“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” – Buddha

This semester, I made a decision to do one of the craziest things – I decided to cut my winter break short by a week and a half, pack my suitcases, and ride a plane for 17 hours to my next home for five months.

I will be studying in Hong Kong – the “City of Life” – until the end of May. I have only been in this wonderful city for about two weeks, and I have yet to learn the many aspects of life in Hong Kong. However, I have noticed a few cultural differences already. For example, the major language here is a dialect of Chinese called Cantonese.

Although the official language here is English, the majority of the people speak Cantonese. It is common for me to run into people that cannot speak English.

Normally, this doesn’t bother me, especially since I am in a part of China. In fact, there are occasions where hearing the dialect of my parents is comforting.

On occasion, though, it is slightly frustrating to not be able to understand the people here. One example is when I am so hungry that I’m about to wither away. Unlike ISU dining services where I can just grab what I want and sit down with no interaction with the workers, here I have to order my food.

Of course, my first resort is to seek out my friends that can speak both languages.

In this situation, I tell my friend what I want and they order for me while the staff stares at me with looks of curiosity as to why I am not ordering for myself. This method of ordering is very quick and painless, as the staff and I do not have to play guessing games with each other.

There are those times when things get interesting, though. Since many of my friends that are bilingual are American-born Chinese, they often are unsure of the words for certain dishes. This can lead to an alteration of my meal, which can be quite a surprise if they forget to tell me they do not know the words for the dish I want.

On the occurrence that none of the people I am with speak Cantonese, my method of ordering food becomes quite primitive.

I prefer to point at the things I want, since much like the ISU dining halls everything sits in big containers behind the counter and a glass sneeze guard. This is not as efficient as having other people order for me because I usually have to play the hot-cold game with the staff members. Hotter is they guess a dish closer to the one I want; colder is they guess a dish further from the one I want.

The perk to this method of ordering is that I get to see what I am getting before I actually get it.

Also, the staff is too busy figuring out what I want to give me weird looks for not sharing a common language with them.

Although I have considered taking down the plastic signs that are displayed and showing it to the person taking my order, I have not yet gotten that hungry. Also, I am trying to learn how to say a few things beyond “faan” for rice and “dao-fu” for tofu. Hopefully, by the end of these five months here, I will be able to order in Cantonese fluently. Until then, it looks like I will be pointing my way through the cafeterias.

Ariel Ringlein is a senior in management from Guthrie Center. She is in Hong Kong for the semester as part of the ISU Study Abroad program.