I have been in the US the last two weeks on vacation after not being here for a long time (almost 2 year). I’m stuck in Detroit (again) writing this but I won’t get into that, just to say that Delta and the Detroit airport is not good. Rica and I both came on the trip and she is staying behind a few more weeks while I get back to Hong Kong to work.
Overall on the trip, we visited many of my friends (thanks for making the time) and I was in a good friends wedding (congrats Jeff and Emily!). We also went up to Louisville, KT area and did part of the bourbon trail. It was great to see everyone and too bad I didn’t get to see everyone; I won’t go into details of the trip here as you can see some picture on facebook but I want to share my view of life differences in the US and Hong Kong (and maybe a little of Shenzhen).
First let me say that the “comparison” is North Carolina and Hong Kong so it would be would different in other parts of the US; and its also in Winston-Salem, NC so it would again be different in a larger city. With that said the first thing I get was the travel time needed. In Hong Kong I can get anywhere within 30 minutes and I can even get to Shenzhen in an hour; however, on a daily bases in Hong Kong I wouldn’t go anywhere that takes more then 20 min. In the US we had to drive to get anything and it was at least 20 minutes if not more. On the same note, you also need to plan what you’ll do when you are out since you don’t want to go to one store and then go home. Again, in Hong Kong the store is 1 min for my house, so if I want a drink I only buy that; in NC I had to plan everything I need on the one trip. One thing in Hong Kong though is the stores are smaller and are more specialized then the huge store with everything we had in NC.
Along with travel and shopping I also needed some time to get use to the “space.” When I’m shopping I only see a few people instead of the crowd in Hong Kong. Walking on the street there aren’t many people and the mall seems a little empty. I also don’t see any sky scrapers and just have a general feeling of having more space in everything.
Another major difference for me was the food. First in Hong Kong there isn’t much “fast food” was there is in the US. Even if you get food thats made fast its still more of a restaurant then a fast food chain. We spent a lot of time going to all the fast food places and trying the different types of foods here. There are some foods that are either expensive and hard to find in Hong Kong, like Mexican and good buffalo wings, that we had to try. Overall, if I really “miss” anything it would be the food, but I also think if I had this food I would be even fatter then I am now.
Thats a quick rundown for you on some “difference” without going into details. I’ll try and write more about specific topics and keep this post short.
