ISTM in Hong Kong

*Stereotypes...

They are here and everywhere, you cannot avoid them... they can tell you the truth...but only a part of it... let's talk about stereotypes !

First, the French ! What did I hear about them ???
First of all, they are so... romantic ! ohhh !!! Is it surprising that most of the French boys here have a Hong Kong girl friend ? They are so popular ! But you also have the other side of the moon... the French are romantic... and thus, you cannot trust them... they flirt with you, but that does not mean they love you... (said my Chinese-Indian friend)
Then, the French "do not care"... (said a Hong Kong boy) it is true that compared to the Chinese people, we do not have this notion of face, we do not care about what people would think of us...
And...this is what I heard a lot from European people : the French are posh ! I even received an e-mail saying : "Now i also know that not all French people are snobs : )"
(and yes ! I am posh: that is why I was nearly the only one who dressed up for the CityU banquet...)


The Chinese (both Hong Kong and Mainland China people) are shy : so if you want to be friends with them, be patient... when I arrived here, I had to keep on saying "Hello" to my floor-mates during more than one week (without any answer), before someone said "hello" in return.... it is the same with my kungfu mates : except one, nobody talked to me during at least one month ! But they turned out to be very nice when I came to them...

The Hong Kong people are noisy and speak very loud (maybe that is why I do not like my neighbors... being waken up at 3 o'clock in the morning because they go to bed and "forget" that some people are already sleeping at that time, is at least very annoying !!!)

(And yes, here it is a low-context culture [1] : everything is written ! It is quite convenient when you are a foreigner and you do not know the local culture : you do not have to wonder how you should behave).

The American are pushy and not really cultivated... one of them even asked whether Denmark was a Swedish city....

And the Danes...studying all the time ! Even in a trip to Macao !
Then Denmark, according to Hofstede [2], is a feminine country : that means that people care a lot of their living condition, and that the housework can also be done by the man. Can you see this Danish boy cleaning the table ? It is nice, isn't it ? ;cD



Even though stereotypes can be very useful (when I have an appointment with American or Danish people, I come earlier or on time...whereas, when it is with French or Chinese people, I just take my time, as I expect them to be late ! haha ! ), be aware of them ! They are only a short-cut ! They are not true all the time !
For example, one of my friend here is American, and she is very cultivated, and she speaks a perfect French ! By the way, she is often annoyed by the préjugés people have against American people...
Then, I have a Turkish friend here... and no, he is not pro-Ben Laden... and he even eats pork...


[1] Hall, E.T. , and Hall, M.R., (1989), Understanding cultural differences: German, French and American. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.
[2] Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations. 2^nd Edition Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage.

posted by yonali @ 5:13 AM 0 comments

*Chinese or Western medicine ?

When you are sick, you may wonder whether you should go to the Chinese or the Western doctor...

First you can read the very long article from Wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine

But you can also follow this principle : according to the local people, first, you should go to the Western doctor, because you would recover faster. Then, once you have recovered, you can go to the Chinese doctor to strengthen your body.

And it is true ! I got a flu...but I went to a Chinese doctor...and it took me three weeks to be fully recovered...
In fact, Chinese medicine see your entire body as a whole, whereas in Western medicine, they would only look at a part of your body... so even though I have a backache, when I have an acupuncture treatment, I also have needles in my legs... (and no, acupuncture is not so painful...)

So if you choose to go to the Western doctor, go to this doctor (he speaks English) :

Dr Tam Kwok Cheong Barry GHC Medical Centre
Shop No 874 Ground Floor
Rhythm Garden,
No 242 Choi Hung Road
Kowloon

MTR Diamond Hill, exit B

Tel. : 2476 3883

Opening hours (everyday, even on Sundays and bank holidays !!!) :
8:30-13:00
15:30-21:30

And do not forget to ask for a receipt for your health insurance !

And here, the doctor provides the medicines. You do not have to go to the pharmacy, and have only the exact number of pills you need.
Peut-être que nous devrions faire cela en France, cela restreindrait le "trou de la Sécu"...

