2025-04 - Hong Kong meetings
JW Marriott Hong Kong
Hong Kong is a complex place. It’s conflicted and divided, and always changing.
Absolutely everyone loves the nature aspect of Hong Kong, and said that’s one of the best parts of living here: proximity to both nature and the city. Surfing, hiking, and high rises, all within 20 minutes.
Hong Kong is very outward-looking international-focused. Many locals go abroad for school.
Many said the different groups don’t mingle: Hong Kongers, Mainlanders, Westerners, helpers. Some Hong Kongers see Hong Kong as part of China, but some defiantly don’t: Blue vs Yellow. Nobody said this was a big problem, but just conflicting self-identities of what it is to be a Hong Konger. Some locals are resentful of the new arrivals from the Mainland. About 300,000 residents have left in the last few years, and many mainland Chinese have moved in.
So many people’s parents swam here from China in the 1960s. It was a hard life trading port, so people had to be ruthless to get ahead.
Many said people in Hong Kong are rude or more specifically: impatient. Locals have cultural norms to be extremely practical and efficient. Blunt. No time to waste. Do the transaction fast. If you’re ordering in a restaurant and need a few seconds to figure out what you want, the waiter gets annoyed and might yell at you. Many said they were surprised at the contrast of how sweet the service was in Shenzhen: More patient, gentle, graceful, and so much cheaper.
Twice I heard that Hong Kongers don’t like to be managed. Don’t tell them what to do. Tell them the outcome you want, and they’ll figure out how to make it happen. By contrast, Singaporeans are much more into doing everything exactly by-the-book. Multiple people said they found Singapore boring and sterile.
Everyone I met is planning on staying, and doesn’t want to live anywhere else.
click a name for notes:
Larry Salibra- Hong Kong insights, community, home
Aero Wong- Hong Kong, family history and China ties
Kevon Cheung- boarding school, education, building in public
Menglu Jiang- trading, New York City, algorithms
John Buckman- Hong Kong, management
Hinson Lo- Cultural studies, musical instruments
Kiubon Kokko- family relationships, parenting, Hong Kong
Anurag Gupta- cultural comparisons, gist, London, India
Joost Hardesmeets- cross-cultural observations, motorcycles
Dominik Wiesent- Hong Kong, drugs, graffiti, Lai Chi Wo
Sarah Membrey- education, those who left, mother, YouTube
Jerry Young- China, Xi, Taiwan, Hong Kong, US
Ken Poon- California, Oracle, Singapore, Hong Kong
Guillaume Leclerc- Macau, Europe, China, nature