TGIF

Before I came to Hong Kong, I imagined that every moment of my existence here would be suffused with the Hong Kong-ness of the place, some as-yet-undiscovered quality that would be present as I taught, as I shopped for groceries, even as I slept. I imagined that Hong Kong would infect me like some kind of benign tropical fever, changing my very thoughts in ways I could not predict but would surely come to realize.

This was, of course, ridiculous. As transformative as living abroad can be, it doesn't take long to discover that the person you were at home is largely the same person you are as you bargain over knockoffs at a night-market, or clamber up the uneven steps of the Great Wall, or wonder whether the street food you couldn't stop yourself from consuming will soon make you violently ill. Shopping for dragonfruit in the local supermarket is not so different from shopping for apples at Fairway, once the surprise of a food actually looking like that wears off. I may enjoy random conversations with strangers in Chinese more than similar conversations in English, but in Hong Kong as in America I'm fundamentally an introvert. I listen to the same music I always listened to, and cook the same foods, and am still better about cleaning my kitchen than washing my floor. Sometimes this frustrates me—I wonder whether I've missed some valuable instruction on getting the most out of my time here, whether in fact there are countless things I could be doing, countless personalities I could be trying on, if only I knew how to go about it.

This past weekend—my first weekend of complete freedom in a long time due to the end of the semester—served as a reminder, though, of just how much I do here that is unique to Hong Kong. And while it's nice to realize that I'm not just leading a New York existence twelve hours ahead of that city, I also find it slightly devastating to take stock of all the things that will be difficult or impossible to do after I return to the States in August. Some of the things the past few days have held:

Friday Night: After Cantonese class #4 (still haven't moved past “ngoh haih meigwokyahn,” unfortunately), went to the supermarket to buy durian. For some strange reason, this has recently turned into a comfort food of sorts, and I crave it on roughly a weekly basis—enough to endure the glares of my fellow KCR-riders on my ride back to the university (the grocery bagger always double-bags the durian, which is already wrapped in several layers of plastic wrap, but somehow that rotting garbage odor finds its way out). In my apartment I ate what was probably an unhealthy amount of durian while watching A Beautiful New World, a decent if slightly saccharine Chinese film.

Saturday: Went to “Nike Rockstar Workout” at my gym, found aimless dance-ish hopping with a roomful of tai-tais and an overly enthusiastic, pink-clad instructor too ridiculous to handle, and so departed for the charms of a late brunch at the Peak Cafe, which faces Hong Kong's famous Mid-Levels Escalator: perhaps the best non-dim sum brunch in the city, and just about the perfect people-watching location for a voyeur like me (consistent themes: fashion models, map-toting tourists, kids in beige scouting uniforms, badges and neckerchiefs and all).

Sunday: China for lunch. I haven't made a Shenzhen trip in a couple of months, and was pleased to find that the Sportful Garden Restaurant is as phenomenal as ever. New discovery: jinwang [golden net] dumplings, which come attached to each other by a crispy (and, indeed, net-like) piece of fried dough. After lunch, walked to Lao Jie, one of Shenzhen's overwhelmingly crowded shopping streets. Got lost around Lao Jie as usual; got found by asking the location of the “hen da de maidanglao” [very big MacDonald's], as Shenzhen is apparently home to China's (the world's?) biggest. After hitting saturation point--too many people, too many sugarcane juice vendors, too many fake Lakers jerseys--we finished the afternoon with the requisite movie run. Apparently the police are cracking down on DVD stores, so this involved following a man through the Lo Wu Commercial Center—a vast maze of narrow passages, crowded pedicure shops, tailors and fake watch stalls—to a locked storage room, then locking ourselves into the storage room with our guide. After we found and paid for the DVDs we wanted, our guide knocked on the pull-down security gate and his friend unlocked it from the outside and let us out.