- You have paid
enough rent to buy a moderate-sized North American or European town.
- Most
conversations with your friends involve mobile phones or mutual
funds.
- None of the
sea-front buildings existed when you arrived.
- The shoreline
itself shifted by half a mile.
- All your
friends are now living in London, New York, Singapore or Paris.
- You can't put a
proper sentence together in your native language.
- You got really
excited when Starbucks opened their first outlet in Hong Kong.
- At the movies,
you take bets on the number of phones that go off during the
performance.
- The funniest
jokes revolve around your stockbroker.
- You developed
an acquired taste for mooncakes.
- In a crowd or a queue, you
learnt to stay away from frail-looking old ladies carrying
umbrellas.
- You seriously considered taking
up golf.
- You have a Mont Blanc pen
clipped to your shirt pocket.
- You have stopped noticing the
grotesquely deformed leper on the Exchange Square flyover.
- A sexual pervert is a man who
prefers women to money.
- Your building's
security guard is 4 times older than the building itself.
- You have become
a shameless name-dropper.
- You feel a
compulsion to take exams.
- All you need is
Louis Vuitton.
- 165 decibels is
a normal noise level for lunchtime conversation.
- It's OK to
throw rubbish, including old fridges, from your 18th-floor window.
- Thanks to
karaoke, you know who has the most singing talent in your building.
Not that this is a great achievement.
- You believe
that pressing the lift button 63 times will make it move faster.
- The ultimate
status symbol is a lawn-mower.
- You know it is
useless to protest when the lady at the supermarket check-out wraps
one toothbrush in 6 plastic bags.
- You will never ever EVER buy
Miracle Foot Repair.
- You learnt to recognise Andy
Lau, Leon Lai, Aaron Kwok and Jacky Cheung.
- You aren't aware that one is
supposed to pay for software.
- Pink bathroom tiles can make
any building or public garden beautiful.
- Your colleagues eat sun-dried
cuttlefish coated in sugar and you don't bat an eyelid.
- You actually
purchased a canto-pop CD.
- You actually
played it several times.
- You believe
shopping and eating are the only forms of entertainment in Hong
Kong.
- Queuing in the
rain in a diesel-choked Kowloon backstreet to buy a HK$6 Hello Kitty
plastic doll at a McDonald's store is not the mark of an insane
person.
- You believe Li
Ka-shing is a saint.
- You test your
seafood for mercury, hepatitis B and cholera.
- You have
attended at least 4 weddings and a funeral in a language you don't
understand at all.
- A PhD in
Nuclear Physics fluent in 7 languages irons your socks for a
pittance but she is from the Philippines so it's all right.
- All the clothes
you own are tailor-made or come from Giordano.
- You are not
surprised to see your tap water run dark brown.
- Drilling on the walls in the
wee small hours in the morning is considered acceptable behaviour.
- If it's Friday, it must be
Typhoon 3 day.
- If it's Saturday, it must be
Typhoon 8 day.
- You tell your parents their
house back in your home country has bad feng shui.
- You get offended when people
admire your chopsticks skills.
- You compiled a
3-page list of weird English first names that Chinese people of your
acquaintance have chosen for themselves.
- You learnt to
bring a coat, a scarf and gloves to fight hypothermia in
supermarkets, buses, ferries and cinemas.
- Your collection
of business cards has outgrown your flat.
- You are
convinced that the only thing that moves more slowly than
continental drift is a Causeway Bay crowd on a Saturday afternoon.
- You are not
surprised to see 85-year old ladies pushing tons of garbage up the
streets of the financial district.
- You bulldoze
your way into lifts and MTR trains before other passengers have a
chance to alight.
- If someone
smiles at you for no particular reason, you know she is a Filipina.
- You know that
leather shoes can grow leaves during the wet season.
- The word
"wildlife" refers to the family of cockroaches that dwells
in your kitchen drawer.
- You use the
word "Ayyiieeaaahh" every few sentences to convey
surprise, pleasure, pain or anger.
- You speak enough Cantonese to
make your colleagues laugh their heads off (attempts with anyone
else still only draw blank stares).
- You are not surprised to find
footprints on the edge of the toilet bowl.
- You believe you are really tall
when you are only 5'8".
- You know that leaving Hong Kong
will break your heart.
- You read this list and
understood everything.
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