The Final Stretch

These past few days have been pretty exciting as far as sightseeing goes! One of the more highly anticipated excursions we had been awaiting arrived last Saturday. As promised, Vivian took us to Lantau Island, situated directly west from Hong Kong Island. We luckily picked an ideal time to take this trip; there were hardly any clouds to disturb our day! The views were beautiful, yet the constant sunshine on this particularly hot day made heat a bigger issue than ever. I spent most of this time with a towel over my head, at times almost over my eyes. Our explorations lasted quite a long time. After a 30 minute ferry ride, we had to take 2 different buses to reach Tai O Village, followed by a third bus to go on to the famed Big Buddha (or, rather, the Tian Tan Buddha). I forgot to just stick to athletic clothes for such a long day. I was sweatier than acceptable before we even departed Hong Kong Island.

Nevertheless, I was struck by the contrast Lantau Island proved to be from the concrete jungle I had been surrounded by nonstop. Here, within the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, I found myself in a perfectly rural place. The density of the places I typically spend my time in made me forget that Hong Kong has such peaceful sides. Taking buses eastward, we passed by jungle terrain on a country road peppered by small villages with outdoor cafes and cows.

The bay from Tai O.

After about 25 minutes of driving, we made it to Tai O. That’s just a rough estimate. The heat was making me sleepy, and I did nap against the window for a bit. Tai O is a fishing village located right in a little bay facing Macau and the South China Sea, and the bus station was right on the edge of the village and by the sea. We walk into Tai O and immediately find ourselves walking through a central street with shops all around us. Most of these sell some sort of seafood products, such as dried fish swim bladders. Understandably, these streets are quite fragrant. We sit down and have a quick snack at a local food restaurant and continue our walk through the village.

 

A dried pufferfish was one of the more surprising finds walking through the village.

After about 15 minutes of walking, Vivian spontaneously decided to take our group on one of the boat rides offered. Surprisingly, they’re only HK$20 per person (about US$2.55)! I was extremely glad to just be near the water on this hot day. The boat took us inland for about 5 minutes, where we passed by homes built over the water with a beautiful mountainous backdrop. Before long, the boat was turning back. I was expecting for it to stop at the original point we had docked at, but to my delight, the captain was setting course further into the bay. The small boat we were on began to rock once we reached an area of slightly rougher waters. It definitely felt a little more adventurous, and to our surprise, there were dolphins popping out of the water every now and then. We spent the next ten minutes spotting them and trying to capture them on video. The unexpected boat ride and dolphin watching were a huge hit and among my favourite experiences thus far.

We returned to the fishing village and made our way to the nearby bus station. Another 20 minute bus ride later, we ended up at the Big Buddha. We walked around the nearby monastery (my first time in any sort of Buddhist sacred space) and made our way up the staircase leading up to the monument. The number of souvenir shops and tourists was greater than I had imagined it would be, nevertheless, the Big Buddha was certainly the biggest Buddha I had ever seen. The monument itself was majestic, and I enjoyed reading about its history, as well as brushing up my knowledge of Buddhism. The views from the top weren’t too bad, either!

After exploring and taking pictures, we descended down the many steps and spent a good half hour at the souvenir shop complex. We also met two cows who seem to call the monastery grounds home. We grabbed some milk tea on our way to the nearby collection of shops and Vivian guided us to the Ngong Ping cable car station. The wait was about 20 minutes long, but the 25 minute-long ride back to Hong Kong Island proved well worth it. Despite my unfortunate fear of heights, I was relatively unfazed by being suspended so high up during the ride. The one problem was that my persistent mal de debarquement (a residual internal feeling of rocking, often after getting off a boat — a common theme during my time here) was amplified by the subtle swaying of the cable car, resulting in mild nauseousness.

As we were told earlier, our entire group would be treated to a buffet-style Korean barbecue dinner. Upon our arrival at the Hong Kong Island-side cable car station, we took a 30 minute MTR ride to Mong Kok. We occupied 2 long tables for a few hours, met some of the Hong Kong students Vivian recently took to New York, and ate till we were more than full. The restaurant itself was one in which you accumulate various raw meat and veggies to fry at a plate on your table. Had my budget allowed for it, I would have returned the next day.

