(by: JustinP)
In my estimation, Hong Kong is one of the most dynamic cities on earth--if not THE most. In many ways, it almost feels like being on perpetual vacation when you live here, with the endless litany of things to see and do. I’m not exaggerating when I say you could go to one new tourist attraction per day for a year and still not see it all. Sites such as The Peak, Victoria Harbor, and several spots on the Kowloon Peninsula are world-famous, and the city boasts the best nighttime cityscape in the world (sorry, Shanghai and The Bund). And it’s not just city: Hong Kong has over 40 distinct beaches and hundreds of kilometers of hiking trails through some of the most picturesque landscapes I’ve ever seen. Hong Kong is the SMALLEST city in which we’ve lived in Asia, and its population is over seven million! Crowds of thousands of people are normal almost everywhere we go, and have been since 2010. And there are over 140 Starbucks locations within one hour of my apartment!
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| Aerial View of Kowloon, Hong Kong at Twilight |
Greensboro, North Carolina has 19 Starbucks (I think we pass that many on the way to church every Sunday in Hong Kong). And only 280,000 people (what a ghost town!). When I was there to interview for my job in February, life there seemed like it was running at half-speed. I hear nothing but great things about the city and surrounding areas, but it is not an Asian megacity, and that’s all I’ve known for the past eight years.
There are distinct differences in how life is lived in Asian cities versus mid-sized American cities. The speed of life in the cities over here is just fast all the time, and no city I've ever seen is faster than Hong Kong. In Asia, there is also a distinct “sidewalk culture” that we have grown very accustomed to here, in which you take trains or buses to different areas of a city and then walk the sidewalks where virtually everything is located. On the sidewalks is where you will find the life of the city: street vendors, convenience stores, performers strumming for your spare change, a worldwide variety of walk-up restaurants, street markets galore in which every item manufactured in China can be found, and an endless array of what we in China called “dongxi shops” that sell a never-ending supply of random stuff (and are incredibly fun to wander through!).
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| Sidewalk Shops and Restaurants in Sai Kung, Hong Kong |
In the back of my mind, I can’t help but think that I will be a little stir-crazy at first as I adjust to a slower, simpler life upon leaving Asia. So many aspects of life will shift to a new normal when we come back to the US. One thing that immediately struck me when I was in North Carolina for a week in February was just how car-centric the US is! There are very few walking districts anymore, and if so, they are small and overly planned and upscale. I missed not seeing any semblance of a “sidewalk culture” as you would find nearly everywhere in Asia. Amy and I were poking around the Internet for good Thai restaurants in Greensboro and I was startled to see the picture below of a Thai restaurant in an old, isolated, fast-food building by the side of a highway surrounded by a sea of asphalt parking spaces! To be fair, the food is probably wonderful and the atmosphere inside looks fun and inviting, but it is just not “sidewalk culture.”
Car culture scares me. At one point between 2014 and 2016, I went almost two entire years without driving a car once. I don't remember how to live with one anymore! Pictures of vast American parking lots seem such a harbinger of a life in which connection will take a lot more effort and intentionality. It seems so isolationist as the status quo. It seems to breed disconnection. I’m sure I’m overreacting a little, but it will certainly take adjusting to again. There will be a different kind of beauty to life in America that will reveal itself once we settle in, and God will be faithful to show it to us in time.
-JustinP-
