Winter Vacation II: Shen Zhen（深圳）, Hong Kong（香港, Macao（澳门），and Spring Festival (春节) in China

                                The last stop on our trip was to return to China to spend a few days in Shenzhen (深圳), Hong Kong (香港), and Macao (澳门).  Truly, I was extremely excited to be visiting Hong Kong due its unique history and relationship with western culture.  Overall, I was left with a pretty high opinion of Hong Kong as it had a very avant-garde amalgamation of both western and Chinese culture.  The high-light of the final leg of our trip was definitely seeing the fireworks performance at Victoria Harbor (维多利亚港).  In all of my lifetime I have never witnessed such a spectacular firework show.  The never-ending burst of explosions seems to leave the audience in a state of anxious suspense, until finally everyone knew that the smashing crescendo had just signaled the end of the performance.

 

                                Although the firework show was unbelievable in scope, my overall opinion of the 春节 (Spring Festival) celebration in Hong Kong was that it lacked the same fevered-pitch intensity that seemed present while being celebrated in mainland China.  Please do not misinterpret this statement to hold any sense of negative bias against the people of Hong Kong.  I am merely stating that in my mind I had thought that the celebration's intensity would have been on par with that of the mainland.  While in Hong Kong, I heard from several local people that the New Year's and Christmas celebrations are really popular in the city and celebrated with more fervor than even the Spring Festival.

 

                                At this point in the vacation the worst fears of any traveler came true.  One of our kin had seemingly been battling illness for most of the trip in what ultimately was to be a losing battle.  His endearing spirit final gave out on him at about the same time that our group was celebrating the Spring Festival.  Thankfully, he made the decision to be admitted to the hospital in order to ameliorate his weakening body.  At this point in the trip we were also lucky that our group split up because a second companion was able to assist in getting our weakened colleague checked into the hospital. 

 

                                Upon hearing the diagnosis the group collectively was aghast to learn that our friend had for weeks been battling Dengue Fever!  For days the group had been trying to assuage our friend's psyche by telling him that he was doing okay, and what he was struggling with was probably nothing more than a protracted cold caused by our rapid pace of traveling, carousing, and, activity. 

 

                                Our joint hubris can best be attributed to the lack of collective experience with such serious diseases, the impetuous nature of youth, and the wish of all to postpone any treatment for our colleague until we returned to Southwest University.  In any event, we were extremely lucky that our workmate was able to endure the challenges of this serious illness with intrepid grace and fortitude.

 

                                Overall, the month long trip taught me a lot about group dynamics, my limitations as a traveler, and the benefits of being a prepared traveler.  The mutual understanding of our group seemed to underscore our unit's ability to coexist under difficult and ideal conditions.  Truthfully, this group flexibility was a blessing for me since I found plenty of opportunities to explore on my own while the other members of the group engaged in other pursuits.

 

                                As many of you may have gleaned, I am inclined to go off on the beaten path from time to time in life.  Consequently, it is not so strange to understand that while traveling my spirit of adventure tends to propel me to explore things on my own.  I fell extremely fortunate that my fellow travelers were supportive enough to encourage me to continue exploring without leaving me with a sense of guilt for not always wanting to join in on group activities.