Hong Kong vs. Mainland China

well hey there guys and welcome to another video [Music] so this video is gonna be shot a little bit outdoors and a little bit indoors right guys now before we start talking about the differences between mainland China and Hong Kong let's first of all get a couple of things out the way number one I think I'm fairly qualified to talk about the subject because first of all I was married to a Hong Kong girl and divorced I'd be living here in mainland China Shenzhen for just almost 10 years now like a month or two shy of 10 years and living here on the border of Hong Kong I've crossed over many times and like I said having been married to a Hong Kong girl I've been to Hong Kong a lot I've got friends living in Hong Kong I know how it works very well there and I also know how mainland China works very well as most of you know from watching my videos of course I've been all over mainland China I'm not just stuck in a little bubble here in the south and Shenzhen so I know pretty much everything the mainland has to offer and I know pretty much what Hong Kong has to offer so that's the first thing I wanted to get out of the way okay second thing I really really want to get out of the way is that this video is not about politics I know that it's a very big sort of what would you say it's a it's a point of contention and there are lots of people who are very upset about the whole Hong Kong China thing people in Hong Kong have very strong opinions people in mainland have very strong opinions people from the outside world have very strong opinions that's not what this video is about this video is purely about if you as a foreigner want to come and live in Asia or in China and you are torn between choosing Hong Kong or mainland China this is the kind of video that could help you but it's not only for those kind of people it's also for people to maybe understand better how it all works because it is quite confusing and for people who don't live here and people who are unaware of the political situation and the situation here in China they might be quite confused and they might not realize that how different Hong Kong is to mainland China and vice versa what I'm going to talk about first is the obvious Hong Kong and China although it is one country two systems' that's what they call it anyway you know Hong Kong used to be a British colony and it was handed back to China in 1997 for all intents and purposes Hong Kong is a different country to mainland China now the reason I say this is you actually have to pass over a border and you have to go through two sets of customs in order to actually get into Hong Kong you need to produce your passport you need to have a different kind of a visa to get into mainland China and you need to have a visa or you know if you're from a visa exempt country you know different rules apply when you go into Hong Kong so you know you can't come to China and expect to just walk into Hong Kong it doesn't work that way it is still a different country as far as like practicality is concerned let's talk about cost of living all right let me give you an example I'm sitting here at a restaurant outside I can have a couple of beers and have a meal and it will probably cost me anywhere between 30 40 maybe 50 RMB max if I were to have a similar meal in Hong Kong it would cost me about 120 to 150 Hong Kong dollars basically food and drink is a lot more expensive in Hong Kong of course there's a reason for this you know Hong Kong being an international city and so on there are certain standards so you know this beer that I'm drinking now well it's very possibly fake yeah doesn't taste all that great and very possibly fake who knows the food quality here as well you never know what you're getting of course food here on the men that mainland is amazing it tastes great you can find so many different things to eat so many awesome things to eat but you never really know if the quality of the food you're eating is good or not and on many many occasion I've eaten stuff which is dodgy or you know I I know it's not well prepared or it's dirty or I've drank fake beer on numerous occasions so you know you take that risk so it's a bit of a balance in Hong Kong it's a lot more expensive to go out and eat but over here you take the risk of having something that's maybe tainted or poor quality the money is different here I have a 20 Hong Kong dollar note let's even get a focus on that for you okay now you get different kinds of notes actually which is kind of interesting this is a standard chartered bank note and then over here we have an HSBC 20 Hong Kong dollar note as you can see they are different but they actually have the same value etc all right here I have a 10 Hong Kong dollar note give me a second I quite like this one because it has this little see-through thing over here it's quite interesting and it's made out of plastic kind of like Australian money okay back alright mainland Chinese money is the RMB not the Hong Kong dollar here we have a hundred they all look the same you know you don't get different variants of the RMB I've got a whole video about money if you guys are interested in looking at Chinese money there's a video I'll put a link down below okay right so money is different so also it's something to bear in mind if you're going to go to Hong Kong or if you're going to go to mainland China remember to change your money being an ex British colony of course when you drive in Hong Kong you drive on the left-hand side of the road which is opposite to here in China so you know China like America you drive on the right-hand side of the road but just like South Africa Australia and other British colonies in Hong Kong you drive on the left so you know steering wheels on the other side in the car can be a little bit confusing people let's talk about language now first of all in Hong Kong people speak Cantonese here in mainland China people speak Mandarin there are parts of Guangdong where people speak Cantonese as well but you know Hong Kong has its own sort of special variant of Cantonese on top of that here we use simplified characters in Hong Kong traditional characters just like Taiwan you'll also notice that all the signs are bilingual both in Chinese and English which is great for a foreigner because you can read everything another thing that's really useful for foreigners is most people can speak English in Hong Kong if you go into 7-eleven or any shop the shop assistant will usually be able to speak at least a marginally good level of English in fact I've been embarrassed a couple of times going into Hong Kong and I try to speak to them in Mandarin because of course I can't speak Cantonese and I'll go up to 7-eleven as a shop attendant or something and I'll ask them in Chinese like how much is