Happy Handover Day!

Today was interesting, and I imagine not at all representative of what my days will be like here. Today is the 12^th annual “Establishment of Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region Day” or “Handover Day” as some (i.e. Wikipedia call it), and was therefore a state holiday. As such, I went to the gym and played badminton and ping-pong, met a number of new people in a completely non-work environment (I spent a while chatting with Mia/Mo Lan, a recent graduate of a university in Beijing, and a worker in a Christian society at HKU), and spent several hours reading articles and trying to decide what I want to do with my work (still no project proposal). I will meet with Dr. Wen soon to try to decide. One project I was interested in is apparently in the works for the group, but probably not feasible in the 10 weeks I have. There are uses for microfluidics and ER/MR fluids I didn’t imagine. Apparently, MR shells can coat various drugs which will then be released due to the heart’s own magnetic field.

This school combines a sense of familiarity with a complete foreignness in an odd way for me. Familiar, because of the physical environment, elements of Asian culture, and of course, the ubiquitous Kanji I see everywhere. I can even tell spoken Mandarin from Cantonese most of the time. But the hard part for me is my almost complete inability to speak the languages. English is something of a necessary evil here, given my extremely tenuous grasp of Cantonese and Mandarin. I’m learning key points of structure in both, but the gaps in my vocabulary are so large that concepts I do know are the exceptions, not the rules. I loved being in Japan last summer and finally getting to the point where I could think and learn new words in Japanese, without ever resorting to English. I hope, but doubt, this will occur this summer for me in Cantonese.

I am currently sitting outside one of the student cafeterias here, the Can-teen II. I’ve eaten here twice, but feel apprehensive about doing so tonight given the frustration I’ve seen the staff show at my inability to speak their language. I’m sitting where I am therefore not for the food, but for the view, which is quite glorious. I’m staring at Kowloon bay with a multitude of green islands (there are few buildings in view, except for the bits of campus at the edges of my vision), an assortment of different boats, and a slowly setting sun. This sight, and the birdsong, has a calming effect, and I want to sit her a bit longer before I return “home” to my little room. I have a suspicion that I will spend even less time there than I did in the Chesters at Caltech, but this is more out of sheer desire not to be in my room her, not when there is so much else to see.

I will be going to bed shortly, although it is not yet 7 PM. I am not sure what percentage of my current tiredness is due to my jet-lag, and what is due to my exhaustion from a trip and an extremely poor night’s sleep last night. By going to bed early tonight, I can insure that the latter is not a cause.

Image: View from the balcony outside the cafeteria, at Dusk, of Clear Water Bay