20 Signs that You Have Been Away from Hong Kong for Far Too Long

Buzzfeed style! For my banana friends. p.s. While I’ve put ‘Hong Kong’ here, you can pretty much replace that with your Asian country of origin 🙂

1. When you still managed to mess up the rice despite having a rice cooker. Or worse still, you don’t own or know how to use a rice cooker. (My mother won’t be hearing about this)

2. When your go-to comfort food can be bought in normal supermarkets (i.e. no need to go an Asian supermarket)

3. When you return home and instinctively pour yourself a glass of water straight out of the tap.

4. When you’ve forgotten to put chocolate in the fridge even when at home, losing countless bars in the process.

You WILL STAY with me this time…

5. When you are absolutely terrible at table tennis. At least you think you are. Although you are still comfortably beating all your friends. Same goes for badminton.

6. When your other Asian friends are taking photos of ALL THE FOOD while eating out, you are just clinching to your cutlery waiting to start.

BEEF

I swear I do it just for my blog

7. When you have a lot of friends who can speak your native language, but you have always talked to them in English. Because you spoke English when you first meet and it seemed strange to switch.

8. When ‘Your Cantonese sound different’ is a phrase that you hear often.

9. When you type in English phrases in Google Translate to work out how to say something in Chinese.

Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 18.46.53

9. When you are confused when the following acronyms are thrown out: BAP (Bunnies are Puffy?); SNSD or AKB.

(For the record, these are Korean and Japanese Pop group)

10. On the topic of Kpop, If you are singing ‘Oppa Gangnam Style’ in your head now, that counts too

11. When you did not/are not studying the following subjects at university: Medicine, Engineering, Economics, Business, Accounting, Finance or Law.

12. When you successfully resisted orders /encouragement /incentives /threats etc. from your parents to NOT study one of those subjects above (Even if you agreed deep down that you doomed in terms of career prospects)

13. When you started thinking of all purchases in pounds. So all meals in Hong Kong becomes very, very inexpensive.

14. When you actually play and not merely follow football on TV. And you when don’t support any of the Premier League big four. (I personally don’t know any other East Asian who supports Crystal Palace: if you do please get in touch)

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Palace FTW

15. When your understand what ‘engineering works’ means, and won’t complain vociferously if you are marshaled onto a bus while holding a train ticket on weekends.

16. When you go to the tourist attractions very often because all your friends and family at home thinks you are the perfect person to take them around the UK. (This especially applies if you live in London: I go to the Big Ben more often then I would like to admit)

And here's a photo of London Eye

And here’s a photo of London Eye

17. When somebody mentions ‘Asian’ you think of the Indian subcontinent first.

18. When you have memories of a glorious English summer: you’ll probably need to have been here for at least 5 summers even stand a chance for that.

Sunny in September?

Sunny in September?

19. When the simple question of ‘Where are you from?’ always become a 20-minute lecture of your entire life story.

20. When you are pretty comfortable your life right now.

What about the future? Going Back? Staying? You are okay with it either way.

Category : Asian, Boarding, English, Hong Kong, Lifestyle, UK, University
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