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