Extreme sports expats

I went to a British diver's talk at the Royal Geographic Society last night - a group of mostly commonwealth expats in Hong Kong.  I bumped into a few ex-coworkers as expected, since it was a very commonwealth-ish place.  There was a new HR head at my old workplace that I found useful to get to know.  He said the market is bad and no one left the company after bonus as he expected people to do.

After the talk by the famed British diver who made about 8,000 dives around the world, I got together with four white expat guys, from Germany, Scotland, England and US, for beer.  All of them have been in Hong Kong for approximately fifteen years and I find it great to talk to that group.  They are a lot like my old colleagues - those that I could become long-term friends with.  I found it easy to talk to them.  Whether it is because I'm the only girl or that they felt compelled to be nice to an Asian, I don't know.  But I find it pretty nice.

The Scot who invited me and sat next to me talked about all the extreme sports he does.  He did bungy jumping and sky diving a few dozen times, in addition to diving every weekend.  He's also involved in a band.  It seems like a full-on life that puts my mundane desk job to shame.  The German guy spent more than three years consulting for the Shanghai Stock Exchange in Shanghai before, and found it a great place to live and the people much similar to German than the Spanish that he used to work with back in Munich.  I am happy to have found such a group.  I will try to go to the event next week which deals with China and try to live a more interesting life.

My Chinese crush finally came to talk to me today and asked me about Shanghai, four days after I have returned.  He came out of the blue and I was again quite startled and jumped from my seat upon his approach.  He said that he's more scared than me when I get so scared every time he tries to talk to me.  He said he just returned from an hedge fund conference there, they invited him to speak because he knows Chinese.  But then corrected himself and said because he speaks English.  He then complained about how quiet the office is, as if there is a curfew on, and there is no privacy for making client phone calls etc.  The Hong Kong woman kept complaining about the status of her bull dogs on the phone and everyone knows about it in the office.  He wanted to break the silence, he said. He wants to start watching porn in the office. I guess that was tongue in cheek.

I rounded off the evening by going to a Hong Kong speed-dating event, where I met about 30 people.  Before going to the event, I was inspired by digging up the marriage details of daughter of the Taiwanese president Ma Yingjiou.  She attended Harvard around my year and married a classmate currently working in Hong Kong.  Interestingly enough, the guy also grew up in California, came to Hong Kong around the same time, left around the same time (I for business school and he for modeling gig, both in Europe), and actually lives in my neighborhood.  Literally.  But then the speeddating event turned out more of a disappointment, where most people were local Hong Kong crowd who can't think outside of their little island.  Besides, there were few good looking guys.  They were younger, lots of IT in a bank type.  At least I tried there.