Last week in Hong Kong!!

It is official my last week in Hong Kong! Although my experience here has been great, I am so ready to come home. Considering I am one of the first American interns to work in the democratic party, I believe it has been quite a success. Although at first it was difficult to communicate and it seemed like there was minimal work for me to do, now I have been working hard and had many projects to complete before I leave for the US. I feel like my time here has been both beneficial to me and the people I work with, I feel as though I have made long lasting relationships with both my supervisors and the other interns in my office. Because I am the only native english speaking person that has worked for the Democratic party, I have been able to help them prepare a great deal of research for the english speaking people in HK that would like to learn more about politics in China. I feel that I have been able to help teach the people I have worked with a more efficient way to research and have information for people interested in their work. Because politics tend to be ethno-centric, there are many foreigners moving to hong kong so it has become much more important for them to be more accommodating to people who do not speak Chinese. I was very surprised at first to find out just how many people even in a former English colony do not understand English or even speak it on a regular basis. They have increased english teaching in schools as well as in their daily use and I believe that me working for my organization has helped them realize just how important my time and the english speaking world is for their political growth. To be honest, I am not sure if there will be any interns from America after me, but if GMU decides to put another student with the Democratic Party, I believe I have paved the way for them to succeed. I have been extremely open to forming friendships with the other interns by going out to lunch and dinner with them frequently and even tonight I went and had dinner at one of the other interns flats in downtown hong kong and spent time with her and her family. It is considered quite an honor to be invited into a Chinese person's home, so I feel very special. I truly hope that I have represented our school and the US in the best way possible! Anyways, this past week has been great. I have been working hard on summarizing many reports related to the global competitiveness in HK and how to boost their economy. It is truly amazing just how innovative and hard they try to be as efficient and accommodating to the local people as well as the many different people that choose to come to HK. I have learned from my classes on research the best ways to find and summarize information, and it seems like my supervisors have been very impressed with my work ethic and writing abilities, it has been quite rewarding! Especially since recently my work has been related back to global inequalities and how to make HK more globally efficient and competitive my opinions and knowledge I have gained prior to my experience here has really come in handy. Also, in regards to personal experiences while I have been here, I have really been noticing and am finally getting use to some of the distinct ways that people interact with each other. At first I was at times taking offense to the way that people were seeming stand offish or almost afraid of me but I realized after open discussions with co workers that the people are much more reserved than most Americans.  Sometimes due to the cultural differences, the people may seem hesitant to interact with strangers or foreigners but because I have really tried to break through that barrier and show the people, especially the ones I work with that I am truly open to their culture and to learn as much about them and try as much food, etc. that I can. It is amazing what can happen when you express genuine interest and willingness to learn about another culture. A whole new world will open for you, as long as you are willing! I feel that I have gotten everything and more out of this experience that I could have asked for and will remember and cherish my time here for the rest of my life :)

2 more weeks left, oh its bittersweet.

So of course, now that the month is over I feel much better and like I could actually stay for longer, but at this point, I miss my family and friends entirely to much to bare it! Life in Hong Kong has truly been one of the most eye opening experiences of my life. I have learned so much more about myself that I could have asked for and more about the dynamics of the Chinese and specifically Hong Kong Chinese culture than I ever knew existed. Working in politics here has made me realize that no matter where you are in the world, politics is SO complicated, haha. Now that I have done multiple research comparisons for various district councilors, I feel like I finally am starting to truly understand the logistics on how the government operates and how the people deal with the major issues. One of the major issues that I have been working on now has multiple facets which allows my research to expand upon the spatial inequalities and extreme expenses related to housing. My most recent projects were about the reverse mortgage system that they still have not adopted in HK. They wanted me to write a comparison using the US and Singapore as the models so that they can make an official lobby to the government to enforce the option of reverse mortgages for the growly elderly population. The high living costs have taken a toll on the whole population making it difficult for people to maintain their standard of living if they are not already wealthy. Starting today I am working on a comparison to show the differences in property laws, who can own property, buy and sell property, depending in citizenship, income rates, and also who is eligible for public or government subsidized housing in HK, US, UK and Singapore. I am finally doing more projects of course near the end of my internship that are related more to what I study in my major. (oh well) I have learned so much from the people I work with and its been an amazing experience learning how the political world works and how dedicated the people are to their jobs and to helping the people succeed in the future. Another really amazing experience I had last week was I had the opportunity to witness the final meeting in the old legislative council building, which was the last time that the Chief Executive (the president) of HK would be addressing the legislative council and they were able to present questions about the newest proposed policy reforms before the election campaign starts. I got to see a crazy protest outside the LEGCO building where the people's power party, the quite radical democratic group were throwing paper airplanes at the CE as he walked into the building and then because I am a technically a legco members assistant I have full access to the building (kind of like I have a pass to the white house or the capital building, pretty awesome) and we got to watch the final meeting and listen to pleas from the legco members. One of the most famous members of legco is from the radical party the peoples power, his nickname is long hair because his hair is longer than mine, and he is quite famous for his political controversy and has gained great support from the public. I got to witness when the Chief Executive walked into the official meeting one of Long Hair's famous outbursts! He literally started yelled in Cantonese, "you are a stupid bastard, you are full of shit and you should resign right now" while throwing dog bones and fake dog poos with messages of the people's power's party on them. He was carried out of the meeting by five security guards, totally insane, and once again making history during my internship!! His fellow members were escorted out because they started throwing paper airplanes in the middle of his speech and yelling, "listen to the people's demands, or resign!" Other than the people's power movement the people are quite civilized and well tempered but it was truly unbelievable to watch at times. The memories I have will really be with me the rest of my life, haha. I am looking forward to the last 2 weeks of work and my last weekend in one of the greatest cities in the world. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do something this amazing!

