musings

Hong Kong has been pretty fun so far! I miss my brother a lot though - not used to going to China without him.

This is my first time in Hong Kong. We’re staying here for 5 days, which I’m starting to feel is excessive. There’s lots to do here, but it’s a pretty small space, so it’s very easy to explore a bunch of things within just 1 day. I kind of wish the trip was only 3 days long or something, so that I could go to Tianjin and see my grandparents earlier :|

Anyways, the thing I was looking forward to the most was the dim sum. However, I’ve been pretty disappointed thus far. It seems like Hong Kong has way more noodle houses (which I’m definitely not complaining about! Love noodles) than legit dim sum places. However, today my mom and I still went to a really famous and authentic (read: old, dirty, crowded) tea house called Lin Heung (I’m pretty sure there’s a different name in Mandarin but I forgot what). 

I was REALLY not expecting/comfortable with the seating arrangements at first. We were hustled in. “Table for 2 please!” was greeted with a brisk wave of the hand to find our own seats. After going around trying to find a table for two, we realized that they wanted us to just find any open seats at a table - aka sit with strangers. All the tables were round, family style, and could fit at least 6 people. Awkward much? Surprisingly not! The culture of authentic tea houses in Hong Kong seems to be geared towards making new friends. Everyone at the table we sat at was super friendly to us and explained all the socially learned skills of eating dim sum. 

1. Instead of walking around asking people whether or not seats were taken, look at the tea cups. If they are face up in front of an empty seat, that seat is saved for someone. If the tea cup is faced down, then the seat is up for grabs (and will probably be taken from you before you even get a chance to open your mouth with a ‘thank you’)

2. Tea houses are dirty. Don’t put anything (bowl, tea cup, spoon, chopsticks) in your mouth before washing it first. Your area of the table gets cleaned for you and then you get presented with a porcelain bowl with boiled water. You’re expected to hand wash/dip all your stuff in that.

3. Don’t wait for the trolley to come around to get your food. Once you see a cart with a steaming stack of dim sum come out, get up out of your seat and walk over to the cart (with the paper that has the stamps all over it) and just lift the lids and see what you want. Then you take what you want and get stamped and return to your seat. Boom boom boom. 

4. Be adventurous. Almost no one could speak Mandarin or English, so you just have to take whatever looks good/you’re willing to try! 

Sitting with the 2 different groups of people around us at the table made me realize something about Hong Kong natives. They are so friendly and warm - we probably looked super clueless when we finally sat down and found seats, so all the social etiquette was explained to us in a welcoming manner, without us even having to ask! 

SUCH a fun experience and satisfying meal. When we left at 2pm, it was still crowded and groups of people were still coming in! 

My only regret is that I wish there was Yelp for Hong Kong so I could’ve written a review.