Post 1 Bethany Si Yue Mong

My name is Bethany Si Yue Mong. I was born in Maryland but went back to live in Hong Kong when I was small. Although Hong Kong is a part of China, the government is very different because Hong Kong was once ruled by England. However, Hong Kong is returned back to China in 1997. From then, China starts to assimilate Hong Kong. However, due to a lot of culture and social conflicts, many people from Hong Kong do not see themselves as Chinese. By the age of 16, I come back to the US from Hong Kong. As a person now living in a city as diverse as New York, I always see a lot of culture and social conflicts among people. Racism exists everywhere in our community as any New Yorkers would know. However, I still sometimes see people who treat others with forbearance even though they don’t understand each other’s background and culture. This is one thing that impressed me the most as people treat each other with respect. This realization makes me interpret we need more understanding and caring in our society. My experience and background make me come to comprehend myself as an Asian American, and a Chinese who once lived in Hong Kong, instead of neither an Asian immigrant who lives in America nor a person who grew up in Hong Kong but not a Chinese.

Due to my family, culture and education background, I consider myself as a media consumer and critique. I think media is to express what the media makers want the audiences (consumers) to see and know in their perspectives. As a media consumer, I think I should be able to analyze what is fact and opinion. Also, I think media consumers should learn to think more outside of the box and hold their own perspectives instead of taking others’ as their owns. Not everything from the media is impartial so I think people rely just on media to understand other people and our society will lead to stereotypes and biases. We should learn to not just be followers but learners and critiques of media in order to maintain a better and more harmonious community.
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As most of the people would know how does New York look like so I chose to introduce Hong Kong to you guys.. This is a video of traveling in Hong Kong by the BBC Travel Documentary.
Part 1: http://youtu.be/zG4FIU11raM
Part 2: http://youtu.be/fp9T3C9QnMU
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And here are a few pictures I too when I went back to Hong Kong for travel in summer 2011.
This is the MTR in Hong Kong.. just like the subway in New York.


And obviously, these are the chicken nuggets, fries and ice cream from McDonald's but they look way smaller in Hong Kong!


This is an accessories store in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. Very small place but many cute things to see there...