Finding Christian Fellowship In Hong Kong
February 26, 2010 § 1 Comment
For the first few weeks in Hong Kong, I pretty much neglected all worshiping activities in the hustle & bustle of settling in, exploring the city and making new friends. Although HK is not the religiously oppressed place that some of my friends assume [come on, it was ruled by Britain for a century: there are churches everywhere], Christianity [unsurprisingly?] does not have a large presence on campus. Sadly, I spent more time looking for a tennis/badminton club than a fellowship or church.
However, after a few weeks, while checking my Mizzou webmail, I noticed an email from the HKU International Christian Fellowship advertising their first meeting. That same week, I walked past the part of campus where organizations set up promotional tables; some even bring speakers to play music. I usually don’t bother to look, but I stopped in my tracks when I realized I was hearing Hillsong.
I quickly backtracked to the table where HKU Christian Society was selling Christian literature. All of the books on the five tables were in Chinese except for Bibles [The Message version], strangely. I approached the people sitting behind the table to ask if they had weekly meetings. The initial conversation was a bit awkward, but they eventually told me that the only English-speaking fellowship on campus was the International one.
ICF meets on Wednesdays around noon. After missing the first gathering [I was in Shenzhen], I managed to make it to the second one. It was located in a building that most students have never even heard of [I actually got lost trying to get back to the main part of campus]. The room, called Gatherland, was a cozy place with pillows, a rug and a couch.
When I arrived, I was astonished to recognize four of the eleven people there — they were all other exchange students that I had already met, most of whom lived in my hall and most of whom I did not know were Christian. This imparted an immediate feeling of security as I took a seat and munched on a slice of pizza.
The visiting pastor, Nathan [I think], was a young-ish man from HK Baptist Church who had grown up in Texas. Thankfully, he helped us do introductions — most of us were newly exchanged students, which was good for bonding [maybe] but bad for longevity. All of the people present labeled themselves as believers, so Nathan dug right into the message. Musical worship consisted of singing along to a recording, which was definitely a first for me in such a setting. Thankfully, one of the members elected to lead worship the week after, so they should have live music now.
Unfortunately, it turned out that I have to work at my internship during ICF meetings, so I was only able to attend that one meeting. I hope that the people I met for the first time don’t think I completely flaked out. If only they could meet in the evenings!
One Two Three Four & Pervert Alert
February 23, 2010 § 5 Comments
On Saturday, I woke up at 130PM after sleeping at dawn due to a night of 3AM dim sum. I would have slept even longer if I hadn’t planned to go see 4Minute that afternoon. By no means am I a big fan of theirs — I never even bothered to learn their names — but their songs are pretty good, and why not go see them for free while I can?
Kathy, Kaiti & I roused ourselves and headed to the MTR station. There was only one problem: the mall, apparently called Emax [though the signs were labeled as something else] was located in Kowloon Bay. In Hong Kong, there is a place called Kowloon Bay, and then there is one called Kowloon, which is actually by the water.
By the time we realized we were in the wrong district, it was already half an hour before the show was supposed to start. Another 30 minutes were eaten up by the MTR, on which the three of us discussed our common love for Kpop. Both Kathy & Kaiti had been in China during Chinese New Year, meaning they were completely unreachable, and Kaiti was especially distraught at having missed her favorite group.
Upon reaching Kowloon Bay, we walked as quickly as we could in the direction of the mall, which looked relatively close to the MTR station:
Just a few blocks, right?
ACTUALLY, we squandered an hour wandering around the city. None of us spoke Cantonese, which limited our confidence in asking for directions [we could barely communicate with the one guard we talked to]. I felt guilty about leading my friends on such a hopeless journey; we finally arrived at Emax just at the end of the fansigning — 4Minute & guest stars Mr. had already performed [the latter were nowhere to be seen at all].
Omgah it's them!
The venue was pretty much the same as where I saw SHINee. We watched from the sidelines as ticket-holders filed to the stage and had their belongings autographed. I noticed a multitude of fanboys and was saddened that I had missed seeing them in action. Slightly disappointed, we headed over to the elevators behind the stage, where a crowd had already formed to wait for 4Minute’s exit.
Kathy & Kaiti went somewhere else [for a better view, I presumed] while I stayed behind, camera in hand, standing under the tense gaze of the security guards for the celebrities to appear. After a few minutes of waiting expectantly, we were pushed farther back from the elevators by the barriers that the guards put up. The crowd wasn’t huge, but we were packed rather tightly, which didn’t faze me because I had long since lost any sense of personal space.
I felt some movement from the guy directly behind me but didn’t think much of it until his hands suddenly gripped my hips and he started to grind on me. HOLY COW WHAT THE SICK NASTY.
My mind froze.
Is this really happening?!
