Bargaining with Mr. Wong

The next day Daniel and I took care of administrative stuff: setting up bank accounts, getting registration and ID cards, paying room and board. At this point after dealing with a lot of university staff, and clerks throughout Hong Kong, I realized that not many people spoke English--or at least not as many people as we were told did. English and Cantonese are the primary languages but it is hard to find a native that is completely fluent in English. I heard that many professors are hard to understand as well. This night we again met up with out fellow Miami student and went to Mong Kok in Kowloon for dinner. This restaurant, apparently famous with exchange students, was called Mr. Wongs. It is owned and operated by a tall slim Asian (Mr. Wong) who speaks broken English and attempts to guess where you are from upon entering. After he greeted us, he asked our order. Although one student who could speak Cantonese was in the group, he could not read traditional characters rendering us all useless at reading the menu. Mr Wong understood and proceeded to serve us a smorgasbord or authentic cuisine: orange chicken, spring rolls, pan noodles, beef broccoli, garlic shrimp, fried rice and pork dumplings. It was amazing and only 40HKD (or $6 USD). After dinner, our group went further into Mong Kok to the night markets, specifically, the Ladies Market. Here, the streets were lined with metal walled vendors who sold everything from Tori Burch shoes to high powered laser that are illegal to purchase in the states. When you walk in a booth, they assume you want to buy and immediatley begin rattling off prices. If you think the price is too high, just walk away and the price begins to lower. I eyed a bracelet that began at around 450HKD and left when it was at 30HKD. I liked bargaining more than actually buying anything. On our way home, we stopped at a desert joint and all enjoyed mango sorbets with coconut bubble tea. Yum.