Cheers to a new year, new school, and new country. I went into 2019 with a negative balance in the sleep bank. That debt increased after my flight to Hong Kong. It started with not enough sleep the day before as I pulled an all-nighter for New Year with my family, including packing up some final items and spontaneously making donuts at 2am. Then it was RDU to YYZ to HKG. The first leg was not too bad. On the second leg, I indulged by watching at least six movies.
I distinctly remember feeling as if I had already spent several days on the plane, checking the flight status, and realizing with dread that I was only halfway through my 16-hour flight. In between the meals, I improved on my geography: Kimmirut, Nunavut, Lensk, Olyokminsk, Yanggao, etc.
But I managed to fall asleep for ten minutes and woke up just as the plane landed. I took a picture. It was surreal. I was still in denial. I was surrounded by lush, green mountains being swallowed by clouds. I was surrounded by Asians. It was incredibly overwhelming. More on that later.
This morning I arose from my unforgiving, 3 inch-deep mattress feeling cold and dehydrated. After landing, registering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and checking into my dorm, I gave myself 3 hours to alternate crying about home and desperately watching vines to remind myself about home.
Then I gave myself about 11 hours to get over the jet lag. So this morning, I woke up cold (there’s no heating) and dehydrated, but excited and motivated. I had a laundry list of things I knew I had to get done, so after taking a quick shower and grabbing breakfast at the cafe downstairs, I hopped on a bus and headed down to the main part of campus to explore. (Now for full disclosure, I actually briefly “saw” CUHK before, albeit a cameo, from the horror/comedy movie The Midnight After,
那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN . Thank you Netflix!)
The List of Adjustments to be Made:
– The entrance to the female toilets requires a code. When supplied with said code at the front desk, I was given four numbers. I entered these four numbers into the door key pad and tried to turn the doorknob handle. I repeated this at least a dozen times, gave up, then returned with the desperate urge to pee and with luck. There was a girl who was also on her way to the toilets and after she deftly entered the code (starting by pushing and holding # and ending the code with *) and pushed (she did not turn the doorknob even though there’s a doorknob) the door, I followed her in and realized..
– There is not any toilet paper in the female toilets. I wasn’t confused after going into the first stall. I was confused after checking all three other stalls and failing to find any toilet paper.
– I’ve seen more people today than I have during my whole fall semester at ECU. I went out with a group of other exchange students to the city, walked around 20,845 steps, and took the MTR back to the university around rush hour. The amount of people pressed against the yellow line was unbelievable and a little pre-apocalyptic feeling. The train car was about 98% full, yet the station was 102% full, so by natural diffusion and some shoving and stumbling back onto strangers, about five more people from the masses managed to squeeze into the cars.
– Speaking of trains… If you get caught between the closing doors, watch out! The doors will reopen for a millisecond, then close faster and tighter and repeat until whatever body part you have outside the train is chopped off. I left my IKEA shopping bag and almost my whole hand with an exchange student who didn’t make it.
– The constant fog is like a huge white blanket and I miss seeing Carolina blue skies already.
ABC in HK 