Hong Kong – free day, Aberdeen fishing village, Stanley Market, Victoria’s Peak

Everything in Hong Kong feels so blue and green. What I mean by that is it all seems so fresh, warm, and clean. In the United States, it is so very clear where the beaches are, where the cities are, and where the mountains are. Here in Hong Kong, you get all three in one exact place. There is no other place like it in the world.

                During our free evening, we explored Victoria Harbor, and watched the light show. The sky scrapers put on a very cool show for the Christmas season, and it helped me get into the holiday spirit. We ended the night by going to the temple street market, which was really cool if you were looking for knock off designer goods!

                The next day, we started out with a boat ride in the Aberdeen fishing village. The water was so blue and clear. I felt like I was on an island vacation getaway. The Stanley Market offered shopping opportunities, but I was more interested in seeing the sand and water. We ended at Victoria’s Peak, which was really amazing. The view is breathtaking, and I felt like I was sitting on top of the world.

                We did a lot of traveling this day, so I was able to get a pretty good feel for how residents of Hong Kong start to define themselves. Because of the British occupation of Hong Kong, their self-definition is less historic that the other places we visited. I wouldn’t say that they have no culture at all or anything like that, but it is obvious that the culture has been watered down compared to Beijing or Yunnan. It just felt very white, to put it simply. There was a McDonald’s on every corner, there are Western toilets in all the bathrooms, there are English speakers everywhere, and English translations on every sign. Hong Kong very well could have been an American city.

                I could also tell that this was another place untouched by the CCP. There were clear class differences that were visible. I saw homeless people here, where I hadn’t necessarily seen that anywhere else before (but I’m sure it was there). I also many expensive cars, and people dressed to the nines. The dichotomy of class warfare was obvious, which is something the CCP works to eliminate. This is helpful for my paper because in order to understand the parties influence on identity, the party has to have existence within the sector. This leads me to believe that the party has less influence on self-identity than it does on the residents of Beijing, for example.