And if you choose to go to the Chinese doctor, please go to the Baptist University Chinese Medicine Clinics :

Hong Kong Baptist University Mr and Mrs Chan Hon Yin
Chinese Medicine Specialty Clinic and Good Clinical Practice Centre
1/F Jockey Club School of Chinese Medicine Building
7, Baptist University Road
Kowloon Tong

MTR Kowloon Tong, then bus 25M

Tel.: 3411 2968 or 3411 2988
Fax : 3411 2992
e-mail : jccmc@hkbu.edu.hk
www.hkbu.edu.hk/~scm/clnc

Opening hours : (monday to saturday)
10:00-14:00
15:00-19:00

And concerning the medicine, either they cook it for you, either they give you a bag with all the ingredients, and you have to boil the "soup"... If you want the doctor's staff to cook the medicine for you, you just have to warm the little bags...and drink it with Chinese candies, because the medicine is so bitter !


But you may have to cook the medicine by yourself...I had to do that, because I was bitten by an insect, and I had to put my hands in the medicine...


and no, no, you are not dreaming, it is really cockroaches skins... (beurk !) but actually the medicine worked (in fact it was more effective than my corticoid cream) ! And no, I do not want to know what ingredients are in the beverages I have....


And please, if you travel around, be aware that there can be "fake" doctors ! No, no, I am not joking, but when I told my kungfu mates I was going to the doctor, the first reaction was : "Be careful of the fake doctors" ! If you do not believe me, have a look to this picture taken in Macao :

But do not worry, I have been to both doctors I mentioned here and I can tell you they are really effective !
Anyway, you may not need any doctor ! :)

posted by yonali @ 2:32 PM 0 comments

*You did a good job. I am proud of you (?)

Thank you Aline.

Your presentation is very good. I'm proud of you. I will keep this power point to the resource file in JCAC Hall.

From,

PW

I received this e-mail after the presentation about Cambodia I did for my group-mates. Actually, I am going to Cambodia with CityU. The project is called “Uncover the truth of poverty. Cross-cultural study-adventure”. This project has several purposes :

1) To make us realize that even if Hong Kong is a modern, rich and beautiful city, many citizens here cannot share the Hong Kong prosperity. Hence we will do a local service with Hong Kong families in need.

2) Poverty is an international problem. So in January, we will go in Siem Reap, Cambodia for one week. First to understand the social development of the third world, and then to contribute to and to help the Cambodian children.

This study was open to everyone. Our group is multicultural : it is composed by students from Hong Kong, Mainland China and exchange students. In fact I am the only exchange student, because in January, most of the other exchange students will be on their home-countries…the other international student is a Chinese girl born in the United-States. She is doing her master’s degree in CityU.

In our 16 people-group, I am the only one who knows a little about Cambodian culture, and who can speak Cambodian. So I did a presentation about Cambodia, its history, culture…and how to behave with Cambodian people. When I received this e-mail, I was quite surprised : why is the tutor so proud of me ? It is just a presentation ! He can be thankful because he has learnt a lot thanks to my presentation, but he cannot be proud of me ! We do not know each other ! We are just group-mates and do not have any close relationship !

But I realized that according to Hofstede’s study [1], China is a collectivist country. That means that Chinese people think collectivism. If someone in your group has done something wrong, you feel ashamed as if you did something wrong. In the same way, if somebody in your group has done something good, you feel very proud ! So when you do workgroup, think of that : in France and in other individualistic countries such as the United States, it is only your own problem if you do a bad work. But in a Chinese workgroup, the identity unit is not the person but the whole group. So in this case, do a good work, otherwise the entire group could be ashamed because of your personal bad-work…

[1] Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations. 2^nd Edition Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage.

posted by yonali @ 2:25 PM 0 comments

*Courses

Living in Hong Kong is nice ! The weather is really fine (sunny and not as wet as in July, 25°C ) ...if we did not have so many homework and assignments, I would think I am still on holidays...

Anyway...back to the reality ! Let's talk about the courses I have here.

So in ISTM, I am majoring in Biotechnology and Management...hence, in CityU, I am in the MEEM (Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management) department, and I have both engineering and management courses. My courses are the following :

1) MEEM 3024 Ergonomics in Workplace Design (3 credits)
2) MEEM 6012 Management of Technological Innovation (3 credits)
3) MGT 5313 International Organisational Behavior (3 credits)
4) CCIV 0201 Chinese Civilisation in English (3 credits)
5) CTL 2996 Basic Cantonese (3 credits)
6) MGT 2209 Business and Hong Kong Society (3 credits)

It is compulsory to have at least 12 credits, and the maximum number of credits is 18. I have 15 credits ( in fact I have not registered to the course Business and Hong Kong Society, I just attend the lectures).

