Job Discussion Forums

[Joshua2006]

[sistercream]

I'll side with Joshua on this one. Admittedly, I have chosen to live in "grass roots" areas in Hong Kong (Tuen Mun, Cheung Sha Wan, Sai Ying Pun) over the years, and yes, I do speak Cantonese.

My own two cents worth is that while local people are quite self-contained in public places/ with people they don't know, they are much more open with friends and colleagues than northern Chinese or northern Europeans are.

I have also found them to be very helpful ,even before they discover I speak their language. Having a congenital knee problem, if I relax too much one kneecap or the other tends to dislocate on me and I collapse in an undignified heap. In Hong Kong people have invariably stopped to ask if I'm OK, should they call an ambulance, (or offer me a strong coffee if they think I've been drinking too much strong something else ). In Taiwan nobody stopped, ever. Mainland China, ditto. In Australia, maybe 2 times out of 5 someone would stop.

Happiness? I've no idea what the surveys say, but again from personal experience I'd say that the richer people tend to be desperately worried about gaining and maintaining "face" - which in their circles is mostly about expensive possessions. The working class people know they have no face in their society, so most of the ones I know have given up worrying about it and aren't embarrassed to talk with the neighbours or be seen picnicking in the park instead of jetting off to Japan for their holidays. The Almighty will have to give me a serious kick up the backside if He ever wants me to move back to Midlevels!

[RickinHK]

It seems that we've gone slightly off topic, but to those of you that are looking at teaching in Hong Kong from overseas there are a couple of things that are not mentioned in many of the 'guides'.

- Summer holiday: mine is two weeks long (or as the school calls it -16 days- they count the weekend before as two days extra)

- Late nights: over the past five Friday nights I have been in school till 9:00pm (not marking) with - parents excursion meetings, variety show, parent's evening, graduation dinner (next week actually for our G6s going to secondary school) and a trip to a toursim spot with a group of students from the Mainland.

- Saturdays: I work three a month (half teaching-half admin)

- Meetings: They are usually in Cantonese

- Lack of discipline in the schools: the schools are so terrified of the parents suing the school for anything (you can't raise your voice, you can't ask a student to stand or wait outside for a moment, you can't do anything in class. All you can do is call the parents and report the behaviour or get the students to write a 'reflection'). I know that I'm in a bad school though, I've seen HK kids with real respect for their teachers/studies in the past.

- BUT: It depends on the school. I've heard good and bad things from schools in HK but local schools do seem to be stuck in the middle ages.


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As for living in Hong Kong.

I enjoy it at times. I am lucky that I have a cheap ($5,500 a month) in the New Territories with a good bus service to the MTR.

My wife and I earn nearly $40,000 a month (combined) and we get by and still manage a week long holiday once a year.

I have good hiking on my doorstep and a good mix of local and expat friends in my nearest town (Sai Kung)

Bills are cheap (but PCCW -the phone company- are useless) and the tax is relatively low.