We are pleased to connect virtually with PACS alumnus, Sundos Sharaf, a caseworker at the International Rescue Committee – Los Angeles. She will be speaking on her post-Berkeley career and the current situation of refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Please come with questions!
Click here for the Facebook event
May 3, 2015
By Victoria Fong, 4th year in Peace and Conflict Studies with a concentration in Human Rights
Hong Kong is not a city for those of light appetite. At every turn of a corner, you encounter the smell of roasted meats hanging from a restaurant, fresh egg tarts from one of the infinite bakeries, or fish balls from a local street stand. No matter where you go in this jungle of a city, food will find you. From dim sum to hot pot, you will not remember what hunger feels like until the moment you leave.
In the spring of 2014, I was lucky enough to fill my appetite with some of the best food I have ever had in my life. I was lucky enough to have been exposed to Cantonese cuisine early on as my grandparents from Canton would take me out to dim sum in Los Angeles where they forced me to eat cha siu bao, siu mai, and ha gao which I would happily consume without complaint. Unfortunately for some of my fellow peers in my study abrod program, they were terrified about eating anything non-Western. In fact, there was one student from Illinois who only ate McDonald’s for the first eight days of her travels. While this is easy as one can spot those famous golden arches on nearly every block, it is not recommended. You are much more likely to get sick from ramming McDoubles than from anything you could find in the city.
The highlight of Hong Kong cuisine is without a doubt dim sum. The amount of dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong is endless. In the five months that I spent there, I ate dim sum weekly and probably only went to each dim sum restaurant twice at the most and there were none that I could qualify as anything less than delicious. Almost every dim sum place has something that it serves that others don’t, whether that is fried milk curds (sounds unappetizing but is possibly the closest resemblance to tasting heaven) or simply preparing barbequed pork buns in a different way, it’s hard to find a place that is unsatisfying.
While I cherish my other memories from Hong Kong which include hiking on Dragon’s Back, getting screeched at by monkeys in the park, and attempting to haggle in the Ladies’ Market, there really is nothing as memorable as walking at 2:30AM with friends for an hour to have one last good moment of eating dim sum before calling it a night. Just remember, when you visit Hong Kong be sure to bring your appetite.
