Blog from Abroad: Denise Kaw from Hong Kong
Denise Kaw is a third-year BA/MT student in the Curry School of Education’s five-year program where she is studying to earn a bachelors degree in studio art and a masters in special education. This semester she is studying abroad at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is the first student to participate in the University of Virginia’s new studio art exchange program with CUKH. Click here, here, here and here for her previous posts.
Feb. 1, 2009: I’m back in Hong Kong! This past week has been incredibly exciting and so much fun!! I had a week off for Chinese New Year; this was my first time to really celebrate CNY in China since it’s not really celebrated in Japan or in the States (before U.Va., I was at an international school in Kobe, Japan). I got to celebrate it with my family, which was great because it’s not often I get to see them in the middle of a school semester.
(More after the break.)
My dad arranged a seven-day tour package. We visited three cities: Kunming, Dali and Lijiang, in the Yunnan province, located in the southern part of China. I met my family in Kunming on CNY Eve and so we had a special CNY dinner with consisted of foods that is usually only eaten on CNY. Fireworks were going off every single minute of the day and night. Especially around 9pm-1am there were plenty of fireworks! We had a decent view of them from our hotel room.
Overall, the trip was exhausting, busy, but so colorful/cultural and interesting. I learned a great deal about the different ethnic minorities groups in China. One interesting fact I learned is that there is a minority group called the Mo Sou and they do not practice marriage. At night the men sneak into their woman’s room and sneak back out before daybreak. Some of the major highlights were the Stone Forest in Kunming, the Three Golden Pagodas in Dali, and the Ancient Town in Lijiang. Li Jiang was my favorite of the three cities, which was good because we spent the most time there. I also experienced being thrown off a horse in Li Jiang; fortunately I did not land on horse droppings, nor did I break any bones. ☺
Except for the one day we went to the Stone Forest, the weather was absolutely gorgeous!!! Blue skies, decently warm — it was just beautiful. The food was really delicious as well. Although I have to say, I really don’t want any more Chinese food for the next couple days. Each meal, they served us AT LEAST eight dishes, excluding the rice. When I got back to the HK airport, I was really tempted to buy Burger King for dinner, but I had a bus to catch so I didn’t.
We took over 700 photos! I’ve posted 60 of them on Facebook. Here is the public link to the album. Hopefully it works.
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