The Corona Diaries - Mel | Hong Kong Tour Guide
Every week, we are featuring one of our Hello! Hong Kong tour guides to share with you their Corona Diary. This week it’s Mel!
A graduate of Engineering, Mel found passion and happiness in tour guiding. You can genuinely feel his passion for his hometown during his tours. His sweet smile and very calm personality make people love him and feel at ease. Aside from being a professional tour guide of Hello! Hong Kong tours, Mel also loves theatre and acting. During the downtime from tourism, Mel has been making a Hong Kong TV commercial themed healthy family, fight against Coronavirus.
We had a short interview with him, and below he shared with us a glimpse of his Covid-19 everyday life.
Hello! Hong Kong Tour guide Mel (Tallest guy with a nice smile ; extreme right) shooting for a commercial themed “Healthy family fight against corona virus”
On a normal day, you are usually out on the streets showing our guests the beauty of Hong Kong. Given the travel restrictions imposed by several countries. How are you spending your time now? What keeps you busy?
I am a keen gardener, and now its the best time for doing some spring preparation and home improvements. But I think I am not the only one thinking this way. You can see the long lines at IKEA and at the garden centres!
What keeps me busy? More quality time at home, more reading and more preparations for myself for future challenges.
We know that you also suffer from wanderlust. When this Pandemic is finally over, and you can go anywhere overseas where will your wanderlust take you and why?
My heart goes to Italy. I have some very good friends in Florence. I kept them updated with the news and practice on how to stay safe of the virus outbreak. I also sent them some supplies to make sure that they have enough physical protections.
Italy is a great country with the highest number of UNESCO sites in the world. Also its a place with great food and a wonderful mix of landscapes.
I really want to check on my love ones there and celebrate there together after such a hard time that we have been having these last months. As the governments of countries mentioned, the impact of this pandemic has been comparable to WWII or 911. It’s really one of the hardest times in the history of mankind.
After the world comes out of this dark time and that everyone can travel to Hong Kong once again what is the thing or place you are most excited about showing our guests and why?
It will be Wong Tai Sin Temple. The shrine of the God of Medicine, as he has been blessing Hong Kong. Hong Kong was one of the earliest territories with the virus outbreak, but the number of cases is one of the lowest in the world. We all need to pay the patron god a tribute for his great protections to us!
What is the one thing that this very unfortunate event has taught you and why?
We learned that all mankind are equal, no matter your colour/background/money or any differences. We need to show more love and respect to each other, and this can help the survival of mankind, and make this world a better place.
Mel’s personal message to everyone:
Since January, Hong Kong was the first place to be affected by the Corona virus. It started to affect the cruise lines and package tours to Hong Kong. Visitors showed lots of concern to be in this crowded city, and were not sure how to protect themselves from the virus.
For the guests that joined my tour at that time, they all learned the info on how to put on personal protection. Hong Kong has gone through similar epidemics since the Millennium ( i.e. SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu and MERS ), so the whole city is well trained on how to keep the city and its people safe.
I am sure that those guests have taken away a great lesson from me, besides the sightseeing! It will make a life-changing difference as they know how to do the same back in their own countries after the safety drill which I showed them.
I have faith that Hong Kong will have a quicker recovery of business and economy, comparing to many regions that will still have to rebuild the physical loss and public confidence. Again, I hope the whole world will know that Hong Kong is a safe and great city to visit.