The Quest for Starbucks

Last month I went on a historical tour of the University, led by a postgraduate student. We started at the top of the mountain at New Asia College, which enjoys the best view of Sha Tin Bay and the Eastern New Territories. From there we wound our way down to the base, using the hidden elevators of various academic buildings to save our legs. (Since then, I have made frequent use of these shortcuts; missing the bus up to the main quad is no longer such a daunting prospect.)

On our way down, our guide provided an explanation for a mystery that had been dogging me the whole term: where were all the popular chain restaurants and cafes? According to him, unlike their establishment rivals at Hong Kong U, the CUHK student body has dedicated itself to social justice, keeping corporations off-campus. Instead the student canteens are supplemented by various co-opts run by locals.

HOW GRAND. I thought I had left such self-righteous localized eccentricity behind in Hyde Park, the Land of Three Bars. Don't get me wrong; social justice is is all well and  good--I dabble in it from time to time--but I need Starbucks dammit. I don't even really like Starbucks- but in an emergency (i.e. waking up every morning) it'll do. Starbucks in HK is even more obnoxiously overpriced than in the U.S., but their coffee and service is simply better than a co-op like "Cafe 330." That place apparently employs people dealing with learning disorders, so of course I feel like an ass disparaging it. It's a really, really good idea, and so I try to occasionally support them. STILL, in my short-sighted, non-idealistic moments I crave the consistent quality and efficiency that only corporate greed delivers.

As I was contemplating suicide, our guide whispered under his breath that there WAS in fact a Starbucks on campus "up that way" [points vaguely to the East]. This miracle existed despite a recent student and alumni referendum. Thus began my week-long quest to find the damn thing. Eventually I narrowed my search to the brand-new S.Ho. College. It's fancy canteen for what assumed were the rich entitled, kids seemed like the best place for a tax-dodging franchise. And lo and behold, there it was, nestled in the corner of the cafeteria without any signage of course!

It's not really Starbucks. The baristas are regular canteen staff and all they serve are espresso drinks. Since I don't actually like Starbucks drip coffee, that's ok. Plus what they do have is ridiculously cheap, even by American standards. I'm going to consider that mission accomplished. With any luck, the social justice warriors will soon head back to Central with their umbrellas, giving me a chance to organize a coup behind their backs and get a decent burger joint in here.

K-Pop: A Completely Objective Analysis

For want of extracurricular engagment (having failed to make the Dragon-boat team on account of missing try-outs), I joined up with the "i-Ambassadors," a large group of students charged with organizing and participating in various cultural activities on campus. Though it feels weird, I am a "diverse" entity here and thus feel compelled to arrange some sort of event centering on American culture, whatever that might be. As usual this stems from not from any real solidarity with my country as it is (full of people who listen to Glenn Beck), but the idealistic, abstract notion of the U.S. as the greatest country in the world period. Or at least the greatest English-speaking country; For some reason China has not gotten the memo that Great Britain ceded this title to us a century ago. Besides losing its geopolitical badassery to us, the U.K.'s best cultural contributions have been appropriated by its other former possesions: New Zealand took all their Hobbits, Australia their acting chops, and aside from Dr. Who (which I only watch for the Daleks), Canada their Science Fiction. Yet the Chinese government insists on teaching British English and - as President Xi did last week - basking in its royally (hah) excessive diplomatic pomp and circumstance. I'll give Hong Kongers a pass for nostalgia's sake, since they were, in fact, colonized by the Brits up until about 20 years ago, but Mainland China should reconsider where it imports its Au Pairs from.  

However, the English-language thing is more a matter of practicality rather than genuince cultural interest. Chinese youth tend to look closer to home for their source of international culture, or at least that of the "popular" variety. As was evidenced by the large turnout at a recent Korean-themed festival on campus, which the "i-Ambassadors" were drafted to helped organize, K-pop is pretty in this part of the world. For the uninitiated, K-pop can be generally understood as any band of 3.5 conventionally-atractive Korean girls with light complexion, assembled by a committee of their primary demographic: 17 to 20-something Chinese males. But we are initiated, aren't we Bruce? Most of those "in-touch" in the West are familar with this phenomenon through the artist Psy, who ironically does not represent the ideal type, but his videos certainly do. 