The workdays between that Saturday and now have been atypically uneventful. We’ve had an abnormally small number of walk-ins this week, and the people that have popped their head in have been other case officers’ clients. Most of what I did was prepare my cases to be handed off to other officers prior to next week’s departure. I did assist and take a chronology for a new client. A victim of persistent abuse, I wrote a letter to the Immigration and Labour Departments notifying them of this situation, especially regarding recent harm done to worker by the employer. On top of this terrible abuse, the employer has not yet paid this recently-terminated worker her post-termination entitlements. Should the worker formally claim them, I know she’ll have considerable evidence (e.g. documents with signatures witnessed by authorities) to prove her employer’s initiation of the termination. Like her, I still have quite the handful of active clients whose Labour hearings are yet to occur. I’m sad I can’t stick around and accompany them to these hearings, having been with them from the beginning of their interactions with the Mission. It’s actually a bit sadder than I would have expected.

Part of it might also be that I’m sad I don’t get to see their employers faces in hearings and do the least I can by giving them furious diplomatic glares. I’ve had conversations with co-workers about the role of emotions in this work. It seems like in the beginning, the involvement of emotion in working with clients was a constant early on that subsided over time. I recently took a phone call of a distressed client I had seen the day earlier whose passport and contract were being held by her employer who was attempting to force the client to sign documents she did not understand. Although this is sadly not too rare of an occurrence, I to this day cannot convey the wrath that I was overcome with in the time during and after the call. This visible rage that had engulfed my mental and physical self for a few minutes necessitated a cool-down period. It caught my fellow interns by surprise. It also taught me the importance of subduing such feeling in order to best serve the client.

If only I had the capacity to alleviate the troubles of the people I’ve met. Regardless, I know I’ll have to let myself be level-headed and calm. That energy has to be channeled elsewhere in order to create change.

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Mission Cuisine and Government Offices

At this point, I feel that I, together with the other two American MFMW interns, am growing more and more comfortable with the work we are doing with clients at the Mission. I know I’ve internalized some of the overall aspects of the labor contracts and I have a pretty general idea of what happens when a worker chooses to pursue a financial claim.

Along with this, I’ve been coming to enjoy my time with the other volunteers and superiors in the office more and more. I’ve dedicated a few pages in my new Muji notebook to listing some of the most important Tagalog phrases, most phrases with a formal “po” thrown in for respect. I nearly always give a “magandang umaga po” when I come through the door of the office in the morning and say “salamat po” when thanking someone for sharing food. At the very least, a “thank you po” or an “excuse me po” are looked on positively by my co-workers. Although Tagalog is the native language of most permanent staff members, English is the predominant language used day-to-day, as part of our staff and just under half of the Hong Kong foreign domestic worker population is Indonesian. I may not have realized before just how much international workplaces feed my soul.

And this international workplace simply feeds me, period. It seems like every other day someone is bringing in food to share. Thus far, most of the food has been Filipino. We’ve had a lot of rice with adobo, as well as a lot of pancit (fried noodles with chicken). On the Indonesian side, we’ve snacked on some crispy peanut candies and have tried thin deep-fried banana slices. Even a mere hour after our arrival at work sometimes, a member of the staff or regular volunteer can declare “okay, let’s eat!” and the entire office will gather and feast for a moment. Admittedly, I sometimes struggle with this, because whether I’m with a client or not, my co-workers and senior officers insist I go and eat. Even if I’m with a client, I will persistently be told to take a lunch break. I’m still not used to this and am always a tad anxious to get back to work. Needless to say, it’s clear food is a central and vibrant force in the culture of this workplace, and the variety of meals shared is reflected by the mix of Filipinos, Indonesians, Hong Kongers, and Americans present.

The office is like this even when the rice cooker in the corner of the room is off and nobody happens to bring a large fish, cooked vegetables, or sweets. Thankfully, nearby chain shops like Pret a Manger donate their previous day’s leftovers to us. Our refrigerator is never empty. Our superiors always ask us if we’ve had our breakfast or lunch, and we’re very free to grab one of the many sandwiches or wraps stacked in the fridge. We offer anyone who walks in a cup of water or coffee and a sandwich when they show up to inquire about their claims or status.

A recent event had a lot of leftover mini muffins and macarons.

Our immersion in the rhythm of work and workplace culture has been quite evident lately. I also had a chance to immerse myself even further with the legal goings-on of a foreign domestic helper’s world.