It’s times like these when I wish I were more brazen. Instead, I have this stupid aversion to embarrassing anyone, and apparently this consideration extends to creepers, of all people. I should have yelled at him to CALM YOURSELF DOWN BACK THERE, but instead I stiffly moved to the side and placed my elbow between us until he stopped and went somewhere else [to terrorize someone else with his crotch?! I don’t know].
I could hardly think straight afterward and still don’t know what to make of it. I haven’t actually told anybody about this because it’s more than slightly embarrassing, but I wanted to share it here IN CASE THIS EVER HAPPENS TO YOU, GIVE THAT DIRTY PERVERT A BEATING or at least take his picture & put it on the internet so we can all troll him.
Nothing Can Stop Me From Loving
February 14, 2010 § 1 Comment
My mind is still trying to process today’s events, because there’s simply too much to handle.
It started like this.
I came home from having a late dim sum lunch with some other exchange students with the intent to take a nap, but decided to spend some time online first. This habit proved rather fortunate this time because LC asked me over Gchat whether I saw SHINee when they arrived in Hong Kong on Friday. It is probably important to note here that SHINee has been my favorite group for a while, and for me, seeing them in person would basically be the equivalent of a hardcore Bulls fan shaking Michael Jordan’s hand.
Naturally, I completely freaked out. I had heard that they were coming to HK but didn’t know when or why. At the time, I was also on the phone with Cebu Pacific Air trying to book a flight to the Philippines; I started cursing audibly at my computer. Rosaline, who was attempting to take a nap, glanced over at me and popped out of bed when I told her why I was so agitated. My call failed shortly afterward and I didn’t bother calling back because I was too busy looking up information online. Thankfully, I was able to find this:
I immediately ran next door with my laptop to ask my friend from mainland China to read it to me. SHINee was performing in a mall for Chinese New Year in SIX HOURS?! [So much for having dinner with Nadia and meeting her boyfriend.] I HAD TO GO. There was one slight inconvenience:
Getting to Tuen Mun wouldn’t be a problem, but the last train to leave would be at 12:04AM, whereas the show was supposed to go until midnight, according to the customer service lady I called. She also told me that the show’s tickets were given to certain customers of the mall and were all gone. Annoying, but I could work around it. This is the schedule I crafted for my evening:
5PM nap
6PM paint nails [yes, this is important & indeed took an hour]
7PM get $ from bank in case I need to bribe someone to get in
8PM go to subway station
9PM arrive in Teun Mun
1030 SHINee OMFG
[Note that nowhere in there is “dinner,” because at the time I still wasn’t hungry, and before & after the show I was too stressed traveling to a strange place, so I basically had Mountain Dew & Coke Zero for supper.]
Rosaline couldn’t come with me because she was spending time with her family, which is what normal people do on Chinese New Year’s Eve unless you’re an orphan like me. No matter; after a month of being in Hong Kong, I finally feel comfortable enough to travel by myself. I followed my schedule exactly, except I didn’t go to the bank because I spent an extra hour trying to research how I would get home. There really were no other viable options, so I figured I’d pull a Cinderella and get out of there before midnight, since being homelessly stranded is really not a good way to spend a holiday.
Prepping the fans by playing MVs
Tonight’s weather was some of the worst that I’ve experienced so far in HK. The clouds drizzled heavily and the wind blew so hard that it was actually better to close my umbrella than have it get blown inside out. Luckily, the sky was clear in Tuen Mun, where I wandered around for half an hour trying to locate the mall. I finally found the right building after calling the rather unhelpful customer service guy twice. Even then, I couldn’t find a feasible concert venue amongst the crowded shops, but the cheering voices led me to the correct spot in the heart of the shopping plaza.
Despite my time squandered while lost, I arrived an hour early. A great crowd of teenagers had already gathered on the sidelines of the stage and the balconies of the two upper levels. It was just like being in Korea: screaming fangirls waving SHINee balloons and black cardboard signs splashed with the names of their favorite members. It’s a good thing I look young, because I was pretty sure I was the oldest one there. The girls in front of me were shorter, and I was doing fine blending in until the one whose butt I kept accidentally touching turned around and asked me a question [perhaps related to that, but it sounded like she was asking if she was blocking my view]. I was thus outed as a non-Cantonese speaker, and the young girl next to me actually asked if I was a SHINee fan [LOL].
I’ve seen this on YouTube!
It hurt to watch the lucky people with tickets settle into their seats, but getting to watch this kind of event for free is a pretty rare occasion. The stage was a tiny one in the middle of the mall in the middle of nowhere — this is where SHINee is spending their New Year’s Eve? They deserve better. I felt dazed just thinking of being in the same square kilometer as SHINee…or perhaps it was from lack of sleep. At some point before the performance, Rosaline told me via text that the MTR would run all night because of Chinese New Year, so I was free to stay as late as I wanted.
