While wandering around the streets of Hong Kong and using its fast, efficient, and super clean metro, I thought about how similar New York City is to Hong Kong. Both cities are densely populated. Both have subway systems that the majority of its citizens rely on. Both have a fast paced nature. People in both cities live in relatively small and expensive spaces. It’s not uncommon in either city to hear that people rarely, if ever, cook, and most eat almost every single meal out. Both also are notorious for having very intense, grueling work hours yet exciting and late night party scenes. People also love to say that the people of New York and Hong Kong are rude (as a New York resident, I do not believe this is true. As a former New York tourist, I never thought it was true. And as someone who has visited Hong Kong twice, I do not find people ruder there than anywhere else at all. In fact, I think people are generally kind in Hong Kong, and they are far more kind to those who have young children/are pushing a stroller and who are elderly).

There are obvious differences, though, other than culture and language: wages and salaries are far lower overall in Hong Kong despite sky-high costs of living, for one. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China, which means that its independence, or perception of, is constantly in threat. Hong Kongers want to stay separate from China, but China sees them as part of “One China.” Some hawker on the street who tried to sell Chris and me some lame shoe cleaner made some small talk with me while in Guangzhou. He asked where we were from and where we had been during our travels. I told him we had come from Hong Kong, and his response was, “Oh, so you were in China. You know Hong Kong is China, right?” Of course, a Guangzhou resident would say that, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who lives in Hong Kong who would say the same thing. Being in Hong Kong, it’s like you’re in one country, yet also in another. And the rules can change just like that, and you as an individual would have zero control over it.

The other difference that more immediately sticks out to me as a visitor is this: Hong Kong has endless clean and glorious public restrooms. It felt like every few blocks we’d run into one. I never had to worry about cleanliness or availability of toilet paper or whether there was enough soap. In New York, public restrooms are so sorely lacking that it’s an embarrassment. And when you are able to find one, it’s unlikely to be a desirable or even mildly pleasant experience. And how funny that in the last few weeks, The New York Times published an op-ed to make the case for more public restrooms in New York City; how timely!