A client that I had peripherally been helping a staff member with was finally set to have her claims heard in front of an official, who would decide on the legally binding outcome of her case.  This client had been living in the Mission’s shelter, Bethune House, for at least 3 weeks after she was terminated, filed her case, and awaited a hearing date.

Without going too far into this individual’s case, the client was terminated without one-month notice after being falsely accused of a crime. These accusations were discounted and dropped, but the client was not given one month’s wages in lieu of notice, travel ticket, wages in arrears, and official expense reimbursement. The claims, being under HKD 8,000, were directed to the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board (MECAB) for a hearing. The hearing was set for Thursday. It was decided that I would accompany the client both to take notes for a summary of the day’s events, as well as to provide moral support, considering how intimidating court-like situations can be.

The day before the hearing, we held a briefing to explain to the client how MECAB works and how to address questions the adjudicating officer might have. This also served as a sort of pep talk, reminding her to engage directly with the adjudicating officer, making eye contact, speaking her native language, and allowing the interpreters to do their job. The client and I set a meeting time at the nearest MTR station and called it a day.

We got to MECAB more than an hour before the hearing was scheduled (and 30 minutes prior to MECAB opening). Due to the inevitable nerves, the client had not gotten any sleep the night before. Her friend and I reassured her of the validity of her claims and reminded her of the tips given in the briefing the night before.

At 9:30, we walked into the hearing room. The client’s friend and I sat in the public viewing area, while the client and employer were sitting across from each other at a table with their respective interpreters sitting next to them, of course not speaking a word to each other. After a few minutes, we hear a knock on the door behind the “judge’s” desk and the adjudicating officer comes in. MECAB (and its counterpart for larger claims, the Labour Tribunal) is not a court per se; clients are not represented by lawyers, for example. The atmosphere is still rather court-like, and at first glance, the Adjudicating Officer looks like any judge I’ve seen on courtroom shows. Apparently, this institution’s distancing from the idea of “court” is meant to emphasize as willful of a conciliation as possible between former employer and worker.

The client has five claims in total, most notable of which are the cost of transportation and none month’s wages in lieu of notice. The adjudicating officer ruled that the grounds for the client’s abrupt termination were not sufficient to be considered a acceptable summary dismissal (i.e. the client did not commit a crime, the client did not willfully disobey a legitimate order, the client did not display long-term negligence, etc.). Therefore, the adjudicating officer determined that the employer owed one month’s wages in lieu of notice for terminating the contract abruptly. Shortly after this claim’s discussion, an agreement was reached on which plane the client wanted to take to her place of origin. The only claim item that didn’t pass was the payment for the first few days of work. Additionally, the client was able to claim a few hundred HKD not originally mentioned in the statement due to official costs she had documentation for.

Were there not a privacy concern, I’d post the picture the client and I took after our successful MECAB hearing. Instead, here’s me in front of the government offices just before walking in.

It was exciting to spend about half of my workday witnessing like I never have before with the labour law as it pertains to migrants in Hong Kong. It was a great experience to be able to follow the adjudicating officer’s reasoning in handling the case. This elucidated aspects of the client’s case I hadn’t thought of before. This was also he first time I had seen a client’s employer; I tried to keep my glares as diplomatic as possible. I hope to accompany more clients to MECAB or Labour Tribunal hearings, because on top of the educational experience, it’s admittedly very novel. As long as they are successes for the clients the Mission serves.

A Night in Mong Kok

While I’ve been getting increasingly confident with my work at the Mission, Vivian has been showing me and the other 5 interns a good deal of what Hong Kong has to offer. One of the places we were able to be introduced to was the neighborhood of Mong Kok

Mong Kok

The neighborhood of Mong Kok is pretty bright at night, with lots of neon lighting.

Earlier in our internship session, Vivian decided to take us to dinner to try some Cantonese cuisine in a more traditional setting in the Mong Kok neighborhood. For the first time, we saw whole roast goose in kitchen windows and headed to a restaurant that offered it. At first, we were given hot water to pour in our cups. We quickly learned that this is standard etiquette, and that the water is used to clean the eating utensils and then poured in to a collective bowl. The unused hot water was poured into our cups and mixed with ice to be used as our drinking water. Eventually, the various plates of rice, noodles, dumplings, and vegetables arrived one by one over the course of the meal, and we’d all share the food placed on the rotating plate in the center.

