Tuesday, July 3, 2012

All Good Things End

Tomorrow is my last day in Hong Kong and needless to say the time passed way too quickly. Summer study abroad is great in that it is convenient, but 5 weeks is simply not enough. This morning my POL group and I delivered our final presentation which overall went well. I got frustrated with the procrastination but in the end it all worked out. We also have to submit a paper in the next week for which I feel terrible that I will not be able to fully participate in. I asked my group in the first week and we've agreed I'll write the introduction and a few paragraphs and they'll finish the rest. I just hammered out my 800 words and they will complete the other 2,200 in the coming days.

Since my last post my major activity has been studying and spending time with friends made on my program around Lingnan. On July 1st, however, was the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong becoming an SAR - meaning the British transferred sovereignty to the Chinese and Hong Kong was to be granted autonomy under "One Country, Two Systems." Being a tourist I went to see the fireworks at Victoria Harbor. Considering I will not be home for the 4th it was nice to still celebrate "independence" and coincidentally enough from the same colonizer!


Many Hong Kong people, however, took the streets to protest as China's president was in Hong Kong swearing in HK's new chief executive. The Hong Kong people are very frustrated with the fact that they still feel controlled by Mainland and want more democracy and universal suffrage for Hong Kong. Despite the promises made in "One Country, Two Systems," they continue to be denied. Here are two good TIME articles if you are interested in reading more. The first is an explanation of why the people are upset and the second is photos from the protests. I didn't even know the protests were happening until I see these articles on twitter:

http://world.time.com/2012/07/02/on-the-streets-of-hong-kong-a-vast-display-of-discontent/
http://world.time.com/2012/07/01/hong-kong-anger-and-discontent-as-city-marks-15-years-since-its-return-to-china/#hong_kong_01

Tomorrow is my Mandarin exam, which I am feeling pretty comfortable about and afterwards I will be taking a bus to the airport to fly out to Bangkok, Thailand! I'll be sightseeing there until Saturday when I fly to Beijing. I'll be in Beijing until Thursday when I will return to Hong Kong to spend one last night in a hostel before flying back to the States on the 13th. Perhaps I'll blog then, but for the next week I will have very limited internet. I have had a great time in Hong Kong and Lingnan this summer and I really hope that it will not be long before I can travel to do business here!