The Blog of Jasmine Sadler

I just started class last week and I have an American professor who is hear for a year to teach the B-school kids something on ethics.  I can tell he wants to teach like profs at home, but he has even admitted to me that he can’t.  1. he can’t bring up a topic and have everyone divide into groups and 2. he won’t ask the class questions.  Maybe it’s a cultural difference, but a lot of the local kids just feel this urge to talk in class.  Usually it isn’t a low murmur either, it’s really disruptive.  So now I usually choose to sit in the front so I can hear amongst the talking.  However, it has been admitted to him by a student (through email) that when he stops talking, the class stops talking and that no one likes to stand out.  For that reason, when he asks questions, he’ll stop in the middle of them and be like “well you all won’t answer anyway” or we can’t break up into little subgroups because they won’t discuss at all.

Most sources said it wouldn’t be too difficult to find people that spoke English in Hong Kong, but oh it’s a struggle.  I feel kind of like I discriminate when I need directions and I’m trying to find someone on the street that speaks English.  We usually resort to the youngish 20-30 year olds that look like they are in hip and educated.  It usually proves to work, but sometimes we still get rejected.  Not really sure if: 1. they don’t know the location we’re talking about, 2. really don’t speak English, or 3. just really don’t want to help us.

I just thought this was funny

There is such an emphasis on exercise and being fit.  Even during our orientation, there was an entire segment on how to work out and where and all the extra details.  Along with that, the food never really fills me up!, which is quite irritating.  On a positive note, I have found a great deal of places that serve ‘American cuisine’ usually meaning delicious cheeseburgers, french fries, pizza, lasagna, omelettes and deli sandwiches.

Eating Spaghetti with Chopsticks

For some reason, the horse racetracks are such a big deal.  I think it’s because gambling in any other form is illegal in HK so everybody goes to the races to give away their money.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of fun, but not nearly as big of a deal as all the locals make it.  They have newspapers printed with stats and probability and it seemed like everyone studied that backwards and forwards.

At the track

Go 8!!

It’s not too bad though.  Nothing that I can’t deal with for the next couple of months.