan, Iran, and Bhutan (we think he’s really a spy!).
MsL. Filipina. Works for multinational with business trips within Asia and to US & Europe. Her husband (born in Taiwan, grew up in US) couldn’t join us as he was in Sydney on a business trip.

Of course, most conversation is still about local news, nonsense & gossip. But there’s much more chance to be connected to things happening in other parts of the world than if I was still in the UK.

In the small town where I grew up, a trip to the nearest big town (defined as ‘having a Marks & Spencers store'!. It was 70 miles away) was news.

In the larger town (100K+ population) where I went to college and had my first job, I met more people who had traveled overseas, and even made a couple of overseas business trips myself. Still, all the people I knew were British.

A smaller mind,

Is there an inverse relationship between size of mind and world-view? If I was reading the list above as the stayed-in-the-UK MrB, I’d be thinking “what a name-dropper, obviously hiding some deep insecurities”. But if you’re reading it here in Hong Kong, you’re more likely thinking “small-fry”, and can easily outdo that list for examples of exotic international experience.

So hopefully the years living overseas has helped knock away some of my prejudices, and help me be more aware of the ones that remain.

More stuff,

When my dad died, mum set to on a major clear-out of the house. It took several skips to cart away all the junk. Apart from the obvious stuff in cupboards, the loft was full, the garage hadn’t had space to hold a car since we’d moved in 30+ years ago, and several parts of the garden were buried under yet more ‘things that might come in useful one day’.

I’ve inherited that same packrat urge, so if I still lived in the UK I’d be happily surrounded with clutter. Here, our flat has just over 600 sq ft of useable space. Things that aren’t needed get thrown out!

In the UK I’d also ‘need’ more new stuff too. I assume we’d live in a house that is much bigger than 600 sq ft, so we’d need to buy more things (furniture, carpets, curtains, etc) to fill it. There’d likely be a garden too, with its own assortment of needed tools and accessories. A workshop would be good. And don’t forget a car, or more likely two…

And less money.

For starters I’d have been spending money to buy and maintain all that stuff listed above.

Then if I was on a similar gross salary, my take-home pay would be considerably lower after UK tax.

Finally, the tax on any investments I’d made would be keeping them from growing as quickly.

So if I’d stayed at home I could expect to be poorer and more bigoted, but with lots more stuff!

MrB

PS Gweipo has an interesting clipping of what your stay-at-home doppelganger might think about the expat you.

More on the cost of living in Hong Kong

Mr Tall — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:00:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I introduced a new component in our set of articles on the cost of living in Hong Kong. In that first installment, I compared the prices of fresh produce and meats in Hong Kong's markets, ordinary supermarkets, and high-end 'expat-oriented' food halls.

In this installment, I concentrate on some 'non-fresh' food items, and some day-to-day toiletries and things. Since quite a few of these items aren't available in Hong Kong's wet markets, I've cut out the first column in my table. We'll just compare prices in typical neighborhood supermarkets, and the expat shopping meccas. I've again consciously avoided selecting either the very cheapest products from the supermarket (I've chosen instead brands I think I or other expats might be happy with) or the most expensive options from the expat places (if you try this, the prices just go through the roof -- for example, I could have included the straight-from-the-aging-cask Italian olive oil I sampled at Great; it only sets you back HKD720/USD92.30 per litre).

In general, you will see that for food and household supplies, the big price differentials between Hong Kong's ordinary supermarkets and its 'expat' supermarkets still hold true. The difference for the basket of household goods is really eye-catching; the 'expat' items are over five times as costly as the ordinary supermarket stuff, plus you get one less toilet roll -- and you never know when you're going to wish you had that!

The happy exception to this general rule seems to be alcoholic drinks. As you can see from the numbers in the table below, there's little significant difference, especially for wine and hard liquor. It seemed to me that the expat stores mark up beers just a bit more than the supermarkets, but it's not that significant. Buying booze therefore is much more about availability (i.e., where can I find my very own special brands?) and looking for sales, which can indeed be cause for rejoicing, and much stocking up. I don't buy alcohol all that often, so I wonder if any readers know (from hard-earned experience, of course) whether the supermarkets are more likely to put wine/beer/liquor on sale than the expat stores? The bad news about booze is that the likely reason its prices are so uniform across Hong Kong is that it's so heavily taxed, and therefore so costly already.

