Hong Kong is a busy city with many people and loads of skyscrapers. But that's not all there is to Hong Kong!

Hong Kong actually has many beautiful beaches. Many of them are near hills and mountains which are great for a hiking. A bit like Donegal!

Not everyone in Hong Kong lives in the crowded city centre. This is a quiet fishing village called Tai O.

The Big Buddha is one of the most famous landmarks in Hong Kong. You can hike up here or get a cable car.

They are all in Hong Kong!

The Dark Knight has a famous scene where Batman glides into a skyscraper to catch a bad guy. This building you can see is called the IFC.

Godzilla vs Kong is another Hollywood movie that was recently filmed in Hong Kong.

The Dark Knight

The Last Jedi was filmed in......... Ireland!

Donegal, Cork and Kerry were used to film the scenes in this movie with Luke Skywalker.

Star Wars

As of 2022, the population of Hong Kong was 7,346,000. That's nearly 50x the population of Donegal!

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Hong Kong's population

Donegal (4,860 km²) is about 4x the size of Hong Kong (1,114.35 km²) if we compare the land area.

Donegal!

Most of the "Chinese" food you will get in Ireland is not what people in Hong Kong would call "real" Chinese. In fact, they find some of it quite strange! Ask our SK2 students about it and you'll see 😂

A lot of the Chinese food you will get in Hong Kong is quite different from Ireland. The picture above is of dim sum, which is very popular in Hong Kong. It has many different dishes (you can see some dumplings above). Curry fishballs and egg waffles you saw are a type of HK street food.

The food you will try in class is a sweet dumpling called tangyuan. We hope you like them!

Irish Chinese food

Authentic HK Chinese food

Hong Kong Disneyland was the second Disney park opened in Asia (Tokyo was the first). It was opened in September, 2005. It welcomes around 7,000,000 visitors every year. Right now, it is the only Disney park in the world which has a "Frozen World"!

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Siobhan Haughey was born in Hong Kong in 1997. Her mum is Chinese and her dad is from Ireland. Her dad's uncle was Charlie Haughey, who was Taoiseach in the 1980s!

Siobhan also has a Chinese name. It is 何詩蓓. Maybe the SK2 kids can help you pronounce it!

Siobhan is one of the best swimmers in the world. She won two silver medals at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Let's hope she can do one better and win gold this year in Paris!

Cathay Pacific is the airline from Hong Kong. It has won the World's Best Airline four times. They use to have a direct flight to Dublin, though this was discontinued in 2020.

Hong Kong opened a new airport in 1998. Before this, the airport was in Kowloon. It was very famous because planes flew right by skyscrapers before they landed!

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Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday in Hong Kong every year. Students get around two weeks off school and it is a very important time to spend with your family. There are also firework shows and parades in the city.

Traditionally, children receive "lai see" from their parents and other family members. These are lucky red packets which contain money.

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Chinese New Year

Hong Kong is part of the World Rugby Sevens. It is on over three days every April and has a carnival like atmosphere. Over 120,000 people will attend the tournament over the full weekend.

Ireland compete in both the men's and women's competition. The men's team finished 3rd and the women's team finished 8th this year!

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Bruce Lee is probably the most famous Hong Kong person to many people. He was a martial artist and actor who has become an icon around the world. There is a museum in Hong Kong which has an exhibit all about Bruce Lee and his life. You should go visit if you ever make it to Hong Kong!

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