Reverse culture shock

Having been in and out of Hong Kong number of times now, I did not expect to experience any kind of reverse culture shock this time around. But as it turns out, there is still a number of things that i find slightly surprising:

1. Hong Kong is unbelievably clean, even in the public bathrooms. The cleanliness of Hong Kong's bathrooms has exceeded my expectation, in fact so clean that I wanted to take a picture out of it but waived off the thought in the end. And aside from bathrooms, streets are generally well-maintained and rarely would you see an overfilled trash can or unclaimed rubbish bags lying on the street. Maybe we are trying to lead by example to our fellow mainland comrades and compete head to head against Singapore, but whatever the driving force is, I appreciate this rise in hygiene standard - and would even more so if they start to provide seat covers also in bathrooms.



2. The queuing habit. My definition of waiting in queue is to wait at a spot behind the person already there but apparently, people here have a different take on it. Although I am only back for a week, I have been cut in front in a line 4 to 5 times already while waiting for the train. I am guessing their act of cutting in line is justified because I have left sufficient space between me and the person in front of me for another person to slip through effortlessly. So from this experience, I have devised what is a good distance to keep between the person in front and myself, and that is, if the person in front can not sense your breath when you are exhaling, you are leaving too much space and should move one small step forward. sigh. Hong Kong, why are you always pushing me.

3. Why the hell is dessert so expensive? Let's be real, I am not paying 30sth HKD for some shave ice. No wonder dessert shops are ubiquitous in Hong Kong - I can totally imagine they reap a 90% profit off that tiny bowl of sugar water.

4. It amazes me yet annoys me the same time that the sales associates are so aggressive in the stores. Everytime I come close to a product in a store, a sale associate immidiate approaches and starts listing the features of the product that I am about to look more closely. But as soon as he/she starts speaking and tells me that what a rare promotion they are doing now, I hesistate and keep my hands back.