I was utterly surprised to see guys sitting and standing among the fangirls. Were they actually fans or were they just taking up space unnecessarily? My question was answered when I heard the guy behind me screaming along with SHINee’s lyrics. I stood there contentedly until the emcee went on stage and I was quickly reminded that the program would be in Cantonese, and I wouldn’t understand anything. This is why I recorded video of most of it, which I will later show to Rosaline so she can translate for me, hehe.
Stage = size of my dorm room
The first performances were by Hong Kong artists, with games in between songs like telephone charades to give certain ticket-holders a chance to be on stage. The whole not-speaking-Canto and not-knowing-the-artists thing made it rather boring, but it gave me adequate time to take down my thoughts on my Blackberry. I thought about how I would tell other people about my experience and could only picture myself babbling like an incoherent idiot.
When SHINee finally appeared, I literally could not stop myself from screaming from excitement despite my best attempts to keep my composure. It was unreal, like seeing gods [which reveals my spiritual illness..]. After my short bout of shrieking, I hyperventilated a bit from the reality of seeing them in front of me. They are incredible in real life.
Jealousss
Like good little fans, the crowd chanted along with SHINee’s songs; the three they performed were “Replay,” “Jojo” and “Ring Ding Dong.” I actually wanted to listen to them sing, but it didn’t really happen. My position was close enough to take video, but not enough to take good pictures or faint from sheer proximity. The boys performed well, of course, and had a translator for the extra bits. I can’t describe how amazing it was to see them with my own eyes when they had previously only existed on my laptop screen. It was also interesting to see the little things that happen onstage that are not usually broadcasted, like Jonghyun wiping the sweat off Taemin‘s face with a tissue, or Onew being his usual dorky self, or the fact that all of the photographers get onstage after the performers leave and take pictures of the audience [I have no idea why].
Sources of HQ photos ^^
I didn’t stick around very long afterward because my back hurt from standing. There was a disproportionate number of females on the MTR, and I sat across from four girls who had clearly just departed from the show as well — they were all looking through the pictures they had taken on their fancy cameras. They looked even older than me, which made me laugh because SHINee is known for having a lot of “noona” fans; that is, female fans who are older than the members of the group. I was glad not to be the only one present…
When I got back to Causeway Bay an hour later, I spent 35 minutes wandering around looking for the correct bus stop. Then, after I successfully boarded it, the bus completely SKIPPED my stop [because I didn’t understand when the driver asked if anyone needed to get off there]. I got off at the next one, half a mile away in the middle of nowhere. I crossed the street to take a taxi back, but the taxi driver took me around on the longest possible route to get back to my dorm — I might not know enough Cantonese to tell him he’s being a jerkface, but I knew enough to recognize the scenic route. I didn’t really care, though, as long as I wasn’t being abducted.
I want more!!!
No matter how many pictures you take, you realize on the way home that it’ll only ever be a fantasy.
Things I Miss About Mizzou
February 9, 2010 § 1 Comment
BAD TECHNOLOGY.
1 The proliferation of Macs: Most of the computers at HKU are Dell, and they all seem to be at least a few years old — dusty and bulky. There are a couple of computer labs on campus, all of which are filled to capacity at any given hour. This wouldn’t matter to me but for the fact that remote printing does not exist at HKU. The only way to print is to log into a computer on campus, which might be near impossible depending on how many students are [infuriatingly] surfing Facebook in the computer lab. Additionally, the computers in the library take literally five whole minutes to log in, which is simply baffling. Is HKU hurting for money? Can they not invest in some better computers? The campus seems to be advanced, but this printing issue [as well as the completely non-centralized course registration process] reveals that HKU is still technologically lacking.
Anyway, the computer labs I frequent at Mizzou are much more advanced [and less crowded!] than the ones here, and I will no longer take that for granted.
2 ACF [Asian Christian Fellowship]: I’ve spent the past two and a half years building and attending the same fellowship, and recently it has started to feel like a genuine family. This kind of love is difficult to replace, especially in a place where the main Christian fellowship on campus is strictly Cantonese-speaking.
3 Wal-mart: Need I say any more? Sure, Hong Kong is definitely not lacking in shopping, but it’s so hard for me to find what I need in their stores. Not only am I unfamiliar with the places, most of them are crammed to the brim, which is bad for my attention span and also makes it impossible for me to find hangers. Seriously, the first time I went to Wellcome [deliberately spelled incorrectly? Don’t know, but it’s the closest equivalent], I found a bunch of cheap hangers, but the past three or four times I’ve been there, I cannot track them down again.
Thus, the majority of my clothing is still in my suitcase, which lies on the ground at the foot of my bed. This lifestyle is okay with me, but one of my roommates has expressed her dissatisfaction with its presence. Well, aren’t I entitled to the six square feet of space at the end of my bed? It’s not my fault it’s in the middle of the room; I didn’t get to choose my bed :(
4 Flat land: Mountains are cool and all, but it’s a bit ridiculous to have to take two long sets of stairs and then an elevator just to get from the entrance of campus onto the actual campus.
auradis 