| Sep 25, 2008
1-84 750 things to do in Hong Kong before you die.
1. Have your fortune read by the oldest looking fortune-teller at Wong Tai Sin Temple
2. Watch all of Stephen Chow’s movies
3. Try to figure out what “sweep the street” means in Mong Kok slang, and then go do it
4. Learn a Cantonese opera song and join in the live music performance in Temple Street
5. Keep your Chinese doctor’s hand-written perscription stuck to the fridge
6. Watch “Mr. Hong Kong”
7. Burn pictures of your ex on a sidewalk during Hungry Ghost Festival
8. Pretend to be a triad
9. Learn Chinese chess
10. Watch old people gambling with traditional Chinese games at public parks. If you stay long enough they might teach you how to play.
11. Borrow the whole Doraemon cartoon series from a public library
12. Start a moody, “everyone hates me” Xanga blog
13. Join the Facebook group “I heart HK” (or create one)
14. Believe anything your feng shui master says.
15. Be a member of an indie band and curse Cantopop
16. ...But download a Cantopop ringtone anyway
17. Explore Wan Chai market. Smell the love.
18. Spend a night in Chungking Mansions with your backpack
19. Tell everyone you are single during Lunar New Year to avoid giving out laisee
20. Never sit on a warm MTR seat
21. Live in a caged home for a night in Sham Shui Po
22. Read “Old Master Q” cartoons and try to get all the jokes
23. Play mahjong with strangers at a parlor and pretend you are an undercover policeman when you lose
24. Play liar dice in a bar that sells bowls of peanuts for $60
25. Have your photo taken at a party and find it weeks later in a magazine
26. Open an art gallery with your retirement fund
27. Use smiley faces even when you are e-mailing your boss
28. Go speed dating. Make up a new job for every person that you meet.
29. Throw a party outside the Cultural Centre
30. Wash your utensils in hot tea before you eat at a teahouse
31. Name your child after a fruit
32. Bleach your hair blonde, especially if you’re a teenager
33. Get photographed by a tabloid magazine and watch as they fabricate an entire story about you
34. Seduce someone via SMS, then send them a Dear John text a day later
35. Stay awake during an entire art film at Broadway Cinematheque
36. Write a poem in an upstairs revolutionary café
37. End every English sentence with “la” or “ar”
38. Walk past the Museum of Art. Never actually go inside.
39. Photograph every dish you eat at every restaurant you go to. Post a review on openrice.com, even if it’s a Big Mac.
40. Jump in with the impromptu performance artists along Sai Yeung Choi Street South
41. Make a wish at the Lam Tsuen Wishing Trees
42. Intern at HK Magazine
43. Attempt to sleep with starlets and upload your DIY sex tape on YouTube
44. Watch a lion dance put on by firemen
45. Eat worm jelly to experience Fujian culture at Mun Nam Restaurant
46. Count the number of buddhas inside the 10,000 Buddha Temple
47. Misspell “Wellcome”
48. Finally finish your leftover mooncakes by Christmas.
49. Do a watercolor of the smoggy harborfront and find that you have to buy extra tubes of gray paint
50. Announce your phobia of chicken feather dusters
51. Claim you were stopped by a modeling agent in Causeway Bay when shopping the other day
52. Learn to grind your own soya bean milk
• Soak 300g of soya beans in water for six hours.
• Drain the beans.
• Pour the beans and three cups of water into a blender until finely blended.
• Use a piece of cheesecloth to drain the liquid and throw away the residue. Boil the liquid over medium heat.
• Then cook for 10 minutes over low heat.
• Add sugar or salt to taste, and ta-da! Your very own batch of soya milk.
53. Meet a blind date under the Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry clock tower
54. Grudgingly share your table with a stranger in a cha chaan teng.
55. Call your pet, child or boy/girlfriend “BB” loudly in public
56. Drink twenty-four herbs tea while listening to 24 Herbs.
57. Wear a Mickey Mouse t-shirt to Ocean Park
58. Make a short film set in your cramped flat and submit it to www.ifva.com
59. Sing karaoke around the clock at Red Box or Green Box
60. Be a bartender at the Fringe Club
61. Rent and re-watch all the old TVB dramas
62. Spend a whole Sunday going on open tours of houses on sale at the Peak
63. Get drunk at Artwalk, then expound obnoxiously on the artworks
64. Go to an all-you-can-eat buffet at a dodgy karaoke bar and get food poisoning
65. Pick a mobile phone number with as many 8s in it as possible
66. Get the first-row seat at a pop concert
67. ...And start crying when Andy Lau comes on.
68. Teach English as a second language
69. Drink pu’er tea in a Starbucks cup
70. Savor a pineapple bun outside the Space Museum
71. Go on a date with a local celebrity
72. Become a local celebrity
73. Sit your kid down at the piano until they pass the Grade Eight exam
74. Talk to a local artist at Cattle Depot Artists Village
75. Have a temporary obsession with anything from Japan or Korea
76. Belly dance outside Times Square
77. Gossip loudly about your friends in Tsui Wah, Café Landmark or Yung Kee(location depending on your age and gender)
78. Read the free newspaper of the person standing in front of you on the MTR
79. Join a poon choi dinner in Tai Po uninvited
80. Pronounce Louis Vuitton as “Louise Veeton” and Pucci as “Poo-See”
81. Practice your English or Cantonese with the ABCs in Lan Kwai Fong
82. Munch on a cheeseburger at the Chi Lin Nunnery
83. Take everything the tabloids say as the truth
84. Attempt to define “Hong Kong Culture” every time you’re drunk
