Travel – Jenny Qi, Ph.D.

When I emailed my uncle the address for Delta Hotel, a small budget hotel in the Chungking Mansions, he immediately called me to express his concerns about the safety and cleanliness of the area. “You should cancel the booking and stay with us,” he urged. “A Chinese girl was raped there before. It was all over the news–you can Google it.

I reassured him that I’d done my research, and the place seemed fine. If I really felt unsafe, I would just leave after the first night and stay with them.

Truth be told, I was aware of the Chungking Mansions’ unsavory reputation. It was the site of a 1988 fire that killed a Danish tourist. About a decade later, it was in the headlines again for the murder of an Indian tourist by her partner. That same year, there was a police swoop that led to the arrest of ~50 people from Asia and Africa for failing to provide IDs, overstaying their visas, using false documents, etc. All of this led to its image as a refuge for criminals and undocumented immigrants.

Nevertheless, I was not deterred.

img_20161122_044059 — Nathan Road on a rainy Tuesday evening, as seen from the upper deck of Bus A21 from HKG.

Continue reading “Why the Chungking Mansions are actually awesome”

New things:

My poem “Angles” is out in Spry!
It’s National Poetry Month. In honor of that, I am sharing one of my favorite poems.
I’ve started watching the TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and it’s as good as everyone says.
It was National Puppy Day and my birthday two weeks ago. To continue the tradition, I’ve made a new list of new things to try.

To explain, since high school, I have been a huge fan of Sarah Von’s blog Yes and Yes. She seems genuinely interested in being a part of the world, and I’ve always aspired to be a little like her (or at least her branding). In keeping with that vibe, every year on her birthday, she makes a list of new things to try, an annual bucket list of sorts. In the beginning, the number of items was dictated by her age that year. I’ve followed in her footsteps, and I’ll probably keep up with this system until I no longer want to share my age.Continue reading “25 before 26”