Staying clean and healthy in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is the cleanest city I've ever been to. It's truly amazing how clean everything is. And the people of Hong Kong are proud of it! A stereotype I've heard a couple of times is that Hong Kong people won't go to the Mainland because it's too dirty (and too dangerous!). The place where the cleanliness reaches its height is the KCR train I take to go downtown. There's no eating or drinking allowed on the train OR in the station once you've passed through the gates. It's spectacularly clean. I love the penguin-themed signs reminding riders not to eat on the train:



Maybe because the city is so clean, there is also an obsession with staying clean to stay healthy. It's probably partly a result of SARS, but the urge to kill germs is very present in Hong Kong. In public places, such as malls, there are hand santizer dispensers. Often at a restaurant they will give you boiling water and a bowl to rise your chopsticks, plate and bowl. They also give you different colored chopsticks to use as "public chopsticks," so that the chopsticks that go into your mouth never touch other people's food. There are signs all over the university reminding us all to wash our hands and wear masks if we have respiratory symptoms.