Friday Night Meetup and Karaoke

Time for a roundup report of the weekend in Hong Kong. In summary: Excellent - Weather Good. Company Fun. Food Excellent. Activities Ace. Pollution Average.

But first a zoom in on Friday night, my first real taste of the Hong Kong evening social life. I went out on my own to a Hong Kong Expat meetup since J and I agreed we should have some time to make our own friends/ meet people independently, so off I headed to embrace the social fabric of Hong Kong while J met up with some of his friends. 

At this expat event I was impressed at the number of people gathered at a seemingly remote location in Wan Chai. Granted, a place with lovely views over the Habour and City, and outside on a deck. But over 300 people?  So goal achieved, great opportunity to meet a diverse spread of people also foreign to Hong Kong.

At one moment the group I was chatting with suggested Karaoke as a fun thing to do in Hong Kong, something I have never done before. Well right then and there, everyone agreed we should do Karaoke. No time for deliberation, contact numbers briefly exchanged in case we got lost and off the group headed via taxi to another venue that offered mostly English songs choices. 

Although I honestly cannot sing in tune, I can say the experience was great fun. The best part was singing the latest Gangnam song in Korean with a Korean.

Also what made it fun was the group was diverse, sample of countries represented:  South Africa, America, Zimbabwe, Britain, Poland, Russian, Hong Kong, Korea, China.

Will I see these people again? I think two of the girls I will make an effort to see again and the rest I guess I will see at the next Karaoke 

I discovered from my night out that people expect that you travel a lot or move quickly through the city, so are happy to make friends for the evening with no strings attached. Also people have the attitude of 'work hard play hard' so every day counts, and invariably the evening is made up of multiple 'stages' and activities. Most people counted at least one meetup before the Wan Chai venue and probably they headed for another after Karaoke  But I didn't stay long enough to find out - by 1am this Cinderella was ready to see her Prince, and sure enough he was in a taxi and headed over to pick me up within 5mins :-)

Another strange phenomenon about Hong Kong social meetups is the unashamed exchange of Business Cards. In the 4 weeks of being here, I have used more Business Cards that during the 6 years I lived in The Netherlands. And the exchange is not done in a casual or flippant manner. Oh no, locals will hand you their card with both hands and expect you to receive it the same way. Do NOT show them the dis-honour of defacing the card in front of them (I usually write down where I met the person and the date, and some interesting detail about the conversation). 

So last week I ordered some private cards online without my company details, I don't need everyone emailing me at work reminding me of the great weekend I had. :-)