Although most of us were familiar already with the use of chopsticks, some of us needed more practice than others. Here we are making a game out of it and passing a vegetable around the table, one person to the other.

After we finished our meal, Vivian took us to explore the neighborhood a bit more. We passed through the local Night Market, in which a lot of different backpacks, purses, trinkets, and electronics could be found. Some of us finally got the set of chopsticks they were looking to call their own. Another member of our group found an extra power adapter for Hong Kong. I registered some backpacks that I was interested in coming back to barter for. Fortune tellers lined the nearby streets. It took about half an hour for the whole group to pass by completely, since many of us stuck around to browse and make our purchases. In the end, we decided we’d see what money we had left by the end of the trip and come back.

A segment of the Mong Kok Night Market.

We continued to walk around the neighborhood, guided by Vivian. Just a few blocks around the corner, we began to hear music of increasing volume. On the side of the pedestrian-covered street we were on, we found tents and awnings arranged into what appeared to be makeshift pop-up locales. Inside most of these places were typically older locals singing old hits with a karaoke microphone and TV, presumably in Cantonese.  As we passed by one such locale, the woman owning/operating the karaoke insisted we walk in. Our program director, seeing that we were enjoying ourselves and wanting to show us around, seemed to approve very well of this opportunity to snap some photos of us in this new situation.

Before we knew it, we were invited to sit down at the plastic chairs and tables at the establishment and given each a water bottle.  A local, exclaiming his happiness at the sight of American visitors, decided to pay for a number of karaoke rounds for us. We were shy at first, so the gentleman sang a few songs dedicated to us. Of course, one of them was John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” A few from our group sang in pairs. We all got together to sing “Jingle Bells” at the end. That’s perhaps the most unexpected, bizarre context in which I’ve encountered such a holiday song. I was constantly eyeing Mariah Carey’s “Without You” on the song list in the 45 minutes we were there. Although I didn’t sing it that night, I’m still promising myself I’ll return to do so.

I intend to return to this street karaoke establishment one day!

Casework

Labour Law!

My time at the Mission has been progressing, and the majority of what we do at the Mission still revolves around familiarizing ourselves with the terms and implications of the employment contract and how to answer the simplest and most common concerns that migrant workers — predominantly Filipinas and Indonesians — come to us with. Is your employer failing to pay you your food allowance, despite agreeing to do so in your contract? Those could constitute grounds upon which to constructively terminate your contract. Is your employer or employment agency in possession of your employment contract or passport? That’s illegal. Call the police!

For many walk-in clients, the story seems to be that their contract has been terminated by them or their former employer and the former employer is refusing to pay something the worker is legally entitled to.  How does the Mission help the workers in these cases? We assemble a case folder with the client’s information as it pertains to stay in Hong Kong and employment. We type up a chronology of the client’s experience since arriving in Hong Kong, with particular attention to the events with their previous employer. After this step, we can calculate any post-termination money the client can claim. This includes, but is not limited to: official expenses from labor/immigration offices, wages in arrears, airfare for the worker to return home, or long service pay.

For example, if an employer abruptly terminates a contract with their worker without month’s notice, the employer has seven days to pay

1. One month’s wages in lieu of a notice
2. Airfare and bus transportation for the worker to return home
3. HKD 100 per day as the travel allowance for the worker’s return home.

If the former employer contests any of these claims and an agreement cannot be reached, the Mission helps the worker take their case to the Labour Relations Department. For this, the workers must prepare a statement to support their case and schedule a hearing. Although not a “court” case with a lawyer, such hearings occur at the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board (if the claim is under HKD 8,000) or Labour Tribunal (if the claim is over HKD 8,000).

Overall, we’ve been informed about the procedures when a client calls or walks in. Very often, however, a client will call or ask a question in-person that I don’t have the faintest clue how to answer. In this sense, I still feel rather dependent on staff to assist me with specific client inquiries. However, I’ve been able to help the staff handle their casework on a number of occasions where a client’s biographical data has been filled out with the help of a staff member and I merely take over by constructing a chronology. The handful of these I have done have taken a considerable amount of time, but reviewing the important sequence of events carefully is a part of the process. In this sense I feel my work is becoming more and more independent.