Three other notes before you get started: First, for several items, I've quoted prices from a brand called 'Select'. This is local supermarket chain ParkNShop's current 'house' brand; it's from the UK, and most of the 'Select' items I've bought have been just fine in terms of quality. Wellcome has a similar house brand, called 'First Choice', from Australia. It also seems to be perfectly good. Second, note that I've again pro-rated items to a standard measure, e.g. 1 kg of frozen chicken. You likely won't actually be able to buy an exactly-1 kg frozen chicken from either source, of course! Third, prices are listed first in Hong Kong dollars, then in US dollars for comparative convenience.

Off-the-shelf food items
	Mid-budget (HKD/USD)	High-budget (HKD/USD)
White rice, 1 kg	7.60/0.97 Kam Heung (Thai) (This is Chez Tall's standard!)	49.00/6.28 Organic (USA)
Spaghetti, 500g	10.80/1.38 Vetta (Italy)	68.50/8.78 Italian organic
Flour, white 1 kg	18.20/2.33 Betty Crocker (USA)	23.50/3.01 Marriage's organic (UK
Cheese, imported 250g	34.50/4.42 Mainland (NZ) cheddar	70.00/8.97 Farmhouse cheddar (UK)
Yoghurt, natural 150g tub	7.50/0.96 Danone (France)	19.50/2.50 Yeo Valley (UK)
Milk, fresh 1l	17.90/2.29 Kowloon Dairy	26.90/3.45 Pura (Aus)
Olive oil 1l	89.00/11.41 Select extra virgin	233.00/29.87 Olitalia Cultivar
Corn oil 940ml	19.90/2.55 Mazola (USA)	26.50/3.40 Mazola (USA)
Tomaotes, canned 400g can	11.50/1.47 Waitrose (UK)	19.50/2.50 Muir Glen (USA)
Chicken, frozen 1 kg	28.40/3.64 (Brazil)	100.00/12.80 (France)
Ground coffee 250g	43.60/5.59 Robert Timms (Aus)	50.00/6.40 Cafe Direct Fairtrade
Tea bags, packet of 80	42.90/5.50 Tetley's Drawstring (UK)	49.50/6.34 Taylor's Yorkshire
Mineral water 1.5l	7.60/0.97 Select (from Scotland)	11.90/1.53 Volvic
Orange juice 1l	10.90/1.40 Select	38.00/4.87 Vita Verde Organic (Germany)
Totals	HKD350.30/USD44.91	HKD785.80/USD100.74
Alcoholic drinks
	Mid-budget (HKD/USD)	High-budget (HKD/USD)
Wine, common table 750ml (Australian Cabernet Sauvignon)	95.00/12.17 Wolf Blass Yellow label	145.00/18.59 Brokenwood Cricket Pitch
Wine, superior quality 750ml (Australian Cabernet Sauvignon)	255.00/32.69 Penfold's Bin 407 (on sale; 328.00/42.05 regular)	328.00/42.05 Penfold's Bin 407
Beer, local brand, 330ml bottle	4.40/0.56 Tsing Dao draft	8.00/1.03 Tsing Dao export
Beer, top quality, 500ml	15.90/2.04 Boddington's draft ale	30.00/3.85 Abbot Ale
Gin, Gordon's 700 ml	119.00/15.26 (on sale; 145.00/18.59 regular)	130.00/16.67
Cognac, Hennessy VSOP 700ml	308.00/39.49	318.00/40.77
Scotch whiskey 700ml	298.00/38.21 Chivas 12-year-old	298.00/38.21 Chivas 12-year-old (note also: 565.00/72.44 for Glenfiddich 15-year-old)
Totals	HKD1095.30/USD140.42	HKD1257.00/USD161.15
Household supplies
	Mid-budget (HKD/USD)	High-budget (HKD/USD)
Laundry detergent 1.5l bottle	26.90/3.45 Fab	149.00/19.10 Ecover (Belgium)
Toilet paper, economy pack	21.00/2.69 Select premium (10 rolls)	119.00/15.26 Waitrose recycled (9 rolls)
Dishwashing liquid, 1l bottle	12.90/1.65 Axion	75.00/9.62 Ecover (Belgium)
Bath soap, 1 bar	3.30/0.42 Kao (3-pack@9.90)	25.00/3.21 Body Shop
Shampoo, 400ml bottle	29.90/3.83 Rejoice	129.00/16.53 Body Shop
Totals	HKD94.40/USD12.05	HKD497.00/USD63.71

Before I close, I'd like to spend just a few moments in reflective self-introspective meditation on my feelings about going through this pricing exercise (a practice much encouraged in the world of education in which I toil). I've unpacked my emotional baggage to its rumpled depths -- only to discover that I've really enjoyed myself. I am definitely a see lai (i.e. a housewifely type with clear penny-pinching overtones) at heart!

