Hongkongese

"It's heavy rain, isn't it?" Shortly after I sat on the seat of The United Airline, a woman next to me said. Starting conversation like this should be quite natural. But some how, I seldom make conversation with the person next to me on the air plane so aggressively. I'm not out going person. So I was just little bit surprised for the words of the first met woman. I looked out through the window and told her fastening the seat belt. "Well, it hasn't been fine for last few days." I looked her back. Then we started conversation about Hong Kong where we had been until just before.

She was born in Hong Kong and has grown up in Tokyo since she was three. So actually, she is Japanese except having a permanent visa of Hong Kong. She told me that she had stayed Hong Kong for few weeks and also visited grand parents' house in Fujian province.
For me, I walked around the city and took some photo as usual. Of course, for getting to know every thing about Hong Kong, the 11days was too short. Compare to my "Hong Kong journal", her observation of Hong Kong were so accurate, interesting and realistic.

One of impressive topics in her story was about the incoming people from mainland and transition of lingual situation in Hong Kong. According to her, who came back to Hong Kong every couple of years, the opportunities hearing Mandarin had been increasing dramatically for recent years. The situation was the same on TV programs. Cantonese had been taking place to Mandarin.
I don't understand Chinese and don't know the Hong Kong in pre-transfer era. Therefore I couldn't notice the change after 1997. However she feels imminence that Hong Kong is taken into the mainland. With the inflow of huge population from the mainland, if Cantonese language could be disappeared someday? I worried about the future of the language as hearing her story.

I'll tell you another topic she told me. That's also interesting. The theme is "The Honkongese and Money" During the stay in Hong Kong, she often got tired by the one thing. What was that?
Well, in daily conversations of her family, they always mentioned other people's income or salary. They talked about, for example, the salary of their neighbors or relatives. She told me that it's the nature of Hongkongese.
The rich and the poor, each people have a different status in the society. It's tough but true in capitalism. However, is there any merit for comparing my salary to the others and having some superiority or inferiority? That's her opinion. I agree with her.
However on the other hand, I also think that it's the nature as a merchant. It must came from their back ground, Hong Kong which has long history as an international port city. I guess the successor has had a fame of the society for long time.

It's so interesting to me that high-rise residential apartments in Hong Kong look like the symbol of Hongkongese nature. (Of course the high story buildings are also caused by the dense population and small land) Well, it 's like black humor that those kind of competition is going in each apartment which looks like honeycomb. But if Hongkonese people have had the nature like "I don't care about another people. I'll go in my own way. Having money does not means a wonderful life", maybe the flourishing of Hong Kong would not exist.

"I though I tried to look for job in Hong Kong this time. But I noticed living in Hong Kong was really tough to me" She said. For her who had lived in Tokyo for more than three decades, maybe it's so hard getting into Hong Kong society. It's easy to understand even to me who was a temporary resident for 11days.
For our the machine-gun talk, two and half hour flight was just like a moment. We saw the beautiful snow capped mountain out side of the plane. So we were talking "That might be a mountain in Taiwan." However, it's Mt. Fuji of Japan. Shortly after, the plane prepared for landing to Narita Airport.