Holiday on Ice House Road

This past weekend, on the second Sunday working at the MFMW, we were informed we would be immersing with the migrants in Central. Shortly after I arrived in the office, I took a phone call that ended up being from other Mission staff requesting I deliver a microphone a few minutes away near the Mission. I deliver it to a street entirely occupied by Filipina domestic helpers taking their day off by relaxing, playing cards, giving massages, enjoying food, and chatting among themselves. The Mission staff there introduces me to some Filipinas from a community organizing group consisting mostly of Filipinas from the northern provinces. I return to the office for a bit before the other two interns and I join the workers taking their Sunday holiday.

Ice House Road, the particular part of Central where we spent our day immersing with the workers.

The atmosphere is lively and we’re all enjoying ourselves despite the heat. Other Mission volunteers arrive, including a young local who performs “Take Me Home, Country Roads” for us and the surrounding event. The Filipinas around us are generous with their snacks and food, and they turn their cameras to us every now and then to wave hello to the families they are video calling back home. A Kalinga community dance is announced and a group of woman arrive with gongs and begin a traditional dance, stepping to the trancelike beat of their gongs. The other interns and I were excitingly dragged into this dance. Thankfully, I don’t have any pictures of me participating (and failing) in this dance, but I am provided the first few minutes of this video as an accurate representation of what dance was done (without the men, of course). This event on Ice House Road continued with non-stop karaoke until about 5:00PM.

Mission volunteers and interns together with the domestic workers we sat next to on Ice House Road

I’m feeling really fulfilled by the opportunity to learn and apply general knowledge on Hong Kong migrant domestic worker law. I was just directed to a volunteer/intern guide that I’ve referred to a number of times this week. Although I’ve usually been helping either helping a client or helping one of the staff members. Even though there are so many specific questions I can’t answer, I’m excited by the people I meet. Both the coworkers and clients are some of the kindest people I’ve met in Hong Kong.

Work begins!

Transit and the Bakery
Work has begun! After leaving to Macau and activating our visas upon re-entry, we’re able to legally work at our internships. Our coordinator had been in communication with Cynthia, the Mission for Migrant Workers director, about when we could start our training. Eventually, we agreed to stop in on Monday at 10:30AM to begin.

Sydney, Nora and I left the ChineseU a little early, at about 8:30AM. We needed some time to find a bakery and buy a cake for the office on our first day. Thankfully, most major MTR stations have a bakery or two (such as Maxim’s Cakes or A-1 Bakery) lining their concourses. We found an A-1 Bakery location at the Central MTR station. I got a bit distracted from our goal and became very interested in the variety of baked goods that I’ve never heard of before. Melon bread, pineapple-chocolate rolls, and many green tea flavored options were plentiful. I left with a Hokkaido milk roll (like a muffin) and a plain twisted danish to try later. I had never tried anything made in this style with Japanese Hokkaido milk. The muffin was a soft, fluffy, sweet roll with crumble on top. I’m addicted. Each of my small baked items cost HKD 12 (about USD 1.50). The three of us left with a large strawberry cake for HKD 190 (about USD 25).

The Job Begins
We arrived at the Mission much earlier than expected, a little before the 10AM opening time. We waited at the table outside the door for about ten minutes until a woman showed up to let us in. After offering the cake and putting it into the fridge, we settle in and are told to sit down at the cubicle desks. The woman introduces herself as Manang Dolores. Manang is a term used in the northern mountain province of the Philippines meaning “older sister.” We chat for a few minutes before we meet a two-year intern from Indonesia who is in charge of the Mission’s training sessions offered to the migrant community (elderly care training, first aid training, etc). We also meet the NGO’s public relations officer, who takes over our orientation from there. Most of our orientation will bounce between the Mission’s permanent staff depending on their case load.

Learning about the struggle of FDWs
We were presented first with a copy of the yearly research done by the MFMW. This year’s publication discusses the living conditions faced by some of the most unfortunate foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong. To put it briefly, the Hong Kong government has required FDWs to live with their employers as part of their conditions of stay (the so-called live-in policy). Instituted in 2003, this was allegedly a move to keep these foreign workers away from part-time work in competition with locals. This live-in policy unfortunately blurs the lines between work-time and rest-time, since the workers technically live in their workplace. Another issue, the one examined in the research piece we read, is the ambiguity of what classifies as “suitable accommodation” and “reasonable privacy” within in the Standard Employment Contract. This ambiguity results in a sad variety of worrisome and dangerous living situations for the domestic workers in Hong Kong. The research piece mentions workers sleeping in bathtubs, cupboards, pet or storage rooms, and even tents on balconies or building roofs. Even if a separate room is provided for the domestic worker, in may still be a room the employer frequents, undermining the privacy of the worker. A lack of a reasonable surface to sleep on or a lack of air conditioning can cause a plethora of health issues on top of the stress and hypertension many of the 350-370 thousand foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong face.