The next installment in this series includes price information for housing, transportation and schools.

Cultural mirrors

Mr Tall — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:00:00 +0000

Chengdu Airport, 8:00 AM

She is well-prepared; I’ll grant her that. North American, around 50, I’d say – far too practical to dress in the swirls of cheap Thai cotton favored by younger backpackers, she’s armored in quality adventureware straight from the reviews in Outdoor magazine. But she’s still got that Traveler look: a supercilious gaze, a smug little smile that assures you she’s already assimilated this morning’s airport adventure into its proper niche in her Experiential Tapestry.

As we wait for our flight to be called (it’s delayed by snow at our destination, Jiuzhaigou) she’s tapping away on a notebook computer; updating, no doubt, a blog followed avidly by her Buddhism Book Club or Amnesty International chapter back home.

At last, we’re off. A bus gate. Since it’s raining and cold, many of us wait on the bus until the queue to climb up to the plane reduces. But our bus driver is impatient. He gives the doors a little shut-and-open push to encourage us, and that is enough for the Family Tall; we’re out in the rain. And so is everyone else – except, of course, our traveler. I watch as the driver does the door thing again, flashes the bus’s interior lights, and finally just hollers at her. She points up to the sky, then lets her hand drop with fingers waggling: it’s raining! The beatific smile never leaves her face. The driver is purple.

Once we’re all on board, I see the plane is nearly full, but she’s secured a bulkhead seat – the only passenger to get one. Well, who cares, on a 40-minute flight? I resolve to ignore her. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a pair of very nice hiking boots planted right up on the bulkhead, at eye level for us seated passengers. She’s made herself very comfortable, and no doubt those wet bootprints on the bulkhead fabric will dry rapidly. A flight attendant notices, too. She starts walking over, but then pulls up short. Is it worth a confrontation with the foreigner? I guess not.

For reasons I seem to understand less the more I think about them, this ordinary woman irritates me beyond all measure. I want to go over and lecture her on her sense of entitlement, of being someone special, for the hypocrisy written all over her: she’s no doubt The People’s biggest supporter, but she sure as hell doesn’t let the people get in her way.

Jiuzhaigou National Park

I’m pleasantly surprised by Jiuzhaigou. I’ve heard it’s beautiful, but it’s more than that. It has the look and feel of somewhere people will flock to – make pilgrimages to, even – once its reputation gets out and about. The park is also quite well-run; there many tourists, but the crowd control tactics and transportation make it possible to enjoy the spectacular scenery in relative peace – if you’re willing to eschew the prescribed photo-posing positions, that is.

One of these beauty spots, ‘Peacock Lake’, certainly lives up to the photos I’d seen. Startling, other-worldly blue-green water, so clear I can see the scaly details on the fish swimming several feet beneath its surface.

And so can the young Chinese woman just down the bridge from me. She’s delighted by the fish, especially by the way the whole school swims up to her in unison as her spittle hits the water.

Her companions – all 20-something mainland Chinese – laugh loud and long, and join her in trying out fish-wrangling tactics: clapping, yelling down at the water, dropping twigs and leaves, and of course that now-proven stand-by, hacking and spitting their own gobs.

I care about this far more than the fish do.

Jiuzhaigou Sheraton Hotel, daily Tibetan Cultural Show

We’ve taken the tour option of seeing this show tonight, and as we enter the auditorium, we’re greeted by a line-up of performers, all decked out in Tibetan outfits. Daughter Tall rushes up to one who’s smiled at her, and we take a photo.

The show comprises much of what you’d expect: culturally-representative songs and dances, feats of agility and strength from the young men, lots of frilly costumes on the young ladies, who are uniformly tall and lissome.

