Hong Kong '13: Week One

It is a little over a week since I arrived in Hong Kong. My jet lag is almost fixed! I can sleep until 8am now compared to the previous 3-6am wake up time.

April 21: This week has been eventful starting with my 13 hour flight from Canada to Hong Kong. Lucky for me the seat next to me was empty so it was a pretty comfortable ride. I watched the movies that were Academy Award winners: Les Miserables and Silver Linings Playbook. The latter movie was surprisingly good and attention grabbing.

April 26-27: Grandfather's funeral stretched over two days with a Chinese traditional ceremony that I mostly did not understand. There was chanting, burning of incense and paying respects. I learned that for women, wearing a blue flower clip in your hair means you are the grandchild from the father's side and wearing a green flower means grandchild from the mother's side. A white flower means you are the daughter of the deceased. A red dot on the white bandana around the son-in-law's foreheads means their parents are still alive.

It was kind of hard to look at grandfather's face in the coffin because he looked so different from the man that I remember. At the funeral I met relatives that I've never met before.

On a happier note I got to meet up with old friends and meet new ones. I became familiar with the MTR quickly because I used it everyday.

Hong Kong MTR

April 25: Met up with friends from back home who were also visiting Hong Kong and got to watch Iron Man 3 in IMAX before it was even out in North America! I really loved how action packed this movie was with a suitable dose of humour. Definitely my favourite of the Iron Man trilogy.

Iron Man 3 IMAX

Visited the Charlie Brown Cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui. You can choose which character's head you want stenciled on your drink, which was really cute.

April 27- 28: I got to meet new friends because of AIESEC. Attending the BrandXP Summit hosted by AIESEC Hong Kong allowed me to meet many AIESECers who were doing the same thing I was in Communications halfway around the world.

BrandXP Summit 2013

April 30: Also because of AIESEC, I got to visit Hong Kong University and people from AIESEC HKU. Had to suffer some vicious mosquito bites to get to their campus though!

In the AIESEC HKU office

My grandmother is celebrating her 80th birthday next month so we ate dinner together as a family before the Mother's Day crowd. I got to meet one of my baby cousins who I have not met yet. The elder sister, Charlotte was very shy the last time I saw her two years ago but this time she was so quirky and sociable it was absolutely adorable! 

Photo of all the cousins

 Dinner was pretty tasty, of which this dish was probably the most unique. It was BBQ Pork stuffed with rice which reminded me of turkey and its stuffing. The rice soaked up all the pork juice so it was especially aromatic.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

That sums up the first week of my stay in Hong Kong with a good balance of family, shopping, and AIESEC just the way I like it.

Overthinking

I admit it, I do this a lot. I overthink.

The are two main components to my overthinking: seeing something simple as complicated and fear of consequences.

Something Simple as Complicated
This component is usually associated with my interactions with people. Sometimes I can be oblivious when my attention is not directed, like walking onto the street before the pedestrian light flashes. Most of the time I am a fairly observant person, especially towards peoples' behaviours and gestures. I find it pretty fascinating how people act in different environments and social situations.

That easily leads to overthinking because I might see a small gesture you make as meaning more. For example, if you smile but I intuitively feel that it's not genuine then I will see it as a sad smile which leads me to wonder what has happened in your day that made you sad.

Of course I don't extrapolate this much for every person around me but when my mind is focused in conversation with a person, I tend to notice these details.

Other times when I'm trying to learn new knowledge and connecting ideas so I understand it, I often take a more complicated route to sew my ideas together. Somehow if it's a concept that I don't understand on the spot, I feel that it must be complicated so I have to match a difficult connection of ideas with it when the simple answer can be right in front of my eyes but I overlook it by overthinking.

Fear of Consequences
As an overthinker, sometimes I can be critical of those who make rash decisions. How can they just do such an action without thinking about the consequences? Another part of me would like some of that bravery to not think and just act. I ponder about "ifs" and "supposes" often.

Thought process: "Suppose I do this thing, then this could happen or that could happen. I'd love for this to happen but if it goes wrong, will I be able to face the consequences of that happening?"

With this lack of uncertainty, I make plans and lists so I can increase the chances of favourable outcomes but even after careful planning I might not execute a plan in the end. My overthinking can stunt my willpower to do things out of my comfort zone. And I don't like that.

So at the beginning of 2013 I made a small commitment to myself that I will not let myself stop myself any more because I don't want to have any regrets. There's a difference between making wise choices and not making choices at all. I will just have to take the risk of encountering poor choices in order to be able to appreciate the wise choices I do make.

Take care,