It's already been a month!

I can't believe we only have 21 days left. It has been such a crazy experience so far! It seems as though we have done most of the touristy things and seen the main sights, I feel like now I want to spend more time exploring the random places, the little markets, etc. We spent the weekend at the beach which was much needed after the stressful work week. Now that I know my way around the city, I feel less and less like a tourist, but it seems like more and more people are reacting strangely to us on the streets and in the trains. Now that I have been here for a month, I notice more and more how the people react to western foreigners, I feel their stares and their judgements and its starting to get to me at times. As much as I enjoy being in this city, I am getting quite home sick. I am realizing that as much as I've always wanted to find my place in Asia, it seems as though the American in me, will never seise to exist. I think that spending as much time in Asia as I can will still be a goal of mine but I don't know if my home can be so far away from the people I love. Anyways, at work I finished my projects quite quickly but they were interesting. It seems as though the campaign projects are not going to be something within my ability considering that it would take a lot of work from other interns to translate things first, oh well. Instead they have me doing research projects, I was working on a comparison of the different metro systems in Asia because the Democratic party is trying to lobby for a policy change related to public transportation. It is already very efficient and quite cheap to our US standards but they are working to make it even better! Due to the high cost of living in HK, the people are spending way too much to travel long distances on the MTR. The cost round trip per day for a person traveling around an hour which is literally opposite sides of the city is about $40-60 HK = about $5-8 USD. It seems almost reasonable to me considering how much it costs in DC to travel around on the metro and how long it takes just to get from vienna to downtown, but the Hong Kong people are very dependent on the public transportation and they need it to be faster and cheaper so that over 90% of the population can get to work every day! I have made spread sheets to compare the costs of the metro rails in Singapore and Taiwan in relation to HK, its quite interesting to see the costs in comparison to the amount of money the average person or the lower income person makes each month, it definitely does get expensive. The Democratic party really does work for the people and its nice to feel like I am putting together research about something that will help the city as a whole! I am also working on a project related to property management licensing, its complicated in HK because almost everyone lives in high rise apartments and the rent is so high that they are worried about a monopoly if they don't adopt a system similar to the US. I have been trying to explain that we have many complications as well with the property laws, but I am still putting together information that will help them lobby for a licensing and help them decide whether they want to adopt a single or multi-tier system, which until this week, I did not know much about myself. I am hoping that more projects are going to be created for me because as of right now, I am finished with everything I am able to do. Like I said before, the language barrier has made it a little difficult for me to find work, but they do always seem to find me something last minute. It's been quite an experience getting use to being a working person in HK, working 10-6 everyday and being in the daily commute. I'm not apart of that in the US so having my first true time as a "working woman" in a foreign city has made me realize that I can do anything!

