January 15, 2018

I found today’s class particularly interesting. I’ve come to realize how much I enjoy class discussions, especially when it involves learning new things that I have never encountered with before. Besides Chungking Mansion, I believe I watched a couple of Hong Kong movies– mostly those of martial arts however. My dad is a pretty huge fan of Bruce Lee, so I grew up watching a lot of Bruce Lee movies, as well as one called “Jet Li’s Fearless”. But before today, I never really put much attention to it, since I was pretty young when I watched them. So it was really interesting for me to hear about all the other kinds of movies that were produced in Hong Kong, as well as their characteristics.

After discussion, we went to visit Chungking Mansion which was quite a journey for me. Looking back at my experience, I think that the reason as to why I felt uncomfortable inside this building was largely due how quickly it can become overwhelming. There can suddenly be people to the right and left of you, trying to get your attention, and it can quite easily be too much for a person like myself–making it much more difficult to say no and keep walking, especially since there is already so much competition inside of the building anyway. However, I did notice very many smells that I enjoyed. You could immediately tell that this area was not like the rest of the world that existed just outside of its buildings’ walls. It was definitely a hub where ethnic minorities could establish themselves, and it almost made me feel a bit like home. Even though there were no sight of any Latinos, what made me think of home was that this area reminded me of places like Spanish Harlem, Chinatown, or Koreatown, where many people found refuge in a place that was not similar to them.

Afterwards, we went to see Bruce Lee! I immediately shared them with my dad. We also later had a delicious dinner at Chungking Mansion and, overall, I would say it was a pretty good day.

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