Hong Kong Musings 6

25 April 2009
The Harbourside

There are so many things that already happened in a few weeks since I arrived. Wim and I finally bought the essential things that we need. The furniture rental company took everything we rented in the morning of April 22. In the afternoon, Shambala Furniture Company delivered the furniture we bought. The operation was seamless. I was truly impressed with the efficient services here.

IKEA Hong Kong was my next stop for everything we need in the kitchen, bedroom and living room. I am glad my youngest sister Ana Marie was here to help me for two weeks. I am also getting more confident travelling around with the metro, small light public buses, reading the map, etc. In brief, I am getting less dependent on Wim and I think I can move around here now without getting scared.


I am trying my best to keep a discipline so I can concentrate on my work. No one is telling me what to do, outside it very tempting to explore. It is not easy. Now that my office is installed and my stuff in the right place, I hope I would be able to do my work in a more focused manner.


I am using Skype now more than before. Martijn of Wereldomroep Netherlands just interviewed me about remittances over the phone. My first travel since I arrived here would be Jakarta. I have been invited by IOM Indonesia to give a presentation in a conference to be held on May 6-7. I will be meeting some old friends there like Basco and Ding Bagasao, both were involved in the conduct of the research on Netherlands-Philippines and Netherlands-Indonesia remittance corridor.

Due to time difference, I have difficulties getting in touch with friends in Europe than in the US and in the Philippines. I decided to start working from 1 pm local time when Netherlands about to start working.

Most probably I will be in the Netherlands in June on my way to Senegal. I hope to catch up with some friends there.

I finally started with my Cantonese language course. I chose Cantonese instead of Chinese (Mandarin) because it is the language spoken here by majority of the people. I realized that what we know of Chinese in the Netherlands is quite different than Cantonese. Ni Hao (Mandarin for "Hello) is Nei Ho (pronounced as Lei Ho in Cantonese). My language teacher gave me a Chinese name: LEI SHU HUI. So I wll be addressed as Miss Lei.. Sounds nice to me because of the first three letters of my name Leila. In fact, if I write my name Lei La it becomes a Chinese name.

Lei means flower bud
Shu means good, pure, virtous, fair
Hui means intelligent, wise

How he came up with the name was difficult for me to follow but anyway, I accepted the name.

The Chinese name we were told is helpful for people here to remember our name.

What I am having difficulties here is the weather. It is not cold but since we arrived most of the days are foggy and today it is not only overcast but it rains as well. Visibility is low that you can hardly see the skycrapers. The evenings are better with all the bright neon lights. It is not like the Philippines; it is also not also like Dutch weather.

Next time I will write about Nan Lian Garden, a replica of a Tang style natural landscaped garden characterised by hills, water features, trees and various artistic creations in a 35,000 m2 area. What is amazing of this serene garden is that it is located in the heart of a busy city but once you entered the garden you feel you are in Shangri La.