Dr Hua Zhang

University of New South Wales, Australia
Exchange to The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

I thought I knew Hong Kong. I have been to Hong Kong more than ten times before I was granted the exclusive Endeavour Cheung Kong Awards. Apparently I was wrong. Working at a place for six months is definitely a different experience to visiting the same place as a tourist or staying for a short period for collaborative research. As a temporary resident in Hong Kong, I had the opportunity to snapshot a number of things that a visitor would never normally have a chance to observe, and here I would like to share some of my experiences with you.

It is always the travel experience that is the first thing that jumps to my mind. It is about five kilometres from my home to my host institute, which meant I had to catch some kind of public transportation to work everyday. After having suffering from years of frustration at the public transportation in Sydney, I immediately fell in love with the high efficiency of the public transportation system in Hong Kong – it is like heaven in this context. In addition to the subway network, which takes passengers to most places in Hong Kong, at each residential site, there is also a bus link connected to the nearby subway or country train link. The negative effect is that, many people live very close to the train station but still catch the bus instead of taking a walk for exercise.

Since I had to cook at home in Hong Kong instead of going to restaurants all the time (thanks to Hong Kong’s sky-high rent), I got the chance to visit the local market/shops and observe what the life of people in Hong Kong is like. One interesting thing I noticed is that “Lung Nui” (pretty lady) has become a general term for any female customer. So the next time when you visit Hong Kong, don’t get too excited if you are complimented by a shop assistant.

University life is all good, no matter where I am. The difference in Hong Kong is that the summer holiday is much longer compared to Australia due to the humid weather in summer. But there are all kinds of summer schools that students can choose to undertake. At the moment, one hot subject is learning Mandarin (as opposed to the local dialect, Cantonese). In fact, in many research labs, large portions of students studying towards their postgraduate degrees are from the Mainland.

The six-month visit finished before I even realized. I came back to Sydney in September last year, but I returned to Hong Kong at the end of last year with a better understanding of the place and totally new expectations.

© Copyright 2018 CK Group. All rights reserved.