Apart from Fa Yuen Street, Ladies Street is another must-go item. It is a lively outdoor street market with loads of stalls offering diverse goods at affordable prices. Many foreigners go there buying Chinese style souvenirs like chopsticks, tablemats, T-shirts, key rings and ornaments. When you walk though the street, the conversations between shopkeepers and foreign customers can be heard easily. The majority of stall owners are with low educational levels and unable to speak good English. However,they are able to communicate with foreigners by using simply English words together with body languages.

By our observations, foreign customers always bargain with shopkeepers over the price. Time to dust off those bargaining skills, as bargaining at the Mongkok Ladies Market is a must. All prices at the Ladies Market are negotiable, and the sellers will waste no time in trying to fleece naïve tourists. ( As cited in a website of Bargaining at Mongkok Ladies' Market-Get the right price) The shopkeepers are nice and friendly to tourists and they can get some discounts most of the time. The bargaining process is quite interesting. They often shout out the amount of money in English. Some shopkeepers even use a calculator as a tool to communicate. They will punch the amount into it. If the price is reasonable for both sides, the trade will then be settled. People cannot taste this kind of shopping experience in other shops definitely.

HI-5

We had some interaction with 2 staff in a CD store in Mongkok. We pretended as if we were English communicators who couldn’t understand any Cantonese and Mandarin. Our conversation started off by using English to ask them some questions about a CD of Jay Chow. "Excuse me, could you please tell me what is it?" Surprisingly, the staff repeated the words printed on the CD cover in Cantonese, so we kept pretending we didn’t understand what they said. "Sorry? What is it actually?" A few seconds later, another staff began to use Mandarin to communicate with us. We smiled politely with embarrassment. "Is it something…?" Eventually, they pointed the pictures on a poster outside the store to us. We showed our smile with satisfaction. In the experience, we can see that there is a communication gap between Hong Kong store keepers and English communicators. Nonetheless, we greatly appreciate their enthusiasm in explaining with simple English they know and their body languages! Although they didn’t pronounce the word accurately (e. g. shouting “wat-chu” as they want to promote their watches), they keep trying to gain business. Perhaps it reflects how hard- working Hong Kong people are.

However, in the competitive business world nowadays, it seems that English as well as Mandarin are taking a more and more signicant role in communication. People who have not mastered these two languages well are more likely to have relatively lower competitiveness in surviving in this competing world, especially in Hong Kong- where the law of the jungle applying everywhere. Take the above example, the store staff could not even notice and identify we are actually speaking in English, which more or less leave a sense of juvenile remarks in the mind of shoppers and even the tourists. Saddly, it turns out scaring away tourists.

2. On the place near a traffic light, we encountered 3 young
ladies studying Form 4. They went shopping, sang karaoke and watching movie on that day as they had just finished school tests. As normal secondary students, their first language is Cantonese. In school, they learnt English in English lessons. In their junior form, they mastered Putonghua as well. When asking about their impressions of Mongkok, they thought Mongkok is a wonderful place for shopping as well as a messy place because all buildings are located tightly with very pulluted air.

3. In Tung Choi Street, we came across a young lady. When we firstly spoke Cantonese, she could not understand us. She is from Mainland China and came to visit Hong Kong for the first time. Although she could not speak Cantonese, she didn’t have any difficulties in communicating with the sales assistants who spoke Mandarin very fluently. 4. We came across Mark and Catherine in Argyle Street. The young couple were from Britain. Mark was the a typical gentleman, who behaved very politely and spoke in a clear English accent; while Catherine was quiet and friendly. They both spoke English and French. Although they could not speak Cantonese, they could talk with local people without difficulty at all. It was the very first time that they traveled to Hong Hong. They loved Mongkok, and they were particularly fond of delicious street snacks. They enjoyed themselves very much here!

Whether you believe or not? A city cannot be a city without street arts. Though a little bit arbitrary, this saying goes reasonably to some degree. The soul of a city is rooted in its own culture which displays its spirit, lifestyle, virtue and belief. Street art is the eyes of a city, which allows you to see the true face under the superficial veil. Mongkok is the attractive site where you can find interesting art shows here and there occasionally, which can be seen as epitome of Hong Kong's culture. When we strolled around the streets, we had a good luck to encounter an street artist, whose performance gave us a fantastic memory.

At 5 sharp pm in Mongkok, the street was crowded with people. The sky had become dark, and the multi-color lights of buildings had been switched on, just like a fantastic show was going on. Pedestrians were coming and going hurriedly, but their paces were slowed down because of the melodies in the street. A middle-aged man was sitting there, playing guitar and singing a powerful song, which was some sort of British rock. We could not hear the lyrics clearly, but it seemed to express anger, dissatisfaction, desperations about life and society. His voice was depressing, but powerful, which provoked some deep emotions in the bottom of our heart. The audience are standing around and watching his performance. Sometimes they fell into deep thoughts; sometimes they whispered to each other. Different expressions were shown on their faces. At the ending of the performance, applauding and cheering came out of their throats. This might be a common scene you can find in Mongkok streets, and you can always see the different aspect of the city through these interesting street arts.