Finally after all of the chaos of mid-terms in Hong Kong, I have enjoyed a calm week of classes. In the meantime, students are already leaving campus to enjoy the mid-term break that will start this upcoming Wednesday.
That all being said aside, this calm time gave me the luxury to meet up with a fellow exchange friend I have made during my time here in Hong Kong, Stephan Musser. A Floridian from America, we had an amazing time sharing our experiences that we have had so far in Hong Kong.
A major reason that sharing our experiences was enjoyable was due to the fact that we are both nerds. Not geek "nerd", but definition of nerd - Nerd.
In the standard Merriam-Webster dictionary, nerd is defined as: 1. a person slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits and 2. a person with strong intellectual interests. By this definition, nerds are geeks, but the symmetric case is not exactly true (you needed an understanding of math equivalency logic to understand that last statement; a nerdy topic). While this definition does define the stereotypical nerd, there are many other components of being a nerd that gives nerds their special social practices.
I would say that being a nerd gave us a different view of our experiences as compared to other exchange students we have spent time with. For instance, we talked for a period of time how hard it is to write about our experiences in Hong Kong without sounding negative, since as nerds, we naturally recognize inefficiencies in systems and talk about them without malevolent intent. This reason has greatly limited the amount of writing that I have made during my experience as I fear that some of the realizations I made during my time here would appear extremely negative to many local and non-local individuals, so I rather abstain than incur a misunderstanding of my connotation.
At the same point, this revelation has also given me wits about what I should write about. Many exchange students in Hong Kong limit their experiences to the Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, the two most iconic places in Hong Kong for its extreme metropolitan development. As an effect, many of these people do not experience the south side and outskirts of Hong Kong like I had. I feel that these places are a better representation of Hong Kong, and I always look forward to experiencing more of this culture to share.
Well, rant's done, so I will enjoy this weekend!!!