O-Camp

Unique to Hong Kong, Orientation Camp or O-Camp for short, is an event that aims to integrate new students into a club/organization. Usually run by returning students, this event can last anywhere from one to three days, include multiple venues per day, and can involve as many as 100 students. This event is considered one of the biggest events an organization will put on for their members.

Most student organizations will only hold an O-Camp event during the fall semester because that is when the school year starts. For students who want to do an exchange trip during their spring semester, they may not be able to experience this unique Hong Kong event.

The only O-Camp I was able to attend this Fall semester was the Student Residence Hall 10 O-Camp. Hall 10 is one of two new halls that opened last year. The current student council for this Hall is the first student run council and the first to put on an O-Camp for Hall 10's residence.

Orientation Day

Before the actual O-Camp started, we had an O-Day which was supposed to be a sample of the events to come. O-Day ran from about 11:00AM to 6:00PM, depending on the house and its participants, the event may not have ended till 2:00 in the morning.

A lot of the games we played on this day involved names because we still didn't know who was who. Majority of the games we played were ice breakers that would help us open up to one another. A memorable moment from this day for me was when we played Gimmie Gimmie and what we needed to get was 10 pieces of hair from our House Leader, who is also known as the "House Father/Mother" or "組爸／組馬.“ The easiest way would have been to go for the hair on their head, but of course we went for their leg hair because it's more fun and painful.

Thanks to this group of locals, I was able to experience my first Authentic HK College Student Meal: pizza and fried chicken delivered from Pizza Hut. I was pretty surprised that not only does Pizza Hut make fried chicken, but the "Hawaiian Pizza" is pretty popular here. This was definitely one of the most memorable meals I've had in HK, not because I had witnessed a puddle of oil dripping from the fried chicken, but because it was filled with laughter, conversation, and good company.

Orientation Camp

This particular O-Camp, organized by Hall 10, ran from Friday morning to Sunday night with only about 4 hours of sleep time scheduled between each day. The fee to join O-Camp was $250. The money collected was used to purchase shirts, bottoms, bags, etc. for everyone; this was to promote unity and to make us look and feel more like a group/family.
I was a member of the Orange House: 樓住你, Stand By You.

Some activities we did/played throughout the three days are:

• Cheer-Off: Similar to what we see on Bring It On where teams are throwing cheers/beats back and forth, we were also doing them throughout the entire event. After spending a couple nights learning a bunch of different beats, it was nice to see the patriotism everyone had for their own house. After half a day of throwing cheers back and forth between houses, I had already begun to loose my voice. This aspect of O-Camp is something that I don't get to see or experience back home. 
• Water Games: We were able to spend our first day of O-Camp at an actual camp site out in Sai Kung. At the camp site, the facilitators had set up many different stations, all of which were games that involved getting soaked. One of the games we played was a form of dodgeball, only instead of a bunch of balls we had one sponge that would constantly be soaked with water. 
• Room Games: Known as 房 Game, these countless number of games are all played in a room. After having lined the entire floor with mattresses and grabbing pillows for the punishments later on, the games began. My favorite was a game similar to 21 questions. With cards on our forehead that have a specific action written on them, we all had to ask questions to figure out what our action was. However throughout the game if we did that action then we'd get punished. Punishment for all the games was to lie down and get hit by pillows on the butt. Some of the actions we used were: showing teeth, lying down, speaking, not hitting anyone, etc. 
• Dancing Around the Bon Fire: Before this event I was able to experience two campfires, one in the 6th grade and one in the 11th grade; both of which were at Camp Erdman. In Hawai'i, we like to sit around the fire, tell stories, and sing songs. However being a very urban location, the average Hong Kong local may not have ever experienced a bon fire in their lifetime; this is probably why they celebrate it in a more active way. For as long as the fire would burn, we would run around the fire singing and dancing to the music. 
• City Hunt: I felt like this was a scavenger hunt to the MAX. On the second day of O-Camp we played a simple game of scavenger hunt where the boundaries was anywhere in HONG KONG. This game was only possible because transportation around the city is very convenient with taxis, buses, and the MTR running constantly. We began the game in Sai Kung, traveled to about ten different destinations, and ended back at our Hall around dinner time. At every checkpoint we had tasks to do and specific pictures to take, all of which earned us money to buy dinner that night. 
• Glow-in-the-Dark Dance Party: During the wee hours of the night, a dance party was arranged for us in one of our Multi-Purpose Buildings at the Student Residencies. We were given a bunch of LED items and went wild dancing to a mix of Chinese and English music.

Reflection

As an outsider looking in, I think everyone from the people running the event to the people participating in it, really did a great job in fulfilling the purpose of this event; which was to get to know and be comfortable with each other while having fun along the way.

Unfortunately a downside to O-Camp is the language barriers between not only English speakers but Mandarin speakers as well. The main language used throughout the event is Cantonese. Yeah they'll translate the directions of the games for non-native speakers but the overall conversations, jokes, and culture is based around cantonese and the local Hong Kong mindset. For non-local students, from anywhere around the world, there will always be things we don't understand, jokes we don't get, and behaviors that are out of our social norm.

However, once I was able get pass/ignore the unfamiliarity, awkwardness, and uncomfortableness I was able to experience the fun everyone else was experiencing. There were a few other non-local students that signed-up to participate in this event but dropped out because they weren't able to adapt to the new environment. My perseverance to stay allowed me to improve my Cantonese significantly, learn more about the Hong Kong social culture, get to know a lot of people living in my hall, and become great friends with a bunch of local students.



"There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself."

- Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

"This is not a time to stay put."

-Yee Vong