But for the youth in this country, K-pop (and South Korea in general) represents a feminine ideal akin to our own Taylor Swift. The group above may not be the best example (they were instrumentalists, not singers, and pretty good to boot), but most groups possess the right kind of physical beauty, wear a just-immodest-enough wardrobe, and offer the barest minimum of musical skill to be instantly marketable without being too transformative and disruptive within the present socio-cultural equilibrium. That, and they aren't Japanese.   

And weeeeee'rrrrrreeeee baaaaaacccck!

    

After...what's it been, five years(?!), I'm back in China.*  Hong Kong actually, which is of course part of China,* at least more a part of China than Taiwan [Door flies open. Paramilitary troops swarm me]. The last time I was in this part of the world I was an English teacher at a college in a little town (pop. 1000000+) about an hour outside of Shanghai. Hong Kong, being a "Special Economic Region" of China,* is afforded certain privileges* Mainland cities are not, such as freedoms of speech/press/assembly, Facebook, basic due process, etc. Of course, all of this could change on Premier Xi's whim, but for the meantime, I am enjoying the SAR's freedom* in a new curricular pursuit - that is a PhD in Chinese religious studies. Later I'll go into detail about why I've chosen to get a PhD in Hong Kong of all places, most likely diminshing my already miniscule chances of getting an academic position down the road, but let it suffice for now that I am, praise Jesus, back in China.*

To be precsie, I am in Sha Tin, a "suburb," if you will, of Hong Kong city. Sha Tin is situated to the north in the vast expanse known generically as the "New Territories." I can only imagine they were given such an unimaginative name by the British to suggest they were created ex nihilo from the depths as opposed to being simply snatched away from the Qing Dynasty (which, to be fair to John Bull, everyone was doing in those days). Despite being in the sticks, Sha Tin is a fairly dense township with the mandated dozen or so shopping centers, regularly invaded by Mainlanders toting their rolling luggage. HK is basically just rainforest interspersed with shopping malls; All you have to do is get off the MTR and, hey presto, you're immediately in a Uniqlo, Dolce and Gabbana or some other damn store that I can't afford. Because Sha Tin is on the rail line that connects directly with the Mainland, my hunch is that many of the day-shoppers bound for Kowloon or HK Island are just like "screw it" and get off here for their designer purses and vitamins and mooncakes and such. The irony is that if Mainlanders come here for better quality, Hong Kongers go across the border to Shenzhen for the cheaper deals, kind of like a surbuban outlet mall. Everything is made up there anyway, but only the good crap is allowed down here.

My school, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is nice because it feels like an actual university. Instead of mandatory military drills and mass dances, there are actual student organizations, sports clubs, and social justice groups like the Umbrella ("-ella, -ella") army faction. My best gauge for a college's high quality is how uncool I feel, and here I definitely feel like a bit of a square. There's even a goldarned Dragon Boat team. That I could actually join. Which would be a dream come true.

It...is a bit of suitcase school - the native students seem to commute instead of living with the Mainlanders, Taiwanese, and other outlanders who are more or less stuck with subsidized living on-campus because Hong Kong is the San Francisco of Asian rental markets. Unfortunately, most of the Americans and Europeans here are exchange students. You can tell them apart from the long-term internationals because they are usually the ones spoutting ignorant, racist cultural commentary or discussing their next downtown bender when you pass their table in the canteen. I'm all for demonstrating just how baller Westerners are at liquor, but go to Soho on any given night and you will see modern colonialism at its absolute worst.

Then again, this city and the shady pub named "XXX" I went to the other night probably wouldn't even be here if not for the Limeys and their mercantilist shenanigans. Manifest destiny, ya'll.

*sort of