In an interesting twist, each paying customer has been given a simple white scarf as we entered the auditorium. We discover they’re not just souvenirs when, in the midst of a fervent solo by a matronly singer, a young man jumps from his seat, races down to the stage, and drapes his scarf on the singer’s neck (pausing long enough next to the star for his mates to take a photo). Daughter Tall is transfixed, and insists on running up and be-scarfing this singer, too.

At the end of the show, the chorus girls walk out into the audience to greet the guests, and are nearly buried under drifts of cheap silk. The young woman who comes up to us looks like the same girl we met as we entered, but who knows? Her smile is wide and winning, but the rest of her face is blank. She looks into the middle distance as Daughter Tall, all adoration and glee, drops our last scarf around her neck.

I wonder what she’s thinking. Is this her 5th such show, or her 50th, or her 500th? Does she enjoy doing the dances and singing the songs? Can she ever listen to one of them now without a sense of ironic distance ruining it for her?

It reminds me, in a small way, of the Dutch dancing I did in my small Iowa hometown when I was in school. Most of us had Dutch ancestors, and it was corny but secretly fun to break out the costumes and wooden shoes and pretend we were back in the old country. We knew, though, that our town's annual three-day Tulip Festival was just for giggles. No one was waiting outside with a rack of cheeses that needed toting up the dike to the docks.

But here, just outside the national park, are bleak grey mountainsides with real, live Tibetan farmers plowing barely-thawed fields behind real, live yaks. They’re wearing real traditional outfits – because they’re warm. They’re not doing this for fun.

So is it better that our dancing Tibetan girl lives in town, sleeps in, and spends an hour or two doing her makeup for each evening’s repetitious and maybe exploitative cultural show – or would it be better if she lived back out in the countryside, rising before the sun to go till the fields, but staying aloof from the whole putting-my-culture-on-display-for-profit scene?

I don’t know. Does she?

Being a long-term expatriate can make you extra-sensitive to questions of identity and allegiance. You want to see people for who they really are, to plumb their words and actions for their true intentions.

But at first, trying to see and understand another culture is like looking into funhouse mirrors: you’re definitely getting an image, but it’s usually so distorted you can’t really trust it.

After a while, though, there are moments when suddenly those images snap into focus – or at least you think they do.

And then, maybe a little later still, you realize it’s often your own face you’re seeing.

How much does food cost in Hong Kong?

Mr Tall — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:00:00 +0000

We Batgung are asked the same question by many commenters and emailers: ‘How much does it cost to live in Hong Kong?’

The easy answer is ‘quite a lot, but maybe not so much as you might think, so long as you know where to look for things’.

What’s much harder is demonstrating by anecdote or isolated example how much difference it makes in Hong Kong if you buy your goods and services from expat-centric providers, as opposed to local ones.

So this article is a beginning attempt to nail down some comparative prices for people living different lifestyles here in the same city. It focuses on a common range of products we all consume: fresh food. It will be followed by additional comparisons and information on other types of products and services, so stay tuned.

To pick up on a theme I mentioned elsewhere on the site, you will see that I’ve divided our fresh food survey into three ‘lifestyle price ranges’:

Low A low-budget special, based on shopping in wet markets in completely ‘local’ areas of Hong Kong, especially those dominated by public housing.
Mid-range A middle-class Hong Kong approach, typified by shopping at big local chains such as Park N Shop and Wellcome, etc. Most of the fresh food sold at Hong Kong’s big supermarkets is still locally grown, but I’ve thrown in a few imported products an expat might be inclined to buy.
High A full-on, everything-we-had-back-home expat approach, shopping mostly in expat-friendly supermarkets such as Great and CitySuper. Note that when I checked out prices in this category, I expressly did not choose the highest-priced options. I picked what I thought was a ‘typical’ or mid-range-price product from what I saw available. You can certainly spend more on just about every item in this category if you are so led. I did express a preference for ‘ecologiclly correct’ option, however. This may have raised the overall bill just a bit, but these stores stock very few fresh products that are not ‘organic’ or ‘free-range’ or whatever.

You’ll see that the actual items in each ‘basket’ don’t exactly equal each other. That’s unavoidable, unfortunately, as cuts of meat, types of fish, etc. that are typical of Chinese and western cuisines don’t match up very well. Nevertheless, the total cost of each ‘basket’ of food should be roughly comparable, as each item has an appropriate representative in each budget category.

