Hong Kong is just as overwhelming as I remembered it to be. The uncontrolled energy of the place seems to multiply tenfold when you're jetlagged and exhausted to the point where you just want to pass out.
On my first day, I was brought to the Hong Kong history museum. For $10 HK (slightly less than $1.50 Canadian or American), you can go through exhibits on the history of Hong Kong since prehistoric times. The museum presents a very surprising interpretation of HK's history since a lot of it is about daily life in the Chinese community during the various eras. Compared to many history courses, the focus is not on the politics and (mostly British) politicians but on the people of the Chinese community. The museum seems to attempt to be kid and adult-oriented but I would've like a little more substance. It was great to see facets of daily life for the average working class Chinese in Hong Kong, but it would have been nice to shed some light on a few leaders in not only the Chinese community but in other ethnic communities. I'm surprised that the Indian community isn't mentioned at all as well as the Muslim community. I mean, H.N. Mody, an Indian merchant gave a substantial donation that allowed for the building of Hong Kong University and there has to be a reason that there is a mosque smack dab in the middle of Tsim sha Tsui aka prime real estate.
In any case, here are a few fun pictures of the HK museum:
A tower of lucky buns for some sort of festival in Hong Kong.
I was absolutely fascinated by this old report card.
A display that emulated an old pastry store. It was cool because they created several tradition general stores in Hong Kong with audio recordings in which old store owners would describe the wares they sold and business in the pre-war era.
A festival stall. I rather like this picture.
Also, there was one exhibit on life in Mainland China meant to "create nostalgia over the past eras of China's past." (Or something like that.) The entire exhibit pretty much glorified daily life in the Maoist era and of course, there was no mention of mass starvation, factional political fighting and economic breakdown in any of the exhibit. But hey, there were a lot of pictures of Mao - great if you have a fetish for the Chairman. Many of the objects were fascinating nonetheless like a huge array of ration coupons and ration books (and all the things you hear about in lessons on modern China), Mao pins and comic books.
Here are a few pictures:
Ration coupons for industrial goods in Beijing. If you took modern Chinese history classes, you would also know that there would be ration coupons for each region and the rare and valuable national ration coupons that could be exchanged anywhere. Many of those could be found in the exhibit as well.
Mao looking pretty dapper in this comic called, "Before the Heat of the Battle."
Popular clothing in the Maoist era.
Pins with Mao cameos that were very popular during the Maoist era. Some of these were surprisingly big.In any case, I'll end here. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to visit the science museum in the future.
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