The informative videos we watched afterward describe the Mission’s goals and operations, including its shelter facility, Bethune House, where migrant women can stay while claims against their employer are being processed (they cannot work while processing a case).

We returned the next day and met with the Mission’s chaplain, who is also a priest at  St. John’s Cathedral right next to the Mission. We received a crash course on the Standard Employment Contract, growing more and more familiar with the different ways in which its ambiguities could cause harm to the migrants that sign it.

Each day, we have been leaving the office with a new guide or piece of writing. Most of our working hours thus far have been used reading these documents and answering phone calls in between. Very quickly, the Standard Employment Contract, MFMW research on living conditions, the “Practical Guide for Employment of Foreign Domestic Helpers” and the “Know Your Rights” guide for workers have been making us gradually familiar with the issues faced by the domestic workers of Hong Kong. We’re set to work one-on-one with clients soon.

Americans in Stanley Market

We (the group of 6 NGO interns under the Hong Kong-America Center) have often been told about the various other groups Vivian is in charge of. One group is a group of Yale business students. Another group is a group of business and finance students from Gordon College in Boston. Vivian finished guiding a group of Hong Kong students around New York shortly before we arrived in Hong Kong. She’s quite a busy program coordinator! Vivian announced we’d get to meet the Gordon College group on Monday, which we turned into an excursion to the southern area of Hong Kong Island. This day happened to be the Dragon Boat Festival in Hong Kong.

At about 9:00 in the morning, we set off to the designated meeting point on the MTR Island Line. We eventually noticed another group of Westerners our age nearby, and we gathered that we were all part of Vivian’s excursion. We introduced ourselves to each other and chatted for a few minutes before Vivian arrived. We walked up to a bus stop right outside the MTR station. As is often the case, we were just following Vivian’s instructions without asking many questions. During the very crowded (standing up) 30 minute bus ride, we drove around some twisting roads along slopes and drove on top of a dam. We learned we were heading to a part of town called Stanley, and paid close attention to when Vivian was getting off to ensure no-one was left behind.

We arrived in Stanley just around lunchtime. Vivian guided us through some pedestrian streets filled with shops and souvenir vendors. We were rather quick to move along, since it was so hot.

Walking through Stanley Market.

After clearing the market part of Stanley, we noticed an increasing number of people in full-body watersports attire. We went down some stairs, and the shady streets of the market opened up to a busy bay near the beach. The direct sunlight paired with the already humid air wore me and the entire group out quickly. Thankfully, festival sponsors were well-prepared and were giving out free things left and right. I got a free flavored carbonated water, a free Red Bull, and a free towel just for liking a few Facebook pages. This towel was quite the game-changer in the heat that day. However, the most refreshing part of this moment was stepping into the water, even just to my ankles. Thankfully, I was wearing sandals that I didn’t mind getting wet. I really enjoyed just standing there for a few minutes.

The sponsor and participant area for the Dragon Boat race.

The view towards the race area from the beach.

After we were all tired of standing on the beach, Vivian took us further around the island. We made it to a stretch of coastline with a waterside promenade. We took a plethora of pictures while getting to know the other intern group. This part of town seemed to be a place where many Westerners flocked to. I don’t know if this was mostly because of the Dragon Boat race or not. However, I did notice a nearby American school on the bus ride there. Eventually, the two Gordon girls that had gone and grabbed some fresh coconut juice returned and we all began to ponder our hunger (many of us had skipped breakfast). Vivian decided for us to break for an hour and a half to find lunch along one of the many restaurants along the promenade. Most of them were Western restaurants, so I settled for a generic American place serving both Mexican and Italian-inspired food. I had a steak quesadilla. It felt pretty touristy, albeit not the kind of touristy I would have preferred.

The Stanley promenade.

Once we returned from lunch, Vivian found a wide variety of angles and locations in which to take group pictures. We continued our walk further down the promenade and found a path leading up along the water in a rather forested area. Just a few stairs up, the smell of incense grew stronger and we came across a sort of small seaside temple. This was the first sort of non-Christian sacred space I had noticed in Hong Kong, and although I would have a picture, I was informed that it is considered rude to take a picture of the religious icons, namely Buddha.

