Hong Kong describes itself as “The City of Life,” and this description truly fits. It is alive at all hours of the day. During the day, the sidewalks are teaming with people rushing to and from their destinations. The subway cars are always packed just like CyRide in the morning, when everyone is trying to make their eight o’clock classes. All of the stores and malls are full of customers pushing each other out of the way, and the lines to the cash register snake through the store causing an incredibly long wait.

On the cloudy days, the fog and mist envelopes the top stories of the skyscrapers, creating an illusion that they reach heaven. On these days, they seem to be even taller than the thousand stories they already appear to be.

On the sunny days, these skyscrapers reflect the sun along with a blinding bright image of the buildings across from them. These buildings, all products of modern architecture, seem to be nothing more than gigantic sheets of colored glass, and all the individual windows are perfect squares forming a 3-D mosaic.

At dusk, all of this lights turn on both inside and outside of the buildings. From a distance, the lights twinkle, giving only a slight indication of the movement happening within the city. However, at that distance, the bays and the ocean placidly reflect and distort the city lights giving the illusion of quietness within the city of Hong Kong.

Inside the city, these twinkling lights indicate nothing close to the placid illusion created from viewing at a distance. The fluorescent orange street lights illuminate the paths of the bar hoppers, tourists, and whoever else is out at this time.

Any lack of street lights is made up for with the plethora of neon signs. Neon signs of all shapes, sizes and colors form a rainbow colored roof against the dark sky. These lights, on all nights, display Chinese characters mixed in with English words.

This mix of Chinese and Western culture serves as a reminder as to what city I am in.

At night the streets are even more lively. This is when the night markets emerge. Rough looking people – most likely the equivalent to the American stereotype of a truck driver – set up stands and tables and try to sell everything from food to silver bracelets to pirated DVDs.

Besides the market vendors, the people roaming the streets are generally a younger population. The young people are roughly college age. They are chic and trendy in every sense. They wear all the most fashionable styles in Hong Kong. This is flared pants and tight shirts for guys and denim skirts and ’80s -looking shirts for girls. Most of the people roaming the streets like this have a lit cigarette in their hand, as smoking is a huge trend in this population.

Along with cigarettes, every person has a mobile phone. These phones, all with different ring tones, create a wild song of chaotic technology that matches the lack of order amongst the people. Their chattering voices on the phones and amongst themselves add to the fast pace and give an attitude and personality to the technology of communications.

The cars that have been fixed up for racing emerge on the roads later on in the night. The roads look just like a scene out of “The Fast and The Furious.” Only here the cars that are fixed up are often BMWs, and the music blaring out of the speakers and into the atmosphere is techno-sounding Hong Kong pop music. Here, there are many cars that look like this.

Nestled amongst steep green mountains of vegetation, and next to the peaceful ocean, Hong Kong is a mecca of human life and modernization. This city, hidden away on a little island, is a vibrant contrast to the nature that surrounds it.

Ariel Ringlein is a junior in management from Grand River. She is in Hong Kong for the semester as part of the ISU study abroad program.