All prices are stated in Hong Kong dollars first, then in US dollars for easier reference for those outside Hong Kong. Most measures are per kilogram, with exceptions noted. For Americans, remember that 1kg=2.2 pounds, so we’re talking about quite a large quantity of each item measured in this way. I’ve included additional explanatory notes, particularly as to the origin of the food, wherever I think they’ll be helpful. If there’s no indication of where an item originated, this means it’s either local/from nearby in mainland China, or I couldn’t find out.

Food item	Low budget (HKD/USD)	Mid-budget (HKD/USD)	High-budget (HKD/USD)
White bread	5.00/0.64 7 slices	7.90/1.01 6 slices ‘Old English’	14.50/1.86 7 slices toast
Potatoes 1 kg	6.70/0.86	5.50/0.71	66.00/8.46 Organic red (USA)
Onions 1 kg	6.70/0.86	7.00/0.90	65.00/8.33 Organic red (UK)
Tomatoes 1 kg	6.70/0.86	13.20/1.69	100.00/12.82 Australian plum
Carrots 1 kg	6.70/0.86	6.60/0.85	66.00/8.46 Organic (Australia)
Oranges (large navel, 6)	19.80/2.53 USA	17.4/2.23 USA	120.00/15.38 Organic (USA)
Apples (large Fuji, 6)	19.80/2.53	13.20/1.69	178.80/22.92 Japanese
Lettuce 1 head	6.00/0.77 Iceberg	6.50/0.83 Iceberg	29.50/3.78 Hydroponic Cobb
Fresh spinach 1kg	8.30/1.06	13.20/1.69	180.00/23.08 Australian
Broccoli 2 heads	14.00/1.79	5.20/0.67	42.00/5.38 Organic (Australia)
Eggs (large, 12)	12.00/1.56	23.80/3.05 USA white	76.00/9.74 Free-range (NZ)
Beef: minced 1 kg	30.00/3.85	83.40/10.69 Australian	250.00/32.05 US or Australian
Pork (lean, boneless) 1 kg	43.30/5.55	37.40/4.79	200.00/25.64 US boneless loin
Chicken: fresh	55.00/7.05 Live	41.90/5.37 Chilled, whole (PRC)	340.00/43.59 Organic (France, 1.7kg)
Fresh fish (4 servings)**	32.00/4.10 Large ‘gold thread’	19.90/2.55 Chilled catfish filets	160.00/20.51 Chilean sea bass (400g)
Totals	HKD272.00/USD34.87	HKD302.01/USD38.73	HKD1887.80/USD242.02

**Note: I found fish to be the hardest item to compare, given the cultural/cuisine differences I mentioned above. I therefore chose what I thought might make for 'four servings' in each category. The 'gold thread' is a locally-caught fish with a nice firm flesh that's delicious fried up whole. The 'chilled catfish filets' I found at the local supermarket (and very cheap, I might add -- a full pound for just 19.90), were from the species Pangasius Hypothalmus (no, really, it was the only identifying information on the label). I discovered that this noble fish hails from the catfish family -- and geographically from Vietnam -- by googling the species name, then finding it lavishly referenced at the clearly indispensible Planet Catfish site. The sea bass servings I've assumed are actually quite small, i.e. just 100 grams, so the price for this number could go waaay up easily.

So, my first reaction to the total prices: Wow. When I decided to research and write up this topic, I expected a big gap between the ‘local’ and ‘expat’ buying approaches, but nothing on quite this scale. But then on several occasions I’ve observed someone ahead of me in the check-out line at Great or CitySuper presenting a modest-looking basket of groceries, and being rung up to the tune of 2,000-3,000 Hong Kong dollars.

I’m also a bit surprised by how close the totals for the ‘low’ and ‘mid’ budget approaches are. I knew that the wet markets are actually more expensive than the supermarket chains for certain items, especially since the latter have added their own ‘fresh market’ sections, but I still expected more of an overall difference. In fact, if you bought locally-raised beef and eggs in the supermarket instead of the Australian (I went for the imported on the grounds that these are products some expats might be more suspicious of buying locally), you’d come out cheaper than in the wet market overall.

One last point to note: if you consider that you’re getting a full kilogram of most of the vegetables on the list, it’s clear that fresh food in Hong Kong is pretty cheap – assuming you avoid the ‘expat’ approach, that is!