Description of the courses (mostly for ISTM students) :

1) MEEM 3024 Ergonomics in Workplace Design : Interesting class. For example, you learn how to design a chair, according to the measurements of the body... but this class is known to be difficult and requires a lot of time and work... Pre-requisites : statistics, physics (sounds, wavelengths...).

2) MEEM 6012 Management of Technological Innovation : Not the same concept as the 2nd year ISTM course. This class is actually a mix between the classes "Management de l'Innovation" and "Création d'entreprise", but with an added program "how to open your mind and being creative". Here the first part of the class consists of opening people's mind and make them be innovative (maybe because Chinese people are not used to think different and innovative...). Then the second part deals with how to make a business-plan. You will have to write a business-plan with your group-mates... and you will learn how people in Hong Kong think and work...

3) MGT 5313 International Organisational Behavior : one of my favourite classes ! This class could be the 2nd part of the ISTM2 majeure "Management interculturel" ! You will have case studies and group discussions. Very interesting because most of your class-mates have already a job !

4) CCIV 0201 Chinese Civilisation in English : also one of my favourite classes ! This class tells you about Chinese history, schools of thoughts... you will have to go to the Museum of Art of Hong Kong and the Heritage Museum of Hong Kong, and write a report of what you have learnt. There are also online discussions about your points of view concerning Confucianism and the nowadays Chinese society... If you want to understand the Chinese society, take this class !

5) CTL 2996 Basic Cantonese : Interesting class if you want to learn this so difficult language but we only learn spoken Cantonese ("survival Cantonese" as the teacher says : how to say hello, to shop, to bargain, to invite people, to order in a restaurant, to answer the phone...) ! It is difficult to learn Cantonese (much more difficult than Mandarin partly because Cantonese has 9 tones whereas Mandarin only has only 4 tones...). Is it all the more difficult as the teacher has his own phonetic system which is different either from the international phonetic system, either from the Mandarin pinyin... and you will also have phonetic dictations (and focuse on it : it is 40 % of your final mark). But fortunately, the teachers gives you recordings to practice your Cantonese at home.

6) MGT 2209 Business and Hong Kong Society : also interesting class. Deals with sociology and the competitiveness of Hong Kong in business.

It is really great to be an exchange student here : I can take courses from other departments such as MGT (Management), CTL (Chinese Translation and Linguistics) and CCIV (Chinese Civilisation). So, do not hesitate to look up for classes from other departments than MEEM ! You can also take Physical Education courses ! How to dance, to play badminton... Furthermore, I am registered as an undergraduate student, hence I can also take both undergraduate (code courses beginning with 0, 2, 3) and postgraduate courses ( code courses beginning with 5,6). I encourage you to take postgraduate courses, they are much more interesting...and the students are much more mature (most of them already have a job).

Then, when you chose your courses, think that here a lot of personal studies is required...so feel free not to take as many courses as me...because afterwards, it would be very difficult to drop a class ! (but do not worry, you have 2 weeks to make up your mind). And do not do the same mistake as me : keep in mind that studying abroad also means that not only you learn from the classes you take in the University, but you also learn from interacting and talking with the others, either exchanges students (I learn a lot from my Turkish or Danish friends), people from Hong Kong or Mainland China...

As most of the postgraduate students already have a job and are part-time students, the postgraduate courses are in the evening (from 18:30 until 21:30). I am still not used to that... whereas the undergraduate courses are during the day. Here you choose and manage your schedule by yourself. So maybe you would be able to have all your classes in one or two days, and the rest of the time, you can travel around !

posted by yonali @ 12:34 PM 0 comments

Let's have Chinese desserts !

Anyway, the desserts are really worth waiting !
We first ordered what we liked : a mango dessert for Caroline, fresh fruits with jelly and ice-cream for Anders, Soren and me (and I tried the red-bean ice-cream ! Quite good ! ) , a sweet soup for Mathew...

Then, we tried some...fancy desserts such as black sesame soup... it was the first time Caroline tried those dessert with "Chinese stuff" (quoting Soren). So funny !


I really recommand you to try and enjoy Chinese desserts ! And do not be afraid of the texture ! It can be sticky things...but it is really worth it !

CHUNG KEE DESSERT

Shop CB3
Smiling Plaza
162-188 Un Chau Street
Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tel. : +852 2387 7819

Shop 21
Woo Sung Street
Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tel. : +852 2736 7895

www.chungkeedessert.com.hk

posted by yonali @ 7:48 PM 0 comments