this and they'll reply oh that will be $12 sir so you know they can understand Mandarin to 2 degree but because of the whole you know sort of situation that goes on on this side of the world anyway they prefer to speak Cantonese or English in Hong Kong let's talk about food for a moment here now Hong Kong is an international city it's a travel hub and because it's also an ex British colony it has all the international brands it has an amazing selection of international foods you can find any kind of food that you want there be it British food American food Indian food Mexican food you know the kind of food that we are accustomed to in the West in fact I'd go as far as to say that if you went to New York or you went to Hong Kong you'd probably find pretty much the same kind of choice as far as food is concerned now you have to bear in mind that in mainland China although there's a massive selection of Chinese food and so many different interesting awesome foods to eat and try mainland China does Western food poorly it's really really really difficult to find any kind of good Western food over here so that's something you should take into consideration if you like cheese and you like western food things like that you know Hong Kong's definitely the place next thing I'm going to talk about is a bit of a point of contention for me and that is internet and Internet freedom here in mainland China everybody knows the Internet is filtered it goes through the Golden Shield project it's called that's the official name you know everybody calls it the Great Firewall of China but basically all the major Western websites are blocked things like YouTube Facebook Twitter blogger WordPress any kind of big influential website Google in fact all Google is blocked you can't even just you can't even do a Google search here there are ways around this with VPNs and so on and so forth that's that's how I get my videos online but of course it's a pain in the ass it's slow it's unreliable but in Hong Kong of course you've got high-speed Internet it's completely unfiltered and completely open so that's another thing to take into consideration if you go to Hong Kong I actually quite liked that app up over the border if I had my phone suddenly on my Google Apps update I can use all my all the functions of my phone correctly but as soon as I'm over here it's just all a complete mess and a real pain in the ass so you know that's just one of the the things you trade off living in the mainland but I'm going to now give you my own personal feelings on living in Hong Kong and living here and why I personally choose to live in the mainland instead of in Hong Kong why do I choose to live in mainland China instead of Hong Kong because you know the option was there for me I was married to a Hong Kong resident I could have actually you know gotten citizenship and all that because like an international country that is an option whereas mainland China for a foreigner to get a green card is a practical impossibility although it's theoretically possible it's actually not anyway why did I choose to to live here instead of Hong Kong well Hong Kong is an amazing beautiful city with so many different things to do and so many options and all the international bands play there and you know it's all it's like it's like living overseas and that's basically why mainland China is a lot more of an adventure it's very different to the Western world things work completely differently here so if you're out there to to have an adventure and to see new things and to experience completely different things mainland China is definitely a better bet although you must be prepared to be thrown completely out of your comfort zone because you know that's what China is all about so that's reason number one hmm reason number two the cost of living it's really really really high if you want to live the same sort of lifestyle that you live in mainland China you need to have at least 30 or 40,000 Hong Kong dollars a month salary whereas somebody earning 8,000 or 10,000 RMB here in mainland China can live the same you know sort of quality of life and by that I mean purchasing goods saving money paying rent you know enjoying yourself going out and drinking so cost of living is just so much higher in Hong Kong it's a very very expensive place and that has it to say it's one of the most expensive places in the world of course there's a lot of money going around Hong Kong most Hong Kong residents are fairly well-off but you know it's it's a big pressure and you know when you come and live here in the mainland without that massive financial pressure you can actually really relax so it's a much more relaxed lifestyle here in mainland China next reason is population density now everybody knows that China has got a massive population right but it's not that apparent actually when you live here there are lots of people everywhere and compared to your hometown or your home country you're gonna be blown away you're gonna be like what's going on there just people everywhere you know there's not a single time of day that you don't see people go outside now of like 3 a.m. in the morning there'll be people but Hong Kong because it's so small it has a massively high population density so you know when you're walking out on the street it's always crowds there's always queues it's always really difficult to to go anywhere if you want to go to a restaurant at dinnertime or lunchtime there will always be a waiting like a waiting list there'll be people sitting on chairs outside waiting to get into the restaurant here chyna not so much even though there's a high population density it's not the same you can go to a restaurant at dinnertime there'll always be a table there won't always be this sort of shoulder-to-shoulder crowding everywhere so that's something to take into consideration right guys I I hope this video has helped you make up your mind as to where you want to go if you want a big adventure come to the mainland if you want to have a really interesting still an adventure but a really interesting good quality of life Hong Kong is also really good bet it's entirely up to you if you have questions please leave them in the comment section below I'll get back to you and I will be making a video on how to actually cross the border into Hong Kong in depth in the future so if that's what you are looking for it's coming that's it really guys until next time stay awesome [Music]

Channel: serpentza

Views: 275,140

Rating: 4.8122525 out of 5

Keywords: Hong Kong (Country), China, Adventure, Bikes, Beer, Cost of living, food, money, internet, censorship, transport, driving, great firewall, vpn, living, SerpentZA, Winston Sterzel

Id: 1LUfJwwof5g

Length: 14min 6sec (846 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2015