Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 607

attention,” he continued before giving a light chuckle and I felt embarrassed that he had noticed my lack of
attention.
“I’m sure there are certain cities that popped up in your mind when I said those two words.”
If the strings that made up the attention in my brain were detached until now, they were now tied together
and double knotted, just to be safe. And I knew exactly what he was trying to push me to say, so I
confidently replied in a way that was uncharacteristic of me.
“That’s correct. I knew there was something behind that closed off world of yours. The two most popular
responses that pop up with urban tourism is Hong Kong and Macau, and the rural ones would be Huizhou
and Zhaoqing.”
I hadn’t noticed how my body leaned in, and my mouth opened slightly in excitement as he continued to
explain.
“Hong Kong and Macau also have the unique advantage of displaying colonial history, as well as benefiting
from the business aspect, in other words, consumerism. And I’m sure you’re already familiar with what
Macau is famous for. In the 4 year tourism course, you will complete a 12 month work placement in your
third year for training purposes. This training will consist of performing guided tours throughout a small area
in Hong Kong and Macau - lucky you, you get to travel to the two biggest tourism hubs! You will also go
through many teamwork activities to bring out your voice and personality in front of others. Your
enthusiasm will be a selling point in any careers that require socialising. But this is just one path - as with
most courses within the unified GBA educational system, you have the flexibility to switch around the
number of years you train and study for according to the specialist career you are aiming towards.”
For some reason, this massive chunk of information was so much easier to digest than the junk about IT. I
could almost feel my eyes shining as I nodded a little too often with every breath he took.
“However, there will be a few hurdles you will need to jump over in order to earn your degree and find the
perfect job. The biggest one would be language. This isn’t a huge concern for rural tourism, but depending
on whether you end up working in Hong Kong or Macau, you would need to at least be trilingual in
Cantonese and Mandarin and either English or Portuguese, depending on whether you study in Hong Kong
or Macau. So now would be the best time to start studying those extra languages.”
I took a noticeable gulp - I should have brought my water bottle with me. Language was never my
strongest point, not even Cantonese.
The counsellor then dove behind his desk and threw around papers before handing me a brochure about the
courses on both urban and rural tourism.
“Oh, and before I forget, the course for rural tourism follows a similar direction in regards to the number of
years studying and training. But of course, you will be located in Huizhou to mostly study the rich history of
the culture and arts of the specific rural tourist regions in the GBA, as well as to directly experience the
natural untouched beauty of these areas. With the increasing number of different therapies, and therapists,
including those for healing and mental wellbeing, you would also be able to promote other features of these
cities instead of just the nature side. You won’t need to learn Portuguese if you choose to study for rural
tourism.
“The rural tourism course will be split between the two campuses in Huizhou and Zhaoqing. You can
either study 1 year in Huizhou and 2 years in Zhaoqing, or flip it around. A couple of decades ago, it took 5
hours to get from one side of the GBA to the other, but now it only takes 2 hours to get between the
campuses - so it won’t take half a day for the big move, which is much more convenient.”
The counsellor stopped to take a large swig from his mug, which also gave me time to process the two
general options I had. These two options were a lot more appealing that the three IT options he suggested
earlier, but I still felt that something was missing, or that maybe there was a third option. I repeated the
details of all the courses in my head twice, but still could not find what made me uncomfortable.