As I mentioned above, I’ll be adding to this article in the future with more categories of food, drinks (I know some of you can’t wait to see the booze section), entertainment expenses, housing costs, and so on.

Reader reports of price-gouging, shopping strategies and bargain sightings are very welcome.

[Note: the next installment, and the next, of this series are also now up.]

Voluntary work in Hong Kong

mrb — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 01:00:00 +0000

Not surprisingly, most voluntary work in Hong Kong needs you to speak Chinese. Still, if you have some free time and want to volunteer there are options for English-speakers. I'll describe one of them, a place I spent some time at last year. Then I'll also list some other groups that are looking for volunteers.

Crossroads

Last year I spent some time helping at Crossroads. You might have heard of them already, as they appear in the local press from time to time. Their goal is simple - take things people no longer need, and deliver them to people that will find them useful.

You probably have an image of old clothes donations. It's true they do process a lot of clothes, but they deal with much more besides. Apart from personal donations, many organisations offer items that are still in good condition, but are no longer needed. For example, it could be a local hospital that has changed its logo, and so has all the bed linen with the previous logo that they no longer need. Or an office that is expanding rapidly, and has an 'old' photocopier that is only two years old, but has recently been replaced by a newer, larger model. Or a buying office for a US company that receives several hundred clothing samples each year from Chinese factories, etc.

The recipients are a mix of local and overseas charities. Local charities often visit to collect furniture, e.g. for use in their hostels and other facilities around Hong Kong. Overseas deliveries are much larger, typically filling a 40-foot shipping container, which is sent off to the organisation that needs it. They are a sight to behold, as they are packed as full as you can imagine, with as many of the items requested as possible.

Crossroads need volunteers. There is a lot of manual sorting and checking work to be done, which anyone can help with. People with specialised skills are also welcome, whether fixing items that have been received, performing maintenance on the facilities, data entry, admin, computer programming, marketing, etc. If you are willing to work, they'll find something for you to do!

The downside? It isn't difficult to get to, but the journey takes a while - say an hour each way from Hong Kong island. It is near Hong Kong Gold Coast, not far from Tuen Mun, and is on several bus routes. Also the work can seem monotonous, though if you keep the end result in mind, it's quite amazing what you are enabling.

On the plus side you'll certainly get to meet an intersting mix of people, as the volunteers come from all around the world. Some live onsite, working there full time. Others work several days each week. Many of these are from Africa, so expect to hear a lot of French. The Mormons send teams there on a regular basis, and local international schools also have groups helping there in many weeks. You also get a free lunch each day. If you like to try different food, you'll really enjoy lunchtime, as they have some great cooks.

You (and that might be you personally, or the organisation you represent) can help by volunteering:
- Your stuff. What do you throw out that is in good condition, and could be used by someone else? It does need to be in reasonable condition. If you'd be embarrassed to give it to a friend to use, it's probably not appropriate. But if you think it could be useful, please contact them.
- Your time. The more people they have, the more stuff they can process.
- Your money. Money pays for the shipping. Every dollar donated enables many more dollars worth of stuff to reach the people that need it.

Their website has much more information about all these points and much more besides. If you are ready to volunteer, fill in this form, and they'll be in touch with you shortly.

Other volunteer opportunities

If Crossroads doesn't fit your interests, here are some other options:

Try Ho-Sum, a local website that displays a list of upcoming activities that need volunteers. That's where I found Crossroads, and they have many other opportunities available (when I checked today there were 38 on the English-language page, and 76 on the Chinese-language page).
The government also has a website that performs a similar function. It would make more sense if the two sites combined into one, but until that happens you might want to check this one too.
Geoexpat list several more, including Community Advice Bureau, Riding for the Disabled Association, Oxfam Hong Kong, Rotary Clubs, Lions International, and Christina Noble Children’s Foundation.
Amcham's 'Lving in Hong Kong' book lists several more that need English-speaking volunteers. PDF copies of the book's chapters are available online - visit this page and search for 'volunteer', then click on the chapter heading to download. When I looked it was Chapter 7.
Finally, if you are a HK Magazine reader, they sometimes have requests for help in the 'Bulletin Board' section.

What have I missed? If there are any local volunteer organisations you'd like to recommend, we'd love to hear a bit about what they do, and what help they need.

Regards, MrB