Week of Crazy Experiences

So, after this past week, I am totally exhausted. I have bounced back and forth from my two offices and they have struggled to find things for me to work on each day. Finally in the one office I work in, I had to transcribe a very long presentation given by an American-Chinese scholar on the importance of Sun Yat-Sen's work and revolution. He is a modern Chinese hero and has been the basis of the Chinese government's international and economic development plans for the future. It was really interesting to go through the presentation sentence by sentence, typing it all out while learning about the man who created most of the plans for developing the modern and amazing China that I get to experience everyday. Its funny because I am the only person who speaks English as my first language so I am the only one who could have typed up the script. It was my first job that I felt truly needed. To be honest, I haven't been doing nearly as much as I expected I would be doing at work. The language barrier has proven to been a hassle and a struggle in many regards. Its been a culture shock to me because I was told by everyone at Mason that this wouldn't be much of a problem. At work, people are able to communicate with me but the work is mostly in Chinese making it difficult for them to give me legitimate work to do. I have tried my best to stay positive and work with other interns and co workers on little projects, learning about the work ethic, and how they conduct business. In politics, everything is extra complicated, but everyone I work with is very nice and extremely helpful, or at least as much as they can be. I believe that I am getting much more out the experience then they are though haha.  Although work in the office has been slow, Friday July 1st was the anniversary of the hand over from Britain to China for Hong Kong, it is a national holiday and a day for political protest. Considering that I work for the Democratic Party, it is a huge day for them. From 1pm-6:30pm I was out on one of the hottest days of the year, handing out fans with the DP slogans on them, and marching with the party. It was one of the most intense experiences of my life. I was the photographer which made my job quite easy and was given special treatment because of my position. There were over 200,000 people at the march which was double of last year. They were chanting, say no to social injustice and fight for universal suffrage, there were so many people who joined in and were marching for democracy. I attempted to uploaded a video of the march because it is the best way to get an idea of what was going on for hours, but my internet here is very slow. I might be able to do it next week.  It took us over 3 hours to just get out the the first district we marched through. It was exhausting and so damn hot, after 6 pm, I couldn't take it anymore. I have experienced rallies and protests, but this was nothing in comparison. The people's passion was even more intense than the heat. I was able to march with the government officials that are probably the most famous people in HK, and it just so happens that I have met all of them either in passing or during random assignments I have been apart of since I have been working. It's pretty amazing to say that these Legco members know me on a first name basis. Making history this summer! :) I've been learning a lot about how the Chinese operate at such a fast pace all the time and also how they express their deep and fascinating culture. An example, we went to the Chinese opera this weekend, its nothing like what you would think of as an opera in europe or the US. It's loud, causal, and everyone in the story line seems to die. The story is brutal and crazy, and the costumes are vibrant and elaborate. The actors and actresses are so dramatic and the opera itself seemed to be never ending. It was over 3 hours! I spent Sunday at a gorgeous beach (Sunday is beach day for the Hong Kong people) and we spent time in an adorable little town right along the coast named Stanley enjoying a traditional Chinese lunch and shopping in the little markets, making the end of the week beautiful and relaxing. In conclusion, I am hoping that my projects at the government building will be interesting, other than reports I have been given to read, it has been quite slow so far, so lets hope that it gets better.

