Chapter 90

Now, since the trigger for the soul search was initiated, in part, due to having too many hobbies, it may give off the impression that the hobbies were a huge issue. However, during my introspective session of soul searching, I found that it wasn’t fair to say that my hobbies were to blame for my poor time management skills. They were a symptom of a larger disease. 

When the straw broke the camel’s back, the first thing I did was stop all hobbies. No, this wasn’t entirely due to the fact that I was out of school and couldn’t do them, it’s more to the fact that I couldn’t mentally pull away from the main issue I was dealing with. I couldn’t use hobbies as a means to distract myself from anything. I was simply too distraught. I think that inability to pull away from things is probably what most people refer to when they say they have mental health issues. There are certain things our brain can’t get over. It’s like intentionally trying to forget about something. 

When clerkships restarted again though? Everything fell into place again. I was able to get up in the morning and go to work happily. Naturally, while I was initially hesitant to pick up my hobbies again, I eventually came to the conclusion that they weren’t the issue at hand. They weren’t to blame for what happened. They were beneficial to my life if done in moderation. They just needed to be kept in check so as to not get out of hand, that’s all. With that, I decided to just sparingly start doing a bit of music and breakdancing on the side. 

But here’s the other thing about hobbies. They have other costs outside of just a time commitment. We’ve never really talked about this yet but as the story continues (and I get older), we will. Most hobbies also have a commitment of mental and physical energy. Sure enough, while breakdancing a few days prior to my departure for Hong Kong, I injured myself. I stubbed my left toe very badly and walked around with a limp. It wasn’t necessarily debilitating but it did make me a bit slower getting around. 

Now, I wasn’t the only one from my class going to Hong Kong for 2 months to be interns, I had 3 other friends of mine going with me. These friends of mine I was mostly familiar with. I mean, not only did we share a classroom for essentially 3 years of our lives but I had actually gone to Moldova with two of them. We were a familiar group. Their conversations and presence made it easier to deal with the flight from Toronto to Hong Kong. The flight was ridiculously miserable because sitting around in an upright position for 10+ hours was not good for the toe. 

Despite this physical handicap, I wasn’t turned off to my dream of being an international student in Hong Kong. As I mentioned, this was always a dream of mine and now that I was in my last year of being a student, it was my last chance to do it too. Honestly, there was very little that would have spoiled this experience for me, I had been looking forward to this since I first heard about it last year during clinical site registration. I have never really spent time in Asia since I left China in my childhood and wanted to see if I could get back to my roots a bit. Even if it was to be in Hong Kong and not Mainland China.

I was ready for it too. Since my time at the Toronto clinics had shaken loose a lot of my imposter syndrome, I felt better than ever about being an eye doctor. Were there still things I lacked? Yes! Experience. In an actual clinic, I was working on “real life” difficulty. This meant that no one was a simple case anymore. To be honest, whenever something I didn’t understand or didn’t show up as a textbook presentation appeared, I panicked and froze. But this is why we have real life work experience built into our program and why it was such a shame some of the clinical sites didn’t provide this experience. This was a chance to experience how to treat conditions in people as opposed to on paper. It was different. Patients lie, patients get confused, patients forget and sometimes, it feels like we’re treating a mental condition more than a physical one. There was a human element to healthcare, who knew? But I was in a state of mind that whenever I didn’t understand something or felt like I didn’t know what to do, I felt like I could get the answer. I had the ability to step up. That was a huge part of it. As a safety net, the clinics the students were stationed at were all equipped with the supervisor there to help in case we couldn’t. Though, usually, I did manage to figure it out in the end. It would often just take some time. I had some missing cracks in my education, yes, but I knew I had the knowhow to fill them in.

When I decided to talk to the classmates who would be coming with me to Hong Kong about this, it seemed like they were in a similar boat. It was a hot topic among our class because occasionally, we would get input from someone who didn’t go to a good clerkship site. It was nice to see that the classmates I was going to be working with were experienced with around the same caliber of internship, or higher, than myself. I felt like I could depend on them. Moreso, we got along. 

When we first landed in Hong Kong, I was still limping. Aside from that difficulty, we also had a difficult time just getting around since the roads were a bit confusing. But there was good news though. We were in Hong Kong in November. In fact, we had departed from Toronto on November 2nd (of 2019). This meant that we had escaped the winter snowstorms to arrive in Hong Kong when it was a nice Canadian Autumn temperature. We felt good. 

Despite all the sleep deprived fuses our group was working though, we managed to make our way to our student residence and get registered. After a bit of scuffle, we started to settle in at our temporary home for the next two months at the PolyU Hung Hom Bay Campus. Unlike a lot of university housing we had in Waterloo, this student residence was all in large apartments that went well over 45 floors. It was really high up. Moreso, the rooms were also much smaller. 

When I got to my room I realized I would be sharing a small space with another international student. There was no wall dividing the room either. While this wasn’t too uncommon with student residences, it was a bit strange for me as I’ve been used to living in my own room with an ensuite for the last 3 years. Oh and speaking of bathrooms, our room had to share a bathroom and shower with our neighbors now too. It was a semi-communal washroom situation. Meaning that while it was two people per room, it was 4 people per bathroom and shower. 

As for my roommate, he was another international student from an American university. With that said, it was clear from my initial talking to him that he is originally from the UK. I guess that makes him a double international? He was studying abroad and while abroad, decided to go further and extend his education to Hong Kong. He seemed like a cool dude and even offered to cover all our air conditioning needs. This was strange to me at first but I learned pretty quickly that even during this beautiful weather in November, it could still occasionally get hot. Furthermore, our room’s air conditioning was metered. You had to pay by the hour by tapping your student card. 

After all the administrative things were out of the way, I went out and started to prepare what I would need to survive. Unlike Canada, the cityscape of HK had less department stores and more pop up shops. It was very reminiscent of Pacific Mall, a large Torontonian Mall at the edge of Markham and Scarborough that was populated by a dense Chinese population. This made it feel a bit sketchy but also a bit unique to the area. I didn’t pay too much mind to it, I had gone out with the express intent of meeting my survival needs. After some shopping I picked up a pillow and a bed sheet. While my room had a bed, a mattress and a table, it had nothing else. I needed to fill in the gaps. 

Then, after all of that. I made one last stop before the final haul to lug all my things back to my suite, I stopped by McDonald’s. When in Asia, try their McDonald’s! The selection will astound you and you will not be disappointed with the care to their food making (not sponsored). In particular, when I was there, they had the seaweed “shake shake” fries where you dump a packet of seasoning into a paper bag with the fries then shake it to round it out. I loved this. It also served as the perfect end to my first night in Hong Kong. 

It’s strange, the things you recall are sometimes the weirdest memories. But maybe McDonalds in the Hong Kong location simply is that good. In any case, it was easy to fall asleep after that. Not only was I about to crash from the food coma, I was also still very jet lagged from my flight over. 

I dozed off thinking about all the great memories I was about to make in the next two months.