Things Hong Kong people don’t do.

It’s been a while I’ve written here and this time I would like to change it up a bit. I always write about those things that Hong Kong people do but this time I will write about what they don’t do that is surprising for me.

1. Suit up!

Hong Kong people rarely ever dress up. Your regular HK person will own a pair of good, comfortable sneakers and wear them pretty much every day. Considering how many stairs and slopes there are in the city, it’s smart and I wear my sports shoes way more often than I used to in Poland as well.

But! The problem with being comfortable is that in formal occasions, people in Hong Kong still choose casual style over proper attire. So! You go to a friend’s wedding and you see people wearing jeans or shorts. You go to a classical music concert and you see people wearing flip flops. You go to a fancy restaurant and you see people in soccer jersey. It is very very common here.

2. Reading books as a pastime.

This will be a great generalisation but people in Hong Kong don’t read. Fullstop.

Sure, they study at school and read news, but having books at home seems pretty rare. And when you do see people reading, it’s rarely ever fiction. Which makes me sad because there is not much that I can find in bookstores or even libraries for myself!

3. Catch up over coffee.

In my hometown in Poland, it’s a typical thing to do – you meet with friends for a catch up over coffee. That means talking for ages over coffee/cake/beer. But as I mentioned in my previous posts, coffee shops in HK mostly have time limit or long queue staring at you nervously.

Another thing is that coffee shops started opening everywhere in Hong Kong lately and as you can’t travel much because of Covid, young people decided to go cafe crawling instead of travel. That means mostly instagrammers and hippie people too. So if you wish to have a chat with your friends, there might be dozen of people posing to photos around so you might need to find the least insta spot to have peace.

4. Get dirty!

Since it’s already second pandemic in Hong Kong, first being SARS, parents here are very careful about not letting their children get dirty or touch anything.

While in Europe, kids are mostly exempted from wearing face masks, in Hong Kong kids wear it from 1 year old and before that, they would have a hat with plastic shield attached.

In Europe kids literally eat dirt and in HK they are specialists on hand sanitisers.

5. Chill.

Hong Kong is a fast city and people here like its fast pace too. Everything is on the run and with high intensity. Work hard, play hard.

Even with over 30 degrees Celsius weather, people would go hiking, to the beach, staycation, dinner buffet, kayaking, gatherings…

I value my slow time when I can literally enjoy doing nothing. Ok, I’m just lazy. But also proud of it. I have not heard of any Hongkonger proudly saying that they have spent their weekend doing nothing. If you know this type of person, I want to meet them and be lazy together!

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Tell me what you think! Maybe I am wrong about Hong Kong people?