First Week of Hong Kong Summer Internship

Life in Hong Kong has been quite an experience so far. I have truly fell in love with the city in almost every way. The fast pace atmosphere and distinct culture has made me realize that as an American, the Chinese truly know how to live properly. Working in the democratic party so far has been very interesting. At first I met with the person I had been emailing back and forth in an extremely small office quite close to the university that we are staying in. It was so hard to understand what they were saying at first because of the language barrier. Slowly but surely I have been able to figure out what the Hong Kong people jokingly call Chinglish. The first few days consisted of being briefed on the district election campaign that will be in November. Learning about the way that the people in Hong Kong view democracy is so different than what American's think of when we hear the word democracy. The idea of the "one country, two systems" for Hong Kong is from what I have seen, very difficult to enforce. The democratic party told me that they have 60% of the majority support of the people in HK but they are unable to elect their own mayor, it is still appointed by the PRC. The only elections they are able to have democratically is for the seats in LegCo which like their congress. The democratic party has 50 members running for 18 positions, the first few days of my work was all based upon learning how to promote the candidates and how to help better advertise their election campaign. Turns out that this task is much more complicated than both me and the organization had anticipated. Basically because of Hong Kong's inability to democratically advertise politically related propaganda other than in distinctly designated areas of the city or on youtube, brainstorming for new ways for them to promote these candidates was extremely difficult. They told me that they are not able to have commercials, hang campaign posters unless they are given a zoning permit and they can only get them for certain roads on fences and do not have any funding from the government and are run like a non-profit with grants and private donations, meaning they are unable to pay for advertising other than on a few taxis and fences. So, all of my ideas were turned down. The extreme differences in how they deal with politics was actually the biggest culture shock of my work so far. It is extremely controversial to even discuss politics and most chinese people will not openly admit or discuss their political views or affiliations, making it very difficult to get support or even acknowledgement unless they are pushing the limits hard. The pro-democracy movement is split into multiple democratic groups and "the democratic party" which I work with is considered the more conservative of the groups, which they cannot stand being called, they consider themselves the rational group because they still understand that they must work with the PRC in order to advocate for change. The other groups are much more radical and vocal about not wanting to "negotiate" with the mainland Chinese government, which is basically making the democratic movement stagnant in many ways. Because of the controversial aspects of the movement and the inability to advertise for the campaign in ways that I would be used to, the first few days were spent observing videos being shot of one of the only woman candidates running for legco which was really fun and interesting, and learning about the significant culturally and political differences between the US and China. Hong Kong is truly separate in mind set than the PRC but is still being controlled making the vibe of the democratic party very interesting. They are such hard working and dedicated people but they are forced to be limited in their practices and protests. So far I have helped them mostly with updating their english version of their website. Interestingly enough, I am one of the first english speaking interns they have had work for them but I do not read Chinese, making the job of translating articles limited. They compromised for me and were giving me rough translations of press releases and articles that they were posting on their official website in Chinese into English and I edited them so that they would sound official, scholarly, and grammatically sound. That was honestly quite funny and very interesting as well. The grammatical differences were hard to get used to at first, but I truly enjoyed being able to read what is going on and what their hot topics were first hand and being able to help them relay these messages to the english speaking foreign population of hong kong wanting to follow the campaign. So after only a few days, my office has decided that they would like to move me to the official headquarters in the city government building to do research on their town planning projects. Basically spatial inequalities or their lack of space and ability to own and afford their own land or houses is one of the biggest issues in hong kong and what they need the most help with. The legco members running for office through the democratic party are working hard to bridge these gaps between the upper and lower class and fight for the right to own their own land. I am anxious to see how I am going to be able to help them with this cause but they seem to think I will be more helpful on this project instead. Because they didn't have any work for me on Thursday and Friday they gave me the days off to explore hong kong, which was absolutely amazing. I was able to go to a beautiful garden attached to a buddhist temple and spend the day walking around and drinking tea in a traditional tea house in the middle of the garden. It was a truly refreshing and spiritual experience that was much needed after the long week of adjustments and acclamation to the culture and my surroundings. Honestly, this city is 10 times safer than any large city in the US and the public transportation systems are fantastic. I have been able to safely and easily get myself around either with people or by myself and its truly liberating. I can easily see myself living here in the future and truly hope that I can have the opportunity to do so after I graduate from GMU. I have been able to adjust extremely well to the culture, the food and city life overall. Its been interesting being here with other less experienced American travelers and will probably spend more time alone and with native people once I get settled at my new internship working place. So, in conclusion, I feel like I have been able to meet my learning objectives in the work place and learn much more about Chinese democracy and the process and struggles that they face in order to fight for what they believe in. I have been able to learn how the organization works and how the Chinese work ethic is truly extraordinary. I believe that if I allow them to lead by example I will be able to better myself and my ability to expand my skill set and productivity in the work place. I really am walking into this new project tomorrow with only a report on their places for building a secondary city center and the issues of the shrinking middle class otherwise I have no idea what exactly they will be asking of me. I am hoping for the best and am going to go into it with a positive attitude and an open mind!

Learning Objectives and Strategies

1. Analyze how the Democratic Party goes about preparing their policy reforms and lobbies to the government:

• Research international information for comparisons, and understand how HK is different from the US, Singapore, and UK in many aspects including, property management, mortgage, public housing, and transportation. 
• Learn the ins and outs of a Hong Kong politics, what is important, what are the major issues that they address for the public: spatial inequalities, economic inequalities, and sufficient and affordable public transportation

2. Learn the key differences about what democracy in China stands for

• Talk to superiors about what democracy means to the the Chinese considering the juxtaposition of communism in the mainland.
• Understand what the Democratic party is fighting for, participate in the fight and help them meet their goals and objectives for HK. 

3. Observe and Adapt to office etiquette in HK

• Learn the best way to interact with my superiors
• Maintain an open mind and subservient attitude.