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Old 13-03-2006, 09:57 AM
penguinsix penguinsix is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: KT / USA (MD) / London
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No, it's you.

Actually I'm just kidding.

It can be tough, at first, to make some friends in HK (or any big city). But as an expat, I found it actually easier in HK than it is in the states because of what I call a 'frontier' mentality amongst the expats. Maybe that is not the best word, but there is a certain commonality amongst the expats in that "we're all here together going through the same things, not knowing anyone, dealing with life 6,000 miles from home" and that is sort of an ice breaker. I think a lot of expats are actually less guarded here than they would be back in the States.

I fell in with a good crew within weeks of arriving, concentrating on a) folks that lived in my building b) work colleages and their connections and c) guys who followed the same English football sides as me (yea, kind of odd).

I remember when I got back home to the US after a 30+ flight and I was driving to my house and some jerk cut me off on the road and was your basic asshole. Sure that happens in HK too, but the sense that "I'm now back with everyone else acting like everyone else" kind of depressed me, whereas in HK there was sort of a "all for one and one for all attitude" amongst the folks I dealt with. Of course some find HK people rude and pushy, though I didn't encounter much of that (quite the opposite actually as I usually dressed like the Terminator with dark shades and scared folks when I walked--it's that big Gwailo--agah!_.

Your mileage may vary.
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