" how do you say 'booyah' in chinese? "

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06.02.04

Kowloon, near the China Border,

9:30am

- I’m sitting in a Delifrance café in a local mall, having a small breakfast of a demi-baguette with butter and strawberry jam, an egg scrambled with bell peppers and smoked salmon, and a cup of orange juice. My US passport prevents me from attaining an “instant” visa, thus allowing me into China.
- Since in cannot go to do my job, because of my nationality, I’m sitting in a French-style café in Kowloon near Hong Kong, waiting here until 2 or 3pm; the time Khun Reed and her friend will return from China. As all of these people around me eat their breakfast in a hurry, I start to wonder what will I do with all of this time?

11:30am

- Nearly a month and a half since arriveing in Thailand, and now I find myself in Hong Kong, trying to the best job I can. The wok in Thailand is constant and often fun. I believe that if I can get my Thai spoken vocabularu up a ew notches, then I can really begin to express myself a little more.
- It seems as if I am quiet a lot of the time…and I am! This is only because I am so sed to listening and observing. It’s not that I’m particularly shy; rather it’s because I believe that you can first learn a lot more about people, culture, customs, and the ins-and-outs of daily isms and interactins, if you can see how people are, where you are.
- After the visual assessment, then you can begin to try and communicate. Who knows? If you begin by doing something seemingly normal in a foreign environment, you could end up disrespecting someone or even unknowingly be doing something illegal and find yourself in the hands of the local constabulary.i rarely get to the point of thinking in extremes like this, but it’s interesting is all.

1:45pm

- Some thoughts and observations on Hong Kong.
- It’s much different thatn mainland PRC; mostly different is the presence of recent tributes to british rule. Signs, names of streets, and of buildings.
- The buildings are fully stretched towers of majesty. There is no room for plainal expansion in HK, so all of the construction works upwards. I think it’s like when people wish to reach the heavens; they fly in planes, become pilots, skydive, hang-glide, etc. being in a tall building is the closest you can get to this feeling on a daily basis.
- Or how the building up of these buildings ight reflect a cultural hope for a prosperous future; the buildings like outstretched arms towards good fortune.
- So I’ll wait until the call and try to work hard and define myself a little more each day.
- Ps. I ended up waiting for 9 hours, but I found a really cool meat market and took some photos!

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