The Fourth of July Hong Kong style

After four years of residence in Hong Kong, we finally spent our first ever Fourth of July holiday here. While there wasn’t much Americana going on, sunny weather and extraordinarily clear skies did make the holiday feel like a vacation for us.

In contrast to other countries where we have lived, the general population here seems to have less of an awareness of the Fourth of July. Perhaps a hangover from British rule? Generally, most people mistook our patriotic dress for some sort of World Cup mania. In charge of flowers at our Anglican church on the Sunday of July 4th, we felt quite clever in arranging for red, white and blue flowers to be delivered. No one really got it.

We spent the day doing Fourth of July crafts and then wore some of these crafts to dinner across the street. The American Club here held a Fourth of July BBQ, which we were happy to attend. The event ended up being more elaborate than we thought, with the Marine guards from presenting the colors, a live band and a woman singing the National Anthem. A tall man on stilts dressed like Uncle Sam and strawberries dipped in white and blue chocolate were just as exciting to the majority of our family.

Phil got the Monday following the Fourth of July off from work and we all spent the day in the air conditioned splendor of the Hong Kong Science Museum and the Hong Kong History Museum, both long time favorites of ours. As it happened, Phil had another day off earlier in the week. Hong Kong’s handover day is on July 1, celebrating when the Brits handed Hong Kong back to China. This July marked the 13th anniversary of the handover and there was a small parade and fireworks in Central for the occasion. Happy to have Dad home and caught up in all these holidays, Adam asked us hopefully when the US had its handover day? Rest assured, Tori gave him an earful of American history and we trust he is now squared away. At least until China’s National Day rolls around on October 1.