Hi from Macau. Was here for one night and will write at length when I get a chance (we’re at our way to the ferry to return to Hong Kong. We’re suffering from sticker shock–probably the best way to capture the difference in prices from here to the mainland: the Internet (in HK) is 50 cents a minute, and the laundry is five times the price it was.
We arrived in HK from Xi’an after a really interesting experience that you’ve probably read or seen on TV. At 2:28 Monday as we sat in the airport, everything came to a halt. The TV started to play, with footage from every major city, as China observed 3 minutes of silence for the earthquake victims. The coverage has been almost non-stop, almost the same footage as on CNN. The “Katrina like” crisis has certainly brought out the nationalism of the Chinese people–more than anything I’ve seen since I’ve been coming to China. Even Hong Kong observed it–and the racetrack we had planned to go to tonight closed down. It’s very somber. Even the casinos in Macau (the main reason 25 million people come here a year–it’s a city of about half a million) observed a moment of silence.
I remember the first time I came to Hong Kong–how awed I was by the view of the harbor and the buildings and the peak. I still get goosebumps. Shanghai may be more modern, with bigger buildings, but Shanghai doesn’t have the harbor and the peak that make Hong Kong so special. A number of our students would like to stay here, or study here, or live here. There’s a reason you use the word “Shanghai’d” to describe being taken somewhere you don’t want to go. Hong Kong is, to use an old film title, “A Many Splendored Thing.”
Even there, there have been many changes since the handover in 1999. Both 
Hong Kong and Macau have experienced influxes of Chinese tourists from the mainland, in a big way. The monopoly of the Stanley Ho family on the casinos has been broken, and there are 20 casinos now, including a Sands and a Wynn. They call it the Asian Las Vegas, but it does 2 times the revenue of Vegas. I like it because of the old, though–it was Portuguese, and we’re in the Mediterranean if you stick to the old areas–stucco and pastel, Catholic churches dating to the time when the Jesuits arrived here in the 16th century.
More later, probably from Seoul. Looking forward to some soul food.