2025-04 - Hong Kong

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.

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