Just a quick post, tonight, to say that yesterday I had one of those moments when I really knew I was in a different culture. I mean, most of the time as a newcomer to Hong Kong, I live my daily life knowing that it's quite different, but mostly acting as if it's all quite familiar, because that seems to be a good way of getting through the day. I think I can only take so much novelty in any given week - I think my brain is being stretched taking it all in at the moment - so this strategy keeps me moving along without worrying too much about the detail.
Anyway, back to what I wanted to talk about. So I was on the MTR, as I am quite frequently, and about to get off the train at University station. I'd got up from my seat (yes, I actually had a seat) and gone to stand in front of the door, you know, facing it ready to get off, with my nose perhaps 30cm from the actual door. About 2 seconds before the doors actually opened, someone moved into that really rather small space between me and the door, ready to get off. Now this wasn't a bad thing. I wasn't in a hurry, and I hadn't been jostled. From my perspective, coming from Australia, this would just never have happened. Whether it is about different approaches to personal space, or whatever, I can never remember any similar thing happening to me there - it is almost literally unimaginable. As it was, in this particular instance I didn't know what to think. If you'd asked me I would have said I was as close to the door as I would ever want or need to be, unless the train was packed, which it wasn't. And yet someone saw the space in front of me as a socially acceptable gap to stand in, ready to deboard, as our American cousins might put it. Strange.
What made it a little bit stranger was that I couldn't put it down to aberrant behaviour, as if this was some outsider, even from an HK perspective. As I'd been sitting down I'd been watching these two older women chatting across the aisle in front of me. They seemed like perfectly average women, in their late forties/early fifties, chatting about life while on their way home. And if you'd asked me to think of a profile of a person, by age/class/ethnicity/gender/whatever who might step in front of me, one of these women would have been about the last on my list of candidates. I'm not going to obsess about this much longer, but it reminded me, quite forcefully, that I truly don't understand this place, and perhaps never really will.
That's actually quite a useful lesson to have underlined every now and again, particularly given the almost negligible inconvenience or harm I suffered from it. I wonder when I'll get my next reminder....
I never quite know about posting photos of strangers and try to keep them out of focus but don't always manage it
ReplyDeletemaybe I could take a lesson and remember i just don't understand the ways of the world when people do odd things - though it is less easy to be unruffled when people park in clearways in sydney rd in peakhour - one of my latest bugbears - makes riding my bike a joy to avoid busy traffic - I think people bother me a lot less on PT than in traffic because they affect me less. Or maybe it is because I don't take PT at peakhour which in my experience is when I get more annoyed by people.