Just their commitment to order is fascinating. Like when I go to the office each day, everyone automatically files into 2 lines and quickly enter the elevator without saying a word. When I got off the plane, you would have thought a bomb was ready to go off. None of that lackadaisical, take my time attitude you see in the US. The cab drivers make American taxis look like a 7 year old on training wheels. They zig and zag through traffic cutting each other off, but somehow avoid accidents. If they tried that in America, there'd be a 30 car pile up within minutes. In that regard it's a lot like India, though China is much cleaner than India.
The smog is a nightmare, but they don't have the EPA. You can certainly see the American/western influence on the younger people though. Their clothing could be swapped for anything you see people wearing the streets of the US, just like Tokyo. My hotel has a VPN running through Hong Kong, as the government blocks sites like Google and Facebook for the general public. Another interesting tidbit is that Chinese people can't own their passports. All of that is held by the goverment, and issued to them once they're going to leave the country. Then they hand it back over as soon as they return.
They try to add english subtitles to every sign at every store/restaurant, but it's obvious they're using a very poor version of google translate, as their translations don't make much sense and add punctuation in the middle of words.
Being a white person, I stand out like a sore thumb and get all kinds of stares; some good, some bad. I'm only 5'9, but for once in my life I get to feel tall. One of my colleagues is a blonde, white Australian and she gets harassed by men all the time. One dude walked up to her and said hello to each of her breasts. Another guy propositioned her for marriage. A lot of cab drivers refuse to take us because we're white/western, so now I know what it's like to be a black person hailing a cab in NYC. I'm staying in a very nice Marriott, but one of my co-workers keeps getting woken up by prostitutes knocking on his door asking if he wants to have some fun. I haven't been so lucky yet.
I'm going to Hong Kong for the weekend, so I'm hoping that turns out to be a fun experience.