We continued our walk down the path towards the water and found a place to sit. I joined a group of mostly Gordon students on the boulders that lined the side of the bay. We hopped around for a good twenty minutes, taking pictures and enjoying the air of the South China Sea. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the day. Once it seemed we were spending far too much time on the rocks, we moved back to where Vivian and a few group members were sitting and chatting. At this point, we decided it was getting a bit late and began to plan the next few days of arranging contact with our internship supervisors.

We took the fifteen minute walk back to the bus stop we arrived at. Unfortunately, all of the tourists of Stanley seemed to be returning to Hong Kong at around this time, and a considerable line had formed to board the bus. After another fifteen minutes of waiting, we made it onto the bus. The 30 minute bus ride that followed was full of nice views, given the sun was getting closer to setting and that much of the route was along mountain slopes. We passed some nice beaches in Repulse Bay and saw some cable cars in the distance going up some of the seaside mountains we passed. Everything in the area looked exceptionally pricey, but I determined it’d be a nice place to return to sometime, at least in passing. Putting my feet in the water earlier definitely made me want to return for a day at the beach!

Vienna in Review

The Four-Month Vienna Dream-State

I lay a small flower on the Mozart statue in Volksgarten on Mozart’s birthday.

2018 for me is a year of many personal firsts in rapid succession. I’m in the process of spending more than half of 2018 abroad. It’s a record for me. I’ve visited family in Poland on a number of occasions, usually for 6-8 weeks at a time. This year, I expanded my European horizons beyond Poland with a semester in Austria. I’m now about to break that Eurocentric shell with a summer NGO internship in Hong Kong. Vienna and the impact of my experiences there still follow me around very closely. As I start my time in Hong Kong, I’ll quickly share some of the things that preceded my time here.

Since spending a single day in Vienna during a choir tour my junior year of high school, I was sure that if I were to study abroad, Vienna would need to be the location. Thanks to IES Abroad Vienna, I got to rediscover the places I briefly visited that trip and let them become my everyday. After 3 weeks of IES orientation and intensive German class, I sought out and mingled with the students of the music program and found my group of 6 friends that I’d spend most of the next months with. We called ourselves the “Wienerds.” With the Wienerds I went to cafés, concerts, classes, and Croatia. I’ll dedicate a sentimental post to that semester’s travels in the future.

My first morning in Zagreb, Croatia with some arugula and a hardy Slavic grandma.

I tried to take advantage of as many concerts and operas in Vienna as possible. Pictured are the soloists from a performance of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion at the Musikverein.

Of course, studying abroad is primarily an educational experience, so I can’t avoid mentioning the academics. I was lucky enough to be placed in a German class that nourished my desire for constant discussion and presented enough grammatical challenges to me throughout the semester. Based on class hours, I saw more of those nine talented peers from German than anyone else in the program. We all cherished a family-like connection with each other and with our beloved professor, Andi, with whom we chatted with at regular Stammtisch gatherings in Viennese locales.

I enjoyed two courses in the social sciences: the Culture of Immigration and Globalization, Regionalization, and International Law. The former provided some basic sociological background on migrants and refugees in the EU, particularly Austria. In-class excursions were plentiful, taking us, among other places, to a children’s museum exhibition on the migrant experience.

The latter course reinforced an understanding of international politics from a legal perspective, particularly dealing with trade. Before this, I had not taken a course dealing solely in international politics since my freshman year at IWU, so the material was very refreshing. This course, too, brought many excursions, namely to the Vienna U.N. Headquarters and OPEC. I was especially pleased to use this course as an outlet for an emerging geographic/historical area of interest in southeast Europe. I looked at the 1995 Dayton Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia & Herzegovina for several class assignments.*

Perhaps the most unexpected experience I had through IES was my internship at the Vienna State Opera. I was placed in the music administration/rehearsal department, giving me a peek into how the company selects singers and prepares them. I was fortunately able to attend many rehearsals. I also got tickets to some of the approx. 350 performances the company hosts each year (the most in the world). I also couldn’t complain about the delicious (and cheap!) cafeteria in which I ate heaps of schnitzel, Berner sausage with fries, and even ćevapi to satisfy my south Slavic cravings. As the academic component of this experience, I took a course on the arts and culture industry in Vienna, learning a lot about the system of government funding that contrasts with the sponsor-heavy funding found in the U.S.

