I just came back from my oversease trip yesterday. I shall write about some of the interesting observations I made of both countries.
Hong Kong
I lived in the relatively sub-urban area of Po Lam during my stay in Hong Kong. My father had rented apartment which he stayed in during the past 2 years in which he worked at Hong Kong as a project manager for HSBC bank. I had advised him to come back to Singapore, and given the change in circumstances in the working environment in Hong Kong, he has since decided to come back to Singapore.
- Food is cheaper than in Singapore. I like the generous portions at restaurants. I loved going to a restaurant named Sakana no Aji which served great Japanese food at affordable prices. I just can't find such restaurants in Singapore.
- Hong Kong people are not very friendly or forthcoming in their personalities. They are generally rather serious people.
- An ageing population like Singapore. It is hard to find children or young people anywhere you go. Yum Cha restaurants are filled with old people slowly passing the time reading the newspapers and dining on yum cha cuisines.
- Japanese magazines in shops. I am not sure whether the Hong Kong people speak Japanese, but there seem to be an avid following of Japanese culture into Hong Kong society.
- Hong Kong has a much more developed system of cashless payment than Singapore. Its Octopus card, which is the equivalent of the EZ link card in Singapore, can be used to pay for items from shops in shopping centres.
- Free wifi on the bus which is convenient for a person like me who read
- Most Hong Kong people know only cantonese, and only a handful know a second language like chinese or english. I would try talking to them in chinese first, and then in english, and if all else fail, to point to pictures and labels on the menu.
- Sleazy pornographic magazines are on display at magazine stores which is quite an unusual sight for a Singaporean like me since the sale of pornographic materials are banned in Singapore. The convenience stores like 7-eleven have such magazines quite noticeably displayed at the back of their magazine section. I witnessed a middle-age man in the subway train reading such a magazine and smiling depravely to himself and at passerbys. Quite creepy.
- The Hong Kong people are always dressed up in winter wear even though weather is not that cold, and they don't remove their winter wear when they are in the shopping centres or in public transport where it is relatively warm. Perhaps they like to keep fashionable even at the expense of sweltering under those winter wear.
- Streets are not very well-lit at night. Traffic on roads are heavy and noisy, street sizes are rather small.
Korea
I lived in the Western Coop hotel at the DongDaeMun area during my stay in Korea.
- Steamboat and grill restaurants at every corner kimchi and an array of side dishes at every restaurant. I just love the tasty oil-glazed seaweeds. There are quite novel steam funneling apparatus installed at restaurants at each table to channel away the steam from the cooking.
- Coffee culture with many different coffee chain brands. Most joints have a stock of coffee options such as lattes, mochiattoes, and cappuccinos
- Koreans are friendly and gregarious people. The sales personnels are most forthcoming in their advertising of their products. The locals are quite animated and passionate in their talking to one another.
- Celebrity culture pervades their public space. There are pictures of korean celebrities at every public corner, from subways to shopping centres, and for a range of products, from cosmetics to shoes and bags shops
- The human aesthetic industry is a major one in Korea. Advertisements showing the miraculous effects of plastic surgery with before-and-after photos are strewn in subway advertisment boards. Local cosmetic shops like skin food can be seen on many shopping streets, stocked with the quaintest forms of cosmetic products such as snail cream which is promoted to be anti-ageing.
- There are many Chinese working there as shop assistant. My dad says that they are actually ethnically koreans from the Heilongjiang district of China. The korean government allows them to obtain a work permit to work in the country because they make good workforce personalities with their proficiency in both the korean and chinese languages. For more information on the korean diaspora in china, see here.
- Gas masks cabinets in the subway. I suppose they pick their lesson from the infamous sarin gas attack on japanese subway in tokyo.
- There is quite an extensive and elaborate underground system, and well-furnished shopping centres in these underground areas.
- Korean society is quite affluent. I saw a plasma television placed in a glass case just outside a toilet area showing a music video featuring girls generation. I suppose they have so many television that they can afford to place them anywhere they like.
- Yet, there remain beggars in korean society. These beggars would postrate themselves with their face to the ground, and their palms outstretched. They presented themselves in the most pitiful state possible.
- There are quite cool technology in the public sphere which I have not seen in Singapore before- I saw this transparent glass pane in the subway station which I can see through it the appliance being advertised. Yet, detailed moving animation forms on the transparent glass pane and play like a video.
- Korean society remains relatively untouched from the forces of globalisation. Korean society has managed to avoid influx of foreign products. Almost everything is local produced, from food, to technology. They have managed to imitate the business of global brands. Macdonalds food is quite effectively imitated as a local brand as LottsBurger, owned by the Korean corporate giant, Lotte. Starbucks coffee are imitated quite well with a local branding called Ediya Coffee which bears a logo quite resemblant to the logo of starbucks.
- Christianity has a popular following. There are residential areas where scores of churches sprout up around the neighbourhood.
- Terrible spitting culture. It is not just the older generation that is spitting about in the street. I saw a young lady, primp and proper, spitting onto the street pavement as well.
- And I made the pilgrimage to Gangnam as a fan of the viral video. It is quite a pleasant shopping area cum business district. Didn't see anyone doing the Gangnam dance there though.
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