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About a month ago I traveled to China. After staying in China for a month my visa was set to expire, so I decided to go to HK and then come back to mainland China to reset my visa.
Although I was only in HK for one day, I fell in love with the HK Special Admin Area. I love it there. It was like a breath of fresh air from mainland China. It seems like most people speak English and it is very westernized.
It seems like HK has a nice "feel" to it.
Is there anyone on here who either lives in HK or knows a lot about the city? If so, what is your opinion? Is HK a decent place?
I know a lot of people say it is expensive, but it seems like my American dollar went pretty far in HK.
About a month ago I traveled to China. After staying in China for a month my visa was set to expire, so I decided to go to HK and then come back to mainland China to reset my visa.
Although I was only in HK for one day, I fell in love with the HK Special Admin Area. I love it there. It was like a breath of fresh air from mainland China. It seems like most people speak English and it is very westernized.
It seems like HK has a nice "feel" to it.
Is there anyone on here who either lives in HK or knows a lot about the city? If so, what is your opinion? Is HK a decent place?
I know a lot of people say it is expensive, but it seems like my American dollar went pretty far in HK.
I absolutely ADORE Hong Kong!! I have had the good fortune of living there when I was younger and going back almost every year.
Rent in HK is outrageous, but the day-to-day cost of living is very cheap. Eating out, as you probably noticed, is very inexpensive compared to eating out in a large American city, and public transportation is so cheap it's funny. And taxes in HK are ridiculously low. There's no sales tax and, I believe, the income tax rate tops out at only 15%.
HK is like taking the best of New York, London, Rio, and Shanghai and putting it in one beautiful location (islands, beaches, mountains) minus the graffiti, crime, and trash that those other cities have. Unfortunately, mainland China's go-go growth-at-any-cost has put hundreds of factories outside of HK's borders making air pollution a major concern.
I have seriously considered moving back to HK, and it's still something I'm probably going to pursue one of these days.
Nowhere else in the world can you be smack in the middle of one of the world's greatest cities one minute and then be lounging on a tropical beach, hiking on top of a mountain, or riding a roller coaster 30 minutes later. In Hong Kong you've got some of the most brilliant architecture in the modern world as well as some of the world's greatest engineering marvels. You've got Buddhist temples and a Mormon temple, mopeds and Lamborghinis, 5-star restaurants and noodle carts, fast-food Chinese and fast-food French chains, luxury department stores and open-air markets, oppulent mansions and humble fishing villages. It's got frenetic neighborhoods where people live like sardines and the most brilliant skyline on the planet, but also over 200 islands which are mostly deserted. And all that in only 400 square miles.
Here are some pictures of some of my favorite things about Hong Kong.
Repulse Bay (just on the other side of that mountain is Hong Kong's famous skyline)
Yes. Street signs are in both English and Chinese. Most taxi drivers know enough English to get you around. Outside of the tourist areas there's not as much English spoken, but it's never hard to find someone who does speak it.
---
its - possession
it's - contraction of it is
your - possession
you're - contraction of you are
their - possession
they're - contraction of they are
there - referring to a place
loose - opposite of tight
lose - opposite of win
who's - contraction of who is
whose - possession
alot - NOT A WORD
I had been told by a man (who had spent a good part of his adult life in Hong Kong as a shipping company executive) that during the time that HK was a British possession all of the land was owned by the British Crown. In order to use the land for anything (farming, housing, hotels, factories, what have you) one first had to rent the land from the government. It was one of the reasons why the taxes were so low in Hong Kong - the colonial government got a good deal of its income from rents.
I was under the impression that after the handover to China, Hong Kong was allowed to continue operating under the British model, which would mean that now all land is owned by the PRC and still must be leased.
Has this changed? Are people in Hong Kong now allowed to purchase the land?
I had been told by a man (who had spent a good part of his adult life in Hong Kong as a shipping company executive) that during the time that HK was a British possession all of the land was owned by the British Crown. In order to use the land for anything (farming, housing, hotels, factories, what have you) one first had to rent the land from the government. It was one of the reasons why the taxes were so low in Hong Kong - the colonial government got a good deal of its income from rents.
I was under the impression that after the handover to China, Hong Kong was allowed to continue operating under the British model, which would mean that now all land is owned by the PRC and still must be leased.
Has this changed? Are people in Hong Kong now allowed to purchase the land?
yes, most of what you said is correct. to some extent, HK is a bit different from the mainland China, cause it was the colony of UK before 1997, and now after the handover, HK is still allowed to operate under capitalism, while the mainland socialism. and this is just the "one country, two system"policy.
yet unlike what you said, people now in HK needn't lease the land only. If you can offord, you can purchase it.
so if one were to live there they still should know chinese?
I think it would be fair to say that knowing the language might not be essential, but it would certainly provide a big advantage.
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