My view from the Staatsoper onto Karajanplatz and Kärntner Straße.

All in all, I’m struggling to talk about my Viennese study abroad experience without using all the clichés typical of an American student experiencing the reverse culture shock of returning to the USA. The typical “it changes you” heard everywhere still applies to me, though. I may have left Vienna more confused about my life goals than I was when I arrived, since a broader list of options has opened up to me. I am, however, less confused about where I may want to end up geographically. As much as I’m aware of the common illusion of the “grass being greener” in my beloved Wien, I’m still taking steps to make a potential post-undergrad move there possible. The Viennese concoction of cosmopolitan capital, classical music heaven, and international hub (housing a U.N. Headquarters and OPEC) meant Vienna was a perfect match for me. Have on top of that the supremely irresistible charm of the locals and their Viennese German, outstanding public transport, lovely parks, kebab, bureaucracy, and above all, Leberkäse**, and it’s unsurprising that Vienna has topped Mercer Global’s Quality of Living Ranking for 9 years in a row. My mother has even been telling her friends and co-workers that I’m currently in the process of moving there. Well, it looks like it’s inevitable

*This interest arose after watching hours of documentaries on the breakup of Yugoslavia. I recommend giving the 6-part The Death of Yugoslavia from the BBC a watch. Additionally, Misha Glenny’s The Fall of Yugoslavia is an extremely well-written book on the topic.

**Literal translation: Liver-cheese. Leberkäse is pretty much just meatloaf. I’m particularly fond of Käseleberkäse (cheese liver cheese), which simply has cheese in it.

Miscellaneous Photos

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The Austria-Hong Kong Transition

I keep on running into people in the subway. Like cars, foot traffic in the metro underground also tends to keep to the left. I’m not used to this. I’ve been a disruption to the orderly public transport system called the MTR.

My second morning in Hong Kong, I purchased a refillable transport card, called an Octopus card. The passageways around inner MTR stations are scattered with 7/11 stores, chain bakeries, steamed bun shops, and the occasional Starbucks. All of these places take Octopus card as a form of payment and can serve as a place to refill your balance. Hong Kong knows a thing or two about convenience.

Itching to move beyond the Chinese University of Hong Kong where our group is staying, I decide it’s time to try to go towards Central. To my dismay, I neglected the fact that it was a weekday rush hour. This proved to be a very stressful morning for this obviously foreign Hong Kong explorer. I did a mediocre job trying not to get trampled by the commuting masses and had the opportunity to be stuffed into a train by MTR staff. There are so many people here. This is definitely not something I saw in Vienna.

A pretty normal looking MTR car. It’s a new feeling living in a place where I can’t understand what the voice on the intercom is saying.

I used this outing to practice what would soon be my morning commute. I live with a group of 5 other interns placed in cooperation with the Hong Kong-America Center. We live at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the New Territories north of the city. The campus is large and complex. Our dorms situated on the highest point of the mountain the university is situated atop. Each morning I take a fifteen minute bus ride down twisting and turning campus roads to the University MTR station. For the amount of sharp turns and slopes, the drivers tend to take this route very quickly. It took our group a few rides to grow out of the initial motion sickness. From the University MTR station, I have a 40 minute train ride towards Central with 2 transfers. When it’s less crowded, this is a good time to catch up on reading. Many of my mornings back home would be spent listening to the Morning Shift on NPR. Since I don’t have that, our generous program coordinator Vivian gives me a copy of the Financial Times from her office so I can get my daily dose of current affairs.

The view from the garden next to our dorm building is glorious.

Once I get to Central, I pass through Statue Square, through the HSBC Bank building, up some stairs through a garden next to the former French Mission, finally reaching St. John’s Cathedral where the Mission for Migrant Workers is based.

The lush gardens through which I pass on my way to work.

The building of the former French Mission.

My first week in Hong Kong was full of excursions guided by our program coordinator from the Hong Kong-America Center, Vivian. First we were taken to the nearby mall, two MTR stops away from home in Sha Tin. There I bought an extra pillow, some toiletries, and did some mild grocery shopping so I could at least have some bananas or oatmeal for breakfasts.

To my surprise,